Latest news from the team including product updates, tricks and tips, relevant industry news and other topics.
Software Updates
We have now released initial support for long term rental properties!
Viewing & Creating Rental Properties
To get started, browse to the properties tab, immediately you’ll notice two new sidebar tabs on the left, these allow you to filter the list between sale (the default) and the new rental type.
To create a rental property, click the "New Property” button as normal, at the top of the form you’ll see a new drop down option called Tenure, from this select "Rental”.
When you do this, several options on the form change, most notably the price becomes monthly, price type is removed and the statuses change to be appropriate for rentals.
Fill out the details the same as you would for sales and your rental property is ready to go.
Custom Fields
If you have custom fields setup for properties you would have previously defined them under "Property”. Now you have 3 options:
Property - These fields will display for both types, sale and rental.
Sale Property - These fields will show for sale properties only.
Rental Property - These fields will show for rental properties only.
Applicants & Requirements
Applicant requirements now feature a new field called Tenure to specify whether the applicant is looking to buy or rent, and this has been incorporated into applicant search, applicant matching and CSV exports. All existing requirements have been set to sale.
Website Integration
As rental properties are typically searched in the thousands price range as opposed to hundreds of thousands your website will need some adjustments if you intend to allow your visitors to search rental properties.
Rental properties for the most part will display with standard and existing templates although if you have either sale_property or rental_property templates available, they will be used before falling back to the standard property template, giving you the option to customise the individual templates more heavily should you need.
And beyond
This is our initial release for rentals allowing the basic functionality for listing and dealing with enquiries. We look forward to any feedback that you may have and to expanding further into features for rentals in the coming months.
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General
Software Updates
We have recently released a number of updates to the diary with a particular focus on making it clearer and easier to use. The first thing you will notice is a much cleaner user interface:
Assigned users are now highlighted more distinctly via a small uniquely coloured tag featuring the users initials. To keep extremely busy calendars in shape we’ve also cut the amount of text that’s shown (wider screens see more) and reduced the number of items shown per day. If you want to see the full text for a particular item you can either click it or mouse over to view a tooltip.
For days with a large number of events an indicator showing the number of additional tasks or appointments will be shown. You can click on this to expand the view revealing all the tasks for the day you are interested in.
Tasks
Another major change is how we work with tasks. Tasks are now more distinct from appointments in that they don’t require a due date, and are completable. Your tasks will appear in a list to the right of the calendar, allowing you to tick them off as completed.
Tasks that have a due date will also appear in the calendar and agenda. Overdue tasks will highlight as red and remain at the top of the list until they are completed.
You can use these for things that don’t necessarily need to happen at an exact date or time and for keeping track of tasks you need to complete, ticking them off as you are done.
Agenda
Replacing the list view is a new Agenda which groups all the tasks by date and time giving you a much clearer picture of what is due to happen and when. The agenda also uses the colour coded display names for the assigned users so you can quickly and easily see who is assigned. By default the Agenda shows the tasks and appointments coming up in the next 2 weeks.
You have the added ability to redefine the date selection and also export the current view as CSV.
Task & Appointment Forms
To aid in quickly adding and editing tasks and appointments, we have added in place dialog boxes which appear as an overlay on your current page. Clicking any item in the calendar will open it for editing/viewing details in a dialog.
We have also swapped the date drop downs with a calendar for easier date selection and added an option to mark an appointment as "all day”.
Team and Individual Diaries
As with the current diary only users with the relevant user permission will be able to see entries for the entire team.
Those with permission "view all” will be able to toggle between their own individual diary and the shared team diary. Those with only permission to view their own entries will not see this option.
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Software Updates
Advance Agent can now export properties directly to Rightmove Overseas! With full support for the Rightmove BLM v3 format we can create an export and transfer your properties directly to Rightmove’s servers each night to keep your Rightmove account updated automatically.
To control the properties that are exported to Rightmove we recommend defining a set of filters (e.g. Properties in Alicante over €100k) or selecting individual properties for export by tagging properties with "rightmove” and setting the filter to export only properties with that tag.
Please note any existing properties that you have on Rightmove will be removed once you switch to updating via an automatic feed.
An advertising account with Rightmove Overseas is required, please contact Rightmove Overseas for pricing.
The Rightmove Overseas logo is a trademark of Rightmove PLC.
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Software Updates
We have recently extended our support for EPC Graphs by adding Energy Performance Asset Rating graph types.
As required by the EU Energy Performance of Buildings Directive, properties that are non dwellings with a floor area greater than 50 square metres that are for sale, rent or construction, whilst being exempt from requiring a domestic EPC will require a non domestic Energy Performance Asset Rating instead.
To generate one of these for your property, select the property, click EPC Graphs, select Energy Performance (Commercial) as the graph type then enter the rating as provided by your approved assessor.
Below is an example generated by Advance Agent:
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Software Updates
EU directive 2002/91/EC (The energy performance of buildings) requires that as of June 1st 2013 all properties coming onto the market for sale in the EU must have obtained an Energy Performance Certificate (EPC), properties already on the market must apply for an EPC within 1 week of this deadline, and have obtained the EPC within a further 3 weeks.
What is EPC?
The Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) also known as Certificado de Eficiencia Energetica (CEE) in Spain is designed to give buyers an idea of how energy efficient the property is, a property scoring a higher energy efficiency will have lower ongoing bills for heating as well as lower carbon dioxide emissions.
Properties are scored from A to G, A being very energy efficient and G being not energy efficient, with a further rating for the potential score if adequate measures are taken to improve the property. A standard graph has been designed to communicate these values clearly to buyers, much like food labels.
How to create EPC Graphs with Advance Agent
To help you display this information, you will now find a new side menu option on properties labelled "EPC Graphs". Selecting this will allow you to enter the current and potential values for both Energy Efficiency and Environment Impact from the properties certificate. This will then generate standard graphs, as the following example shows:
These can be included on your website or print material relating to the property and makes it very easy for you to communicate this information to your buyers.
A quick modification is needed to your website templates to enable automatic inclusion of the EPC Graphs on property details pages, please open a support ticket to request this update.
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General
Software Updates
Property exports now support optional filtering, allowing you to export a select set of properties to Property Portals and Partners.
The filters available include locations, property types, min beds, price range and tags with options to order by created date, updated date or price.
Feeds start at just £2.50 per month for up to 500 properties and are initially available in Advance Agent and Kyero formats.
These feeds are updated every night at 23:00 UTC to ensure that your feed recipients are always kept up to date.
To setup an export, click the "Settings" tab, browse down to the "Collaboration" heading and click "Property Exports" then click the "New Export" button.
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Software Updates
By visiting your user profile, you can now customise your email signature.
If your account templates have this option enabled, they will automatically include your signature at the bottom of any email you send from Advance Agent in place of the previously default company wide signature.
Account admins:
Please open a support ticket to enable this option on your account templates.
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Software Updates
It is now easier than ever to find your contacts. Don’t know the full name or telephone number of the contact? You can now enter partial details for the name, phone number and email address and Advance Agent will try to find them for you.
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Software Updates
Assigning a user to a contact will now send an automatic email notification to the assigned user detailing the assignment and basic details of the contact.
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Software Updates
We often receive feedback about time spent uploading property photos, based on this feedback we have implemented the following improvements: Firstly, those with latest web browsers will not have to select files individually using a file browser, you can simply drag and drop straight from your computer onto the Advance Agent upload form.
Secondly, we now support multiple file uploads - just add all of your files to the form (dragging and dropping multiple files also works), and Advance Agent will automatically work through the files uploading them for you, either uploading multiple at a time or working through a queue depending on your connection speed. You will also see a live upload progress bar for each file as well as an overall progress bar, so you know whether you have time to go get a coffee!
We hope you enjoy this time saving addition.
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Software Updates
