eVoting, Message Inbox, and Beyond: Pilera 2023 Year-In-Review

As we enter a brand new year, we’re excited to reflect on the features we’ve released last year.  Furthermore, for us at Pilera Software, this past year has been a thrilling journey filled with innovation and commitment to making our community management clients’ jobs easier!  This blog article will share an overview of new modules, improvements, and achievements in 2023! 

New Modules

We continue to develop new modules based on our clients’ needs to help you create more self-sufficient communities. From brand-new modules to improvements, our software has evolved to cater to the growing needs of modern community management.  

1) PileraVOTES

If you’re tired of delays in community decision-making, worried about security, or have to deal with the tedious chore of manually counting votes, PileraVotes can help!  We just introduced PileraVotes, a more streamlined way to run secure and fair voting or elections in your community association.  Our new voting platform allows you to reach quorum faster, improve community decision-making, and increase satisfaction.  Our beta clients have experienced 80% owner participation with the platform.  

How PileraVotes simplifies your community’s voting experience:

• Easy to use & modern voter portal
• Vote on anything – surveys, amendment changes, and elections
• Questions customized to your community’s needs with candidate write-in options
• Fractional voting with unit weights
• Restrict to one vote per unit
• Secure access link
• Tamper-evident technology
• Instant tallying with visual charts & reports
• Integrated with your daily workflow for resident engagement and communication. 

Learn more about E-Voting for your HOA or Condo community in our release notes.

Resource: Guide to Running Smoother HOA Elections 

2) PileraPROCURE (Request for Proposal Software)

Securing qualified vendor bids and contracts for your communities can pose a challenge. That’s why Pilera launched Pilera Procure (in partnership with RFP Plus), a cutting-edge RFP tracking solution. It centralizes all your request for proposal (RFP) tasks, vendor communications, and documents in a single location, simplifying data retention. Our RFP solution streamlines your processes, saving your team valuable time, fostering stronger vendor connections, and ensuring you can get the best bids for your communities. 

How our RFP management solution makes your procurement process more efficient:

• Manage your entire process, from sending an RFP to finalizing a vendor.
• Automate RFPs quickly with bulk sending and assignment
• Get board member approval on RFPs
• Track vendor and staff responses directly within the RFP
• Protect your community with license expiration notification reminders to managers and vendors.
• Dashboards and charts that give you visual insights into your RFP progress
• View accepted/rejected vendors per category
• All RFPs, documents, and communications are in one place.

  

Improvements

We firmly believe that community management software should make your lives easier, not harder.  Alongside introducing new products, we prioritize continual improvement of our existing functionality. We aim to improve the workflow of the functionality you use and love to bring greater efficiency to your team.  

Message Inbox

The Message Inbox is the newest addition to PileraCONNECT, our Communications module.  For busy community managers juggling multiple tasks, sifting through endless emails to locate a vendor or board member’s response can eat up valuable time. Our new Message Inbox changes that. Now, you can find email responses within seconds, not hours. This inbox consolidates all email conversations from residents, vendors, board members, and fellow managers that originated within Pilera. The powerful search and filtering capabilities let you find conversations in a snap. 

Architectural Change Request Committees

The ACR committees feature was a popularly requested feature among our clients who needed a better way to streamline the review and approval process for ACRs.  We introduced the ACR Commitee Role, which you can assign board members and residents to so they can access ACRs, approve/decline them, and stay informed throughout the process.

Ticket Charts

Want to track the trend of open versus closed tickets? Easy! How about a breakdown of your team’s tasks based on priority? Or a chart showing ticket assignments? We’ve got you covered!

Ticket Charts are designed to quickly highlight operational trends and the work affecting your communities. Explore these charts across various ticket types—from work orders and support to ACR, violations, and more—to gain quick insights into your team’s activities.

Ticket Messages

View a history of all conversations from vendors and managers/assignees within the ticket itself, eliminating the need to search through your emails endlessly. 

Other Ticket Improvements  

• Create and update tickets in bulk – Speed through your work by duplicating and updating tickets in batches.  These enhancements are great if you need to assign similar tickets to the same staff member or close multiple tickets at once and need to notify the resident. 
• Create tickets directly from the dashboard – Managers, board members, and residents can save time by creating or submitting tickets right from the dashboard in Pilera. 
• Select ticket attachments – When replying to a ticket, you can choose which attachments to include in your email.  For example, you can send a different attachment to a vendor than a resident.  Once sent, you can also track the attachments you send as part of a conversation in the history of the ticket.  
• Modify ticket attachments – You can also easily add or remove new file attachments to a ticket and retain the history in the audit logs. 

Vendor Improvements

• Filter dashboard by vendor – See the workload associated with vendors in your community anytime.  
• Manage vendor staff in different departments – You can add multiple staff members from a vendor company to the database and allow them to be assigned tickets.  That way, you can communicate more easily with an employee from different departments, such as accounting, a triage person, or the owner of the vendor company, etc. 
• Set a default vendor assignee – To avoid any confusion about who should be assigned work orders from a vendor company, you can set a default vendor contact to be assigned work orders.
• Invalid contact information – In the app, you will see if a vendor staff member cannot receive notifications because their email address is invalid. 
• Vendor communication tracking – Email communication with vendor staff is now tracked in the Message Center. Additionally, vendors can reply to work order and RFP tickets and their responses are tracked in the Message Inbox.

Achievements 

Pilera earned recognition as a top software performer across multiple industry reports last year!  We couldn’t have done it without the support of our amazing clients, who inspire us to keep innovating!  

GetApp for Exceptional Performance in Property Management Software Category

In July 2023, Pilera was recognized as a Category Leader by GetApp, a free online service that helps organizations find the right software in the property management technology space.  GetApp’s recognition of our software in this category is a significant achievement.  Pilera has an overall rating of 4.8/5 on GetApp.  Check out our reviews here!

FrontRunner for Property Management Software by Software Advice

In June 2023, Pilera was recognized as a top-rated product by Software Advice in their 2023 FrontRunners Report for the Top Property Management Software Category.  In their report, Pilera ranks as one of the highest-rated products for its customer service and usability.    Check out the reviews here!

Capterra Shortlist for Property Management Software

Capterra is a popular free online service that helps organizations find software that’s right for them.  In June 2023, Pilera was recognized as a Top Performer in the 2023 Capterra Shortlist for Property Management Software.  With an overall rating of 4.8/5, our clients rated Pilera the highest for its customer service and ease of use. 

What our customers say:

“Pilera has been influential in helping me become more acclimated to my job as a property manager. It allows me easy access to reaching out to residents, as well as tracking the history of communication between management and homeowners. I would absolutely recommend this software to any and all property management firms.”

Nick K. (Capterra)

“Our office now runs all our resident interface and communications through Pilera. The resident portals have been a big hit with our residents. I can’t tell you how happy our Boards are with our reporting capabilities. What we really appreciate from a business perspective is the level of support and the constant improvement culture Pilera exhibits. They don’t rest on their laurels. They continue to improve on their offerings.”

Carlos (Source: Software Advice)

“I love that the software is not complicated. It is very user-friendly. I love that it provides a “go-to” place for our residents to keep up with the community and their accounts. I also love that Pilera offers great customer service that is professional, reliable, and provides resolution when I have an issue.”

Sierra (GetApp)

Conclusion

In 2023, our team was hard at work releasing brand-new modules and improvments, all shaped by our customers’ feedback! This year, we’re excited to bring new features to help you create self-sustaining communities, improve your team’s workflow, and grow your company!  Stay tuned to our releases this year on our blog! 

About Pilera

Pilera Software is the premier community and property management software that has helped thousands of community managers enhance communications, improve customer service, and manage compliance and operations. Book a personalized demo so you can see firsthand how Pilera can help improve efficiency and reduce costs.