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by RMLS Communication Department | Dec 4, 2014
Real estate professionals: you are invited to save the date for the 2015 RMLS™ Education Summit and Trade Fair! This year’s trade fair will be taking place on March 19, 2015, at the World Forestry Center in Portland, OR.
Why the World Forestry Center?
RMLS™ frequently heard feedback from attendees in past years that they’d like to see the event in a different location. The World Forestry Center offers a new location on the west side of Portland, plentiful parking, easy access by transit, and also enables RMLS™ to offer more amenities to attendees and exhibitors.
Interested in Attending?
RMLS™ members and non-members are welcome to attend the event, and class registration will be open by early February. Monitor RMLStradefair.com, RMLS™ on Facebook, or RMLS™ on Twitter for the latest updates.
Whether you’ll be attending classes, reaching out to REALTORS®, or window shopping around the trade fair floor, RMLS™ looks forward to seeing you at the World Forestry Center this spring!
Thanks, Sponsors!
Special thanks to our sponsors for making this event possible…
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![Save the Date! RMLS™ Education Summit and Trade Fair Coming March 19, 2015]()
by RMLS Communication Department | Nov 25, 2014
The RMLS™ accounting team—Dalece Lauck, Cheronn Foster, Ceri Howell, and Stacy Waples—are the friendly voices on the phone if you call regarding your RMLS™ bill.
This post is part of MLS Insight, a series about how things work at RMLS™.
Do you know there is an opportunity for receiving a discount on RMLS™ dues? This year, our annual Subscriber Satisfaction Survey revealed that only around 20% of those responding knew about it.
Generally, subscriber dues are quarterly, billed in advance. However, there are now two options to make discounted payments for a longer time period. If you pay all subscriber dues annually in advance, you will receive a 10% discount, and there is now also a brand new offering of half-yearly advance payment with a 4% discount. With the end of 2014 rapidly approaching, so is the opportunity for making an annual payment to take advantage of this discount opportunity for the full year in 2015. Call RMLS™ Accounting at 503-872-8003 for more information.
The Accounting Department works hard to make the billing process as easy and streamlined for subscribers as possible, while maintaining the highest level of fiscal responsibility for RMLS™. Last year, our billing process did not allow for payment of fees without penalty in the quarter of service, because this allowed us to virtually eliminate bad debt. No one received service that they had not paid for. However, this policy caused problems for some subscribers who needed to pay in the month or year that the service was actually received to make their accounting work the way they wanted it to. This year our billing timeline allows for payment without a late fee until the sixth of the month after billing occurs, eliminating those problems and not significantly increasing our exposure to unpaid service.
RMLS™ will upgrade its billing and membership system in 2015. The RMLS™ Board of Directors approved a new contract with Abila, Inc, to use their cloud-based system netFORUM Enterprise. RMLS™ has used the same membership system since 1993. A change was needed because that system does not operate optimally over a wide area network—in plain English, this means that our branch offices often experience slow response and other difficulties. It has been increasingly difficult to maintain PCI compliance for credit card processing with the current system. After reviewing many products, Abila was chosen for its solid platform, customization potential, and commitment to PCI compliance and data security. The system will also replace our outmoded HelpDesk software, as well as some other staff tools. Customization of the system and data migration will take place over the next six months or so. We do not expect to bill subscribers with the new system before the third quarter of 2015. When the system is rolled out, it will include an upgrade to the online payment system for subscribers.
Next month we will spotlight another department at RMLS™. If you have any questions you would like to have answered about how things work at RMLS™, I encourage you to post a comment to this blog.
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by RMLS Communication Department | Nov 11, 2014
Each year on the RMLS™ Subscriber Satisfaction Survey, we ask how our members receive news from RMLS™. This year, 54.2% of respondents said they get news through the RMLS™ Weekly Report. We’d love to see a higher number here, because the RMLS™ Weekly Report is one of our few ways to keep subscribers regularly updated about RMLS™ news, new features we’ll be releasing, and events we may be holding in your area.
Have you been missing the RMLS™ Weekly Report? Here are a few reasons we may be missing your mailbox.
Issue #1: Incorrect/Missing Contact Email on RMLSweb
We update the send list for the RMLS™ Weekly Report every few weeks directly from RMLSweb. Check your user preferences (Document #1756 can help) to make sure the address in the “RMLSweb Contact Email” field is current.
Issue #2: You’ve Opted Out of Constant Contact Emails
RMLS™ uses Constant Contact to send the RMLS™ Weekly Report each week. We also use the service to send Market Action to subscribers each month as well as periodically sending other important messages.
Perhaps there is another business who also uses Constant Contact, and you clicked the “SafeUnsubscribe” link at the bottom of their email. That actually unsubscribes you from ALL Constant Contact mailings, including those from RMLS™.
Issue #3: The Dreaded Spam Filter
RMLS™ employees have the ability to see certain types of interaction with each email we send through Constant Contact. Periodically a subscriber will contact us saying they’re not receiving the RMLS™ Weekly Report, and we can see the email was indeed sent to them and did not bounce back. This is the toughest issue to solve because it requires that the subscriber do some detective work on their end, as it’s likely that the messages are being caught in some sort of spam filter along the way.
If we see that we have sent emails to you with no bounces, we will first ask you to check out any spam filters you may have on your email program, on your email server, or anywhere else on your side of the process. It’s tough to tell you where to look because everyone’s email is set up differently. For example, Mary may use a web-based email service like Gmail or Hotmail, while Elizabeth may have a custom domain (betsy@betsysellshouses.com) that auto-forwards to her Comcast address. Meanwhile, Fred may work for a company with an IT staff that control their mail servers, and he views everything using Outlook.
Mary, Elizabeth, and Fred will each need to do a different type of detective work.
Mary’s web-based email may have one or more spam folders to look in. Elizabeth may need to search for emails through her domain host (whoever she pays for betsysellshouses.com) and through Comcast, her internet service provider (ISP). Fred will have to look in his Outlook spam folder(s) but he’ll also have the help of his coworkers in IT to help.
Often that will solve the problem, but if it doesn’t, the next step is determining whether Constant Contact has been blacklisted at a subscriber’s email provider.
Issue #4: Blacklisting
If RMLS™ staff determines emails to a subscriber are being sent successfully but the subscriber can’t find them in various spam filters, it may be because Constant Contact servers have been blacklisted by your ISP. If Server A has been blacklisted by Server B, it means that no email from Server A will be accepted by Server B and it will never get to the subscriber.
What can RMLS™ do to solve this issue? The subscriber should reach out to their ISP, email provider, or (in Fred’s case) IT staff to get Constant Contact removed from the blacklist. Constant Contact has a letter template that subscribers can use to contact an ISP about blacklisting issues.
If this doesn’t resolve things, we can help you or your ISP connect with Constant Contact to resolve the issue.
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![Save the Date! RMLS™ Education Summit and Trade Fair Coming March 19, 2015]()
by RMLS Communication Department | Oct 23, 2014
This post is part of MLS Insight, a series about how things work at RMLS™.
RMLS™ is renewing its agreement with Oregon Real Estate Forms to pay for MLS-Connect® for zipForms on behalf of the RMLS™ subscribers who use the OREF Forms. The Board of Directors approved payment of this annual fee of $3.00/OREF Forms subscriber at its meeting in October. MLS-Connect® allows for auto-population from the listing data. We recently audited the available fields, and are sending all the data that is compatible to OREF for use in this functionality.
RMLS™ and OREF are two separate entities with a history of cooperation in serving Oregon REALTORS®. From 2004 through 2010, RMLS™ provided the on-line forms software solution for OREF. The program was based on Microsoft technology, and after six years of operation, some key components were no longer available to support the software that RMLS™ had built for OREF. The REALTOR®-owned zipLogix platform was chosen by the OREF Board of Managers and was launched January 1, 2011. RMLS™ has participated in the MLS-Connect® feature from the beginning to add value for our subscribers.
Thanks to everyone who commented on the last post – Thinking About an MLS Without Area Numbers! As I stated, this is not in the works at this time, but discussion about how things might work in the future is healthy. Technology moves at a great rate, and we don’t always know where it is headed. Even just thinking about doing things in a different way keeps us mentally agile and a little more ready for whatever changes comes our way. Thanks again for participating.
I took a detour this month to tell you about OREF. Next month we will get back to talking about the various departments at RMLS™ and their plans for the upcoming year. If you have any questions you would like to have answered about how things work at RMLS™, I encourage you to post a comment to this blog.
![Save the Date! RMLS™ Education Summit and Trade Fair Coming March 19, 2015]()
by RMLS Communication Department | Oct 23, 2014
This post is part of MLS Insight, a series about how things work at RMLS™.
RMLS™ is renewing its agreement with Oregon Real Estate Forms to pay for MLS-Connect® for zipForms on behalf of the RMLS™ subscribers who use the OREF Forms. The Board of Directors approved payment of this annual fee of $3.00/OREF Forms subscriber at its meeting in October. MLS-Connect® allows for auto-population from the listing data. We recently audited the available fields, and are sending all the data that is compatible to OREF for use in this functionality.
RMLS™ and OREF are two separate entities with a history of cooperation in serving Oregon REALTORS®. From 2004 through 2010, RMLS™ provided the on-line forms software solution for OREF. The program was based on Microsoft technology, and after six years of operation, some key components were no longer available to support the software that RMLS™ had built for OREF. The REALTOR®-owned zipLogix platform was chosen by the OREF Board of Managers and was launched January 1, 2011. RMLS™ has participated in the MLS-Connect® feature from the beginning to add value for our subscribers.
Thanks to everyone who commented on the last post – Thinking About an MLS Without Area Numbers! As I stated, this is not in the works at this time, but discussion about how things might work in the future is healthy. Technology moves at a great rate, and we don’t always know where it is headed. Even just thinking about doing things in a different way keeps us mentally agile and a little more ready for whatever changes comes our way. Thanks again for participating.
I took a detour this month to tell you about OREF. Next month we will get back to talking about the various departments at RMLS™ and their plans for the upcoming year. If you have any questions you would like to have answered about how things work at RMLS™, I encourage you to post a comment to this blog.
![Save the Date! RMLS™ Education Summit and Trade Fair Coming March 19, 2015]()
by RMLS Communication Department | Oct 23, 2014
This post is part of MLS Insight, a series about how things work at RMLS™.
RMLS™ is renewing its agreement with Oregon Real Estate Forms to pay for MLS-Connect® for zipForms on behalf of the RMLS™ subscribers who use the OREF Forms. The Board of Directors approved payment of this annual fee of $3.00/OREF Forms subscriber at its meeting in October. MLS-Connect® allows for auto-population from the listing data. We recently audited the available fields, and are sending all the data that is compatible to OREF for use in this functionality.
RMLS™ and OREF are two separate entities with a history of cooperation in serving Oregon REALTORS®. From 2004 through 2010, RMLS™ provided the on-line forms software solution for OREF. The program was based on Microsoft technology, and after six years of operation, some key components were no longer available to support the software that RMLS™ had built for OREF. The REALTOR®-owned zipLogix platform was chosen by the OREF Board of Managers and was launched January 1, 2011. RMLS™ has participated in the MLS-Connect® feature from the beginning to add value for our subscribers.
Thanks to everyone who commented on the last post – Thinking About an MLS Without Area Numbers! As I stated, this is not in the works at this time, but discussion about how things might work in the future is healthy. Technology moves at a great rate, and we don’t always know where it is headed. Even just thinking about doing things in a different way keeps us mentally agile and a little more ready for whatever changes comes our way. Thanks again for participating.
I took a detour this month to tell you about OREF. Next month we will get back to talking about the various departments at RMLS™ and their plans for the upcoming year. If you have any questions you would like to have answered about how things work at RMLS™, I encourage you to post a comment to this blog.
