How Do You Manage Technology Changes Across Multiple Locations?

Ever wondered how a property management company upgrades critical software across 100 locations without bringing daily operations to a halt? We sit down with Suzane Neiman, VP of Application Systems at RDG Companies, to map the real-world playbook. 

We explore training, AI implementation, and more across multiple property management divisions. Suzanne shares the lessons and experiences she's encountered on the way.

Conversations and insights on property management across the real estate industry, including apartment rentals, student housing, manufactured housing, and commercial properties.

Questions or topic ideas? Contact us at podcast@rentpmi.com

Transcript

Meet Suzane

Crystal 0:00

Hello and welcome to another episode of Pro Talk Property Management. I'm your host, Crystal Mathis, and this is a special IT episode. Joining us today is Suzanne Nyman, Vice President of Application Systems at RDG Companies. Suzanne has been in the IT world for decades and oversees system upgrades and tech support for nearly 100 property locations. So there's really no one better to help us tackle today's topic, which is how do you manage technology changes across multiple locations? Suzanne, thanks for being here and welcome to the podcast.

Suzane 0:35

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for having me today. I look forward to giving you some insight on our upgrade process and how it works best for us.

Crystal 0:42

I am really excited to hear what you have to say today. But first, how did you get into property management IT?

Suzane 0:50

Yeah, so you know, it just starts with an answering an ad with a company. I kind of got lucky to start working for property management 29 years ago. I started working in accounting and doing the payroll processing. I always wanted more. So I kept asking for more and more. I moved over to our construction side of the business. And at that point, we were ready to upgrade software and involved the job costing. So I read the manuals, I wrote the manuals, I did the software upgrade. And at that point, I realized, wow, I really like this. It really fits my desires, my mathematical and logical backgrounds. And I requested the new job that opened up where it was full-time computer support.

Crystal 1:32

Wow. Thank you for sharing that. That's a big jump there from talenting to IT.

Suzane 1:37

Yep, yep, absolutely.

Crystal 1:38

So let's transition to the types of properties that you handle IT for. Could you clarify what kind of property management locations that you oversee from an IT perspective?

Suzane 1:51

Yes, so at this point, I am directly responsible for our commercial division, our construction divisions. Small amount of our HOAs, some of them have moved over to a new software that is self-managing, our manufactured housing division and our accounting division. I indirectly support our residential and affordable divisions, where they have some their own support staff, but needs some guidance from me from my years of experience.

Crystal 2:19

Well, that leads nicely into my next question. Do you aim for uniform tech across all of these locations, or do you customize it per property?

Divisions, Needs, And Non-Uniform Systems

Suzane 2:28

Yes, we more so customize per division. Each division needs, has special needs. They have different, you know, tenants are at a residential property where you have leases at a commercial property, you have owners at manufacture housing. So each of the software applications is written differently and then must be upgraded differently. Some things we can do uniformly, like our receivables policies, our payable policies. But for the most part, we have to evaluate per division, coordinate with those divisions and see what upgrades we could possibly perform.

Crystal 3:07

Do you do that by like location type, by commercial division, HOA division, or do you roll it out by like what's closest to you in case there's any issues and then branch out?

Suzane 3:17

Yes, typically we will test within our home office location. So it's much easier to be right there with the staff that is testing the product, doing more than I could probably do since I don't do their jobs on a day-to-day basis. So if it's a commercial upgrade, we may test with our current location here and the building because it's easier for me to talk to the staff that is managing this building. If it's a residential, it will be our home office managed properties because they work right here in the office. I can work directly with them. So we'll test within a local geographic location. Once we're ready to roll out, we may still do it more on a property-by-property basis, just to make sure, okay, this property operates at has 400 tenants. So maybe there's more challenges there. This property is affordable, but it's a hood property versus a rural development property. So we still may have to break it up into smaller chunks as we're rolling out the upgrade.

Crystal 4:18

And how long does that typically last, that whole process? So from your test group on, like is it a matter of a month or is it a matter of a year or years?

Speaker 1 4:28

It can be a long term. We when we rolled out online leasing, which we started with COVID because people didn't want to be in a, you know, a confined space with each other, they would much rather sign on their phone or their tablet. It took us two to three years, and I still have a manufacturer housing division and our state college group that I'm still trying to roll that completely out to. So it can be very challenging just from, you know, let's say with student housing, their market opens up in a very quick time period. They're trying to lease out in a couple of months, and then it's not again until the next year until we're ready to go. So there's some challenges per each group that we may have faced, but we'll just keep on persevering. So it could take as quickly as three months to a couple of years to roll out completely.

Testing Locally, Rolling Out In Waves

Crystal 5:21

And when you're doing a major rollout or upgrade, do you give any special treatment to individuals or properties or divisions that have trouble acclimating to new technology?

Suzane 5:32

For us, unfortunately, we've grown too big for that. It used to be I could go property by property, sit with the managers, and I knew how to talk to them. I knew them. I I processed their payroll. I worked with them on the accounting. So I knew a lot of them as times have changed and we've become so much bigger. Unfortunately, we've had to do things through Teams applications, we've had to have bigger group meetings and more centralized location. But what I try to do is just always remind them that I'm here for them. And please contact me. I leave my door open, contact me through Teams, email me, whatever method you need to get that help. Because, yes, there are those people that I know are going to reach out to me. Um, and then when I'm talking to them, I remind them it's okay. You're okay. We're here to help you. And my biggest thing is always explaining the whys. Why are we doing this? I'm not trying to make your job more complicated. Uh, we're doing this because we want to make it easier for our tenants, our owners, our clients, and we want to be in the forefront of technology.

Crystal 6:40

I really love that concept you're talking about because you're offering customer service to other staff members by giving them all the tools and resources they need, but then allowing them to directly contact you in case that's not enough for them. But when you're going through that, do you ever get any pushback during that process of people saying, you know, is this really even necessary? Typically they're not saying it to my face.

Suzane 7:08

You know, what will happen, unfortunately, is maybe they don't follow through. We've had incidences where we're trying to get more residents to pay online, you know, instead of the old-fashioned mail us a check where it takes a person to, you know, scan in those checks and a lot of resources. So you can tell the properties that have not embraced, telling their people to pay online, being more forceful about it. So you know where it's not being used, where it's not being understood. In those cases, that's where it's the talking to their management managers and saying, hey, let's let's see if they need a little more training, a little more hand holding. Maybe if they understood it better, then they would be more apt to explain it to their residents. So it's more going up the ladder when we realize that things aren't being utilized properly and seeing what kind of resources could be added for that person.

Crystal 8:00

That makes a lot of sense. And I assume that these changes aren't just decided overnight. What goes into deciding if a system needs updating?

Suzane 8:10

So it's two different kinds of methods. We will go to a conference once a year, either online or in person, and they will be doing their, you know, what I'll call a dog and pony show, showing us all the great features, enhancements. You know, of course, I get excited being the tech nerd that I am. Then it's about a matter of meeting with each division, trying to do that as regularly as possible and saying, where are your pain points? What's going on? What's wrong? Where are your phone calls coming from? Where, what's slowing you down? And then taking what I've learned and what they're telling me, combining together and saying, okay, well, I think it would be much easier if we were signing leases online. So that would help improve your processes. So it's a matter of a combination of both things.

Adoption Hurdles And Manager Buy-In

Crystal 8:55

With technology today, the difficulty of AI changing almost daily to keep up with that. So I might as well just jump into the big AI talk now because we knew it was coming.

Suzane 9:07

Right, absolutely. You got it.

Crystal 9:09

Yeah, yeah. So when did you start realizing that you needed to implement AI changes?

Suzane 9:14

So I'll show you my or tell you my my big biggest use right now for AI. I manage our transactional accounting team that is processing all of the accounts payable for everyone except for our state college group. It is a huge undertaking. When we centralized all of this work, we realized there wasn't enough hours in the day to help get all of this AP process. So we turned to Yardi's AI, smart AP product, and it has been working out great for us. We're still kind of working through the kinks of how to get it to work. You know, how does it work best for the company as a whole before we kind of roll it out completely? But we realized there was a need. We had to do it. It was either hiring two more people or taking advantage of product that actually was free for us as a client of YARDI. So it was a no-brainer there. YARTI is working on their own AI software through what their product called Virtuoso. So kind of leaning towards them to explain to me when is it a good time to implement AI for each division? How is it going to affect each division? Make sure that they've they're really good at testing and then data testing with certain clients and that's so kind of waiting for them for AI. I would love, you know, I take advantage of some of the ChatGPT or co-pilot for our directions and emails and computer support and stuff like that. So of course we're trying to do that because again, there's just not enough hours in a day to help as the company grows, and there's two of two of us doing the software support, one of us doing the hardware support. We got to keep up to help everyone. We need to use AI.

Crystal 11:04

Oh, I absolutely agree with you. But how do you handle the people that disagree? The ones that say, I don't want to use AI, I don't understand it, it doesn't make sense to me. It's the rise of the machines. How do you convince them to use AI?

Choosing What To Upgrade And Why

Suzane 11:20

Well, it was easy with my transactional accounting team. I have a two women, and when I showed them how much AI could save their, you know, they save themselves, they were there going, wow, I'm all on board. I think it's through showing them how it can improve their lives. So both of these women were are right on board. They're using it fully. As far as trying to get people, you know, we've tried to do some of our technology talks and trying to show people how they could easily address an email much better, fix up a letter much better. I'm not sure that we've been able to be successful with that. I'm not sure how we convince them. But I think once we use AI for resident retention, resident onboarding, uh, with the commercial division, maybe automating some of the work order answers where it's 24 hours a day and we don't have staff 24 hours a day. I think once they see it in action, they're gonna be on board.

Crystal 12:23

Well, let's build on that a little bit more. What role do you think AI should play in a modern property management company and their day-to-day operations?

The Big AI Turn: Smart AP And Beyond

Suzane 12:33

Yeah, that's a great question. Everyone that we know wants everything right away on demand. I mean, we can't wait one second for our feed to update, for Amazon to deliver our packages. So property management has to do the same thing. We have people that are out there looking for apartments, wanting a work order answered, wanting to ask a question about our pet policy. So we have to adopt AI as a property management company so that we have a chat bot that is there 24 hours a day ready to answer those questions. It needs to be AI because it needs to be easier for a person to react with. If I just have something that's just telling him we accept dogs that are not Rottweilers, pit bulls, blah, blah, blah. But if it's interacting with the person and they can build off questions and that AI is helping us get that person to sign an application, fully uh invest in a lease, maybe renew with us, that's how we are getting our customers in the door. AI has to happen. We will not be able to keep up, and we want to grow. As an eSOP, we are all invested in the company. So our retirement is better off with less people. It's better off with AI technology, you know, in the end. That's what I'm looking for in my retirement and for all my co-owners. If we can keep growing, adding on more properties, but not adding on software support and someone to fill do more AP, then we've won, you know, with the AI technology.

Crystal 14:12

AI is really fascinating, and I know we could talk the rest of the episode about that, but I want to go back and spend a little bit more time on training. What training methods have you found to be effective?

Suzane 14:24

Yes, unfortunately, training works much better one-on-one. When you can react to the person in their place, some training works better where someone writes their own directions, some training works better where they're reading your directions, some training works better if they take a class, watch the video, take a quiz. Adaption is the big thing. We have to adapt and change. With us growing so fast, we are doing the training mostly through teams and through our group applications, you know, sitting in a big room together, kind of training that way. So it is hard to figure out the best method, but I try and reflect on you know, what are the questions I'm getting asked? How many people are asking me the same question? What do we need to change to make sure that they really understand? Do we need to do another Teams meeting? Do we need to give them a call? Do we need to email a new set of directions? So training has to be ever-changing. We can't just stick with the same thing all the time.

Crystal 15:28

We already talked about uh, you know, the kind of locations and divisions you touch, and you're mentioning large groups of people, and as the company grows, how many people overall are affected by your changes currently?

Speaker 1 15:41

I would say we have a good 300 staff members that are logging into Yarty on a daily basis. So it's a big group of people. Our construction has their own software, which kind of they're doing self-support themselves. But for those other 300 that are doing it, logging in maintenance to do a work order, you know, we we have changes for them all the way up to you know the CFO of the company who has to log in and do their financials. So it affects a lot of people, and we have to make sure the software is up to date and working properly.

Convincing Skeptics With Real Wins

Crystal 16:14

Now that we've talked about the people, what about the properties that adapt at faster or slower speeds?

Suzane 16:21

Yeah, so if we have, let's say, for example, a larger property like our Briarcrest uh townhomes that we manage, where you have four or five staff members there, you may have to go there and be with them in person. Whereas the smaller properties could all get jump onto a teams meeting and we could train them that way. So, I mean, it is it's hard for, like you're saying, division by division has different needs. It may be easier for me in the home office to do something new with her manufactured housing division because they're all here. So I can sit down with them in person, we can work together, and they can walk to my office anytime they want to and ask me a question. It it is very difficult. It's a map, a lot of talking to their management and seeing how did this go over? How are you feeling? Are they really adopting this and kind of interacting with their leadership to make sure everything is working correctly?

Crystal 17:17

So far, I've been asking you about training and rollout, but I want to shift focus for a minute and talk about the technology itself and how you manage software in today's world where a software also needs to connect with another software and everything needs to be integrated so that nothing cracks and you know causes a meltdown. How do you manage all of that?

Training That Actually Sticks

Suzane 17:43

Correct. It is very difficult. A lot of times now that I've been using this software for you know 15, 20 years, I kind of know what does, you know, go what is core to the software. So our work orders are very core to our software. So if commercial says, I really want to use work orders one way, but residential says I want to use it a different way, we have to come up with a compromise. I also will work with YARDI and say, hey, can you look at all of our different plugins, all of our platforms? You know, we're lucky that we're using one software for, you know, let's say 90% of the company. They can look and they'll talk to their teams and make sure our biggest problem will be affordable. There's so many regulations with the affordable software. So we have to make sure that the software that we may upgrade or change will not affect our affordable platform. And again, anything core to our software, we have to make sure that, you know, manufacturer wants to use it one way, residential wants to use it another way, homeowners want to use it one way, commercial wants to use it one way. We have to kind of come together, and me as the peacemaker has to say, okay, how about this? You know, and we we make it all try and happen. And if we if we need to, we change it. You know, if it's not working, we can't hurt other people's jobs just to make someone else's life a little easier. So we have to look at it that way. But I do get a lot of help making sure things are going to flow smoothly.

Crystal 19:10

Do you ever have people saying that they don't want to use the same software as everyone else does? With a company of 300 plus people, do people say, Well, I don't want that because I heard this is better or where I used to work had a better software?

Scale, Property Differences, And Support

Suzane 19:24

Yeah, that is a great question because I deal with that on an ongoing basis. We all have different divisions going to maybe one of their business shows, and they'll see a different software that looks prettier or fancier. So I get to the core of it. Hey, okay, what did you see? What did it, what did it do that where our software is not currently doing for you right now? And I have worked with the divisions to say, okay, well, maybe it's not as pretty, but it can do exactly the same thing. But I didn't know you wanted this, so I wasn't trying to roll this out yet. So let's let's make this happen. And I'm currently working with our manufacturer housing division on the inspection software where they were manually doing everything, creating work orders in the system instead of using the inspection software. So we're making it work right. Again, it's not as pretty as what they may have seen with the different software, but it works. And now we don't have to have the accounting department using two different softwares. So a compromise, you know, is usually what we can do, keeping on the forefront of software, like their Voyager 8 product that is prettier, has the pretty boxes and stuff that they know to keep up with the other softwares, they must change too. So then it's trying to quickly get us on board with that. So I can say, okay, well, you saw this pretty software at the show, but look at Voyager 8. It also has some prettiness to offer as well. And unfortunately, our world is visual too. I mean, the core database is the same. But if you have a pretty box that is telling you I have 15 pieces of AP to approve instead of me having to click five places to figure that out, it's going to make people happier and save time. So it's a combination of finding out what is it they really want, making sure our software can accommodate it, and then also keeping up with the software as Yari is trying to keep up with the other softwares, too.

Crystal 21:18

That leads me into my next question, actually. If a software rollout happens, whether through your own hand or just an automatic upgrade and it doesn't work, how do you handle that?

Suzane 21:32

Well, work with a software company right away to see how they can help us, what could we do to make a change? Is there something we could roll back? Is there something more we can add to let's say we broke something with residential? Do we need to do a plug-in for residential that we none of us realized that we needed to do to make it work correctly? So as quickly as possible, I work with a software company and escalate as fast as I can to make sure we can fix everything, to make sure everyone is happy. Or if it's a matter of, you know, I checked a box because someone wanted something to work a little bit differently, I'll go back and uncheck that box and we'll just talk it through and see. Okay, before we check this box again, what do we need to do to improve for both divisions to be working properly?

Crystal 22:22

Do you get any sleep during those times?

Suzane 22:26

Absolutely. There may be a few ounces of beer involved, but no, absolutely. I have a great team. You know, I can always count on Connie Neidick, who works for me, to kind of brainstorm. And then if all else fails, I go to Carrie Traeger, my boss, who also did software support for many, many years. And she's a great resource of calm me down. Let's get to the well, what is it we really need to do? So using my team, team members to help me is always a good thing.

Integrations, Core Workflows, And Compromise

Crystal 22:58

That's huge, having that support there. Because I imagine, like if that were me, my anxiety would be through the roof. I wouldn't know where to stop. I wouldn't be able to not look at my screen, even if it's up to the software company to look at. I'd be checking my phone constantly waiting for that call. And I guess you've just over the years, you have you build a great support system to help lower that and actually live your life.

Suzane 23:23

No, I mean, I will tell you, uh, we have our problem currently, and I was sitting at the bar last night watching my phone to see what answers they were coming up with. But I was drinking that beer just to calm my nerves down. Yeah. Yeah.

Crystal 23:34

That sounds extremely stressful to me. And I think probably to the listeners too. Anybody who's in IT has probably had a problem. I mean, right now in the world, everyone has a phone, everybody has a computer. We all know this stuff does not work a hundred percent of the time. And the newer, the more likely it doesn't work. Exactly. It needs to be tested more. Right.

Suzane 23:55

Yeah.

Crystal 23:56

So that's pretty interesting. And I'm it's nice to hear that you have a support team behind you. Yeah. And if somebody you're working with has anxiety over something they're doing, how do you support them during that?

Suzane 24:10

Yeah, just listening to them, offering up. Okay, I know it's not the same software, but when we had similar issues, these are the kind of questions that we asked, trying to get to the root of the problem, not just, oh, it's not working. What is not working? You know, that's the way my brain works. It is just getting to the logic, finding that one comma that's not missing from the code or you know, uh, the the fallacy of the if-then statement that was written. Basically, that's the way my brain works. So just listening, and then once I'm done listening, saying, Okay, well, did you try this? Did you try that? I've Mike Campbell, who manages our hardware, he and I will both joke with each other because either he's having the problems on the hardware side or we're having the problems on the software side. So, you know, listening to each other and saying, hey, did you try this? You know.

Crystal 25:02

How does it work between your software side and the hardware side and having those meetings to say, well, we're gonna do this? Can our computers and hardware handle this?

Suzane 25:11

Correct. Yes. Yeah. So Mike, Carrie, and I meet on a bi-weekly basis, and those are the kind of things that we bring up. This is the project I'm working on right now. You know, Mike may say, Hey, I'm about to roll out this upgrade to our phone system. You may get questions about this, that, and the other. Of course, he cannot answer all 300 plus questions from every single person. So I have to not have to, but I want to help support him as well. So it is a matter of coordinating together any changes that are gonna be happening, talking to each other on both sides of the hardware and software side to make sure he thinks whatever changes we're gonna make are gonna work. And I am there to help support him when he has to make changes as well.

When Teams Want “Prettier” Software

Crystal 25:53

So we were kind of talking about what you're doing now as it relates to hardware, software, AI, rollouts, training. But let's talk about the future because in your role, I presume you always have to be a step ahead, probably five steps ahead. What's coming next?

Suzane 26:10

Yes, like you said, the AI is our biggest need right now. How can we improve everyone's position by adding on the layer of AI so that as we may acquire new business, we don't have to add new people. So AI will be in our accounts payable processes. We're implementing that at this moment, and we'll show everyone in the whole company what that looks like coming up as soon as we're done with the testing phase of that. The next project that we'd like to work with is what they call their yes energy product, where they will take on all of our utility billings. And the benefit of that is billbacks, so billing back tenants where it's appropriate, so that our clients don't take on those costs for the utilities that they shouldn't be paying for. So that's a real big benefit to our clients. And then also a next kind of products will be the Voyager 8 platform, trying to get that into each of the divisions more slowly, letting people use it that maybe are a little more computer savvy, see what questions they can bring to my attention. Um, Home Office Residential is currently using it. So that will be our next big rollout across every single division by division. How are they going to be using big platform? A few other things that are in the pipeline that the board gets to decide whether we're gonna do them or not. So that's why I just have to wait for. But I'm always excited for anything new that we might be delving into. Like I said, I'm wrapping up our online leasing for a couple of the divisions.

Crystal 27:44

When you're planning for the future with AI, how do you figure out what AI to choose? Because when I look up AI, you know, I know there's ChatGPT, there's Copilot, there's Perplexity, there's Gemini. Everybody and their mom has an AI system coming out or trying to. How do you say, well, this is what we're kind of going to go with?

Handling Bad Upgrades And Escalations

Suzane 28:05

Right. Well, unfortunately, it's it's all dictated on what Yardi software is going to integrate with. So we've been told they will integrate with ChatGPT and the underlying source code from that. So that's gonna be the future. I imagine that they will also work with Microsoft's, you know, co-pilot as well. So kind of have to go with we're spending all this money on the software, we gotta go with the way they're gonna go. And then they're gonna have their own clients, agents built into the software. So that is definitely the route we're gonna take at this point, as long as we're still using RD software.

Crystal 28:40

Since we're running out of time, I wanted to ask one more very important question to you, which is why is being a tech driven company so important in property management.

Suzane 28:51

Here at PMI, we are a primarily third-party uh administrator of our management. So we answer to a client. We have to be the best at what we do for that client. We have to make them the best amount of money, we have to give them the best clients. That is our job. If we need to be able to use technology to make that happen, the world is changing. Our contracts are gonna walk away from us if we're not keeping up with the Joneses per se. So to gain new business and to keep our current contracts, we have to be up with all the best technology and making things work to way the tenants, owners, and clients are gonna make the most out of it.

Crystal 29:33

Yeah, I mean that that makes sense, absolutely. Suzanne, thank you so much for being here today. This has been a really great eye-opening conversation into the world of IT.

Suzane 29:43

Thank you. I appreciate you having me on your podcast. Hope that it will inspire someone not only to maybe look into IT as far as if they're interested in technology, if they're logic driven, if they like the new shiny stuff. I mean, it's a great place to be. And also appreciate, you know, understanding of how and what it takes to implement new software, all of the testing, the training, the holding hands that it takes to do this job.

Crystal 30:12

And that's such an important message. And if you have other questions or comments for Suzanne, please email them to us at podcast at rentpmi.com. And we'll make sure to ask them to Suzanne when she comes back and joins us again. Hopefully she will. And don't forget to follow RDG Companies on LinkedIn. Thanks for listening, and we'll catch you on the next episode.