TOPS Home E-Zine

Issue #7 - September 2002

Inside TOPS Home:

1. TOPS Announcements
2. TOPS Software Partners with AtHomeNet Sales
3. Complete Redesign of TOPSHome.com
4. Why Get a TOPS Community Web Site?
5. Spotlight: Preserve HOA
6. Support: Using the Statistics Menu
7. Support: How to Create an eForm
8. Redesigning your Web Site

 

Announcements:

Welcome to TOPS Home, the web site e-zine for TOPS Community Web Sites. This month, we are pleased to announce a new arrangement with AtHomeNet to provide sales services for TOPS Community Web Sites and the unveiling of the new www.TOPSHome.com web site. Additionally, we have prepared a handy guide to creating eForms, and information on gathering web site statistics.

As always, enjoy your reading, and if you have any questions or concerns call us at 1-800-556-7852, or e-mail us at WebSupport@TOPSSoft.com. We look forward to speaking with you!

 

TOPS Software Partners with AtHomeNet Sales:

As you may have already heard, Matt Meiklejohn has left TOPS to pursue a career as a mortgage consultant. Alas, business as we know it must go on. To provide our customers with the utmost level of service, TOPS Software has contracted with AtHomeNet to put the full force of their sales team behind TOPS Community Web Sites.

As you may know, AtHomeNet is the designer of the Internet side of TOPS Community Web Sites. Thus, it was a natural extension to contract their services to help us sell the product. You may be contacted by Susan Sanders or one of her team, so please extend a warm welcome. If you need to contact a sales representative, please call 1-800-556-7852 or send an email to WebSales@TOPSSoft.com.

 

Complete Redesign of TOPSHome.com

I am very pleased to announce the unveiling of the new TOPSHome.com web site. The site has been completely redesigned and restructured to allow for easier navigation, and better organization of data. The new site is organized into three new sections:

The Associations section covers information about the community side of Community Web Sites. This section is geared to self managed communities, managed communities, and community officers. It includes a full breakdown of the many features available on a community web site, complete with feature descriptions and screen shots. A step-by-step Get Started guide leads you through setting up new communities.

The Managers section covers information about Management Company web sites and Community Web Sites for managed communities. This section is geared to management company officers, property managers, and managed communities. It includes a full breakdown of the many features available on a management company web site, complete with feature descriptions and screen shots. A step-by-step Get Started guide leads you through setting up new websites.

The Administrators section is geared to property managers and web site administrators. It includes a full support knowledge base that covers all web support topics that have currently been encountered, including e-mail, site administration, and data uploads. All new TOPS Home E-Zine issues are stored here, and the downloads page provides you with all of the materials you may need.

Please go to www.TOPSHome.com to see the new site.

 

Why get a TOPS Community Web Site?

The TOPS Community Web Site service was developed in order to help promote and improve communications in residential communities. Having a community web site allows residents to gather and share information among themselves and also with board members, committee members, property managers and others in a quick and easy manner. In today's fast-paced society, there is often not enough time to perform the day-to-day activities and also keep up with what is going on in the community.

With a community web site, residents who miss a meeting or a newsletter don't have to miss out. They can catch up and get involved on their own schedule. Maybe early in the morning, while on lunch break at work, or late in the evening when things have settled down around the house. When it is convenient, they can visit the community web site, catch up on what is going on, offer their feedback and opinions, and even converse with their neighbors.

The Internet is becoming a powerful force in our society and you can leverage this force to help create a more involved, and better informed community.

Customer in the Spotlight:

Preserve HOA

The Preserve HOA is a premier tennis community located in Boca Raton, Florida. When Hospitality Managment Group, who manages The Preserve, needed a professional, high-quality web site for this upscale community, they came to TOPS. In addition to providing the many standard features that are included in a community web site, TOPS support and design teams worked with Hospitality to transfer content from their old site to the new one, and created a unique, professional site design.

As a part of the redesign, the TOPS' web designer created an animated series of photos on the home page that depicts the beauty and diversity of this community. To spotlight the community's many ammenities, TOPS also provided a number of royalty-free stock photos for items in the facilities section. Finally, we added a custom page, About Us, to provide additional information about the community.

The Preserve's website provides a beautiful, warm experience to the casual surfer, and imbues homeowners with a sense of pride in their community. Visit The PreserveHOA website at www.PreserveHOA.com.

 

Support: Using the Statistics Menu

One of the best ways to gauge the usage of your website is to examine the statistics. The statistics menu in TOPS Community Web Sites allows you to see which homeowners are logging onto your site, who is just visiting, and which pages are viewed most frequently. To view your statistics, log in to your site using your administrative login name and password. Scroll down to the Admin Only section and click on Statistics. The statistics menu provides several options for displaying information about your site:

• Show Page Views for Last Thirty Days -- This option, also called "show hits" in older versions of our sites, displays page hits on your web site over the past thirty days. A summary section displays total hits for the last 30 days, as well as average information.
• Show Most Frequented Pages --This option displays a listing of the pages that are most commonly visited by your users. Only the top 20 most frequented pages are displayed.
• Show Login Statistics -- This option displays a complete listing of all registered users, and the total number of times each user has logged on to the site, with the last login date and time.

Support: How to Create an eForm

Your community web site's eForms are excellent tools for your web site users to send a request to the person(s) who can best answer them. If a resident would like to make an architectural change, an on-line “Architectural Change Request” eForm allows that resident to send that request quickly, at any time of the day or night, and straight to the right person or committee.

The web site administrator can create as many eForms as the community needs. In addition to creating the entire form, the administrator also specifies who receives it, and whether or not the form is accessible on the public and/or private side of the web site. A “Submit a Calendar Event" would likely be available just on the private side, while a "Login Request Form" would be most useful on the public side of the site.

Let's create a form called "Architectural Request" which routes to the Architectural Review committee members, and is available on both the public and private sides of the web site. To begin, log in to the site and click on the left-hand menu link "eForms." Under the list, click on "Add, Edit, Delete eForms" link. To edit an existing eForm, you would select it from the list of eForms and click the Edit button; we’ll click Add.

For "Form Title/Name" enter "Architectural Request," and describe the intention of the form in the "Full Description" box. If you would like the submitter to get an e-mail saying the form was sent, put the text you would like in that e-mail in the "Auto Reply Message" field. The following is an example:

***Auto Reply*** Your architectural request has been received by management. Please allow time for the board to review this request. If blueprints or other documentation is needed to support this request, please submit those to the Architectural Committee, or attach them to a reply of this e-mail. Thank You.

Since the eForm is to be available on the public side of the site, such as a Login Request Form, check on the box entitled "Form Available on Public Site."

Click the Continue button to begin adding the fields that the user fills in on the form. For each field enter a label, choose the field type, and choose whether or not it will be a required item. Create the following fields:

Required	Label	Type	Comments/Default/List Items
Yes	Owner Name	Short text
Yes	Street Address	Short text
Yes	Phone Number	Short text
Yes	E-Mail Address	E-mail	Enter 'none' if no e-mail address
	Request Summary	Dropdown	Addition, Driveway, Mailbox Whirligig, Garage Door, Landscape, Other
	If Other, specify	Short Text
Yes	Detailed Description	Long Text
	Comment	Comment	The committee may require additional documentation such as blueprints. Approval by the committee means that your proposed change fits the aesthetics of the community.
	Comment	Comment	I have read and agree to all of the conditions listed above, and I agree to abide by the decisions of the architectural committee.
Yes	Yes, I agree	Checkbox

Comment-type items do not get user input but simply appear as text (which can display HTML coding). For e-mail address, be sure to choose the field type "E-mail".

After completing the fields, click the “Save – no more fields” button, and for receivers, choose from the drop down each member of the architectural committee. After adding each person, click Save-Add More Receivers. After you have added the last receiver, click “Save – no more receivers”.

Once you click “Save – no more receivers” you can go back and edit the form by choosing it from the list and clicking the “Edit” button. Perhaps it’s best to first view your handiwork by clicking eForms on the left, clicking on your new eForm, and jotting down necessary changes.

What other eForms might you need? This can depend on the calls are you getting from community residents, and input from community officers. Perhaps you should design an eform where residents can request other eForms they would like to see on their community web site.

 

Redesigning your Web Site:

Upscale communities often need that extra special care when it comes to management. A community web site should be no exception. While a standard TOPS Community Web Site provides you with all of the features and abilities homeowners and board members need, it may not have the window dressing desired by the upscale community. Enter the TOPS design team. We are available to provide you with the high quality graphics and site design that upscale communities demand.

For special logo design, site animation, customized pages, and everything in between, TOPS Software is your total solution provider. Our designers work with you to give you exactly what you need. Take a look at The Preserve, our community in the spotlight this month, for a sample of what we can do for your special sites.

If you have an idea of a way that you can improve your website, and you do not have the tools or the manpower to do it, contact websupport@topssoft.com and we will provide you with a proposal.

 

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

Lucy Fox is your Community Web Site Support Representative
Andrea Drennen is the Director of Publishing and Standards at TOPS Software
Susan Sanders is the Lead Sales Representative for TOPS Community Web Site Service

 

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