TOPS Home: TOPS Home E-Zine

Happy Fourth of July, and welcome back to the TOPS Home e-zine! TOPS Home is the web site e-mail magazine (e-zine) for the TOPS Community Web Site Service. June was a great month for the TOPS Community Web Site Service. In addition to a highly productive web developer conference (Read about it in the news worthy section), we have found the time to add 13 new features, promote four people in the company, and move 2 of our team from Maryland to Florida! Here is the news:

Ryan Allen is promoted to Vice President of Technical Services
Wayne Drennen is promoted to Director of Programming
Carmen Wood is promoted to Technical Support Manager
Andrea Drennen is promoted to Internet Services Manager
Wayne and Andrea Drennen move to Florida to work in Clearwater office.

As always, this issue of The TOPS Home E-zine is packed to the gills with good stuff, so enjoy your reading, and if you have any questions or concerns, feel free to contact us. We look forward to speaking with you!

TOPS Web Sales: (800) 556-7852 WebSales@topssoft.com.
TOPS Web Support (800) 899-5689 WebSupport@topssoft.com.

Andrea Drennen

Web Site Sales

Bigger, Better Interface for Account Data

Great News! The TOPS Community Web Site development team has been hard at work improving the service, and boy does it show! The web upload of data from TOPS 2000™ to TOPS Community web sites has been completely redesigned to be sleeker, more user friendly, and to include more data than ever from TOPS 2000™! Take a look at the complete list of uploaded data:

Owner Names and Logins
Primary Address & First Alt Address (if any)
Contact Info (Phone Numbers, etc. unless unlisted)
Current Owner Balance
Last Payment Info (Amount & Check No.)
12 Month History NEW!
Service Requests NEW!
Work Order History
CC&R Violations
Architectural Requests
Pool Passes NEW!
Vehicle Passes NEW!
Board Only Financial Reports

Remember that TOPS Community Web Sites are fully customizable. You may pick and choose exactly which of the above data you wish to upload on an individual community basis. There is no product on the market that even compares to the TOPS Community Web Site Service!

In addition to all of the data now uploading from TOPS 2000™, you can enjoy the benefits of the many features built in to your TOPS Community Web Site; features that bring your community closer together such as email bulletins to keep residents up-to-date, eforms for residents to communicate with your management team, surveys for residents to communicate their opinions to the Board, and a community bulletin board for residents to communicate with each other.

These are just a sampling of over 50 fully customizable features that are included in your TOPS Web Site. But don't take my word for it, experience TOPS Community Web Sites for yourself! Visit our live online demos at www.topshome.com. There are two demos you can test - one for Management companies, and one for communities. Additionally, you can order a free demo CD that includes a sample web site and a presentation that you can show to your board members. To order your free Demo CD, go to http://www.topshome.net/topshome/demo_order.htm or call Susan at 1-800-556-7852.

Andrea Drennen

Download of the Month

Management Company Locator

Instead of a document, this month I want to focus on a feature that, if you are affiliated with a management company, you should be using. This feature is the TOPS Management Company Locator (www.topssoft.com/mgmt_locator.htm).

As web site administrator for www.topssoft.com, I am approached every month by companies willing to pay to place advertising on our corporate web site. They approach us because of the sheer volume of visitors that come to the web site - more than 50,000 per month. What I can't seem to understand is why, when offered an opportunity that so many companies are willing to pay for, so many of you are willing to pass it by.

I am talking, of course, about the Management Company Locator; a popular feature of the TOPS Software corporate web site where board members can locate management companies who use TOPS Software for their accounting and management systems. Through this feature, we are giving you the opportunity to advertise your services to the thousands of communities out there who are seeking a quality management company.

Typically we charge $240 a year for a listing on the Management Company locator. But as a company with a management web site through TOPS Software, we provide this link to you absolutely FREE! So what are you waiting for? Get your mouse over to www.topshome.net/topshome/Administrators/eforms.htm and click on FREE Management Company Listing to get your free listing today!

Andrea Drennen

News Worthy

TOPS Web Site Developer Conference

Every six months the TOPS Community Web Site development team gets together with our sales and support departments to determine which new features we will be adding to the service, and to ensure that we are all on track with the direction the service is going. The conference takes place over a two day period, and this time, was held in our new Clearwater, Florida office. As always, the conference was extremely productive, and we all came away with a sense of purpose and resolve to continue to make the TOPS Community Web Site Service the best on the market.

Our first order of business was to go over the action items from our Winter 2002 conference, to see what had been done. And it was a lot! In just the past six months, we were able to incorporate over 40 changes, including new features, additional data uploads, layout changes, cosmetic changes, and corrections.

Our next step was to go over each and every request we had received from our customers in the past six months. I must say that you all are an opinionated lot when it comes to the way you want your web sites to work! We had 60 individual requests for changes and updates. The great news is that nearly every request was accepted as an action item for our update list.

The brainstorming session was one of my favorite parts of the meeting. The purpose of this session was to identify ways we could improve the sales and support portions of the service to streamline the process and basically make our customers happy. We all had an opportunity to contribute to the idea pool, and a number of exciting action items were the result of this session.

Finally, we compiled our complete list of action items from all three sessions, assigned every action item a priority level, and set deadlines to accomplish these tasks. Our developers certainly have their work cut out for them! In the end we walked away with 96 items on our "To Do" list. Here is a sampling of the planned improvements:

Add a "Drill Down" functionality to Work Order and CC&R records so owners can view more detailed information on each record. (Including pictures!)
Add a new area in TOPS 2000 where managers can see the user names that will upload, and change them, if necessary.
Create a new report in TOPS 2000 - of web names, login names and passwords, and who has the web interface disabled.
Add "Custom Page" functionality that uses the new WYSIWYG text editor to allow administrators to add custom pages without having to add a module. (No HTML Knowledge Necessary!)
Add an Error message if a user signs up for an ebulletin and they do not enter an email address.
Add a "Title" field to Classifieds and Volunteers that acts as the description in the category listing but does not actually display in the ad.
Add a feature that allows you to go from one picture to the next in the Photo Gallery without having to go back and forth from the Photo Gallery page.

And remember, these are just a small taste of what's to come! So stay tuned to the "What's New" area of this e-zine each month as all of these new features are revealed to you.

Andrea Drennen

What's New

New Features on Your Community Web Sites

The following changes were made in all TOPS Community Web Sites this month. Be sure to read the other articles in this issue for more information on the most exciting new features!

Added new "Rich Text Editor" to the "Feature Description" edit screen. (See Feature Teacher and Tutorial articles)
Reorganized Account info into an easy "tabbed" interface.
Added Pool Passes to Account Info area.
(See Web Site Sales article)
Added Vehicle Passes to Account Info area.
(See Web Site Sales article)
Added service request loading and display.
Added NOTES field to 12 month history.
Broke apart CC&R Violations and ACC Requests into 2 distinct tabs.
Changed the way we empty and re-load the Reports directories to correct some problems with reports not displaying.
Made list box in Feature Text edit longer for less scrolling.
Added an "edit feature text" link at the top of each page that displays a Feature Text.
Fixed quotes in email portion of announcements so they display correctly.
New Module categories now default to the edit and view security level of their parent module.
Fixed problem of jumping to edit list screen if resident entered an existing login name.
Changed name of "Misc" fields in user profile to "Additional Information".
Administrators can now select primary or secondary (spouse) as the specific recipient of an eForm instead of it being sent to both.

Programming Department

Feature Teacher

New WYSIWYG Feature Descriptions Editor

If you've logged in to a community web site as an administrator lately, you may have noticed some major changes involving the feature descriptions, normally found in the Admin Only area in the left menu. The first change you may have noticed is that a link to edit feature descriptions has been added to the main page of each major feature. This way, if you are browsing the site and happen to notice something in a feature description that needs to be adjusted or corrected, you can simply click on the link at the bottom of that page.

The biggest change, however, is the way you can edit the feature description. Previously, you simply had a large text box that you could enter plain text or, if you know HTML, enter HTML tags to customize the feature description. If you do not know HTML, however, this could limit you. The new WYSIWYG editor (What You See Is What You Get) allows you to edit the feature description in a way similar to Microsoft Front Page or Word. The basic interface is based on MS Word, but keep in mind that there are a few differences.

In MS Word, to change the display features of text, you simply make the formatting selections and start typing. In our interface, the text has to already exist in order to format it. Once the text is typed, you can highlight the text you want to format, then make the formatting selection in order to change it.

See this month's tutorial article for more details on how to use the new feature description editor!

Currently, the feature description editor can be applied to the first page of the main features of the web site. Soon, however, you will be able to use it on almost any feature description (module categories, module items, document categories, etc.) Stay tuned!

Brandon Kelley

Customer Spotlight

Century Management Services

Last month we heard from Sharon Baron, web site administrator for Imagination Farms in Davie, Florida. (Read that spotlight here) This month we present to you the other side of this story, a spotlight on Century management Services, the company that manages the Imagination Farms community:

Century Management Services is a Full Service Professional Property Management Firm offering the personalized and individual services required to meet today's specialized community needs. In offering this kind of service and commitment we needed a management software that would not only help us accomplish these goals, but also share in the vision we have for the future needs of our communities. We found all this in TOPS 2000™. By utilizing the full capabilities of the software we were able to streamline each individual department and, in turn, are able to provide our communities with the service and commitment that we promised.

By far, the best product that TOPS Software offers, besides their management software, is the Community Web Sites. When we approached our communities offering them this product, they were curious and interested. After showing them a demo they were not only surprised; they were more excited than we were! As of today, most of the communities we manage now have Community Web Sites.

By having these web sites we have found that we can keep the homeowners within the communities better informed and more in touch with what is going on in their community. The web sites allow us to better serve the homeowners in the community by allowing them to view their account information, violations, architectural approvals, etc. and also get important documents pertaining to the community 24 hours a day 7 days a week. Being able to offer these types of services after business hours is priceless.

I want to thank all the people at TOPS especially Andrea, Wayne and Brandon for all their help and support with the web sites. Great Job!! Keep up the good work.

Michael Grosso, Century Management Services, Inc.

Tutorial

WYSIWYG Feature Descriptions

The new feature description editor on the TOPS community web sites is a great new way of controlling how each of your web site features appear. This article will go into detail on how to use the editor and its many features. I will break it up into some of its main components.

Text Formatting

The way to format text in this editor is slightly different from how it is done in Microsoft Word. In Word, you can simply select the formatting changes and start typing. In this editor, however, the text must be typed out first, then selected. Only selected text will be formatted with font face, size, and color changes. The text formatting that can be done this way include changing the font face, font size, font color, and highlight (background) color. You can also use the bold, underline, indentation and strike through features to modify text appearance, but the text does not have to be highlighted in order to edit this.

Alignment Formatting

There are several tools you can use to format the alignment of text and images on a page. You can create number lists or unordered lists (a list with bullet points). You can change the default indentation of objects on the page. You can convert text to superscript or subscript. You can also make paragraphs right-aligned, left-aligned, centered, or justified. A justified paragraph spaces out text so that each of its lines begins and ends at the same point on the page.

Links

Last month's support tutorial went into detail on how to use internal links on a web page. Using the new editor, you can easily create these links using the anchor feature. Simply put your cursor where you want the anchor tag, then click on the anchor icon to name and place the anchor tag. To create a web site or e-mail link, you must highlight the text/objects you want to be the link, then click on the appropriate icon (the globe for web site or the mail for e-mail) to create a link. The e-mail link is pretty self-explanatory, but the web site link requires some explanation.

The URL is simply the web site address you want the link to go to. The Target is where in a web browser you want the new page to appear. For example, your community web site is broken up into 2 frames, "main" (where all the content is) and "menu" (the links on the left-hand side). If you type the name of a particular frame in the Target field, the new page will open in that new frame. You can also use a drop down list of system frames that the web browser will recognize:

_blank - opens up a new browser window and puts it there. This keeps the community web site open in a separate window.
_parent - puts it in the current window overtop the current web site.
_self - puts it in the current FRAME (in this case, main). This will keep the menu frame open.
_top - puts it in the current window overtop the current web site.

Other Objects

You can also insert other objects besides text. The editor has tools that allow you to insert special characters, page dividers (the horizontal line), tables, text boxes and even pictures. The Insert / Modify Image feature is the key to not only inserting images, but managing the image files on the web site. Here are some more details on how to insert and manage images on your web site:

Once you click on the Insert image icon, a new window will popup that has the list of all images you have uploaded so far under Internal Images. Before you upload an image, you may want to look at the list of Internal Images to see if you already have it uploaded. If you don't recognize the images by filename, you can click View next to a filename to view that image. If the file you want is not yet uploaded, click on Browse at the top of the window. Select the file you want, then click Upload. Once the upload is complete, the file you just added will be in the Internal Images list. Click on Insert next to the image you want to insert to put it into the feature description.

Miscellaneous Tools

There are some miscellaneous editing tools you can use to make the editor even better. First, you can use the Edit | Source | Preview tabs at the bottom to toggle between the WYSIWYG editor (Edit), viewing and editing the HTML directly (Source), and previewing the page (Preview). There is also a spell checker tool as well as an HTML cleaner, which can help make the code compatible with all web browsers.

For descriptions of each tool and how to use it, you can click on the help icon (the word balloon with a question mark in it) for additional help.

Brandon Kelley

Support Tips

Tips to increase site participation
(Five just wasn't enough…)

Update content regularly.
"If you build it, they will come" - the same goes for web site content, if it's there, people will use it. Make sure you add something new to your site regularly - an announcement from the Crime Watch area of your local police department, a schedule of garbage pickup days by company, meeting minutes from each committee or the board, etc.
Utilize the Private Home Pop Up.
The pop up displays each time a resident logs in to the site. This is a great way to let residents know right off the bat important news, announcements and more.
Include your web site login info in email bulletins.
When you send out your email bulletins, simply make sure you check the box to “send Login and Password information” at the bottom of the email bulletin.
Cross advertise web site features.
Add a link to "Reviews" in the feature description of your "Classifieds" section. Owners can post their opinions of each vendor there. Link a request for committee volunteers to the “Join a Committee” eform. Cross advertising encourages residents to explore portions of the site they may not otherwise explore.
Schedule Live Chats.
Many big name web sites use this to encourage user participation. Post an event on your events calendar to meet with people who will be of interest to homeowners at a specific date and time. For example, “Thursday night at 8pm visit our web site to chat live with our community manager, Jane Doe.” Golf Pros, Tennis Pros, Community Officials, New Owners, and Local Vendors are all fair game. Another great option is a live chat to meet and greet new community members. (Be sure to check the “Add to announcements and “Send an Email Bulletin” checkboxes when you create the event)
Create a scavenger hunt using information found on the web site.
First, create an eform that asks all of the questions. For example, “How many pages are there in our Bylaws?”, “Who is June's Yard of the Month Winner?”, “How many babysitters are advertised on the web site?” It's a great way for people to get to know what type of information is available on the web site. The form is then filled in and emailed to the designated recipient and from the people who filled out the form, a winner is chosen. Announce the winner on the web site, it will get people coming back!

Andrea Drennen

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
Brandon Kelley is your TOPS Community Web Site Support Representative
Andrea Master-Drennen is the Internet Services Manager at TOPS Software

TOPS Home E-Zine

Issue #16 - June 2003

Text Formatting

Alignment Formatting

Links

Other Objects

Miscellaneous Tools

Experience TOPS Interactive Web Sites for Yourself!