{"id":27974,"date":"2020-12-16T16:06:45","date_gmt":"2020-12-16T06:06:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mrisoftware.com\/au\/?p=27974"},"modified":"2022-07-27T02:09:38","modified_gmt":"2022-07-26T16:09:38","slug":"major-updates-to-strata-master-in-2021","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mrisoftware.com\/au\/blog\/major-updates-to-strata-master-in-2021\/","title":{"rendered":"Major updates are coming to Strata Master in 2021"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As this long year draws to a close, I wanted to take a moment to put pen to paper and write to all our Strata Master customers, to explain our vision for Strata Master and the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mrisoftware.com\/au\/products\/strata-master\/\">Strata software<\/a>\u00a0industry moving forward. 2021 is going to be a big year for MRI, and Strata Master is key to our plans.<\/p>\n<p>Whilst 2020 was a year full of challenges for us all, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mrisoftware.com\/au\/blog\/what-the-experts-have-to-say-about-strata-management-post-covid-19\/\">impacts of COVID-19<\/a> were not all negative. Accelerated adoption of technology and a willingness to try new things were both hallmarks of this year in strata: we\u2019re seeing increased participation from lot owners as they take to online meetings, and managers embrace <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mrisoftware.com\/au\/blog\/6-reasons-to-use-rockend-sms\/\">SMS<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/kb.rockend.com\/help\/strata-master-portal-upgrade\">portal<\/a> technology at increased rates. To support these changes, and more, <strong>we are ploughing ahead with the biggest release in Strata Master history for mid next year.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In particular, I am pleased to announce <strong>three major integrations<\/strong> that will be included in our next release:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>We are partnering with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.smata.com\/\">SMATA<\/a> to deliver a fully integrated, cloud-based maintenance module, built for strata managers and already delivering value and time savings through the management of over 30,000 strata lots integrated with Strata Master<\/li>\n<li>Full integration with <a href=\"https:\/\/stratavote.com\/\">StrataVote<\/a> &#8211; the market-leading cloud-based meeting management software &#8211; to deliver unrivalled meetings and electronic voting functionality<\/li>\n<li>Intuitive banking with a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.macquarie.com.au\/\">Macquarie Bank<\/a> direct debit integration<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>In addition, we have major features coming that will save your business time and improve the level of service you can offer your customers. These include extensive building manager functionality, automated SMS when sending a levy notice, a range of formatting options for the notes section, new buttons to make keeping up with insurance easier, a CC field for comms, and much more.\u00a0 You can read the list of major enhancements in more detail <a href=\"#strata-list\">below<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Work has already commenced on these initiatives. In Q1, we will be hosting webinars, and providing software demonstrations so you can see exactly what is coming in the next release. In Q2, these features will go live for our <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mrisoftware.com\/au\/early-adopter-program\/\">Early Adopter<\/a> customers, and in Q3 we expect to be ready to set all of these features live for everyone.<\/p>\n<p>In the meantime, if you would like to discuss anything, please don\u2019t hesitate to get in touch with your account manager, Sam Cochrane (Sam.Cochrane@mrisoftware.com), or reach out directly to me at David.Bowie@mrisoftware.com.<\/p>\n<p>Thank you for your support, and I look forward to continuing our partnership in 2021. In the meantime, from all of us here at MRI, I\u2019d like to wish you and your loved ones a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.<\/p>\n<table style=\"height: 223px\" border=\"0\" width=\"771\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\" align=\"left\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"padding: 10px 10px;border-radius: 3px;width: 700px;max-width: 700px\" align=\"left\" valign=\"top\">\n<table border=\"0\" width=\"100%\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<th style=\"vertical-align: middle;padding: 10px 10px 10px 0px\" align=\"left\" valign=\"top\">\n<p style=\"padding-bottom: 10px;margin: 0;font-weight: bold;text-align: left;font-size: 18px;line-height: 26px\">Sincerely,<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-bottom: 10px;margin: 0;font-weight: normal;text-align: left;font-size: 15px;line-height: 26px\">David Bowie<\/p>\n<p>Vice President and APAC Managing Director<\/th>\n<th style=\"vertical-align: top;padding-top: 10px;width: 10px\" align=\"left\" valign=\"top\"><\/th>\n<th style=\"vertical-align: middle;padding: 10px\" align=\"left\" valign=\"middle\" width=\"50%\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin: 0 auto;padding: 0;width: 220px\" src=\"https:\/\/www.mrisoftware.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/david-bowie-xmas-signature.png\" alt=\"update Strata Master\" border=\"0\" \/><\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p><a name=\"david-video\"><\/a><\/p>\n<table style=\"height: 223px\" border=\"0\" width=\"771\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\" align=\"center\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"padding: 10px 10px;border-radius: 3px;width: 700px;max-width: 700px;background-color: #044d66\" align=\"left\" valign=\"top\">\n<table border=\"0\" width=\"100%\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<th style=\"vertical-align: middle;padding: 10px 10px 10px 0px\" align=\"center\" valign=\"top\">\n<p style=\"padding-bottom: 10px;margin: 0;font-weight: bold;text-align: center;font-size: 18px;line-height: 26px;color: #ffffff\">Watch David&#8217;s Christmas Message<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Thank you and Merry Christmas\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube-nocookie.com\/embed\/mNPKFSfCCPI?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p><a name=\"strata-list\"><\/a><\/p>\n<h2>Here\u2019s what you\u2019ll get in the biggest release in Strata Master history<\/h2>\n<p><em>Coming in 2021<\/em><\/p>\n<h3>A cloud-based maintenance module in partnership with SMATA<\/h3>\n<p>Maintenance is a big part of a strata managers workload and it needs to be easier for you, your owners, and your committee members with features like:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Maintenance workflows so you can create, manage, share and track work requests with as much automation as possible, whilst still being able to customise it to suit you and your portfolio\u2019s needs.<\/li>\n<li>Interactive building profiles with recent and upcoming works, documents and more.<\/li>\n<li>Contractor profiles with recent and upcoming jobs, workload metrics and customer ratings.<\/li>\n<li>Voting Notice Boards that make approving work requests, quotes and variances easier than ever.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>A full StrataVote integration so you can take control of your meetings<\/h3>\n<p>Tap into unrivalled meetings and electronic voting functionality by connecting Strata Master with the market-leading cloud-based meeting management software.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Increase lot owner participation and satisfaction by making remote meetings simple.<\/li>\n<li>Create beautiful agendas and minutes quickly with custom templates that match your brand.<\/li>\n<li>Get quality and consistency across your meeting process with intelligent business rules that only allow consistent and compliant motions, meetings, and documentation.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Intuitive banking with a Macquarie Direct Debit integration<\/h3>\n<p>Reduce arrears by taking the burden off owners to remember to pay their levies on time. With Direct Debit you can save them the hassle and simply debit levies when they\u2019re due.<\/p>\n<p>Plus, this will help remove paper forms and filing as Macquarie Direct Debit utilises a digital authority, so you won&#8217;t need to store it for 7 years, unlike paper-based direct debit authorities.<\/p>\n<h3>Building Managers in Strata Master<\/h3>\n<p>Add a new Building Manager contact type is being created so building Managers can be added the same way as Real Estate Agents.<\/p>\n<p>You\u2019ll be able to assign a Building Manager to single or multiple corps via a new Building Manager tab on the building card. And from there it\u2019s easy to include them in your email and SMS communications, as they can be added as a contact group to the Bulk Communications Wizard, and even SMSed straight from the Building Manager tab. You can include them in repairs and maintenance in both the &#8216;reported by&#8217; and &#8216;access contact&#8217; fields when sending Work Orders and Quote Requests, configure the Building Manager to be the default repairs and maintenance contact, and even allow them to approve invoices via the portal using <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mrisoftware.com\/au\/products\/strata-master\/online-invoice-approval\/\">Online Invoice Approval<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mrisoftware.com\/au\/resources\/getting-started-with-online-invoice-approval-for-strata-master\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-28052 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/www.mrisoftware.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/OIA-blog-lead-magnet-v2.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"728\" height=\"90\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.mrisoftware.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/OIA-blog-lead-magnet-v2.png 728w, https:\/\/www.mrisoftware.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/OIA-blog-lead-magnet-v2-300x37.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 728px) 100vw, 728px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<h3>And a whole lot more!<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Help levy contacts stay on top of levy payments by automatically SMSing them when levy notices are issued.<\/li>\n<li>Highlight important information about the buildings in your portfolio with the ability to copy and paste text with different fonts, size and colour in the Notes section on the Building Card and the new Building Manager tab.<\/li>\n<li>Entering and updating insurance details will be much easier after we build plus, delete, up and down buttons into the insurance tab.<\/li>\n<li>Improve communication transparency with the addition of the CC field on top of the existing BCC field for all agency correspondence. You will no longer need to confirm to the main contact that the additional contacts were included!<\/li>\n<li>To avoid any confusion when a levy notice is issued to a lot with arrears or interest outstanding levy notices will now display when the levy payment is due and will also state that any arrears and interest is due immediately.<\/li>\n<li>It\u2019s easy to find and share the CRN and Biller code with contacts, as they have been added to the levies tab.<\/li>\n<li>Avoid the double up of page numbers when including Interim Reports in meeting agendas, as an option is now available to remove page numbers from both the reports and table of contents page.<\/li>\n<li>It\u2019ll be easier for your contractors to see that something requires urgent attention once the work order and quote request email templates are updated to include the work order or quote request subject.<\/li>\n<li>Non-lot owners can now be added as Approvers for Online Invoice Approval if they have been elected to the committee.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Keep an eye out for all this and more, coming to Strata Master in 2021.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mrisoftware.com\/au\/products\/strata-master\/demo\/\">Book a demo<\/a> today to find out how you can get access to all these upcoming features to kickstart your strata management business.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As this long year draws to a close, I wanted to take a moment to put pen to paper and write to all our Strata Master customers, to explain our vision for Strata Master and the Strata software\u00a0industry moving forward. 2021 is going to be a big year fo&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":76,"featured_media":28078,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[137,153],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business-solutions-for-property-managers","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mrisoftware.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27974","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mrisoftware.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mrisoftware.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mrisoftware.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/76"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mrisoftware.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27974"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.mrisoftware.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27974\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mrisoftware.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28078"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mrisoftware.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mrisoftware.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mrisoftware.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}