Lots more to achieve

Not too long ago, it was a struggle to think of new CondoConduit features that would not add unnecessary complexity for you - the end users. It seemed for awhile that anything suggested would just be too complicated for associations to readily adopt.

Well, looking at our new and upcoming features I can't imagine WHAT we were thinking! It seems the sky's the limit for new features and enhanced usability! Maybe it's recent enhancements in web design or the huge adoption rates by folks of all ages - but it's clear that there's lots of room to grow.

Useability is always front and center in our development plans and that will not change - but as more and more associations find extraordinary utility in features like our Work Request system, we want to enhance those features to make them even better.


Recent CondoConduit Enhancements:

• Add Text to Listing tabs: On any Document page with multiple tabs, go to the the Administration tab and click the 'Edit Decription' link next to each named tab to enter descriptive text. The text will appear above the postings on that tab. This is useful for reminders or summaries, but can also be used to list subcommittee members.
• Suggest and vote on new features: The list on the right of your news page under the current weather now includes "Suggestions" to be used to vote  for  new CondoConduit features. You can go directly there by clicking this link: http://condoconduit.uservoice.com/_ _
• Email handles for Board Executives: You can now use President@xxx.yyy, VicePresident@xxx.yyy, and Treasurer@xxx.yyy (of course, substitute your own domain for the xxx.yyy part of the examples above) to reach those board members instead of their private email addresses. You can use this for Executives that wish to be reachable but do not want their private email addresses shared.
• Discussion Editing Enhancements: You can now use enhances editing in the discussion area (Bold, Italic, Bullets and more).
• Enhanced  posting  for  new items: Most edit windows now use popup windows to make posts simpler.
• Updated 'For Sale/Lease' pages: We have modernized these pages for readability and to prevent long descriptions from pushing the other listings out of view. Viewers now see essential details of each listing and can click 'Show Details' to see the verbose descriptions.

Enhancements in Progress:

• Required Content Alert Subscriptions: A few associations want to make sure owners are informed of posts to certain sections of the web site, and have requested we have a way to REQUIRE members to maintain their subscriptions to those sections.
• Moderated Posts: Associations have requested we add the ability to 'Moderate' discussion areas (that is, require that an administrator pre-approve a posting or comment before it is visible to others). It occurs to us that this would be useful for document postings, for sale listings, and other posting areas.
• Enhance 'Photo Albums' capability: To just make it snazzier.
• Embedded opt-out link within all notifications for those folks who don't want to log in to opt-out.
• Email Account Management for Administrators to manage special accounts for Board Members, Property Managers, and staff.

Work/Repair Request Enhancements:  We have plans to further enhance the work request system

• Add a 'Severity' field: To help managers prioritize repairs.
• Multiple Dated Administrator Comments: To help identified who did what on what date.
• Adopt request from original submitter: For those times a helpful owner submits a request for their neighbors.
• Customizable Work Categories: To sort and print by contractor or trade.

If you have other suggestions or wish to express your priority for these upcoming features, please visit http://condoconduit.uservoice.com/.

Mail Server Problems solved (finally)

Last week, our mail and database server crashed - hard. As a result, your CondoConduit site was unavailable for a few hours. Our top-line hardware support people felt confident they would have it running again each time we asked - but after a few hours we adjusted CondoConduit so that it could operate independently of that supporting server, and just delay the sending of notifications of new posts.

Well, hours turned into a full day, and it was clear that a brand new server would be required. We set things up on a brand new machine and transferred our data and everyones emails to the new machine. There was a lot of effort in changing things around for the new server, and we ended up re-configuring our uptime monitoring software and other supporting infrastructure, but in the end It was worth the effort.

We sincerely apologize for the prolonged email outage to those of our clients depending on it. The data was successfully transferred in its entirety.

We are continuing to adjust and fine-tune our monitoring software, and we also understand from the software provider that a major email upgrade will be coming next month. We are also expanding integration between email and CondoConduit and we have other enhancements in the works which we are excited about. We'll be providing more info as it becomes available.

Be well and enjoy your summer.

Michael

More accessible postings

We have added a feature to CondoConduit which allows you to see the full content of postings by hovering over them.

On any page of documents, there will be some postings which have long descriptions or an associated photo. In the past, these documents had a link on them to allow people to click on it to see the full content of the post.

With this enhancement, you can just hover over any incomplete description to see the full content.

In addition, any document posts with images attached will include a thumbnail of that image - without having to 'drill down' to the listing detail!

Custom Posting Area Creation

An association wanted a place that documents could be posted by an outside party, accessible to the Board. This can easily be accomplished in CondoConduit. Here are the steps for doing so.

1. Create an account for the person doing the posting. They will not need any special access to any other part of the site, so you can create them with an access level of 1 (the lowest level). The easiest way to create an account for them is to be logged out, click the 'Request Access' menu item and answer the questions. This could be done by the person who will be doing the posting, or by you on their behalf.
2. Log in as Administrator and Approve the account request. Verify they have the proper access - level 1 is sufficient.
3. Create the page for them to be posting to. Go to Site Admin / Menus and look for a posting area that is not yet used for anything. You could use 'Newsletters', 'Appraisers Info' or 'Budgets' - anything that allows separate posts.
4. Set the new page to be visible by the right people: Still in Site Admin / Menus Set the 'View Level' to 4 so that Board members will see it, but not owners. If you also want owners to see the posts there, set the View Level to 3.
5. Set the new page so that your defined user can post to it: Still in Site Admin / Menus, click the people-head in the 'Edit Level' column and add the new account you created in step 1.

That's it! You may want to ake sure that Board Members check the proper 'Content Alerts' check box in their profile so that they receive email notifications of new posts in that area - or you can do it on their behalf under Site Admin / users.

I hope you find this tip helpful!

Work Request Update

We have just updated our work request system for the benefit of those associations with and office administrator or maintenance person entering Work Requests on behalf of owners.

Previously, only owners who entered their own work requests would see those requests (except for administrative or assigned maintenance personnel and Board Members, who would always see everything).

We have updated the system so that any owner listed in the 'Affected Owners' section of the work request would see that work request.

As long as administrative persons include 'Affected Owners' when adding or editing work requests, those owners can monitor progress.

Michael

Copy Listings

Ever have a listing you wanted to repeat monthly or annually without having to re-type all the details? Try the new "Copy to New Item" button at the bottom of the edit detail form!

To copy an item, drill down to the 'Edit Listing' page, click the "Copy to New Item" button, and edit the name and dates as required.

Don't forget to save any changes to the original item before you do this, and be aware that the button changes the title of the listing to "Copy of..." to avoid confusion.

We've also added image upload capabilities to more of those postings.

More to come...

Michael

Work Request Improvement

One of our Associations has a maintenance person dedicated to work request entry, instead of having owners enter their own work requests.

If you use Work Requests, you may have noticed the 'Affected Owners' button which lets you choose not only one but any number of owners or units associated with that work request.

Well, this association had trouble differentiating between the different work requests because the same bloke was entering them all the time so his name was the only one showing up in the list.

Long story short: We now added an 'Affected Users' column to the list to make it easier to avoid double-entry of work items.

We hope you like the modification. More Work Request enhancements to follow...