A mobile form solution for letting agents

Templates for property handover protocols are often downloaded from the internet, adapted and printed out. That carries legal risks and creates work. A mobile, digital protocol with a database connection avoids both.

Risks of the paper template

Using copyrighted material without the consent of the rights holder can lead to a formal warning, and repeated infringements attract severe penalties. Paper forms are also inefficient compared with mobile checklists. Nevertheless, property management companies still use these protocols frequently.

Online form or offline app

Many online forms allow a digital handover but only work with an active internet connection. Depending on the provider, the applications can be cluttered. Web forms can only be adapted to a limited extent and, because they constantly need a connection, cannot be used in every room or property.

An app with offline functionality is independent of this. The form is held on the mobile device, can be completed even with a poor connection and transferred to the property management company later. Some solutions allow you to combine your own questions and answers into a customised protocol using a modular approach.

Building the form and connecting the database

The existing paper protocol cannot be transferred one to one; compromises are necessary. Do not be distracted by other templates from the internet, but bring your own ideas into the form. Stick to the existing framework of the cloud form solution instead of restructuring repeatedly. Otherwise changes lead to further changes and the protocol is never finished.

Once the structure is in place, the connection to the property management software follows. In our case this was Haussoft from GFAD in Berlin. The table containing the tenant information was identified in the SQL database and integrated into the form using a standard SQL query. The temptation is to include as much data as possible: bank details with online IBAN validation or a rent table for calculating rent increases. Large volumes of data, however, slow down synchronisation with the smartphone considerably. In the end only the data actually required was imported.

The first handover protocol

The first protocol comprised 104 fields and brought these advantages:

• Selection of the residential unit and correct assignment in the protocol
• Significantly less time spent thanks to predefined answers
• No post-processing by the employee
• Individual text, inventory and images within the protocol
• Signature of employee and tenant on the device
• Report as PDF by email to the employee, central filing in the company

Feedback from field staff feeds change requests into the form on an ongoing basis. This turns the protocol into a reliable working tool.

Key points

• Internet templates carry copyright risks and are inefficient.
• An offline app works regardless of the internet connection.
• When connecting a database, import only the data you need or synchronisation suffers.

How property managers record handover protocols digitally with eMODAT is described on the page eMODAT.