Your guide to account types on 3.0

Meredith -

With our upcoming update, HOA Express 3.0, we’ll be introducing the ability to create custom account types. This will make it easier than ever to store non-resident members and to customize each account type to meet your community’s unique needs!

Each account on your website will have a designated account type (currently called “classification”) assigned to it. This will let you know how each account relates to your community. Some common account types are homeowner, renter, property manager, and contractor.

Keep reading to learn more about creating account types, ways to use them on your website, and tips for managing them!

Creating account types

Full administrators will be able to create any number of custom account types from the “Settings” section in the Admin Control Panel. There are a few things about account types you’ll want to keep in mind when creating them:

  • They are mutually exclusive. Each account on your website should only fall into one account type.
  • They are static. While you can edit account types (more on this later), they should rarely need to change.
  • Account types are assigned at the account level. All members included in the same account should fall under the chosen account type.

Address requirements

Each account type created will also have a corresponding address requirement. This determines what address information (if any) will need to be collected when an account is created under a specific account type. The available address requirements are:

  • At least one address in your community
  • At least one address (not necessarily in your community)
  • Do not collect addresses

For example, you may require all homeowners to provide at least one address in your community, whereas, for a property manager or contractor, you may not require an address at all.

Using account types

There are different ways to use account types on your website once you’ve created them. A few examples we’re going to expand on are creating accounts, setting page restrictions, and sending out blast communications.

Creating accounts

When members register for an account or administrators import members into the website, they’ll be required to select an account type from the list of available options. To learn more about how to use account types when creating an account, be sure to check out our “Creating accounts on 3.0” blog article after reviewing this one.

Page restrictions

Administrators can set page restrictions to allow only certain account types to access certain pages. For instance, if you only wanted homeowners to access a page, you could set the page restrictions so only accounts registered with the account type “Homeowner” could log in and view the contents of the page.

Communications

In the “Communications” section, blast emails, text messages, and mailed letters can be sent to specific account types as well. For instance, if you had an email that only applied to renters in your community, you could select for that message to only go out to accounts registered with the account type “Renter.”

Editing account types

Full administrators will have the ability to edit an existing account type at any time from the “Settings” section in the Admin Control Panel. In here, you can change the name of an account type and its address requirement.

You may need to edit an account type’s name if there was a misspelling or typo. When you edit the name of an account type, this change will be reflected across all existing accounts with that account type selected.

Updating address requirements

If you change the address requirement on an account type, this will also change the address requirement for existing accounts registered with that account type. This would mean all changes made to an existing account’s address(es) would need to match the requirements of that account type.

For example, say an account type was edited so at least one address had to be located inside of the community. If a member with that account type then tries to delete the address that meets this requirement, our system would not let them complete this action. This way, their account meets the updated address requirement for that account type.

When a change is made to this requirement, administrators will also see a message in the “Account view” of the “Members” section for accounts that don’t meet the updated address requirement. From there, they will be able to edit that account to include the required type of address.

Wrapping up

The new capability to set custom account types will not only provide you with more flexibility in what information you collect but will also be more inclusive of the different types of members using your website. We are eagerly looking forward to releasing this new capability and can’t wait to see how you customize account types for your community!