This month, our development team has been busy under the hood to bring our customers exciting new features to Pilera’s communications platform and new ballot management features with our integrated partner Ballot Bliss!
From easily identifying invalid resident contacts to smoother ballot creation workflows, our new updates are aimed at making your community management work smoother! Keep reading to learn more about all these new, exciting features!
New Features:
Resident Communications
See which residents have outdated contact info
When you need to reach residents quickly, whether for routine updates or urgent alerts, outdated contact information can become a barrier when you can least afford it. Many of you told us that our existing feature that helps identify invalid contacts is essential to your communication process, so we gave it a big upgrade to make it even better. The report is called the “Bad Communications Report” and is now available in the Communications tab. You’ll now get clear indicators on which resident phone numbers or SMS/text messaging contacts are invalid, making it simple to keep your resident database accurate and your communications flowing smoothly.
Ballot Management
A more streamlined workflow for Ballots
We’ve eliminated the back-and-forth between pages to create a smoother ballot management workflow. Now, everything you need to manage your community’s ballots, from handling settings to tracking results, lives in one place.
The interface will feel very familiar if you’ve been using Pilera’s integration with Ballot Bliss while giving you new functionality that will streamline election management.
A glance at each ballot across all your communities
If you’re managing ballots for multiple communities simultaneously, it can feel overwhelming to keep track of things like ballot settings and quorum. In partnership with Ballot Bliss, we’ve created a new “Reports Mode” which puts the most important information for your communities’ ballots on a single dashboard. Here’s how this new feature makes ballot management easier across your portfolio:
- Check the status of each ballot across your communities
- Easily see how many people have voted, compared against each community’s quorum requirements.
- Find specific ballot information by searching dates or by keyword
- Get a glance at each ballot’s progress, including seeing resident voter turnout (including weighted votes), when the ballot starts and ends, who’s eligible to vote, and other important details.
Treat paper ballots and administrative proxies just like online votes
When you receive paper ballots or administrative proxies, you no longer need to maintain separate spreadsheets or systems. With Pilera’s integration with Ballot Bliss, you can easily enter the votes straight into the system, send residents an email notification, and attach original documents to the submission for complete records.
Multi-unit owners can have each property vote recorded separately, and the system automatically tracks when staff enter votes for full transparency without the administrative burdens.
Translate ballot invites automatically into the residents’ preferred language
Seamlessly remove language barriers that prevent homeowners from voting in your community elections. With Pilera’s support for over 100 languages, easily translate the content of your ballot invites and instructions into your residents’ preferred language.
Faster voting for multi-property owners
Homeowners with multiple units can now cast their votes for each unit in one session. They’ll see all their properties listed together and can either apply the same vote across all units or vote individually for each one. This new functionality eliminates the need for homeowners to juggle between multiple ballot emails or verification codes to cast their votes, giving them a better voting experience.
Make data retention a breeze
Each ballot now has its own “Documents” section designed to help you maintain comprehensive record-keeping. Attach scanned paper ballots, proxy forms, and other supporting documents directly to the ballot to create an organized audit trail. When boards or residents ask questions or request historical records, you’ll have everything properly documented and accessible instantly.
Enhancements:
In this release, we’ve also made several smaller tweaks to the features you use to make your day a little bit easier.
Communication Enhancements
- We’ve fixed the resident message preview display when units receive physical letters in the same mailing. The preview now clearly shows what each unit will receive.
Ticketing System Enhancements
- Date ranges for tasks now function correctly on the dashboard, giving you accurate results when filtering by timeframe.
Ballot Enhancements
- We’ve switched to a cleaner font for ballot invitations so they’re more easily readable.
- Voting deadlines in ballot notification emails now show your community’s correct time zone.
- When creating a ballot, we changed the verbiage from “Description” to “Summary” for better clarity.
- Attachments now sort alphabetically by filename, making documents easier to locate within the ballot.
Managing resident communication and voting with ease
Between keeping residents informed, managing staff workflows, and organizing community elections, you’re handling dozens of moving parts every day. We’ve added several new features this month, specifically designed to reduce the administrative burden and make your daily tasks more efficient. These updates are now live and ready to make your jobs a little bit easier!
About Pilera
Pilera Software has been at the forefront of innovation in community association management technology with its association-focused CRM platform. Focusing on relationships over transactions, Pilera’s CRM helps community association managers and boards optimize communications, streamline operations, and enhance overall resident satisfaction, resulting in stronger, more resilient communities and increased client retention for the management company. If you’d like to learn how to build strong relationships with your communities, schedule a demo!
