Ask Technical Terry is a series RMLS™ aims to offer once a month. RMLS™ subscribers will drive the content—submit any question about RMLS™ to Technical Terry in the comments or by emailing communications@rmls.com. Don’t be shy—we won’t identify you by name.
Dear TT,
I sent one of my new REALTORS® down to RMLS™ in Eugene to join up. They came back and said there’s a new mandatory orientation class that takes four hours to complete! She said there were quizzes and everything! What is up with that? Don’t you realize we REALTORS® are super busy? Why would RMLS™ make us take that much time out of our busy day to attend a stupid orientation class?
Curious in Cottage Grove
Dear CCG,
Great question! RMLS™ complies with the National Association of REALTORS® model rules for MLS operations. Included in those model rules is a carveout of up to eight mandatory training hours for orientation training. That language has been in the RMLS™ Rules and Regulations since its inception. Given the ever-evolving complexity of the real estate world—and frankly, keeping a close eye on the social behavior of our industry—prompted RMLS™ to take a more aggressive role with orientation. The new orientation format is four hours of training content, including some quizzes intended to really galvanize an agent to understand that content. While it may seem like a lot of time for orientation training, I’m confident our new subscribers will realize the benefit many times over.
Technical Terry
Hey TT-
What in the world did you guys do to the RMLSweb mapping system? I logged in one morning and it had totally changed with absolutely NO warning. And now one of the best pieces of the old system is missing, the birds eye view. Why did you mess with it?
Manic Over Mapping
Hey MOM-
The earlier version of maps on RMLSweb was based on a version of Bing map layers and controls that Microsoft announced they would be retiring by the end of June 2017. Microsoft made this announcement in March 2017! That compressed time frame created a challenge for anyone using that version of Bing in their system.
The RMLS™ development team was already knee deep in the forms change project when the announcement was made. They scrambled to come up with a functional replacement in a very short period of time, and that’s what you’re seeing today on RMLSweb.
As for the birds eye view, there is some functionality from the old version of Bing that has yet to be released for the new version. That doesn’t mean it won’t return, it simply means our developers need some additional time to rebuild it for the maps on RMLSweb.
We did try to provide RMLS™ subscribers as much advance notice as we possibly could. We had an overview video available through an article on the RMLSweb desktop a week prior to the switch, as well as an overview on our blog that was featured in the RMLS™ Weekly Report before the switch. We’re sorry to hear these didn’t reach your eyes in time, but we’re confident that the new tools provided by Microsoft will result in a better mapping experience in the near future.
TT
The new map is awful. Complete mess. Please figure it out guys. Spend the money to get Google maps, it will be well worth it.
The quicker you can get rid of that obsolete mapping system you have now, the better.
Thanks
I second that motion!
As new Realtor I wanted to comment on the orientation class. It was very helpful and as I listed my first house, I was able to recall many points from the class to help me get the house up and running on the website.
Personally if you have any classes that help me improve at my new career, that’s great and thank you.
I don’t mind the new map but there are some MAIN components missing that the old provided. For example, where did the tax lot info go? I used to be able to click on a tax lot and the # would pop up. That was SO helpful and now I feel lost without it.
Another is there is so much wasted space and not enough room for the map. Get rid of all the white space and please give us more map. When I’m trying to get dimensions, I can’t see the entire map.
I appreciate the changes but I’m hoping you are still working on it and it’s not considered done!
Thank you!
Mapping system does not consistently show boundary lines and almost never shows length of lines. Those dimensions can be critical in some cases to knowing what we are representing to the public.
I use the mapping option quite a bit but found it has a few bugs that need to be worked out. The most frequent error message I get is as follows: “search_adv:SubmitForm Error: Unable to get property “rmlswebmap” undefined or null reference.” This can be frustrating. We are all on deadlines and the last thing we have time for is struggling with RMLSweb. Its supposed to be a helpful work tool not a thorn in my side. I hope my info helps you to figure out how to correct the problem. Good luck.
I can’t get the Routing to work. I numbered the listings in order to make a sensible route, but the list never puts it in order! It’s my main tool when routing a showing, and SO IMPORTANT! HELP!
There used to be two maps in the mapping program – allowing me to use the other portion of the map that numbered each of the properties I was searching (instead of the MLS #). Is there some way to improve the identifier for multiple properties?
Very frustrating. Spend way too much time trying to figure this mapping program out. Never works correctly for me. I use to be able to hit map button to see multiple properties and their locations. Doesn’t work, shows my current location with no homes. Hope this gets an update soon.
The mapping system does not work completely in Mozilla. You can’t use the up – down, left -right keys to move the map while drawing an area. Also, the editor of the mapped area does not work, you can’t adjust the lines.
Will this be made compatible?
Hello, Tom. Thank you for sharing with us the mapping aspects that are not working for you. We are working hard to resolve compatibility issues as they are brought to our attention. I have passed your comments along to our Development team.
Gracias!
I appreciate your hard work!
Tom