document library

March has definitely been a busy month here at Pilera, and we have many feature updates and enhancements to share with you! In our second release this month, you’ll learn about the new document library imports, exports, and backup features. We’ve also released a vast number of feature enhancements to make your work simpler.  Then, stay tuned till the end for an exciting update on our QuickBooks Online integration!  Let\’s get started…

New Features

Document Library Import

Management companies and communities can now request to import documents into the document library for their community(ies). New clients that have a collection of existing documents, as well as current clients that are onboarding new communities, can request an import of their documents.  The document import will honor your folder structure so that all of your files are organized in the portal.  More information on this functionality will be available shortly in the New Community Setup, New Client Setup, and Configuration Change Request forms within Pilera Resources.    

Document Library Export

Companies can now request an export of their community(ies)’ document library so they can take their files offline.  The export will preserve the customer’s folder structure.  Managers can request a document library export through the Configuration Change Request form in Pilera Resources within the app. 

Enhancements

Custom “From Name” now displays in the resident message center

In the Reply-To settings, managers are able to set a custom “From name” that displays as the sender name. As of this release, the resident message center will now display the “From name” (community name, for example) instead of the name of the manager who sent the email. 

Distribution Groups update

In January 2021, we introduced a powerful new feature enabling managers to configure their own distribution groups by location and people.  This month, we’ve enhanced the ability for managers to easily search for and add on-site managers to the distribution group.

Activity Logs in the Manager Dashboard

Through the manager dashboard, managers can now see all their assigned Activity Logs and quickly access those tickets.

Document Library:

We’ve improved the user experience for client-level files in the document library by removing a limitation where you could only share a file 32 times.  For example, when a manager shares a client-level file in 50 locations, they can now expand to see all communities they have shared the file with. The “Show in Tree” functionality enables managers to see where the file is located in the document library tree.

Work Orders Reports

We’ve updated the verbiage on the Work Order Summary and Detail reports as well as the Print Ticket Sheets to say “Due Date” to match the ticket fields.

Tickets

• We’ve enhanced ticket notifications so that when a manager comments on a ticket but makes no other changes, the assignee will receive an email notification. Due to privacy and permissions, we still do not display manager-only comments in emails.  
• In the ticket dashboard, we’ve improved the “reset” function so that it defaults to the one-year date range.

Vendor App

The vendor app updates include a few improvements when adding staff, removing vendors from a vendor set, and adding a license expiration date to the record.

Condo/Rental

We’ve improved the date picker for the license expiration date and insurance expiration date fields in the pets module.

Help Icon removed from Mobile

Earlier this year, we added a new Help icon throughout our app to provide our customers with quick access to help articles about Pilera functionality.  Since the help icon was hindering access to important functions on a mobile device, we have removed it.  However, you can still access the help icon and our built-in help center while using Pilera on your desktop and tablet devices. 

Feature Fixes

Welcome Message

Previously, welcome messages that managers sent from the occupant profile page showed the sender as “Registration” in the message center.  That has now been enhanced to display the sender as the employee who sent the welcome message.

Work Order Ticket Tables

In the March 2nd update, we’ve modified the work order ticket tables to make it easier to prioritize your tickets.  This month, we’ve made a small user interface fix to the Due Date column.  Previously, when you removed a due date from a ticket, it would say “NAN” until you refreshed the page.

Integration Updates

QuickBooks Online

In your community, it’s very possible that a unit may be owned by multiple owners (primary and secondary owners).  Primary owners are added to QuickBooks as Customers, whereas secondary owners are added in QuickBooks Online as Sub-Customers.  We’re thrilled to announce that we can now bring both Customers and Sub-Customers into Pilera and display the financial balance and ledger for both.

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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? Contact us to see how Pilera’s community management suite can help your company.

Are you spending a lot of time and money to print and mail notices to residents, update your operational procedures binder, or work on multiple systems to complete different tasks?  If you answered yes to any of these questions, then inefficient processes or systems might be slowing you down.  Every HOA management company wants to cut down costs so that they can increase their profitability.  Taking your business operations online and consolidating your operations in one platform can help to achieve this.  Managers and staff spend less time performing manual tasks and can refocus their efforts on the goals that matter.  In this blog article, we focus on the 6 ways to save your HOA management company money with dedicated software and how one can further streamline each process with Pilera.

1) Manage in the cloud

Cloud-based software is one aspect of technology where managers experience the most flexibility.  Cloud-based software is hosted on the software vendor’s server whereas an on-premise software is installed on the company’s servers.  A cloud-based platform offers many benefits such as ease of mobility, decreased IT costs and increased security.  Aside from how the software is accessed, the other most discernible difference is in pricing.  With on-premise software, there are costs related to purchasing, installation, storing the server, maintaining, and upgrading the software on a yearly basis.  Cloud-based software pricing is based on a monthly or yearly subscription model.  Pilera’s software is a complete cloud-based software solution that uses Amazon Web Service to host its HOA management software platform.  Managers can take their communication, maintenance, and support tasks all on the go.  Managers aren’t restricted to a single device and do not have the burden of maintaining software or server upgrades.

2) Digital communication = reduced mailing and labor costs

Communicating with residents on a regular basis is important to streamlining operations and improving customer satisfaction.   With traditional communication, employees had to spend hours printing and mailing letters.  The digital landscape provides an excellent opportunity for managers to save time and money. Now with software, managers can send emails, text messages, and make phone calls to their entire community in one click.  These advancements in technology enable managers to save thousands of dollars alone in electronic communication.

With Pilera’s automated communication and management platform, managers can reduce mailing costs by sending notices, newsletters, work order updates, violations, and ARC updates in a single platform.  Additionally, managers can let residents choose how they want to hear from them – phone, email & text with language preference. This enables you to improve the effectiveness of your communication efforts by delivering messages in the way that residents are most likely to consume them. 

3) Store and share documents online

HOA management companies need to share important documents with residents and board members such as company news, policy updates, CC&Rs, and more.  However, constantly printing documents to hand out at meetings or to post in common areas can become cumbersome. Digitizing your documents saves employees a lot of time as they can easily search and share files. Companies may opt to use a document management platform, but if it’s not connected to a resident portal, it can easily add extra steps to the process and reduce efficiency.

The document management system in Pilera provides a way for managers to structure documents and folders, set permissions for access, and email documents.  It\’s also connected to the resident portal and community website to provide consistency and ease of access. When a manager updates a document, they don’t need to reprint it when they are finished.  They can simply replace the document in Pilera and notify residents that a new version is available.  The document also becomes available on the community website at the same time. 

4) Send out forms electronically

Forms are a great way to collect important information and gain feedback about your services.  However, the traditional method of sending paper forms won’t suffice in the digital world.  When you digitize your forms, they are more easily accessible by residents and you can receive quicker responses than mail-in forms. Additionally, managers can quickly gain analytics on the form responses. They\’ll able to spend less time tallying responses and can focus their efforts on taking action to better the community.

Through the forms feature in Pilera, managers can customize your questions and have the form easily accessible in the resident portal. A few examples of forms that can be implemented include resident satisfaction, community improvement, and election.  Through the forms integration, managers can analyze their data in easy to understand charts.  

5) Get accurate resident contact information

Community managers need to keep in touch with residents frequently, but it’s tough to maintain the most up to date information.  Managers should not have to spend hours trying to get the right contact information. To get correct contact information faster, managers can provide a portal for residents to update their contact information when there are any changes.

Within Pilera’s resident portal, managers save time and get accurate data when residents update their contact information, vehicle, pet, alternate addresses, and other occupants to receive communication.  Anytime a resident updates contact information in Pilera, managers will receive an email notification so they are made aware of what changed. 

6) Streamline your management operations under one platform

Many management companies often use multiple software programs for communication, customer support, maintenance, and resident interactions.  However, using multiple systems can introduce inefficiencies as those software platforms cannot interact with one another and are usually not built for a single industry.  A community management platform streamlines operational efficiency by bringing your managers, staff, board members, and residents all in one platform.

Pilera’s community management software has something for everyone, keeping all your stakeholders in sync.  Managers can communicate with residents, track maintenance, deliver customer support, keep residents engaged, interact with board members, and keep vendors informed in one platform.  Board members can handle all of their tasks and see how the community is performing.  Residents can pay dues, submit maintenance requests, update contact information and preferences, and view documents, events, resident directory, and more.

There are many ways that managers can save time and money with a community management platform by transitioning their operations to digital and running their business operations in one platform instead of many separate platforms.  Through Pilera’s community management software, community managers can unify their operations by cutting their costs and positioning themselves for better growth.

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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? Contact us to see how Pilera’s community management suite can help your company.

Greetings everyone,

This month, we are back with more updates on our Communication+ product for management companies and a very cool enhancement to improve your document library management experience.  

New Feature:

1. Get Communication+ directly from the app
   In December 2019, we released a new product called Communication+ to help managers connect with their residents in a more efficient and cost-effective manner.  Through Communication+, managers can send automated phone calls and text messages to residents for only $2/unit/year.  In the communication section of the app (Send Announcement/Send Message), managers will see if they are at 0 credits and not on a plan. Management companies can purchase the Communication + plan for as little as $75/month for the entire portfolio.  Here’s how you can take community outreach to the next level with Communication +:
   • Reach out to residents who don’t have an email address on file with automated text messages or phone calls.
   • Allow residents to select their communication preferences. 
   • Send relevant messages to residents by location or user type segmentation.   
   • Reliably send out emergency phone calls to the entire community or a segment in an instant through our Reverse 911 functionality. 

Enhancements:

1. We have streamlined the folder creation process in the document library.  Now, when creating a folder, you can adjust the permissions, sort order, and description immediately in the same user interface.  This new enhancement will help managers save time in managing folders in the document library.
   

2. The opt-out notification previously stated “notifications for your community”; thus, when selecting “Yes”, managers/residents were not sure if they were opting out.  For better clarity, we now include in the message directly “Opt-out of notifications”. That way, they know that by selecting “Yes”, they are opting out.
   

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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? Contact us to see how Pilera’s community management suite can help your company.

Note: This article has been updated on August 16, 2022, to include the latest resident portal features in Pilera.

Giving residents the tools that they need to have an enriching experience in their community is critical to delivering good customer service.  Tools that are built with a self-service mindset enables residents to access information quickly, on any device, and with a minimal amount of help.  A self-service resident portal is just as beneficial to residents as it is to managers. It reduces calls to the office, giving managers more time back in the day to focus on other projects. As a management company, your customer service efforts will pay off with happier communities that want to retain your services for years to come. In this article, you’ll learn about 12 features within Pilera that will impress your residents while improving employee workload.

What is a Resident Portal?

A resident portal is a place for residents to log in and view important information about their community.  Residents can access documents, learn about upcoming events, and see messages that managers send them.  When residents need to request a repair in the unit, they can submit a work order and track the status.  Additionally, if residents want to make structural improvements, they can submit architectural change requests for the board\’s approval.  Portals provide residents with a convenient way to pay dues online and view their financial transactions with the community.

12 Features of a Self-Service Resident Portal

1) Resident Portal Dashboard

The resident dashboard, released in January 2020, gives residents a high-level insight into what is occurring in their unit and the community.  Residents can see their current balance, open work orders and ACRs, messages received, and packages waiting to be picked up.  The dashboard also gives residents quick access to view more information for each key metric.  Additionally, residents can update their contact information so they\’ll never miss out on important communication from the community. 

2) Manage unit information in the resident portal

Residents can gain access to and maintain their unit information all in one place.  Residents can upload unit documents for management to see. They can view the latest messages that managers have sent them and view updates on their work orders or architecture change requests.  They can also manage other occupants in the unit, and keep vehicle, alternate addresses/contacts, and pet information updated. Additionally, multi-unit owners can manage all their respective information for each unit under one login, a capability not provided by many community management platforms.

3) Online Payment

As more residents continue to use their smartphones for everyday tasks, it’s important to provide them with flexible ways to pay their dues online.  Within Pilera, residents can make online payments to the bank of your choice or through our integrated partner Paylease. Residents can also view their balance and ledger to understand their financial history with the community.   

4) Work Order Request

Giving residents the ability to submit work order requests through a resident portal will help to reduce inbound calls to your office.  Through Pilera, residents can submit work order requests for their unit as well as the common area.  In addition to adding details to the work order, residents can also attach images of the issue.  As managers work on the request, they can post updates and choose to notify the resident by email.  Pilera also provides advanced occupant permissions so you can choose how residents interact with you on their work order requests.  You can allow residents to simply view the work order ticket or allow them to post comments.  

5) Architectural Change Request

When residents want to make structural improvements to their homes, they can submit an architectural request change ticket to get board and manager approval.  Along with details of the change, residents can also add attachments and photos.  Board members can comment on the ticket about whether they approve or reject the request, and can opt to send an email notification to residents.

6) Community Directory

A way for residents to stay connected to their neighbors is through the community directory.  Residents can opt-in to share their address, email address, or phone number with the rest of the community.  Additionally, they can view other residents who have opted in to share their contact information.

7) Community Document Library

Adding documents is a great way to keep your residents logging into the portal. A document library is a place for residents to securely obtain important files that their management has shared with them.  The document library is the page that residents visit the most within their community portal in Pilera. Add documents such as rules and regulations, emergency procedures, board meeting minutes, financials, additional forms, and copies of the previous month’s newsletters. Make sure to keep the document library relevant and fresh with the latest files so your residents will continually log in.   

8) Knowledge base

The knowledge base is a searchable FAQ section where residents can find the answers they need quickly.  It\’s important to note that the knowledge base is as good as the content that you put in.  Consider adding content that answers questions your residents most frequently ask.  Also, don\’t forget to tag your articles so residents can find answers quickly.

9) Event calendar

A great way to foster engagement in your communities is through hosting events and inviting your residents to take part in them.  We hear from our clients that they also post routine information in the calendar, such as maintenance alerts or trash pickup. The event calendar in Pilera helps you to handle the event details and notifications in a single place instead of in an external calendar provider.  Residents can log in and filter specific categories of events they\’re interested in. You can also send residents an email notification about an upcoming event so they will not miss it.

10) Forms

Forms are a great way to collect feedback and other pertinent information from your residents. Consider adding a resident satisfaction survey or a community improvement form so you can deliver better resident experiences. Examples of forms that you can post in the portal include condominium sales requests, election/voting, clubhouse rental, pool packets, and more.  

11) Submit support requests within the resident portal

It’s important to encourage two-way communication with your residents.  Making it easy for your residents to contact the management company when they have a question or concern is the best way to do that.  Within Pilera’s resident portal, residents can submit a support request and get updates without calling the office.  Managers can assign support requests to other staff, set a due date, and prioritize the task. Furthermore, to increase communication, managers and residents can add comments to the request and receive email updates.

Note: The Resident Support Ticket feature is included in the Help Desk product. When integrated with Pilera\’s Resident Portal, residents can submit and track their support requests.

12) Community Communications

Good communication is at the heart of all successful communities. Studies have shown that resident satisfaction increases when their community keeps in touch with them through frequent community updates. Pilera makes it easy to communicate in your resident\’s preferred method of communication and language. Residents can choose from phone, email, text, or postal mail to receive communications. They can also choose from 100+ languages for email and text as well as English and Spanish for phone calls. Within the portal itself, residents can view a history of all communications you have sent to them. Additionally, filtering capabilities enable by message type and year enable residents to quickly find the message they\’re looking for.

Conclusion

Through these 12 self-service resident tools within the portal in Pilera, management companies are better positioned to improve their customer service operations so they can deliver constant value to their communities.  Keeping the portal up-to-date will ensure that your residents always stay happy and informed and that communities will continue to renew your services for years to come.  

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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 increase operational efficiency.  May we help your community achieve these success stories?  Try Pilera today!

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. 

In July 2019, we released brand new functionality where managers can upload documents to a unit or specific resident account.  This gives managers the ability to store documents for internal use or to share them with residents, and in turn, have residents share documents with management.  In this month’s edition of the Manager Toolkit series for our community and property managers, we discuss some best practices for unit document management.

Tip # 1: Organize your documents using folders and subfolders

The framework for folders and subfolders in the unit document area is similar to a feature that you may already familiar with, the newer document library.  Creating folders and subfolders not only is a great way to organize your documents but it also allows you to set more granular permissions for each folder.  We’ll walk through permissions more in Tip # 3.

Tip # 2: Upload unit-specific files to the “Unit File” folder

The “Unit File” folder is a designated place where managers can store documents that are specific to a unit and is not tied to a current or previous resident.  This folder can be managed and viewed by community and property managers only. Here are some applicable scenarios of uploading documents to a unit:

• Maintenance contracts for units.
• Equipment warranty documents.
• Inspection documents.

Tip # 3: When adding documents to a resident specific folder, set permissions

This new feature also allows managers and residents to attach documents to a unit so that only managers and that unit’s residents can access those documents.  This means that by default, Pilera’s system filters and hides documents from past accounts using the resident account management framework we implemented earlier this year.  There are three default folders you will find in each resident account:

• Management – Folders and files here are visible to management only.
• Owner – Only managers and owners can see folders and files here.  Managers can allow owners to view files, to upload files, or choose to not display files to them.
• Tenant – Only managers and tenants can see folders and files here.  Managers can specify one of three permissions: allow tenants to access files, upload files, or choose to not display files to them.

Managers can allow residents to upload a variety of documents:

• A signed copy of lease agreements and renewals.
• Pet vaccination records and photos of their pet.
• Copies of insurance policies such as renters or homeowners insurance.
• Inspection forms and photos of issues.
• Other filled/signed forms.

Tip # 4: Add a title and description to all folders and files

Finally, when you create folders and upload files, it’s very important that you add titles and descriptions to them.  Folder/file names should be clear and concise, making it easy for your staff to understand the contents of it.  The description can be a high-level summary of what the folder or file is about or specific instructions for your staff and residents.

Unit level documents help with internal accountability, efficiency, and customer service

By attaching documents to a unit or a resident account, managers can keep their documents better organized, thus improving internal accountability, operational efficiency, and customer service efforts.  Rather than maintaining a binder, managers can keep a record of all pertinent resident and unit information within the unit itself.  The tips we\’ve highlighted above will set managers for success as they handle all document needs in the communities they manage for each unit.

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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. 

Greetings,

We’ve been busy developing some cool features, one of which many of our clients asked for  – new custom categories for tickets. Also, we’re releasing unit-level documents where managers and residents can attach documents to a unit, new accounting integration, and the ability for residents to easily switch between multiple units they reside/own.  Without any further ado, let’s get started!

New Features

Unit-Level Documents

Unit-Level Documents is a new feature that allows managers and residents to 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.  

Custom Ticket Categories

Custom categories for tickets is a feature that many of our clients wanted to see in Pilera, and we are happy to announce its inclusion in today’s release!  Managers now have the ability to 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 include:

• Insurance
• Occupant Activity Logs
• Unit Activity Logs
• Common Area Work Orders
• Unit-Level Work Orders

Custom categories are located under Settings → Templates.

Once you’ve added the custom category, you can navigate to the tickets area and create a ticket and select the category/subcategory.

New Integrations

Vantaca Integration

Pilera now integrates with Vantaca, one of the leading accounting providers in the community management industry.  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.

Enhancements

Resident Portal

We\’ve now added a unit chooser in the resident portal which easily allows residents to switch between multiple units that they own.

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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. 

In the past few months’ Manager Toolkit series, you’ve been learning more about how to increase your community outreach through our communications platform.  This month, we discuss the new document library and how you can enhance the document management experience for your team members and enable secured access to community members.  

The features in the new document library give more flexibility and granularity to the file-specific actions you can take.  To help you succeed in building an easily navigatable document library for your residents, we’ve put together a list of the top eight tips.

1) Assign user roles to designate responsibilities in your company

Designating user roles in a software system in such a way that it aligns with your staff’s responsibilities gives more focus and meaning to the goals your staff is trying to accomplish.  In Pilera, we’ve added company and community-specific user roles to help increase accountability, enhance security, and provide better flexibility to your staff. We’ve added new company and community-specific roles that pertain to the new document library.  You can assign the company file library manager role to those individuals in your company who will handle the document library across the portfolio as well as community file library manager roles to the individuals who will administer file library actions for the communities they manage.

2) Structure your folders for easy organization

Developing a good folder structure/hierarchy involves organizing folders in a way that is easy for other community managers to add files in and manage.  In the new document library, managers can now create as many folders and subfolders as they need to give their team and residents easier document management and retrieval experience.  

3) Grant or restrict file access through permissions

An important part of structuring your folders is setting permissions.  This is important so that you can grant or restrict access to the files in the folders.  There are four resident types you can grant or restrict permission to. These include board members, owners, tenants, and other occupants. Folder permissions ensure that only the residents you want to give access to documents will be able to view them in the resident portal.

4) Upload multiple files at once

To save time, you can upload many files to a folder at once.  In Pilera, the number of files you can have in your document library is unlimited.

5) Share files to multiple communities

If many communities need access to the same documents, you can quickly share the file while retaining file consistency throughout.  Sharing files from one community to many more saves time by eliminating the need to upload replica files multiple times.

6) Replace an existing file with a new one

You may need to regularly update an existing file in the document library for many reasons: 1) As the business evolves, you have more information to share 2) To correct previously added information.  You can simply upload a new version of the existing file and the change will propagate to all other communities in which you have shared this file.

7) Use Company-level Folders to distribute content to your communities

Using the company or portfolio-level folders in Pilera is a great way to maintain the characteristics (such as name and description) of your original file while sharing that file with multiple communities.  One such example is a Company Policy file that needs to be distributed to board members in each community. There are many benefits to using a company-level folder: 1) The original file you share to multiple communities retains its name and description even if you upload a new version.  2) Files can be controlled and retained at the admin level in the event you no longer manage a specific community. 3) It gives managers an easier way to organize the files they will be sharing to their communities.

8) Notify community members of new files

In the new version of the document library, you can inform residents of files in three different ways within Pilera that give you better control over who sees your message.  These include the ability to notify residents by user role (board member, owner, tenant, or other-occupant), by location in Send Announcements area, and to one or multiple select residents in the Send Messages area.    

We hope you enjoyed going through this list of best practices to take your document management to the next level.  We’ll be back with more tips on how to best use various features in Pilera for your HOA’s and condos. Until next time, take a look at our other articles from the Manager Toolkit Series.  Enjoy!