LandlordMax Newsletter - LandlordMax version 6.05e update

Today's newsletter is mainly going to be about updating you on how we're progressing with the networked version of LandlordMax (version 6.05e). We're working as fast as we can to get it to you, we're working 6 days a week for a minimum of 10-12 hours a day! Even with that, it's taking a bit longer than expected. I'll explain shortly where we're at, and hopefully it will give you a better understanding of what's happening and our current timelines.

LandlordMax News and Updates:

Desktop version:

Since the release of version 6.05d there have been a number of silent updates to LandlordMax version 6.05d. They've been silent because the fixes were minor and really affected only a small portion of you, so we didn't want to push everyone to upgrade when there really wasn't a need.

That being said, above the small fixes, as we've been working on the networked version, we've been doing some performance improvements to the desktop version (as they share a lot of the same programming code base), so some of those silent updates have improved the performance of the software. Although it's already faster than most people will notice, we've continued to improve its performance.

The biggest issue we've had to work through has been the removal of the Admin privileges. In some very rare cases it caused some issues for a few people, but we've seen resolved those issues through the silent updates. Which is why if you haven't experienced any Admin issues, there was really no pressing need to upgrade. You're more than welcome to, it's just not necessary.

Networked version update:

Now onto the big news that most of you here are waiting for. The network version has been delayed since the last newsletter, and unfortunately it's going to be delayed a bit more. This time however it's due to some structural changes rather than working through the finishing details. And as such the impact is more significant.

Basically we initially created a user management system where you could create your own users and configure them according to all kinds of settings. We worked through the design, use cases, and so on, and we believed our design gave us the best of all worlds. And so we started to build and implement it.

Over time, as we're testing the software, adjusting how it works, adding features, figuring out the details, etc., we found that our initial design wasn't really appropriate anymore. Although it does a lot of great things, it's also pretty limiting in some other ways, ways that we couldn't have known until after we had implemented it tested it. And I strongly believe these issues are too important to dismiss.

This is very similar to my old blog post about a feature we wanted to build to archive data. It seems something like that should be pretty simple. And it is, until you start to build it. Then all kinds of issues and questions pop up, things you can't come up with or imagine until you start building it. And that's exactly what happened here.

Above that, at least in my opinion, the user management had just become too complex to manage users. The configuration options required, never mind all the internal code, was just getting overwhelming for us, so I can't imagine how difficult it would be for you guys coming in fresh without all our background knowledge from developing it. It became obvious with time that we needed to look at alternative options.

With our new user management model, which I'll describe later, we're going to create specific User Types which you select from. So instead of pages and pages of pretty complex and confusing configurations, you'll get to pick from a handful of pre-defined types. The biggest benefits, other than the incredible simplicity, is that by defining user types we can significantly enhance what each user type can and can't do within the software. That's a very huge win! And I'll explain what I mean by this shortly.

The downside is that this is an expensive adjustment in terms of time and effort, especially at this stage of the development lifecycle. It's one where you can't just add more programmers to get it done faster, it has a critical path. Just like nine woman can't have a baby in one month, no matter how hard they try. Some things just have a critical path, and this is one of them.

A good analogy is painting a room. It doesn't matter how many people you throw into a room, there's still a minimum amount of time it will take to paint the room. Above the time it takes for the paint to dry for each coat, it still requires a minimum amount of time, even with fans. Adding more people can help, but to a point. After a certain number, adding too many people actually becomes a hindrance. Imagine trying to paint a bedroom with one hundred people. More effort would be expanded trying to organize everyone to come at the same time, get them all paint brushes, paint, and other supplies. As well, everyone would be painting on top of each other, waiting for space to finish their little section. You might not even be able to fit everyone in the room either. It becomes a mess. There's an optimal number of painters to paint a room.

The same as having ten doctors examine you won't go any faster than having one or two, in fact it will probably be slower as they argue and debate your diagnostic and treatment. And as such there's also an optimal number of programmers to re-build the User management system.

Based on that fact, right now it's looking like this change will take us about 2 months. And this is a ballpark estimate, it could go faster or slower we just don't know yet to get a really concrete estimate. Which means we're now looking at the end of the summer for the networked version to be released. As much as I'd love to release it before, and throw as many programmers into the effort as I could, there's still an optimal number and hence a minimum amount of time it will take. So again, the reality is that I suspect we'll be looking more towards the end of the summer as a more realistic timeline. I apologize for the delay, but trust me when I say it's well worth it!

Now for those of you who are interested in the details and not just the timelines, please continue reading. If not, then please just skip to the next section as the remainder of this section is going to be about the details of why we're delaying the release.

Our original design for the User Management section was to allow people to create different types of users, were they could define which workareas the users could access. A simple starting point for our solution. So for example you could create a user who would not be able to access the accounting system (know your total expenses/revenues), but could help manage the tenants, buildings, etc. This sounds reasonable, but once you think about it, how does this person manage rents if they can't access any accounting data?

Our first thought was that they could look at the accounting entries in the Accounting tabbed panels for each tenant. So they could only see the accounting data for one tenant at a time. That could work. It's not ideal, but it's an option nonetheless.

Ok, but now what about the reporting section? What reports can the person look at? Can they see the rents due/paid? If you say yes, then what you're in essence saying is that they can generate reports on SOME accounting information. But how do you define SOME in the user configurations? Basically what you end up with is that the User configuration system now has to be able to define each and every report each user can view. That's an additional 150 items to select from and define. Although feasible, that's not pleasant.

This is basically the path we started to head down. But it actually gets quite a lot more complex. Can your employee run a rent roll report for any timeline they want? Can they run it on any and all buildings, units, landlords? How do you create account managers (responsible for only certain sections of the data, say a landlord, building, etc.). These options become an effort in futility with this type of user management system.

Beyond that we started to think about letting landlords and property owners to see their own data by connecting to the system. But then how do you filter the data? For example, which reports can the landlord see? If you say only the "for a landlord" report, then I'm sure you don't want them to see who your other customers are, so this means that these reports need to be customized in some way because they shouldn't be able to select a specific landlord to run the report for (even if it's them). And if that's the case, then "for a landlord" doesn't really make sense does it? It's confusing.

Instead all workareas should just be limited to that landlord's data. That would make a lot more sense. But this itself brings another issue. This then means that the drop down menus, such as the ability to select a tenant, should only list the tenants for that landlord. But the question then becomes how do you define this in the User configuration? It's very easy to say it in words, but how would the screen look like to say this to the software? We were never able to find a good solution for this last question. And even if we did, it would've been horribly complex.

Before I continue, I just want to state that the account management and landlord users will not be available in the initial release of the networked version of the software, doing so would delay us at least another 3-6 months which I'm not willing to do at this time. It will be available in the future, just not for the initial release of the networked version.

That being said, there were a few more issues we encountered which I won't go into, but that were equally as challenging if not more. All in all it became pretty obvious last month that we have to go with pre-defined user types. Our original design  just didn't work for us. It was way too complicated for everyone, and even ignoring that, it couldn't handle all the use cases we wanted.

So in our initial release we expect to see pre-defined user types such as:

Admin:
- Full access.

Maintenance Person
- only access to the workorders - no ability to delete, just create, view, and update existing workorders
- ability to run only relevant workorder reports

Personnel
- Ability to manage tenants
- Sees limited accounting, only what's relevant to dealing with tenants such as rents, etc.
- Limited reporting

There are a few other roles such as Manager, etc. which I won't describe here. In any case that should already give you an idea of what to expect. The biggest benefit of this is that in the future we can also create user roles such as an Account Managers where you can define a limited set of landlords/property owners and/or buildings the account manager works with. And like I said before, we're also planning to create a Landlord user role which would be read/view only and would be limited to the data of that specific person's properties.

Basically by going the route of pre-defined users we can custom tailor the software through and through for specific roles which wouldn't be possible through configurations alone. And best of all it's incredibly simple for you to use.

The downside is that our whole User Management system has quite a bit of rebuilding to do. It's much like renovating where you rip out the old plumbing/wiring and put in new one. Which is why I'm estimating it will take a good portion of this summer to implement. And do realize that other work on the software is taking place in tandem, it's just that some resources are being re-allocated to implement this.

I strongly believe it's worth the time and effort, and I do apologize for the further delay, especially for those of you who are anxiously awaiting it's release.

Other news:

There's not much else to report as almost all our efforts internally are completely focused on the development and release of the networked version of LandlordMax.

LandlordMax Tip
 
Did you know you can change the date format across the whole software with one quick change in the Preferences workarea? To adjust your date format preference go to the Preferences workarea by clicking on the Preferences button on the left side navigation menu, then click on the General Preferences button at the top of the screen. Here you will find a Select Preference Group drop down menu. Select Date Preferences from this drop down menu. You will then see a further drop down menu just below that allows you to select one of many different date format preferences.

Property Management Tip
 
Always ask for references, and more importantly check and validate the references you're given. Too many people just assume that most tenants will provide truthful references. Although this is generally the case, you should always always follow-up because you might be surprised at just how often it does occurs.

Industry News, Information, and Recommendations

• What are the Risks of Cloud Services?
• Homeownership may fall to 40-year low
  

Story/Tip of the Month
 
If you have an interesting tip, a funny story, or even a horror story, you'd like to share with us which we can publish in this newsletter (with the names changed of course), please send it to newsletter@landlordmax.com.
 
LandlordMax Testimonial of the Month
 
"Our job at TopTenREVIEWS is to separate the sheep from the goats. As we screened candidates for our property management software review, we discovered quite a few amateurish rental property management products that manifested catastrophic bugs, outdated code, and profit-based technical support policies. When we discovered LandlordMAX, it was a breath of fresh air. It has a lot going for it and it works as advertised. It is property management software that runs on Windows and Macintosh computers. It costs the same whether it manages one rental unit or thousands. Technical support is free, responsive and professional. It supports the marketing of vacancies by conveniently providing a place to save the wording of classified ads that have proven to be successful. The accounting mechanisms are robust and enforce the controls necessary to keep the user from getting into accounting trouble. There are a stupendous number of available reports that convert data into useful information.

LandlordMAX looks good and behaves well in an elegant, no-nonsense fashion. It is not a personal financial manager. It is written from the ground up as dedicated property management software. The developers consciously resist the temptation toward feature creep in order to maintain ease of use and affordability. The customer base for this property management software is loyal. If you are just looking for an easy and affordable way to organize and account for properties that you own and manage, LandlordMAX is the best in its price category."

- TopTenReviews.com


Final Words

I hope you're all having a great start to the summer and we look forward to releasing the networked version of LandlordMax as soon as possible!
 
--
Regards,
Stephan Grenier
Founder
LandlordMax Software Inc.
http://www.LandlordMax.com
http://www.FollowSteph.com
http://www.RealEstatePigeon.com
http://twitter.com/StephaneGrenier