What's New with BuildingLink

We are extremely excited (yes, extremely!) to be releasing a suite of great enhancements to the email composing-and-sending functionality in BuildingLink. The new functions will allow you to build a very precise and effortless messaging scaffolding for keeping your residents informed and engaged. 

We will be rolling out the new functionality to our clients over the next few days. The FIVE most significant enhancements you can expect are (1) Filtered Groups, (2) Content Templates, (3) Personalization, (4)“Save as a Draft” (coming June 1st), and (5) Mailbox redesign. More about BuildingLink's "Send Email" functions can be found here.

We will be rolling out the new functionality to our clients over the next few days. The FIVE most significant enhancements you can expect are (1) Filtered Groups, (2) Content Templates, (3) Personalization, (4)“Save as a Draft” (coming June 1st), and (5) Mailbox redesign. More about BuildingLink's "Send Email" functions can be found here.

1) Filtered Groups - You can now pick the exact recipient list you want by applying simple rules to the BuildingLink data you already have, or the data you can track through custom fields!

2) Content Templates - Choose from a variety of our professionally-crafted, customizable content templates for commonly-sent emails like event announcements, emergency repairs, weather updates, policy updates, and payment notices.  

3) Personalization - Insert a banner photo of your property, or tweak a variety of professional letterhead options, to keep your communications on-brand. For festive occasions, upload fun, custom images to add a "special sauce" to your messaging.

4) “Save as a Draft” (Coming June 1st) - Next time something pressing draws you away before you can hit "send," simply save it as a draft, and come back to it later.

5) Mailbox redesign - The new "send email” screen now features a super-intuitive, Outlook-like design, organizing all the information and powerful functionality you need on a set of logical panels. Now you can work your way through your daily communications tasks, leveraging an interface and visual style that is familiar, makes sense, looks great, and is easy to use:

That's a birds-eye view of our turbocharged "Send Email" functionality. For more info, go here, or just click around to start filtering, designing, composing, saving, and sending!  If you want to schedule a call with our support team to discuss creating management-company-wide styles and templates, special filtered groups based on any type of resident or unit status, dates or other factors, or just to discuss how you can better automate or focus your resident messaging, please email us at support@buildinglink.com.  

-The BuildingLink Development Team

 

• New Amenity “by Location” Setting: Managers can now restrict amenity reservation permissions to only residents of particular physical unit locations. (i.e. restricting “Tower 1 Service Elevator” only to residents in Tower 1, etc.). Staff will still be able to place reservations for any resident as they see fit.
  
  
• Add Liability Waivers to Amenities: Managers can now add Liability Waiver text to amenities and require residents to agree to the waiver prior to submitting a reservation. This is similar to existing waiver functionality in the Maintenance Module.
  
  
• Enhanced Resident ID Card Printing: Card printing functionality now includes the ability to select existing card definitions/card types within the “Other” menu, under “ID Cards and Labels.”
  
  
• Maintenance Functionality 'Time Spent' Modification: When adding “Time Spent” to a Maintenance Request, users can choose to have the total time automatically calculated based on specific start and end times instead of manually inputting the total number of minutes.

• New “By Location" Building Library Setting Added: The new “by location” filter allows managers to make documents viewable only by specific residents tied to physical locations.

• New Special Permission Added: “Allow Staff to Update Resident Info.” Security Officers and Managers can now allow staff to edit/update resident contact information and unit information.

• New “Welcome Pages” Enabled in Beta for Most Properties: Residents in these buildings see an updated and streamlined version of the “new user sequence” the first time they log in.

• Exportable “Notes” Field Added to All Employee Profiles.

• Updated Basic Login Page: Users can now add a custom image to their login pages via the Design Center.

• Initial launch of the “Management Company Dashboard” that displays data and analytics to senior executives on all properties they manage
  
  
• New “Fitness Center” dashboard more clearly shows Aware-FC subscribers the current status of equipment usage in the gym
  
  
• A new public site has been released, with streamlined content and design for quicker navigation
  
  
• Launch of our experimental “WalkMe” guided assistance button, for managers and staff 
  
  
• Universal time adjustments were applied to the Recurring Tasks generator and the nightly Shift Log Summary email, so that they are sent at midnight based on each property’s local time

• Users can now “Clone” and further customize any of the existing Email Design Templates
  
  
• New vaccination fields (Vaccination Information, Vaccination Date, Weight) have been added to the Pet Registry record
  
  
• Security Officers can now review the new 'Employee Login Audit' report for key login history of their all employees’ site activity, including Date/Time, Browser Type, and IP Address
  
  
• Updated  the “My Account” resident site header, to show the resident’s account balance

• New automation tool: ImageR computer-vision package check-in solution (more below)
  
  
• New module: Resident Insurance Tracking (more below)
  
  
• Resident Portal: Navigation improved (more below)
  
  
• Amenity Reservations: New features added (more below)
  - Document/form attachments
  - Concurrent reservations
  
  
• GEO app: New design for iOS version now available
  
  
• Maintenance photos entered by staff: Options added to show to residents (more below)
  
  
• Event Log: An “Internal Only” module has been added, for logging events that are not made visible to residents
  
  
• Recurring Maintenance requests: Added “6 weeks” as a recurrence option
  
  
• Pet Registry: Added option to export and/or print
  
  
• Autodialer: Resident phone numbers are optionally hidden on dialing screens; staff whose privacy settings do not allow them to see this info can still use the autodialer to contact these residents

As the holidays approach, don’t forget! You can choose to send bulk reminders - all at once - to all residents who have not picked up their incoming deliveries promptly. It’s a great way to keep your package room or closet uncluttered, and to prevent packages getting lost.

We are excited to announce that the newly released Resident Insurance Compliance module – our antidote to the typically messy and disorganized task of tracking resident insurance – is now available to both residents and management.

Their Resident Site now features a more user-friendly left-hand menu with expanding and collapsing sections to save screen space and make the site more organized and easier to navigate. We’ve also created a new “Resident Services” section to allow residents quicker access to tasks related to their unit – streamlining the communication between you and your residents even more!

BuildingLink has reached 4000 buildings! We're excited to announce such an accomplishment - especially because we know we couldn't have reached it on our own. Ourtalented technology collaborators and loyal, enterprising customers have helped us develop the ultimate management experience - and more and more property managers seem to agree!

We're always coming up with new solutions for your property management needs - but we want to know what YOU want next! You've seen what can be done with BuildingLink software and hardware – but did you know that we've also built sensors that monitor and communicate with your building? If you've ever heard of IoT (Internet of Things), that's what we're talking about. We've already placed our first "sensor solution" AWARE-FCTM– a series of integrated sensors to monitor Fitness Center equipment – into 14 of our clients’ buildings (click here to learn more!) and we're working on more for: • Amenity Usage and People Counting • Water Leak Detection • Elevator Monitoring Please take a moment to complete this Sensor Survey and help us choose the next best new solutions for you!"

It’s a fantastic list – an ambitious undertaking! But, since we’ve now grown our Development team to 43 persons – including some of the best technologists anywhere – we are confident in our ability to create and deliver the “magic”!

We are happy to inform you that we have enhanced our Custom Field functionality to allow for more flexibility and faster data entry/management. Many properties are using our Custom Fields to keep track of a whole range of information about their residents, apartments, and facilities – from birthdays and gym memberships to square footage and equipment service dates. Our new and enhanced data types make tracking information using Custom Fields easier and more efficient.

A new "Autofit" mode for packages displayed on the Open Events Grid will automatically size the event boxes so as to fit all open events onto a single page, thereby eliminating the need for building staff to scroll the page to see all open events.

1) Using our new Special Permission, staff can override minimum advance notice when placing a reservation. 2) A new amenity level rule allows staff to set a specific date range for reservations. This allows management to restrict usage for seasonal barbecues, pools, or other date-specific amenities.

You can now add or refresh the images of your building displayed on the login page as well as the thumbnails displayed in the upper left-hand corners of your website and of your templated emails, by going to the "Settings -> Design Center - > Website Building Images" link.

The Resident Apps can now be accessed in English, Spanish, French, Turkish, Vietnamese, and Chinese (both simplified and traditional).

Celebrate the season with our new "Seasons - Winter 2017" Email Template!

Easily send email reminders for all deliveries awaiting resident pickup!

“Event Groups” will speed up your working with deliveries, pickups, visitors, etc.