Getting started with Communications

Communications is designed to bring your conversations with tenants, landlords, owners and suppliers into one place, connected to the property, tenancy or job they are about. The aim is that anyone on your team can pick up a conversation without asking who said what to whom.

What the module is for

Property teams often lose time to scattered communication. Communications is intended to help with problems such as:

• Messages arriving in personal inboxes and phones, where colleagues cannot see them.
• No clear record of what a tenant was told, or when.
• Repeating the same updates to tenants, landlords and contractors separately.
• Handover gaps when someone is away or leaves the team.

How it connects to other modules

Conversations are intended to sit alongside the records they relate to: a property, a tenancy, a job or a supplier. A repair report from a tenant naturally leads to a job in Work. Updates to landlords may refer to Finance or Compliance. Automations is designed to help with routine messages, such as reminders, with your team staying in control of what is sent.

Portals are part of this picture. People you invite to a portal, such as tenants and landlords, can use messages there. Communications is intended to be where your team sees those conversations alongside everything else.

How to prepare now

• Agree as a team where tenant and landlord messages should go, ideally a shared address rather than personal inboxes.
• Check that you have current contact details for each tenant, landlord and supplier.
• Note each person's preferred way of being contacted.
• Write down the messages you send most often, such as access requests or renewal reminders. They make good starting templates later.