Best of Pilera: Communications to Complete Property Management

Community association and property management companies have seen much evolution in the past several years. Residents and board members want more transparency in how their community is being managed. Management companies are placing customer support at the heart of their operations. Thus, they’re viewing technology as a way to offer the best possible service to their clients. As a technology provider, Pilera has continued to innovate to empower property managers and community managers in growing their business, increasing work efficiency, and satisfying their clientele.

In 2009, Pilera entered the property management industry by addressing a specific need for managers to communicate with their residents. A little over a decade later, we’ve built one of the most reliable communications platforms in the industry. We’ve also expanded our software platform to manage various aspects of property management – customer service, maintenance, resident engagement, and website management. In this blog article, we highlight some of the biggest updates we’ve made to our platform each year.

Check out the entire Pilera timeline here! If you’re short on time, continue on our blog post right here!

2015: Pilera becomes an industry leader in Communications!

2015 was a turning point for Pilera’s communications suite as we released a vast number of features. In addition to making automated phone calls and sending emails, managers could also start sending out text messages. Messages can also be sent out in the resident’s preferred language. Additionally, Pilera released a new built-in message delivery fault protection system which means that we make several attempts to send messages even when the service network is down or there is an emergency.

Other notable releases in 2015:

Add your company brand to emails so residents instantly recognize your company.
Receive automated ticket notifications for common area work orders and activity logs.
A number of accounting integration updates for VMS, C3, Jenark, TOPS, and Caliber.

2016: Manage your community’s work with a redesigned ticketing system

Pilera redesigned the ticketing system that provides more advanced tracking capabilities for work orders, rule violations, and activity logs.

Another exciting feature we released is the knowledge base, a powerful FAQ center for your residents to get answers to important community questions. It’s a great tool for your staff as well. When staff members are working after-hours or you hire a new employee, they can refer to the knowledge base during a resident call.

Other notable releases in 2016:

When residents call in, you can troubleshoot their questions or issues on the spot with the pretender functionality.
Residents can manage other occupants in their unit.
Send documents to an entire community.
Get insights on workload with automated work order reports.
Several integration updates for TOPS and C3.

2017: Increase work efficiency even when managing multiple communities or properties

It’s easier than ever to see all tickets for a community you manage in a single dashboard. Select criteria such as status, who the ticket is assigned to, and date range to get a detailed view of your work.

Other notable releases in 2017:

Access common area and unit-level work orders in a single dashboard.
Download a PDF copy of work order tickets from your search results.
We’ve increased the speed of sending out text messages by a rate of 15x!
Track all vendor information, add license expirations, staff, and more through the new vendor app. Then, assign vendors to work order tickets.
Manage user permissions for company and community roles with the new User Roles Administration feature.

2018: Mobile-responsive websites, new document library & several more great features!

Pilera HOA websites get a brand new look and feel! Choose from a variety of easy-to-use mobile-responsive website layouts so that you can make it easy for residents to learn more about their community.

Another exciting new feature is the revamped document library, which comes with more powerful permissions and folder structure than the previous version.

Other notable releases in 2018:

Pet tracking and search.
Search for residents across your entire portfolio.
See all the residents who have or haven’t received a welcome message in the new welcome message dashboard.
Opt-in community directory keeps your residents connected.
Download a Community PDF report of the work orders that you can present at a company or board meeting.
The Caliber integration now provides multi-transaction support and CalPay.

2019: Pilera goes mobile!

Pilera goes mobile! A new mobile-friendly version of the manager and resident portals empowers managers to work on all their tasks whether they are at the office, home, or on-site. Residents can also view all their community information anywhere on any device.

Other notable releases in 2019:

Board members and managers can create, assign, and track tasks.
Keep track of all architectural change requests, as well as accept or reject them. Residents can also submit ACRs and view the status.
Manage your community’s events directly in Pilera through our built-in calendar.
Numerous ticket improvements – New Ticket Analytics Report, Custom Ticket Categories, and the ability to associate tickets with the account.
Residents can log into multiple units they own within the same session.
New Vantaca integration.

2020: New dashboards. Plus, send an email to your entire portfolio!

Now, when managers, board members, and residents log into Pilera, they are greeted with a new dashboard that gives them a high-level summary of what is happening in the community. Managers will see an aggregate total of all their open and assigned work orders, architectural change requests, tasks, and violations. Residents will see their payment balance as well as an aggregate of their work orders, architectural change requests, and communications. Board members get additional insight into the tasks and ACRs that are assigned to them.

Another new update is the ability to send email messages across your entire portfolio? Need to send a message to residents or board members in all your communities? Now you can!

Other notable releases in 2020:

Search for and keep track of guest information in the new visitor management feature.
New Asyst integration.
TOPS One integration is now two-way.

2021: Powerful communication enhancements, recurring events & more!

The first release of the year was a popularly requested feature by our clients, distribution groups. Through Pilera’s distribution groups, you can create any combination of users and locations to send messages to. Easily add residents from a specific street, building, floor, or unit to the group. The groups also self-maintain themselves whenever a resident enters or leaves a unit, so that you don’t have to.

Another major improvement to the communications platform just this week is the ability to add attachments and images to emails. This means that you can create more professional and beautiful marketing emails to send to your communities.

Another popular request is the ability to create recurring events. You can now set up recurring event schedules for ongoing meetings you host. Then, keep your residents informed by sending them an email notification at any time.

Other notable releases in 2021 so far:

Organize your tickets by priority, age, and due date.
Import and export your document library.
Authorize.net online payment integration.
There’s a lot more coming your way!

Take your company to the next level with Pilera

Keeping your community informed, increasing efficiency for your staff, and growing your company are some of the goals that Pilera can help you achieve. When you partner with Pilera for your management company, you’ll always lead with the latest technological innovations and proactive customer support by your side. To learn more about how Pilera can work for your communities, you can book a personalized 1:1 demo.