task 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.

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

Where you can find the new report:

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

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

1) Gain business insights on a community or portfolio level

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

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

2) Determine the profitability of a client

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

3) Successfully compete in the property management marketplace

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

4) Improve staffing decisions

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

5) Increase client satisfaction by providing business advice to clients

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

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

About Pilera

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

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.

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.

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,

Last month, we released a new product called Board Task Management where board members and managers can assign tasks to each other, set follow-up dates for when tasks need to be completed, and gain insights on work being done through powerful reports and dashboards.  We are offering a free trial of Task Management for a full month.  If interested, please contact [email protected].  

Enhancements

This month, we\’re back with a few enhancements to communications, resident login, and task management.

• In the Occupant listing page, managers can now search residents by their account number.  To start a search, navigate to the Occupant listing page and enter in the partial or full account number.  You can also use the shortcode “a:” and then enter in the partial number subsequently to find the resident account.
• When a welcome email is generated by Pilera and the resident creates a username and password, they will be directed to the management company login page.
• We’ve added a warning message to inform managers on the Send Message or Announcement screen if they are sending a text message to a resident who does not have a text number or their communication preferences set in the system.
• In the new task management product, we’ve removed the option to assign a ticket to a board member if the community is configured as an Apartment community in the Pilera system.

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 article was updated in March 2023 to include new strategies and features that Pilera offers for board members and managers.

As an HOA board member or community manager, you understand the importance of streamlining community tasks and achieving your goals efficiently. That\’s why we\’re thrilled to introduce Pilera\’s robust task management feature. With this powerful tool at your disposal, you can collaborate seamlessly with your other board members and managers to tackle a wide range of association action items, from financial and budget preparation to vendor bids and beyond. In this blog post, we\’re thrilled to showcase the many ways that Pilera\’s Board Task Management can help you achieve your community\’s objectives with confidence and ease.

Out with the spreadsheets, in with online Board Task Management

Board members and managers often resort to using spreadsheets or notepads to monitor tasks, assignees, deadlines, and other vital details. These spreadsheets can become lengthy with various tabs or countless rows based on your community operations, making it challenging to handle over time.

With Pilera\’s task management platform, you now have an easier way of monitoring tasks, assignees, and deadlines for all of your tasks. Here\’s how:

• Create new tasks on the go through any device, which means you can be at a board meeting creating as they are being discussed.  No details will be missed!
• When creating a task, you can set a due date and priority which will help keep your team on track and improve accountability.  You will then be able to see which tasks are due soon for the community(ies) you oversee in one place.
• Create custom categories and subcategories for similar types of tasks you regularly work on, so you can report on them later.

Better Communication = Better Communities

The foundation of every successful community is strong communication. When board members and managers work together toward a common community goal, a steady flow of communication is a must to build trust, improve accountability, and ensure success.  Our task management is built to inform stakeholders of tasks at every step of the way. When board members or managers assign tasks to each other, an email notification will be sent out with the relevant task details.  Board members and managers can inform each other of important updates as each task progresses. Pilera has a built-in audit log that tracks every comment or update to a task.  

Power through task creation easily with automation

One way to reduce your team\’s workload is through leveraging automation. In early 2023, Pilera released a new feature where you can power through the task creation process faster by creating tasks in bulk.

Bird’s-eye view or minute details, it’s your choice!

Board members and managers can choose how they want to view their data to help them make better-informed decisions.  The task management dashboard has powerful filtering capabilities that can fit a variety of business needs from an aerial view or one that’s drilled down to the minutest detail.  For example, you can filter the dashboard by the assignee or the task category. You can also sort your tasks by how old the task is, the priority, or the due date so you can work on what is most important.

There are multiple ways to slice and dice your data based on your needs. Let us explore a few possibilities:

• A board member can view all high-priority open tasks related to budgeting that they’ve assigned to their dedicated manager.  They can then open each task to see the latest comments and join the conversation.
• Managers can view their staff’s workload on a particular day.  If a staff member doesn’t have enough bandwidth, a task can be reassigned to someone else.
• Individual staff and board members can see all their open tasks that are due today.  They can then sort the data according to priority, age of the task, or due date. 

Run on-demand reports

On a regular basis, you will need to analyze how your community is performing. The on-demand reporting feature enables you to take your data offline for further analysis or to review during board meetings.  These reports benefit board members by summarizing high-level information on how each task is progressing. Managers can benefit from these reports by being able to show all the tasks they have worked on for a community.  The on-demand reporting feature is a great way to communicate the transparency of your operations and complete tasks with confidence.

Want to learn more about Board Task Management?

From managing action items to increasing accountability and transparency, the new board task management product can help board members and managers collaborate together toward fulfilling common community responsibilities.  If you are interested in seeing a demo or learning about how you can purchase this product for your communities today, please contact [email protected].

About Pilera

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

We\’re back this month with 2 big new features and several enhancements that we\’re thrilled to share with you!  First up is our new Board & Task Management feature, which will help boards and managers collaborate on responsibilities to build better communities.  Next, we have new roles that will give managers more granularity in the roles they assign to staff members.  Without further ado, let\’s start!

New Features

1. Board & Task Management

Board members and staff can now work together on tasks better than ever with our new Board Task Management functionality.    Here\’s what the new feature offers:

• We’ve implemented a new dedicated role for the new functionality called the Task Admin.  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.
  
• Board members can assign tasks or “action items” to other board members or managers during or after board meetings.
• Managers and staff can create and assign tasks to other co-workers.  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.
  
• Dashboards provide company executives, managers, and board members with the high-level or granular insights based on their business needs.  They 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.

This functionality is a new product and there is an additional cost to purchase it.  For more information on how you can purchase this new product, please contact [email protected].

2. New Roles, Better Granularity

In this release, we’ve added 4 new community-specific roles to 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 new 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 nad exclude managers from the regular messages.
  
  

Enhancements:

1. 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.
2. Ticket Deep Links – All tickets (work orders, activity logs, rule violations, and task management) now 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.
3. Message Center – Managers can now filter by year to view the message archive.
4. Send Message – Managers can now send a message directly in the Occupants listing page under the more actions button (denoted as the three dots).
5. 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].  
6. Welcome Message Dashboard – We\’ve increased the speed of the welcome message dashboard page to improve performance and user experience.
7. Dialing – Areas of the app have been improved for mobile to allow for dialing of resident phone numbers.
8. Resident Login – We’ve updated the verbiage on the login page to assist residents with their login.
   

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.