The Community is the top-level organizational unit in OPERATOR, acting as the central hub for a specific development or neighborhood. Proper community setup is the foundation for an efficient and scalable workflow, allowing you to manage properties, plans, and communications with precision. This guide details how to create and manage your communities effectively.
Community Overview & Setup
A Community serves as a container for a group of properties, along with their associated plans, utilities, and media. Setting up communities correctly allows you to streamline your process by ensuring that all assets related to a specific project are logically organized and easily accessible.
To create a new community:
Navigate to the Advanced Tab: From the main menu, select Advanced.
Select Communities: Click on Communities to view all existing communities.
Add a New Community: Click the Add New button, typically located in the upper right corner.
Complete Key Fields:
Community Name: Enter the name of the development (e.g., "Oakwood Estates").
Address: Input the primary address or location of the community.
Description: Add a brief, informative description of the project.
Save the Community: Click Save Changes to create the community. It will now appear in your list, ready for further configuration.
Manage Utilities, Plans, and Warranty Settings
Once a community is created, you must configure its core settings. This step ensures that every property created within the community automatically inherits the correct information, which boosts sales efficiency and consistency.
To configure community settings:
Select a Community: From the Advanced > Communities page, click on the community you wish to configure.
Manage Settings: In the community details view, you will find sections to manage various settings.
Utilities: Click to manage utility providers. Select all the gas, electric, water, and HOA services that apply to this community from your master list. This pre-populates the correct information for buyers.
Plans: Click to manage available floor plans. Select the checkboxes for all the plans you will offer for sale in this community. This ensures only relevant plans can be assigned to new properties here.
Warranty: Configure the default warranty information and documents that will be provided to every homeowner in this community.
Save Changes: Ensure you save the settings in each section to apply them to the community.
Add/Edit Media
A strong media gallery helps market the community as a whole. You can upload photos of the neighborhood, amenities, model homes, and entrance signs to create a compelling visual identity.
To add or edit community media:
Select a Community: Navigate to the community you want to update.
Access the Media Section: Find the media management area within the community's detail page.
Upload or Manage Files:
To Add: Click the option to add media (e.g., "Add Photos and Videos"). Drag and drop files or browse your device to upload.
To Edit/Remove: Hover over an existing image or video to find options for deleting or modifying it.
Save Your Work: The media will be saved to the community's gallery, providing valuable visual context for your team and prospective buyers.
Communicate & Collaborate (Updates, Buildings, People)
The community level is a powerful hub for mass communication and team collaboration, centralizing key interactions and saving valuable time.
Post Updates: Navigate to the Communicate section to post an update to all properties within a community at once. This is ideal for sharing news about amenities, construction phases, or community-wide events.
Manage Buildings: For multi-family projects, you can create and manage Buildings within a community. This allows you to group units together for building-specific updates and milestone tracking, further streamlining communication.
Manage People: The People tab provides a consolidated view of all buyers and internal team members associated with properties in that community. This makes it easy to see who is involved in the project at a glance.