In the News: Luxury Student Housing

“Gone are the days when a community room with a television and Ping-Pong table was considered a bonus. The student housing sector is transforming to accommodate residents’ increasingly upscale requirements,” writes Barbra Murray in her article "Innovative Student Housing Plans 830-Bed Project at University of Louisville." And the University of Louisville is far from the only target; Murray mentions several sites where luxury student housing projects are already in the works, including University of Mississippi and Arizona State. This new trend means properties will feature amenities like pools and gourmet kitchens, and the article even mentions one student housing project that will include a tanning facility! As Murray writes, “This is not your father’s student apartment.”

So what does this mean for BuildingLink? Well, besides wishing we had all attended colleges in this new era of pillow-top beds and memory foam mattresses, we recognize that our platform could be utilized to help these new luxury buildings run as smoothly as possible. With increased amenities and a luxury atmosphere, these properties will likely function in much the same way as luxury rental buildings; they will need to track maintenance, amenity reservations, even deliveries (if there are front desk operations).

And that’s where we come in. Our reservations module would allow students to enter reservation requests from their own computers/phones, and be easily approved or declined.  When Busy Student X was slowed down by a faulty light bulb, he/she would quickly enter an online maintenance request—which would go directly to the right person. And when Frazzled Staff Member Y completed that request, he/she wouldn’t have to worry about notifying that busy student—because BuildingLink would have already sent out an automatic email notification! Deliveries would be a breeze with our Event Log, which tracks packages and other items coming into the building, again with the automatic notifications! And if there happened to be an emergency on campus, or in the building, our Emergency Broadcast System could be used to get the word out quickly and effectively.

Students can be demanding.  And BuildingLink is ready to help property managers meet those demands. Now about those pillow-top beds—maybe it’s time for some more schoolin’!

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Software Update: Enhanced Password Privacy

At BuildingLink, we are all about security and accountability, and our customers use our software to help them achieve those very things! Recently, we've made several changes to even further enhance internal security, specifically with regards to password privacy and logins.

Going forward, users or managers will never be able to retrieve or otherwise view any password, including their own, once that password has been changed from the original system-generated password.

This means that when a user fills out the "Forgot Password" page, they will now be emailed a link that they can click on (for up to 24 hours) to reset their password to a new value. Their old password value will not be emailed to them, ever.

This also means that when a manager wishes to help out a resident by "emailing" or "printing out" their login info, a new password will first be automatically generated and only then will the manager have access to the "Email/Print Login Info" screen. ( Exception: If the current login was never changed by the resident from the automatic system-generated value, the "reset" step will be skipped.)

With this change, BuildingLink is following best practices for protecting Password Privacy, while still preserving management's ability to assist users who need to be given login/password info for their account, and still preserving residents' ability to self-recover from a forgotten-password situation.

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New Functionality: Vendors Directory

If you aren't yet familiar with our new Vendors Directory, which allows you to store contact information for outside contractors and vendors, assign them maintenance requests, and even directly email them their maintenance requests, check out our video. We'll explain how it all works, and give you an idea of how to get started. Be sure to contact us with additional questions and let us know what you think!

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BuildingLink City Profile: Austin, TX

Austin is known for its music scene, universities, and “techie” folk, but did you know it’s also home to quite a number of BuildingLink buildings? Yes, we are in Austin! And we love it! Here are just a few reasons why:

The Technical Companies:

A directory of "Silicon Hills" (Austin's own "Silicon Valley") lists over 100 technical companies in the Austin area. This makes Austin a fairly tech-savvy town. In fact, many Austin organizations and businesses were some of the first to be noticed on the Internet because of the large number of "techie" folks in Austin. So yeah…we fit right in.

The Music Scene:

Austin is a music industry mecca. Home to South by Southwest (abbreviated SXSW), a large music and film festival that has put Austin on the entertainment map, Austin has a large and varied selection of artists performing all over town.  If you don’t know so already, most of us at BuildingLink are also musicians…and all of us have a creative side! So whenever we’re in Austin, you can bet we’ll catch a show or two.

The Capitol:

Austin houses the Texas Capitol, and is home to many leaders (like Congress members and the governor).  Who doesn’t love those big, grand government buildings?
 

The Love:

Turns out not only do we love Austin, but Austin loves us! A manager at one of our properties had this to say about BuildingLink:

The staff and more importantly our residents have taken to it like a fish to water.  As you know, previously we did not accept possession resident unit keys for purposes of distribution to vendors, guests and service providers etc. due to liability concerns and no true accountable form of a chain of custody for the keys. KeyLink has instantly changed all that, our residents love it – the ease of use, the email notifications and detailed reporting are great. Thank you and all at BuildingLink for all that you do, for being so proactive in constantly adding new products and services that make our day to day operations so much more efficient."

We anticipate continuing our great relationships in Austin and developing many new ones in the coming year!  Just for fun, we’ll leave you with some Austin celebrities. 

Note:  We do ask that if you decide to relocate to Austin in the hopes of meeting anyone on the celebrity list, you choose a BuildingLink building for your new home :p

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Software Update: Start Date for Instructions

Our buildings find the "Instructions" module in BuildingLink--a place where they can track permissions-to-enter, do-not-allows, housekeeper visits, and other resident instructions--to be one of the most valuable tools for front desk staff in BuildingLink's arsenal. As you probably already noticed, we’ve recently made that tool even more powerful by adding a “start date” function. Now, you can enter the text of your instruction, pick the date when it should take effect, and pick the date when it should expire—all upon your initial entry.

Instructions that have a “future” start date will show up on the main Current Instructions grid when that date is reached. But you can still see your Future Instructions by clicking on the Instructions “Settings” bar, where you’ll also be able to see “Newly Added” instructions (all instructions added in the last 24 hours).

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