CoDa now houses our information on Property Owners, Properties and Units. Anyone at Compass can view and update the information. In this article, I'll go over the basics.
Finding Landlords / Property Owners
If you are looking for a specific landlord or property you can search their name in the search bar like anything else. If you are looking for buildings in a particular region or of a particular type, you can start by going to the "Accounts" tab:
By default, you probably won't be able to see the "Accounts" tab. You can either click the "+" tab and find it in the list, or you can switch your App from "Case Management" to "Housing Outreach," as in the upper right hand corner of this image.
Once you're on the tab, you'll be able to view different lists of Properties. There are pre-made lists of properties in certain geographic areas and that have worked with Compass in the past. You can clone views or create new ones to customize your own search.
Adding a new Property Lead (pLead)
If you are cold calling a new contact to find new properties or if you aren't sure that a contact will lead anywhere you can use the pLead object.
Go to the pLead tab at the top of your screen and click on it to see current leads or create a new lead. Note that when you first click on pLead it will only show you the most recent, to see all leads select the listview for All.
Once you create a new lead and enter in a phone number for the lead you can text them through Coda. You can also add notes based on conversations you had by using the Compass Notes related list and clicking New
While you can add information connecting the Note to a particular property, Contact or Owner, the most important thing is to fill out the Note type and Note Details about your interaction with the lead.
Converting a pLead
Once the lead becomes 'hot' and they have active properties or units that you want your families to view, you can CONVERT the lead to a Property Contact by using the Convert Lead screen flow on the pLead record.
You will select to convert the lead to a general Property Contact record, or if they are the owner of the property, you can convert them to a Property Owner.
Using Property Contacts and Property Contact Relationships
Once you have a hot lead with a property and unit that your client is going to view, you can connect your new Property Contact to a Property and the Unit. Before adding a new Property, also use the search bar and put in the property address to make sure it isn't already in the database. If it is, you can easily link the property to the property contact with a Property Contact Relationship record. You can access this from either the Property or the Property Contact.
You can add a contact to an exiting Property by clicking the New button here:
Creating a New Property
If the Property doesnt exist yet when you check the search bar, you will want to create a new Property on the Accounts tab by clicking on the New Property Button.
That will lead you to a screen flow for creating a new property.
Viewing Property Information
When you click on a Property name, you will be taken to their page. On this page, you will be able to see contact information, subsidy information, tenant requirements, address info, and notes.
When you scroll down, you will be able to see three lists: the units that have been documented for this landlord, the contact log between staff and the landlord, and the client interactions with the landlord that have been logged:
If you click into one of the units, you will be brought to a page where you can see more information about the unit.
Viewing Property Owner / Landlord Information
Every property should be connected to a Property Owner or Landlord who owns the building. You can find the Property Owner about half way down the record under Contact Information
If you click on the Property Owner it will bring you to their record where you can put in their Billing Address and contact information. It will also list all the Properties that the Property Owner owns.
About Units
We don't try to add all of a landlord's units to CoDa. We add the units that are or will soon be available for our clients to potentially be housed. The unit page has cost information (rent, security depost, etc.), availability information, bed/bath info, and address. The name of the unit is automatically created based off of the address.
If a unit is "Listed/Available," it has recently been marked as open and looking for a tenant. We can set up our units to automatically flip to Unavailable to prevent old records being inaccurately listed as available. To view all units currently marked as available, you can go to the Units tab and click "Go" next the the "Listed as Available" list view:
Logging Staff-Landlord Interactions
We want landlord interactions to be in CoDa rather than being only in e-mail or nowhere at all. This helps coordinate relationships with landlords across time and across staff. We want to know the history of the relationship and we want to know who all they're talking to at a given time. Thus, logging landlord interactions is a simple but central part of the landlord database.
On any pLead, property or property contact page, there is a Compass Notes related list. If you are logging an interaction, you can click on the New button to log a new interaction and connect it to an existing property or property contact.
Once you click the button, taking a note is very simple and straightforward. After you save your note, it will appear on the landlord page for all to see.
Logging Client-Landlord Engagements and Placements (not currently in use)
We want to know when clients are placed in units found through housing search. We also want to know when clients go to open houses or unit viewings - knowing this helps the Landlord Outreach team keep tabs on a unit and know how much clients are responding to new listings being sent out.
To record a client's engagement with a landlord (open house, viewing, phone call, e-mail), go to the housing tracker related list on your client's case record and click the "New Landlord Engagement" button.
This will take you to a page where you indicate the unit your client engaged with, the type of engagement, and whether the client applied for the unit or not. There is also a space for notes.