Webinar - HOA Rule Compliance Essentials

Today's webinar is on the topic of HOA, also known as homeowner’s association, rule compliance essentials.

My name is Rebecca Woelfle, and I am a customer marketing specialist at Condo Control, and I'll be your host and speaker for this session. I am also joined by my colleague, Maria Shokalo, and she is an associate product manager at Condo Control. She'll also be speaking today as well as participating in the q and a session.

So before we get started with the webinar, I wanted to provide a few reminders. This webinar is being recorded. A follow-up email will be sent to all registrants with the recording link once it becomes available. And then after the presentation, we will have a formal q and a session. If you do have any questions, please submit them at the bottom of your screen in the Zoom q and a, and we'll do our best at the end to get to as many questions as we have time for. And then after the webinar, upon leaving the Zoom meeting, a survey will automatically appear in your browser to gather any feedback you may have and answer a couple of questions.

So on our agenda for today, we will start by discussing types of compliance issues, how to handle noncompliance and violations, and also effective enforcement strategies for those working in property management.

After that, our guest speaker, Maria, will provide an overview and demo on some of Condo Control’s most useful features for ensuring rule compliance, including the violation tracking and our architectural change requests features, and how these can be very helpful in your day-to-day property management. And then finally, we'll have the formal q and a session.

Alright. So today, I want to really start by going over the importance of upholding those community standards. These are essentially rules and guidelines established by homeowners association or HOA to maintain a certain quality of life and appearance within a community.

So HOAs create and enforce rules for several reasons, and these rules are designed to really preserve, firstly, the value and well-being of the development or building as well as the homes and facilities within the community.

Rules also exist to keep residents safe and to set a standard of expectations for everyone. So, rules let people know essentially what is and what is not allowed.

Finally, rules are made to keep the entire community happy and productive. They discourage owners from blasting loud music at two AM or leaving junk all over their front lawn And there are consequences for breaking these rules with fines being enough of a deterrent for most people.

 

So these issues can lead to, as I said, fines, warnings and other enforcement actions by the HOA to maintain the community standards and regulations. And I'll get into these in more detail later. So, neighborhoods with well enforced community standards, it's actually they're more likely to have higher property values, lower crime rates, and increased resident satisfaction, emphasizing the importance of upholding these standards.

So, you know, you could have thousands of people living in a planned community with vehicles, pets, trash, guests, and different values. These can create situations where the large association rules and regulations are broken both unintentionally and on purpose. So, what are, exactly are some examples of these, compliance issues or violations?

So let's go over, firstly, just to reiterate the definition of a violation, this refers to any action or behavior that goes against the bylaws or rules and regulations set forth by the HOA.

Okay. So this could include parking violations such as parking in restricted areas, having too many vehicles, or parking commercial vehicles and RVs in residential zones.

Next exterior maintenance and appearance. So homeowners often violate the HOA rules by failing to maintain exterior of their homes including lawns, paint, or overall cleanliness.

Next, signage. So displaying unauthorized signs such as political signs, business ads, or unapproved decorative signs including some holiday displays.

It's really good to check the local and state laws, actually when it comes particularly to political signs.

And then rental restrictions. So violations related to renting out the property such as not following the short term rental rules or not registering tenants with the HOA. And then also pet violations, so issues related to pet ownership, this thing they might include, having more pets than allowed, not picking up, after pets, or owning prohibited breeds, for example.

 So some more, types of violations. Just a few more common types here include noise complaints, excessive noise from parties, pets, or other activities. Very common, you know, that's something that people deal with that could just really disturb neighbors.

Trash and recycling. So improper disposal of trash, recycling or yard waste, including leaving bins out too long or not using approved containers.

Unapproved vehicles. So keeping unapproved vehicles such as boats, trailers, or non operational cars on the property or in common areas.

And then, speaking of common areas, the common area usage misuse of these, such as pools, parks, and clubhouses or not following the rules for reserving and using these spaces.

 

And then lastly, architectural modifications. So making changes to the property's exterior without HOA approval such as adding structures, fences, or landscaping, modifications.

So next we are going to conduct a poll to gauge our experience of our audience. So our question today is what is your biggest challenge in ensuring HOA rule compliance within your community, or HOA rules being followed. If you're joining us, please select an option from the list here. So the first option, enforcing rules consistently. So applying rules uniformly without any favoritism or bias, for example.

Second, handling rule violations effectively. This could include, you know, identifying, documenting, and addressing rule violations, effectively and then, you know, maintaining architectural standards. So ensuring all homeowners adhere to the established architectural guidelines.

And then educating homeowners. So, you know, keeping homeowners informed about the importance and benefits of compliance. And then lastly the legal and financial enforcement. So managing, the legal and financial aspects of rule enforcement. So let's give everybody a minute to answer. Looks like at the moment, the enforcing rules consistently and handling the rule violations effectively are in the top.

Right. So just to reiterate the difference. So, you know, enforcing the rules, you know, without favoritism or bias consistent and then handling the violations, actually, addressing these, rule violations. Okay? So interesting. We have a tie between us. Thank you for your participation in the poll. So we have results here.

And I'll see the results of the poll.  Enforcing the rules consistently and then handling the rule violations effectively seem to be the top two.  

With that, I'd now like to go over the topic of handling noncompliance and violations including some effective enforcement strategies. So, it is tough to keep up with the ongoing violations, especially if you're managing a large community. We suggest that for, administrators and property managers, familiarize yourself with the rules. You can't expect your residents to know the bylaws and rules if you yourself aren't sure of what they are. So, you know, we suggest to take time to read over your HOA's governing documents on a regular, perhaps quarterly basis.

While no one expects you to memorize every rule, but you should be familiar with them so that you know where to look, or when you need guidance on how to handle a specific issue. Otherwise, the association ends up, could create unnecessary frustration for owners by upholding archaic principles and people, strongly dislike rules that don't serve a purpose or are counterproductive.

 

So, next, it's good to have a formal system in place, so especially a formal method for issuing violations. That includes the method of distribution and timing and issuing violations as they happen can be draining and inefficient if your HOA doesn't have a formal system in place, and we'll get to that later on how software can help in this case.

So large HOA communities, first you can give a verbal and or written warning to someone who just needs a reminder about rules and regulations, starting off.

However, if the association finds that more action needs to be taken than they, use as I said a violation management as a system to facilitate fair and consistent rule enforcement. So violation notices they really need to be consistent and predictable. It's good to give recipients of the violation. They must be given a reasonable amount of time to correct the issue before it is escalated.

Now some states do have laws that govern how and when notices must be given and, what details they contain, how they must be delivered or served, etc. And then, you know, in other states and provinces they have less formal requirements. But all in all, it's the governing documents should determine how notices must be given.

So next, as we are on to the strategies for enforcing HOA rules and preventing violations in the first place starting with regular communication. So regularly communicate the rules to residents. Whether, especially when there's updates or changes. So whether this be through emails, newsletters, community meetings, digital platforms like Condo Control, all useful channels for this communication.

Next, clear documentation of rules. So ensure that all HOA rules and regulations are clearly documented and easily accessible to all residents. So you can, if you want, print out and distribute copies of these documents for each homeowner, but that can be costly and is very ecofriendly so a better alternative is to post the documents online. So ideally, these would be stored in something like a file library or on the association's website.

You could also email your homeowners digital copies of the documents so that they always have a copy on hand. If possible send, owners a notice of any rules that are coming into effect, rules that have been amended, or rules that have that will become important once, you know, every three months. So, again, quarterly is suggested.

For example, when, you could send out a notice in early spring to remind homeowners about landscaping rules, for example.

Next, a fair warning system. So, you really want to implement a system of warnings that allows residents to, again, correct violations before more severe consequences are applied. So, for example, a first violation might result in a written warning. Subsequent violations could escalate to fines and other penalties. So when written well, a warning letter can act as a gentle reminder to the homeowner.

 

Sometimes they might not have even known, been aware that the rule that they broke existed, or they might have simply forgotten about the rule. But either way, sending a letter before issuing a violation shows the homeowner that the HOA can be reasonable and compassionate.

So, furthermore, you know, the homeowner is more likely to comply with the rule if they've received that friendly warning first.

You know, a violation notice never sits well with anyone even if they have committed the offense can be a bit jarring, but, yeah, having that first friendly warning first is good. And, you know, depending on your comfort level, you could also have a conversation with the homeowner, you talk to them, allow them to ask questions. And when you do that, you can try and mitigate the problem right then and there. Now if the offense is serious, then, a warning letter is probably not appropriate, but many small violations can be addressed this way. So proactive education. Now we suggest, if you host workshops or info sessions, this could be helpful for residents to understand, especially the reasons behind certain rules and how they benefit the community and the consequences of noncompliance.

And then finally fines. So the use of fines. Well, you know, fines should be used judiciously. They serve as very much a tangible deterrent for rule violations and ensuring that fines are reasonable and escalated appropriately, helps enforce the rules, again, without creating undue hardship or resentment.

Alright. So, you know, really implementing these strategies can, again, help maintain a harmonious living environment while ensuring those community standards are upheld. 

So, property managers, they could encounter any, legal regulatory hurdles when enforcing certain community standards and there's conflicting state or province laws. There could be ambiguities in the HOA bylaws. As a last resort, legal action may be necessary for severe or repeated violations.

If someone is purposefully breaking the rules and is ignoring the violation notices and fines that you've sent, the board may have to take legal action to address the problem and it's not something any board wants to do but you can't allow a homeowner to brush the rules aside. So really check your governing documents to see if the association can, recover costs and, it can you know, it's important to also just consult with legal counsel to ensure that any actions taken are within the law and the rights, of the residents are protected. So if a home if a homeowner knows that they may be on the hook for the association's legal fees as well as any fees that a judge orders them to pay, you know, this could be enough to persuade them to pay the outstanding fines.

 

Alright. So once, your board has established the system for issuing and resolving violations, you know, the next step is to create a system for how to track and manage all of these violations coming in. So large HOA communities need to keep track of these offences especially if they're repetitive, and it's hard to keep on top of possibly hundreds of violations that are taking place in a large HOA community, and update different statuses of these respective, violations, you know, especially if, if the association is using regular mail service to send a notice, you know, everything is delayed.

So this is where online software comes in like Condo Control. So to really help automate this tedious process and reduce the time you spend logging details by hand. Ultimately, the best way to reduce violations in your community is to make it easier for residents to follow the rules in the first place. So, making these processes more convenient is a great start and Condo Control has the unique features to do just that.

The violation tracking feature is what we're going to start with in terms of discussing, and I must say that, both of these features, can be used for both HOA's and condos. Okay? So next, for violation tracking, I'm just gonna go over some of the key benefits. So the violation tracking feature, really this is used to log, track, and manage those violations that occur in your community including condos.

So administrators can set up customized violation categories or types. You can log violations based on noise, parking, landscaping, pets, and more so customizing it. And these categories within the system can be edited or deleted instantaneously.

Everything is very quick. And not only does the software give you control to program the violation processes and procedures, you can also send personalized notice directly to the offending homeowner. So provided that your association allows you to send violation notices electronically, you can easily deliver a warning letter or notice to a designated unit or individual.

So there's no need to print or mail any paper copies. And the resident also has the opportunity to respond to the notice or ask any questions they may have.

And all these transactions are securely saved on Condo Control’s cloud platform. So if you do ever need to review a previous conversation with resident, you can easily find it. And residents can also, they, not only do they have the opportunity to review and respond, they can pay for the monetary fines online. So, you don't have to spend the extra time chasing homeowners for checks. With the online tool, violations can be resolved in a day.

 As the status of a violation progresses, you can seeand update the issue with a couple of clicks and seeing, you know, is it open, pending, closed. You can set each violation to that so you can keep track.

 

And you, you know, you may request to be notified every time a new violation is created or updated by another administrator so that, you know, you're always aware of when new issues arise and when those outstanding violations are resolved.

 You can also view all registered violations from a list. Very easy to see, very comprehensive, and monitor which issues have been taken care of. There's also due dates. They let you know how much time a resident has to remedy an issue. And then violation data also can be used to create customized reports. This is very helpful to help inform future decisions and keep helping you stay on top of, the, you know, day to day tasks, but also, you know, providing with you with some insightful information that will assist you with the long term planning. And, the system automatically tracks how many times a type of violation has been documented for each unit or house so that you can easily see if a resident is having difficulty abiding by a certain rule.

And then you can run this report to see which violations occur most frequently or when they are most likely to be committed even. So using this data you can really make decisions about how to reduce ultimately the number of violations that occur in your community.

Now that I've kind of gone over the violation tracking features, Maria, I am going to pass it over to you, and, I will stop sharing. She is going to just go through in real time the violation tracking feature.

Hi, everyone. Thank you, Rebecca. Excited to be here chatting about our features that make HOA and condo management easier. So let's dive into the violation tracking feature starting from the setup and then going into the reporting. 

So we'll start with the setup. We will talk about three main concepts that help to automate handling of violation. So we'll be talking about violation tracking types, violation stages that each of the violation types go through, and then the violation templates.

The core of the violation tracking feature is the violation types. You may create as many violation tracking types as needed. And after that, attach multiple stages that each of the violation goes through. So when we talk about violation stages, we obviously want to talk about multiple stages here. So you might start by adding the sending the friendly reminder to the violator, then probably a second notice, and potentially, you know, forward it to the voting by your violation committee, eventually impose a charge, and finally send a thank you for the violation is finally closed.

When it comes to each of the stages, there are a couple of things that we help you to automate. So we're allowed to set up a number of resolution days that allow you to automatically prepopulate the due date for the violation.

 

We also allow you to set up a voting for one or multiple stages of a violation.

And, when you set up the voting, you can select the recipients of the voting, which can be always flexible, be the board of directors or your violation committee, and we also additionally allow to introduce the payment component for your violation.

Now let's switch to the last concept that we're discussing, which is the violation template. So the purpose of the template is essentially to allow you set up either the macro that can automatically prepopulate based on the violation stage that the unit is in. And, additionally, as a last step, we also allow you to add the printable templates that you can use if you want to print the violation with all of its detail and, information like the resident's name, detail, subject of violation, maybe make your template a little bit nicer with a footer, and header, and then mail it to the resident.

So this is pretty much everything for the setup. Now we'll switch to the actual violation list page. So this is where you would be logging the violation, tracking their status, and have the high level overview of the state of violation in your community. So you can see how many of the violations are past due. You can always filter the violation by the type, stage, creator of the violation, and, additionally, sort all of the violation based on the last update. So if you want, let's say, to see which violations have been updated most recently by the residents, this is a way to go.

So when you're starting to log a violation, there's multiple things that can be automated. So once you select the unit and you select the recipient of the violation, and then you would go to selecting, let's say, type of the violation, you will see that the details section already prepopulates with all the details that we established in the macro. And based obviously on on the status of the stage of the violation, the details change.

Once the violation is saved, the notice goes to the resident. They can always log in to Condo Control, respond to the violation asking questions or following up.

And, in case this does not happen, this is when you would go to Condo Control, open the violation, that was previously logged, kind of check what information was sent out, and then if needed, log the next warning. So our system allows you, you know, to select what is the next stage for the violation, add a particular update, save the update, and later on follow-up with the resident on that.

So the last piece that I wanted to touch base on is reporting. Our system has a lot of reports. Violation feature is obviously included into this reporting capacity, And we allow you to have the overview of violation activity summary with what are the trends in a particular time frame, which violation type is most popular in your community. And then the other two, reports allow you a more detailed overview of the violation, and as with any report in our system, you can always filter and sort this functionality there.

 

So this covers the main aspects of our violation tracking feature. I will hand it off to Rebecca to discuss a little bit more about the mobile aspect of this feature because violation tracking is something that you can log in both from the web and from the mobile app on the go, and the feature is fully compatible.

Thank you, Maria. Alright. So as Maria said the feature can be used on both the app or online, sorry, desktop and the mobile app. So, if users are interested in the app within, when you have it on your phone, go to violation tracking, go to list. Usually, this is at the top left corner. It will show essentially the list of the violations.  So this is what the screen will look like. And then if you want to create a new violation, this can be done on that screen that I showed. There's a navy blue plus sign at the bottom of the app page, and once that is clicked, it takes you to this new violation page where you can fill that out. And then as well, there is mobile tracking. So, within the violation tracking app, if you go to map up in the top left corner, you will find this map.

And if you go to the info letter I, it will show you the legend as seen here. So for example, in this case, someone on Wright Avenue got a first warning letter, You know, another person, it got multiple violations. So, it really is useful to see from this kind of view where the violations are occurring. Maria, did you want to add anything more? 

No. I think it pretty much covers. Again, you know, the mobile talks to the app. You can always just on the go kind of see the violation, take a picture, you know, create a draft. And then later on, once you're in the office, you can finalize the violation and issue it for the resident.

Exactly. So that was violation tracking. Our next key feature we want to highlight today is architectural change requests. So this feature is used to register, process and approve specifically architectural change requests submitted by owners. And this is the architectural request, I must say, is part of the larger service request feature, but management can filter requests so that they only see the architectural or reno, I should say, renovation requests when they need to.

So really useful to just have it all in one place. The request can be reviewed and revised from a single list. And if applicable, you can add an auto response that will appear when a resident selects the architectural request option. This could include instructions or details about specific requests which can help residents complete the request even on their own.

If there's time sensitive requests, these can be approved or denied online. Residents don't have to come into the office to collect or drop off forms. Any authorized staff or board members can view and add, public or internal comments to requests and can approve or deny requests from the platform. Super easy. That way, they don't have to meet in person. As we said, it can be all done online.

 

Administrators assigned to this request, will be notified when they received a new or updated request, and it's also possible to charge the fee through this feature if payment is required.

So, you know, by promptly addressing their request to the boards, it really helps the boards remain in compliance with rules, governing response times, and owners are less likely to proceed with unsanctioned projects.

So next, I am going to pass it back over to Maria to, she can give an overview of this wonderful feature and what it looks like on the platform.

Thank you, Rebecca. So as Rebecca mentioned earlier, architectural change request is fully integrated to a service request feature. So quickly go through the setup, then the request creation, review, voting, and the reporting processes.

So let's talk about setting up the feature. The architectural change request is one type of the service request that allow to add approvers if there is a voting required. So we would assume that, you know, your community might have a special committee that is focused on reviewing the architectural change request. So you might want to add those users as approvers when you set up the feature. You can always update those approvers if something changes.

And then, in addition to that, setting up the architectural change request, you might also want to add additional custom fields of different types. So for example, you might want to ask a residence to you might want to ask residents to submit a design blueprint or probably enter a date of construction.

So let's dive into the actual creation of the request. So this is the landing page where administrators typically go to when they want to review all of the requests that are incoming. And I will just demonstrate how this request creation will look like from standpoint.

There wouldn't be a big difference between the way how residents created versus administrators. It's just, you know, if a resident comes to your office and brings all the documents printed out already, you may want to do a favor and create a request on their behalf, you know, in a digital form.

So here we go. We select the architectural change request form. We select who is the recipient, and then we see all of the fields prepopulated that are specific to a request. Once all of them are filled in the acknowledgment is, marked, this is when the request goes into the review.

And this is where I want to focus on the actual approval process. So you may see that in my community, I want two users to two administrators to review the request.

 

And, each of the requests would have this small snapshot of information around who has reviewed, who approved, who declined the request, and who is yet to respond. So if I'm the approver, I will see the option to either approve, decline, leave a comment, and then save this update, which will automatically update the snapshot and, send notification to anyone else involved in the approval process.

So this information in terms of the approval is obviously not visible to the residents. It's only for the administrators who can see this information. And once the decision is taken on the architectural change request, it is when the administrator might want to send a public update to the resident informing them about the final decision.

When it comes to the reporting, let's say, you're coming to want to keep a track of how many architectural change requests are coming over time or retrieve some of the old information, this is a section in our reporting, in our feature where you can go to pull the information about architectural change requests. You can always filter the information on the reports based on the request type and get all the information, you know, exported into Excel, maybe send it out, print for your annual or quarterly meetings, and get the information from there. Alright. So, this concludes the demo for the architectural change request. And, back to Rebecca.

Thank you, Maria. Alright, everyone. We're gonna sum up the presentation. So wrapping up this presentation component of the webinar, let's just review some of the key takeaways here. So importance of HOA community standards. You know, this ensures resident safety, preserves value of buildings and facilities, and encourages a proactive and collaborative approach with residents. This can help enhance the compliance efforts. And then handling non compliance and violations, as I discussed about, you know, some of the strategies for enforcing, rules and preventing violations in the first place, including the regular communication with residents, clear documentation of rules, having a fair warning system, and use of fines.

We also went over our use of software to help with violation, tracking and architectural change requests. So, the Condo Control platform has these useful features.

And we really hope that this session was an educational one and provided some key tips and strategies necessary to uphold those community standards effectively.

If you are interested in our next webinar before we get the q and a, just wanted to let everyone know this will be held on Tuesday, July 30th. It's on the topic of hybrid meetings. So the title is maximize community participation with hybrid meetings and is also accredited by the CMRAO for 1.0 if you are in Ontario.

So you can register for this event at events.condocontrol.com. And, I'll also ensure that, you can register in the post webinar email so when we send out the recording link, everyone will receive it.

 Okay everybody, so that concludes our presentation component today. Thank you so much, Maria, for being our guest speaker. We're now going to start the Q and A session. So as I said, if you do have any questions please submit them in the Q and A function of Zoom at the bottom of your screen. So, unfortunately, we are not able to address any raised hands Questions, please submit your questions into the Zoom chat. 

 A lot of questions about the cost associated. So this is a feature. Maria, if you want to do you want to take these questions on, the additional, as a core or premium feature if you want to provide some more info about that.

Sure. So violation tracking as well as the architectural change request are part of the premium package, it's not included in the core package.

Okay. This question is from Deepak.

If I put the violation ticket for, say, unit 123, will the residents from the unit be able to see that?

Thank you, Deepak, for the question. Absolutely, you can select the recipients of the violation

So whenever, you're selecting the unit, our system prepopulates the list of all the users in that unit that have access to the violation tracking feature, and you can direct the violation to a particular user.

This question is from Anne. When logging a violation notice, the violation date and time is required to be entered. However, this information does not show on the actual notice that is sent. What is shown is the violation logging date and time, which confuses the resident as they assume the logging time is the incident time. Can the incident time replace the logging time in the notice?

Excellent question, Anne. And I do recall seeing this request in our feedback form suggestions. This is somewhere where the product team goes fishing for a really great suggestion for improving our features.

So the answer right now is it is not something that we allow to customize. Unfortunately, our templates are designed to just have a very specific number of information. Yet, I do recall this being one of the highly voted items on our feedback forum to, specifically indicate the incident date instead of the date while is logged in. So this is something that we definitely consider for future improvements. And in the meantime, I have seen other communities, you know, occasionally putting it very boldly inside the details or even subject of evaluation.

Thank you, Maria.Thank you for the question.

 

Alright. Next question, from Frances. My recollection of change request is that ‘public’ is the default setting. Can that be changed to internal?

Okay, Francis. So this is a great question as well.

We do have a workaround to allow some administrators to only post ends, the internal comments. This is all tied to permissions where, you know, if you disable the permission to post public comments, it means that your administrators, for example, board of directors that do not ever want to communicate directly with residents will be only able to leave the internal comments.

However, if we are talking, you know, more about administrators that communicate both with internal administration and residents and want to switch between what is the default option, then, unfortunately, we do not have the selection for that. Yet, any communication regarding the approval of an architectural change request, by default, is going as an internal comment and is never communicated or visible to residents.

Next question from Randall. Does the service request when approval of board is required, does it specify the names of approvers, or can approval be granted if only two board members vote, or must all members vote?

So this is something that is very specific to each communities. Right? What our system allows is to set who needs to approve, and this is where the snapshot comes into play displaying who has approved, who has not yet approved, who decided to abstain from voting.

And based on each HOA community, this is where you make a decision collectively on what is considered, for the architectural change request to be approved.

So it in some communities, it must be one hundred percent of everyone who selected as voters. Other communities, I have seen being more flexible with allowing some of the voters in absentee, for example, to be bypassed and not participate in the voting.

Another question from Anne. Another challenge I have is the status of the violation notice. The only option when sending a notice is save as draft or save as open. When sending reminders or warnings, we would like to save as closed to skip the step to having to go back into the notice to save as closed.

That's an interesting question. I would assume that, we're here referring to a violation that is already open, but, there is a need to send a particular update and, for example, save it as closed.

We can definitely look into the improvement of that or maybe even ask a little bit more in details about this question because even when you are, sending a reminder or just an update to a particular violation state the option the violation is present there. So I might want to dig a little bit more into this use case to answer it in more detail.

So this is kind of a general question, Maria, from June Webb. They ask, how do you incorporate owners without email or Internet access? So we do get this question frequently on how to encourage adoption of the software. And, what are some of the techniques that you found to be most effective in this case?

That's a very interesting question, and I would say that, you know, other more popular features that I used, you know, way more frequently like announcements, or, you know, something more specific to condos, package tracking features, are including the ability to send notices via SMS or voice messages.

We do find it more useful to be used in emergency situations, and violation tracking feature has not yet accumulated that much of a feedback to have voice or SMS notification incorporated there. In addition to that the notice to read the notice through SMS is probably not as convenient as reading an email.

However, what our violation tracking feature allows to do is just save the notice on contact control just for tracking purposes to have a record of that, and then print violation notice using our template, which allows you to, very quickly prepopulate every information that you entered in our system, dump it into the template that you already have with all the merged fields, print it out, you know, and mail it to the recipient.

And, we can always attach the printed templates into the violation so that you can have a record of what exactly, is the notice that you have mailed later on to the resident without access to Internet.

Okay. This question is from Terry. I don't see the list/map feature in my mobile app, violation tracking. Can you review again on how to get it, get to it?

Maria, do you want to go through this? Should I go back maybe to that slide?

It might be also helpful. I think the main question here, Terry, would be around whether this feature is included into your Yes. Package or not. If the feature is included and you're able to say it on your web version, then there should be no restrictions around seeing it on the mobile. So, if you, if we can reach out to you after the meeting to see the settings and enable it for your community, we will be more than happy to do so.

Yep. Exactly. This question from Jean Claude. Where can we get details on macros in service requests? Say someone wants to ask a permit for some renovation and additional forms will appear based on the type of renovation.

Sure. Excellent question. So macros have proven to be a very useful feature in Condo Control, And this is something that you can always set up inside the system, for a specific service request type.

 

So maybe I can even very quickly share my screen one more time I'm sure. This is where the setup is, and we have a section for macros. So whenever you are adding a macro, this is something that can be added on a generic basis. So when you're responding to a service request that was submitted by a resident, then you can very quickly prepopulate this information under the macro section, and then you don't have to type when you're responding to that. So just to quickly demonstrate that, if, let's say, you have service request and you click use a macro, this is where you'll see the list of different macros that are attached, and you can quickly enter it. All the information is populated here. All you need to do is just to click save and send the updates to the resident.

Another point to that is probably, you know, more of an introductory text to the service request. So let's say you want the residents whenever they are submitting service request to see a very quick response, which will give them a lot of information before they even start submitting the request. So this is something that you also might want to consider.

We have seen a lot of communities, almost dumping tons of information there, including links and links to even files, located in the file library within Condo Control. So it proved to be a pretty useful feature.

After you, Rebecca. Perfect. Thank you, Maria.  

Back to our questions. So next question from Bob. For architectural requests, can we create explicit multiple required and labeled check off steps for different parts of the work flow, for example, electrical, plumbing, HOA approval, etcetera.

Multiple required and labeled checkoff steps. So that's a very good question, and I almost want to immediately ask a counter question in terms of who this checklist will be for. If we're talking here about residents that are supposed to submit all the information, then, absolutely, you can set up different, you know, custom fields with a type checkbox. And then when the rest of the submitting or updating as a request, they have the option to mark the checkbox, you know, informing them about, okay, this one has been done or this is a date when it's done, etcetera. And now when we're talking about, if we're talking about a different side of things like, you know, a kind of a post approval process where the resident already got the approval for their request, and then, they want to mark or inform you about what work has been done as per approved plan, then, this might be a separate, you know, process, and it might just as well be accomplished by, extra custom fields or simply, by sending updates to a service request.

So, again, if this does not necessarily answer your question or your workflow is different, I'm more than happy to elaborate more after the webinar.

 

Alright. Next question from Kim. In our association, all residents vote to decide whether to approve or reject a proposal. The board of directors has no final say. How might Condo Control be used to facilitate this kind of approval process?

Thank you for the question, Kim, and this has been, again, one of the requested features, you know, proposed features in our feedback forum where the ability to vote should be delegated to residents. Unfortunately, right now, we are separating the voting capabilities, to be designated specifically for the administrators mainly because they are the ones that are seeing all the internal communication, history records, and kind of, like, more insight as well as receive more notifications. But going forward, we might be considering to think of a workflow where the residents could be involved in the voting process as well.

Navigation question. How do you open and maintain all the tabs across the top of the screen where you can jump to different Condo Control views.

I think that is a question more related to my presentation. If I understand this question correctly, I love to save time. I do not want one to eight, even two seconds for the page to load. That's why I chose to just have multiple tabs open. Totally, makes sense to just have everything in one screen. I'm just a time saver.

 Another question from Bob. Can owners continue to upload documents, for example, external inspection approvals throughout the architectural project?

Yes. They totally can. It depends on how you set up different documents that the resident must submit. So, again, if you set up a particular information to be mandatory before the request is submitted, then, obviously, the resident must have to submit all the documents prior to submitting the request. Yet you might set up some of the fields, for uploading certain files to be optional, which allows residents to submit the request without filling out some of the custom filled information and then follow-up and update it after the fact. 

Deepak is asking, I was just testing the violation tracking when I go on to select stage. Does not show anything. Can you help? So you may not have, as Maria said, the violation tracking feature activated, correct, if they are not seeing it.

That's the I think Deepak is seeing the feature. It's just that they are not able to set up the stages because the stages, have to be included into a set of groups. So I would be more than happy to send a follow-up email explaining a little bit more or connect you with the CSM in case you have one dedicated to your workspace to help set it up. It should be a super quick process.

 So, this is from Flor. How can I differentiate a vehicle or beautification violation? Yes, the different types. Okay. I assume that's what you mean, Flor. Maria, I guess it's, maybe inputting into the violation, you know, custom types is what, they're asking.

Yeah. I would probably want to get a little bit more information about that, but it looks like different violation types that can be set up.

 And then I am just going to quickly answer the questions here about the, you please provide the date again? I'm assuming you are asking about the webinar. It is Tuesday, July 30th from twelve PM to one PM eastern time, And it's on hybrid meetings. And then the, yep, that's all good there. Okay, everybody.

So that concludes, our question period today. Thank you everybody for joining.

If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to us. Send an email to customer success at Condo Control dot com. You can also reach us at 1-888-762-6636, and be sure to check out our website, condocontrol.com for more resources. 

We appreciate everyone joining us, here for today's talk. And, again, after the Zoom meeting ends, a short survey will appear in your browser. So if you don't mind taking time to fill this out, we would greatly appreciate any feedback. Alright. Have a great rest of the day, everyone.