I am sure many of you can relate to the graphic which depicts what I have been doing with much of my time recently. All kidding aside, I thought it was time for an update on what has been going on with our computer systems and what we are doing to eliminate some of the problems.
First, let me start by identifying all of the things that we know are currently not working as well as they should be.
1. MLS download information. Each night we download all of the MLS (yes ALL) info to a database which we use for our websites and all of our internal systems. We are having “issues” with the download. Most of the problems center around the amount of information and the antiquated way we are obtaining it. It takes approximately 6 hours each night to accomplish this update. If it stops during the night for any reason… nothing will be updated. This is when you find that listings are not showing up on ewmrealtors, ewm.com or it is not the correct info or the photos are missing.
To remedy this, we are in the process of switching over to a RETS feed, which is the fastest, most efficient way to get the information into our database. In order to get the RETS feed, we have to get each local association approval to be able to download all of the fields we need. As an example, if you look on ewm.com you will note that we display recently sold information – this is something unique to EWM and requires special permission to be able to download that information into the RETS feed. To date, we have been approved by Miami Dade and Miami and the Beaches – we are making some progress with Ft. Lauderdale and are basically on hold at the Hollywood Board. Although we would like to continue to display all information from all Associations, we will proceed as soon as we have at least one of the Broward Associations on line. I expect this to be up and running by the end of August.
2. Out of Date Programming – Since we have always built most of our own systems from the time we got into computers some 12 years ago, we used a programming language called asp. Our systems have also evolved over time and don’t necessarily operate in the most efficient way. PHP is a more contemporary language that allows for better seach engine results and the new ewm.com was written in that language. To make things simple, the new stuff doesnt communicate with the old stuff very well. The lack of coherent communication creates random problems.
To fix this, we have hired a programmer who speaks the old language to keep things up and running and a new company who is rewriting everything we have – one system at a time. We have begun with the new ewm.com website and the associated database info including the IDX which many of you use for your websites. We will have this first phase completed within the next 2 weeks. So that your IDX feeds will work and be optimized better and all of the bugs will be worked out of ewm.com. We will conquer ewmrealtors.com next and all of the assoicated programs like the ad system. We currently estimate that everything will be rewritten by the end of the year.
3. Somehow we ended up on a Chinese hacker site. Maybe it’s the Olympics, but more likely we just ended up targeted and then vulnerable, but ewmrealtors.com has been hacked by an injection virus over and over again. As I have learned, the old code I mentioned above makes us a likely target, which is another reason to update our programming language. When we get hacked, the ad system shuts down, listings disappear and agents disappear from the website. We do back up the data, but it does take a few hours to clean out the virus and get the clean info to cycle through the system.
Scott Kaveh, who we have hired to maintain the old systems is on top of this. He now monitors for the virus in the middle of the night and cleans it before anyone might notice, but occasionaly, we do still get attacked during business hours, so the systems are inoperable for a period of time whle we fix it. The new sites will ultimately stop this entirely, but in the meantime we all need to work around the system outages. As a precaution, please check your ads in the ad system on a regular basis as our clean up does not always get ads cancelled or placed correctly. Everything else does bounce back pretty well.
5. The phone system. We have hired an outside vendor who has assessed our system and have been training some of our staff on how to handle voicemails, new phone additions, etc. I think we have figured out how to do all of the basic functions and are now focusing on some of the more advanced applications like efax – which we will be adding and rolling out over the next few months.
4. There are some things that we are still trying to figure out. The your success link on ewmrealtors, the trulia feed, the link between ewmrealtors and the blog and website. Finding a needle in a haystack is what some of these processes have become. Various people are working on identifying or rewriting these things. Some things may just need to wait for the programming rewrite, but we are working very hard on getting the old things fixed.
On the new and improved list, we will be upgrading our email system to a fully functional version of Outlook Exchange (including calendar and contacts) for everyone. Chuck is working on a video to help you all archive your old mail so that it can be saved before the changeover. The target date for the changeover is August 28th.
The offices are all being upgraded to fiber optic lines for internet access. This will increase the internet speed in all of the offices by a considerable amount. Installation has already begun in many offices and should be completed soon.
We do have a few other fun new things to announce, so stay tuned for the good stuff.
So, now you know why I am beating my head against my desk. I want to thank all of you for your patience and ask that you continue to be so while we make these transitions. If you notice a problem, please email [email protected] and copy me and your manager. Since many of the IT services are now outsourced Chuck or Onan may not be the ones who actually fix it. We will make sure your problem gets routed to the right person.
Overall, head beating aside, I beleive that we will end up with something so much better than what we started with that it almost makes this nightmare worth going through… please note that I said almost. I look forward to rolling out the new things in your offices soon… I think you will be pleased.