Architecture Change Request

Serving as a board member for an HOA can often be challenging as they volunteer their time and effort in making the community enjoyable for residents.  A board member\’s duties entail planning the community budget, obtaining a reserve funds analysis, hiring the right vendors, and working with residents on their home improvement project requests.  With the abundance of tasks on their to-do-list, keeping track of all these tasks manually can get difficult.  Thus, an association board will oftentimes employ a management company\’s services to advise them on business decisions and to implement community activities.  When the management company provides board members with strong tracking tools and insights they need, managing the community can become a more enjoyable and rewarding experience for all.

In Pilera, HOA community managers and board members can manage tasks and architecture change requests from start to finish while keeping everyone informed.  In this month’s Manager Toolkit, we review what managers and board members can do to effectively track their individual tasks, get insights on all community tasks, collaborate with other board members and managers, and improve the approvals process for resident architecture change requests.    

1) Create and assign tasks to managers or other board members

Board members and managers can create tasks before, during, and after board meetings to handle activities such as budget planning and vendor bids.  Once they add details to the task, they can assign it to themselves, another board member, or a community manager as well as set the due date to follow up on the task.  The task management functionality allows board members and managers to collaborate beyond their regular board meetings as the task progresses by submitting comments, changing the status, and reassigning the task to another for their input.  Every comment, status change, and reassignment is tracked for the task, providing board members and managers with detailed insight and bringing more alignment to their shared community goals. 

2) Approve architecture change requests

Board members and managers now can view all architecture change requests within Pilera and handle the approvals process from initiation to completion. As the request progresses, they can update the due date, reassign it to another board member or manager, or change the status. They can also add comments that are visible to all board members and managers only or allow residents to view the comments.

3) Gain high level or granular insights via the dashboard

Dashboards give high-level and granular insights to help make important community decisions. Through the dashboards, board members and managers can filter criteria on tasks and ACRs to meet their business needs such as ticket status, who it is assigned to, category (for tasks only), date range, and more. Here are some ways the dashboard can provide actionable insights:

• Board members and managers can both see if anyone is overloaded with a task or ACR. The workload can then be shifted as needed to improve productivity and reduce response time.
• Identify how many tasks are still open or have been completed in a current date range.  Managers can show the board members all the work that has been completed for them, and board members can get insight on which tasks are open and the status.
• Know whether rejected ACRs are increasing or decreasing over time. An increase may be indicative that the governing documents need to be reviewed and the board should adjust the ACR section for better clarity.

4) Generate reports to review at the board meeting

Based on the criteria selected in the dashboard, managers and board members can then download excel reports to take offline for further analysis or to review during their board meetings or frequent board to management meetings.

The task management and architecture change request tools in Pilera are designed to help board members and community managers work together on a variety of community responsibilities as well as bring more efficiency in their workflow. Board members can collaborate with one another and with management, assign tickets, set due dates, and gain the insights they need for decision-making.  With all tasks, ARCs, and insights in one place, the workflow is made easier and more enjoyable for board members and community managers.

Are you wanting to strengthen your competitive position in the property management market or improve staffing decisions internally?  Well, now in Pilera, management executives will be able to do all this and more with our new Ticket Analytics Reports! Insights from these reports can facilitate decisions on daily operations, customer retention, and new customer acquisition efforts.  The Ticket Analytics Report combines created, closed, and open metrics for all ticket types into one report.

Where you can find the new report:

Navigate to the Work Orders or Activity Logs page in the app and click on “Analytics Report”.  You can further slice and dice this report by selecting a specific community or all communities, date range, and time range up to the minute.  

How the new report can help maximize efficiency in your operations:

1) Gain business insights on a community or portfolio level

The Ticket Analytics Report helps gain valuable business insights on a per community basis or across the entire portfolio of communities. Company Admins (referred to as executives in our post) can generate reports cross-community, and Community Managers (referred to as managers) can generate reports in the communities they are responsible for operating. When the company executive selects “All Communities”, they will be able to see a breakdown of every community and all the created, closed, and open tickets for:

• Work Orders
• Activity Logs
• Tasks
• Architecture Change Requests
• Rule Violations
• Insurance

2) Determine the profitability of a client

For each community, executives will be able to see the number of created, closed, and open tickets.  These metrics are an important indicator of the amount of work your company is performing for the community.  If a community is generating too much work and the costs outweigh the profits, the company may decide not to work with that community.  Company executives can then determine how much to charge back to the community for services rendered or how much to increase the going rate for annual fees based on manager output.  

3) Successfully compete in the property management marketplace

An important goal of management companies is to increase their competitive position in the property management market.  Management companies compete through service offerings and pricing. Business insights from reports are a powerful way for the management company to bring added value to prospects. Their ability to provide these business insights can serve as an important selling factor for the community.  Company executives can also adjust their bid price for the new community by using the work they handle for current clients as a base.

4) Improve staffing decisions

An optimal level of staffing is critical to running daily operations and providing clients with the customer support they expect to receive.  In the Ticket Analytics Report, company executives can view a list of all employees and the tickets they’ve created, closed, or are still open and assigned to them broken down by the type of ticket. These metrics will assist executives in making better-informed decisions to fulfill their staffing needs.  Created tickets versus closed versus open in a time frame will inform executives if their staff is getting overloaded and where to direct their resources for better productivity. This information will also support their decisions to hire more property managers or if building a team of in-house maintenance staff makes more sense.

5) Increase client satisfaction by providing business advice to clients

The Ticket Analytics Report is a great tool to use during management’s weekly meetings with HOA clients.  Key metrics in the report can help in providing board members with essential business advice to make the best decision for their community.  During these weekly meetings, managers can present all the work that has been completed by type of request, from work orders to tasks. Closed tickets versus created tickets can also provide a good indication of whether specific requests are taking too long to complete.  In this case, managers can dig deeper into their data in Pilera. Such advice to the board may be to solicit vendor bids that can reduce response time or enhance the architecture change approvals process to meet resident requests faster. The more informed business advice you provide to your clients, the longer they’ll want to stay with you.  It’s a win-win for all!

Whether your main goals are to improve operational efficiency or increase growth, the new Ticket Analytics Report in Pilera can provide valuable information to make important decisions.  Executives can utilize this report to make decisions that are important for scaling their company’s growth. Property managers can leverage key metrics in the report to provide their HOA clients/board members with critical business advice and increase client satisfaction.  To learn more about the new Ticket Analytics Report and how it can benefit your company and the communities you manage today, contact [email protected].

About Pilera

Pilera Software is the premier community and property management suite that has helped thousands of community managers and back-office personnel enhance communications, improve customer service, and manage compliance and operations.  May we help your community achieve these success stories?  Book a demo to see how Pilera’s community management suite can help your company. 

Greetings everyone,

We\’re back this month with a load of updates, including two new features!  Architecture Change Request is a new functionality in this release, which has been highly requested by our clients and will be join our HOA+ product.  We\’ve also developed a new calendar system within Pilera, so you don\’t have to embed calendars from other service providers.  Without further ado, let\’s dive into these new updates!

New Features

Architecture Change Requests

This new feature, built for HOA+, enables managers to process architecture change requests more efficiently and increase resident happiness. Here’s what our new architecture change request module can do:

• Residents can submit architecture change requests in the resident portal, receive notifications of the status, and comment on a request if managers enable it.
  
• Managers can assign tickets to themselves, other managers, and board members (the latter feature is releasing in December 2019).
• Set due dates for each request.
• Update the status of an ACR: approve, in progress, on hold, reject, and more.
  
• Filter on various criteria through a powerful dashboard.
• Generate an Excel summary report to show during board meetings.

Learn more about how new Architecture Change Requests can benefit your communities today.

Built-in Events Calendar

We’ve developed a new Built-In Events Calendar feature in the resident portal.  The events calendar is more intuitive and allows managers to handle event creation all in one place.  Managers can also send email notifications to the community on-demand and view the status in the Message Center.  As a note, the legacy calendar functionality will be depreciated on 1/1/2021 so please prepare to transition any upcoming events to the new calendar.

Learn more how our new built-in events calendar can create efficiencies in your event creation and notification processes.

Enhancements:

1. TOPS Alternate Addresses – The alternate addresses from TOPS will now display in Pilera.
2. In the insurance record, we’ve added the “Expiration Date” field so that managers no longer have to edit the ticket to view the expiration date.
3. Work order settings emails were receiving all ticket emails, therefore, we’ve renamed the Work Order Ticket Settings page to “Ticket Settings” to improve clarity.
4. In the Pilera Resources form, we’ve changed the name of one form to “Remove a Community” for improved clarity.
5. We’ve improved the styling of the transition page from Pilera’s portal to the payment site to provide residents with a better experience.

Free Resource: Watch Board+ Webinar on Demand

About Pilera

Pilera Software is the premier community and property management suite that has helped thousands of community managers and back-office personnel enhance communications, improve customer service, and manage compliance and operations.  May we help your community achieve these success stories?  Book a demo to see how Pilera’s community management suite can help your company. 

Note: This blog post has been updated in June 2023 to reflect new functionality in the Architectural Change Request module.

HOA managers have a wide array of responsibilities all aimed at creating better community experiences for their residents, and one such goal is to help residents maintain or increase property value.  To enable our HOA clients to help residents in improving their properties, our team has been hard at work to develop new functionality.  We\’re excited to introduce to you the new Architecture Change Request functionality, where managers can work directly with residents on their home improvement requests.   

The Architecture Change Request module empowers managers to process resident requests faster while ensuring complete transparency and accountability.  Here’s how the new feature works:

Residents can submit architecture change requests

A resident’s goal is to sustain or increase their property value through minor improvements or major architecture/equipment upgrades.  The architecture change request module’s integration with the resident portal allows managers to work with residents directly on their home improvement requests.  In the portal, residents can submit an ACR, set a due date, and attach relevant documentation to assist with the approval process. They can also log back in at any time to view the status of their requests and comment on them.    

Managers can also create ACR tickets on behalf of residents

In the manager portal, managers can create and assign tickets to themselves or other managers to stay on top of architecture change requests.  When creating the ticket, managers can set a due date, associate it to a unit and resident account, adjust occupant permissions, and attach documents.  Furthermore, managers can collaborate throughout the process of the request to keep other staff and residents in the loop.  In our upcoming December 2019 release, resident Board Members will be able to manage the entire workflow of architecture change requests for the community(ies) they live in.  

Create and manage committees

To help you better streamline the approval process for ARCs, we have introduced a committee role. You can now assign residents and board members the role of a Committee Member so they can oversee the ACR process from creating ACRs to approving them. This new role enables your Committee Members to gain insight into all the ACR requests your community is receiving. Simply navigate to the User Roles Administration page in the Pilera app and set up your users to become Committee Members. Learn more in our recent release notes!

Approve or reject requests

Once the manager has looked into the request thoroughly, they can approve or reject it and inform the resident of the same.  If the request is not ready to be approved yet, managers can use statuses such as “In Review” or “On Hold”.  You also notify residents of the status while progressing through the architecture change request from the “acknowledged” stage to “completed”, “cancelled”, or “rejected” stages by making the ticket visible by them and notifying the main contact.

Track each action on a request

As the architecture change request from residents progresses through various stages, Pilera’s ticketing system tracks it all automatically.  The ticket details provide a comprehensive audit trail of each action taken on an architecture change request.  Managers can revisit tickets at any time to see status changes, assignment changes, and all comments, thus improving accountability within the company.  

Gain high-level or detailed insights

Pilera’s portfolio-level dashboards give managers the capability to gather high-level or detailed insights based on their business needs across multiple communities that they manage.  Staff can filter specific criteria on the dashboard to view the requests that are pending responses. Managers can answer high-level questions such as how they can improve the approval process internally and for residents by viewing a list of the ACR’s that were rejected or which employees have a heavy workload.  

We’re excited for you to try the new Architecture Request Change feature as it’s been highly requested by our customers and it’ll help streamline the resident request process and improve satisfaction within the community.  Stay tuned to our blogs and emails on new updates to learn more about the Architecture Change Requests module. If you’d like to learn more about this new module, please contact us at [email protected].  

About Pilera

Pilera Software is the premier community and property management suite that has helped thousands of community managers and back-office personnel enhance communications, improve customer service, and manage compliance and operations.  May we help your community achieve these success stories?  Book a demo to see how Pilera’s community management suite can help your company.