Usability requests

HI Guys

I could really use your help.

The last 5 listings on my site have left without paying, and when I ask about why they all say the same thing, the software is not user friendly and they get frustrated and leave.

I have to agree with them, it confused me for quite a while until I got the process down, but for someone who is posting a listing, it's very difficult.

The listing process is hard to navigate, starting with the first level of registration.

The Company aspect is confusing as it's needed BEFORE they register as an agent so they can choose it in the drop down. Disabling the Company feature removes information that's expected in the listing so unless I want partial listings, I have to keep it active and then add the information myself so there are no gaps in the information unless they come back and add a whole new account and then edit their agent information.

Is there a way to combine the company information registration in the Agent registration area so the register now process actually registers them as an Agent AND creates a Company account?

When adding a listing, Agents do not understand that "SAVE & ACTIVE" means PAY HERE and PUBLISH. They click SAVE and get taken away from their listing without paying, and without completing it then they get confused and think the "PUBLISH" button in the main screen is the payment link.

Can the actions be re-arranged and renamed so they are in the order of the listing process? Save & Active should say PAY AND ACTIVATE and it should be the last button, not the first.

And is it possible to have a column in the Agent area for payment status with either a PAID or PAY NOW button in the Agent listing area so it's easy for them to see they still need to pay?

The "LAND INFORMATION" section has information that should be in the property section - specifically the square footage, which has 2 inputs for different items so it adds a full section with only ONE item needed.

And is there a way to please move the SQUARE FOOTAGE to the property details with the beds and baths as that's the logical space for it, and it would enable the unpublishing of the land section.

OK, i will think about your idea for future improvement.
Thanks
Dam

Actually, we feel that there are some unclear points between company and agent in OS Property system. But normally, we will have 2 below flows:
1. User create their company and adding agents of their company into OS Property system. And Agent will able to post and manage properties directly.
2. User don't use Company in OS Property system, and user will able to register to become agent directly. Thus, they don't need to select company when they register as agent.
In OS Property, one user can only be company or agent, he (she) can't be an agent or company administrator at the same time, so i think the combination between company and agent is impossible.
Thanks
Dam

Hi,

like Kimberly I too have experienced problems with users and the registration process.

For us the process needs to work as follows:

1. When a user (either the company admin or the agent) first registers they should be asked to check if their company already exists, if it does they can select it and proceed to add themselves as an agent of that company
2. If the company does not exist they (agent or company admin) should be able to add the company details including the unique email for the company and (if an agent) proceed to add themselves as an agent of that company.
3. When an agent adds themselves as to the company they should be able to select 'Use company address' instead of having to add these details again (almost all agents of a company have same address details) this should be possible when registering themselves for the first time or when adding themselves to an existing company.

Mel

I understand the actions that are taken, however I use the software as a marketing tool and my customers are the individual agents themselves. They sell real estate.

The addition of the separate company section by IProperty was a bad idea. They were obviously trying to sell to the actual real estate companies as their software, but those large companies use their franchise software, not a cms as it's missing all the back end tools they use.

The scenario of a Company registering is not realistic (in my use) as they are not using my site to run their business, they're using it to promote their individual listings - which is the reason for charging for listings. They are ads.

In fact in all my years of running the site, NOT ONE company has ever registered. I have to do it manually to keep the information complete.

Here's what I need ideally: A straight forward registration and property adding process. Register, go to the form, add your details, upload the photos, pay and go live.

Visitor comes to the site and registers.

Visitor upgrades their account to Agent. While registering, they can add their Company information to their Account.

I don't need a Company account to be able to log in, or the ability to add Agents to it as no company has ever used the Agent management, they have their own software for that.

Agent can add listings as needed, paying PER LISTING, with each listing expiring based on their payment date.

The Agent account would be active as long as there is a live property listing and each listing has it's own publishing dates and each listing can be renewed individually.

Like RPL had their payment options.

I hope I'm explaining myself clearly. Thanks for reading.

Hi Kimberly yes you are. We have slightly different needs. We need the company details but just not as it is now so I guess there is a case for having an option to do one or the other.

I need the company details as well, just not as a full separate account. I saw something on JED yesterday that allowed multi use of emails. I'm going to look into it more.

extensions.joomla.org/extension/allow-duplicate-email/

It's a little old, but might be perfect.

Hi Kimberly,

I have used that very same thing on another site and it works well. I suppose what we need is to give one of the users the ability to manage the Company as well as list the properties - that would be good for us at least. I know you can use different emails (to the Joomla one) in the Agent settings which is a great bonus for us but the Company setup is a problem for us. Let me know how you get on with the plugin in terms of working with OSProperty as maybe it will help us too. However we need OSProperty to know that the user is both an agent and a company admin manager.

Hi Kimberely,

did you ever get anywhere with this? Did you try the Joomla plugin in the end?
I have just submitted a feature request and also wondering if they could even give us some help to hack the code to allow an agent to be a 'super agent' to be able to manage the company setup/admin

Mel

Not yet and I have not tried the plugin. I'm hoping that it will be part of the next update as it's REALLY needed