Features

The RAMCO association management system (AMS) is the only one designed by REALTOR® association executives and staff with the features you’d expect in a top flight membership system, plus many new and exciting features recommended by AEs and staff across the country.

RAMCO was created with one overriding goal in mind:  To make staff more professional and productive in meeting our members’ high level of expectations in the services and value they receive from their association.

Its powerful tools and features will provide the opportunity for increased revenue and overall staff efficiency —  faster dues collection, state-of-the-art marketing of products and services, task and process automation, call tracking, flexibility in pricing, improved collections on past due accounts and more.

At long last, even the smallest association or MLS can look, feel and act like an organization twice its size!  So many staff functions that have always been done manually can now be fully automated – email confirmations of payments, event registrations, committee sign ups and appointments, member inquiries, new member application processing,  meeting notices and reminders, and so much more.

Due to limited staff time, and a desire to keep costs for all associations as low as possible, RAMCO is not able to respond to every request for proposal from potential customers. To satisfy this need we have developed a general RFP containing a comprehensive representation of the system, pricing and policies. If you require additional detail not already available in this document you can contact us.

Download the General RAMCO RFP Response

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We are pleased to share with you the summary of our second release of functionality currently scheduled for the late winter / early spring of 2012. We are taking special care to enhance the PAC management, accounting, dues and other areas of the system to better meet the needs of our customers. Please peruse the release two documentation and feel free to contact us with your questions.

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Download the RAMCO Release Two Summary

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Data Management, Data Views, Importing and Exporting
Web Portal and Member Services
Professional Standards, Call and Case Tracking
Membership Management
Reporting
Security
Accounting, Dues and Payments
Committee Management
Events and Education Courses
Inventory and Sales
Government Affairs and PAC

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RAMCO gives your staff tremendous flexibility in importing and managing member data.  For example, you can…

• Create personalized, executive-style dashboards to display the most-used, real-time information from the database as graphs, charts and other formats for quick and easy review.
• Import data from Excel files directly into the system.  An import Wizard lets you map the incoming data to the correct fields and validate it.
• Manage multiple versions of incoming data, for example the NRDS version and your own RAMCO version.
• Detect duplicate records using data elements and criteria you set.
• Compare the two data sets for inconsistencies and choose which data you want to use for your association.
• Provide the option to review incoming data changes before releasing them into your database to protect the integrity of your data.
• Merge records and select which information in a record to retain.
• Manage any type of contact in the system: members, non-members, instructors, sponsors, exhibitors and more.
• Attach any type file, image or photo to a member record, committee, event, course, support case, and more.
• Use custom search criteria to find records. Create and save queries for later use. One-click export to Excel in almost all areas of the application.
• Merge member data directly into Microsoft Word templates to print mailing labels or create event tickets, personalized documents, tent cards, badges and many other kinds of products.
• Create email templates for use in member communication that dynamically insert personalized member information.

The system fully integrates with Microsoft Outlook so you can…

• View and update member data within Outlook without having to access the RAMCO system
• Track tasks and meetings with synchronized calendars between Outlook and RAMCO
• Run reports from within Outlook… and more.

And it facilitates your relationships with vendors and 3rd parties.  You can…

• View data from vendors such as Convio, Aristotle and lock box systems
• Allow approved 3rd parties secure access to data from outside the system using Application Programming Interfaces (APIs).   API access can be based on customizable security levels and permissions that you set for additional security and flexibility.

RAMCO’s system fully integrates with the optional Sitefinity Content Management System (CMS) for complete website creation and management.

• All functions in the integrated web portal package are also available with Sitefinity CMS.
• Manage a library of images and content
• Build pages using drag-and-drop ease
• Create integrated blogs and discussion forums
• Integrate RAMCO content directly into the website.

• At your option, home and office addresses can be processed by a 3rd-party verification service to ensure they are formatted in accordance with USPS standards.

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Members can access a secure, integrated web portal that allows:

• New applicants to…
  • Complete and submit applications online.
  • Save their application so they can return and complete it at a later date.
  • Search for and select an office as part of their account setup.
  • Pay their initial membership dues online.

• Existing members to…
  • Pay dues and other invoices online.
  • View and pay open charges on their account
  • Manage their communication preferences including opt-in/out status
  • Purchase or renew subscriptions and view upcoming subscription expiration dates.
• Designated REALTORS® to pay dues for their agents online.
• Optional PAC contributions to be presented to members as part of a dues invoice.

Some unique, time-saving RAMCO functions include the ability for…

• Automated communications using pre-written email templates that are system-generated based on “trigger” events set by staff such as:
  • Notice of a missed dues deadline
  • Submission of a new member application
  • Confirmation for a dues payment
  • A thank you note for an RPAC donation
  • A receipt for a purchase or event registration.

• Any “Contact” (member or non-member) in the database to update their profile information.
• Pre-filling or auto-population of registration and other forms with information from a member’s record.
• Creating subscriptions for any type of event and charge different prices based on member criteria selected by staff.
• In-house or online sales of an infinite range products, services and merchandise.
• Members and non-members to register for event and classes.
• Integrated credit card processing for all online purchases.
• Members and non-members to view a history of all past payments to the association.
• Agents can…
  • Submit an office transfer online and notification can be sent to staff when office transfers are initiated and approved
  • Request a letter of good standing including dues payment and COE details. The member will be able to designate to whom who the letter is to be emailed.

• Designated REALTORS® to go online to…
  • Approve office transfers.
  • Terminate agents or change agent info.

RAMCO also assures your association control over its web portal.

• Branding of all member-facing web pages with your association’s logo and color scheme.
• Individuals can set up online accounts on the web portal with a unique email address, unique username and password, security question, and general demographic info.
• Users can reset their passwords through the web portal
• Staff can manage the level of member password complexity and security they desire.
• RAMCO employs a detection process that prevents duplicate user accounts from being created through the web portal.
• To accommodate users sharing office computers, cookies are not stored with login information.
• When creating a web portal account, a member or non-member’s primary email address is verified by sending an email to that address and preventing the account set-up from continuing until they respond to the verification email (i.e. click the link included in the email to continue).
• To prevent spam, email addresses will not be displayed on the web portal’s searchable directory of agents, offices and affiliates.  Instead, a contact form is used to send messages to the member’s primary email address.

• Staff can select which information fields are visible in the searchable member, office and affiliate directories.
• An event calendar can be used to display upcoming events in both a list format and a traditional calendar format.

After answering a series of questions using the web portal, potential new members…

• Are routed to the appropriate membership application based on their responses.
• Can use the web portal to check the status of their application.

Members and non-members can access a version of the web portal through mobile devices. The mobile version allows them to:

• View and update profile information.
• View committee memberships.
• View course and event registrations.
• Register for upcoming courses and events.
• Search the membership directories.

Members will be able to…

• Upload photos to their profile for display in the searchable directory.
• Add their own course completion history to their records so they can track all CE and course completions in a single place. CE hours verified by associations would be counted separately from CE hours loaded by members.

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Staff can manage professional standards and other policy compliance-related cases using built-in automation tools.

• Mediations and arbitrations
• Complaints from the public or other members
• MLS citations and more

Workflows can be created to provide time-based reminders for filing responses, follow-ups and other important steps in the professional standards process.

Staff can manage general call tracking, including:

• Date and time of a call.
• Caller’s name.
• Assigning categories and sub-categories based on the nature of the call.
• A narrative account of the call.
• Resolution status.
• Sensitive call information that can be restricted to specific users such as legal hotline, accounting or professional standards staff.
• Automatic reminders that can be configured to notify staff when a case has been open for too long without any action or updates.
• The ability to view any interactions that are stored when looking at a member’s record provided they have the proper user permissions.
• An integrated “knowledgebase” that can be used to store internal articles for staff reference.  Articles and policy/procedure documents can be uploaded to provide staff quick answers to common member questions and provide accurate information on the organization’s specific policies and procedures, and more.

• Cases involving legal disputes can track the parties and inform staff of a potential conflict of interest.  For example, this can be used by a state association’s legal hotline staff where they do not want to advise both parties in the same dispute.
• After a case is closed and the member’s problem is resolved, an email can be sent with a link to a customer satisfaction survey.
• The system also allows staff to choose a percentage of callers to receive the email survey.
• MLS staff can track escalating fees for multiple, repeat offenses.

• Members and the public can submit requests for mediation or ethics complaints through the web portal. Submissions can be assigned to a queue for review by association staff.
• Staff can create and manage a pool of panelists for mediations, arbitrations and ethics cases.
• Staff can record notes on panelists to track potential conflicts of interest in cases.

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Staff can view and modify NRDS member information as well as create extended profile demographics and unlimited custom fields such uses as:

• Creating member profiles
• Entering unlimited addresses with international address capability
• Employing an unlimited number of member statuses and types
• Creating additional member demographics from things like spouse names to golf handicaps
• Recording member contact preferences, e.g. using certain designated email addresses for committee notices, others for MLS notifications
• Subscription preferences
• Committee preferences
• Education, certification and designation programs
• Meeting, event and course registrations
• Payments, invoices and orders
• Member call support and call tracking
• Members affiliated with multiple associations or MLSs
• Members with more than one member type (e.g. both a REALTOR® and Affiliate)
• Members holding multiple leadership positions such as President or President-Elect and Director and/or Committee chair, Director and Treasurer,  present association executive  and additional unique local board positions such as Past President Once Removed.
• Members holding multiple licenses and multiple types of licenses (real estate, appraisal) in multiple states.

Staff will be able to…

• Manage Designated REALTORS® who maintain offices in multiple states.
• Track member orientations and complete member histories, as well as view the completed membership application within a member’s profile.
• Track member interactions such as phone calls, services, requests for information and more, then assign these interactions to other staff for follow-up.
• Set up and track association and committee meetings, meetings or appointments with members, and any other association events using an integrated calendar function.
• Synchronize events to individual staff calendars in both the RAMCO system and Outlook using an optional Outlook plug-in.

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RAMCO comes with a library of pre-configured reports for different modules but also allows you to…

• Create customized reports using any standard or custom field in the system filtered by date range, greater/less than, and many other criteria where needed.
• Save exports or reports in multiple formats (Excel, PDF, HTML, XML, TIFF, and Microsoft™ Word).
• Design and format reports and data merges using custom branding and layouts.
• Schedule reports to run automatically at pre-set times
• Save all queries used to generate reports for later use.
• Output reports with rich information in visual formats such as charts and graphs.

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• Role or position/person-based “user permissions” can be used to control users’ and groups’ access to and within specific modules within the system such as accounting and professional standards.

• Groups and teams can be assigned restricted access to categories of call tracking, such as legal hotline, professional standards, confidential personnel or corporate matters and other sensitive records.

• A rich audit log tracks all changes to member data made by not only your staff, but also any authorized 3rd parties accessing your data through the APIs.  The audit log shows the old and the new value, making it easy to track changes and revert to older information, if necessary.

• Where possible, the system conforms to PCI standards.  Complete credit card numbers are not stored and information within the system can be restricted on a “need to know” basis.

• The web portal will support strong, two-factor authentication to help protect users against unauthorized access.

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With RAMCO, association staff responsible for managing dues billings can:

• Generate orders and invoices for different dues schedules based on member types.
• Offer multiple dues payment options (annual, quarterly, monthly) to members.
• Manage recurring cycles for dues with automation tools and reminders.
• Give dues waivers for special member types as well as special circumstances.
• Prorated dues based on a set of options or on a custom schedule.
• Create add-on fees for dues invoices such as processing fees, political contributions and other custom add-on fees.
• View payment history can be viewed within a member’s record for easy reference.
• Dues can be automatically split among local, state and national association, and split single payments between multiple general ledger numbers.
• Account balances can be tracked and managed
• Dues payments can be imported from Excel or exported to an Excel file for import into QuickBooks, Great Plains and Peachtree accounting packages.

Staff can generate orders and invoices for products and services.

• Orders can be amended after creation for increased flexibility.
• Integration with NAR e-Commerce gateway allows processing dues, event registration, course registration, product purchases and other payments.
• All system modules such as events, courses and inventory, have an integrated feature for processing credit cards directly from a member or non-member’s record.
• Track contributions made to foundations, scholarships and special funds you manage.

You will be able to…

• Provide members the option to choose their own payment schedule for dues: monthly, quarterly, annually.

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Using RAMCO’s Committee Module, staff can:

• Create and manage committee descriptions.
• Manage committee members.
• Schedule meetings for committees through the AMS administrator interface.
• Send emails to all committee members using the “quick email” function.
• Attach files, such as agendas and other documents, to committees for easy reference.
• If the optional Sitefinity CMS is used, entire committee membership rosters can be displayed on the association web site.

Within that same module, members can…

• Volunteer for committees online.
• Be automatically appointed to “open” committee, i.e. those not requiring pre-approval  or other selection process, and receive an e-mail confirmation of their appointment.
• View their current committee assignments online.  Staff can view an individual’s committee membership history within their member record, and export the entire history to Excel.
• Recommend other members for service on particular committees as with the present NAR committee appointment system.

• Committee chairpersons can upload documents to the secure web portal that can be downloaded by their committee members.

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RAMCO includes full-featured Event and Course modules that allow staff to:

• Create and manage events of various sizes and types.
• Create sub-events within an event, such as breakouts sessions and other activities
• Charge different prices based on such criteria as payment date (e.g. early bird or late registration) as well as profile information (e.g. member status, member of another association, committee members, general public, affiliate and any other data field criteria you set.).
• Clone existing events to save time and retain valuable content.
• Manage courses and information including description, price, date, dependencies (this course is required before other courses may be taken), and prerequisites (other courses are required before this course may be taken).
• Attach continuing education and designation class to events
• Associate events with categories and sub-categories for easy filtering.
• Track exhibitors and exhibit booths including remaining availability, sizes, pricing, notes, and more.
• Track course attendance.
• View all course attendance history in a member’s record
• Track grades, certifications and designations in a member’s record.
• Create recurring education requirements such as Quadrennial Ethics that can be tracked in a member’s record.
• Create custom automated actions that occur when a member fails to complete certain education requirements such as a notification letter.
• Export the history of all CE course completions to and Excel file that can then be imported or used by state licensing boards.

Using the RAMCO integrated web portal, members and non-members can:

• Register and pay for courses, conventions and other events online.
• Log in so that registration forms will be pre-filled with information from their account.
• Register multiple attendees for a course or event and pay in a single transaction.
• Be added to a waitlist once a course has reached capacity.
• Save event information to ICS (iCalendar) format so it can be added directly to their calendar.
• Receive confirmation emails regardless of whether they registered themselves or a staff person registered them through the administrator interface.
• Receive automatic email updates and notifications of changes to course details, dates, locations and course cancellations.
• Cancel course registrations online. Association staff can retain portions of a registration fee (cancellation fee, etc).
• Once the course is completed, print a course completion or continuing education certificate online through the web portal.

Using RAMCO’s powerful tracking capabilities, your staff can…

• Track and award designations and certifications automatically based on completion of a set of required courses.
• Define the courses required for each certification or designation awarded by the association.
• Create a custom cycle for CE hours (every two years, every four years, etc). Then, during the cycle CE hours earned by a member will accumulate and when the cycle resets, those hours will also reset. This will allow an accurate total of a member’s CE hours at any given point.
• Track logistical and other requirements for events and courses such as AV equipment needs, task lists for room setup, staff assignments and more.
• Generate automated feedback on courses or events through emails sent afterward to attendees with a link to an online survey

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Boost your non-dues income with a system that lets your staff…

• Properly manage your inventory of products and services by entering product names, descriptions, types, sizes and price levels
• Create additional custom description fields for items in inventory
• Market products using an integrated point-of-sale system
• Track up-to-the-minute inventory on hand.
• Employ automated programs to remind them of low inventory totals and the need to restock.
• Sell products through an online store inside the web portal and automatically charge different prices for products based on a wide variety of criteria in a member record.
• Create promotional codes for members to receive discounts on products as determined by association staff.
• Automatically generate email receipts as well as allow purchasers to print their receipt online.

Members and non-members can view records of past purchases using the web portal and staff can view a history of purchases within a record.

With this release you will be able to…

• Create digital and “intangible” products to sell on the web portal. Digital products can include MP3 files, documents and PDFs, video files and more. Access to products can be based on set number of downloads or the length of time a file or webpage is available after purchase.
• Make your order management more robust through the addition of a “backordered” shipment status.
• Track inventory and sales at more than one physical location (i.e. a branch office).

Members will be able to…

• Set different preferred mailing addresses for each subscription in their profile.
• Receive automatic renewal reminders before their subscriptions expire.

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Government affairs and PAC management tools in RAMCO allow association staff to:

• Track and manage RPAC donations, pledges and solicitations.
• Create custom PAC award levels and automatically assign them to members based on donation history. (RPAC award levels will still be awarded by the National Association)
• Manually set the recognized year for contributions for flexibility in tracking current and future donations as well as pledges.
• View a member’s contribution and pledge history.
• View a member’s contribution payment type (credit card, check, etc) as well as where the contribution came from such as the dues billing or RPAC auction
• Perform manual entry outside of dues and import payment information from state association.
• Audit local contributions for accuracy for statewide election reports, as well as audit them against state PAC contributions.
• Export contributions and history to Excel for transmission to the state or other local for re-import into their own system.
• Import contribution lists received in Excel formats with the ability to identify/ignore duplicate contributions.
• Track a member’s political district information for all levels of government and allow custom field creation to track additional information.

This release will take RPAC reporting to the next level by allowing you to…

• Create issues mobilization campaigns and manage tasks, reminders and staff resources using integrated tools and automated reminders.
• Track the responses to calls-for-action made through NAR’s legislative and grassroots advocacy partner, Convio.
• Credit a member’s contribution to their primary association by default or override this feature as necessary.
• Generate contribution reports for compliance with state boards of elections.
• Cross-reference contributions with political districts to identify active contributors in specific areas of their association’s service area.