3 Helpful Features to Explore on Your HOA Start Website

At HOA Start, we’re constantly adding functionality to our software and enhancing the features you’ve already come to expect from us. That’s because we’re committed to making the most modern, intuitive, useful homeowners association website software around. We test and retest our software with an eye to how we can make it better, and we listen to our customers for insights and input that helps us expand make our platform even more useful to HOA administrators like you.

Here’s a trio of features that we recommend for their ability to help you simplify your job and enhance your results. Some of them represent additions to functionality that you’ve probably already used, but we’re highlighting them here in case you haven’t had a chance to try them out yet.

Direct links to uploaded files

You rely on your HOA Start Document Repository as a place to upload the files that your residents and prospective homeowners need the most, including everything from HOA covenants to board meeting minutes. Our software enables you to specify which resources you want to make accessible to everyone and which you want to protect as members-only content, so you can separate your uploads into public and private documents. But to make these materials even more accessible, you can link to them individually in the text of your web pages, so you connect your members to these valuable resources when and where they’re especially relevant.

To create these links, navigate from the Administrative Dashboard to Site Setup, using the vertical dashboard menu at the left side of the screen. Once you’re in Site Setup, click on the name of the page you want to edit, and when the page loads, locate a Paragraph text or Contact Info text widget element.

In the control sheet for the widget element, click on the edit link. Above the window that displays the text of your page, you’ll see a link that says, “go to document repository.” When you click on that link, you open a new browser tab right next to the window in which you’re editing your public website. In that new tab, you’ll see the Document Repository from your Administrative Dashboard. Locate the document whose link you want to use, click on the Actions column’s Copy File Link icon, and your document link is copied to your computer clipboard.

Remember to close the new tab that displays your Document Repository and return to the adjacent tab in which you’re editing Site Setup. Otherwise, you’ll lose any changes you’ve made to your site in this editing session and have to start over.

Custom fields on Households listings and imports

The HOA Start Households feature ensures that every Household gets only one vote in surveys and polls, and only one invoice when you bill your residents for dues and fees. To enrich this feature and give it even greater depth, we’ve added the ability to create custom fields for your Households entries. Like the custom fields you can add to your Member Form, these custom fields also are present as data columns in the CSV import file you use to upload Households data. That way, you can add your custom information along with the basics, all in one easy file-based process.

Data from the custom fields associated with Households records also show up as part of the Member Details of the individual Members who are part of those Households, so you can track and correlate this information throughout your Administrative Dashboard. This is a great way to monitor additional specifics about properties and people.

Enhanced customization of e-mail messaging

Your HOA Start homeowners association website software includes an advanced set of messaging tools you can use to help members set or reset their website log-in passwords, and create and send customized messages that even include file attachments. But now, you can customize the look of these messages to an even greater extent.

We’ve expanded our e-mail customization tools so your community logo appears in your outgoing messages, or—if you haven’t yet uploaded a logo—the name of your community, and you can specify a “reply to” e-mail address. When a recipient reads one of your messages and clicks on the “reply” button in their e-mail software, the “reply to” e-mail address determines where their response will go. This makes it easy to target replies to an administrator who’s assigned to read them, or ensure that they wind up in a specific general mailbox that all administrators can access.

You also can use the text formatting tools in the customized e-mail editing window to emphasize elements of your text, and add links to pages on your website or to locations at which you host videos or other content.

Additionally, remember that the powerful search tools built directly into the Members page of the Administrative Dashboard enable you to limit the recipients of an individual message to the people you identify in your search results. This means you can target your messaging effectively based on anything from elements of their street address to tags applied to their Member Details.

Stay tuned—there’s much more to come

We’re constantly adding and refining features to our homeowners association website software so we can offer you more and better functionality in ways that make your administrative duties easier and quicker to perform. Some of these enhancements come directly from feature suggestions we receive from our customers. We always welcome your input, and look forward to finding new ways to serve what you do.

The features and updates we’ve highlighted here are only a select part of the new developments we’ve created for you this year. Look for additional enhancements—and more writeups that detail how you can get the most out of your HOA Start software. We’re always looking for new ways to offer you the best easy-to-use tools and techniques for your homeowners association website.

Not a customer yet? Sign up for our completely free 14-day trial—and experience our full feature set for yourself. We’re convinced that you’ll see why our homeowners association website software should be the power and performance behind your community’s online presence.