board members

As you get ready for your annual board meeting, you know that improving resident attendance to reach quorum is critical.  But reaching a quorum can be challenging, and definitely doesn’t happen overnight.  It takes effort over time to interest and engage residents. Transparent communication and giving them more ways to be involved are essential.  In this blog post, you will learn how Pilera’s community management software can help you increase your HOA board meeting attendance to reach your required quorum.  

6 Ways to Increase HOA Board Meeting Attendance & Reach Quorum with Pilera

1. Communicate with residents

To build interest among your residents it’s vital to communicate with them. That means, keeping the conversation with them that goes beyond just board meetings and elections. Keep them informed about maintenance, social events, ways you\’re making the community safer and better, and responding to resident queries so you can establish trust.  That way when you’re ready for the next board meeting, you have built interest in the residents.  Pilera’s automated communication enables you to connect with residents how they want: phone, email, text, and now postal mail too.

Sending a community newsletter by email or postal mail is a great way to highlight positive things happening in the community. And, when it comes time for the next board meeting or annual election, communicate the benefits of it to your residents. Pilera\’s communication platform also enables you to create professional marketing messages and newsletters with our rich text editor.

2. Schedule your board meetings in advance

It\’s vital to schedule meetings in advance and notify residents about it, so they can fit it into their busy schedules. In fact, many states even require giving residents advance notice. Pilera’s built-in event calendar feature allows you to create multiple calendars for different event types.  You can then create recurring or one-time events and easily modify them if your schedule changes.  You can also send event notifications on-demand by user type – manager, board member, resident, or other occupants. For example, if you are holding emergency or committee meetings that are board only, you can choose to notify just board members. The event notification also includes a description which is a great way to include more details or important links. For example, you can include a link to join the virtual board meeting.   

3. Value your resident\’s feedback

Showing residents that you take their opinions and concerns seriously is vital to generating homeowner interest in board meetings.  One easy way to do that is to create a pre-meeting and post-meeting survey.  With Pilera’s integration with Formsite, you can customize your form questions and post them in the portal or email a link to residents. Furthermore, you can get results in real-time with tables, charts, PDFs, and Excel reports.

4. Share documents with residents

Many state laws and governing documents require that residents receive a copy of the agenda and/or meeting minutes.  Through Pilera’s online document feature, you can organize files into folders and subfolders, set permissions to improve security, and email documents to residents.

5. Promote self-service within the community

Promoting self-service within the community is a great way to increase homeowner involvement.  That means residents can look up community information at their own time and convenience, without having to call or email management.  The more information you as a board member or manager can add to the portal, the more informed and gradually engaged residents will be.  Through Pilera, you can increase resident engagement by:

• Posting documents and knowledge base articles on a regular basis.  
• Keeping your event calendar updated. 
• Encouraging residents to self-manage their own data such as contact information, addresses, alternate contacts, pets, insurance, and more.  
• Providing them with a convenient, secure way to pay their dues online and review financial balances and ledgers.
• Posting surveys and access to the election ballot when it’s time to vote.  
• Allowing residents to submit work orders, support requests, and architectural change requests and inform them of the status.  

6. Conduct elections online

If your state and governing documents allow it, then consider conducting your community elections online. Online elections give your residents a convenient way to participate from the comfort of their own homes.  You can reach quorum faster and more effectively with online voting because it’s secure, convenient, and fast.  With Pilera’s integration with Formsite, you can customize the ballot, easily send residents a link when it’s time to vote, allow only one vote per unit, and get results in real-time.  Real-time, automated counting of votes saves your community time and eliminates errors.      

Increase HOA Board Meeting Attendance with Pilera

Increasing your HOA board meeting attendance begins with transparent communications and involving residents in the community.  Keeping them updated about what’s happening in the community and giving them more ways to be connected can help you to reach your quorum goals faster.  As you get ready for your annual meetings, consider sending announcements, updating the resident portal, and conducting your elections through Pilera.  To learn more about how Pilera can work for you, contact us at [email protected], book a personalized demo, or drop an email to our support team at [email protected] (if you’re a current client of ours). 

As a board member or a community manager, you hold regular HOA board meetings on a monthly and annual basis to discuss important community issues, make decisions, and communicate those decisions to residents. Successful board meetings are critical to smooth community operations, reducing costs, and increasing resident satisfaction. However, many board meetings are plagued by low attendance, an unorganized agenda, and overrun meetings. This can cause frustration for residents, board members, and managers alike. In this post, you will learn how to improve your HOA board meeting by offloading some key tasks onto technology platforms.

Preparing for your HOA Board Meeting

1. Schedule your HOA Board meeting well in advance, and notify your residents.

Low resident attendance is one of the biggest challenges that board members and managers face.  It’s important to schedule board meetings well in advance and communicate with residents.  Notifying residents in a timely manner can help alleviate attendance woes by giving them enough time to fit the meeting into their busy schedules.*

Community management platforms can help to keep residents informed and increase attendance.  Through such a platform, you can create one-time or recurring events and notify residents on-demand.  Through Pilera’s event calendar feature, managers can create a custom Board meeting calendar, set recurring events, and notify the community by user role. Residents can log into their community portal and view a calendar with all the upcoming events.

2. Create an agenda and make it accessible to residents

Most states require that an agenda be created for the board meeting. The purpose of an agenda is to keep track of all the issues that need to be discussed or resolved in the board meeting. It generally includes topics such as maintenance projects, manager updates, disputes, and homeowner concerns.  In some states such as California, residents must receive a copy of the agenda along with the meeting notice 4 days in advance of the meeting.

A document management system can make it easy to store agendas and share them with residents. Make sure that through your document management system, you can create folders and subfolders to organize your documents. Your residents will then be able to find what they\’re looking for quickly.  

In preparation for your meeting, you can also take advantage of a task management solution to keep track of all agenda items.  Through Pilera’s task management system, you can create tasks and assign them to other board members or managers. You can create a special category called “Agenda” and use the dashboard to filter just those items during the meeting.   

3. Survey your residents

Getting your residents involved and curbing apathy starts with letting them know their opinion matters.  A survey is a good way to collect resident feedback prior to the meeting so that you can stay on track during the meeting.  You can decide which ones to respond to via email and which require more discussion during the meeting. 

Some community management platforms provide automated communications and form features to automate this process.  Through Pilera’s integration with Formsite, you can create simple or more comprehensive forms.  Through our automated communications feature, you can distribute the form link electronically and track who clicked on it. Charts, searchable tables, PDFs, and Excel spreadsheets help you to capture the data you need to make decisions.

4. Holding an election during your annual meeting

During annual meetings, communities will usually hold elections for members to vote for the next year\’s board positions. Many communities are now turning to online voting as a way to increase owner participation. Residents can vote from anywhere, even in the comfort of their own homes. In an online election, it\’s important to prepare the online ballots well ahead of time. Make sure that candidate information and how they plan to operate and improve the community are clear on the ballot.

As many residents may worry about security and privacy of their data, it\’s important to make sure that your community management platform has security protocols in place. Pilera\’s integration with Formsite for voting provides a secure platform for residents to vote and management to store election results. It also allows one vote per unit so your elections remain fair and compliant. The results are also instant, eliminating the need for managers to manually count the votes. Leaders can get insights into what the community finds important with analytics. Results and feedback can be collected in multiple ways – searchable tables, visual graphics, PDFs, or Excel spreadsheets*.

*These are best practices aimed at helping you improve your board meetings.  These tips are not legal advice.  We highly recommend that you review the community’s governing documents and state laws on what your board meetings must adhere to.  Different states and governing documents will have varying requirements on meeting notices, agendas, voting, and meeting conduct.  

During your virtual Board Meeting

In the past year and a half, most communities have turned to online meetings like Zoom or Skype to conduct association business. With virtual board meetings, members can meet from anywhere, making it more convenient and a good way to increase homeowner attendance. Since virtual board meetings tend to attract a larger number of homeowners, it\’s important to have a structure, timeline, and set expectations to be respectful of everyone\’s time.

1. Do a test before going live

Before you go live with your Board meeting, you\’ll want to set 30 minutes to an hour of time to test the meeting software with the Board. As you run more meetings and become more familiar with the software, you can dedicate less time to a test run. Doing a test run helps you identify any issues beforehand so that there aren\’t any delays in the meeting. In your practice meeting, you will want to test the following:

• Audio settings – Make sure that each speaker\’s microphones are functional.
• Screen share – Test that each person is able to share presentation slides and web browsers.
• Questions – Enter in a question and check if other presenters can see it.
• Chat – Enter in a chat message, and then test responding to the chat individually or publicly to everyone on the meeting.
• Muting and unmuting individuals – It\’s essential to make sure that muting options work to limit distractions during the meeting.
• Document sharing – Upload a document and test to see if others can download it. Do a similar test with links.

2. Assign roles

Assigning specific roles during the meeting will help to run the meeting a lot smoother, especially when everyone understands what they are responsible for. Depending on the size of your community, you can combine these roles or keep them separate. Here are some roles you\’ll want to assign:

1. Speaker – This person will be responsible for driving the meeting. They will go through the meeting rules and agenda items.
2. Meeting Coordinator – This person will assist the speaker by managing the chat, muting or unmuting members, and providing technical support to residents during the meeting.
3. Task Manager-  The task manager will be responsible for noting down action items that come up during the meeting.  They will benefit from a task management system that allows them to create tasks, assign them, set a priority, and a due date.  Pilera’s task management system makes it easy to create and manage tasks on the fly from any device or location.
4. Meeting Minutes Coordinator – This person will be responsible for taking meeting minutes.  The coordinator should use some type of word processor to type the notes during the meeting. As an example, Gmail provides a free word processing software called Google Docs.  

3. Dedicated time to each item on the agenda

No one wants to stay in long board meetings on a workday evening, so it\’s important to keep meetings focused. Dedicating a set amount of time to each item on the agenda keeps everyone on track. You can dedicate an equal amount of time to each item or based on the complexity of the issue.  

4. Allow a set amount of time for homeowners to speak

If your governing documents allow for it, dedicate a set amount of time for homeowners to speak and give their opinion. Before the meeting, it\’s important to set expectations on the amount of time residents have to speak about their issues or concerns. During the meeting, have your residents use the “raise hand” feature on the meeting software when they want to speak. Table any issues that homeowners bring up that require a longer discussion for the next board meetings.

After the Board Meeting

Now that you’ve run a successful board meeting, what’s next?  

1. Send meeting minutes

Meeting Minutes are important to document what occurred while reviewing items from the agenda.  It should be a short and concise summary of who called the meeting, discussions about the agenda items, and any items that were resolved.  Check out the Meeting Minutes template created by Hillcrest Management.

Once the meeting notes have been approved and recorded, store them in a secure online document management system.  Keep each month\’s meeting minutes organized by creating folders and subfolders. Additionally, the document management system should allow you to notify residents when you\’ve posted the new meeting minutes.     

2. Review action items list

Revisit all the action items that your team took note of during the Board Meeting and transition it to a task management system if you haven’t already done so.  Your task management system should allow you to organize, prioritize, and track items efficiently.  Be sure to assign each task to another board member or manager, prioritize it, and set a due date for completion.  That way everyone knows who is responsible for what tasks and nothing slips through the cracks. Through Pilera’s task management system, you can keep everyone informed by posting an update, changing the status, and e-notifying boards or managers.

3. Collect post-meeting feedback from residents

Even if you’ve had a successful board meeting, there are always things that you can improve for future meetings.  Collecting feedback from residents on how the last board meeting went can give you insights on what was done well and what needs improvement.  Create a short survey, email the residents, or encourage them to log into their community portal to complete the survey.

Improve your HOA Board Meeting with technology

With the advancements of technology, Board members and community managers can offload many key, cumbersome tasks onto software. It empowers you to handle every aspect of the Board meeting to ensure it\’s productive for everyone:

1. Prepare for a board meeting by scheduling meetings, sending event notices, conducting surveys, and sharing agenda documents via a community management solution.
2. Run a smooth meeting with virtual meeting platforms like Zoom or Skype and keep track of action items in a task management solution.
3. Keep your team on track with action items by prioritizing them and providing updates in a task management system.

Pilera\’s community management solution enables board members and managers to streamline various aspects of a board meeting with automated communications, events, document sharing, surveys, and task management. To learn more about how Pilera can work for you, request a personalized demo.

With the number of fully vaccinated individuals increasing, many industries are setting the standard to safely reopen businesses.  For example, the CDC is allowing cruise ships to resume sailing by July 2021 without conducting test cruises as long as 95% of guests have received the vaccine.  New York is the first state to introduce a vaccine passport, a digital app where individuals can securely store electronic copies of their vaccine cards to show as proof before they can be allowed to attend large events such as games.  

HOA’s offer their community members access to many amenities such as gyms, pools, and clubhouses that make association living enjoyable.  Since board members often host events to bring the community together, there is the concern of liability and community safety.  Thus, board members are now asking: Can HOA\’s require residents show proof of COVID-19 vaccination to use amenities or attend events?

Vaccinations are a relatively new topic that HOAs are beginning to have discussions about and there’s no clearly defined answer yet.  Given that, this blog article lists some things to keep in mind about proof of vaccination. We\’ll also discuss how a community can take steps to mitigate risk while starting to reopen.

Regulations

First, it’s important to frequently check your state’s or local regulations on whether businesses can ask for proof of vaccination.  For example, Florida passed a law that prohibits businesses from requiring proof of vaccination from customers to access their services.  Thus, HOA’s that are incorporated and considered a legal entity in the state wouldn’t be able to mandate vaccine proof.  

Consult with your association lawyer

As a board member, you’re likely to be concerned about the community’s liability in the event there is an outbreak.  Thus, it’s best to consult with your lawyer.  Sarah Metcalf, a Business Manager at Pelican Cove Condominium Assn, Inc. in Florida, says that “My understanding is the Law [Florida State] prohibits requiring vaccination proof; however, if the Board ask this question I will tell them that we need legal counsels opinion.”

Could there be any special scenarios in which a community may require proof of vaccination?  Adam Clark, Chief Operating Officer at Excel Association Management in Texas, shares, “I think the communities most likely to implement this kind of requirement would be in 55 and up communities.  All normal precautions (masks, sanitizing items before and after use) should still be observed regardless of vaccinations.  If a community requires proof of vaccination, and it has been given the okay by their attorney, they would likely need to hire some kind of service which would validate vaccination cards prior to letting people into the amenities.”

Understanding resident rights and concerns

Residents may have many concerns about sharing information about their vaccinations with businesses.  Before requiring proof of vaccination in your community, consider the following:

1. Exemptions from vaccinations – Some residents are medically or religiously exempt from getting a vaccine so it’s important that any rules acknowledge these exemptions.   
2. HIPAA Law – HIPAA protects an individual’s right to keep their medical records, including COVID-19 vaccinations private.  As always, be sure to consult with your association lawyer on how to best handle this.
3. Resident’s right to amenities – Resident\’s right to amenities may be listed in the community\’s governing documents. In place of requiring vaccination proof, associations may be able to place restrictions on the use of an amenity. For example, many associations that are reopening their pools such as those managed by Professional Association Services in California, are restricting access only to the unit.

What can you do to ensure safety in reopening the community?

There are other steps you can take to reopen amenities and host events safely if vaccination proof isn\’t an option.

Abide by local, state, and national regulations

Susan Hoffman, the Owner of Professional Association Services in California, says that their associations are reopening pools with the guidance of their local laws.  The pool reopening plans include restricting users to the unit, implementing capacity limits, setting time limits per unit for use, requiring masks out of the pool, and requiring residents to sanitize certain equipment like chairs after use.   
The CDC is also an essential resource for health and safety guidelines.  According to guidance that the CDC released on April 27, 2021, “Fully vaccinated people no longer need to wear a mask outdoors, except in certain crowded settings and venues.”   

Survey your residents and then hold board meeting(s) to develop a plan for safe reopening

Survey your residents to understand how they feel about reopening amenities and being part of community events.  Are there certain amenities they want open more than others?  Would they rather have online virtual events with no limit on the number of people that attend? Or would they prefer in-person events with a limited number of people and social distancing?  Can you develop a phased approach to reopening amenities and hosting events to make it safe and comfortable for everyone? Once you have gained feedback, host a board meeting to develop a plan.

Continue to implement health and safety guidelines

Regardless of whether you can require vaccination proof or not, it’s important to continue practicing local health and safety guidelines.  For example, Massachusetts has released guidance on the safe reopening of pools.  Their guidelines include social distancing, face coverings in indoor pools (with medical exemptions), limited capacity in changing areas, spacing out pool furniture, sanitization, ventilation requirements, and other rules to adhere to. 

Communicate with your residents

Once your community has developed a safety plan, be sure to communicate it with your residents.  Use a mix of traditional methods such as direct mail and digital methods such as your website, email, and text.  That way, you can reach your residents at the right place and time.   Pilera community management platform empowers board members and managers to keep residents informed in multiple ways.  Pilera’s automated communication product enables you to send email, text, and phone messages to your residents. You can segment your communication by location or user type. Complement your electronic communications with Pilera\’s HOA website that is mobile-friendly and fully customizable. Post documents and other useful information on your website that residents can access with a secure login.

Can HOA\’s require residents to show proof of vaccination to use amenities or attend events? To get the most accurate guidance for your community, be sure to refer to the laws and consult with your association lawyer.  Continue implementing health and safety guidelines set by your county.  For every decision made, communicate it with your residents so you can deliver a safe and enjoyable environment this summer.  

Disclaimer: This article does not contain any legal advice. Be sure to consult with your association lawyer before developing any policy.

As vaccinations progress throughout the United States and many states take major strides to reopen, HOA’s across the country are formulating their plans on how to safely reopen amenities for the summer.  Once the community has developed a plan in which it can safely reopen amenities, it’s important to communicate that plan to your residents.  As your residents have diverse communication needs, have you identified the best ways to convey your reopening plans to them?  In this blog article, we discuss different modes of communication you can use to communicate reopening HOA amenities with your residents and what each mode is best for.

Table of Contents

1. Website
2. Email
3. Text messages
4. Phone Calls
5. Flyers
6. Documents
7. Knowledge Base
8. How to keep residents informed about reopening HOA amenities through Pilera

Website

Your website will be one of the first places that your residents check for the latest information.  Create a new page on your website to share information about reopening the community’s amenities.  On the page, create a section for each amenity to convey the following information: 

• Which amenities will be open or closed during the summer and hours of operation.
• What the capacity limits are for each amenity and other rules residents need to abide by such as any mask mandates or social distancing.
• Whether guests are allowed to use the amenity and if so, what limits are in place, and if the community requires them to show proof of vaccination.
• The HOA’s policy on requiring vaccines in order to attend community events or gain entry to amenities (if applicable) and where residents can register to receive their vaccine.  
• To keep content on your website to a readable length, consider posting documents that residents can refer to for additional information.

Email

Email remains one of the best ways to communicate with your residents. It’s most ideal to send email messages to your residents when the information you need to convey is lengthy and in-depth. Email is also a visual medium, which means you can add and format images to give the email a professional look.  It’s also simpler to attach documents to an email you send to residents.  

Some ways you can use emails to communicate to your residents about reopening include: 

• Reopening dates for amenities and hours of operation with a reminder about rules and policies for using the amenities.  
• Any new information concerning the reopening of your communities.  Direct your residents to new information on your website or your portal’s document library.  

Encourage your residents to respond back to emails or to email management directly about any questions or concerns they may have.  It’s important to make it simple for your residents to contact you.   

Text messages

Text messages are an instant way of reaching your residents. According to Text Magic, 82% of text messages that individuals receive are read within 5 minutes.  However, your residents will not want to receive constant text messages for every update you want to communicate about reopening.  When should you use text messages?  

• To send urgent or time-sensitive messages – An example would be if a resident tested positive after using an amenity and how the community plans to address sanitizing the area.
• Send reminders – An example would be to remind your residents that an amenity is closed for a certain number of hours for sanitation purposes.
• Send short messages – If a resident’s preferred method of communication is a text message, then it’s important to keep the message short, yet concise.  At the end of the message, refer to other places where they can access more detailed information, such as your website, knowledge base, or document library.    

Phone Calls

Some of your residents may prefer a phone call instead of email or a text message.  In this scenario, it’s important to keep your messages short, concise, and then only send them when necessary.  Examples of when a phone call is ideal are when you need to communicate any sudden change to amenity operational hours or if there is an emergency.

Flyers

Flyers are a great way to capture your resident’s attention to important information when they are in the common areas. Consider posting flyers in the pool area or entrance, community clubhouse, gyms, and in the entrances and insides of any amenity you have.  Keep content on the flyer short, use a bulleted list, and use imagery to attract resident’s eyes to important information.  Consider creating a flyer to convey important information such as: 

• Amenity open hours.
• Social distancing rules.
• Mask guidance or mandates that your community has in place.    
• Amenity use rules.
• Closed for cleaning signs. 
• Board member or management contact information.
• Signage on areas where the community is restricting capacity so that social distancing is followed.  

Documents

A document library is a centralized place for your residents to view all community documents.  It organizes and stores files such as newsletters, financials, emergency procedures, bylaws, maintenance matrix, and more.  In your document library, create a folder for your amenity reopening plans and policies. 

Consider uploading documents to your library such as:

• Reopening plan and revisions to the plan that incorporate city, state, and national CDC recommendations/regulations.  Be sure to accurately date all revisions you in the library so residents can retrieve the latest version. 
• Amenity layouts – If your community has a gym, then it can be helpful to mark which areas have reduced capacity limits. You can also mark which equipment cannot be used to practice social distancing rules.  
• Safety and sanitization measures the community is implementing.
• Convert the flyers you’ve created into a PDF file and then upload them to your document library. 

Knowledge Base or Q&A Section

Implementing a Q&A format to answer your resident\’s questions can help educate your residents about community safety and bring peace of mind to them.  Your community’s own knowledge base is a great place for residents to easily search and find answers.   

There are many questions that you can address in the knowledge base.  In fact, the information on your website and document library can also take the form of a Q&A in the knowledge base. These include amenity rules, capacity restrictions, expectations for safe behavior, sanitization procedures, guest policies, and more.

Keep your residents informed about reopening HOA amenities through Pilera

Using a mix of traditional and digital communication methods to reach your residents is always the best route to take.  That way, you can reach residents with time-sensitive information at the right time and place.

As a leading communications and management software provider, Pilera can help scale up your messaging & keep your residents informed every step of the way. Here\’s what you can do through Pilera:

• Send automated phone, email, and text messages to the entire community in one click and instantly know your message was sent. Send emails to your entire portfolio or create location and people-based distribution groups so you can send more targeted messages.  
• Create web pages, customize the content on the page, restrict access to board members or residents, and make a page public or private. You can also integrate various features within Pilera such as the document library and event calendar.
• Provide residents with a mobile-responsive portal so they can access the community\’s documents and knowledge base 24×7 on any device. Restrict documents by board member and type of occupant.
• Give residents control of how they hear from you. Residents can select their communication preferences such as email, phone, and text.  They can also view their communication history in the resident portal.   

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About Pilera

Pilera Software is the premier community and property management software that has helped thousands of community managers and back-office personnel enhance communications, improve customer service, and manage compliance and operations.  Contact us so you can see how Pilera’s community management suite can increase work efficiency for your company.

To start the new year, we’ve released some new exciting updates in the resident and board member portal.  These updates to the portal include a new home page when logging in and easier-to-use navigation. The new resident and board member portal aims to enhance the resident experience in the portal with visibility to important information and quick links to direct them to what they need.

What are these new updates all about?

Visibility into the community and unit information

When residents and board members log into the portal, they will be greeted by the dashboard that provides a high-level summary of what is occurring in the community and within their own unit. Residents can view open work orders, architecture change requests, packages that are awaiting pick-up, new messages in the past month, and open office hours for the day. Beneath each metric is a direct link to access that page for more details.

Update communication preference easily

Maintaining up-to-date contact information is critical so that residents and board members can be informed of important events happening in the community.  In the dashboard, the resident will see the phone number, email address, and text number they have on file with their community. The dashboard also provides quick links to update contact information and communication preference.  The preferred method of communication is denoted by a blue color in comparison to other contact methods, which are displayed in gray color. If the email address or text number is invalid, the dashboard will display an error message and the resident or board member can correct it.    

Make payments online and view the balance

The new dashboard provides residents and board members with access to their outstanding balance so that they can make a payment. The “Make a Payment” link right beneath the balance will direct them to the payment service to pay the dues.

Additional visibility for board members

In addition to the above metrics, board members will also gain a high-level view of the tasks and architecture change requests that are currently open in the community.

A more intuitive navigation

We’ve also improved the navigation structure to enhance the portal experience and make it easier to find information.  The new navigation items are Dashboard, Your Info, Unit, Community, Website, and Contact. Residents can manage their profile information through the Your Info tab.  They can also view and manage information pertaining to their home through the Unit tab, and view important information such as documents and events in the Community tab.  The website tab directs them to their community website. Through the Contact tab, residents and board members can send management a message.

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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. 

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.

The success of an HOA community relies on elected board members and their appointed management company to work together in carrying out decisions that are in the best interest of residents – from facilitating their use of community resources to maintaining or increasing their property values.  Oftentimes, in performing these duties, community managers and board members find themselves conflicted on matters concerning community operations. Disagreements may occur on the allocation of costs, vendor preferences, or any tasks to be completed. These conflicts can lead to tussles and distrust between the board and management, and ultimately, a decline in resident satisfaction.  However, ensuring a strong line of communication at each stage can help board members and management make huge strides in building trust and achieving shared goals. 

1) Create clear operating policies

When a management company onboards a new community, the first matter of business should be to draft an operations policy. The operations policy should support how managers and the board will handle rules set in the governing documents. The operations policy should state how important responsibilities such as owner correspondence, vendor bid solicitation, maintenance inspections, violations, board meetings, and other important projects will be handled. Here are other important considerations to include in the operations policy:

• Start out by listing the goals that the community wants to achieve.
• Instructions for each type of task or project to achieve the above goals.
• State whether a particular task falls under a board member’s responsibility or the community manager’s. Be sure to include the title (treasurer, community management, company executive, etc).
• Set the board member or community manager’s expectations and proper behavior for different types of tasks.
• Determine measures of success for each operational task and how that information will be collected and reported.
• Standard timeline for different operating activities.

2) Communicate, communicate, communicate!

The best way for the assigned community manager and the board member to stay on the same page is to communicate. Board members should communicate any shared decisions they make so that the community manager can have ample time to act upon it. Community managers, in turn, should always keep their board members informed of the status or any delays they encounter. Board members and managers should communicate via electronic means, whether it be a community management system or email. Any other action items or decisions made should be documented appropriately and distributed to the relevant parties.

3) Conduct focused management-board meetings

A common complaint about management-board meetings is that it is often lengthy and conducted without properly defined goals. Prior to any meeting, management should delegate one staff member to work with a board member to develop and distribute an agenda. Managers and board members should stick to this agenda to facilitate a productive, streamlined meeting. In the agenda, it’s important to include a brief overview of the last meeting minutes, projects/tasks worked on, achievements, challenges, and other items needed to be discussed. Prior to the meeting, managers should compile a list of the projects they are working on to improve community enjoyment for the residents. They should also compile a list of operational tasks such as work orders, support questions, tasks, violations, and architecture change requests that have been created, closed, and are still open.

4) Use a modern tracking system

Board members and community managers need a way to digitize all the information they are working with on a daily basis as well as a way to store their back and forth communication. A modern tracking system that allows for efficient record-keeping and robust communication between managers, board members, and residents can help streamline community operations. Here are some ways in which a tracking system such as Pilera can help align management and board member goals:

• Store documents such as meeting minutes in a document management system.
• Create a variety of tickets such as work orders, activity logs, tasks, violations, and architecture change requests from any device or location.
• Display the workload of staff members so that managers can assign tickets appropriately.
• Managers and board members can collaborate on tasks and architecture change requests and notify one another of the progress.
• Generate reports to display during community board meetings or management-board meetings.
• Notify residents of work orders completed or ACR’s approved.

Together, clearly defined policies, constant communication, focused meetings, and a way to digitize and track critical information can help HOA community managers and board members ensure that their goals are aligned and on-track.  Frequent communication can help significantly build trust and reduce friction between board members and management so they can improve the quality of living in the community.

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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.

A successful community relies heavily on the communication between board members and the community managers that carry out operations on their behalf.  Managers and board members work together to solicit vendor bids, draft budgets and reserves, and handle owner correspondences. With so many tasks to work on, they need an easy way to organize them and be able to reference them in the future.  Pilera’s board task management, now part of HOA+, empowers managers and board members to work together on community action items from initiation to completion.  In this article, we’ll cover five critical steps to take to ensure a successful implementation of task management.

Delegate roles

The first step to leveraging the board task management functionality is ensuring that managers and board members are designated the proper roles.  Company Admins and Community Managers will already be able to create and manage tasks. If any staff or board members are designated as a “Community Admin”, they will need to be assigned the “Task Admin” for any communities they will be handling tasks for. 
Where to find it: Settings → User Roles Administration

Create custom categories

Custom categories for the task management module refer to the types of tasks and its sub-tasks that managers and board members will work on in the communities they manage.  Creating these custom categories will help managers and board members to keep track of the type of tasks they work on and generate reports. Once you’ve created the categories and subcategories, you’ll then apply them to the communities that require them.  Take a look at some examples of custom categories you can create:

Where to find it: Settings → Templates → Task

Start creating your tasks and set a due date

Now, you’re ready to create tasks.  Tasks can be created out of action items that need to be taken care of, during or after a board or internal company meeting.  Managers and board members will have the option to add a detailed description, assign the ticket, set a due date, notify other board members/managers, and upload attachments.  Furthermore, managers will be able to set board member permissions on tickets they create.
Where to find this: Tickets → Task Management 

Keep your stakeholders in the loop

As each task progresses, you’ll want to keep other managers and board members in the loop.  You can reassign the task, update the status, and add a comment. Let’s say that you’re working on getting vendor quotes and you want to know how much the community paid for landscaping services.  Simply reassign the task to the manager or board member to get this information, ask your question in the comments, and have them assign the task back to you with their answer. Once the task is finished, simply change the status to “Complete”.  Pilera’s ticketing system tracks each action that is taken to a ticket to provide managers and board members with an audit trail.

Where to find this: Click on the “i” icon and click “Add Comment/Change Status/Assign”.

Master the dashboard and generate reports

Managers and board members can gain high-level or bird’s-eye view into the tasks that are being worked on for a community.  The dashboard provides powerful filtering capabilities based on varied business needs. Criteria that managers and board members can select from include community, status, custom category and subcategory, and date range.  Managers and board members can then generate reports and take them offline for a meeting or further analysis.  Take a look at these four use case scenarios that you can model for your own communities:

1. All tasks that have been completed by a specific manager or board member in the past year.
2. All the open tasks assigned to a manager or board member.  This is a great view for the assignee to see as they start work for the day. 
3. All tasks that have been created with the category Budgeting to review at the next board meeting.
4. A company admin can view a list of all open tasks assigned to managers across the entire portfolio. 

Pilera’s board task management module aims to bring more accountability and transparency into community tasks through the ability to set due dates and view a comprehensive audit trail of each action taken on a task.  In a successful implementation, managers and board members can manage each stage of the task while keeping important stakeholders informed and gaining business insights.

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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].  

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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. 

We\’re starting a brand new blog series, the Pilera Quarterly Wrap Up to give our readers a recap of the updates to our community and property management platform in the last quarter.  July through September of this year was packed with many new features and enhancements.  As a fun fact, we released a total of 101 updates to our software in the past three months.  Some of these are on user-facing and are designed to give managers more capabilities, while some are back-end enhancements that help to improve overall performance and speed!  Without further ado, let\’s take a look at the latest updates we\’ve added!

New Features

1. Board task management – Board members and staff can now collaborate on tasks with more efficiency and accountability through our new Board Task Management functionality.  This is a new product and there is an additional cost to purchase it – if you\’d like more information, please contact [email protected]. Here\’s what you can do with this new product:
   • Company Admins and Community Managers can assign Community Admins the Task Admin role to allow them the ability to create, assign, and track tasks.
   • Create custom categories and subcategories for different task items.
   • Managers and board members can create and assign tasks to other co-workers and board members.  They can also set board member permissions for each ticket: hide, view, comment or edit & comment.
     
   • Board members and managers can collaborate on each task.  All comments and status updates are tracked within the ticket, providing a comprehensive audit trail.
     
   • Managers and board members can filter on a variety of criteria such as community (available only to company admins, community managers, and task admins), category, subcategory, the manager or board member a task is assigned to, and date range.
     
   • Generate custom reports to take on the go or share at a board meeting.
2. Unit-level document management – Managers and residents can attach documents to a unit so that only managers and that unit’s residents can access those documents.  This new functionality filters and hides documents from past accounts automatically and has a dedicated units folder which is accessible to managers to track documents irrespective of the account.  Residents can also add documents to their account to share with tenants they are leasing their unit to or their property managers.
   
3. Custom categories – Managers can create their own custom categories for a variety of ticket types and apply/map the categories to all communities. In addition to creating new categories, managers can also edit default categories that already exist in Pilera to meet the company or community’s needs.  These ticket types are: Insurance, Occupant Activity Logs, Unit Activity Logs, Common Area Work Orders, Unit-Level Work Orders, and Task Management.
   
4. Communication-specific roles – There are now 4 new community-specific roles that give managers and board members more granular permissions.  As a friendly reminder, as we add new roles, the Community Admin role will have even more restricted permissions. These new roles will help you to better customize permissions that align with your staff and board members’ duties.
   • Message Admin – The Message Admin Role gives staff the capability to only send messages to the communities they are given the permission for.  Any current Community Admin will be grandfathered into the Message Admin role automatically so they can continue sending communications.
     
   • Monitoring Roles for Communications – When a manager is given the Announcement Monitor, Send Message Monitor, and/or Send Document Monitor role(s), they will receive all emails sent through those email types for the community.  This new role provides visibility to managers/board members of specific emails that are being sent out.  Assigning these roles will also help reduce spam to every manager in a community because they could instead give the select people the monitor role and exclude managers from the regular messages.
     
5. Vantaca Integration – Through this integration, managers will be able to bring resident data (resident record, email, phone number) and financial balances into Pilera.  Residents will be able to log into the portal to view their balance and ledger and update contact information, as well as access other Pilera functionality such as events, work orders, communications, and more.

The Big Enhancements

1. New fields in tickets – The unit activity log, occupant activity log, and rule violation tickets now include three new fields: contact name, contact email, and the option to notify a contact by email.  These fields will also now display in email notifications and downloaded reports.
2. Document library downloaded files – Previously, downloaded files would be placed in the browser’s download directory, causing confusion when retrieving the file. We’ve now added an “Open” file button that will open the file in a new browser window instead of automatically downloading it.  Residents can then choose to download the document manually or simply view it in their browser.
3. Activity Logs – We’ve added a notify managers radio button in the Activity Log so that when a manager updates a comment or status, all managers can be notified.
4. Ticket Deep Links – All tickets (work orders, activity logs, rule violations, and task management) include a unique URL that managers or board members can use to send an email with the ticket link in it.  It’s important to note that in order for a resident to view the ticket, they must be in the community, have view access to the ticket, and be logged in to view the ticket.
5. Message Center – Managers can now filter by year to view the message archive.

Other updates

1. Email Replies – We now display a warning message when sending an announcement, message, or event that if a manager does not have their email preferences turned on, they will not receive resident replies.
2. Resident Portal/Login
   • We’ve added a unit chooser in the resident portal which easily allows residents to switch between multiple units that they own.
   • “Request Login” has been changed to “Registration Request” for better clarity. Additionally, upon login failure, the Forgot Username/Password option will be highlighted.
   • The verbiage has been updated to assist residents with their login.
3. Resident Account Filtering – We’ve updated the verbiage when a manager is in the “Move Out/Create New Account for Unit” window.  When no occupant has been selected yet, managers can either select individually or click “Assign All to New Account”. When selecting an occupant, the action will be to “Confirm Remove and Reassignment”.  We’ve made these verbiage changes for better clarity.
4. User Experience Updates
   • We’ve made minor adjustments on the Personal tab of the Occupant listing.
   • We’ve adjusted the font size on content editors in the communications and knowledge base.
   • We’ve increased the speed of the welcome message dashboard page.
5. Send Message – Managers can now send a message directly in the Occupants listing page under the more actions button (denoted as the three dots).
6. Automatic Welcome Messages – The portal now displays if the community has automatic welcome messages turned off or on.  If it is turned off and you want this capability turned on for your community(ies), please contact [email protected].
7. Dialing – Areas of the app have been improved for mobile to allow for dialing of resident phone numbers.

Thanks for tuning in to the Pilera Quarterly Wrap Up, and we look forward to sharing brand new updates to improve work efficiency in your communities.

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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.