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Ask Slashdot: Software To Visualize, Manage Homeowner's Association Projects?
New submitter jishak writes: I am a long time Slashdot reader who has been serving on an homeowner association (HOA) board for 7 years. Much of the job requires managing projects that happen around the community. For example, landscaping, plumbing, building maintenance, etc. Pretty much all the vendors work with paper or a management company scans the paper, giving us a digital version. I am looking for suggestions on tools to visualize and manage projects using maps/geolocation software to see where jobs are happening and track work, if that makes sense. I did a rudimentary search but didn't really find anything other than a couple of companies who make map software which is good for placing static items like a building on a map but not for ongoing work. There are tools like Visio or Autodesk, which are expensive and good for a single building, but they don't seem so practical for an entire community of 80 units with very little funds (I am a volunteer board member). The other software packages I have seen are more like general project management or CRM tools but they are of no use to track where trees are planted, which units have had termite inspections, etc.
I am looking for tools where I could see a map and add custom layers for different projects that can be enabled/disabled or show historical changes. If it is web based and can be shared for use among other board members, property managers, and vendors, or viewable on a phone or tablet, that would be a plus. I am not sure how to proceed and a quick search on Slashdot didn't really turn anything up. I can't be the first person to encounter this type of problem. Readers of Slashdot what do you recommend? If I go down the road of having to roll my own solution, can you offer ideas on how to implement it? I am open to suggestions.
I am looking for tools where I could see a map and add custom layers for different projects that can be enabled/disabled or show historical changes. If it is web based and can be shared for use among other board members, property managers, and vendors, or viewable on a phone or tablet, that would be a plus. I am not sure how to proceed and a quick search on Slashdot didn't really turn anything up. I can't be the first person to encounter this type of problem. Readers of Slashdot what do you recommend? If I go down the road of having to roll my own solution, can you offer ideas on how to implement it? I am open to suggestions.
Does your HOA restrict antennas? A lot do, and thus I've avoided them all of my life. Ham radio operators should be allowed to live where everyone else lives, and pursue their hobby freely. It's sort of like the HOA has some sort of anti-nerd discrimination. People also have the right to receive television over the air without being constrained to poor indoor antennas.
Bruce Perens.
https://www.mapbox.com/
Not exactly proect management oriented, but could be an easy bolt on to Trello or your project management tool of choice
"A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on." - Sir Winston Churchill
Reduce the HOA powers as quickly as feasible, reduce the HOA activities to the bare minimum required to maintain common areas.
I was in an HOA neighborhood for 10 years, the first 7 were cool - the last 3 were a living hell as busybodies took over the board and started spending the dues on enforcement activities that generated fines to pay for pet projects. I've been gone for 5 years now and I understand that the place is still bouncing in and out of HOA hell: calling in the sheriff to oversee vote counts, etc. And, all the while, only about 30% of the neighborhood even gets involved in the proceedings - they're 90% upset about the results, but can't be bothered to show up at 7pm on a Tuesday to try to straighten out what "will of the majority" actually means.
QGIS is pretty full featured & free.
Try QGIS ( https://qgis.org/en/site/ )
Set up your projects as Entitys in Drupal 8, with a Geolocation Field ( https://www.drupal.org/project/geolocation ). The other fields should be Name, Description, a File Field for whatever documents you want to upload, probably a Date field, and whatever other fields you want to track in the project. If you wanted Organic Groups you'd still have to do it in Drupal 7. If you were going Drupal 7 you could do CiviCRM with Drupal 7, and cover your group access to individual nodes, (with Geolocation Fields!) etc. You could use the Entity API to configure group/individual access to project Entitys in Drupal 8.
Why not use Qgis ?
it is under the gpl license and FREE
uses GRASS and GDAL for the backend of the qt GUI
"I don't pitch OpenSUSE Linux to my friends, i let Microsoft do it for me
Either you're a masochist or you're trolling. This is NOT the place to ask for any advice relating to HOAs unless it's which octane of gasoline to use and how many road flares..
You know, some of us are on the board and at the meetings because no one else will do it.
Without someone there to make sure the bills get paid and the maintenance gets done, well, the whole place goes to shit.
Sure, shoot us.
We have the usual annual reports with lots of tables of numbers. I'd like to create graphs or pie charts to put into perspective costs of various things. Better illustrate the money pits of real vs imaginary. Some claim we can save lots of money with energy efficient lights but is it really the water costs. Letting the landscape turn to dirt will save water bill but letting value of property decrease not such a good thing. How much can be saved by reduce watering lawns? Maybe not that much. Probably most important is to locate units with dripping faucets or leaky toilet flaps that continually waste water. Yes, I know we all should know how to read financials but I think most cannot (look at most people's spending habits, and majority of companies and govt agencies).
Important vs urgent: Putting off lots of miscellaneous repairs that many seem urgent but maybe not important. Better to put money into something important like a new roof to replace 30 year old roof instead constantly chasing water leaks every time it rains.
Seems to me software is easy, it is the decisions like people complain about security and vandalism but not willing to pay special assessment or significantly raise monthly dues to pay for gated access and security guards.
mfwright@batnet.com
we use them at work for development. some of the crazy OCD devs hate them because the GUI is not exactly how they expect it to be
It seems you would want OpenStreetMap's backend, but unfortunately it is not a simple to setup monolithic software.
Speaking as an HOA board member who tries not to suck, I think there are several common motivations for someone to join an HOA board. From best to worst:
1. To help solve problems and keep your building/neighborhood from turning into a dysfunctional shithole.
2. To attend meetings and socialize, and feel at least somewhat important/relevant to your community.
3. To revel in the awesome power of forcing your neighbors to do follow your command, and hassling them if they don't obey.
If you drive out the type-1 people, or if you are a type-1 person and don't join your HOA board or attend HOA meetings (because HOA's suck!) then you leave the HOA's voting positions open for the other types of people to fill. At best you'll get a bunch of 2's and the HOA will become a social club (possibly entertaining but mostly useless); at worst, enough 3's will show up to make everyone's life miserable.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Just shut the damn thing down, and move to a country side. Good human.
While their offerings look like they are an enterprise company, I will for sure take a look at their ArcGIS Apps Community. Maybe they have a partner who is consumer focused. Thanks for the response.
So you will probably want a database and you also mentioned requirements suited to a GIS. I would set up PostGIS. PostGIS is Postgresql with an add-on for assisting in the storage of geographic elements. And it's all open source! GIS used to be a messy prospect with lots of files in different formats in lots of directories. Now that PostGIS has arrived, you can store all of your data in the database. This is nice because you have the power of a relational database to manage what you can view. You can do queries that result in Maps. Others have mentioned QGIS. QGIS plays nicely with PostGIS. You can start with the database, add in QGIS and later if you need to create a website you can add on open source Leaflet which lets you create interactive maps using JavaScript.
That was the turning point of my life--I went from negative zero to positive zero.
Jeremi
You are absolutely right. I showed up at a board meeting in 2011 to complain about the grass behind my unit dying. The board at the time appointed me their treasurer and empowered me to do something about it. People love to complain about the job their board does but they never want to do it themselves. I have been re-elected or re-appointed every year because once people discover what has to be done, they just abruptly quit. I don't even bother campaigning other then sending the required candidate statement. I have only lost in one year. That year the entire board was all newcomers. They quickly landed themselves in hot water and after people quit they came back and asked me to rejoin the board. I didn't boast or give anyone a hard time. I just showed up, did my job and taught my fellow board members the things they don't know. I enjoyed the time off while I was gone and look forward to the day when there is a full board of people who want to serve that I am no longer needed. The best piece of advice I can give to anyone is this:
Most people just want to be heard and understood. A little bit of empathy goes a long way to solving most problems.
If you don't like the job we do, feel free to join the board and do it better. If you won't volunteer or provide constructive feedback, we can't help you.
Shit makes good fertilizer. Also recommended strongly is the decaying bodies of real estate agents and assessors.
Why not online services? You can put pins on Google maps with fairly exact position and descriptions. You can probably use them to share info with individual home owners.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
There's lots of those, here's one open source example.
http://www.openmaint.org/en
Don't have a slashdot account since I've managed fine to lurk over the years and posting occational comments as AC, so maybe unlikly you'll even see this... BUT:
I have made a web-based system (built on Drupal) just like what you want. I currently maintain it for a telecom/fiber building company for them to keep track of customers, cables, boxes etc. in a project but with very small changes it would work perfectly for you I think. In it you can create any kind of content type and show any and all (as separate layers) on a map. Currently we use Google and OSM as base layers but any map (even custom files) could work as a base layer.
If you are interested send me a mail at christian -at- finnaholm.se
Different municipalities and govt entities use Accela https://www.accela.com/ for managing plans and improvements. I don't know about price, but possibly what you're looking for.
As a HOA board member for a number of years I have to ask...why on earth do you want to associate a collection of fixed mostly static objects with geographic coordinates (or more generally spacial coordinates) as apposed to just using plain old name tags. Don't you really want to know that work/something is going on with 'unit xyz' or the 'clubhouse' or the 'entrance driveway' ,etc. Why do you care what the coordinates of these objects are? Using simple naming locations (ie. db key fields) allows you to utilize any plain relational data base with some API software while avoiding the extra step of calling up a map of where the object is.
I spent years living in an HOA and now, thankfully, am free of their clutches.
My observations:
1) In theory they have benefits - keep the common areas clean, no rusty cars on the front lawn, etc. In practice, the HOA's are just a pain in the ass.
2) When you buy a home in an HOA community you think you "own" the home - but you don't. You sign over the right to have the HOA levy fines and sanctions against you if you fail to follow one of their many rules and regulations. If you choose to challenge the ruling you have to take them to court, at your expense. The HOA court fees will be paid for from HOA dues.
3) You give them the right to tell you what kind of trees you can plant, what color you can paint your house, what you can keep in your driveway and in some cases what you store in your backyard.
4) Unlike mortgage interest, HOA dues are not tax deductable.
5) Unlike mortgage interest, HOA dues never go down. They always go up.
6) If someone lodges a complain against you the HOA will not tell you who made the complaint. This immediately pits you against everyone that lives there. Any one of them could have made the anonymous call.
Oh - just go with MS Project :-)
HOA's are a screwed up concept. Just shut the thing down. They spend too much time telling other people what they can do with their homes, how they can do it. what color paint they can use. FUCK THEM! I refuse to buy a home if it's part of an HOA! I've passed many times on homes because of them. They should be banned outright!
Do yourself a favor - get off the HOA board, and band together with your neighbors to dissolve it. Your doing nothing but HARM, your doing NO GOOD.
The Truth is a Virus!!!
Or given the request for cheap, go FOSS:
https://www.freecadweb.org/ - Cad software that even uses autodesk's DWG file format
http://www.ganttproject.biz/ - Gantt Project, an open source version of Microsoft Project
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
I'm a developer that's worked with HOA management for a decade. I've developed an HOA-specific web CRM (MySQL/MariaDB based) that can help with what you need (extractable data available in various formats through web portals that you can put into Excel or any of the GIS tools mentioned by other posters - Excel is my recommendation). There are also many commercial packages for HOA management (TOPS, AV, Yardee, Caliber come to mind) that can help with project tracking, but they tend to lock-in your data (the idea is that you're perpetually stuck using that software and can never get a DB dump), often aren't web based, and are usually too expensive for a single HOA.
But... the problem you'll encounter is that, unless you are willing to spend more money and personally have the discipline to constantly do the work to properly categorize each project (inspection, landscaping, plumbing, roofing, electrical, etc) and each update for each project in the CRM, which is a lot of additional work for you AND your vendors, neither your vendors nor your management company will do it for you. There's no ROI for them, and an 80-unit hands-on board with (self-admittedly) little money is too much hassle for too little return. What do they have to gain from this tracking except for board members trying to tell them how to do their job and hassling them about progress? If you're too much hassle, your vendors will drop you and move onto another community until the hands-on board members move out, are ousted, or quit in desperation and your HOA comes begging for management.
Your job as a board member is not "managing projects that happen around the community" as you say. It is to hire competent vendors and/or a management company that manage these project details and then let them do their job to get to the end result. There's an old adage about the cost of service "if you watch," "if you help," and "if you tell me how to do my job." When vendors bid on a project, most HOAs look for lowest cost, but some ask for the moon - to get the end result you seek (the value of which is dubious imo) you'll need to raise dues and pay your vendor/manager more to spend the extra time interacting with you. Do that first and then worry about which software to use.
1. To help solve problems and keep your building/neighborhood from turning into a dysfunctional shithole.
2. To attend meetings and socialize, and feel at least somewhat important/relevant to your community.
3. To revel in the awesome power of forcing your neighbors to do follow your command, and hassling them if they don't obey.
You forgot the most important:
4. Your HOA has an awesome ability to screw you financially.
2 ways to do this: Enter into bad contracts, and/or don't do the required maintenance so your investment literally rots.
I was president of an 80 unit condo HOA for 8 years. I never had any trouble keeping up with the work being done, it was much easier than keeping up with my project schedule at work..
Tools? Project software (MS Project et al) if you really need to schedule stuff. Libreoffice Draw is a Visio clone that does everything I've asked of it.
Use Quickbooks for accounting and MS Office files loaded with VB scripts for all your custom computing needs. Be sure to browse using IE with Flash Player and JRE installed. Save bandwidth by only running updates monthly. HTH!
>:-)
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
It's free, its fairly accurate, and you can make layers and pins and other stuff on your own, each with their own little details and what not.
Anything else is simply bullshit.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
1. To help solve problems and keep your building/neighborhood from turning into a dysfunctional shithole.
2. To attend meetings and socialize, and feel at least somewhat important/relevant to your community.
3. To revel in the awesome power of forcing your neighbors to do follow your command, and hassling them if they don't obey.
I would add a 4th type. These aren't the power hungry crazy leaders like #3 but rather followers to a fault. These are the people who feel like the HOA rules are to be followed no matter what because that is what is written. These people would fit right in with the people at Auschwitz who were "just following orders". These people can be some of the worst to deal but they have a secret weakness. They thrive on following the rules so showing them that other rules (like FCC rules) trumps their homeowner association rules or by getting the votes to change the rules, they are happy to comply. They don't actually care what the rules are just that everyone follows them.
absolutely right. Nobody steps up to the plate. If the HOA board members restricted themselves to "paying the bills" that would be great, but too often they decide someone flying a flag off their balcony is a "violation." That's when it gets weird. Pay the bills, but don't pretend to be a morals cop. Living in an HOA-run neighborhood can be very much like living under a totalitarian state, with Walter Mitty petty dictators telling you what to do with your own property.
How about a moderation of -1 pedantic.
So, you're looking for Tools to micro-manage your HOA?
Isn't that who you elected?!
The HOA existed before him. The choice now is, do you want a good person running it, or a bad person. Since all the good people get run off, that only leaves bad people. HOAs sometimes are "good". Shared spaces, parking, gardens, may be jointly held. Someone has to manage those. HOAs aren't all about letting you pick between the two approved colors to paint your house.
Learn to love Alaska
Ok, I'm aware this post is a bit off-subject, but I think the message is important enough. I understand the impulse to downvote, but please consider my good intentions. Thanks!
I won't even need to post a URL here; please Google "nextdoor seized" and click on the top response. It should be about Dawson Neighborhood's community being seized from the neighbors who launched it, and handed to their hostile NA, who was the reason an alternate, free-speech forum was needed.
As one of the admins "Leads" of that neighborhood forum, I had hopes that Nextdoor would eventually provide superior tools to keep track of neighborhood projects, post up-to-date public information, and foster a good working environment organically. Nextdoor wants none of these things. They want your names, addresses, examples of what causes you're behind, and a ranking of how much of an "influencer" you are. Marketing anchors. And they embed ads everywhere. They have a mass of vague "Guidelines" which Nextdoor staff will use to argue for either side, based on their flip whims. It's thought that they will be abusive and obstinate to people who have racked up some "ignores" by other neighbors, and that they'll be supportive and helpful to the successful "influencers."
Nextdoor seems like a great place to launch an "alternate" forum for neighbors who are frustrated with their Mgt, NA or HOA's forums or mailing lists, and Nextdoor will tell you that they'll protect you. After you get hundreds of people to join, and in spite of open harassment by members of your NA/HOA's board, they'll then boot you off and hand the forum directly to your rivals. Picture your Facebook "Frozen" fan group being taken from you and handed to Disney because "you'll agree they can do a better job." I'm paraphrasing actual bullshit emailed to me from ND.
Unfortunately, Nextdoor is not an improvement over a PHPbb board, Yahoo Group or similar platform. It doesn't have organizational tools that are neighborhood-oriented, it merely has pre-labeled sections for these things and nags you to do other "neighborly" (data entry) tasks. It saves some set-up time, and it has a proprietary "app". The kids all love "apps", right?
Please visit the website for more details. tinyurl slash dawsonseized should work if Google shuffles responses differently for you. We've got a long list of reference sites stuffed with complaints about ND, and comments by visitors sharing their accounts too. We need to get the word out that NEXTDOOR doesn't have the DNA for free speech or neighborhood discourse. They've demonstrated that they know they have people by the balls and they enjoy it.
If you're thinking of using Nextdoor, please steer clear.
If you're one of the many people who have glimpsed Nextdoor's deceitful and authoritarian underbelly, please write about it! The Press usually does nothing but write ND up as a feel-good neighborhood-coming-together puff piece. Nextdoor is a threat to free speech and democracy. They need to be exposed!
I see comments like this as example this country has lost confidence and trust in institutions (govt agencies, corporations, churches, non-profits). Yes, there are some pretty bad outfits but it seems these days everyone wants to trash everything from agencies that ensure your water supply doesn't go Flint to a simple church that has monthly dance parties. And yes we have tenants that say HOA board does nothing to get rid of HOA. Then with no rules or regulation everything will be beautiful like Somalia that has no rules or regulation.
mfwright@batnet.com
AMEN! I went to one HOA meeting. Some busybodies were complaining of a semi-tractor (not trailer) parked by a house. They demanded it be removed. Turns out the tractor was someone visiting that house. And it was parked correctly. And the street was plenty wide. And the busybodies also parked their cars in the street.
Sadly there's not exactly a good open source or otherwise no-cost solution but this would work very well for HOAs if only we could get more to use it.
Less than $10 from Amazon https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01A...
Nothing to do with software, Davis Stirling website has lots of material about HOAs of what they can do, what they cannot do. Newsletters are educational and entertaining, https://www.davis-stirling.com...
mfwright@batnet.com
A neighborhood without an HOA is not a Somalia.
HOAs are for people who enjoy conformity and sameness.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Try Bazinga, which is out of Vancouver. https://mybazinga.com/ "A complete suite of software and services to support you as you manage your community, collaborate with your board or strata council, and stay connected to your residents."
sig = null;
Kind of a late question and nothing to do with software but enforcing HOA rules, how much and what is practical? Some HOAs very relaxed. others have authority zealots. I read a couple on this list say HOA rules should be a minimum so focus only on important common areas (not have to be a cop for the complex). Of course there is always debate on what is important and what is not.
However with a condo with buildings like apartments, example of one unit has plumbing problems that cause flood water damage in another unit downstairs. Sometimes responsible party will have that repaired (and those responsible ensure they have HO6 insurance). Others do not so damaged unit wants the HOA board to take action. Or adjacent unit has a lot of noisy activities late at night, victimed unit wants HOA to take action. However with it being a condo, HOA doesn't have authority like landlord (you better do this or you kicked out). Besides writing a stern letter, impose fines? Under what legal authority if any? Some board members enjoy being cops, others want to avoid confrontation (latter understandably if unit in question is occupied by "large dudes").
At HOA board meetings, many attendees complain about certain units do this and that, what will the Board do about it? Or one unit is experiencing problems from another and they won't answer, Board says it cannot disclose contact information which person making the complaint finds it very troubling as it implies the Board will do nothing. Sometimes it seems Board can only say "you deal with it, it is none of our business" (analogous to single family homes where one house has problem people, the others have to deal with it by either banging on the door or calling the cops).
mfwright@batnet.com