It's unbelievable how time goes by when you are having fun. This is exactly what is happening here at GeniePad. Every day is like being a kid and going to the playground, eating skittles, and roasting marshmallows. But instead of going to the playground, it's working on something that helps thousands of people on a daily basis.

Recently I was reflecting on why GeniePad started and what it is today. I wanted to see the progress we have made thus far, and well, what better way to show this than a video?

Think of this video as a living organism. Constantly evolving. That is what software development is. We add a little bit of functionality, test it, wait for your feedback, and if everyone is happy we release it to every single condo building using GeniePad. Then the process repeats. 

This timelapse video is of 2 years of GeniePad development compressed into 1 minute and 30 seconds. The little user icons flying around and shooting lasers, lets call them Genies, are software developers, making improvements and additions to the GeniePad source code. The little dots at the end of the branches, or leaves, are various files of the application being added or updated by the Genies. 

You can see how what you use today has grown and evolved from the day it started.

Since we are board members and condo residents ourselves, and use GeniePad on a daily basis, we want to make it the best condo communication website. This is the reason why GeniePad will always be evolving, improving, and providing you the best service.

Here at GeniePad, we are always committed to providing the best possible solution to our clients.  We are happy to report that a new feature has been added to your GeniePad communication portal.

Many property managers and board members have requested a feature that will allow them to assign and track tasks within their building.  So we listened, planned, developed, and now you have this brand new feature! 

The Tasks feature is available to administratos such as board members and property managers. You can create, assign and track the tasks and their history. 

We invite you to view our tutorial video to take full advantage of this new feature. 

This is the first part of the Tasks functionality. We already have some additions planned that we will implement in the coming months. But before we do that, we would love to hear any feedback you may have at the moment. 

Enjoy,

The GeniePad Team 

We analyzed the information we have collected on how our users use the dashboard and came to conclusion that it was time to re-design it. As of today, this is what you will see.

From our analysis and user feedback, we saw a huge benefit in grouping same type of information together. Depending on preference, some users prefered documents over forum message, and some prefered news announcements over documents. By grouping the same type of information together, you can easily focus on what you are looking for. 

If you prefer the older list view design, you can still choose it by clicking on the List view link 

We are quite excited about our updates to GeniePad! We are starting to gain great feedback which we really appreciate. We appreciate it because we want to improve our condo website and communication portal, to benefit you, the user.

When we have new users sign up on GeniePad, they love the fact that they can easily contact their condominium board, homeowners association, or property manager. You log into your website, submit your message, and you are done. Quick and efficient. But as more and more users started submitting their messages, we noticed that we could improve this functionality.

Before, the communication was one way. The resident would submit a message and had to wait for a reply. Usually the reply was an e-mail or a phone call. Now, the communication is two way! When someone submits a message, they are able to keep track of it, view comments that the condo board, HOA association, or property manager added, as well as reply to those comments. It's an ongoing conversation, just like comments on the message forum.

Now you are probably wondering, what about security and keeping comments private from the resident. Before the administratos were able to discuss issues in private! Well, we took that under consideration. A resident will only see the replies that are sent to them, by clicking the E-mail this comment to the resident checkbox. Which for administrators, such as condo board or HOA members and property managers are indicated by a Replied to resident note. A resident will not see any comments that are between the administrators. Therefore, the administrators can freely discuss a message with each other, just like before, as shown on the screenshot above.

Now you are probably wondering, what about security and keeping comments private from the resident? Before the administrators were able to discuss issues in private! Well, we took that under consideration. A resident will only see the replies that are sent to them by checking the E-mail this comment to the resident checkbox. The Replied to resident note will indicate that the comment was sent to the resident and this will be the only comment that the resident will see from the administrators. Therefore, the administrators can freely discuss a message with each other, just like before, as shown in the screenshot above.

A resident can easily view his or her messages by going to their profile page and clicking on the "My messages" box.

Once an enquiry is resolved and closed, no further comments will be allowed to that message.

As we try to stay true to our mission, to keep GeniePad as the best condominium and homeowners assocation communication portal, we recently made some small, but great updates to our application.

The first update, which we will inform you of in this post, was to the User's My Profile page. 

Before the update, when a user clicked on the "my profile" link in the top right hand corner of the page, the user was presented with their information, which they could update. Their name, e-mail address, phone number, password, etc.

With the recent update, this page now looks like this.

So why the change you may ask? Now on the my profile page, above, each user will find their own content they have posted on GeniePad. Why is this beneficial? You now have easy access to all your content you have posted within GeniePad. To update your personal information, just click on the My information box.

One major update, which not only we, but all the selected users that have tested this feature love, is the ability to see messages you have sent to the condominum board, homeowners assocation, or your property manager.

By clicking the "My messages" box, you will have a list of all the messages you have submitted. Not only that, when you click on a message, you will be able to see the replies to you, as well as you'll be able to reply to the condominum board, homeowners assocation, or your property manager. More on these features in our next blog post.

Same idea with "My forum messages" and "My classifieds". When you click on one of these boxes, you will see classifieds and forum messages you have posted on GeniePad.

If you have any questions regarding the recent updates, feel free to leave a comment or contact us directly.

We are working on some great new features to help condominium boards, homeowner associations, and property managers in managing tasks, items, and jobs. We will be releasing these new features in small phases.

Over the weekend we released the first update, which may break old links that you may have bookmarked, or received via e-mail notifications. We did our best to make this update as seamless as possible, but unfortunately in order to bring new features to GeniePad there was no way we could go around it. Most of the recent updates are in the background not really noticeable, but necessary for the new features.

One update that will be noticeable, is the ability to see other registered residents in a unit when approving new user accounts. This will provide a quick overview of users registered in the current unit or apartment before approving new users.