![Getting Up to Speed on RMLSweb News: Ask Technical Terry]()
by RMLS Communication Department | Apr 18, 2018
Ask Technical Terry is a series RMLS™ aims to offer once a month. RMLS™ subscribers will drive the content—submit any question about RMLS™ to Technical Terry in the comments or by emailing communications@rmls.com. Don’t be shy—we won’t identify you by name.
Dear Technical Terry,
My-oh-MY is the market abuzz about the upcoming Coming Soon-No Showing status and the changes to Authorization to Exclude! I think I’ve also heard rumor of a forms change rollout and a new showing scheduler being added to RMLSweb. I’m really concerned that much of what I’m hearing is just rumor. Can you guide me to where I can get more info on these important changes?
Concerned Clarice in Clackamas
Hi CCC-
Why, yes I can! Your perspective that the market is “abuzz” about the upcoming changes is spot on.
RMLS™ communicates information in a variety of ways. We understand that some subscribers rely on the RMLSweb desktop page for information, others rely on the RMLS™ Weekly Report, sent on Monday mornings, and others still really like subscribing to our blog on RMLScentral for information.
For example: on the day I’m writing this, the RMLSweb desktop page has links to an array of useful information about the projects you mention:
We send out the RMLS™ Weekly Report at 6 AM every Monday morning. In it you will find much of the same information shown on the RMLSweb desktop. The email address we use to send RWR is the address you provide to us in the User Preferences section of RMLSweb, shown here:
(If you’re not receiving the email, it could be that your email account filters the email to your junk or spam folder. Check there!)
Last, but certainly not least, is the RMLScentral blog. You can find articles on the blog that cover the same topics and others, with the added benefit of visible subscriber feedback and questions. Access the blog from the RMLSweb desktop page by clicking on the appropriate link in the Links section, seen here:
I sure hope this information helps, Clarice. We realize that your days are very busy, and as such we try to provide information in a variety of channels/formats, hoping one or more will work well for you.
TT
Hey, Technical Terry!
Clarice is my team member and while she may have plenty of time in the office to subscribe to the RMLS™ blog and read news as soon as it’s released, I am in my car all the time. Showings, trips to the RMLS™ office, picking up closing gifts—it seems the hours I spend in traffic every day take me away from RMLS™ communications. Any suggestions there, smartypants?
Cody Clark, Clarice’s Coworker in Clackamas
Hey…CCCCC!
First things first: don’t read this (or anything else from RMLS™) while driving!
That said, I do indeed have the very thing for you: Real Talk with RMLS™, our podcast! We unveiled our first episode just about a year ago, and our audience has been growing steadily ever since. Episodes are offered regularly, and listeners can expect that big projects like the ones Clarice was interested in will be covered in an episode very soon.
Real Talk with RMLS™ is available on iTunes and Google Play. We hope you will pass some of your time sitting in traffic by learning about RMLS™ projects this way!
Technical Terry
![Getting Up to Speed on RMLSweb News: Ask Technical Terry]()
by RMLS Communication Department | Mar 14, 2018
Ask Technical Terry is a series RMLS™ aims to offer once a month. RMLS™ subscribers will drive the content—submit any question about RMLS™ to Technical Terry in the comments or by emailing communications@rmls.com. Don’t be shy—we won’t identify you by name.
Dear Technical Terry,
I’m a recent transplant to the Pacific Northwest. I was also a REALTOR® back in Atlanta and our MLS often gave us good, common sense tips about being a REALTOR®. Does RMLS™ do anything like that? As I’ve been reading some local chatter online, it seems like there is a real need for something like this!
Ethical Earlene in Estacada
Dear Earlene-
Your timing couldn’t be better—RMLS™ just released a new document called Best Practices, Courteousness, and Great Tips for REALTORS®!
I hope you will find the new document helpful in your day-to-day activities as a REALTOR® in our market. While reading through the document you may find that some of the items are common sense or we’ve listed things you think every REALTOR® should already know. What I know from watching our industry for many years is that things that are logical to you or me may not be to others.
RMLS™ has always believed that education is the best way to create a predictable and ethical working environment for our subscribers, and we’re hopeful that the new document will assist in doing that.
Technical Terry
Dear TT:
One of my coworkers claims that RMLS™ is going to be converting to a SentriLock lockbox that uses Bluetooth. When I asked him when it would happen, he didn’t know. Can you tell me about this? And why would we be swapping out our SentriLock lockboxes already—didn’t we just get these?
Imin U. Gene
Dear IUG:
The reason your coworker cannot give you a date is this: there isn’t one to give! The RMLS™ Board of Directors has discussed the possibility of doing a conversion to SentriLock’s Bluetooth lockboxes but nothing firm has been decided yet. Your view that we “just” transitioned to SentriLock NXT lockboxes is only partly true—it has been 4.5 years since we did our most recent conversion!
In fact, here are a few fun facts about SentriLock at RMLS™:
- Lockboxes currently in distribution at RMLS™: 56,450
- RMLS™ lockboxes per active/pending listing: 3.64 per listing
- Lockboxes per active RMLS™ subscriber: 4.04 per subscriber
That being said, the new SentriLock Bluetooth lockboxes really do offer a lot compared with the NXT lockbox. Two of the biggest benefits are that the lockbox can be opened via the SentriSmart™ app on your smartphone even when you’re out of cell range, as it uses Bluetooth instead of cellular; and many of the lockbox programming functions can be performed using SentriSmart™ instead of your SentriCard®. (If you haven’t started using SentriSmart™ yet, get it on the Apple App Store or Google Play!)
If you have a lockbox that has suffered battery failure, you can simply plug in a “battery jumper pack” into the side of the Bluetooth lockbox to provide the power for it to open. If you’ve ever needed to use the Power Paddle to get an NXT lockbox open after its batteries have died, you’ll realize what a benefit this is!
If this project moves forward, we’ll surely inform RMLS™ subscribers through the RMLSweb desktop page, the RMLS™ Weekly Report, and our blog on RMLScentral. Keep your eyes toward us!
Technical Terry
![Getting Up to Speed on RMLSweb News: Ask Technical Terry]()
by RMLS Communication Department | Nov 21, 2017
Ask Technical Terry is a series RMLS™ aims to offer once a month. RMLS™ subscribers will drive the content—submit any question about RMLS™ to Technical Terry in the comments or by emailing communications@rmls.com. Don’t be shy—we won’t identify you by name.
Dear TT-
I’m hoping you can clear up some questions I have about Prospecting/Auto Email. First, I have a hard time understanding the difference between the two terms. Can you help with that? It seems like they’re used interchangeably and they can’t both mean the same thing! (Can they?) Second, I suspect I’m not setting up my clients correctly because they never seem to get the first set of listings that match the criteria I’ve set up for them. What should I do?
Struggling in Stayton
Dear SS-
I’m happy to help! And I hear you about those two terms being used interchangeably. Let’s start with the term “prospecting.” Prospecting is simply a set of search criteria you’ve saved in RMLSweb in the Prospecting Profile module. In most cases you will name the saved criteria something related to a specific client.
Remember to NOT use your client’s full name here, because if you allow Reverse Prospecting (I know, another confusing term) and your client’s search criteria matches the descriptive elements of a listing being reversed prospected, the subscriber running the reverse prospecting search would be able to see your client’s entire name! Just their name, nothing else, but still probably not a good idea!
Are we good here with that the term “prospecting” means in RMLSweb? Let’s move on.
Now how do I use this set of saved search criteria going forward? In most cases you will associate this Prospecting Profile with a contact in your saved contacts on RMLSweb, and then set up Auto Email, the process whereby RMLSweb searches and automatically sends out listing matches to your client. (Note that you can associate up to five unique contacts per Prospecting Profile!) You could add the client info in Contact Manager (Toolkit->Contact Manager) before or after creating the Prospecting profile—whichever works for you.
Once you’ve chosen a saved contact or created a new contact to add to the Prospecting Profile you can then set up the Auto Email variables. You have a lot of choices here: frequency of delivery, type of client report, whether to CC yourself, customization of the subject line, and so on.
Here’s a key piece of information for you, SS: only new matches will be sent to your client(s) on the day(s) chosen in the Auto Email setup. The initial matches must be selected manually and sent in a separate email message!
Once you have this process set up and running automatically, RMLSweb will alert you of new matches by illuminating the New Prospect Matches button in the upper left corner of the RMLSweb desktop page. You may also be receiving the emails if you chose to CC yourself when setting up the Auto Email. If you did not choose to be copied on the emails you can still view the email history by navigating to Prospecting Profiles, finding the contact name, and clicking “History” in the contact record.
I sure hope this info helps. Remember that we have a variety of documents in RMLSweb covering all of this. The following are particularly excellent resources for your question:
Document 1737: How to Use the Auto Email Feature
Document 1772: Reverse Prospecting
Put RMLSweb to Work for You
Technical Terry
![Getting Up to Speed on RMLSweb News: Ask Technical Terry]()
by RMLS Communication Department | Oct 20, 2017
Ask Technical Terry is a series RMLS™ aims to offer once a month. RMLS™ subscribers will drive the content—submit any question about RMLS™ to Technical Terry in the comments or by emailing communications@rmls.com. Don’t be shy—we won’t identify you by name.
Dear Technical Terry,
My clients just asked me for some market statistics. The statistics module on RMLSweb and Market Action are crazy good, but I just need some simple, easy to understand stats. Any ideas?
Simple Statistics in Stayton
Dear SS,
Of course I have some ideas! There are two really easy places to see and/or print some stats that your clients may find compelling.
One: when you run a search and scroll down to the “Detail View” tab in your search results. At the bottom of each section is a nice synopsis of the properties contained within the section, with the sections separated by listing status. Here’s what that section looks like:
Quick and easy—but not easy to print.
If you want to print a simple, yet statistically effective report for your clients choose the “Summary Only” report from your list of report options. Here’s what that simple yet effective report looks like:
The report gives you and your clients great info on some of the basic stats we talk about all the time. Solds, if they are part of your search, even have sale price to list price ratio.
If neither of these options are good for your needs, have a look at the Statistics menu on the main navigation bar. It gives you many options to compile statistics you and your client may find useful, including the statistical summaries documents which compile years worth of Market Action data for each published area within the RMLS™ region.
Technical Terry
Technical Terry!
Do you keep up on the news? It seems REALTORS® are being accosted when performing showings! There seems to be more and more of it happening. I heard that SentriSmart™, the SentriLock app, has a feature for agent safety. What the heck is that, and how does it work?
Terrified in Troutdale
TT!
In fact I do keep up on the news stories about REALTOR® safety issues around the country. While there are many best practices to use to help your safety as a REALTOR®, SentriSmart™ does provide a resource that may provide you confidence in showing vacant homes or homes to new clients.
To access and set up the agent safety feature in SentriSmart™, follow these steps:
- Log in to SentriSmart™ on either your iPhone or Android.
- Go to the Settings option in the app.
- Tap on Agent Safety and enter your PIN.
- From the Agent Safety page, add your emergency contacts by clicking on the blue + sign. The app will access the contacts stored on your phone and allow you to pick one or more contacts to be included in the list of people the app will contact.
- Enable “Automated Safety Check.” Once enabled, SentriSmart™ will send you an alert approximately 90 seconds after you have opened the lockbox key container. If you do not acknowledge the first alert, a second alert will be sent after approximately 60 seconds. If you do not acknowledge the second alert, an email and text message will be sent to the contact(s) you’ve added to your contacts list in the app. If you have several contacts in that list, the app will alert all of them simultaneously about the potential safety concern.
- Tap on Accept to agree to the Release Agreement, then enter your PIN for verification.
Here are samples of the texts you and your list of contacts will receive if you don’t respond to the two notifications.
Hope that this SentriSmart™ feature can help you feel less terrified, Terrified in Troutdale! It’s great that you’re thinking ahead to prepare for safety issues before they occur.
Technical Terry
![Getting Up to Speed on RMLSweb News: Ask Technical Terry]()
by RMLS Communication Department | Sep 15, 2017
Ask Technical Terry is a series RMLS™ aims to offer once a month. RMLS™ subscribers will drive the content—submit any question about RMLS™ to Technical Terry in the comments or by emailing communications@rmls.com. Don’t be shy—we won’t identify you by name.
Dear TT:
I finally got around to looking at the Listing View Counts report that I’ve been sending to my clients for some time now. (By the way, thank you for the automatic delivery process!) I am amazed they have not asked me what the heck the various “views” even mean! Surely they’ll ask one of these days and I want to be prepared. How can I explain to them what each of the categories mean?
Count Conundrum in Corvallis
Dear CCC:
You’re not alone—the RMLS™ Help Desk gets this question regularly. We have a couple of documents that do a great job of breaking down the Listing View Counts report for you. How to Use Listing View Counts, Document #1762, and How Listing View Counts are Calculated, Document #1763, are designed to help RMLS™ subscribers understand the report.
In a nutshell, the categories are as follows.
• RMLSweb Detail View: This is the category that covers views from within RMLSweb by REALTOR® subscribers. There are 13 unique reports available within RMLSweb (See Document #1763 above for the full list) that tally in this category. This category also counts any views by REALTOR® subscribers on the RMLSweb mobile site.
• RMLSweb Emailed View: This categories tallies a count any time the “View Report” link is clicked in an email you’ve sent from RMLSweb to a client/consumer.
• RMLS.com Details: This category tallies a count any time the “Detail Report” is clicked on the public-facing RMLS.com website.
• Unique Subscriber Count: This category reflects the number of unique REALTOR® subscribers that have viewed the listing on RMLSweb. If one REALTOR® views the same report ten times, they’ll only be counted as one unique subscriber, but if 100 REALTORS® view the report one time each, the unique subscriber count would be 100.
Don’t forget to take a closer look at those documents linked above. If you still need more detail, the RMLS™ Help Desk can walk you through any of your remaining questions.
Technical Terry in Tigard
Dear Technical Terry,
I understand the RMLS™ rules about not modifying various aspects of our listings once we’ve added them to RMLSweb—but why can’t we modify any information after the listing is sold? There are times when we may need to modify sales agent, etc., and contacting RMLS™ each time seems pretty inefficient. Can you help?
Frustrated Felicia in Fairview
Dear FFF,
I hear you, loud and clear! While there are certain aspects of your listing that cannot be modified after its published on RMLSweb without RMLS™ assistance, the area you mention can be edited after closing. When you are in the Listing Load screen with the listing in question in list format, just click the “CMP” button:
This pop-up screen will appear, allowing you to modify and save any of the data categories you see:
Knowing about the CMP button does allow you to make some changes, which we hope you’ll find convenient. That said, RMLS™ staff are always more than happy to assist with any other changes that need to be made after a listing has sold!
TT
