Watch now: Ask Chuck Anything webinar

This blog post relates to Rockend, one of our previous brands. For more information please read the press release.

This week Rockend and MRI’s Executive Sponsor, Chuck McDowell, sat down with Technology Leader Paul Wahltuch to discuss MRI’s acquisition of Rockend, results from the October feedback survey, and the vision for their leading property and strata management software solutions: Property Tree, Rest Professional and Strata Master.

At MRI we have 250+ Proptech products, and as we continue to analyse customer feedback from platforms like User Voice, surveys, focus groups, and more, there will be opportunities to quickly bring solutions (like e-signature functionally) from around the globe to you here in ANZ.

This webinar gives you a chance to hear MRI’s plans for your property and strata management software direct from Chuck and Paul. There is also a summary of all your feedback, along with updated product plans and key initiatives you can expect to see landing in Property Tree, Rest Professional, and Strata Master in the near future.

Watch the full video above now.

Q&A

Below is a summary of all the questions and answers we received during the webinar, some of which we didn’t get time for on the day. If you have any more questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Is Rest being made obsolete and clients effectively going to need to use Property Tree?

No. Rest will continue to be supported as long as we have customers who wish to use it. We are actively developing new features for Rest right now.

It seems that you are working on improvements for property tree, how come Rest is left out?

Rest is not being left out! We are actively developing features for Rest Professional. Many of the features mentioned in the webinar will be available for multiple products, or even all three. There are also features being developed specifically for Rest users.

Will the the upcoming e-signature solution be used to sign tenant applications and MAAs?

Yes, any document you require a signature on you’ll be able to send through our e-signature solution.

Would you consider doing an event like MRI Ascend in Perth also?

Definitely. Whilst Ascend 2020 is planned for Sydney, we want to catch up with our friends in WA as well. This won’t take the form of a big event like Ascend this year, but is possible for future years.

When will Strata Master go cloud-based?

There are two main benefits of the cloud. One is the mobility that it offers with anytime/anywhere access, and the other is the flexibility in terms of integration and development.

We are separating these things – the first, we think we can address with cloud hosting: at MRI we have our own data centres, and so believe we can provide a cost-effective hosted solution, which would provide this anytime/anywhere access, and eliminate the need for you to do backups and upgrade your software yourself. This is something we are looking into right now.

The second is to move all this data into a true-cloud (rather than cloud-hosted) environment, which would meet the second benefit. Whilst we can’t provide dates right now, we are pursuing this as a priority, and will update you as soon as we know more!

When will receipting notes be introduced to Property Tree?

December! You will have the ability to create a note on an ownership, tenancy or property profile and have them appear when receipting, or creating creditor or tenancy invoices.

Has Property Tree made improvements to have the same functionality as Rest when it comes to managing commercial properties?

There have been a number of commercial enhancements to Property Tree recently – for example the addition of a Tenancy Schedule. The rich functionality that is available in the Rest Advanced Commercial module is not yet available, but may be in the future. MRI has a strong background in the commercial property management space, and range of commercial products that may suit your needs. If you’re interested in changing software get in contact with our sales team here.

We want to integrate with you! How do we integrate with Rockend products?

Great! We are always looking to grow our partner ecosystem – contact partnerships@rockend.com.au.

What is being done to improve the tenant and owner portals in Property Tree?

Good news! The MRI product suite encompasses multiple portal solutions across property and strata management around the world. We are reviewing these to see how we can best help you do things like deliver branded experiences for your tenants and landlords, better manage documents, promote regular rent payments, reduce arrears, manage customer data more effectively, etc – whether it be from a desktop or mobile device. These solutions are inherently built to connect with other management systems, and so we are looking at how to best bring them to our Rockend customers in the near future.

Why have you not added a total to the bonds report in Property Tree for auditing purposes?

We have made a number of enhancements to our reports over the last quarter based on customer votes on suggestions in User Voice. If a total for the bonds report is important for you, please continue to vote (and get your colleagues to vote) on the idea via User Voice to ensure that it is visible and makes its way to the top of our priority list.

Are we going to be able to upload an ABA file to property Tree using an iPad?

This is actually something we have actively explored in the past. Apple has advised us that iOS has limitations in downloading and processing files that are not in specific formats – and unfortunately ABA files fall into this category. We will keep you posted when Apple provides a solution that we can leverage to freely import and export ABA files within iOS mobile devices.

Are we going to see better integration of Realworks into Property Tree’s mail merge? For example, the ability to attach entry notices to mail merge for routines?

We are currently investigating better integration of Realworks, keep an eye out for further updates in 2020.