hoa management

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.

Note: This blog post has been updated in August 2021 to incorporate new ways in which you can increase resident engagement through Pilera. In the past two years, we\’ve added many new features to help managers, board members, and residents to work together to build a strong community!

Resident engagement is crucial to any HOA, condo, or apartment\’s management operations. In a recent poll we conducted, residents stated how easy it is to get information online. They liked that they could get useful information about their community, but wished their managers would update information more regularly. When you keep residents informed, they\’ll be more invested in the community. High resident engagement contributes to a better-run community. Pilera’s web portal offers many ways for you to increase resident engagement through communications, documents, events, and more.  In this month’s Manager Toolkit, we share 10 ways you can inform, engage, and delight residents!

1) Communicate frequently with your residents

Keeping your residents informed about what is happening in the community is key to establishing trust. The best way to keep your residents informed is by communicating with them frequently. Examples of communications you can send to your residents include:

• Maintenance work that may impact acces to certain areas of the community.
• Important changes to the community that may impact residents.
• General announcements.

Through Pilera, you can schedule announcements and messages to your community. You can also segment the announcement by the type of resident (owner, tenant, and other-occupant), street, building, floor, or unit.

2) Let residents submit work orders & notify them of the progress

Residents will contact you when they need to report something that needs to be fixed in their unit or community. The most efficient way is to let residents submit work order requests on their own time. Residents can describe the issue and add documents or photos to provide managers with important details. Once you receive the resident’s work order, keep them informed of the status. Here are a few tips in Pilera on how to handle work order requests from start to finish:

• If there is a common response that you find yourself repeatedly typing, that calls for a template! In the Settings, navigate to Templates and click on “Work Order Comments” to create predetermined comments your staff can use.
• To inform residents on the progress of their request, update the status, add comments, let residents view the ticket in the portal.
• You can choose to send email notifications to the resident each time you update the status or add a comment.
• Allow your residents to comment on a work order request so they can send you follow-up questions.

3) Make it easy for residents to contact you

It\’s important for your residents to know that their voices will be heard. The best way to encourage two-way communication between you and the resident is to have a customer support box for your community. That way, residents can contact you about questions, problems, or suggestions. Through Pilera\’s new Support Management feature, residents can submit a support ticket, get updates, and comment on a ticket directly in the portal.

4) Encourage residents to submit Architectural Change Requests

Residents will oftentimes make upgrades or structural changes to their homes to increase enjoyment, improve safety, or build upon its value. Many upgrades such as adding a new section to the house or a garage will require board member approval. To create a smooth approval process, encourage your residents to submit their architectural change requests online. Through Pilera\’s architectural module, residents can upload documents or photos and receive updates through email or directly in the app. Board members and managers can assign architectural requests, comment on them, and keep the resident updated.

5) Add documents to the library

Are your residents searching for the latest newsletter or board meeting minutes? Direct them to the document library. A document library is an incredibly helpful tool for your residents to stay updated about the community. It’s also a great way in which you can convert unhappy or unengaged residents to more informed residents. Through Pilera’s document library, you can organize files using folders and subfolders, send documents via email, and set permissions for folders based on the type of resident (owner, tenant, other-occupant, or board member). Some examples of document folders that you can implement in your community’s document library are board meeting minutes, emergency procedures, and more.

6) Provide 24×7 access to an online help center

Are your residents constantly calling the management office to ask about guest pet policies or how to access amenities? If they are, then an online help center can help you significantly to reduce calls to the office while helping residents to essentially help themselves get answers quickly. In Pilera’s knowledge base/help center, you can add topics across multiple communities and create tags for each article to improve searchability.

7) Allow residents to self-serve themselves

One of the most important ways to meet resident expectations in a “digital-first” world is to provide them with self-service capabilities. In Pilera, there are many ways in which residents can update their information and stay informed. Other information residents can access and update in the portal:

• Update their contact information.
• Manage other occupants contact information so they can receive communications.
• Update alternate addresses, pets, insurance, and vehicle information.
• Lease information if the resident is leasing out their unit as short term rentals.
• View unit activity logs and reply to management.
• View rule violations and reply to management.

8) Provide ways for residents to get in touch with you or important community personnel

It’s important for residents to have contact information at the tip of their fingers. In Pilera, you can add office hours, board member information, and community contacts. Keeping your office hours up to date helps to set expectations for your residents on when they can speak to someone or when they can expect to hear back from their manager. Office hours can be applied to multiple communities at once if they are consistent across the board to help you save time. Add board members and their titles to display in the portal so that residents will get to know their community leaders. Community contacts are individuals whom your residents may need to contact about a specific question or concern they may have. Community contacts may include property managers, help desk personnel, board members, maintenance and landscaping personnel.

9) Invite residents to community events

As a part of planning your community gathering or next board meeting, make sure to send an invitation out to your residents. In the Pilera portal, you can create an event, add a description and contact person, and choose to send an email notification to the community. You can also update your community calendar to display all upcoming events. Residents can log into the portal at any time and be in the know of upcoming events!

10) Let residents opt into the community directory

In bringing the community together, encourage friendship and constructive dialogue among neighbors. The community directory is a great way for residents to get information to connect to one another. In Pilera, residents can choose to share their address and contact information with the rest of the community, if they wish.

Through Pilera\’s web portals, you\’ll be able to provide your residents with all important community information in one central, secure platform. The effort of keeping your platform fresh with all the latest information has a high payoff in the future. Self-serving residents with the content they want access to on a frequent basis helps to keep them engaged and save time for your staff. A central platform with relevant information is an investment that pays off well for the future of the communities you manage as well as your organization as a whole.