Highlights for this release are:

• Introduction of Multi-Office Setup, to suit groups of agencies via one single website pulling information from various agencies.
• 2 new attractive themes added to the collection of HubStudio templates.

MULTI OFFICE SETUP

Benefits

• Allows multi office agents to display content from several agencies within one group site
• Easy administration via a Master Office – Affiliate Office set up in the backgroup

Key features

• Data presented on the website is pulled from several affiliate offices into the master page
• This means the page for current listings, current OFIs, office staff, will be aggregate for all affiliates onto the master page
• Each affiliate continues to administer their own listings, staff, OFIs, which get updated automatically on the master website
• Individual office details can be accessed via the Office Profile feature. In that page, all offices are listed, and a viewer can click on one particular office for specific information related to that office.
• Each individual office retains the control on whether or not to display in the master site its Current Listings, Recent Sales, Staff and Testimonials

2 NEW THEMES IN THE GALLERY

Benefits

• One theme designed around a large animation of feature properties. Ideal to get the best result from your professional-grade photography.
• Another theme designed around a airy layered look across the whole screen and one feature property

Have a look:

And also…

Another feature released today was the ability for agents to specify email addresses for each email form within their site, so submissions for individual forms can be sent to the most appropriate people – e.g. Sales appraisal forms can be sent to sales staff, and rental appraisal forms can be sent to property management staff.

The edit page for each email form now displays an ‘Email Addresses’ field. If no email address is entered, submissions will be sent by default to the Admin email address specified in HubAgency for this office.

Stay tuned for further enhancements in upcoming releases!

Usability and Portability define HubOnline’s roadmap for 2011

HubOnline, one of the leading providers of real estate software in Australia and a division of REA Group, is moving forward with an exciting development plan under the direction of its new management team, in place since August 2010.

The first step of the journey was the development of HubStudio, a brand new real estate website platform that was launched to the market in November 2010. At the heart of HubStudio is a simple and powerful content management system that allows agencies to gain full control of their website. At the click of a button, users can add, edit, remove pages, or activate functionalities developed exclusively for real estate needs, such as property alert subscription, testimonials, or social media integration. “You would not buy a house without the keys, and it should be the same with your website”, says Nicolas Pierret, HubOnline’s General Manager. Also, frequently updating your website is the best way to ensure relevance and rank high in search engine results, yet most websites make it difficult and even costly to add pages and content. HubStudio provides intuitive user control, via a simple console, which any agent is invited to discover and test by enrolling in the free trial programme offered by Hubonline on its website.

Next, HubOnline will be enhancing its flagship office software Agency Pro, planned for 2011. “Usability and Portability are what real estate agents need most today, and they are what defines our development roadmap”, Nicolas says. Expect innovation around the simplicity of the user interface and a better fit of the software to the new portable devices such as smart phones and tablets like Apple’s IPad. “The sales agent’s place is in the field, prospecting and closing deals. We are developing the tools to do that more effectively than ever before”.

In parallel, HubOnline continues to support its clients’ online presence by broadening their reach, via mobile-compatible websites or integration with popular social media spaces like Facebook or Twitter. “These days there are so many spaces for the agent to compete in that it can become overwhelming. Our mission is to package it all into one simple gateway for them”, says Nicolas.

Keep an eye on www.hubonline.com.au for more.

This year, the building stage ran from Monday Nov-8 and the house was proudly inaugurated on Saturday Nov-20, in Bidwill (West of Sydney). HubOnline sent a group of colleagues to represent us and pitch in. It was a rewarding and memorable event for us. We’re happy to provide a bit of help to this family whose humbling life story from Sudan through Ethyopia and Kenya to Australia will continue to inspire us for a long time.

In this November-December 2010 issue, discover the power of SMS communication to give your agency an edge with your vendors and buyers alike. Also, find out about our latest product news and upcoming innovations.

Click here or on the picture below to access the newsletter.

HubOnline proudly presents a brand new real estate website platform, HubStudio. At its heart is a simple and powerful content management system which allows you to add/remove/edit pages, change your template and colour scheme, upload your content, and add real-estate features such as property alert subscription, staff profiles, or testimonials.

HubStudio also comes with a mobile template that provides superior navigation experience on mobile devices.

Control your website at your fingertips. Try HubStudio For Free today and see for yourself!

Ability to Auto?Update the Main Buyer’s Primary Address

Screenshot 1 shows the new option on the “Settled” pop-up

Screenshot 2 shows the confirmation message, as well as the reminder to update the Vendor’s details if applicable

Screenshot 3 shows that the Main Buyer’s details have been updated to the property address

For more information about the change, please review the August Release Release Notes.

In order to deploy this exciting new feature we require a short maintenance period:

Australia: Tuesday, August 3 2010, 8:00pm until Wednesday, August 4 2010, 6:00am
New Zealand: Tuesday, August 3 2010, 10:00pm until Wednesday, August 4 2010, 8:00am

During this time:

• HubOnline will be unavailable and will display a maintenance message
• HubOnline website consumers will receive a maintenance message if they try to register for the auto-email alerts during the maintenance period.
• Regularly scheduled auto email-alerts will be sent prior to the maintenance period starting.
• Please contact our Customer Care Centre on 1300 793 341 or email support@hubonline.com.au if you have any questions.

If you have any questions about the release or feedback about the new functionality or enhancements, please contact Customer Care.

Regards,

The HubOnline Team.

1) New Portal Export: www.watersidepropertysales.com.au

Reach a greater number of potential buyers by advertising water side properties or properties with water views on a new portal, Waterside Property Sales. You can mark a property to be sent to the Waterside Property Sales portal by selecting either “Water Views” and/or “Ocean Views” in the Features selector of a property.

Features Selector

2) Contact Requirements – enhancements for size criteria

Previously, when entering a contact requirement, you were only able to enter the size requirements (for commercial, rural, business and land categories) in square metres (sqm), and the minimum and maximum sizes were restricted to the values in the dropdown.

Now, you have the ability to enter free-text (numeric) for the minimum and maximum size and the option to select whether the search size is sqm, acres or hectares.

Contact Requirements - Size Options

Contact Requirements in Hub Mobile

This change applies to both HubOnline and Hub Mobile.

3) Various Hub Mobile Enhancements

A number of enhancements have been made to Hub Mobile with this release, including:

• The system now remembers your username and password, so you don’t need to re-enter it each time you want to access Hub Mobile
• Secondary Done/Cancel buttons are now at the bottom of the Edit Contact and Edit Requirements pages, so you don’t need to scroll back to the top to save or cancel the edit.

Secondary Done/Cancel buttons

• A new ‘Viewings Report’ feature has been added to the OFI section of a property. The report provides useful information to show vendors when giving them feedback about a recent OFI, such as the total number of viewings and the comments for those viewings.

OFI Section of a Property

New Viewing Report

• Improved Performance, so Hub Mobile runs even quicker on your iPhone.

Remember, if you haven’t done so already you will need to opt-in to Hub Mobile via the Beta Workshop page.

For more information about the release, please review the July Release Release Notes.

In order to deploy these exciting new features we require a short maintenance period:

Australia: Tuesday, July 6 2010, 8:00pm until Wednesday, July 7 2010, 6:00am
New Zealand: Tuesday, July 6 2010, 10:00pm until Wednesday, July 7 2010, 8:00am

During this time:

• HubOnline will be unavailable and will display a maintenance message
• HubOnline website consumers will receive a maintenance message if they try to register for the auto-email alerts during the maintenance period.
• Regularly scheduled auto email-alerts will be sent prior to the maintenance period starting.
• Please contact our Customer Care Centre on 1300 793 341 or email support@hubonline.com.au if you have any questions.

If you have any questions about the release or feedback about the new functionality or enhancements, please contact Customer Care.

Regards,

The HubOnline Team.

You will also notice our new HubOnline Blog, where we’ll announce the latest news from HubOnline, This gives us another way to interact with and get feedback from our community, and share our industry and technology knowledge and how it relates to your business.

Check out the new site at www.hubonline.com.au. Your feedback is welcome.

1) Better Commercial Agent Support

Improves consistency of Commercial and Business property types between HubOnline, REA’s Agent Desktop and realcommercial.com.au.

Multiple Property Types for Commercial Properties

2) Opt-in to Hub Mobile beta

You’re now able to opt in to the Hub Mobile beta program, providing iPhone access to the primary features of HubOnline. For more details about the features available in Hub Mobile Beta, and for how to enable access to Hub Mobile, please see our Launch Announcement post.

Hub Mobile Beta

3) New Beta Project: Post to Facebook

Share property details with your personal or office Facebook page. To enable access, turn the feature on under My Office -> HubOnline Beta Workshop.

Share on Facebook

For more information about the release, please review the Release Notes.

If you have any questions about the release or feedback about the new functionality or enhancements, please contact Customer Care.

Regards,

The HubOnline Team.

We’re now pleased to announce that Hub Mobile has been opened up as a full beta-release.

Hub Mobile Property Search

The aim of the Beta Release phase is to get some “real world” feedback about Hub Mobile – what you like, what you don’t like, what’s easy to use, what you found difficult, additional features you’d like to see, and any other suggestions and feedback about the product. Your feedback is crucial as it will directly help shape the future development of Hub Mobile.

What is Hub Mobile and what features are available?

Hub Mobile allows you to access property and contact information anytime and anywhere. As this is our first beta release, the scope is initially limited to the most important functions that a sales agent needs out on the road. This includes:

• Search Contacts
• View / Add / Edit Contact Details
• View / Add / Edit Contact Notes
• View / Add / Edit Contact Requirements
• Search Properties
• View Property Details
• View OFI times

Hub Mobile Contact Search

Notes:

• Additional features and functionality will be added with each release.
• Updates made via Hub Mobile will appear immediately within HubOnline back at the office, and vice versa.
• The product has been designed for (and is limited to) iPhone users, but support for Blackberries and other feature phones will come in the near future.

How to access Hub Mobile

To access the beta version of Hub Mobile, you have to enable access using the Beta Workshop page then point your iPhone browser to http://touch.hubonline.com.au . You’ll be able to login using your normal HubOnline username and password.

Enable Hub Mobile in the Beta Workshop

Your feedback is important!

As part of the beta programme, you can simply use Hub Mobile out on the road as you would normally use a mobile web application. In addition, it would be most appreciated if you:

• Report any bugs you may experience using the product. Please keep in mind that this is beta release software and it may contain bugs.
• Provide feedback! We appreciate all and any feedback – good and bad.

To report bugs or feedback you can use the Hub Mobile Feedback topic on UserVoice, contact your Technical Account Manager or email the development team directly at betafeedback@hubonline.com.au .

OFI Listing

We are very excited about the release of Hub Mobile and look forward to your feedback! With your help, Hub Mobile will develop into a must-have tool for sales agents out on the road.

Regards,

The HubOnline Team.