TOPS Home E-Zine

Issue #10 - December 2002

Inside TOPS Home

1. TOPS Web Sites Announcements
2. New Years Resolutions Made Easy
3. What's New on TOPS Community Web Sites
4. Feature Teacher: Shopper's Classifieds
5. Spotlight: Property management of Hawaii
6. Support: Exporting/Importing e-mail Addresses
7. Support: E-mail Vacation Messages
8. Download of the Month
9. Call for Ideas

 

Announcements:

Happy Holidays from TOPS Software, and welcome to TOPS Home, the web site e-mail magazine (e-zine) for the TOPS Community Web Site Service. This month, we have added a new section called Feature Spotlight. This section tells you all about a feature that is already built in to your TOPS Community Web Sites, and how you can use it. Be sure to read about all of the new changes that have been made to your web sites. Additionally, we have prepared a handy guide to creating email bulletins, and a primer on exporting e-mail addresses from your web site and into your e-mail program. And that's not all! This month's issue is so jam packed, we are sure you are going to enjoy it.

SPECIAL NOTE: We are very sad to report that Lucy Fox has decided to move on to greener pastures. I believe I am speaking for all of you, as well as myself when I say that we have enjoyed working with Lucy in Web Support. Lucy will be moving on to a career in real estate banking, but I know that she will be sorely missed here. Lucy has been training another TOPS employee, Matt Hardy, to take over her position. Please give Matt your warm welcome and support as he makes the transition to Web Site support. Matt and myself (Andrea) will continue to be available at websupport@topssoft.com.

HOLIDAY SCHEDULE: TOPS Software will be closed Tuesday, December 24th, Wednesday, December 25th, and Wednesday, January 1st. Please keep this schedule in mind when contacting support this holiday season.

As always, enjoy your reading, and if you have any questions or concerns call us at 800-760-9966, or e-mail us at WebSupport@topssoft.com. We look forward to speaking with you!

 

Make a Resolution that will be Easy to Keep!

Thinking about making those New Year Resolutions? Here's one we know you can keep - increase the quality of communication in your associations! The TOPS Community Web Site Service has been called the "manager's best friend" because many of its features were specifically designed with the purpose of increasing communication within an association without putting a burden on the Property Manager.

Imagine being able to easily send a mass email to your residents to inform them that snow removal will happen by 9am and their cars need to be off the streets, or the pool is closed for maintenance and will reopen at 2pm on Wednesday. (See the support article later in this issue for instructions on doing this!) It's absolutely amazing the number of phone calls from residents that can be eliminated by simply using the built-in features of your community web sites! The ability for residents to look up their own account balance saves your back office staff from having to deal directly with residents (wouldn't that make your staff happy?). Posting clubhouse rental schedules saves hours of back and forth phone tag when someone needs to rent it. The list goes on and on.

If you're interested in sharing this concept with your Board, definitely give our Sales group a call at 1-800-556-7852, or send an e-mail to WebSales@topssoft.com. We've got some amazing presentation materials we can share with you!

 

What's New on Your Community Web Sites:

This section is dedicated to listing the new features that have been added to your web sites each month. The following changes were activated on all TOPS Community Web Sites December 1st, 2002.

1. Changes were made to almost every page of the site to resolve some "Netscape" issues that didn't show the desired font correctly. It was defaulting to Times Roman on Netscape no matter what font was selected. This has been resolved.
2. Administrators (Security Lvl 1) may now change the category an item belongs to using "Edit" in the following features: Documents, Address Book, Classifieds and Announcements (this feature was already available in the Events Calendar).
3. Lots for Sale listing and detail screens now show address information, if entered.
4. When a new item is added under a module category it is "tagged" with the name of the person adding it. Similar to Classifieds, a link to that person's user profile page will now appear at the bottom of the item as "Contributed by: Smith, John". This will not appear if an administrator (level 1) adds an item, only security levels higher than 1.
5. All residents now have the option, in the User Profile area, of hiding their email addresses, primary physical address, and home phone number (individually) from fellow residents in the Address Book feature of the web site. It will also be hidden from areas that link to the Address Book, such as Message Board, Classified Ads, etc. Residents can now hide and un-hide these specific data items at will using new checkboxes in the User Profile feature. Please note that community administrators (typically security level 1) will still be able to view ALL info for each resident in the address book AND residents who hide their email address will still be eligible to sign up for eMail Bulletins and will still be included on eMail Bulletins to "All".

 

Feature Teacher: Shopper's Classifieds

This section of the TOPS Home e-zine is being implemented in response to a suggestion we received to help you learn not only how to use a feature, as the support articles do, but also why a feature is great, and what it can do for you. Each month, we will spotlight a feature that is built in to your community web sites, and tell you how it can help you.

Of the many features available to management companies using the TOPS Community Web Site Service, perhaps the most underused is the Shopper's Classified feature. (If you are thinking "What's That?" you have just proven my point.)

Imagine this scenario. You would like to contact your global vendors and urge them to spend a little money each month in targeted advertising to your community members. This is, of course, a great deal. Vendors (such as pool cleaning companies, lawn care companies, plumbers and maintenance companies) will have instant access to a targeted group of homeowners whom they KNOW are in need of their services. This is some of the best marketing available to your vendors, of course they will want to take advantage of it! So maybe you get a bite. You get a vendor who is interested in advertising on all 20 of your community web sites. Unfortunately, this means that you have to do 20 times the work to add the ads to the classified section of each community web site, which leaves you thinking that there MUST be a better way.

Well, you guessed it! There IS a better way to create classified advertising that spans ALL of your community web sites. This feature is called "Shoppers Classifieds" (of course, you can call it anything you like!) The Shoppers Classifieds feature uses the Classified Ads section of your management company web site. All you do is offer a "Special" price to global vendors who wish to reach all of your communities through advertising. Once a vendor signs up (or pays up) simply add a classified listing to your management company site. As soon as the listing is added, it will appear in all of your community web sites that have the Shopper's Classifieds link. Owners can then click the link on their community to be directed to the classified section of your management company site.

Not only can this be a great revenue generator, and incentive for global vendors to advertise, it is also a great way to increase the bond between your community residents and your management company, as they will be visiting the management company site each time they click the Shoppers Classified link. The Shoppers Classified feature is available for any community site you wish to add it. All you need to do is ask us to add it for you by sending us an e-mail at WebSupport@topssoft.com.

PS: Our web site has two documents that can really help you advertise to your vendors. They are available under the downloads section (http://www.topshome.com/topshome/Administrators/downloads.htm) under Sample Documents. The two files are Dear Vendor and the Vendor Ad Order Form. Both of these are provided in MS Word format so that you can customize them to fit your company.

 

Customer in the Spotlight: Property Management of Hawaii

In a change of scenery for those of us experiencing a wintry climate this December, we turn to our faces to the sun for this month's spotlight. Property Management of Hawaii is located (of course) in the sunny island paradise of Hawaii. Their site is a beautiful expression of their home, as are all of their community sites.

Property Management of Hawaii provides both property management and vacation rental services. Their community sites represent a wide variety of community types, from high profile gated communities to small condominium associations. Each community web site under Property Management of Hawaii's web site is uniquely designed to match that community, with pictures, logos and information specifically created to fit the community. For example, Captain Cook Oceanview is a community located near the deathplace of Captain James Cook. You'll notice on the web site that the ship used in the logo is actually a reproduction of Captain Cook's ship. The map used in the background is the route Cook's ships took, and the main image on the homepage shows the ocean view near the Captain Cook memorial statue. This level of detail carries through on all of the community web sites that Property Management of Hawaii manages, and in their management process as well.

Please check out their site at www.pmhawaii.com and click communities to see these exciting community web sites.

 

Support: Exporting Email Addresses from a Community Web site, and Importing them into Outlook or Outlook Express

Once you have had your community web site online for a while, you may have noticed that your residents have begun to insert their email addresses into the site. As you know, you can always use the eBulletin feature to send emails to all of the residents on the site who have an email address, but what if you want to add them to your email program's address book? Following are instructions that will help you do just that.

1. Begin by logging on to the community web site as administrator.
2. Under the Admin Only heading, click "Resident Listings" (it may be listed as "Address Book Report")
3. Check Name and Email Address. (You may also check any other fields you wish to include in your Outlook address book, such as Primary Address, Web site Address, and Home Phone. The fields must match existing Address Book fields in Outlook or Outlook Express)
4. Click "Create Text File".
5. Right click on the subsequent link and choose "Save Target As..." Save the file to a location on your computer. (I chose to save it to the Desktop, since the file will be deleted later.)
6. Close the web site and go into your mail program. (Outlook or Outlook Express)
7. Click File, Import, Other Address Book...
8. Click "Text File" and click Import.
9. Click Browse.
10. Click the down arrow next to Files of Type and select Text Files (*.txt)
11. Navigate to the location where you saved the file in step 5. (By default, the file is named download.txt)
12. Click the file name and click Open.
13. Click Next.
14. Make sure that each field listed on the left has a check in the box, and a matching field mapped on the right. If the right side is blank for any of the fields (such as email), you will need to change the mapping.
15. Click on the field that needs to be mapped, and click "Change Mapping"
16. Click the down arrow and select the field in Outlook or Outlook Express that matches the field (Email=E-mail Address)
17. Click OK.
18. Once all fields have been correctly mapped, click Finish.
19. Click OK, and Close.

That's it! You can now check your address book to see all of the new entries you have imported from the web site. You can also delete the file you downloaded from the web site.

 

Support: Email Vacation Messages

This is a reprint of an article published in the June 2002 issue of TOPS Home. Because of the holiday season, we wanted to refresh your memory to help you create the vacation messages that you are sure to need!

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.

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.

 

Download of the Month:

This month we add yet another new feature to our monthly e-zine, the download of the month. This month, we have created a flier in MS Word that you can customize, print out, and distribute to community officers at board meetings. The flier is called "Start off the New Year Right" and is located in the downloads section of our website: www.topshome.com/topshome/Administrators/downloads.htm

 

Call for Ideas--Your Input is Valuable:

As you have seen in this and previous issues of The TOPS Home E-Zine, TOPS Software is dedicated to providing you with the best web site service in the industry. To achieve this goal, we are constantly adding new features to our community web sites and to the TOPS 2000™ Internet functionality. We have planned a developer meeting in January to go over all of the requested updates and determine which ones will be included in the software and online. If there is a feature or change that would make your life easier, please send your feedback to WebSupport@TOPSSoft.com. We keep track of every suggestion we receive, and many of these have already made their way into TOPS Community Web Sites!

 

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

Susan Sanders is your Community Web Site Sales Representative
Matt Hardy is your TOPS Community Web Site Support Representative
Andrea Drennen is the Director of Publishing and Standards at TOPS Software

 

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