The RMLS™ Training Staff: Ryan Jacobsen, Caryl Frazier, Melanie Huff and Lynn Solmonson.

MLS Insight is a series about how things work at RMLS™.

When was the last time you attended a training class held by RMLS™? Whether you want to tame your smartphone or research real estate statistics in a specific ZIP code, we’ve got you covered. Our training staff aims to adapt to meet the needs of subscribers—we’re even testing out a new training facility in Beaverton this fall, to help reach more REALTORS® on the west side of the Portland metro area!

New Classes

RMLS™ Training has greatly increased its class offerings this year. This month was the debut of the Mobile Apps for REALTORS® class, which focuses on 50 apps available for iPhone, Android, and Windows devices that can help REALTORS® get organized, stay productive, and feel safe and secure.

RMLS™ also rolled out introductory classes for iPhone and Android users this year. Android Essentials for REALTORS® and iPhone Essentials for REALTORS® focus on teaching users how to get the most out of a smartphone device.

Want to be the expert in your market area? In the RMLSweb CMA and Statistics class, our trainers will show you how to get the statistical data you need to do just that. We’ll use the RMLSweb statistical modules to examine MLS areas for trends that will help you become more knowledgeable about your market area.

Finally, the RMLS™ Rules and Regulations Overview class will strengthen your knowledge of the RMLS™ Rules and Regulations! These rules and regs help keep the data accurate and useful for all our subscribers.

How to Access RMLS™ Training Opportunities

Come to us or we will come to you!

Did you know you can have an RMLS™ trainer come to your office with our RMLS™ Updates Class? With the recent release of the new photo loader and the annual forms change, now might be a great time to take advantage of this service. We also offer the new classes listed above at your office location. Just email training@rmls.com or call us at (503) 236-7657 to set up an appointment.

Find schedules for regular classes in the RMLS™ training rooms on RMLSweb under the Toolkit menu—click on “Training Calendar” for a list of schedules. Scroll to the bottom of the list for access to the ongoing webinars offered on a regular basis, which can be accessed from the comfort of your own home or office. Register online for any of the classes by selecting “Training Registration” under that same Toolkit menu.

New Training Facility in Beaverton

This fall, RMLS™ is offering classes at a new training facility in Beaverton. The Round in Beaverton is located at 12725 SW Millikan Way, which is MAX-adjacent and offers free parking for class attendees.

We’re looking forward to offering classes at this location, but class attendance will be key to continuing to use this facility in 2016. If you like having a training facility in Beaverton, come to a class this fall to show your support!

If you have questions on any RMLS™-related topic that you would like to have answered, I encourage you to post a comment.

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,

Much like your post about saving ML numbers for future searches (THANK YOU!), I’m desperate to figure out if I can customize my search results to contain only the fields I want to see for a specific client. Is that possible?

Carol in the ‘Couve

Excellent question, Carol! You can, in fact, create “custom” displays of the initial search results based on your specific client needs. You’ve been able to perform this customization for several years on RMLSweb, but much like the process for saving ML numbers, it does require a bit of orientation.

Check out Customize Your Search Results (Document #1749) available on RMLSweb in Forms and Documents. This document explains in detail all aspects of creating and saving custom search results displays to meet a specific need. As you review the document you’ll see that in addition to data elements, you can also include both a thumbnail image and a map image. You can also look at your custom layout to ensure it meets your needs in the Preview section of the layout window. Keep in mind that the tool will allow you to create layouts that will exceed the typical print margins of a standard 8 1/2” x 11” page. All of this information and much more is included in Customize Your Search Results (Document #1749). Additionally, the RMLS™ Help Desk and Training Departments are always happy to walk you through the process if you need any help.

Dear Technical Terry,

Will we ever be able to upload photos on Listing Load using a Mac like PC users do? The current option for Mac users is really clunky…

Manzana Macintosh

Yes…in fact, the timing of your question could not be better!

On October 15th RMLS™ will deploy a brand-spanking-new photo loader for RMLSweb. This new module eliminates the need to use Microsoft Silverlight so the module will work the same for Mac users as it does for PC users.

The improvements are numerous, but let me touch on just a few:

• Up to 32 high resolution images can now be loaded.
• Multiple photos can be uploaded at one time. (Note: this process is bandwidth-sensitive so if you’re on a slow internet connection, you may find uploading photos one at a time is more efficient.)
• Users can upload photos from a mobile device.
• The new module can recognize photo orientation: if the photo is uploaded in landscape orientation but should be in portrait orientation, the module will adjust the photo automatically.
• Photo editing will be possible in the new photo loader: you can crop, rotate, and change brightness and contrast.

RMLS™ staff is hard at work on preparing a video and other materials that will provide subscribers with the information they need to efficiently use the new photo loader. Keep an eye out for it!

RMLS™ is releasing two improvements in October that represent the final steps in the RMLSweb forms change for 2015. We’re confident that subscribers will find something to like in these important changes to RMLSweb, all recommended by the RMLS™ Forms Committee!

Pending Lease Option (POP Status)

Pending Lease Option (POP), a new listing status, was added on RMLSweb Thursday, October 1st. This status is for listings which have offers accepted with lease option terms. When a listing is marked as POP, the anticipated lease end date is collected to use for status change reminders from RMLSweb.

This will result in fewer unnecessary emails to the listing broker, when their listing remains in Pending status for months or longer. POP listings will also be separated from regular Pending (PEN) listings, meaning cleaner statistics from RMLS™.

The RMLS™ Rules and Regulations were changed to reflect the new POP status…have a look!

An All-New Photo Loader

RMLS™ will introduce an all-new photo loader on RMLSweb the morning of October 15th. We’re confident that subscribers will be enthusiastic about the new setup, which features higher-resolution imagery that will really dazzle clients.

We’ve doubled the capacity for listing photos—users may now load up to 32 photos per listing with a 4MB file size limit. Files may be added via drag and drop or by selecting the correct files on the user’s machine. If a photo is larger than the maximum file size, the system will shrink or adjust the file to fit in the RMLSweb parameters.

Subscribers may also take advantage of basic photo editing on the interface—cropping, rotating, brightness, and contrast adjustments can all be handled from inside Listing Load before publishing a listing.

Mac users, rejoice: the new photo loader eliminates the Silverlight software that made the previous photo loader difficult for subscribers using an Apple operating system. This new photo loader is also mobile-friendly, meaning subscribers can upload photos from their mobile device!

What about listings published before the release of this new photo loader? No problem! Subscribers can use the new software to replace existing photos on active listings, to see the difference in image quality right away. If your brokerage uses the RMLSweb Slide Show feature to highlight listings on an office monitor, high definition monitors will offer the best presentation of the new photo setup. These higher-quality photos will also be seen by clients on RMLS.com…so we encourage you to explore this new feature as soon as you can!

RMLS™ trainers are currently preparing a series of materials to demonstrate the capabilities of the new photo loader. Here’s what we have:
How to Upload Photos Using Photo Manager (RMLSweb login required)
We’ll update this post as we have more.

As always, subscribers with questions about either the new POP status (released Thursday, October 1st) or the new photo loader (being released Thursday, October 14th) should contact the RMLS™ Help Desk at (503) 872-8002 or (877) 256-2169 for assistance.

MLS Insight is a series about how things work at RMLS™.

One of the thing I enjoy most about writing this column is the ability to provide extra-early notifications of upcoming changes. So when the Board of Directors approves a new program or there is some other significant change coming, you can get a heads up well in advance of implementation. We told you about the new mapping in July, and there are now two more improvements to RMLS™ services to share with you. Both should be available before the end of the year.

REALTOR® Agent Profiles

At their August meeting, the RMLS™ Board of Directors approved the addition of links to the REALTOR® agent profiles being collected by Realtor.com. They will appear in the Find A REALTOR® section of RMLS.com, in the RMLSweb roster, and possibly on report banners. When accessed through an RMLS™ avenue, the Agent Passport will not be branded with the Realtor.com logo. If you want to get a jump on creating your profile, there is a there is a quick start guide on Realtor.com.

Financial Calculators on RMLSweb

A little history… Since our earliest days, RMLS™ Directors have consistently promoted inclusion of a robust set of financial tools for RMLS™ subscribers. It has not always been easy to reach this goal. The first tools provided were released in 1994 and were called PC Financials. A DOS 3.5″ floppy disk was provided at no charge to each subscriber. The 90s were the decade when Windows took over computing, so it was not long before the attempt was made to recreate these financial functions in a Windows-based program. These attempts were not met with success before RMLS™ migrated totally to its current web-based MLS system, RMLSweb in 2002.  A set of financial tools was licensed and added to the system that same year, and those same tools still live in the Toolkit menu. Over the next decade, the company licensing the tools to RMLS™ changed hands several times and eventually we lost the ability to effectively update and repair the program. It was not multi-browser compatible, and many subscribers attempting to utilize the tools got an error message instead.

Fast forward to 2014. The RMLS™ Board of Directors remained firm in its belief that RMLS™ should provide robust financial tools for subscribers. After surveying the marketplace for other alternatives, RMLS™ took the opportunity offered in June 2014 to assume in-house control of the code for the tools we were already using. The first improvement was to make the tools available through multiple browsers, which happened in January this year. Next we hired a researcher to update the default values, and I am happy to announce that those values will be updated and much more accurate later this year. Stay tuned to the RMLS™ Weekly Report for more information.

If you have questions on any RMLS™-related topic that you would like to have answered, I encourage you to post a comment.

MLS Insight is a series about how things work at RMLS™.

RMLS™ is now the fifth MLS in the nation to be certified on the RESO Data Dictionary.

Yes, I’m yelling—because this is a major accomplishment, and it’s very hard to convey how much of an achievement it is because so many of the terms have to be defined. It’s not like saying we won the World Series or the Preakness or sold the most real estate, which most people would immediately understand and relate to.

• RESO is the data standards organization for real estate, whose mission is the standardization of both the process and real estate data that is shared throughout the industry.
• The Data Dictionary provides a common standard that defines real estate data in consistent terms and data structures across hundreds of MLSs, so that data can be more readily shared and understood.
• NAR requires that all affiliated MLSs adopt the RESO Data Dictionary January 1, 2016.

Kim Hutchinson, RMLS™ Data Quality Technician, worked for many hours to analyze and map RMLS™ data to the RESO Data Dictionary 1.3, making sure that there was congruence without compromising the accepted meaning of the data collected and to make changes under the hood to conform with data length and type requirements.

Our Distribution Services staff has begun the process of reaching out to providers of services and products to our real estate community to let them know that the Data Dictionary filters are available for RETS feeds. We expect this will expand the availability of cost-competitive products useful to our subscribers in the future. The idea is that using a common standard will foster innovation and help to create more of a “plug-and-play” environment, where REALTORS® will be able to purchase software and use it with data from any MLS operating on the RESO standards.

I deferred my planned post focusing on our Training Department to share this news. If you have questions on any RMLS™-related topic that you would like to have answered, I encourage you to post a comment.

MLS Insight is a series about how things work at RMLS™.

At their June meeting, the RMLS™ Board of Directors voted to replace the current GeoJet mapping for RMLSweb with a new solution. We will continue to utilize Bing Maps, but will include layers for parcels, zip codes, schools, counties, etc. from Digital Map Products. Neighborhood boundaries will be a new addition.

Our contract with GeoJet ends at the end of this year, so it was an opportune time to review that part of the system. Bottom line pricing for the two solutions is very similar, but we are looking to reap benefits of increased functionality and reliability. Developers will be working on integration of the replacement solution during the later months of this year.

The next post will focus on our Training Department. If you have questions on any RMLS™-related topic that you would like to have answered, I encourage you to post a comment.

RMLS™ is ready to start rolling out the results of this year’s forms change project! On Wednesday, July 29th, subscribers will see a brand new Green/Energy Supplement form, additional options for Showing Instructions, and much more.

These regular changes are the result of hundreds of subscriber suggestions and the hard work of the RMLS™ Forms Committee and RMLSweb development team.

What’s Changing?

A few highlights:
• Green/Energy Supplement Form: The use of sustainable building technology continues to grow, and this year RMLS™ is moving a scattered number of green features into the Green/Energy Supplement form, available for any residential listing. On this form, agents can note details about a home’s green certification and its use of solar energy. Agents also have an opportunity to provide additional remarks about aspects of green building and energy features on a property.
• Text to Show: Prefer to be texted when a buyer’s agent wants to show a property? Showing Instructions will now include options to text the listing agent, tenant, or owner. Not everyone prefers texting though, and another new option will exist to email the listing agent.
• Multiple Tax IDs in One Listing: Subscribers listing large parcels of land that stretch across multiple tax lots now have the option of including up to three total Tax IDs per listing. (If you’ve got more than three Tax IDs, you’ll still need to note those in the legal description or private remarks field.)
• Dual Living: RMLS™ currently lists a separate on-site dwelling unit in multiple places, including Accessibility Features and Additional Structures Supplement. A new field in Advanced Search, Dual Living Y/N, will identify residential listings where any of these dual living setups have been indicated.

Looking for more detail? View a complete summary of forms changes scheduled for July 29, 2015 or preview the contract, input, and supplement listing forms. Fields highlighted in green are new, orange fields have been modified, and blue highlights mean the field has moved.

A Longer Outage Needed for Forms Change

Improvements take time. July’s RMLSweb maintenance outage will take longer than usual to allow for this extra work. Plan now, as RMLSweb will be in maintenance mode (search only) from 10pm Tuesday, July 28th until 6am Wednesday, July 29th.

And Coming Soon…

Expect even more this fall. Other improvements to be released later this year as part of the forms change project include a brand new photo uploader and a new listing status, Pending Lease Option (POP).

RMLSweb continually improves when subscribers talk back to us about the system. We hope subscribers appreciate this work and will continue to share comments and questions! If you have questions about these new features, contact the RMLS™ Help Desk at (503) 872-8002 or (877) 256-2169.

This month RMLS™ is proud to debut Ask Technical Terry, a series we aim to offer once a month. RMLS™ subscribers will drive the content—we encourage you to 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,
For some reason, the menu bar at the top of the RMLSweb homepage is appearing vertically and none of the drop-down menus will open! The site worked fine yesterday, and nothing has changed on my end. What’s the deal?
Sincerely,
Top Producer Teresa

Ah yes, the old “site worked fine yesterday and nothing’s changed on my end” issue. Are you using the Safari browser to access RMLSweb?

RMLSweb works best with Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, and Google Chrome across all platforms. In most cases, when you experience an odd view or functionality symptoms on RMLSweb, it will either be browser add-ons (that you may not realize were activated when you downloaded some unrelated software) or using a web browser that does not play well with RMLSweb, such as Safari.

Dear Technical Terry,
I’m on vacation, using my iPad, and I need to enter a new listing. I can’t seem to find the button that will allow me to add a new listing. Can you help?
Aloha,
Heidi in Hawaii

Heidi, you need to use the Google Chrome web browser on your iPad to achieve full functionality on RMLSweb. And stop working on vacation!

Dear Technical Terry,
I just love the RPR website! I would like to search on the RPR website for a property not currently listed on RMLSweb. How do I do this?
Thanks in Advance,
REALTOR® Rebecca

Yes you can! Either gain access to RPR by clicking through to RPR from within RMLSweb (use the small RPR button on a listing in RMLSweb) or go directly to RPR’s website.

If you access RPR from a listing in RMLSweb, when you land on the RPR page for that listing, you will notice a “find a new address” link immediately to the right of the property address—simply click on the link to open a new screen allowing you to enter any address in the search box. If you go directly to RPR using the link above, you will land on a screen that will allow you to enter any address in the search box.

Good luck!

RMLS™ subscribers, get ready—RMLS™ is putting the finishing touches on a new reverse prospecting tool! We plan to premiere the new system the morning of Thursday, July 16th.

What should you expect? Here’s a preview:

Map Capability

Need to find buyers specifically looking in your geographical area? Reverse prospecting will now feature map capability, meaning REALTORS® can connect with agents who have clients looking in the specific area where your listing is situated. Net result? A more effective search!

NOTE: Agents using auto-fill to populate information from a ML# in Reverse Prospecting, take note: the map pin will be placed where it was entered in Listing Load. It can be adjusted in this new Reverse Prospecting interface, but it’s always good practice to verify the map point of your listing in Listing Load!

If the map isn’t useful to you, minimize it by clicking “Map Point Selection Map” above the upper left corner of the map window. This will give you easy access to the other search fields that appear below the map.

Saved Searches

Just like our other search options, users will now be able to save searches in reverse prospecting. These saved searches can be accessed via tabs at the top of the screen.

A Refreshed Look

The current RMLSweb reverse prospecting system is a bit dated, and we’ve been working to bring a consistent look and feel to the site as a whole. You’ll notice a big difference in the visual design of the reverse prospecting system as soon as we roll it out.

Don’t forget, if you find yourself with questions as you navigate around the new system, the RMLS™ Help Desk is available to assist you via telephone [(503) 872-8002 or (877) 256-2169], email, or by chatting directly from RMLSweb.

Are your doors wide enough for a wheelchair? View a tour of an accessible house in Virginia. (Photo courtesy of Fairfax County, VA via Flickr)

Would you know how to look for a home for a client who uses a wheelchair? Do you know how to identify accessible features when listing a home to market them to a wider audience on RMLSweb?

July 26th is the 25th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, a piece of legislation crafted to eliminate discrimination against people with physical or mental conditions that may require accommodations. Last week, an educational forum organized by the Portland Metro Association of REALTORS® (PMAR) explored the intersection of real estate and accessibility—from looking at how a brokerage can improve accessibility in the office to the perspective of a local REALTOR® who uses a wheelchair.

Today we aim to educate RMLS™ subscribers on how they may use RMLSweb more effectively in both the listing and buying processes.

The Accessibility Field on RMLSweb

Accessibility has been addressed on RMLSweb for years, with the Accessibility field being regularly reviewed and developed by the RMLS™ Forms Committee. Over the years this field has been expanded to include wide parking spaces, stair assistance, roll-in showers, and more.

The Devil’s in the Details

How wide must a doorway be to be marked as WD-DOOR? Specificity helps REALTORS® do their job, so prospective clients don’t arrive at a property to find the listing inadequate for their needs—perhaps sporting a dangerously steep ramp or a ‘wide’ hallway where a wheelchair can’t turn.

Document #1211 on RMLSweb, Accessibility Term Definitions, defines minimum standards for each accessibility feature. REALTORS® listing a property should verify the specified measurements on each feature before marking the appropriate field in RMLSweb.

(We also include the accessibility terms on Document #1210, Listing Abbreviations, but this document only unravels abbreviations without specific details about each feature.)

In the Thick of Listing or Searching for a Property?

If you’re listing a property using Listing Load, click on the linked text that says “Accessibility” for a pop-up window with full definitions.

Searching for properties for a client? In Advanced Search, select the Accessibility field and then click the Help link for full definitions.

Incorrect Data? Let Us Know!

What if, as a buyer agent, you show a listing that don’t quite meet the standards outlined on the definitions document? Report the listing to RMLS™ using the Report Issue button! Our staff will contact the listing agent to get things ironed out.

Have any suggestions for improving how RMLSweb communicates a listing’s accessibility? Submit a suggestion to the RMLS™ Forms Committee by contacting Christina Smestad.