TOPS Home: TOPS Home E-Zine

Welcome back to TOPS Home, the web site e-mail magazine (e-zine) for the TOPS Community Web Site Service. We have been busy bees this month, and it shows! We have more new stuff than you can shake a stick at, including a brand new feature, Task Manager, which you may have already seen a link for on your community web site. We have also added loads of changes that I know you are going to like. Read all about it in the What's New sections (Psst - two things of note are the often requested ability to hide the alt address when the regular address info is hidden in the User profile, and the ability to include formatting in your email bulletins and send out HTML emails!)

We have also designed and begun the release of new versions of the custom demo CDs for our management company customers. These new CDs come with all new bells and whistles, including an interactive Flash presentation. There is so much, I had better just stop here and let you get on to reading it all.

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

Per Your Requests: New Task Manager!

We’re LISTENING! In each of our ezines we request feedback from clients about enhancements to the web site service. The enhancement requests seem to center around two themes: using the web to increase communication in the neighborhood and decrease the time spent in meetings.

Our NEWEST feature aims to meet both of these needs! TASK MANAGER allows each committee to keep track of their “to do” lists online. When a committee member has made progress on a task and adds an online note, everyone involved on the task is immediately updated on its status! Instead of having to wait until the next meeting for an update, involved members are kept up to date through out the process. Prior to a meeting, a full report of each task can be printed and attached to the agenda. Just think how much more can be accomplished during the month and even better how much shorter those board and committee meetings can be!!!

If you’re interested in hearing more about TASK MANAGER or any of our other 46 features that are pre-built into the TOPS association web site service, please contact us at 1-800-556-7852 or via email: websales@topshome.com.

Susan Sanders

Download of the Month

Security Measures

Sometimes, a resident or a board member will raise concerns about the security measures that we take with TOPS Community Web Sites. We have prepared a document that details the many security measures that are built in to your web sites. We highly recommend that you familiarize yourself with this information so that you are prepared to answer any questions that may arise. The document is located in the downloads section of our web site, under the "Printable Documents" category: www.TOPSHome.com/topshome/Administrators/downloads.htm

Andrea Drennen

News Worthy

New Flash Demo Presentation

Among the many services we perform for our customers is the development of customized marketing materials. The most involved of these are the branded demo CDs that we develop for each management company who uses the service. These CDs are custom designed to match your management company site, and allow you to inform the communities that you manage of a new valuable service that you are offering - Community Web Sites. For some time the presentation included in these CDs was a version created in Power Point. In addition to requiring that special software be installed to run it (the Power Point viewer), this rather complex presentation was difficult to update, was quite long, and was not interactive for the viewer.

To solve these problems, we have created a brand new version of the presentation that is shorter, sleeker, and interactive. Viewers can control the sound and the navigation to allow you to send a CD directly to a board meeting, or use the presentation as a slide show in a board meeting. The new presentation is geared specifically to board members and does not directly reference TOPS Software in any way.

In addition to the new presentation, we have also updated the offline demo web site that is included on the CDs. This demo emulates the community web site demo that is provided on your management company site, and is also branded to your management company.

We have already rolled out the first batch of new management company demo CDs. The first group was distributed to those management companies who had yet to receive one of the original CDs. Over the course of the next two months we will be updating the demo CDs for customers who currently have an older version. If you would like to make your new CD a priority, please contact us at websupport@topssoft.com.

If you would like to see the new interactive demo yourself, go to www.topshome.net and click the link labeled 'View the Online Flash Presentation'

Andrea Drennen

What's New

New Features on Your Community Web Sites

Added the Task Manager under Board Only.
Added the "Rich Text Box" to Email Bulleting feature. Emails sent through the Email Bulletin feature may now include formatting. Formatted emails are sent as HTML, and require an HTML enabled email client to properly display.
"Alt Address" will now hide when regular address is marked as hidden in the User Profile.
Residents may now edit their own classified ads.
Surveys can now be displayed to residents after the expiration date is past. Residents who did not vote before the expiration date may not place a vote, but they can see the results of the survey.
"Comment Only" fields may no longer be marked as "required"
because it stops the form from submitting.
Increased the size of the "image link" in "Announcements" from 50 to 200 characters.
If a resident changes their login/password to something that is
already taken they now get a descriptive error message.
Added the "hide" fields as options on the address book report field chooser
screen.
Changed label for lot# to lot/unit # in Address Book/User Profile.
Added a message after "new module add" that says "you must contact support to get this module added to the menu".
Added Task Manager to What's New.

Programming Department

Feature Teacher

Task Manager

This month's feature teacher will cover a brand new feature to the TOPS community web sites: the Task Manager. You will find it in the Board Only area of your community web site. If you do not have a Board Only area on your web site, by default it will not appear, but we can create a link to it if you want.

The Task Manager is a wonderful tool that can be used to keep track of the status of tasks within the community. Combining the functionality of a message board with eBulletins and also adding security features, this tool is a wonderful all-in-one package. Though primarily intended for board and committee members, you can customize each task category with different security levels. This way, you can control who can view the tasks, who can contribute to the tasks, and who can edit and manage the tasks themselves.

There is also a notification feature for each task to update recipients on the status of a task. It will send an e-mail to anyone on the notification list any time an update is made or a note is added to the task. Similar to the eBulletin feature, the notification feature is more secure because only a person who can edit the task can add someone to the notification list. This way, unauthorized viewers will not be able to sign up to receive the update.

When you create a task, you input some standard information about the task. The details of the progress on the task, however, come in the form of the Notes. Anyone who is authorized to contribute to a task in that category may add a Note. If you need to insert a picture or format text for the note or for the task itself, you can do this using the rich-text editor found when you edit that item.

There are also 4 different status types in the Task Manager: Open, Hold, Closed Pending, and Closed. Open and Closed are just what they sound like: Open means that it is not yet completed, and Closed means it is completed. Tasks in the Hold status are those that are not expected to progress at that time. Closed Pending is a status that indicates that the task is ready to be closed, pending the approval of a particular person or group, such as the board president.

To change the status of a task, you simply need to edit the task and select the status from the pull-down box. There are also certain shortcut links based on a task's current status. For example, if you view an open task as someone authorized to edit it, next to the Status: Open field, there will be a link that will instantly change the status of the task to Closed Pending. If you do the same with a Closed Pending Task, there will be a link that marks the task as Closed immediately.

The Task Manager is a very helpful tool for board members to keep track of certain jobs in the community. With its broad range of functionality, it accomplishes several purposes simultaneously. When properly utilized, it can quickly become the center of communication among board and committee members.

Brandon Kelley

Customer Spotlight

Brentwood Park Association

The Brentwood Park Association, managed by Community Association Management, LLC (CAM) of Georgia, is an active community in which the residents take a great deal of pride. The community web site, provided by CAM, is an important tool for the members of the community, and receives an average of 2,000 hits per month.

One of the very special features of the Brentwood Park site is the "Clubhouse Rentals" calendar. This is a special events calendar link that points directly to the "clubhouse" category. By breaking this category out, residents are able to determine at a glance which days the clubhouse is reserved. The web site also has a number of other special touches that make it stand out from the crowd. We contacted Sherri Reed from CAM, and here is what she had to say about the web site, and her company:

Brentwood Park Community Association, Inc.’s (“BWP”) web site is located at www.camga.com/Brentwood. The Events Calendar has become a valuable tool for Clubhouse Rentals. Residents can check the Events Calendar to find out if the Clubhouse is available on a certain date. This cuts down on telephone calls to the management company. BWP’s Newsletters are posted to the web site under the Documents link so that they do not have to be mailed to every resident, thereby containing production and postage costs. Residents appreciate the online Newsletters because they can access it at any time and it does not get lost.

BWP’s management company is Community Association Management, LLC (“CAM”). CAM’s prices are competitive, but the services that our customers receive far outweigh any price comparison. Through our affiliation with the Smith, Welch & Brittain law firm, we provide a combination of management and legal services that is unparalleled. Our customers have seen significant savings by avoiding the often-substantial legal fees that can be associated with community management. Moreover, CAM offers a full featured community web site to every community we manage for a very low monthly fee. Visit us at www.camga.com for more information.

At this time, CAM would like to spotlight TOPS Software and web sites. Not only does CAM have the most user-friendly software for management companies available through TOPS, all data uploads directly to our community web sites. The eMail Bulletin feature on TOPS community web sites makes it easy to send community-wide e-mails to those residents who have e-mail addresses. TOPS software and web sites will amaze you.

Sherri has graciously provided a guest account at the Brentwood Park Association's web site so that you can log in and see the site for yourself. Please remember that this is a live web site, so please be courteous and do not leave any footprints on the site. To see the private side of the BPA site, go to www.camga.com/Brentwood, click Resident Login, and type the login name guest with the password topsguest. This guest account will only be available for a limited time, so check it out today!

Sherri Reed
Community Association Management
http://www.camga.com

Tutorial

Support Article: Message Boards

This month's support article focuses on a very popular feature with residents: the Message Boards. This tool allows all residents and board members the opportunity to say something to the whole community. It is important to show that the web site administrator has control over the forum, however, so that unruly residents do not post anything inappropriate or slanderous. To do this, it is important to understand the feature and its security features.

One of the first things you should realize is that the message board doesn't lie about who is posting. No one can change the identity of the poster, not even the administrator. Each post on the message board is tied to the login record of the person who added it. The only way to change that is to change the name that is associated with that login. When someone views the message board, it will pull the current name in the address book at that time. The only security level that can alter someone's name in the Address Book is level 1 (administrator).

It is also impossible to alter what a post says without logging in as the person who added the post. Only the login record that created the post has the ability to alter what it says. An administrator has the option of deleting any post they choose, but they cannot alter what someone else has posted. This is useful to prevent tampering, but by keeping the option to delete posts available, you can prevent message board abusers from running the board into the ground.

Some discussions on a message board are intended to be for board or committee members only. For this reason, there are actually two separate message boards: the Community Message Board for most residents, and the Board Only Message Board for board and committee members. By default, the Community Message Board is set to allow security level 50 (residents) to post to the board. The default post setting for the Board Only Message Board is 25 (board members). There is no link on the residents' area of the site that goes to the Board Only Message Board, so they probably do not even know it exists. These two boards use completely separate data to make sure that residents do not accidentally recieve any posts intended for the Board Only message board.

Keep in mind that it may be a good idea to delegate the job of message board administrator to someone. Depending on how many posts people make in your community, it may be quite a task. The Edit security level for the message boards can be set to other levels. If you set it to 25, then board members would be able to administrate the board. Alternatively, you can assign this task to a community web site administrator (a volunteer within the community). This person should also be actively involved in promoting the message board to residents to use.

There are many ways to monitor the message boards, and administrator contribution is always a good start for getting people involved in posting. Take a look at our community demo site on www.topshome.com for good examples of how a message board may be used. The message boards are a great feature of your web site that residents are sure to enjoy.

Brandon Kelley

Support Tips

5 Quick Tips to Increase Site Awareness

Buy a sign and post it at your entrance.
" Visit us online at www.communityname.com" The sign serves as a daily reminder as to the web site address, and it generates traffic both from residents and those driving by who are interested in your neighborhood.
(Remember, the shorter the domain name the easier it is to remember - if you're on the Preferred Community Plan you might want to consider upgrading to the Pointer Plan which gives you your own domain name: www.communityname.org)
Post flyers near amenities.
Post a flyer that mentions a few of the key features that can be found on the web site and put rip tags at the bottom with the web site address.
(A customizable version of this “Announcement Flyer” document can be found at www.topshome.com under the Downloads section.)
Include web site information in your welcome packet.
New residents are sometimes easier to train to use the site than those that have been in the community a long time.
(A customizable version of this “Dear Homeowner” letter can be found at www.topshome.com under the Downloads section.)
Add your web site address to your email signature.
This is simple and effective. Every email that you send out should include your web site address at the bottom.
Include your web site address on your letterhead
… and your statements, invoices, violation letters, form letters, business cards, and every other media that goes out to your residents.

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 #19 - September 2003

Experience TOPS Interactive Web Sites for Yourself!