Webinar - Excelling at Service Requests and Work Orders

Good morning, everyone. Thank you so much everyone for joining us. Welcome to today's webinar. It's titled: Excelling at service requests and work orders.

My name is Rebecca Woelfle, I'm a customer marketing specialist at Condo Control. And I'll be your host for this session. I'm also joined by my colleague and customer success  team member, Miryam Scanga. Today, we'll be discussing the service requests and work  orders features of our platform.

Before we get started with the webinar, I did want to provide a few reminders and housekeeping items. This webinar is being recorded. A follow-up email will be sent to all registrants with the recording link once it becomes available. After the presentation, we will have a Q and A session. So please submit any questions into the Zoom chat box, and we will do our best to get to as many questions as we have time for. And then after the webinar upon leaving the Zoom meeting, a Zoom survey will open in your browser to gather any feedback that you may have.

Let's begin with an overview on what we'll be talking about today. First, we'll explore the key features that Condo Control offers on service requests and work orders, including how to create these requests. We'll then learn about macros and automated responses, linking service requests to purchase orders, and then also go into detail how to track service requests and work orders. Next, we'll show you how to access the knowledge base and frequently asked questions section. And finally, we'll finish with a Q and A. I will now pass it over to our presenter, Miryam, who will provide an introduction and general overview of the service request and work order features.

Thanks, Rebecca. Good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for joining us. So Like Rebecca mentioned, I'm gonna start off just by defining service requests and work orders, and then we'll get into introducing the basic functionalities and features later on.

So even though the terms are sometimes used interchangeably, there are differences between service requests and work orders. So service requests are typically submitted by an owner or a resident shareholder, whereas management can also submit a service request on behalf of residents. And if anyone knows me, they know I have done that many, many times for my residents. Sometimes it's just needed.

So that's definitely something that we encourage to, you know, make the transition or make the process a lot smoother for residents as they get to know the system. So examples of service requests include broken appliances, maybe door lock replacements, noise complaints, plumbing issues, anything that a resident naturally may reach out to you for could be considered a service request. So it could even be like arrears or there's just so many, honestly. There's so many I've seen, throughout my three years of Condo Control. Things I didn't even think about, you know, I get to see. So definitely skies the limit.

And then ultimately work orders are really more of that internal requests that needs to be completed, whether it's, you know, an annual service, a biannual service, or maybe just a one off, in relation to a service request by your resident, but this is where they do work again interchangeably. This is why we use them that way, but, there are differences where, you know, potentially a board of directors may need to approve it depending on the spending threshold.

So that is a really important way for us to keep organized. And then ultimately, again, we'll also review today, functions of our purchase order, which will go really nicely into it. So actually, I think that brings us up to our next slide.

Excellent. So purchase orders, like I mentioned, are important parts of keeping the building organized and especially during audit season, I know our auditors love purchase orders because keeps everything nice and clean.

So purchase orders are issued when submitting or creating a relationship with the vendor or contractor, whether it's a new contractor or a one off repair or like I mentioned annual or biannual repairs, anything that you may need to really just help organize schedule, the payment terms, the frequency of service, where they should even go to the front door. Right? So it really just helps, create an understanding of what needs to be completed, and it gives you a really nice history of what that material was, quantity, just a general summarization of what that service will look like or potentially that product might look like that you may need. And, of course, naturally, like I mentioned, work orders, purchase orders, service requests. They all kind of work together in the same, realm of things. So there will be cross referencing and and cross handling of information there.

Alright. And of course, as I mentioned, myself being a property manager, I know how difficult and time consuming it can be to track and manage all of these service requests plus all the fifty other million things that you have going on throughout the day. I definitely empathize.

So when you use a software like Condo Control, it will really become your best friend because all ultimately it streamlines, it automates, you know, what's nice about our functions is that it will keep everything in one location it will allow you to stay on top of things. It'll allow you to create that automated follow-up, let the system work harder for you. So you don't have to wake up in the middle of the night and think, oh my goodness, did I send a reminder to that resident that the plumber is coming in? Let the system help you out there. So then that way, Monday morning, you're good to go. Right?

And then, Miryam, I'm just going to go on to the next one. You're covering some wonderful features here, and I just want to ensure we’re showing everybody.

Perfect. Yeah. So like I mentioned, one location, automated reminders. And then, of course, lastly, is just assigning work orders to staff to, again, help with that automation, keep it transparent. So again, Monday morning, everyone knows what they need to do for that week ahead. Right? So part of this presentation will show in more detail of what that will look like.

So we're gonna dive into these in more detail as we go forward in the presentation, but, we first wanted to conduct a poll on the audience's most common service request types.

So I'm going to stop sharing. Right. And we're going to at the poll going here. Yeah. I look really look forward to seeing what, our clients respond with. As I said, I've seen so many doozies. So we have, I think, the top ten. So everybody, just take a second to review from this list, some service request inquiries and what you find to be the most common. You can pick as many as you like.

Oh, wow. It's like the it's like the racetrack here. Plumbing is in the lead. Oh, we got some movement on noise complaints. Mhmm. And I'm sure there are some that we miss. We just literally pick the top ten that we see. So if you have unique ones after our meeting, send them to me because I love to hear it. Alright. We'll just give everyone another minute.

For both, you know, condos and HOA's, you know, what do you what do you all experience here of common inquiries? I think I'm in the wrong industry. Now I know. I see the front winner here. I need to change careers now. I am now going to end the poll. And in terms of the results Yeah. Let's share those. Yes. Plumbing. 63% said plumbing. Next was HVAC and then Yeah, Noise complaints. Absolutely. Does not surprise me. Thanks to everybody. I’m gonna stop sharing that.

Perfect. Love that. Alright. I'm just going to now go back to sharing my screen. Right. Thanks, everybody, for your participation in the poll.

Alright. So next we are going to, reference an example real world scenario starting with our friend Sandra, the condo property manager. Sandra just started using Condo Control, and she would really like to use it to streamline and automate some of her daily tasks. So to start, Sandra would like to know how to set up and customize service requests. And then she'd also like to know how owners and residents create service requests.

So I'm going to now pass it over to Miryam. She's going to do a demo on how Sandra can do this. Alright. So you'll see my screen here. Now in today's session, we will be showing you from an administrative standpoint. So if your screen looks a little different, that's okay. It just might mean that you have different permission settings. Maybe you're a board member, maybe you're a resident, this is really the innards of what your manager kind of sees and deals with. So we do have some fun graphics, and you will see a much more of a larger main menu option on the left hand side. But for today's session, we're gonna focus on that setup for now.

So at the top side of my screen where it says, ‘welcome, Miryam’, I'm gonna click into it and click set up. So this is the smoke and mirrors behind the magic. These are your setting functionalities, you very rarely need to come back here, but when you do, this is where you go.

And then on the left hand side here, you have your service request module settings. And it's gonna bring you to a general dashboard where it has a few different tabs, and we're gonna go through each tab in bits and pieces today. So the first tab is our general setting, and this is where you actually enable or disable the ability for residents and owners to actually use the platform.

So if you needed to turn it off for a temporary amount of time, if you wanted to keep it on, this is a functionality for you. If you wanted to rename the service request module, I actually have a lot of communities who love this functionality because maybe you don't refer to it as service requests. Maybe you refer to it as contact management. Maybe you refer to it as architectural requests.

Maybe, really, again, the sky's the limit. It's what you think is gonna be best for your community and how you want to refer to requests, for your community. We also have an introductory text that can be be included so it can be as detailed or as simple as needed. I like to make it really simple. What it's for, what to expect, and, of course, in case of emergency, what to do. 

There are a few other things like, you know, did you want a reminder sent out, which I always recommend because I am someone who loves reminders and needs reminders. So absolutely a great function. There are other things that, you know, from an administrative, wise that might be helpful, like, would you like to be able to close a service request without a comment? Maybe that's a good fit for you, there's no wrong answers here. It's really just determining of what's gonna be best for you and the way that you use the platform. 

And then we're gonna get into the service request tab that's called types, and this is really we're gonna jump in. So service requests can be divided into types, you can have custom fields associated.

And the reason why we highlight on creating so many different custom types, we do have default that come included is because when you are doing your annual planning, or you're doing your budgeting, or if you just wanted to see, hey, is there some issue within the building, or what are our residents really going to management for? What are things happening on a regular basis? This is where you'll get that information. And then a little bit later, we'll talk about reports and the reporting functionalities, but this really does help, like I mentioned an annual planning or budget planning.

You know, why did you have that excess use of your miscellaneous expenses for something rather? You can usually tie it all back to service requests. And then if you wanted to really get into it, is it service requests for landscaping, is it electrical, is it plumbing, It really again helps just organize, your, you know, bigger picture of your community. So I absolutely love having different types. So within every type, we do have further functions.

So we're gonna go into two options today. First one I'm gonna select, and again, if you wanted to create a new one, you simply click new at the top right, top right hand side.

From here, it's gonna bring you to the same page. So you'll put in your service request name, the title. If you wanted to put related tags, this is super helpful if you wanted to keep track of certain, specific items for searchability. So if you think you're always typing in landscaping in the search function, this helps you kind of with keeping, all of that organized.

Not necessarily the most popular item, but it's definitely a great item depending on, again, how quickly you wanna use the system. And then we have our automated responses or a description. So depending on the service request type, you might want an automated response that simply says, no, we do not perform that service, or you're going to the wrong avenue to get the answer for that service, or here's the answer. No further action is required.

So that's where you can put in automated responses in one area. You can also put in a description so it could say please allow 24 hours to respond. In my example, I have please allow three to four weeks to respond. This is a landscaping item.

You know, normally you'll have to hire a trade to fix something or address something. So this is where you can get very creative You can put in pictures, you can put embedded links. So if there's a link to somewhere you need them to go to, that could be a really great option. I find that very helpful for documents.

And then if you wanted the service request to be created, you can say yes or no. So this goes back to that initial idea where if there is no further action required, you don't need them to open a service request. Now, of course, I'm a little bit of a nosy Nancy. And certain requests I definitely want open and I definitely wanna comment on because I wanna make sure I follow-up.

Right? If it's a plumbing concern, if it's an electrical concern. I want a reminder that this is an issue that I need to review, but I don't necessarily need to take care of it because if it's in suite, it's not really the corporation's responsibility it's the owner's responsibility to have remedied, but I want history there for myself. So in two weeks, I'll follow-up to say, hey, just checking in everything sorted out, you know, was there any more issues?

And it also just keeps a nice history record if, let's say, three or four months down the line, something comes about, and this unit is a part of it I also have a history record. So it's really nice. Again, just depending on what the service request type is, do you need them to go forward or is the information satisfactory from that, initial, selection?

And then we have a few other options if you want them to allow them to edit the subject line or if you want them to be able to re a service request once it's closed. Again, depending on the scenario, you might wanna give them those options. And then, of course, we have also assigned options. Let's say you have a superintendent or you have a maintenance committee or personnel. If you wanna assign it to that person or to those groups, then you know that person will always be able to review it. They know it's assigned to me. I gotta take care of it. Right?

Especially if there's a few topics that you're dealing with or a few different service request types, maybe they need more direction to say, alright, these four service request types are your basket. I need you to reply to them, pronto, when they come in. Everything else will take care of.

So really just help, which is, again, organizing staff and for them to understand what their expectations are to complete certain things. And then the last one here is payment involved. So we do have a really cool function here where you can enable or disable if payment is involved for this service request, you can actually put an amount.

I see a lot of my clients use this. Let's say there is an administrative fee and operational chargeback, you know, if it's a request for snaking the drains. Maybe there's an operational chargeback. Instead of you having to chase them to get that money, when they submit that service request, that link is automatically sent to them via email and it's included right within the service request. We also have, again, other functionalities to help you check if they've paid it when they've paid it, things like that. But this could be a really great function, depending again on the community on tracking and collecting payment for services. Okay?

And then before we jump to the next section, we'll just quickly review custom fields here. So this allows you to make your service request type a little bit more detailed. So if there's always a certain model number or certificate or certain detail that you always need when a certain request is open, let's say landscaping, or let's say an architectural change. You always need the contractor's license. You always need the liability insurance. This allows you to allocate that and anytime that service request is open, that field is there for them to fill out, and you can actually make it mandatory. So I'll just show you again the innards of what this looks like you wanted to have a new one, you simply click ‘add new’, and then you'll for now, we'll go to the pencil icon. We'll look into one that I've already made.

So the label is what it will say on the actual display. And then you'll relate it to which type of service request. So I have a few different ones here, but this one is related to my architectural change request. And then a tooltip, you know, I can say check all that apply. I could put ‘for office use only’.

Again, it just helps the resident understand what that custom field is for. And then we have options for that field response, whether it's a select multi pick list, single pick list, it's a single line item, maybe it's a time and date, maybe it's a simple checkbox. Right? So again, this really helps you create what we would traditionally have as a form, usually a PDF form, and you would have all these little boxes and they have to check and sign for it, you can apply these in this scenario or similar scenarios so that it's all digital and it's all connected to the unit file.

Right? So again, making you more efficient. So this could be a really great option for you. And then the last one is permissions. Depending if you want the resident to submit this information, or maybe you only want them to view it but you still wanna have that transparent information there. You can have it where they can't fill it in, but they can see what the result is. So maybe if it's an ‘office use only’ scenario, that view option is gonna be your best friend there. So once you're happy with all of that, just hit save, and then we'll show you what that will look like on the front end in a short bit.

Awesome, Miryam. Thank you so much. I'm now going to really just highlight some of the benefits here as well, but I'm gonna share my screen with everybody.

So with this slide, we just again wanted to further highlight the key features and benefits to using the service request and work orders. So first, the beauty of these lies and their ability to save time streamlining and also maintain a high level of professionalism I'll discuss later. These are predefined email responses that can be used for common inquiries. These features can also increase efficiencies and minimize spending, so major repairs become less common because the service requests they get reported and addressed more quickly. With the dedicated online space for submitting and tracking those requests. This really ensures that high level of transparency.

So the efforts are recognized, and then this helps to breed confidence in management. In addition by creating reports, one can analyze which services are being requested most frequently and when so that management can better prepare for them.

And then lastly, these features help to boost resident engagement. So when these requests only come in from one source, it makes it easier for staff to process and resolve the residents' issues, increasing the residents' satisfaction. And therefore, they're more happy. It's a more engaged process And as we know, happy owners, happy boards.

And I will now pass it on to Miryam who will go through a demo of how owners and residents create a service request.

You got it. Alright. So I'll go ahead and share my screen again. So this view that you're gonna see now is a resident view or an owner view. So again, you might be familiar with this layout. Similar to the administrative layout, just a little bit more simplified.

We have our resident here Frank. We're gonna have him submit a service request. So he's going to go to this left hand side menu item. We do have ‘knowledge base’ highlighted, but we're gonna focus on service requests for now. And you can see my custom title that I've added in. Frank already has a service request open from earlier today. He has a mysterious sound So I can go in as frank and check on the status of it. I can see the status still says open.

I can see the details that I submitted or he submitted, I should say, in advance, and I can check if my property manager responded yet. Looks like they haven't even seen it. Nothing's been responded to and the status is still open. So Frank should probably just sit tight.

But let's say Frank, you know, needs more assistance and he wants to have another service request. So let's go ahead and on the right side of our menu here, we'll have two options. One is the knowledge base, which we'll discuss at the very end of our presentation, but this other one is here ‘add new service requests’. So a resident will go click here add new service request, that upper text is that customized text that we talked about earlier.

Again, this is where you can make it super detailed on next steps or what to expect, or you can keep it super simple. You know, it just depends on, again, how you wanna utilize and how much information you wanna provide to your residents, And then this is where that drop down list of all of the service request types that I've created.

So, again, I'll show you some examples for my architectural change request, I have a whole write up for my residents on what to expect. And then I also have further custom fields that I need them to fill out, depending on the scenario, you know, if they are trying to modify the roof, I have a drop down. You know, if I have an anticipated start date, I have a calendar function.

So this is where I mentioned again the custom field can be very beneficial depending on your needs and how you want to go ahead and, you know, really, organize that request moving forward. I always liked having the most information at my fingertips available so I didn't have to go back and call the owner to say, ‘Hey, I got your service request ticket. I need more information. You give me a callback?’ And then three days later, maybe I'd get a response. Right? So if you put it all in there before, you know when you wake up and you look at it on the Monday morning, it's there for you. You're ready to go. You can really go in and have action towards it. 

If maybe the service request for extra terminal change is not the one that I'm looking for. I can simply go in, and let's take a look at landscaping. Landscaping again has that customized response that I have already set up for Frank and Frank can see it. But if he still wants to proceed, he can still move forward, put in a subject line, put in a detailed description. And if he has any photos or videos, that's absolutely fantastic. We all know pictures are worth a thousand words.

And then there is another custom field here where it's actually for office use only. So, as Frank, I did give him the permission to adjust and add if needed, but maybe again, you only wanted it for office use only. That could be an option for your administrator to enable to and disable those options. 

So, you know, as I said, the skies the limit here if you wanted to have, you know, updating tenant information. Or like I mentioned, maybe there are some requests that, you know, you don't want them to proceed with this a service request ticket for. It's not needed. It's maybe something like estoppel or status certificates. You have a certain website that they are to go to. Put that website right in there. They can click into it. Bam. Information sent. They already know what to do. Right? Same with maybe, common element fees or arrears. Right?

What's the phone number to call accounts receivable? Here it is. So now that's one less phone call for you, one less email for you, one less task for you to do. Now you can actually afford to, you know, take your lunch break or leave at five o'clock because a lot of these little inquiries as much as I love a nice phone call with my residents as much as the next property manager, but, you know, sometimes they sit in your office for, like, thirty minutes and what you thought you could have gotten done maybe it’s a periodic information certificate is now, you know, due and you're doing it at five o'clock.

So in this way, it really just helps residents get the information that they need and whether you wanna have that conversation, that's another topic, but, you know, it just really helps make things a lot faster productive for you. You're effective. You're efficient. You know, all those wonderful words.

But it really, really does help the resident. And let's not forget you do not work 24 hours a day seven days a week. As much as I know we do, like, normally, but you really shouldn't, for your mental health. Right? So let's have this available to your residence 24 hours a day, seven days a week with the automation.

Yep. Speaking of efficiencies and communication improvement, you know, macros, which I'm gonna go over now are really helpful. So let me just talk more about those. Absolutely. Macros really help so as we kind of mentioned before, macros are predefined responses for frequently asked questions or standard update.

And with automated responses, as soon as a service request is logged, an automated acknowledgement can be sent to the resident.sSo this provides them with that immediate reassurance that their concern is being addressed and helps prevent uncertainty. So the beauty of these tools aligns with that ability to save time, more efficient streamlined communication, maintaining that high degree of professionalism.

So, you know, effective communication, not only expediting the requests, but also, you know, building the trust between residents and management, really excellent. So, now Marian is going to show you what do these macros look like? What are automated responses? How do we add and edit them and set them up? So I will pass it over to you.

This would say is a million dollar question. And one that not many people know about, so I definitely excited to share this. As you can see, I'm excited about this entire topic. Alright. So we're gonna go back on to that setup, side of the platform. So again, you'll go from the home page where it says ‘welcome’ in your name. It'll be set up, and I'm already here. It says set up. That's how I know I'm on the back end.

The modules look a little the the way that they are laid out or the titles are a little different. And we're gonna go to the third tab now titled macros. So very easy to find, very easy to navigate, And I have a few macros already set up, but of course, if you wanted to add new, you just simply click ‘add new’ at the top right hand side. So we're gonna go into a macro that I've already created.

Maybe you want an automated approval. You've gone through the process of reviewing the architectural change request, and you wanted to have a text that's already determined, that's already been created. So you don't have to type it out fifty million times. It could be something like this. Right? Or let's say you wanted, you know, something a little bit more general: ‘Thank you for submitting a service request. Our team will review and respond to you shortly.’ Or maybe it's something a little bit more detailed, right, such as noise where ‘thank you for the service request. We take it seriously, and here are the next steps’.

So this can really be, customized when you need it, when you actually submitted to the resident, but to get you started again, to help with that writer's block, it's all there. What's nice is as well if you, if creative writing or writing in general is not a strong suit, and I know we all love AI and ChatGPT and all these wonderful things.

But, if creative writing is not a strong suit, get your templates sorted out. And then that way, you're really just clicking buttons at that point. You don't really have to think, oh, how do I start this response? How do I  make sure I reply back to this client, you know, and it's detailed enough and it's calm enough and it's nice enough because we all know sometimes the request comes in on a Friday afternoon at 4:30, maybe you don't really wanna write out a whole paragraph.

But if you have your template set up, they will get a full paragraph. Little do they know that you've already set up this automation. So it's really just you tweaking the details, and you don't have to think so hard. Right? So, again, let's have you work smarter, not harder. Once you're happy with all that, you're gonna go ahead and hit save.

And then, Rebecca, should I show them how, it looks to link it? Alright. To purchase orders. We'll do, like, two stepper here. So within service requests, let's use an example that I've had with my, Let's say my owner, JoJo here, as a manager, this is my dashboard.

I see ‘open, pending, closed’. Open r to the red, pending is yellow, closed is check mark green, no further action required. So I'm gonna go into my ticket number 155 and a hot tip I'd like to, really share with my clients, especially my managers, when you have your service requests utilized, often and you start to see the number of service requests grow, and particularly in larger communities where you might know a few names and a few faces, unit numbers, but there are a lot of times where tenants will call in to say, what's the status on this? Or I need this?

Or, you know, what's going on with this? Sometimes they don't have the right unit number. Sometimes you don't know how to spell their first name. There's certain details that you might just not have at the top of your head when you're during a phone call or answering an email.

But if you say to them, hey, what's that ticket number? If I search for it, it will pull right up real quick. So literally a part of my service when I would say  ‘good afternoon. Thank you for calling management office, please provide me with your ticket number.’ That way, I knew exactly what I was dealing with. I didn't have to think about it. Oh, you know, hey, Jojo. What's your unit number again? I have the information right there in front of me. I'm gonna go right into the service request so you can see who, what, where, why, when.

I can also see the details here. So my friend, Jojo here, thinks that our planters are looking a little sad, and he has a party. So he feels that this needs to be taken care of immediately. So what we can do is add a macro to have that automated response. So I'm gonna just click the general. Thank you so much. And maybe I wanna add in, you know, some more details.

You know, we will review this request. So once I'm happy with my response, if I wanted to tweak it, I can go ahead and save it as open or I can save it as pending. And for administrators, we have a really fancy function where you can have a reminder set for a few days later. Maybe it's a one day turnaround. Great. Maybe this item needs fourteen days because you have to call the vendor, you have to get some quotes. You know, it's not as simple as just going to the hardware store and getting a new planter. Maybe it's a seasonal thing. Right? If you're in the middle of dead winter, but Jojo has this request for the summertime. Great.

Thanks for looking out in advance and planning. But let's set the 180 day reminder. So it can remind me in 180 days that I need to address this. 

We also have a few other functions that you'll now see from the administrator side for internal comments. This is really great. Again, you can still use the macro function, but this is visible for administrators only. So whether your staff or potentially your board members.

Let's say that there's a comment that your board, you know, if they have accessibility to the service request, they might wanna respond to. Maybe it's not fit for sending out to the owner or resident. This is a really safe space that you can do that. Right?

I know for my staff when I had them utilize this I would, you know, put in further details to say, you know, make sure this is the paint color number or this and that. I didn't need to show my resident all my magic tricks. Right? So this helps you kind of hide that.

And then, of course, we have that custom field that's automatically shown. And then you'll see that time and date stamp with my response. So as I showed earlier, Jojo will now see or the example with Frank. But if Jojo were to log in, he would see now my time and date stamp that I responded and the next steps, things like that.

Jumping into our kind of next area of business, now that we have this flower bed request from Jojo, as a property manager, I need to now action. Right? I've told Jojo. We're looking into it. We're gonna get back to him. I understand he has a party on Friday.

Let me try my best to kind of help this guy out. So I'm gonna go to my purchase order module here on the left hand side. I am greeted with a dashboard that shows all of my open pending service requests. It shows me my value of POs. It shows me recent activity as well as statuses for POs that I have whether they're on the go pending approval or they've been approved.

So to create a new purchase order, you simply click on the upper right hand side, new purchase order. Again, the metrics or not the metrics, the movement of how the system is, it's all pretty much the same. Doesn't matter the module. Right?

Right hand side usually to do something new, the pencil icon to edit. So we're gonna actually go in, click on that pencil icon. And I have a draft purchase order already created. So, again, back to our example with Jojo, he wants us to replace the planters I have purchase order number twelve on the docket here.

And I think all of the managers who are on this call knows, you know, you used to use or maybe still use those booklets from Staples or your supply office supply store with the pink slip and the yellow slip and you cut it out and you attach it and you put it for the check requisition. I remember those days. And, you know, maybe that pink slip got lost or maybe the security guard forgot to give it to the vendor. So this allows it to all just be digital and all in place. You can have your board of directors. You can give them accessibility.

You can have your security or superintendent to have accessibility. That way, everyone kinda knows what's going on at all at the same time, but they don't have to call you and ask. They don't have to walk you to say, hey, did you get that PO done?

They can log in and see it for themselves. So we have our vendor, the address for service, the deadline related user, depending on the scenario, you might wanna have it related to a user, then you have your order details. So I have, for example, spring planters in the certain style. I have my operating account that I want this purchase order and this amount to be applied to.

So, again, ‘today me’ will thank ‘tomorrow me’ when I need to do my reconciliation or if I need to review my financial statements, I've already predetermined it. And then, of course, the quantity, price, tax and this tax can be adjusted depending on what region you are from. Or that your building is situated in. And then we also have more information such as would you like this, PO to have an approver. So maybe it's above my spending threshold.

I can have the selected approvers and the number of approvers required. So I have my friend, maybe board of directors Richard here, he will be the approver for this PO. I also have a functionality to add attachments. So maybe if I had a picture of the style number that I went to the store and picked out, that would be very helpful. You know, for ‘future me’. And if I needed notes to the vendor, like, ‘please call for delivery’, or maybe even notes to the approver, I can say, you know, JoJo, wants this done, pronto, you know, I can tell my approver why I need this or what the details about that purchase order are about. And then why we're all here, let's be more efficient. Would you like to link the PO to service request ‘Yes’.

From here, you can select the service request that it is linked to. So in this case, it's 115, like I showed before, and then I can actually update the service request while I'm on this page. I don't have to go back a step. I don't have to think about it.

So I've actually already predetermined a little bit of text. You know, ‘hey, Jojo. Thanks so much. We're gonna look into it’. And of course, maybe it might take some time. We'll have to wait till the long weekend to have one of the two items completed. So that's a really great way to just again, you're on it, you're focused on it. You don't have to worry about going fifty million different places.

 Make the process super smooth. And then you can determine service request type, would you like it public or internal? So, again, is this information about the PO? Did you wanna keep a little bit of your magic, you know, just directly to the board, or did you want to have this comment here share to Jojo. In my example, I wanna share to Jojo just because I wanna, you know, kill two birds with one stone, make it really quick for me.

But you have that functionality available to you. And then would you like to link the PO to a job? Again, this is another part of our functionality. We will not talk about today.

Definitely could be an option. So once I'm ready, and I've linked it all up, so I have the service request linked. I have my comment to Jojo in the queue. I can either save it as draft or send for approval.

So when I send for approval, then Richard, my board of director, my friend here, he'll get that notification that he now needs to you know, approve that purchase order for me. Okay? So at that point, we'll just go back to service requests, and that way we can just see that it's all linked. If I set it all up correctly.

For the interest of time. I wanna make sure we get to some questions. Absolutely. Would you mind going through how our friend Sandra, as a condo property manager would search for and update service requests as well as accessing the knowledge base. 

From our dashboard here within our service request, like I mentioned, open, pending closed, we've already kind of discussed on how to access the actual request itself. But remember how I was speaking about that knowledge base that button here, what does that button do? Where does it go? It comes here. So I have a few examples here, maybe a by law, building management, rules and regulations.

This is really your help desk. This is your automated 24 hours a day help desk. Again, one less phone call, one less email. If the resident still has not got the details that they need, you can still create a service request.

We have two buttons on this page to make sure that they know that they can still request a service. So that's available at the top and the bottom here. But let's jump into my help ticket or my help article here called rules and regulations. And I have one here about architectural change requests, and I have a little bit more detail for my resident on what expect as well as, a document here. The sky is the limit on how much you wanna put into it, how many details you need. You don't need a whole paragraph. It could literally just be an attachment. It could be a link to an attachment. It could be a one word, you know, simple no. But at least it gives your residents an answer, and it's solid, and you don't have to worry about, oh, did I tell them the right thing. I, you know, maybe you were busy and they caught you off guard.

Just have them go to the FAQ. So before I forget, let's actually jump into the setups functionality so you can see where this information lives. This is the last tab that we're gonna review today. It's called FAQ and knowledge base. So knowledge base enabled yes or no, you can determine if you want this enabled. You don't have to call me or anyone from our team. You can choose to enable and disable it at your leisure. Would you like to show it as a separate menu item? 

If you remember from my screen with JoJo there where the knowledge base showed up as a separate line item on that left hand side menu, that is what that is for. Enable or disable at your leisure here.

And then you have your topics and your articles. So again, add new. You go to the right hand side. And then you can either edit or add that topic name, would you like to make it a main menu item?

Maybe there are certain ones that you wanna really highlight and others you wanna make it more of a search function. And then the articles, like I mentioned, it doesn't have to be pages worth of information. It could just be a short little blurb, and if you wanted to add attachments like you've seen, it's available, and then you'll link it to the topic that the article is about. 

Thank you so much, Miryam. I'm going to do just a quick summary and some takeaways from the presentation now and before we get into our question period. So, really with this platform ensuring that there's much better efficient, clear communication. Efficient maintenance management starts with this and you can with the platform log request with very comprehensive details to expedite resolutions.

Second, we talked about macros, and automated responses, how these can really save you time and maintain consistency and interactions There's also the customization and insightful reporting features. So, by creating reports, one can analyze which services are being requested more most frequently and when so that management can better prepare for them.

And then, for the updating requests and search, you know, we can go through the, database to track progress, make more informed decisions, and then also resident interaction. By replying to these service requests, that can help build trust and confidence in management, and then lastly community building. So Condo Control’s platform really goes beyond management, creating community where the residents feel valued and engaged and heard. So it's worth noting that Condo Control’s platform offers solutions that go beyond mere property management, it’s about creating a community where the residents feel heard, again, understood and valued.

So now we will open the floor for questions. But first, I wanted to promote our next webinar, which, if you are in Ontario, this next webinar on Tuesday, May 7th, on the topic of ensuring data privacy and security.

It has been accredited by the CMRAO for 0.5 credits. Be sure to register at events.condocontrol.com. Our speaker will be our president and CEO of Condo Control, Brian Bosscher.

We will now open the floor for questions. First question. Do you have an idea of how many hours are going to be required to load the information for an 86 unit complex?

Great question. It really doesn't matter the number of units because once you have your types organized and let's say a few macros created, you're up and running already. It's really just reminding residents that this is the platform to do it, that this is the process to do it. Don't get me wrong. You know, Rome wasn't built in a day, like I say to my clients, It does take practice. It does take time. You're not gonna have a million service requests in the first day that you open the module. That's just not realistic. But over time, you will, And you have to remind folks, you have to give them a reason to go to the service request module.

I always like to highlight service requests can be done right from your phone. So if the resident is hearing that noise and they're in their bed and they're like, oh my gosh. Have them submit a service request right from their mobile device. They don't even have to come down to the management office to talk to you about it. They don't have to pick up that phone call. They can now go back to sleep. I hope, depending on the scenario.

But definitely give them a reason to be motivated to submit a service request Right? If it means to them, hey, it's gonna be faster for me to respond to if you submit a service request. I won't forget about your service request. Right?

Like, especially, again, Fridays, four o'clock. You're going down the elevator. A resident comes in. Oh, hey, Miryam. Have a quick question about thank you so much. Appreciate that. Hold that thought. Could you put that on a service request? You can do it right from your phone. We can do it together on the phone here. And then on Monday, I'll take a look. Right? Because I'm in Friday mode. I'm not gonna think about it all weekend.

And then I'll think, oh, who was that resident that reached out to me in the elevator? So it just allows the resident to know they're being heard. You are listening. You will get to it when it is appropriate. It's okay to have boundaries and this helps with that. But in terms of a complex your size, I'm not concerned on how many hours it's going to take. I don't like to think of it that way. It's really how many hours it's going to give you back. So maybe you can you know, again, have your lunch or leave at five o'clock on a Friday. So if you have more information, you can definitely reach out to your customer success manager and we can see about setting up macros and surface request types with you, if that makes or helps alleviate some of that pressure. 

Next question: How do you get knowledge base articles to appear in alphabetical order for users? They only appear in alphabetical order for admins.

Great question. It should be an alpha. The way that you submit them in that order is the way that they'll appear. So, you might wanna start from an alpha. Add them in in the way that you want them to appear. That's with a lot of most things, even with, the custom fields, I usually like to put the number one, two, three as an indicator on how I like it spaced out because if not, it will show up alpha. So, again, that's my own personal preference. I like to use the numbers just so I know it's in the order that I want same with service request types. Add them in the way that you would like them to be reviewed. So from the back end, takes a little bit more work to think about, but it's always good to practice your A to Z. Right?

The next question is does the purchase order module link to QuickBooks online? I do not believe so. I'll have to double check, but I do not believe so, but I love that feedback. Great feedback for sure.

Any any questions, you know, we do not get to. We will, put together a doc that will be sent out with the recording link just so everybody knows.

To what extent can reports be customized to sort by unit number or type of service request? Let me just show you real quick. And I'm just gonna exit setup.

So there's kinda two functions that I'll like to highlight here. So if you wanted to use the search function from your dashboard within service request, we do have some options for open, pending closed, paid, not paid, again, depending if you set that function up, and then the actual architectural or specific, type, right, landscaping, Estopples, everything like that. So if you wanted to just review the architectural change request, and you didn't have a service number. You just wanted to see how many requests have you gotten this year, you can just change that type into the search function, and it will appear for everything.

The other function that I always like to highlight here is our reporting function found on the bottom left hand side. This reporting function has metrics for basically everything in the system, but we do have one specifically designated to purchase orders it does show a summary with a nice print off. And then service requests, we do have three. So a summary, a detailed report, and another summary option. One is for activity, one is just general summary.

I love using this activity summary report for my management meetings. When you meet with your board once a once a month or maybe every quarter, and they say to you, how many service requests have we had? How busy have you been? You can pull it right up here. You know, we've had twelve. Nine of them are still open.

Three of them have been closed, and it takes me about fifteen days to respond back. And then like I was mentioning that systemic, you can really see that here. Okay. If you wanted to get in in a little bit more detail, of course, there's more details to that page, but I wanted to showcase the other options we have for that report is the service request details, and this will allow you to actually see the full print off of that service request.

So I have had communities where they actually print off. Each request will not print it, but send it in their management package to say we need to talk about this. Right? This is maybe forward to the architectural committee.

And it's all available to you whenever you need to through the reporting. So there are certain reports that you can customize that you can't customize, but definitely the reporting functionality is gonna be your best friend when it comes to seeing history, seeing data, seeing metrics, particularly fits in regards to a unit or, particular type.

Next question, if your management company has their own portal site, do you have suggestions for how to merge use with Condo Control?

Yeah, I definitely think there's room that we can play fair, play well with each other. Right? There are certain functions that software might have that it just really depends. But I really think from a resident perspective, I love Condo Control for how simple it is.

We really, value just making our user face very easy, intuitive, user friendly. You know, we have clients that are in their nineties zipping around on iPads, utilizing service requests, utilizing file library, utilizing events. There's a reason why.  We put a lot of r and d to make sure that it looks good and it's easy to use. So I think in how we can complement that other software that that management company may use, you can say, hey, this is gonna be the platform for the residents. We need all this for the residents. And then if they need to export or extract the little details or apply it to QuickBooks or apply it to their accounting software, they can certainly do that. But at least it gives the residents a sense of community, a sense of safe space. They know that it's theirs, it's their community, so you don't have to worry about if maybe there's a change of management.

That information is staying. It's very much the community. So I do like that especially if the community is potentially thinking about a transition with management. I've seen a lot more success where they stick with Condo Control and they just keep on moving forward, because maybe some things are missed. I think there is room for both of us to play. Talk to your CSM though, and maybe we can take a look at that really do a deep dive together. 

Next question, what is the best way to get your clients ‘buy in’ on using Condo Control for maintenance requests? Some people just don't wanna do it. They call, text, and sometimes send an email.

Ultimately, of course, you have to provide good customer service everyone knows me that I try my best all the time. But no, like, you, you know, you do have to have those boundaries to say, hey, thanks so much for the phone call. I'm just in the middle of something. Please make a service request so I can make sure I respond back to it quickly.

And then make sure you respond back to it quickly. Right? Because why would someone do something if they don't see an automatic reward or an automatic, you know, something of value to them? So if you also make the effort to say love that feedback, you know, put in that service request ticket.

I'll take a look at it when I get back to my desk. It could be that replacement. Right? So as I said, it's not going to be an overnight success. It will take some time. It will take a lot of repetition reminding folks, but I myself have gone through it, you know, and I definitely have had residents to say, Miryam, I'm not on my computer. I'm not I don't even have Internet right now, and I'm like, okay, but you can call me. So let me log in to Condo Control for you and I'll make a ticket on your behalf so that when they did have access to Internet, when for wherever they were, they got back to. They knew their ticket was there. They saw that it was pending. They felt heard. So, really, that would be the buy in.

It's just making that they understand when they use this system, they use this process, they will be heard, they will be responded to quickly. 

Text message and phone calls are fine. Right? Naturally, they they do have to happen. But, if a resident does see the positive result, I do think that they will keep moving forward.

If you never respond to the service request though, I'm not gonna lie. They'll never use it. Right? Like, I have to be very blunt with that. So there does have to be a buy-in from management too, right, from that property manager or the administrator. 

Last question: can reminder times the edited after a service request has been submitted and is in open status, currently this appears to only be available at the time the service request is created.

Yeah. That's great feedback. I'm not too sure. I'll have to look into it, Rebecca if you can just make sure you get their name and we can give them a direct response later. But as my understanding is, no. You cannot the time, you can adjust the date when it's moved from pending. If you wanted to change it from a 180 days to three days, because maybe you need to make that a little bit more faster than yes.

Ultimately, that notification goes to your inbox. So, you know, if you are on that schedule and every morning, you check your service request before you get into or dive into your other emails. That might be a good, solution to kinda help you manage time but other than that, yeah, I believe it is pretty much hard coded to when it was submitted that reminder will be, sent out. 

Thank you so much, Miryam. That concludes our presentation for today. If you have any questions or need clarification on any of the changes, please create a support ticket.

We will answer your phone calls. We really appreciate I'll answer your emails and phone calls.

Thank you everybody for your time and participation, and all your feedback as well. Just a reminder after this Zoom meeting ends, a short survey will appear in your browser. And if you don't mind taking the time to, you know fill this out, we would greatly appreciate any feedback. We do read everything that it gets submitted, and we hope you all have a great day. Thanks everyone.