Migrate your Documents to SharePoint

REALTY|share has a tried and tested process and automated scripts for migrating terabytes of files from the network file share and other legacy document management systems to our structured SharePoint-based document management solution.

Viewing Key Property Data from Yardi, MRI and other back-end systems

REALTY|share property sites not only house all of your critical property documents.  They also display key information about your properties.  Oftentimes, this data resides in Yardi or MRI or some other back end system.  REALTY|share retrieves this data on a nightly basis, making it available to your users in SharePoint.

Finding the Correct version of your Critical Property Documents

All too often, when searching for a critical property document such as a business plan, the business user finds twenty or more versions of the same document and is left unsure which document is the correct, current one.  REALTY|share leverages Microsoft Office and SharePoint versioning.  A search for a property’s business plan results in one and only one search result:  The most current version of the critical document.  The user is able to access all prior versions if needed.

Important Lessons from Realcomm’s Investment Management Panel Discussion on Trends and Challenges in Commercial Real Estate

On Thursday, June 20, at Realcomm, I was privileged to join leaders from Yardi, RealPage and Altus to discuss trends and challenges facing the real estate industry as well as explore ideas to better leverage real estate’s investments in technology.

Responding to the first question about changes since the pandemic, I reflected that the move to working from home was a seismic shift in terms of technology adoption.

Microsoft 365 had been around for quite a while, but all of a sudden everyone became adept at Teams (and Zoom). It took a little more time to realize that beyond online meetings, information needed to be accessible outside the four walls of the office. Not just data, but documents needed to be accessible as well.

Companies found that while they owned the Rolls Royce of technology platforms for back-office automation, they were leveraging this investment very poorly. The pandemic created a discontinuity for how people started working in 2020 and beyond.  Many companies used this discontinuity to enhance their leverage of the power of the tech stack they already owned.

The conversation moved to a discussion about siloed platforms (i.e., Yardi and Microsoft 365) and whether vendors and consultants were bridging the gap to leverage the power of integrated systems. The answer here is very encouraging. Yardi already has published APIs for data sharing and has done a nice job leveraging the best of both worlds with their Yardi Document Management for SharePoint (YDMS) solution that surfaces Voyager attachments in the SharePoint environment.

REALTY|share takes this a major step further by integrating with YDMS allowing us to provide our real estate customers with an all-encompassing, full featured SharePoint document management and portal solution.

But there are two bigger, almost philosophical questions here: First, how do you use the power of the tools you already own? Many companies barely scratch the surface when it comes to the capabilities of their core system — be it Yardi or MRI or RealPage etc. And, don’t get me started when it comes to the pervasive underuse of the power of the Microsoft 365 stack.

The second question: what is the right tool for what business function? For example, don’t use Excel to track your entities, that’s what Yardi is for. Our Yardi consulting partner helps our customers make sure that Yardi is the source of truth for all entity data. When it comes to processes and workflows and integrating entity data with other business functions, this is a great opportunity to take advantage of the Microsoft 365 platform – SharePoint, Power Automate, Power BI, and more.

The panel moderator picked up on this question of adoption and probed further. I reflected on how a company’s all-important documents are among real estate owners most under-appreciated assets — and treated as such.

This panel discussion really emphasized for me the fact that when it comes to document management, it’s as if the clock stopped in 1985 and 40 years later the majority of companies are still using folders to classify their critical documents. A fact that was reinforced when a recent prospect shared the details of a deal where the incorrect version of a lease cost them almost two hundred thousand dollars in a single transaction.

We who sell technology know that the pace of innovation far exceeds the pace of adoption. It might sound Darwinian, but those companies that remain stuck in the ‘80s stone age technology are going to suffer the fate of the dinosaurs.

REALTY|share Executive to Speak at Realcomm 2024 in Tampa, Florida

Showcasing Investment Management Innovations: REALTY|share to Host Live Demos and Feature Expert Presentations by Industry Leaders

ATLANTA – June 13, 2024 – REALTY|share, a leading provider of document management solutions for the real estate industry, is excited to announce its participation at Realcomm 2024, taking place from June 19-21 in Tampa. This annual event brings together the brightest minds in the real estate and technology sectors.

“We are eager to engage with our peers and share our innovative solutions at Realcomm 2024,” said Kevin Abel, Executive Director of REALTY|share. “Our presentations and live demonstrations will highlight how REALTY|share’s SharePoint solution allows real estate owners and property managers to streamline operations and enhance investment management strategies.”

Kevin Abel will also be presenting on an investment management track panel at 1:15 PM on June 20 in Room 411. The panel, titled “CRE & PropTech Experts Discuss Trends, Client Demands, and Industry Challenges,” will feature discussions on the latest trends and challenges in the real estate and technology sectors.

Jenny Whittemore, COO of Endeavor Real Estate Group in Austin and REALTY|share client, will be presenting a consolidated investment management case study analysis and industry best practices on a panel moderated by Yardi. This session will be held at 2:15 PM on June 20 in Room 411. “We are thrilled to have Jenny Whittemore share her insights and experiences,” said Abel. “Her expertise in investment management and real estate operations offers valuable perspectives for our industry.”

In addition to these insightful presentations, REALTY|share will be showcasing their latest document management solutions at Booth 2020. Attendees are invited to experience live demonstrations and learn how REALTY|share can transform their document management processes. “We’re looking forward to connecting with attendees and demonstrating the capabilities of REALTY|share,” added Abel. “Our SharePoint solutions are designed to address the unique needs of the real estate industry, and we’re excited to show how they can make a difference.”

For more information about REALTY|share and to schedule a demo at Realcomm 2024, please visit realtyshare.net.


About REALTY|share:

REALTY|share is a leading provider of document management solutions tailored for the real estate industry. By utilizing advanced technologies and industry expertise, REALTY|share helps real estate professionals leverage their investment in Microsoft 365, SharePoint and Teams to streamline their operations, improve collaboration, and enhance productivity. With a commitment to innovation and customer success, REALTY|share is dedicated to transforming the way real estate businesses manage their documents. For more information, visit realtyshare.net.

Media Contact:

Malinda Lackey

404-937-6457
Email: MalindaL@michaelmackenzie.com

Unlocking Efficiency: Understanding Metadata as Dynamic Filing

Moving off a file share network and into SharePoint involves a series of challenges along the spectrum of the purely technical to managing organizational attitudes and adoption. The latter has at its core one specific item that has potential to be a major roadblock for any cloud migration: understanding metadata as a replacement for folders. The move away from folders is already difficult on a functional level – retraining users to use search refiners and filters – but is compounded by the mental difficulty many have in truly grasping what metadata is and how it works.

Of course, we start with the definition: metadata is just “data about your data.” Metadata for our purpose is just attributes of the documents we work with, and we already engage with this every day – File Name, Date Created, Date Modified, etc. Within standard network folders, this document metadata is only relevant once you’ve already found where the document lives. Then, you can sort by name, date, etc. and most users understand the core concept of metadata. The difficulty comes in when we remove folders and shift to a flat structure fully reliant on metadata for organization.

Users are accustomed to finding files or where to save files by navigating folder labels to a specific final destination. The problem with this is that it is often many levels deep with winding paths created by labels often too specific or too vague. This is one of the most common complaints in any workplace and one that wastes enormous amounts of time when aggregated across organizations. Clicking through 6 folder levels only to not find the file you expected then necessitates going back and clicking through another potential pathway with fingers crossed – the hunt continues!

With the transition to metadata, there are no folders to guide the navigation to the file. Instead, users are expected to use sort/filter/search features to land on the documents they are looking for within a large central repository.

Ultimately, buy-in for metadata can be earned by presenting it as a method of dynamic filing. Consider the example of property management reports. These are generated on some regular cycle for a recurring set of assets. So a typical folder structure might look like Property Name –> Management Reports –> Year –> Month. This is where the file lives and in this case most users likely don’t spend a lot of time digging through ambiguous folders. However, Bill prefers to have the year prioritized, so his folders look like Management Reports –> Year –> Month –> Property Name. Any combination of these folder labels is possible and gets you to the same file, but the latter is more efficient if someone regularly reviews all the reports across properties for a particular period. However, the former is better if someone needs to compare reports or do an audit within a property (“better” here meaning fewer clicks and less time spent navigating).

The beauty of metadata is that when a file is tagged with the relevant values, it functionally lives in all combinations of that potential file path at the same time. Mind blown, right? It serves all use cases for retrieval based on the searcher’s immediate priority and is not constrained by whoever set up the initial structure 10 years ago. Need to see all February 2024 reports across the portfolio? Easy. Need to see all 2023 reports for a particular property? Just as easy. A static file path locks you into one way of organizing your files, which is only efficient for select business purposes. For others, it creates more work to now go into all the pathways to retrieve the end file for a high-level review. In many organizations, this problem is remedied by saving the file twice: once in its usual location and a second copy in some special Region Name –> Year –> Month –> {all Management Reports} consolidated folder for senior management.

A dynamic filing system built on metadata promotes efficiency, allows for one file to serve multiple purposes, eliminates the risk of creating copies for different purposes, and is responsive to all business needs on-demand. Don’t believe us? Request a demo today and let us show you what the future of filing looks like!

Use SharePoint Without Ever Having to Open Your Browser

Store and tag documents quickly into SharePoint Online while leveraging REALTY|share Desktop. Our tool integrates SharePoint with Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Adobe (PDF) and includes a “Windows-like” File Explorer for a complete document and email management solution.

Moving to a Property-Centric Document Structure for Real Estate

The real estate industry is document-heavy. Professionals across the organization must create, store, edit and consume documents as part of their daily work.

The document folder structure (“file tree” or “document tree”) that houses a real estate company’s files is most likely the result of an ad-hoc accumulation of structures created by individual departments or job functions. Everyone had their own tree at one point and then all the trees got consolidated. There’s a development tree, a property management tree, a legal tree, an accounting tree, an asset management tree. You get the point. Every tree has its own breakdown by property or asset. And documents are duplicated across these various structures. Not to mention twenty versions of the same document. Does this file name look familiar? “VenturaPlaceBusinessPlanV_34.3.xlsx”

More and more, when I talk to real estate company professionals, I hear that they’re revisiting their document folder structure. They need a better way to manage their information that is so critical to how they do business. And when they revisit their file tree, they’re likely moving toward a “property-centric” organizational structure rather than the department or business function orientation of the past.

In this property-centric structure, no longer does the business unit own and control their documents within their silo. Now the organization as a whole accesses documents for a property across all business functions. Certainly security is still applied as needed (only certain roles should have access to legal documents, for example). But the governance and control of the structure for all documents is centrally maintained, and business users across the organization can count on consistent document organization across all properties within the portfolio.

With our REALTY|share Office 365/SharePoint solution for real estate document management and collaboration, Arcuity has been helping real estate companies move to a property-centric document folder structure and a document management solution that allows the business to efficiently and confidently manage and access the information they need to get their jobs done.

Visit https://realtyshare.net/request-demo/ to sign up for a short demo.

Why You Should be Leveraging Document Sets in Your SharePoint System

Document Sets are folder-like groupings of files and a great way to improve the organization of similar documents within your SharePoint environment for many different reasons – the most important being metadata. 

Document Set Example

The ability to leverage metadata is a prominent advantage of Document Sets over the traditional folder structure because metadata makes it exponentially easier to search, store, protect, and retrieve your files. Additionally, Document Sets are very customizable so that you can tailor them exactly to fit your needs. You can choose the specific metadata you want to assign to the Document Set itself to filter down to all documents within the Set and even customize further by adding document-specific columns you want to live inside the document set. More advanced customizations include features such as adding a welcome page, incorporating workflows, and assigning specific user permissions. 

A typical use case within commercial real estate is organizing documents for Tenants. Each Tenant will have the same core set of internal documents, but utilizing Document Sets allows the user to easily create or archive Sets as needed. This can also be applied to construction projects or any other business area where the top level needs to remain flexible while maintaining the core document organization at lower levels.   As document management systems continue to advance, Document Sets are a great way to bridge the gap between classic folder structures and modern metadata organization. They introduce a cleaner, more efficient way to integrate metadata into your system and help facilitate a transition for employees in mitigating drastic change.