YASC SB 2012

Day one live blog

By Leah Etling on Oct 17, 2012 in News | 8 Comments

The Yardi Advanced Solutions Conference (YASC), Santa Barbara edition, got off to a great start on October 17,  2012. The sold-out conference is attended by Yardi clients and consultants from around the globe,  from company executives to on-site property management staff.

You can also find us over on the new YASCInfo site, along with Tweets and photos from the day. Bookmark it now!

As we kick off our coverage, let’s set the scene. Yardi staff and guests are gathered at the Fess Parker Doubletree Resort on the beautiful Santa Barbara waterfront for today’s General Session. Affordable Housing, PHA, Senior Housing and Condo/Co-op/HOA courses are taking place at the Hyatt Santa Barbara just a short walk away. The Doubletree will also be the location for the evening events (networking reception tonight, gala reception and dinner tomorrow), and you can find Yardi sales professionals and expert technical staff ready to assist you at any time in the sales booth area or the Internet lab, located in the Reagan Room.

Attendees are here to learn how to best use our Yardi product offerings, get one-on-one technical assistance, learn what new and exciting updates and products are coming in the next year, network with industry colleagues and more.. Spending time with our clients, learning from and sharing knowledge with you is part of our core value set at Yardi Systems.

8:30 a.m. – Good morning! So thrilled to be here with everyone. It’s an absolutely beautiful day here in Santa Barbara. Apparently someone at Yardi ordered up the perfect week of weather for this year’s YASC. Well done! Today’s conference began with the General Session address from Yardi CEO and founder Anant Yardi and vertical updates from Bryant Shoemaker, Rob Teel, John Pendergast, Dan Campbell, and Mark Livanec. In fact, that session is in progress, and we’ll have highlights for you in just a few minutes.

Meanwhile, get ready for a great day of learning in today’s classes. Want to get an advance look at what will be talked about this week? Check out the YASC Top Ten list. If this is your first YASC, check out our tips for new attendees. And if you haven’t visited Santa Barbara before, we put together a neat visitors guide just for you.

 8:35 a.m. – Before we share all the highlights from the General Session, here’s some exciting news. Navigate on over to our Yardi Systems Facebook page and hit the Like button, and you will be entered to win an iPad! Winners will be selected throughout the week. With the exciting focus on mobile apps and technologies this week, you could head home from YASC ready to transform your business in incredibly exciting ways.

9 a.m. – Change is good. That was the message delivered by Yardi Systems CEO and founder Anant Yardi in his address to YASC attendees, kicking off YASC SB 2012.

Taking a look back at the history of technology and a look ahead at the future, Yardi focused on the exciting new solutions offered by Yardi Systems for its clients across all verticals.

“We are focused on the changes in mobility, changes in cloud computing, changes in social media,” Yardi said. “Our focus is long term. Innovation is something we pride ourselves with.”

With the rapid growth in mobile technology – 15.4 million iPads were sold in the first quarter of 2012 – bringing mobile applications and cloud computing solutions to clients are the immediate focus of Yardi Systems, Yardi shared.

“We’ll be creating solutions on mobile devices, iPads, smartphones, providing the cloud services that many of you are using and improving them, and understanding social media in terms of how it might be brought to use for your clients and employees,” Yardi said.

Hearing feedback from clients is one of the most important aspects of YASC, Yardi emphasized. “We want to understand from you what you need.”

9:30 a.m. – Following Yardi’s remarks, Rob Teel (senior vice president, global solutions) delivered a dynamic demonstration presentation focusing on Yardi’s extensive offerings for commercial clients.

Teel gave the audience a look at Yardi Orion for SharePoint, Commercial CRM for iPhone, Commercial Leasing Pad, and COMMERCIALCafe, which offer business intelligence, mobile and tenant portal solutions for the commercial market.

Saving the best for last, he also introduced Voyager 7S – the next version of Yardi Voyager – which will enable clients to login to Yardi Voyager on a cross tablet, cross browser platform. Loading Voyager 7S in Safari on an iPad earned Teel a round of applause. This exciting new product will first be available to commercial clients. Rollout for multifamily is anticipated in 2013.

10 a.m. – For multifamily, Yardi’s Café framework has been improved and augmented with exciting changes, demonstrated John Pendergast (senior vice president, client services).  Beautifully designed property marketing and corporate marketing websites,  start-to-finish online leasing including credit screening and lease execution, resident service portals for rent pay and maintenance requests,  and social media referral rewards are now all part of the Café offerings.

For leasing agents, Leasing Pad is the mobile multifamily answer, with access to Voyager functionality for guest cards and availability, lead tracking with Yardi Popcard, and much more. And when it comes to business intelligence, Yardi Orion for SharePoint for multifamily now features expanded BI dashboards so you can better monitor trending metrics.

10:30 a.m. – Great advice from Mark Livanec (vice president, public and affordable housing) about how to use your time at YASC: “Anant said earlier: One of the jobs we have is to learn something new, to expand our knowledge and make sure we’re growing as individuals. When you go into the sessions, ask yourself; “What am I going to learn today that can help myself, help my business, that we can share and grow together? Use this opportunity to your best advantage.”

11 a.m. – After the general session we caught up with Corrine Morrison, controller for Bridge Housing of San Francisco and a veteran of five previous YASC’s, who had some great insight on how the conference can be beneficial as a tool for networking and learning best practices. “Meeting people in your space and finding out how they are implementing things can be very valuable,” she shared. Morrison has stayed in touch with colleagues from previous conferences and shared information on tax credit housing issues. This year is an especially exciting time for Bridge Housing, which just released a strategic plan that includes doubling its inventory in the next five years.  “We’re really needing to rely on Yardi to help us automate things and get our internal process up to date” as that growth takes off, she shared.

 12 p.m. – It’s a beautiful day outside, with temperatures in the high 70s for lunch outside in the Fess Parker Doubletree rotunda. Many people have heard that there was a small grass fire, called the Lookout Fire, above Highway 154 that closed the roadway earlier this morning as firefighters and aerial resources fought the blaze. About 20 acres have burned, and residents in the area have been evacuated from their homes. Fire personnel are keeping a close eye on the fire in case winds pick up this afternoon.

12:30 p.m. – This afternoon brings an excellent comprehensive lineup of courses to choose from. If you are interested in learning more about Yardi Orion for SharePoint, there will be multiple opportunities to get a close look at the product focusing on the residential or commercial sectors. YASC is also a great time to catch up with clients who are already using Orion to capitalize on better business intelligence. There are several staff members here from the Atlanta Housing Authority, including CIO Samir Saini, who talked to us about Orion earlier this year. “We need data to be in central location, needs to be clean and reliable. Yardi Orion for SharePoint is the core solution to provide that BI and measure those metrics,” he said.

1 p.m. – Here’s a  little mobile tech humor for you as we head out from lunch and back into our afternoon classes. Bob Haenel of Eugene Burger Management Corp. shared this joke: “I renamed my iPad the Titanic, so it’s syncing now.” Speaking of iPads, an informal survey during general session asked the audience how many attendees owned an iPad. Several hundred hands – about half of those in the audience –  went up. It’s estimated that Apple could sell upwards of 65 million tablets this year. Despite increased competition from other tablet developers, iPads continue to dominate the market – they accounted for 68 percent of all tablets shipped to customers in second quarter 2012, the highest share in nearly two years.

1:30 p.m. – What can Yardi Orion for SharePoint do for you? Listening to client feedback and answering questions is the focus of the overview session showcasing this much-anticipated platform. YASC attendees considering adoption of Orion told us that they are looking for a variety of functionalities, including a way to create custom reports quickly and easily, employee access to business data and documents, high volume document management, custom websites, financial analytics, investor reports, and more. There’s so much to absorb – its overwhelming and thoroughly exciting to see all the possibilities for smarter workflow solutions that Orion offers.

2:30 p.m. – During the last course break we chatted with clients in the hall about what they are finding most useful so far. “I like the classes, but I love the lab. I take specific problems and go in and work on them one-on-one. I spent most of my morning there,” one property manager told us. The computer lab (located in the Reagan Room) is open and ready to assist you until 6 p.m. today, from 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday, and from 7:30 a.m. to noon on Friday.

3:00 p.m. – Training is a hot topic! Every seat is filled for the training roundtable, led by Yardi’s David Fabian. Clients are exchanging best practices about how they train new staff members in Voyager and other Yardi products. Use of remote training modules is increasingly the norm. The challenge, though is making sure that people are paying attention! One idea: mandate that mute buttons not be used so trainees know they must be focused and not distracted by music, conversations or phone calls. Are you here on site with us? What’s been your favorite class so far?

3:30 p.m. – Just spent a few minutes catching up with Rita Tumlinson, Senior Vice President of Management and Administration for Triyar Companies  in Houston, where she oversees retail and commercial properties. With over 20 years of experience in the property management industry, Rita is a top-notch problem solver who loves the variety of her job. “It’s something different every day, and I really like that,” she said. She and her colleague are enjoying escaping the Houston heat and humidity in beautiful Santa Barbara.

3:45 p.m. – We have to give a shout out to the tireless Anna Markman and Nancy Bogg, who lead the effort to produce both YASC events each year. Just caught a few minutes with Anna as she hurries from place to place making sure everything is running smoothly. It’s possibly that the minute she sat down to talk with us was the first time she has sat down to rest all month! “I’m really happy because we have a lot of new clients here,” Anna told us. “It’s great to see all the new faces this time.”

4:00 p.m. – Athena Quarles, project account analyst for student housing property management firm Pierce Education in San Diego, is attending her sixth YASC. “Learning is my favorite part. Yardi is so big, diverse and huge. You can do so much with it, and the best part is that you get to learn something new every time you come here. I’m a learning nut,” she tells us. Best thing she’s learned today so far?  How to customize menus in Voyager, making them more user friendly. And she’s thrilled about the sneak preview of VoyagerX in general session this morning. “I already emailed my team back at the office, and they’re all so excited,” she said.

4:30 p.m. – Time to head into the last class of the day! Afterward, join us in the Fess Parker Doubletree Rotunda at 6 p.m. for a networking reception. It promises to be a beautiful fall evening on the Santa Barbara waterfront. If you’re looking for ideas about where to dine out with friends and colleagues afterward, here are a few helpful suggestions. We’ll meet you back here tomorrow for another great day at YASC SB.

5:00 p.m. – Yet another great part of YASC is catching up with our clients and hearing about their successes. We were chatting earlier with Jeff Santucci and Ashley Tempesta of Benchmark Senior Living, based in Wellesley, Mass. Today, Benchmark opened its 46th senior living property. The company’s expansion plans continue  – they will open five more new buildings in New England over the next five years. Congratulations to the Benchmark team. We love sharing the news of our clients here on The Balance Sheet. Got a story idea for us? Email it to [email protected]