YASC DC 2016

A look inside the event

By Leah Etling on Jun 2, 2016 in News

Ever wondered why Yardi clients flock to the company’s two major user conferences each year? There are the obvious reasons, like the specialized courses on product features, the chance to network with other clients, and who doesn’t like to get out of the office for a few days? But a closer look at today’s YASC event in Washington DC demonstrates the true value this conference provides.

Three sample sessions

We started our morning with the Orion BI Experience: A User Perspective panel. Three clients, each representing a different real estate vertical, talked to a packed room about the exceptional functionality that Orion BI has brought to their businesses.

While each client introduced Orion BI for different reasons, the results they have experienced were very similar: enhanced visibility into their own data, insight on key performance indicators, happier top-level executives and reduced time preparing for regular reporting meetings.

Lisa Kolb, consultant/senior systems analyst for A.J. Dwoskin, said that her mixed portfolio client adopted Orion has part of a transition to a paperless office, but soon realized many additional benefits, including the fact that it greatly reduced “analysis paralysis.” Reports were created based on the KPI’s that the company truly wanted to hone in on.

“It became part of our initiative to focus on KPI’s, and the drill down capabilities helped us focus on what really mattered,” Kolb said.

Norma Soria, Management Systems Director for the Cesar Chavez Foundation, a California affordable housing provider, spoke enthusiastically about the time her team saved as a result of implementing Orion.

“We have a weekly meeting with regional managers, and it had typically been four hours long. With Orion BI, it went down to two, and the time to prepare for it was also cut in half,” Soria said.

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Next up, we headed to a client round table called Developing Your Workforce: Creating a Culture of Learning, led by Yardi’s Manager of eLearning, Patty Evans. Training is a very hot topic with Yardi users and property management executives. Nearly 40 people joined the session to learn what best practices Patty had to share.

Separated into small groups, clients had the chance to share their training challenges, which included dealing with employee turnover, how to motivate employees who aren’t interested in advancing their careers, ways to incorporate training into busy schedules, and how to take advantage of cutting edge digital training options.

Motivating employees to train might take many different forms, Evans pointed out. Some may want to do it to advance their careers or earn a raise, others may need a more mandatory approach. But allowing staff to have some choices in their training programming can be empowering, she explained, especially for younger employees.

“This is a new generation, a new learner. We need to trust how they problem solve,” Evans said. Clients closed out the session by brainstorming some ways to address training challenges and sharing their ideas with each other. Many were attending all of the classes in the Yardi eLearning programming track, a popular offering this spring.

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Next it was time for another client panel, this one focused on implementing Yardi Voyager 7S. Four clients, representing multifamily market rate housing, affordable housing, office and mixed-use, shared their thoughts.

One of the major transitions made by many Yardi clients moving to Voyager 7S has been the switch to being hosted by Yardi rather than self-hosted. Heather Ferlin of Investco talked about that change.

“Really, the biggest difference we have experienced was that now we have many less technical issues than when we were self-hosted,” Ferlin said, adding that her phone rings far less often now with complaints about server issues. “Our company is growing. We are building more units, and getting more (Yardi) users. We didn’t have the capacity to stay self-hosted.”

Jeffrey Callan, CIO of major multifamily firm Morgan Properties, was another panel participant. He stressed the importance of preparing for the transition to Voyager 7S by testing the platform fully.

“We recognized early on that this was a real implementation process, not just a ‘flip a switch and it’s on’ experience,” Callan said. But with smart planning, his team had an efficient transition to 7S for their 35,000 unit portfolio. Training of 850 Yardi users on the new platform was conducted via a 20-minute webinar, and numerous workflow efficiencies have been achieved as a result of the switch.

“One of the biggest benefits from our users point of view was that now they only had one login for Voyager and PAYScan,” Callan said. “And we’ve found that the auto-search functionality in Voyager 7S really helps with the learning curve for new employees.”

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It’s just midday, and attendees will then be back for a full afternoon of great insights at #YASC2016. Follow the conference online at yasc.yardi.com\social.