TOPS Home E-Zine

Issue #4 - June 2002

Inside TOPS Home:

1. TOPS Announcements: New Release and More!
2. Advantages to Community Web Sites.
3. Customer in the Spotlight: NICM
4. Support: Vacation Messages
5. Summer 2002 Update Release
6. Community Path Ceases Operations

Announcements: New Release and More!

Welcome to TOPS Home, the web site e-zine for TOPS Community Web Sites. First and foremost, we want to announce our Summer 2002 web site update. All sorts of new features are included in this release. Read on in this e-zine to learn more. Another announcement regards one of our competitors, Community Path, who is ceasing operations. Additionally, you will get information about signing up community web sites, and help on setting vacation messages in e-mail. As always, enjoy your reading, and if you have any questions or concerns call me, Matt Meiklejohn at 800-760-9966, or email me at websales@topssoft.com. I look forward to speaking with you!

Advantages to Community Web Sites:

Many of our management companies currently have a web site through Tops Software. While it is beneficial to have a site on the World Wide Web, the true benefits come from signing up your communities. Here are ten easy reasons why having your communities signed up with a web site would be beneficial to your company:

A Community Web Site...

1. Strengthens ties between the community and the management company.
2. Reduces phone calls to your office for repetitive inquiries such as balance requests and record information.
3. Gives you a technological boost over your competitors.
4. Increases your chances to get associations that you bid on.
5. Increases board member cooperation, and pleases board members with board only features such as reports online.
6. Is like having a 24-hour-a-day, 7-day-a-week on-call manager.
7. Can be as informational and in-depth as you want. You are in control of it's contents, not us!
8. Can generate revenue through online classified advertising.
9. Gives your management company web site cost a five (5) dollar credit per association signed up.
10. Only costs 50 cents a month per unit for a 100 unit association.

The above list is by no means complete. There are literally hundreds of ways that a community web site can benefit your company, your communities, your board members, and your owners. Sign your communities up for web sites today. In no time, the residents, managers, receptionists, vendors and anyone else involved in the association management processes will notice the benefits.

Let's talk! Contact me, Matt Meiklejohn at 800-760-9966 or websales@topssoft.com.

Customer in the Spotlight:

National Institute of Community Management

National Institute of Community Management (NICM) uses a unique approach to community web sites. Each of its web sites sport a uniform look to reinforce the bonds between NICM and the communities. NICM community sites are fully branded, and offered as a part of the contract signed with every new community. This is an excellent use of the community web sites as a sales and bidding tool, as well as a sign of the level of consistency and professionalism that NICM customers can expect. Go to their web site, www.nicm1.com and click the My Communities link to see more!

Support: Internet E-Mail

Summer is upon us, and with it, a time for many of us to take a vacation. Did you know that you could set vacation messages for your e-mail on our Internet Mail Server? TOPS Software out sources e-mail hosting to a company called Internet Mail, or iMail. Here are instructions for defining a vacation message on the iMail servers, via the Internet:

1. Open a web browser
2. In the address bar, type http://mail.domainname.com/ (where domain name is the URL of your web site, i.e. mail.topssoft.com)
3. Enter your e-mail address.
4. Enter your password.
5. Click Login
6. Once the mail account comes up, locate the Personal Account Options. This may be a link on the bottom of the page, or a pull down menu at the top right.
7. Select Change Vacation Message from the personal account menu.
8. Enter the text of your vacation message and press save.
9. All new e-mails received in your account will automatically be responded to with the new message.
10. Don't forget to remove the vacation message when you are back from your vacation. To do so, follow steps 1-7, delete the contents of the text box, and click save.

Support: Summer 2002 Web Site Update Release

The TOPS Community Web Site service has been going strong for nearly two years now. In that time, we have made a number of improvements to the product itself, both on the TOPS side, and on the web sites themselves. A new update to the web site service is currently in Beta stage, and is scheduled to be released this summer.

• Reports: Perhaps the most significant item in the new update is the Reports feature. This feature allows you to select the 'Export to Web' option in TOPS when printing financial and community reports. Reports will appear as a new option in the sidebar under the Board Only section of your community web site. A control center in TOPS allows you to manage all uploaded reports, and choose which reports will be removed from or added to the community web site.
• Statistics: The statistics menu is an expansion on the Show Hits feature. This new menu will appear under the Admin Only heading on your community web site. The statistics menu includes three sections, Page Views, Most Frequented Pages, and Login Statistics.
• Feature Descriptions: The new Feature Descriptions option will allow administrators to enter any text at the top of any feature page, including the login screen. Feature Descriptions are HTML enabled to allow formatting and hyperlinks in description text. (This feature will now allow editing of text on static pages, such as home pages and services.)
• View Account Info: With our new View Account Info option in the address book, users with administrative access may easily view account info for any owner without having to log in as that owner.
• Address Book: Based upon feedback from many of our existing communities we made a number of changes to the address book, including adding the ability to save a picture with each user profile. We've also extended some fields in the database, and added a couple of new items to the profile.
• eForms: The eForms interface has been completely redesigned to make it easier and more intuitive to design an eForm from scratch. Additionally, we have added two new options for eForms: Drop down combo boxes, and required field types.
• Events Calendar: The Events Calendar now handles events that span multiple days (without having to go to each day and enter it) and it also supports specific time frames for an event. If you haven't already done so, make sure you've told your residents about the ability to export a particular event from the events calendar to their own personal calendars in Outlook, and that they can even RSVP to the event via the calendar link!
• More Pictures: The Amenity Feature, along with the Homes for Sale and Homes for Lease feature now holds up to four pictures for each listing.

In all, there are over 60 changes in the new version. These span the entire web site product, both in TOPS, and on the Internet. To view a complete listing of the changes, go to www.topshome.com.

As with all web releases, new web sites receive new features automatically, but existing web sites are retrofitted over a period of time. If you currently manage one or more community web sites, you should expect to receive notification of this change via e-mail as soon as it is completed.

Community Path Ceases Operations

Community Path, a free community web site provider, recently ceased operations when they discovered that their advertising based business model simply did not work. This is yet another in a long line of dot com closures. Because TOPS Web Sites are based on a pay-for-service model, and because we are based in a brick-and-mortar business, TOPS is confident that our web site service is in no danger of being phased out, ever. In addition to the many features and unique abilities of TOPS web sites, this assurance is yet another bargaining tool you can use when proposing to your communities to purchase a TOPS Community Web Site.

 

Did you know that TOPS Software will provide you with a free
community web site  CD demo?  Follow this link to apply for your free demo today!

 

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About the Authors

Matt Meiklejohn is your TOPS Community Web Site Sales Representative
Andrea Drennen is the Director of Publishing and Standards at TOPS Software 

 

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