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.

Comments

One thing to check into

[mistcat]

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

Re:One thing to check into

[stephanruby]

If I were you, I would try to avoid over-engineering the visualizations.

With that in mind, I'd suggest 3-D Maps with Excel (but not Visio).
https://support.office.com/en-...
It's part of Microsoft Office 360 and as a non-profit, you should be able to get a discount for the monthly subscription.

Or you could use a map add-on with Google Sheets.
https://chrome.google.com/webs...
https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/...

You could even draw or upload your own private map as a layer.
https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/...

Re:HOA's aren't all nice

[supremebob]

You know that's not legal, right? The FCC has rules against restricting the erection of antenna on your property:

https://www.groundedreason.com...

Re:HOA's aren't all nice

[Bruce Perens]

Radio Amateurs don't have the same legal protection. Yet. But given that television antennas are protected, discriminating by the sort of content carried is a legally problematical stance.

Statistics

[k6mfw]

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.

Re:Statistics

[Sarten-X]

For a while, I worked in a financial management office. For what you describe, the best tool I've ever seen was a plain spreadsheet in capable hands.

Every expense gets broken down, and per-unit costs (like price per gallon of water) are filled out in one section. Every adjustable parameter (like number of toilets) goes in another section, and all of the system rules (like number of gallons/minute wasted) go in a third section. Finally, all of the results go in the last section, accompanied by all of the charts and projections.

When presenting, the first two sections are discussed first, and the client (or HOA board) gets to put in whatever numbers they think are realistic. Then you switch to the end, and they see the computed cost of everything, exactly as their own numbers work out. That shows in plain view how their money is spent, confronting their assumptions. After that, you can go back and show hypothetical fixes (like lowering the number of leaky toilets), and show the changes in outcome. It tends to be very convincing to see almost all of their own numbers driving the output.

Re:Recommendation:

[Jeremi]

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.

PostGIS

[Billy the Mountain]

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.

It's usually called Facility Management

[nospam007]

There's lots of those, here's one open source example.

http://www.openmaint.org/en