TOPS Home: TOPS Home E-Zine

Whew! July did not get off to a good start! First, it took us forever to get out the June ezines, since we had transfered our email distribution to a new, automated system. We were so consumed with figuring our how to make it work and testing it that we didn't actually manage to get the June ezines out until the 7th of July! No sooner did I send out the TOPS Home ezine that I realized all of the links were bad. A product, it seemed, of sending out the ezines from a certain mail program. I sent an appology to all of the TOPS Home subscribers, and switched to a different mail program to send out the onTOPS Ezine.

That is when the fur hit the fan! As far as we can tell from our logs, someone subscribed a relay server to the list, and it just kept bouncing the message back to our mail server over and over like a pinball game. The person who did this was very slick and even masked their address to make the mail server think it was me. I sent the ezine around 1 pm, and by 4 pm customers had received anywhere between 4 and 13 copies of the same message. We did manage to stop it by deactivating our mail server for a time, but not before scores of complaints came pouring into my email box. I spent the rest of the week sending personal apologies, terrified to send out a mass email lest something happen again!

So the end result is that we are back to the old way of doing things again. It takes a little extra time since I manually add each subscriber to the list instead of the whole thing being automated, but on the plus side, that means a live person sees every subscription and can pitch out anything suspicious!

Perhaps to make myself feel better, I have made sure that this month's ezine is particularly good. I think you will be pleased with the slew of useful information contained below. As always, 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

Eighth Wonder of the World...

TOPS Community Web Site Service - Absolutely Amazing!!!

Okay, maybe we're stretching things a tad when we call it the Eighth Wonder of the World, BUT the TOPS community web site service really is amazing. With our current feature set, residents are able to:

Look up their own account balance
See a 12 month history of their account
Review Work Orders, and submit Work Orders online
Review Violations on their record
Check the status of Architectural Requests
View existing Guest/Vehicle Passes, and submit requests for more
Write reviews on local vendors
Have access to all association forms
...And so much more!

Board members will be pleased with the feature set designed specifically for them. Board Only features include:

Unique account access to 'Board Only' features
Financial reports uploaded directly from TOPS 2000
Board level message board where members can discuss relevant issues
Board member packages can be created offline and uploaded to the Board Documents feature.

Having an web site for the association benefits the residents by giving them access to information when they need it, benefits the Board because it acts as a communication tool, and benefits the Property Manager because it saves them time and money.

We're scheduling WebEx demos throughout the summer. A WebEx demo allows you to logon to a particular web site and see a simultaneous demo of the service. At the same time you're on the web site, we're also on the phone talking you through, answering your questions and giving you real life examples of how the service can benefit you. If you're interested in demo of the service for you or your board members, please give us a call at 1-800-556-7852 or email us at websales@topssoft.com We'll schedule it at a time convenient for you!
Get ready to be AMAZED!

Susan Sanders

Download of the Month

Submitting to Search Engines

When was the last time you updated your META data? Don't even know what that is? Maybe it is time for you to get serious with this month's download. We have spelled out everything you need to know to get search engines to recognize your site for the jewel you know it is! This document details how to prepare for submission to search engines, search engine submission links, and how to create and submit META tags to TOPS for inclusion on your site. The document is called "Submitting Your Site to Search Engines", and is located in the help section of our web site: www.TOPSHome.com/topshome/Administrators/help.htm

Andrea Drennen

News Worthy

New Programmer

Perhaps the most exciting event in July has been the hiring of a new programmer, Daniel Jacobson. We are excitedly looking forward to the contributions he will make to the web site product using his online programming skills. We asked Daniel to write a small introductory piece so that you can get to know him. Here it is:

My name is Daniel Jacobson and I am a software engineer at TOPS Software. I bring a variety of expertise to the IT industry. I am a certified Windows Programmer. I previously held positions in the document management industry digitizing and extracting documents and their indices. I am currently seeking a Bachelor's degree at Florida State University in Information Studies. I have extensive knowledge in programming architectures, systems integration, networking, and business strategies. As an employee at TOPS Software I strive to provide quality leadership to customers and employees, and surpass all expectations of customers and management.

In my spare time I enjoy gaming, scuba diving, ping pong, tennis, weight lifting, boating, art museums, and numerous other hobbies that I have.

I look forward to the opportunity to serve you.

Please join us in giving Daniel a warm welcome!

Andrea Drennen

What's New

New Feature! Rich Text Editor In Modules

Last month's ezine tutorial showed how to use the WYSIWYG editor (sometimes known as a rich-text editor). At that time it could only be used on the main page for each feature (feature descriptions). As of July 22, this wonderful new feature was also rolled out to the custom modules at every level! This means that instead of using a simple text box and adding HTML code yourself, the rich-text editor will now be available. You can now use it for the top-level module, the sub-categories, and even for the bottom-level items themselves. The four picture/document fields are still available, but with the rich-text editor they are not necessary, since you can put an unlimited number of pictures in the rich-text area itself. This rich-text editor will allow you to customize the look of each custom page as much as you want.

*Please note: Your browser must be PC - Internet Explorer version 5.5 or above to display the Rich Edit control. A plain text box will be displayed for those who are not.

Brandon Kelley

Feature Teacher

The Events Calendar

This month I want to take a few minutes to focus on a pivotal feature of your TOPS Web Sites: The Events Calendar. This is one of the most widely used features, largely because it impacts other related features, such as eMail Bulletins and Announcements.

Two ways to look at it

The Events Calendar provides 2 different views of the events created for a particular month: a graphical view and detailed listing view. The graphical view displays a monthly calendar and has a link for each day that at least one event is listed for. If you click on the link for that day, it will display a summary of the events for that day as well as links to those events. The detailed listing view displays right below the calendar and lists all of the events for that month in chronological order (at least by date). The listing is also a link to more details about the event.

Organizing Events

One of the great functions of the events calendar is its ability to categorize events. It may not sound like much at first, but when combined with another ability, it becomes pretty nifty.The events calendar is actually an 'object'. This means that unlike other features that can only be on the site once, the events calendar can be placed multiple times on your site. It is always the same list of events, but you have the ability to define which category displays by default. Let's say for example that you have designed a special module for your clubhouse. In addition to all of the photos, rules, and regulations, you could also include the events calendar, defaulted to the clubhouse category so that only clubhouse events are initially displayed.

Recurring events

Lets say you want to put the monthly board meetings into the events calendar. When creating an event, you do not have to go through and recreate every occurance of a recurring event. What you can do instead is select the event to reoccur when you are creating the event. Keep in mind that when you do this, even if you select when it is to reoccur, you must select how many times it will reoccur or it will only create the first instance of that event. Please notice, also, that you cannot edit afterwards all of the occurances of an event at once. The recurrance feature is used only to create events, not to modify them later.

Centralized communication

A few issues ago, the TOPS Home e-zine featured an article about e-mail bulletins. In that article we pointed out how using the Event Calendar an administrator could create an event, an announcement, and an e-mail bulletin all at once. When creating an event in the calendar, there are several options towards the bottom of the screen, including creating an announcement and send an e-mail bulletin. You can do either, both, or none of these if you so choose. This is one of the best ways to centralize announcements and communication on the site.

Bring it Down

Another really cool ability of the events calendar is the ability for owners to download a copy of scheduled events to their own computer. This option, 'Export Calendar Events' allows the user to select a range of event dates to generate a complete list of all events between those dates. Owners can then save the resultant text file to their own computer and later import the data into any scheduling program on their computer such as Outlook, Act, or Goldmine. Thus, community events are incorporated into the owner's own schedule quickly and easily.

Link to It

The Events Calendar provides a great interface for managing communication regarding your community. You may even want to include links to the calendar in other areas of your web site so that people can see everything that is going on in your community. For information on including these links in the site, please see the April & May tutorial articles. April's article shows you how to include an HTML link in a page, and May's article has some additional information on how to customize your links (www.topshome.net/topshome/Administrators/TOPS_Home_ezine.htm). For more information, email websupport@topssoft.com.

Brandon Kelley

Customer Spotlight

Brown Property Management

This month, the spotlight falls on Brown Property Management, a company that is very enthusiastic about the TOPS Community Web Site Service. We had an opportunity to hear from Bob Brown, President, and Heather Turley and Lauren Brown, Web Site Administrators. Here is what they had to say:

Brown Property Management (BPM) is recognized as one of the finest Homeowner Association Management Companies serving the greater Phoenix Arizona area. BPM provides full-service, intelligent solutions to the myriad issues facing homeowner associations today. BPM has the flexibility to customize solutions, systems and programs to fit a neighborhood's needs as well as specific budget requirements.

In March of 2003, Brown Property Management joined TOPS Software's web site customers by converting our existing site over to a TOPS Management Company site. The same month BPM signed up five communities for websites. In the last four months we have had the service, we have added five more community web sites with yet another one coming up this month. They really sell themselves.

We promote the websites as a tool for all our communities and all those that are seeking management services. We have found that a number of new communities look to us because of the state-of-the-art web interfaces that we can offer. Several new clients have joined BPM as a result of our ability to offer an integrated web presence.

Brown Property Management chose TOPS Software because TOPS provides state-of-the-art computerized accounting, service order, violation reporting and tracking systems, which helps us better serve our communities. For BPM, The major selling point of the TOPS Community Web Sites is that they link our customers to our TOPS software, which allows them to see their accounting information, 12-month history, and financial reports. We also like the ability to track upcoming events and store each community's governing documents online.

TOPS web support has always been helpful and on time for any questions and concerns that we have had. Web site setups are done quickly and changes can be made easily with very little up-front training required. We look forward to a continuing relationship with TOPS Software's Community Web Site Service.

Sincerely,

Bob Brown, Heather Turley, and Lauren Brown
Brown Property Management

Tutorial

Custom Modules

Modules are the most varied feature in TOPS Community Web Sites, as they are limited only by the imagination of each web site administrator. Modules are a great way to customize your web site as much as you want, but it is important to understand how they are structured in order to properly use them. You can see what modues are currently on your site by logging on to the site as the administrator, and selecting 'Edit Modules' under the Admin Only subheading.

Potential Uses

You may have noticed a few of the custom modules on your site already, such as Recipes, Kids Play Groups, and Photo Gallery. These modules are built into the site as an example of how the feature might be used. Here are some other examples of how our customers are using the Modules feature:

Community Sites

Lost and Found Module
Help Wanted Module
Maps & Directions
Carpooling
Yard of the Month
Neighborhood/Section/Phase Info
Developers
Group Outings (55+ cmtys)

Management Sites

Community Listings
Services Provided
Management FAQs
Marketing Info
Realty Info
Our Team/Bios
Admin Only (hidden)

Module Structure

Something to keep in mind when creating a custom module is to plan how you want to structure it. Unlike most features of the web site, which are 2-tiered, the module feature 3-tiered.

2-tiered refers to how a feature (like Documents) has sub-categories under it (tier 1), then items under that (tier 2).
3-tiered refers to how the Custom Modules feature has a list of modules under it (tier 1), then sub-categories under that (tier-2), then items under that (tier 3). See the illustration below:

The thing to keep in mind is that when you add a new sub-category, What's New will not display anything announcing the new sub-category. It is only when you add the bottom level item that What's New displays an announcement about it. If you have structured a module so that the sub-categories are the bottom level tier, any new items added will not display in What's New.

Security Levels

Both the module itself and the sub-categories in the modules each have 2 security levels that can be adjusted by an administrator: View Security and Edit Security.

View Security determines who will be able to see the module and the items in it.
Edit Security determines who can Add, Edit, and Delete the module or sub-category.

By default, when you create a module the view security is 50, and the edit security is 1. When you create a sub-category in a module, it will always inherit the security levels of its parent module UNLESS no changes were made to the default security levels of the parent module. If this is the case, it will put both view and edit security levels to 1. This is not so important because it can be changed at any time if you make a mistake when creating the module and its subcategories.

Once you understand the basic structure of Modules, creating custom website sections will be a snap! Just remember that if you have added a new module and would like it to appear on the site menu, you will need to send an email to websupport@topssoft.com. Let us know the name of the new link, and whether you prefer it appear on the public side, private side, or both.

Brandon Kelley

Support Tips

5 Revenue Generating Ideas

Sell Classified Ads to local vendors.
When vendors drive through the neighborhood and put those annoying flyers on your mail boxes, call them up and suggest they run an ad on the web site - did you know that you can scan in coupons and menus as well as business cards and have them display as part of the ad? Residents love this feature as the coupon is there when they need it, vendors love it because they are getting continuous exposure for the life of the ad, not just on the day it was distributed, and the board loves it too as no one is calling to complain about paper flying through the neighborhood
Create a "Your Ad Here" Eform.
Make sure you have an eForm on the public side of your site for interested advertisers to fill out and be routed to the appropriate people.
Add Advertiser Events in the Events Calendar.
Sell ads that include their special events in the events calendar, such as a sale or promotion.
Take advantage of Real Estate Advertising Dollars.
Sell ads to Real Estate companies in the Homes for Sale, Lease, and Lots for sale sections. They can be added as if you were adding a home, except the ad would appear there instead.
Make "Related Site Links" Ads.
Sell a link from the community site to their web site in the "Related Site Links" (also sometimes called 'Hotlinks' or 'Community Links') section. This is a great way to incentivize other ad packages, such as "Purchase a classified ad and we will include a free link to your web site in our 'Related Site Links' section!"

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!

~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~

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 #17 - July 2003

Experience TOPS Interactive Web Sites for Yourself!