What that means is that firms such as MRI have been able to focus on the core functionality of their property management and accounting programs while allowing other, more specialized firms to create point-solutions that tie into their systems for increased user-functionality. For instance, MRI has teamed up with preferred service providers such as the Rainmaker Group and its Revolution LRO revenue management system, First Advantage SafeRent for credit screening and AvidXchange for electronic invoicing and purchasing.
Yardi Systems, the Santa Barbara, Calif.-based company whose technology allows Lincoln’s military residents to log on so easily, operates its business in a similar way. But instead of focusing on a defined universe of preferred partners, Yardi has cast itself as more willing to integrate with whomever its customers choose for their own point solutions. “We are clearly market driven,” says Bill Sugino, director of portal services at Yardi. “We’re not out there speculating as to which integrations we should do. We’re letting our clients make that call. Then, when they demand those integrations, that’s when we perform them.”
While easier, more open technology has allowed MRI and Yardi to rely on point solutions to round out their offerings, Carrollton, Texas-based RealPage prides itself on the fact that it has built or bought its own specialized modules for processes such as resident screening, online leasing, online payment and revenue management, and integrated them into the guts of its own system. It’s a distinction CEO Steve Winn says is paramount to any discussion of technology systems in the multifamily space today.
“It’s important to differentiate between the terms ‘integrate’ and ‘interface,’” Winn says. “Interfaces are usually just at the data layer, not the workflow layer. [With an integrated system], there is a single user experience, a single security model, and a single support infrastructure, so that the user doesn’t even realize there are really two modules.”
From Winn’s perspective, interfaces are only as good as the underlying programs that they connect. Namely, if there’s a change on one or both sides of an interface, whether the programs will continue to work together can be an unknown. “It’s a distinction we think is important. Integrated systems are more powerful than interfaced ones.”
Whatever you call it, the fact of the matter is that more multifamily-specific software programs are working together today than at any time in the past. And multifamily technology executives say that trend is only going to become more prevalent, not less so. “A year ago there was not as much talk about integration,” says Yardi’s Sugino. “Now everyone is saying we need to get there. It looks like 2007 is the year of integration in multifamily.”
Joe Bousquin is a freelance writer in Auburn, Calif.
ACTION ITEMS
INTEGRATION STATUS
- More companies are integrating different parts of their systems to work together, from property management to resident screening.
- A key advantage is being able to use a single database to update multiple software systems.
- Business intelligence programs can be used as an “umbrella” to aggregate data from different programs into a single view.
