Today's update includes SSO (Single Sign-On) capability, an option to distribute levies evenly across all levy periods when setting up budgets, and a quick method of emailing contacts directly from the platform.
You'll also notice a change to the taskbar when you log into the platform for the first time after the update.
Features
New Taskbar
The taskbar in Urbanise has been updated to display some information at the top right of the screen. The taskbar now displays today's date and the Task List can now be accessed directly from the main taskbar. When selecting the Important and Open tasks buttons, the relevant screen will automatically load to display the logged-in user's tasks.
Budget
When viewing the budget screen, two new buttons are available to distribute the Admin and Maintenance Levies to be Raised evenly across all levy periods.
When editing the proposed budget, simply click the Disburse across levy periods button for each fund then review the automated distribution amounts.
SSO Integration
SSO integration is now available to support Microsoft Activity Directory, Google, and other services.
If your organisation uses Microsoft Active Directory or Google Enterprise services, you will soon be able to login to Urbanise Strata using your organisation credentials. This means fewer passwords and usernames to manage for your applications and a quicker, more efficient sign-in process!
The use of SSO is optional and will be made available via two additional buttons on the Urbanise Strata login screen. If your organisation doesn't support SSO or you wish to login in without it, simply continue to use the Urbanise Strata login page as normal. Related Article: FAQ | Single Sign-On (SSO) Integration
Unknown Payments
A new feature is available to allow unknown payments to be created and posted to General Ledger for the purposes of matching unknown transactions to bank statements. Related Article: FAQ | Unknown Payments
Email links
When navigating the Urbanise Strata platform, email addresses in some screens are now mailto links, which allows the user to click the email address to launch their email application with the email address pre-filled. When an email address is a mailto link it displays in blue text.
The following screens have been updated with this feature:
Owner Address Book
Associated Contacts
Suppliers
Preferred Suppliers
Unit Comms
Committee Members
Mortgagees
Caretakers
Tenants
Work Orders
A new option has been added to the Work Orders screen to allow records to be filtered by strata manager. The default option under Manager will be All, and can be changed to select a specific manager.
Scheduled Disbursements
When running Scheduled Disbursements, the transactions will now be sent via a batch for processing. The status of the batch job can be monitored on the Batch Jobs screen.
New Region - Tasmania
When adding new properties, a new region is now available for Tasmania in the Plan Details section. When this region is selected, some terminology in the platform will change accordingly.
Terminology
A number of terminology changes have been implemented for NSW and DXB regions.
Bank Accounts
When setting up bank accounts, the option to store the Download Group Number is now available for all banks.
Issue Fees
When a plan does not have sufficient funds to cover an Accounts Payable invoice, an invoice will now be raised during the Issue Fees process. Previously, no invoice was raised for plans with insufficient funds.
Additional Charges The following changes were implemented in this area:
When viewing a task, the screen will clearly display when a task is already assigned to an Additional Charge invoice
A task cannot be assigned to multiple Additional Charge Invoices
To resolve an issue with bank reconciliations, the invoice number allocated to Additional Charge invoices has been shortened and now includes only the plan number and a unique number.
ePost The following enhancements were made to ePost functionality:
The ePost Activity Log now displays the Job Status
A notification email is sent to the user when an issue occurs with a print job
The graph on the ePost Settings screen has been updated to correctly reflect historical activity based on the date
To assist with troubleshooting, the ePost log for each item now displays the following details:
- Pages (the number of pages in the job)
- Colour (true/false)
- Last Response (date and time of the return JSON)
- Response (details of the “message” parameter in the return JSON)
File Download
When downloading property files, clicking the Download All button initiated a download in the background and provided no feedback to the user as to the download process. A change has been made to prompt the user to save the file before the download initiates, or directly download the file using the browser’s download progress, dependent on the browser's default settings.
Task Triggers: CP Rental Agreement
The default days before expiry can now be modified for the task triggers related to Common Property Rental Agreement.
Fixes
Additional validation has been added to improve the rounding of GST for BAS Returns.
In some instances, links in task descriptions did not load the correct information. This has been resolved.
The Dashboard has been updated to correctly display the default number of days remaining under Financial Year End for all months.
The filter method for General Journals has been changed to allow all transferred records for all managers to display.