As we enter a brand new year, we’re excited to reflect on the features we\’ve released last year.  Furthermore, for us at Pilera Software, this past year has been a thrilling journey filled with innovation and commitment to making our community management clients’ jobs easier!  This blog article will share an overview of new modules, improvements, and achievements in 2023! 

New Modules

We continue to develop new modules based on our clients\’ needs to help you create more self-sufficient communities. From brand-new modules to improvements, our software has evolved to cater to the growing needs of modern community management.  

1) PileraVOTES

If you’re tired of delays in community decision-making, worried about security, or have to deal with the tedious chore of manually counting votes, PileraVotes can help!  We just introduced PileraVotes, a more streamlined way to run secure and fair voting or elections in your community association.  Our new voting platform allows you to reach quorum faster, improve community decision-making, and increase satisfaction.  Our beta clients have experienced 80% owner participation with the platform.  

How PileraVotes simplifies your community’s voting experience:

• Easy to use & modern voter portal
• Vote on anything – surveys, amendment changes, and elections
• Questions customized to your community’s needs with candidate write-in options
• Fractional voting with unit weights
• Restrict to one vote per unit
• Secure access link
• Tamper-evident technology
• Instant tallying with visual charts & reports
• Integrated with your daily workflow for resident engagement and communication. 

Learn more about E-Voting for your HOA or Condo community in our release notes.

Resource: Guide to Running Smoother HOA Elections 

2) PileraPROCURE (Request for Proposal Software)

Securing qualified vendor bids and contracts for your communities can pose a challenge. That\’s why Pilera launched Pilera Procure (in partnership with RFP Plus), a cutting-edge RFP tracking solution. It centralizes all your request for proposal (RFP) tasks, vendor communications, and documents in a single location, simplifying data retention. Our RFP solution streamlines your processes, saving your team valuable time, fostering stronger vendor connections, and ensuring you can get the best bids for your communities. 

How our RFP management solution makes your procurement process more efficient:

• Manage your entire process, from sending an RFP to finalizing a vendor.
• Automate RFPs quickly with bulk sending and assignment
• Get board member approval on RFPs
• Track vendor and staff responses directly within the RFP
• Protect your community with license expiration notification reminders to managers and vendors.
• Dashboards and charts that give you visual insights into your RFP progress
• View accepted/rejected vendors per category
• All RFPs, documents, and communications are in one place.

Improvements

We firmly believe that community management software should make your lives easier, not harder.  Alongside introducing new products, we prioritize continual improvement of our existing functionality. We aim to improve the workflow of the functionality you use and love to bring greater efficiency to your team.  

Message Inbox

The Message Inbox is the newest addition to PileraCONNECT, our Communications module.  For busy community managers juggling multiple tasks, sifting through endless emails to locate a vendor or board member\’s response can eat up valuable time. Our new Message Inbox changes that. Now, you can find email responses within seconds, not hours. This inbox consolidates all email conversations from residents, vendors, board members, and fellow managers that originated within Pilera. The powerful search and filtering capabilities let you find conversations in a snap. 

Architectural Change Request Committees

The ACR committees feature was a popularly requested feature among our clients who needed a better way to streamline the review and approval process for ACRs.  We introduced the ACR Commitee Role, which you can assign board members and residents to so they can access ACRs, approve/decline them, and stay informed throughout the process.

Ticket Charts

Want to track the trend of open versus closed tickets? Easy! How about a breakdown of your team\’s tasks based on priority? Or a chart showing ticket assignments? We\’ve got you covered!

Ticket Charts are designed to quickly highlight operational trends and the work affecting your communities. Explore these charts across various ticket types—from work orders and support to ACR, violations, and more—to gain quick insights into your team\’s activities.

Ticket Messages

View a history of all conversations from vendors and managers/assignees within the ticket itself, eliminating the need to search through your emails endlessly. 

Other Ticket Improvements  

• Create and update tickets in bulk – Speed through your work by duplicating and updating tickets in batches.  These enhancements are great if you need to assign similar tickets to the same staff member or close multiple tickets at once and need to notify the resident. 
• Create tickets directly from the dashboard – Managers, board members, and residents can save time by creating or submitting tickets right from the dashboard in Pilera. 
• Select ticket attachments – When replying to a ticket, you can choose which attachments to include in your email.  For example, you can send a different attachment to a vendor than a resident.  Once sent, you can also track the attachments you send as part of a conversation in the history of the ticket.  
• Modify ticket attachments – You can also easily add or remove new file attachments to a ticket and retain the history in the audit logs. 

Vendor Improvements

• Filter dashboard by vendor – See the workload associated with vendors in your community anytime.  
• Manage vendor staff in different departments – You can add multiple staff members from a vendor company to the database and allow them to be assigned tickets.  That way, you can communicate more easily with an employee from different departments, such as accounting, a triage person, or the owner of the vendor company, etc. 
• Set a default vendor assignee – To avoid any confusion about who should be assigned work orders from a vendor company, you can set a default vendor contact to be assigned work orders.
• Invalid contact information – In the app, you will see if a vendor staff member cannot receive notifications because their email address is invalid. 
• Vendor communication tracking – Email communication with vendor staff is now tracked in the Message Center. Additionally, vendors can reply to work order and RFP tickets and their responses are tracked in the Message Inbox.

Achievements 

Pilera earned recognition as a top software performer across multiple industry reports last year!  We couldn’t have done it without the support of our amazing clients, who inspire us to keep innovating!  

GetApp for Exceptional Performance in Property Management Software Category

In July 2023, Pilera was recognized as a Category Leader by GetApp, a free online service that helps organizations find the right software in the property management technology space.  GetApp’s recognition of our software in this category is a significant achievement.  Pilera has an overall rating of 4.8/5 on GetApp.  Check out our reviews here!

FrontRunner for Property Management Software by Software Advice

In June 2023, Pilera was recognized as a top-rated product by Software Advice in their 2023 FrontRunners Report for the Top Property Management Software Category.  In their report, Pilera ranks as one of the highest-rated products for its customer service and usability.    Check out the reviews here!

Capterra Shortlist for Property Management Software

Capterra is a popular free online service that helps organizations find software that’s right for them.  In June 2023, Pilera was recognized as a Top Performer in the 2023 Capterra Shortlist for Property Management Software.  With an overall rating of 4.8/5, our clients rated Pilera the highest for its customer service and ease of use. 

What our customers say:

“Pilera has been influential in helping me become more acclimated to my job as a property manager. It allows me easy access to reaching out to residents, as well as tracking the history of communication between management and homeowners. I would absolutely recommend this software to any and all property management firms.”

Nick K. (Capterra)

“Our office now runs all our resident interface and communications through Pilera. The resident portals have been a big hit with our residents. I can’t tell you how happy our Boards are with our reporting capabilities. What we really appreciate from a business perspective is the level of support and the constant improvement culture Pilera exhibits. They don’t rest on their laurels. They continue to improve on their offerings.”

Carlos (Source: Software Advice)

“I love that the software is not complicated. It is very user-friendly. I love that it provides a “go-to” place for our residents to keep up with the community and their accounts. I also love that Pilera offers great customer service that is professional, reliable, and provides resolution when I have an issue.”

Sierra (GetApp)

Conclusion

In 2023, our team was hard at work releasing brand-new modules and improvments, all shaped by our customers\’ feedback! This year, we\’re excited to bring new features to help you create self-sustaining communities, improve your team\’s workflow, and grow your company!  Stay tuned to our releases this year on our blog! 

About Pilera

Pilera Software is the premier community and property management software that has helped thousands of community managers enhance communications, improve customer service, and manage compliance and operations. Book a personalized demo so you can see firsthand how Pilera can help improve efficiency and reduce costs. 

A community association manager juggles many responsibilities that work toward the common goal of operating a community that is compliant and enhances resident’s property values.  However, many managers fall short of fulfilling this goal.  This may be due to lack of communication with residents, ineffective processes, resistance to change, or job stress. In this blog post, we emphasize on tips community managers can implement to better optimize processes to overcome these obstacles.  

1) You\’re not communicating with residents

If you’ve not informed residents of the construction work blocking access to their street or of a rule in the governing documents that a resident violated, then your communications plan needs to be amended.  Not communicating about important ongoings in the community can result in an abundance of incoming calls and emails from residents.  Furthermore, this can lead to internal chaos and wasted time.

Positioning for better success:

Communication at the right time with the most effective methods builds a resident’s trust in your team.  Start out by creating a communications plan.  This plan should emphasize what you will convey to residents, when, how frequent, and who is responsible for communicating.  With all the hard work you\’re putting into your plan, don\’t forget to determine how you will measure success. Check out these ten tips to succeed at your community communications.          

2) You\’re implementing antiquated processes

Are you using outdated processes to manage your communities that create more work than it reduces?  If yes, then it’s important to replace those internal processes and systems with more efficient counterparts.  If your residents are constantly calling in to ask repetitive questions or your staff is rummaging through paperwork to find a completed work order from last quarter, that takes out time in your day that could otherwise be utilized to work on projects that are more critical in nature.

Positioning for better success:

The best way to implement modern processes and technology is to keep yourself updated on industry trends and software.  Trade association websites such as Community Association Institute, ECHO-CA.org, and many others deliver a great variety of industry insight.  You will find topics pertaining to insurance, legal, ethics, maintenance, resident engagement, vendor management, amenities, and more. Then, identify any bottlenecks in your current processes and gradually work to streamline them better.  To accommodate your new modern processes, look for technology systems that work FOR your process – not create extra work. Specifically, a software system that can scale to your needs, releases new features regularly, offers flexibility, customization, security, and provides proactive customer support, will help you to achieve your goals.

3) Low resident satisfaction

Residents may not be involved in their community (or have feelings of apathy), and one of the reasons may be that their expectations are not met.  That being said, it\’s not feasible to meet each resident’s expectations within the community\’s budget and operational constraints.  However, building awareness and consideration for them will make a big difference.  Then, you can implement the most desired and cost-effective ideas.  Adapting to change effectively – whether it is new internal processes that benefit residents or new amenities or cost-cutting where possible – is an opportunity to build a better sense of community, increase property values, and maintain a competitive advantage.   

Positioning for better success:

The key to staying ahead in the midst of changing expectations is knowing your community.  Keep yourself abreast of new trends in residential living, send a survey to your residents to better understand their needs, and identify ways to increase resident retention and satisfaction without breaking the bank.  When residents search for a new home or condominium unit, they are also looking for an enriching experience that gives them a sense of community.  Residents should have access to a central location for all important community information. Be sure to stay in touch with them on a regular basis.  Investing in amenities that your community wants is another great way to adapt to resident needs. As per a recent study by Robert Charles Lesser & Co, communities immersed with greenery and that provided walking/jogging/running tracks, were the most preferred.  Additionally, experts suggest that personalizing amenities to the heartbeat of the community appeal most to prospective buyers.

4) Job burnout

As a community association manager, you are constantly on your toes and wearing a lot of hats.  Understandably, not every hat you wear will bring excitement as you work through your day. Handling resident complaints about the excessive noise next door or reconciling bank statements may just fall into the category of redundant and unexciting, but a necessity of your job.  The high demands of the job or engaging in repetitive actions may result in burnout and feeling stressed.

Positioning for better success

Before you begin your day sending emails, take a good five or ten minutes to organize your day.  What pending tasks do you need to complete? What else do you hope to accomplish today? Creating a list will help you to understand what you’ll expect to do today.  Are many of the tasks you perform redundant? If your answer is a yes, then take some time during the day to identify the areas that are consuming most of your time. It’s completely okay to take a bit of time during your day to identify the sluggish aspects of a process because it will reap much more benefits in the future when you come up with a more efficient process.

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. 

Streamlining maintenance is one of the most critical activities in community management.  Managers aim to increase the public appeal of the community and ensure the safety of its staff and residents.  The right technology can help managers not only achieve but optimize those goals. As you research HOA maintenance software options for your community, ask vendors these 5 questions.

1. Can residents submit maintenance requests?

Providing residents with a way to self-service and be notified about important things relating to their unit and the community increases engagement and builds trust.  When a resident identifies a maintenance issue in their unit or within an area that lies within the HOA or condo’s responsibility to fulfill, they need a way to inform management of it.  

[icon name=\”check-square\” class=\”\” unprefixed_class=\”\”] Can your residents…

• Submit work order tickets about their unit or common areas
• Add pertinent details about the issue
• Select access preference – Does the resident want to be at the property when the maintenance personnel arrives?
• Receive updates on when the issue was resolved
• View a history of all the tickets they have submitted & the status of each.

2. Can you manage maintenance tickets from start to finish?

A robust work order management system should not only provide managers with the ability to create tickets but to streamline them from start to end.  Managers should be able to triage tickets when they come in or are created, know the status of each ticket, and collaborate with staff members.

[icon name=\”check-square\” class=\”\” unprefixed_class=\”\”] Can your staff…

• Create unit level or common area tickets
• Add pertinent details and attachments
• Categorize and prioritize the ticket
• Assign a ticket to another manager, staff member, vendor, or yourself
• Automatically notify the assignee of the new ticket
• Change status or comment on the ticket.

3. Can you gain high-level insights on maintenance operations?

Community managers need access to high-level and granular data to understand their operations and make better-informed decisions.  Through the HOA maintenance software, managers should be able to easily identify the number of tickets open/closed per month, their staff’s workload, the tickets that have not been worked on for a long time, and how many tickets each vendor is working on.  Managers should be able to easily capture this information for a specific community or across their entire portfolio. In Pilera’s maintenance system, managers receive an automated report with all the tickets that haven’t been touched for 30 days. This insight is essential for managers to handle the workload of their staff and vendors, prioritize work, and ensure that nothing falls off their radar.

4. Can you search for resident data quickly?

When a resident calls, emails, or walks into the management office to report a maintenance issue for their unit, you need to quickly search through your resident listing to create the ticket.  An HOA maintenance software should have a robust search capability. Searching by partial names or addresses, a resident’s unit, email, or phone number will save managers and staff members time if they are managing hundreds of tickets.

5. Can you maintain a vendor database effectively?

Building good relations with your vendors is crucial to the upkeep of your community or apartment complex.  As a manager, you need to know which vendors are approved to work for certain communities, the services they can provide, when their COIs are expiring, how you’ve rated their services, and how to keep in touch with them for new projects.  

[icon name=\”check-square\” class=\”\” unprefixed_class=\”\”] Can managers…

• Track contact information, addresses, and maintenance personnel information
• Assign vendors to categories such as entry management, landscaping, plumbing, and more
• Automatically notify vendors of the new maintenance tickets assigned to them
• Assign vendors to work for multiple communities at once
• Rate vendors so you know who your preferred contractors are

Using the right technology when it comes to managing maintenance projects can make all the difference in contributing to communities that are well-run, safe, happy, and look good.  It\’s essential to ask these five major questions when researching maintenance software options so that you can give your staff the best tools.

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.