Divide The Ride general FAQ’s:
Q: Is my information secure?
A: Yes! Your information is completely safe and secure. The ONLY people who see your personal information are the people in your carpool.
Q: What’s the most important thing I can do to insure that my carpool is a success?
A: Make sure you talk to your group about your desire to include them in a carpool before creating it with Divide The Ride. Our experience shows that if you invite others strictly using Divide The Ride and don’t speak to them first, your email invitations will likely get deleted.
Q: Is there a step-by-step guide to walk me through the entire set-up process?
A: Yes, in case you need it, there is an in-depth User’s Guide which will help navigate you through the entire process, to see it, click here.
Q: Will reminder messages be sent to BOTH my cell phone and email address?
A: Yes. Reminders and confirmations are automatically sent to the cell phones and email addresses of everyone in your carpool.
Q: How do I locate and join a carpool in my area?
A: Divide The Ride helps you to create carpools with families that you know. At this time, the system is not designed to put you in contact with families in your area who you do not know. This has been designed this way with your family’s safety and security in mind.
Q: When I’m not picking up or dropping off for my group, will Divide The Ride notify me that my child was picked up and delivered back home?
A: No. It is the responsibility of the parent driving to communicate this information to the other parents in the carpool.
Q: Is there a limit to how big a given activity group can be?
A: That depends on how many children everyone’s vehicles can accommodate. If you outgrow your current carpool, we will help you to setup a second one, and so on.
Q: If a child leaves an activity group after it has been set up, what happens to the Divide The Ride schedule?
A: We simply reconfigure the carpool calendar, and alert everyone of the change. The same applies if you want to add a child to the group.
Q: What if I need to send someone else to ‘cover’ for me on a given pick up or drop off, how does Divide The Ride notify everyone in the activity group?
A: Before sending someone else to drop off or pick up your carpool group, it is your responsibility to make sure EVERYONE in your group has agreed to the substitution.
Q: What if my child has more than one activity?
A: No problem. You fill in the information for each activity separately. You may even find a few parents in a number of different carpool groups with you. Each of your children and each of their activities will generate its own carpool calendar.
Q: What if I have several children and they are all involved in different activities?
A: Each of your children and each of their activities will generate its own individual carpool calendar. All you do is follow the carpool setup for each activity and fill in the information for each child. We generate your carpooling calendar, and send it to you and every parent in the carpool.
Q: What do I do if I am assigned to drive and I have a conflict?
A: “Conflict Resolution” to the rescue! Conflict Resolution is a function that helps you locate another parent (in your carpool group) to cover your driving assignment.
Locate the event where you can no longer drive as scheduled. Simply click the blue ‘conflict’ button and a small box will appear that says “Are you sure you want to do this?” Click ‘Yes’ and another message will pop up to let you know how long it will take to find a driver. After this, a series of messages will be sent to other parents in the carpool, one at a time, asking them to cover for you. Each time the request is declined, the message will be passed to the next parent.
Each parent is given a certain amount of time to respond to the message. The amount of time is dependent on when the driving assignment is. If the conflict is submitted far enough in advance, the other parents may be allotted an entire day to respond. However, if it is just a few days before the driving assignment, parents will only be given a few hours.
If a parent fails to respond to the message in the amount of time allocated, Divide The Ride will automatically go to the next parent in line, and ask if they can cover for you. If Divide The Ride goes through the entire carpool group, and no one has accepted the driving assignment, an alert will be sent to everyone in the carpool. It will say that no one is available to drive, and every parent is responsible for driving their own child at that time.
At this point, Divide The Ride has done all it can to help you find a driver. The Conflict Resolution process has ended and there is nothing left that we can do. However, should this occur, we suggest that you get in touch with your carpool group and try to work things out directly. Someone may actually be able to drive that didn’t respond to the alert.
If someone eventually agrees to drive for you, your carpool leader can then manually enter the new driver’s name on the calendar. Another alert will be sent out to everyone in the carpool to let them know that a driver has been located.
Q: I have additional questions; can I chat live with someone?
A: Yes, locate the words “Chat Live” at the top right of any page on Divide The Ride. Just click and you will be connected to someone who can help you.
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Divide The Ride user FAQ’s:
Q: How do I "repeat" an event?
A: When you are in the "Add Event" screen click the "Create a Recurring Event" button to add multiple events at once.
Q: Is there a way to account for the number of children each parent will be expected to have ride in their car.
A: The Divide The Ride tool is set up to help you organize safe & secure carpools amongst you friends. That said, you do need to work out with those you are carpooling with the details of how many adults & children can fit in a vehicle before you start building the carpools in Divide The Ride.
Q: Is it possible to change pickup times in one event that was scheduled as a recurring event?
A: Unfortunately not at this time, the best fix would be to enter the days which you have earlier pick-up times as a new event.
Q: How do I input my availability for a carpool if there are no boxes on the calendar to check?
A: If you are not seeing any boxes on the calendar, it means that no events have been added yet or there are no events for that month. Click the “Next Month” button. If no events appear, please make sure that you have entered at least one event into the calendar.
Q: Is there any way for a child to opt out of a particular activity - to ride one way and not the other? If so, how is that done?
A: Divide The Ride is designed to assist with your carpooling, in this case, the parent would have to communicate directly with the other parents in the carpool and inform them that their child would not be riding on that leg of the trip.
Q: How do I create a Monday through Friday reoccurring carpool?
A: At the point where you are adding events to the carpool,
- Click the “create a recurring event” icon
- Fill in the information requested
- Fill in the start date for example Monday 8/18 & end date as Friday 8/22 (as you noted M-F)
- Choose “recurring interval” as “daily”
- In the next section check the “every day” box
- Click on “create carpool” - this will populate a 5 day carpool schedule.
Q: How do I assign a driver to an event on the calendar which indicates no driver assigned?
A: When you are on your Divide The Ride calendar page, click the event name above the word "unassigned". This will bring you into "event details" page. Scroll down and you will see a large button on the bottom which says "modify driver assignments". When you click this button you will be able to add a driver, then simply click the “update” button on the right.
Q: How do others add their events and send them to the carpool leader?
A: Divide The Ride is designed so that only the carpool leader can add events to that specific carpool calendar. If others would like to add events for that specific carpool group, they should email those events to the carpool leader. Keep in mind also that any user of Divide The Ride can start their own carpool at any time and invite others in.
Q: I signed up under the wrong carpool name, how can I fix this?
A: Log into Divide The Ride, go to the "My Carpools" function, and delete the carpool you do not wish to participate in.
Q: Once everyone has inputed all their availability and we are ready to go, how do we officially start the carpool so we’ll receive our driving assignments as well as email notifications and reminders?
A: After everyone has entered their availability into the calendar on Divide The Ride, the carpool leader needs to log in and click on a function called "Divide The Ride" for the appropriate carpool. This will give the actual driver assignments (Divide The Ride will split the driving equally based on everyone's availability). Then you will receive your notifications and reminders.
Q: What notifications will I receive and when?
A: You will receive both email and text message notifications.
You will receive two email reminders; the first is sent 24 hours before the event you are scheduled to drive for, the second is sent two hours before the event. The text message to your cell phone is also sent two hours before the event.
Q: I would rather not receive text message reminders on my phone, how do I prevent this from happening?
A: To disable the text message feature, simply log in to your account on Divide The Ride, you will see 3 small links on the middle left of your screen (edit profile, change password, and logout). Click on "edit profile" then scroll down to the cell phone field. Simply change your cell phone number to your home number and click the "update" button (on the right) and you will stop receiving text messages.
Q: How can I add events on a carpool that I was invited into?
A: The only person that can add events to the carpool calendar is the person who created the carpool. If you would like to add events, either contact the carpool leader and have them add the event, or create a carpool of your own on Divide The Ride and invite others in.
Q: If no driver is assigned, what happens?
A: Divide The Ride will send email notifications and text messages warning parents that no driver has been located for that specific event and parents should make alternate driving arrangements.
Q: How can I set up a reoccurring event that has different pick up or drop off times?
A: Events that occur on a regular basis that have different drop-off or pick-up times need to be added as separate events, not recurring events.
Q: How can I see all of the carpools I’m involved with on the calendar at the same time?
A: Simply log in to your account on Divide The Ride and click on the blue “View Your Calendar” link on the left hand side.
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Team Leaders and Directors FAQ’s
Q: After I upload my group’s information into Divide The Ride, how do I notify everyone so they will come and view the map and start to form carpools.
A: Once you upload everyone’s information, Divide The Ride will automatically send everyone in your group an email inviting them to view the map.
Q: How do I (the organizer) access the map of all participants?
A: When you first login as an organizer you will see a list of your
organizations. Next to the organization name is a link to view the map.
Q: Is there a way to transfer the information the parents have entered in the Divide The Ride carpooling area into the organizer’s area?
A: No the two systems do not transfer back and forth. The Organizers & Directors area was designed to have the Organizer upload the main list using the excel template (MemberImportTemplate.xls). Once Uploaded, the parents can see the map, communicate with each other and form their own carpools in the Divide The Ride carpooling tool.
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