We’ve got some good ones already posted, but here we’d like to get a little more advanced with our tricks and tips.
If you haven’t gotten yourself familiar with the Map Search yet, you are missing out on a huge time saving tool. Once you are comfortable with drawing and deleting shapes, you’ll find this trick pretty handy. Some agents have said that you have to zoom in so close in order to see the exact streets that the area you want to search becomes larger than the area shown. (I hope that makes sense.) Anyway, a work-around for this is to use the navigation arrows in the upper left corner of the map during the shape drawing process. After you start drawing the shape if you click on the arrows that move the map, it will not affect the shape you are drawing. It simply moves the map around so you can view the next border of your shape. Let me demonstrate…
I have to say, the ability to fax in documents and have them automatically attach to one of your listings as a digital file is incredible. In a sense, all ARMLS members that have a fax machine (you) now have a scanner. If you need something scanned into the computer, print the fax cover sheet from flexmls for one of your listings, fax in your documents (with the coversheet) and viola! they’ll be attached to the listing in no time. Once they are attached, you can save them to your computer or remove them from your listing (if you change your mind). Of course once they are saved to your computer you have the ability to email, print or attach to other listings.
To do this: Start by editing your active listing – click Documents – click Add Documents – add a description – click Fax-in – print coversheet – put on top of documents you would like attached – fax. The documents (excluding your coversheet) will now be attached to your listing.
Last but not least is the Route feature. The major dilemma with this feature is that the listings are not automatically sorted by shortest route. The driving directions come out in whatever order they are in the list view (ie: Price). Chances are you’re not going to start your listing tour with the least expensive listing, you’ll start with the closest listing. So the easiest way to get them ordered properly requires a couple steps. First you’ll want to select the listings you want to view (check the boxes next to them) then click the Route button, upper right corner of the screen. It will automagically pull up google driving directions. I recommend adding your starting location – click “Get directions” and then order them manually. Let me demonstrate…
Well I hope these tips help make flexmls more uasable for you. If you would like me to demonstrate anything in particular leave a comment below – or shoot me an email (psexton at johnhall dot com).
Great tips, Phil!
A couple of additions to try:
(1) Sorting Before Routing. In addition to sorting by listing data (either by columns in the view or other criteria through a custom sort order), you can order the listings according to your preferred order before clicking route by going to the “Selected” tab, which allows you to manually order the listings (the controls to change the order of the listings are at the bottom of the left-side list).
(2) Map Zooming. For those with scroll wheels on their mouse or multi-touch scroll pads, you can zoom the maps in and out using the scroll up and scroll down commands, respectively. In addition, the map will zoom in at the point of your mouse as you scroll. So, for example, if you want to zoom in on the upper right of the map, point your mouse where you want to zoom and then zoom in (scroll up) and the map will zoom in to the point of your mouse.