“We’ve really learned a lot during our first year on the market,” said Massachusetts Association CEO and AEC RAMCO Project Team co-chair Rob Authier, “Plus, we’ve received some very positive and constructive input from our first group of association customers.”

The Team’s review at the NAR Conference in Anaheim resulted in the data conversion and training packages being consolidated down to three from the original five.  The three new packages are –

• “Custom Systems” which refers to niche, homegrown or non-standard systems.
• “Standard Data Source” systems, defined as the five most prevalent systems used by Realtor® associations.
• “NRDS-Only” for those associations whose systems will be loaded initially with only their NRDS data.

“The original three ‘Standard Source’ packages were based on the number of member records.  We then allotted a set number of hours for staff training based on the size of the package,” said Authier, “That clearly was not the best method.”

Eliminated were the two upper end standard source package brackets for 200-500,000 and “Over 500,000” member records.  Authier said customer feedback and a thorough review of the actual work involved in data conversions were major factors in making the changes.

“Since RAMCO is cloud-based and has unlimited data storage, once you had the old system’s data mapped into RAMCO, it didn’t really matter how many records were converted and uploaded,” said RAMCO co-chair and Texas Association CEO Travis Kessler.

RAMCO leaders also quickly agreed with their customers that training should not be limited to a predetermined number of hours. “Some people simply learn more quickly, while some need a little more time to master something new,” said Kessler.  He stated that as a result the hour limits have been eliminated and unlimited training is now available to all current and future customers.

Another major initiative is that RAMCO has assumed responsibility for all training and implementation management, a move that frees up development partner Cobalt to concentrate solely on data conversions, installations and feature development.

For RAMCO that meant hiring and training six new training/implementation managers in December – many with Realtor® association management experience and management software backgrounds.

“We wanted our customers to learn to use RAMCO to truly manage their associations, not just the icons to click to get a report,” said the third of RAMCO’s three co-chairs, Southland Regional (CA) Association CEO Jim Link, adding “These new trainers will mean more individualized attention and a much better implementation experience for everyone.”

In addition to adding new trainers, RAMCO’s Technical Manager Mike Cutlip, who heads up the training effort, is recording a complete library of in-depth, self-paced training videos so that association staff members can either train or refresh themselves on any specific modules, functions or features.

Authier said the review also revealed that the original time and resource estimates for data conversion and system configuration were too low compared to the actual hours spent.  The combined cost of increasing those hours and bringing on additional trainers resulted in the need for revising the prices on the new packages.

While the new packages and fee structure took effect on January 1^st, the implementation fees for the 104 association and MLS customers who applied prior to December 31, 2011 will be honored, said RAMCO Project Manager Gar Anderson.  Post-installation monthly user fees remain unchanged.  The new packages and revised application can be found at: http://www.ramcoams.com/?page_id=110.

“I think these changes underscore two specific RAMCO objectives,” said Authier, “The first is that we’re very sensitive to our customers needs, because as AEs we are our own customers. And second, because we operate at breakeven, our pricing must cover the actual costs of providing ourselves with such an incredibly powerful management tool.”

RAMCO is an association management software system developed as a project of the Association Executives Council of the National Association of REALTORS® to meet the specific, unique needs of the executives and staffs of REALTOR® associations and multiple listing services.

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REALTOR® is a registered collective membership mark which may be used only by real estate professionals who are members of the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® and subscribe to its strict Code of Ethics. Not all real estate agents are REALTORS®. All REALTORS® are members of NAR.

The partnership with RAMCO leverages the existing call center services that Tech Helpline is providing for over 70 REALTOR associations nationwide.   ”Service is one of the elements of a product feature set that is often overlooked but with our Florida Realtors THS partner, technical service will be one of RAMCO’s strongest features” said Pablo Maurelia, Director of Technology for RAMCO.

The Tech Helpline’s role will be service after the sale; it will handle the day-to-day technical QA issues such as login and password issues, data exports, mail merges, Outlook integration and the like.  “The innovative Florida Realtors have been NAR’s technology partner for more than a decade and a half,” explained RAMCO Project Manager Gar Anderson. “In fact, back in 1996, the Florida Association of REALTORS, as they were known at the time, provided NAR with the template for REALTORS.org.”

In addition to supporting the RAMCO product, the Tech Helpline will provide RAMCO subscribers the option to purchase for their authorized users an expanded support package called the “Tech Helpline PLUS” that covers all personal computers, operating systems, PDAs, Smart Phones, digital cameras and more.

“Tech Helpline looks forward to providing superior service to RAMCO subscribers,” said Joe Ballarino, President and COO of Real Estate Industry Solutions, a subsidiary of Florida Realtors. “We want RAMCO subscribers to know that they will always receive a pleasant customer service experience when contacting our U.S.-based technical analysts. With the optional expanded support package that is available, RAMCO subscribers will receive comprehensive technical support from our analysts, for almost any computer issue. This offering is a technical comfort.”

The National Association of Realtors^® and Associations Executives across the country have worked together over the last four years to develop RAMCO.  For more information about RAMCO, visit www.ramcoams.com.

RAMCO is also announcing a partnership with Streamline Solutions, LLC (“xRM”) for its application hosting services.  Because RAMCO runs on the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 platform, we have chosen to host RAMCO AMS with one of the best Microsoft CRM hosting partners in the business.  “xRM is the best possible solution from every perspective that I can think of”, says Director of Technology, Pablo Maurelia, “pricing, service, up time guarantees and architecture”.  xRM will host RAMCO AMS out of its Irvine, California facility offering 100% uptime guarantees on network connectivity and CRM expertise that is the best in the business.  With RAMCO running on xRM services we will be running on all cylinders from day one.

xRM is well qualified for reasons including xRM’s experience in hosting Microsoft Dynamics CRM.  That experience is relevant because RAMCO AMS is built on Cobalt’s CAMS platform, which is built on Microsoft’s Dynamics CRM platform.  xRM has been working with Microsoft Dynamics CRM since version 1.0, and was selected by Microsoft as the exclusive Technology Adoption Program partner, making xRM the first provider in the USA to go live with hosted Microsoft Dynamics CRM.  xRM was recently honored for its continued hosting achievements by Microsoft’s inviting xRM into the 2010 Microsoft Inner Circle of partners.  xRM operates a robust tier-IV data center featuring built-in redundancy and automatic failover systems, (Tier IV is the highest quality specification for a data center.)  xRM will also host the SQL database utilized by RAMCO AMS and Dynamics CRM for ongoing storage and retrieval of association data.  The AMS, SQL, and CRM software used by RAMCO will be hosted in a dedicated environment, meaning that the network hardware providing these services will be dedicated to RAMCO’s purposes and will not be shared with any other customers or services.  For more information about the companies and projects mentioned above, please follow the links below.

Resources:

xRM

xRM tier-IV data center

xRM Joins the 2010 Inner Circle for Microsoft Dynamics

Cobalt

Microsoft Dynamics CRM

The National Association of Realtors^®, “The Voice for Real Estate,” is America’s largest trade association, representing 1.2 million members involved in all aspects of the residential and commercial real estate industries. For more information on the National Association of Realtors, go to www.realtors.org

Mission Statement: RAMCO’s mission shall be to work cooperatively with all REALTOR Associations and REALTOR Multiple Listing Services that choose to participate to create, provide support for and manage a comprehensive membership data solution that fulfills the changing needs of the REALTOR organization, allows flexibility for the diverse management requirements of its members, and reduces ongoing membership system and development costs.

The REALTOR® Association has unprecedented resources at its disposal, so creating a single system that could bridge the gap between different associations and their data is an idea well past its time. This led a group of state and local associations from across the REALTOR® spectrum to explore how to bring this idea to fruition. After an exhaustive discussion about the best way to approach this project , the AEs at these associations engaged their technical and membership staff to further explore the existing options and conduct additional research.

This subgroup of techies and member management professionals conducted meeting after meeting and review after review, and it became clear that the association management system landscape was poised to change dramatically with new players entering the market, new technologies changing the way services are delivered, and staff at many associations ready for a change. Based on survey feedback and experience within their own associations, the group compiled a preliminary list of features and functions that would be required in an ideal REALTOR® association management system. They presented this research to their association leadership, who in turn collaborated with each other and NAR leadership, to develop a structure for going forward.

The two major options weighed by the team were to build an entire system from scratch, at considerable time and expense, or to purchase an existing solution in the market and modify it to meet RAMCO’s needs. Due to the time constraints of providing a solution prior to the deadline for NRDS central database compliance, the co-op investigated existing solutions with certain criteria in mind:

• The co-op must have complete control over the source code (through outright ownership or a perpetual licensing agreement)
• Any existing vendor would need to leave the REALTOR® space so as not to compete with RAMCO for customers
• A product needed to be released by the spring of 2011
• A product needed to provide at least the features outlined by the technology and membership staff of the participating associations

After examining the existing products in the market, and the vendors willing to meet the co-op’s criteria for ownership and an exit of the REALTOR® sphere, Cobalt was chosen as RAMCO’s preferred platform. The acquiring of Cobalt’s Association Management System, Real Estate Solution (CAMS-RES), built on the latest Dynamics CRM technology from Microsoft, allows RAMCO to quickly develop a superior association management platform to meet the changing needs of associations.

The Microsoft Dynamics CRM platform used as the core of the RAMCO product is an enterprise-class customer relationship management application designed with maximum flexibility in mind. The flexible database design of Dynamics CRM allows a user to create an unlimited number of custom fields to meet their individual organization’s needs. Custom fields are reportable and can be integrated into many of the processes of the application.

No technical staff is needed to extend the database, but those with technical staff will find even more freedom to extend the platform to meet their needs. Extensive documentation, a mature software development kit, an industry-standard development platform (.NET) and web-service access to any field within the system allow programmers to integrate their membership data into powerful new applications. Many legacy applications can also be accommodated, with limited effort, using these existing tools.

The RAMCO solution is Software as a Service (SaaS), meaning it is delivered as a “hosted” application. The hosted nature is another benefit for any REALTOR® association on a limited budget. The RAMCO AMS is run from secure datacenters contracted by the co-operative. There is no server hardware to maintain at an association’s office, no expensive OS and database licensing to maintain and less technical overhead. Software updates install new features seamlessly and frequently with no association staff interaction. Staff have the added benefit of accessing the system from anywhere: home, office or on the road.

Integrations with existing Microsoft products ensure that staff can be productive with the tools that they are already familiar with. Dynamics CRM provides a powerful plug-in to display CRM content within MS Outlook, further enhancing the platform’s ability to engage staff in familiar ways. Import and export contacts, view extended member information such as invoices and committee information, update records, synchronize tasks, calendars and more all from within Microsoft Outlook. MS Word users will find time-saving integrations like the ability to run a mail merge directly in the RAMCO application and export it to Word with a single click. Existing mail merge templates, and the ability to import new templates, simplify the process further. Users can even export reports, charts and tables of data directly to MS Excel for further examination. Using a “dynamic” Excel file, the data exported will update with the latest information from Dynamics CRM every time the Excel file is opened.

You can rest assured that the RAMCO AMS will provide you the cutting-edge tools to both enhance you efficiency and productivity without the burden of learning a completely unfamiliar system.

Much like the real estate market itself, all REALTOR® associations are local. Although there are many similarities across the REALTOR® association universe, no two will ever have identical needs for, and uses of, their database. The ability of past association management solutions to adapt, with their rigid set of member information and limited capabilities for customization, has been a hindrance to better serving association members. The RAMCO AMS meets these needs by providing a flexible system that associations can tailor to their own needs. Add new fields to store member information, then import, collect and report on that information in a variety of innovative ways.

A core of the RAMCO AMS is the powerful “workflow” feature. These processes can be created to accomplish an almost unlimited number of automated tasks that previously required staff time:

• Automatically send out dynamic emails to members whenever they meet certain criteria
• Automatically update member records with new information when some other piece of member information changes
• Notify association staff, via email or Outlook tasks, of changes to information in the database
• Create checklists for association staff to navigate them through complex processes such as mediations and arbitration

There is almost no end to the flexibility and time-saving potential of workflows. Staff time is one of the most valuable resources you have as an association, and the ability to create more of it is a rare benefit.

The most efficient way to share and gather information from your members is through your association’s website. Whether paying their dues, registering for courses, updating their profile information or catching up on the latest industry news, the website is the first stop for today’s busy, Internet-savvy agents and brokers.

The RAMCO AMS allows members to engage and see a wealth of information about themselves through the included member portal. After logging into the secure interface, members can update their, view past receipts and current invoices, committee service, upcoming and past courses, pay dues and much more. Built-in connections to the NRDS eCommerce payment gateway ensure you can take advantage of the lowest possible credit card rates when processing transactions online, and behind the scenes processes allow you to define automatic actions that occur when members interact with your website.

A complete content management system (CMS) is also available as an optional, one-time purchase. The CMS is a complete alternative to your existing website and allows you to integrate dynamic reports and more from your AMS with no programming experience required. The CMS includes many powerful tools for building your association website:

• A full-featured CMS including rich “What You See Is What You Get” (WYSIWYG) editors for creating rich page content. Create pages as if you were typing in Microsoft Word or your favorite document editing software. Add photos and other multimedia content to build visually engaging pages that enhance your association brand.
• Drag-and-drop page creation for quickly building site content. Reposition sections of your webpages simply by clicking and dragging, much like working in a desktop application. You can even re-use content in multiple locations so you don’t have to re-create frequently needed elements.
• Built-in blogging tools allow you to expand your message in a conversational style and engage members using comments and responses
• Discussion boards allow members to connect with each other and talk about the topics that are important to them.
• Polling and survey tools allow you to get the feedback you want from members, then turn that information into action to improve your association’s services.

The RAMCO AMS and CMS allow you to take your association’s online presence to the next level. Similar features in competing platforms costs tens of thousands of dollars in comparison, making the RAMCO alternative an even more compelling option for your next association management system.

Canned reports have long been a thorn in the side of association managers needing to look deeper into their membership and uncover the less obvious relationships and opportunities. The RAMCO AMS allows users to extract reports on nearly any field in the database with unprecedented ease. Building complex selections of data is simple using the integrated report builder. For maximum flexibility, reports can be exported to a variety of formats including Excel, Word, PDF, Tiff, HTML archive, and more.

“Dynamic” reports provide real-time updates directly from your AMS. Exporting a dynamic report to Excel will include the latest information for that report, updated every time the Excel file is opened. The system will also respect a user’s permissions so, if there is information in a report that a user shouldn’t have access to, that information will not be visible. If you are using the optional website content management system you can export a dynamic report for display on a webpage of your choice. The report will update itself in real-time giving you the ability to display a wealth of information through your website. Using this tool you could display on your site real-time committee lists, RPAC contributors, event attendees and much more without any programming experience needed.

The RAMCO AMS will unlock the data in your membership system so you can use it in the way you want.

The National REALTOR® Database Standard (NRDS) is the set of member information shared between the different levels of the organization. Covering only the basics of a member’s profile, such as name, status, designations and contact information, these fields are often too limited for the needs of today’s data-driven REALTOR® associations.

Members of RAMCO will have the exclusive benefit of sharing a much greater amount of data between state and local associations in real-time. New data sharing policies, that respect both the association’s need for proprietary information and the need to build a complete member profile, will allow for exchanging information far beyond what is contained in NRDS today.

The NRDS standard has been around for many years and is poised to enter the Internet era with the adoption of Central Database Compliance by December 31, 2011. To be compliant, an association management system must communicate member profile changes in real-time with the central repository of member data managed by the National Association of REALTORS®. The RAMCO AMS will be fully CDB compliant to accommodate associations needing an alternative to upgrading their existing association management system.

To learn more about Cobalt’s products and services please visit www.cobalt.net.