1/9/16 8:23PM EST: We just received word from the software vendor (FBS) that the issues with automatic email/subscriptions should now be resolved. All prior emails were caught up as of 4:30pm EST and FBS monitored for a few hours afterwards, and then announced the issues to be resolved. We apologize for any inconvenience due to the automatic email delays.

1/9/16 9:12AM EST: We have just received word from the software vendor (FBS) that ASAP emails are sending since 6am this morning. Daily emails will begin sending after that.  Links within emails may begin functioning throughout the day. If your client is having trouble clicking on a link in an email, please let them know to check the email periodically today.

Email link functioning and prior email notices that are in queue to send since yesterday may take up to 6-10 hours to fully catch up. For some clients this problem is now resolved, for others they are partially resolved. The ETA for full resolution is 6-10 hours reports our software vendor.

Our software vendor FBS apologizes for the inconvenience. If there are any new information, we will update this news post.

1/8/16 9:19PM EST: We have just received word from the software vendor (FBS) that there have been some unexpected issues encountered with the fixing processes. This outage is system-wide and affects other MLS’s across the country.

The current ETA is Saturday afternoon (1/9/16) for restoration of automatic emails.

There is no action required by you, the agent. The system will “catch up” and send the automatic emails that the client missed once the emails start going again.

If you need to update a client quickly on any new, back on market, or price changed listings since Friday morning at 10am, you may send a manual email as this is fully functional (instructions below). We apologize for the inconvenience. We will post another update to this news item once more information is known or else the issue has been resolved.

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How to send a manual email from a saved search for recent activity
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1) Hover over the “Contacts” tab and click “Contact Management” (if your menu is on the left, you may see Contact Management and can click right on it)

2) Click the client you’d like to run a recent listing search for

3) Click the “Searches/Subscriptions” tab appx. in the middle of the page

4) Click the search you’d like

5) Click the “View New in the Last 24 Hours” option

6) Check mark the listings you’d like to send to update your client. If you’d like to email all of them, you don’t need to checkmark anything, just go to the next step.

7) From here use the email button in the general upper right corner of the screen, and follow the prompts as you normally would to send a manual email. We would recommend the “interactive” option if the system asks, and make sure to select/highlight your client’s email address(es) and give it a subject and message before hitting the “Email” button.

8) Click “Return to Contact Management” in the upper left corner to go back to your contact. From here you can do this for another search for your same contact (repeat steps 4-7), or else go to a different contact and run through steps 2-7 for another contact’s search(es).

1/8/16 4:35pm EST: The software vendor (FBS) has just notified us that the fix processes are about half way done processing, and their current ETA for emails to begin sending again is this evening in the next hours. This may get pushed into later this evening barring any unforeseen issues with the fix processes. There is no action required by you, the agent. The system will “catch up” and send the automatic emails that the client missed once the emails start going again. Until the issue is fixed, if you need to update a client on anything since this morning and cannot wait, you may send a manual email. We apologize for the inconvenience. We will post another update to this news item once more information is known or else the issue has been resolved.

1/8/16 12:46pm EST: Our software vendor (FBS) has just informed us that they have found a problem with the prospecting/automatic emails/subscriptions and has temporarily stopped emails to fix this issue. We will update this news posting with further details, including once FBS has brought the subscription emails and newsfeeds back online. Below are further details:

“At approximately 9:15 Central [10:15am Eastern] on the morning of January 8, routine database maintenance resulted in temporary data loss that impacts prospecting emails and the links in those emails. The underlying issue has been corrected and safeguards have been added to prevent this from happening again.

Because this data loss impacts the accuracy of prospecting emails, all such emails have been suspended until the data has been restored. Any links to the News Feed may also be affected. The links may not work or have incomplete data until the restoration is complete.

When the data has been restored, all delayed prospecting email content will be sent. The restoration is currently underway and will be completed later today. No data will be lost in this process.

If you want to manually send new listings to your clients while this restoration is underway, that can be done by viewing new listings through the Searches/Subscriptions tab in Contact Management and manually emailing the results to your contacts.

We apologize for this critical system failure and the difficulty that it is causing. Once again, the procedures that led to this event have been corrected to prevent future occurrences. “

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01/08/2016

Realist has reported they have resolved their issue and their site is back up. We are seeing service appears normal.

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01/05/2016

The Showing Start Date field is now live on MLS.  The field is required entry for all new and existing listings. Members are now able to promote those listings “not quite ready for showing” while still entering them in MLS.  The Showing Start Date field enables members to enter an exact date when showings will begin.  It is important to note that NO SHOWINGS FOR ANYONE are permitted prior to the Showing Start Date.

New showing policy is also in place.  Verbiage such as “No Showings until 12/30/2015” is allowed in the Property Description field. You may also include a reason for the delayed showings such as “new carpet being installed”.  All wording in the Property Description field is still subject to MLS policies, rules and regulations.

Read the Full Article for more information about this new field and how it will work.

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12/14/2015

All agents and brokerages must adjust their showing schedule to comply with the Showing Start Date on the MLS.  Most 3rd party showing services offer the ability to set a start date for showings.  This will mirror the Showing Start Date in MLS. Listings cannot have showings for ANYONE prior to the Showing Start Date.

Any brokerage that does not use a 3rd party showing service should make sure that all staff are aware of the new Showing Start Date.

Showing Start Date is now live and required entry for all listings.  Please make all staff aware of this new field and it’s significance when scheduling a showing for a listing that has a future Showing Start Date.

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View the full results from the MLS election
http://columbusrealtors.com/NewsDetail/mls-election-results-15

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12/10/2015

Implementation of the “Showing Start Date” field has been delayed due to programming issues. The projected release date is now December 14.

New showing policy is in place.  Verbiage such as “No Showings until 12/30/2015” is allowed in the Property Description field. You may also include a reason for the delayed showings such as “new carpet being installed”.  All wording in the Property Description field is still subject to MLS policies, rules and regulations.

Previous Message from 11/24/15:

Showing Start Date field – New Field in MLS

Our MLS has developed a solution to assist our members in promoting those listings “not quite ready for showing” while still entering them in MLS.  A new “Showing Start Date” field will be added to our MLS to enable members to enter an exact date when showings will begin.  Target date for implementation is December 1.

For an explanation of the reasoning behind this new field and how it will work,  Read the Full Article.

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12/01/2015

A recent industry-wide standardization of data fields (RESO) required a new format for several fields in the MLS.  Buyer Broker Tenant Rep (BBTR),Sub Agency (SA) and Listing Agreement Type were modified.

The new format for BBTR and SA is simply 3 fields for each.  Previously, BB/TR Amount and SA Amount were entered as “$3000” or “3%”. There will now be a discreet field for each.  The Listing Agreement Type field was split into 2 fields.  See details of the new fields formats below.

New Format for Buyer Broker/Tenant Rep and Sub Agency Fields:

Buy Brkr/Tenant Rep (Yes/No) – Yes will require entry of fields below.
BB/TR Amount (numeric only field with 2 decimal places)BB/TR Type ($/%)
BB/TR Type ($/%)

Sub Agency (Yes/No) – Yes will require entry of fields below.
SA Amount (numeric only field with 2 decimal places)
SA Type ($/%)

New Format for Listing Agreement Type field (New field added):

Listing Agreement Type (ERS and EA) – Required entry.
Listing Service (Limited Services and MLS Entry Only) – Optional entry.

The data for existing listings should have converted automatically to the new fields.  It is recommended that you review these fields to make sure the automated processes correctly transferred the selections in these very important fields.

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11/17/2015

Changes made overnight to several fields in the MLS caused some difficulty with listing entry this morning. Most of those issues have now been resolved.  Add/Edit should now function as expected.  If you delayed entry of any listing, please enter that listing or listing change at this time.

A recent industry-wide change (RESO) required a new format for several fields in the MLS.  Buyer Broker Tenant Rep (BBTR) and Sub Agency (SA) Fields as well as Listing Agreement Type were modified.  Those new formats were implemented last night.  It appears that the old fields still active this morning.  The Listing Service field was required when it should not have been.  There was also an erroneous requirement to enter data in both fields, regardless if “yes” was selected.

For a description of the field changes that prompted these issues, please read the full article on the MLS Message Board.

The new format is simply 3 fields for each: BBTR and SA.  Previously, BB/TR Amount and SA Amount were entered as “$3000” or “3%”. There will now be a discreet field for each.  The Listing Agreement Type field was split into 2 fields.  See details of the new fields formats below.

New Format for Buyer Broker/Tenant Rep and Sub Agency Fields:

Buy Brkr/Tenant Rep (Yes/No)
BB/TR Amount (numeric only field with 2 decimal places)BB/TR Type ($/%)

Sub Agency (Yes/No)
SA Amount (numeric only field with 2 decimal places)
SA Type ($/%)

New Format for Listing Agreement Type field:

Listing Agreement Type (ERS and EA)
Listing Service (Limited Services and MLS Entry Only)

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If you are using Internet Explorer 11 to access Flexmls, it is possible you may be receiving an error message when trying to access various sections of the system. This is likely caused by your browser having Compatibility Mode turned ON for the Flexmls system. Flexmls has not ever needed Compatibility View turned on, but in some cases, your may have accidentially set your browser to work in this mode for the website. The error you receive will be:

Clearing your cache will not resolve the issue. The resolve is to remove flexmls.com from your list of Compatibility View enabled sites.

To do so, you can do the following:

1. Look for the gear icon that should be displayed on the upper right corner of Internet Explorer. Click on this icon.
2. From the menu, select compatibility view settings.
3. On the list presented under “Websites you’ve added to Compatibility View”, locate any address that contains the string of flexmls.com. Possible entries may be *.flexmls.com or cr.flexmls.com
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4. Highlight the entry and click on the remove button on the right. Repeat if there are more than one instance of flexmls listed. (You do NOT need to remove other sites from this list)
5. Once all flexmls entries are removed, hit the close button.
6. Close out of all instances of Internet Explorer. Once they are all closed, you can re-open a fresh copy of the program and try again.

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11/05/2015

Beginning Monday, November 2, email frequency for Subscription emails will change slightly.  No change or action is required by the agent or client.  All current auto-email subscriptions will continue to be delivered.  The change will only affect “Weekly” subscriptions.  ASAP and Monthly subscriptions will not be affected by this change.

The “Weekly” delivery schedule will now send any matched listings once per day instead of three.  The listings will typically be sent between 4-6am each day. The days of the week can still be selected when using the “Weekly” setting.

This change restores the original delivery schedule that existed with the previous MLS vendor prior to February 2014. FBS did not have an “ASAP” option in early 2014.  Our daily (now called “Weekly” delivery was changed from one to three times per day as a temporary fix.  When ASAP delivery (every few minutes), the three times per day option was to be removed.  That is exactly what will happen on November 2, 2015.

Agents who wish to have the MLS immediately send new or changed listing should use the ASAP option.  The previous “Weekly” three times per day option is delayed 8 hours between batches.  Agents who wish to give a “once-a-day” batch delivery of all changes for the last 24 hours will now have that option with “Weekly” delivery.

Summary:

1. Auto Email will still have the same 3 options: Weekly (now once per day), ASAP (every few minutes), or Monthly.
2. Weekly delivery will now be once per day instead of three times per day.
3. There will be stragglers until November 4^th. (auto-email that were already in the process). These will continue to send three times per day until the queue is cleared.   All “weekly” subscriptions should truly be once per day by Nov. 4.

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10/30/2015