One employee training another.

6 Steps to Onboard A New Employee to Pilera’s Manager Portal

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An effective onboarding strategy is critical to the success of any new employee that joins your company.  Giving new employees the right introduction is key to their success. As as a property manager, it can help improve your operational efficiency.  One of the most important steps in the onboarding process is setting the employee up for success with the technologies that are central to their job functions.  This involves creating an account for the employee, giving them access to only the functions that are necessary to perform their job, and providing adequate training.  Thus, in this month’s manager toolkit, we cover the onboarding process and workflow for new employees within Pilera’s software in depth.

1) Create a new user for the manager/staff

The first step to onboarding a new manager in Pilera is to create a unique login for them.  Each manager should be designated their own account and email address. This is an important step to ensure accountability and maintain the internal security of your technology systems.  In Pilera, you will begin by adding a new occupant and designating them the “Manager” user type. If the manager lives in the community as well, they will need to be designated the “Onsite Manager” user type.  

2) Assign communities

Assigning communities ensures that the new manager or staff member has access to the communities they will be managing.  In the manager’s profile page, click on “Adjust Communities” and select all the communities they are responsible for performing daily tasks in.

3) Assign roles to the new employee

Pilera has implemented user administration roles to give company administrators the reigns to manage the level of access each staff member has.  Administering roles helps in aligning an employee’s job responsibilities with the areas in the system they’ll have access to. Here’s a quick overview of all the roles in Pilera, broken down by administration and community-specific roles:

  • Administration Roles – These are high-level roles that give managers access to handling different functions throughout the entire portfolio.
    • Company Admin – can assign roles for the entire company.
    • Vendor Administrator – handles company-wide vendor settings.
    • Company File Library Admin – administers file management and settings for the whole company.
    • Template Admin – handles settings and administration of templates for the whole company.
  • Community-Specific Roles – There are two main types of community management roles and two-sub roles that can be added to provide more handling capabilities.  The Community Manager role is the most powerful community-specific role with access to manage the full range of functions in Pilera; however, it’s important to note that they are not given this role by default.  We do this for safety reasons and to allow for company admins to fully control the level of access a new employee is given. When a new staff member is assigned the “Manager” user type, they are by default given the Community Admin role.  The Community Admin can manage occupant data, communications and work orders but doesn’t have the full capabilities of a Community Manager. If you would like to provide the new staff member with more granular but not full access, you can give them the roles below in addition to the Community Admin:
    • Community File Library Manager – handles file management for one specific community.
    • Community Contact – receives and handles resident messages from the Contact tab.

4) Send the employee a welcome message

Once the communities have been assigned to the new employee, it’s time to provide them with a unique login.  Simply send them a welcome message from their user profile or from the Welcome Message Dashboard and they will be prompted to update their credentials.

5) Set email notifications

Emails are a great way for managers or staff to obtain the latest information straight to their inbox.  The emails that a community manager can receive include marketplace and work orders.

6) Training, training, and training!

We can’t stress enough that training your new employee is the most important part of helping them transition into their role.  You may even assign one person who is a power user of the technology to run the training. There are also tools within Pilera that can assist in the training process.  These tools include help articles, videos, and a dedicated resources page.

 

A consistent onboarding process reduces anxiety or confusion a new hire might feel when introduced to a system and will help them to better transition into their new role.  As technology is in ingrained well within an employee’s job functions, it’s important to have a consistent process for new employees before they start to use the system. As a technology company that helps community management professionals improve efficiency in their operations, we felt it is important to share some tips to help you make the new employee onboarding process to the manager portal painless and consistent.  We hope you found this month’s edition of the Manager Toolkit helpful, and we will be back soon with more tips!