The “Upgrade Like a Rock Star” series continues, offering insights for a smooth transition to Yardi Voyager® 7S, our latest property management platform. For the second installment, Kimberly Chambers, Senior Vice President, Accounting and Tax Services, at Buzz Oates real estate firm shares how she led her team through a two-month conversion from Voyager 6 to 7S. Getting Started The conversion of Buzz Oates models how a small team can make big strides towards efficiency in a short timeframe. At Buzz Oates, there are just 45 staff members using Yardi Voyager to manage 22 million square feet of real estate. “We run lean and mean,” laughs Chambers. “Since we expected our users to handle their regular workload and test, it was, ‘Okay, well, we’re going to test what we can and then we’re going to go for it.’ And we did. And the conversion wasn’t a very long timeframe.” The resourceful team prepared for the transition by watching training videos and tutorials on Yardi Client Central. Through the online portal, Yardi customizes virtual training tools to expedite user education for each client. Buzz Oates then invited Yardi specialists to offer onsite training for the group. The specialists covered new features in Voyager 7S and addressed questions that arose during the virtual training. Chambers says, “When a user had issues, the Yardi representatives were able to go around and help us get them up to speed right away. The users didn’t have to wait for our one IT person or myself to run around. We had a few more hands on deck that could answer their questions.” Testing and Challenges While a small staff size made training more manageable, it posed unique challenges during the testing phase. Without a designated IT team for the task,...