Seeking Advice for Online Community Platform

Idea. Use technology that almost anyone can setup. You wont be living at your association forever, it needs to be simple. People, on average move every 5 years.

I suggest a free forum at:
http://www.freeforums.org/

No setting up your own server, someone else hosts it.

The admin password needs to be shared with another person. So many times you hear of someone setting up an advanced web thing-a-magig, then they get upset at the HOA, eventually move and never give the association the passwords to manage it.

I wish that you could promote your community platform. My HOA is looking for this kind of thing.

Ideally:

* Free to use, ad supported ok
* Open source
* Hosted, like that other guy said
* Board e-mail archiving and tracking
* Issue tracking system, ideally with smart phone integration
* Comprehensive reserves and budgeting system, including charts, PDF creation, what-if's
* Full integration with major accounting packages with evangelism to HOA accountants
* Major evangelism and support to HOA managers to encourage/force them to adopt your solution
* Homeowner's forums with moderation, including archiving, search
* E-mail blasts
* Crazy sophisticated login system to support Board Members, vendors, managers, multiple and single unit owners
* Document management system for Bylaws
* Integration with collection agencies, import of collection data, charts, slice-and-dice
* Super support effort with in-person visits to hand-hold and evangelize new Board Members
* Contact manager
* Action item tracker
* Super fun GUI
* Abandoned account recovery, like that other guy said
* Useful even if only one person uses it who may not even be on the Board
* Integration with on-line bill pay
* WYSIWYG editor for meeting minutes, tracks and merges corrections, online highlighting
* iPhone and Android smart phone apps (mobile web pages for "dumb phones")

Well, you did ask for "perfect".

But, no matter what you got, I'm interested ... if you could somehow get the info to me.

As a web developer by trade (16 years), and a long-time HOA member (24 years), I would have to say that the most common problems in HOA communications are not technical, but instead are sociological. Build a forum with the latest and greatest bells and whistles, and somebody will get on the board, discover the forum, and hijack every thread. People will have ISP problems, or computer problems, and not be able to log in. You will have at least one person on the board who for the life of him or her can't do e-mail, much less play with all of the online toys you build into the community website. And they will (and rightly so) complain that you need a degree in computer science to do your job as a director, and it will all backfire.

I get that you're trying to promote your enterprise by not promoting it, so-to-speak, but since I'm not promoting mine at all, and because you asked, I will tell you what the perfect HOA website is:

Basic HTML web 1.0 with nice photos that anyone with basic web skills can maintain. All the governing documents downloadable, including the minutes of every meeting, and a PDF link to every newsletter. A request form that sens an e-mail to the management company, and CC's to the president. That's all it needs to be, and if that's all it is, anybody's son, daughter or grand-kid could keep the content up to date.

The absolute worst idea for an HOA website? An open source, whiz-bang, CMS-type website that can do everything except pick up the dog crap that thoughtless homeowners leave on the lawn website, that needs constant upgrading, is prone to hacking because it is so interactive, requires that the board members be trained, each time there is an election, and in general is so busy and complicated that half the people won't want to use it.

Perfection = simplicity, not sophistication or complexity.

Rob

I would be curious ... what are you using to build your system?

You won’t confuse me … I was just curious if you were utilizing a CMS or a programming language to build an application.

Thank you.

Hi Janet, I use PHP/MySQL since the OS package demanded it. I would have opted for Rails/Groovy if I had had a choice.

Rob and Janet, Thanks for your frankness! I don't agree with your concern that a HOA cannot trust well-established CMS systems (like Drupal, Joomla etc.) if the required know-how is available. Although, I share your suggestion for them to consider a 3rd party for maintenance and support requests. Sometimes, HOA's are lucky to have access to a knowledgeable community member who can help out (in exchange for a spot on the newsletter).

Rob, I have created an application/platform that supposed to avoid possible the issues you mentioned at the end of your post. My belief is that HOA's and NA's should not reinvent the wheel again and again (or waste the time of their volunteers). Imagine, you move to a new community. Do you want to put yourself again on a learning curve? Wouldn't it be nice to have a system in place that resembles the one you had used in your old organization as a community leader?

I am interested in getting an idea how much it'd be worth for HOA's or NA's to use a tool that might save them time and nerves in case we exclude income from possible advertisement.
(community size: 100, 500, 1000, 1500 members)

So far, I have appreciated all your great feedback! Thank you!!

People think that the target customer is the HOA but the real target customer is the HOA manager. If the manager doesn't use the system, the value is limited. Managers produce a ton of HOA information (like budgets and collections). If the manager doesn't use the system, a volunteer needs to input/transcribe the manager's data into the system. That gets old really fast and the system is abandoned/out of date within months.

People denigrate free solutions but, at the end of the day, only a very small group of management companies will ever adopt a non-free solution. Managers aren't very technology savvy. They aren't used to paying for software. Unless you go pitch to them directly and get them where they live, most aren't going to adopt it or even be aware of it. If you have a free solution, you've got a fighting chance to get adoption without the overhead of doing in-person sales pitches.