An Awesome Upgrade

For Avesta Homes

By Erica Rascón on Nov 15, 2016 in People

The “Upgrade Like a Rock Star” series highlights insider tips and tricks for a smooth transition to Voyager 7S, Yardi’s newest and most robust property management platform.

For this installment, Yardi caught up with Will Newton, Director of Support Systems at Avesta Homes. His team converted from Voyager 6 to 7S more than two years ago. The transition took about four months.

Getting Started

Newton and his team began by promoting employee buy-in. Newton and a Yardi consultant visited each of Avesta’s four regions to drum up curiosity and excitement about the new software.

“We basically did a little tour around each of the regions and got everybody pumped up about it,” begins Newton. “So, just kind of a quick, ‘here’s all the new functionality that you’re going to see. It’s much prettier and easier. You’re going to like it!’ That kind of got everyone excited about using it.”

Testing and Implementation

To make testing fun, Avesta turned the process into a competition.

“We’re a pretty competitive company,” laughs Newton. “I had a little scoreboard thing going. I’d run queries on how many lines of code you did, how many update statements occurred, and other stuff that was more tangible for people.”

These competitions helped the staff systematically sift through each of Avesta’s custom menus. Staff confirmed that pages and links functioned properly, and that pages appeared identical on various browsers.

To avoid burn out and maintain regular workloads, staff limited tests to one hour per day.

Avesta then hosted six on-site trainings, one for each region and two at the central office. During each occurrence, the offices shut down for a few hours so that all of the staff could be present.

Regional subject matter experts, or SMEs, demonstrated specific, commonly used functionalities in a test environment. They also answered user-specific questions. Once the onsite trainings ended, SMEs continued to support Avesta staff members.

Internal webinars and Client Central training videos supplemented the on-site training sessions. Newton integrated links to the digital training materials directly into the main menu of 7S, making it easy for staff to access information as needed.

Challenges

The merge of employee and user tables required additional attention. Avesta worked closely with Yardi technical account managers to quickly correct the issue.

Newton also found that it was helpful to have the integration team and any other third party support on hand “in case anything crazy happens because there are schema changes.”

Fortunately, Avesta’s thorough preliminary testing limited the craziness.

Favorite New Features

Predictive search topped the list of Newton’s favorite new features in 7S, followed by mobile-friendly accessibility.

“In a pinch, users can just grab their cell phone,” says Newton. “I’ve sometimes had somebody on the road with 4G. They can go [into Voyager 7S] if they have to make a quick approval on something,” says Newton.

Newton also appreciates that 7S notifies users of potential discrepancies, a helpful tool to fix data entry errors before they become complex problems.

“The warnings are great. The little box will come down at the top if you’ve put in something that’s an invalid entry or something like that. Instead of looking around on the screen and trying to figure out what you did wrong, it’ll tell you up top,” say Newton.

To learn more about Voyager 7S and its new features, register for an upcoming webinar.