Dear TT

I am a fairly new subscriber to RMLS, and I’m interested in figuring out how to use all the additional tools RMLS offers us subscribers. It’s a pretty big difference compared to the last MLS I was a member of – they provided the base MLS system and that was it. Any additional tools were up to us Realtors to obtain and figure out how to use.

So, I’m excited about all the ‘extras’ RMLS has available, but there are almost too many additional tools to choose from. Can you help me better understand which toolset does what and which ones to pick for specific activities?

Curious in Cottage Grove

Hi CCG,

That’s a really great question. We put a lot of emphasis on providing tools for our subscribers to pick from and leverage to perform those daily tasks that can seem overwhelming – everyone is looking for ways to become more efficient and successful, right?

We do offer a class that covers all the various 3rd party products available to you called RMLS 3rd Party Tools, which is a great starting point. Recently we began offering another class – Comparing Your CMA Options – that takes a look at four viable options for creating market analysis reports for your clients. Nothing beats spending a little time exploring the options available to you though – you can view all the various 3rd party product options in RMLSweb.

After beginning with our RMLS 3rd Party Tools class to get a good overview of all the various products, I’d recommend identifying what your top goals are. Perhaps you want to streamline your farming process, or upgrade how you communicate with clients. Determine your top priorities, then give each tool which provides what you’re looking for a good test drive. Once you’ve identified some good tool matches, you can fast track your education and comfort with the tool by making use of our training options.

For example, if CMA creation is one of your challenges/objectives, I would sign up for our Comparing Your CMA Options webinar. This new CMA class compares RMLSweb, Homesnap, RPR and Remine, and the various approaches each uses to create a CMA. The class provides good detail about how to create the CMA report by searching for appropriate comparative properties, as well as the various output reports each product offers.

We offer stand-alone classes for many of our 3^rd party products that goes into more detail about additional beneficial aspects of each product. You can also set up one-on-one sessions with our staff to answer specific questions about product use and integration for your business. To view our current schedule of available webinars, go to the Training Calendar on RMLSweb. You can also use Training/Support Resources to access all our support and training links, as well as video tutorials.

I hope this helps you identify a starting point in better understanding how to explore the variety of educational options we offer for the 3rd Party tools at your disposal.

TT

Dear TT,

Some of my REALTOR® friends and I were chatting recently about RMLS™ and how many cool tools we now have available for us. We tried to think about all the new “stuff” that has been provided to us just this year and while I’m sure we remembered a lot of the things could you give me a quick recap on the highlights for 2020? And also, THANK YOU to all the RMLS™ staff for keeping RMLS™ products and services up and running without skipping a beat during COVID. Much appreciated!!

Ecstatic in Estacada

Hi EE,

First of all, thank YOU for the kind words. The RMLS™ staff really does pride itself in not only providing/integrating those cool tools you reference above, but also recognizing that our core responsibility is to make sure RMLSweb is up and available for you 24/7.

Now, for a list of the deployment highlights from 2020.

Q1:

• Added Immoviewer to the list of approved 3^rd party products. Immoviewer automatically sends you a link to a simple video tour upon saving your new listing in the RMLSweb database.
• Added the ability to customize the subject line in manually sent client reports from RMLSweb
• Added a red button indicator Back Office on the Menu bar to alert you of your expiring listings
• Added the SentriLock Access Report to the Statistics menu in RMLSweb
• Implemented various COVID-19 accommodations to RMLSweb

Q2:

• Released Phase 1 of the new RMLSweb reports including Client Full and Medium report styles
• Added INRIX Drive Time mapping toolset as well as a new “freehand” drawing tool to Map Search
• Continued with Phase 1 of the RMLSweb reports project by releasing new Open House and Broker Tour reports

Q3:

• Added Paragon as the first “System of Choice” in the MLS industry
• Added RatePlug to the approved 3^rd party products
• Added Price Change Amount filter in Prospecting to confine searches to a price change threshold

Q4:

• Added button to Advanced Search to allow the creation of a Prospect Profile directly from the search
• Added a new Agent Limited One Page report option

Keep in mind that I pulled these improvements/enhancements from a 20-page single line report of all the various items accomplished in 2020 – really quite impressive given the challenges of a global pandemic!

TT