A big transition is on the horizon for subscribers when RMLS™ changes its billing and subscriber management system. This change—which we anticipate will take place in late May—will affect every single RMLS™ subscriber, but each person will be impacted a little differently. Take note of the following changes:
A New Approach to Logging In
All RMLS™ subscribers will have a different login name and see a different login screen when accessing RMLSweb. The email address that appears on the RMLSweb roster will now be your user name. (Subscribers with licenses in both Oregon and Washington will have one login and password like everyone else.)
This means subscribers should log in to RMLSweb before May 13th to confirm their email address. Access User Preferences on RMLSweb and confirm the email address that appears in the RMLSweb Contact Email field—that email address is what your new login will be once the transition happens. (See update below.)
Due to account security, RMLS™ staff will be unable to help subscribers who have lost their password in this new system. Instead, the login screen will feature a password reset link.
One Call Does It All
Contacting RMLS™ can involve a transfer from department to department. A centralized system means callers should be able to take care of multiple needs in just one stop. Subscribers will be able to manage more account information on RMLSweb as well, meaning less of a need to wait until a particular office is open to take care of a pressing issue.
Billing and Payments: You’re In Control
Changing this system will give subscribers access to more billing and payment options. One perk of this higher-security system: RMLS™ will now be able to accept ACH, eChecks, and checks by phone for payment!
Subscribers will be able to directly manage email address(es) where bills are sent. Have a personal assistant or accountant? No problem! They both need a copy of your bill? Also no problem! You’re in control of how bills from RMLS™ are routed.
RMLS™ subscribers will also be able to manage personal assistant accounts online rather than contacting RMLS™.
However, RMLS™ subscribers enrolled in the auto-pay program will need to re-enroll. RMLS™ will contact subscribers once the systems are in place to re-enroll in auto-pay—keep an eye out in the coming weeks. Everyone will receive a bill on June 1st unless there is a credit balance on the account.
Smoother Event Registration
Attending a RMLS™ Broker Education Series (BES) event or trade fair? Registration will be handled using this new subscriber management system. RMLS™ staff will be able to register subscribers for classes, as well as modify or cancel event registrations.
Changing a system that is such an integral part of RMLSweb is no small task, but it was a long-needed change, and we’re all in this together. RMLS™ staff will receive training to ensure a smooth transition and ease subscribers through the process.
RMLS™ will soon reach out to smaller groups of subscribers via email about other more specific changes. Continue to watch RMLScentral and the RMLSweb desktop for updates in the coming weeks.
UPDATE (May 9, 2016):
Subscribers should still log in to RMLSweb before May 13th to confirm their email address, but the email address used for the new system will be the Association Email address listed in Internet Member Services (IMS) instead of the RMLSweb Contact Email field. Contact the RMLS™ Help Desk at (503) 872-8002 if you need assistance making this change.
RMLS™ subscribers who use OREF forms, great news—a new feature has been released on RMLSweb that helps make transactions easier. Technicians have rolled out mlsPush/SSO by zipLogix, enabling users to move seamlessly from RMLSweb into zipForm®.
While viewing an Agent Full report, clicking the OREF button will begin a new transaction within zipForm® and auto-populate some listing information into the cover sheet. Users wishing to manage all OREF transactions on their account should click the OREF/zipLogix link under the Toolkit menu or in the list of links on the RMLSweb desktop.
RMLSweb users will need to log in to zipForm® the first time they use this service, but future access will utilize single sign-on technology, meaning less hassle.
Those who prefer to keep using zipLogic’s mlsConnect for forms will be able to do so.
MLS Insight is a series about how things work at RMLS™.
At their annual leadership retreat, the RMLS™ Board of Directors reviewed a list of potential projects and prioritized those they believe will have the best benefit for RMLS™ subscribers. Following is a brief description of the three projects that will get the attention of our software development team this year along with a fourth that will be scheduled if possible. The forms changes approved in 2015 are also in the works.
Watch List: This project will create a new feature on RMLSweb enabling subscribers to add individual listings to a “shopping cart” and receive push notifications when the status or a price change occurs. Potential scope includes ability to tag tax parcel records for notification when a listing is published.
Mobile Innovation Project: This project will utilize information available in a mobile device – photos, GPS, etc. – to create a property profile for use in creating CMAs, running reverse prospecting searches, and starting an in-progress listing in RMLSweb.
Frequency of Auto-Emails: This project will re-engineer auto-emails to reliably run the entire process within an hour. As part of this project, subscribers should be able to refine the frequency at which auto-emails are sent to individual clients.
Facebook Integration: This project will allow subscribers to easily post their own listings to Facebook, and will also fix formatting problems for mobile devices when RMLS.com listings are shared to Facebook.
If you have questions on any RMLS™-related topic that you would like to have answered, I encourage you to post a comment.
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.
Hello Technical Terry:
A RMLS™ trainer recently advised me to confirm the tax data on my listing before publishing the listing on RMLSweb. It’s a good thing I did…the tax data that came up on RMLSweb was out of date compared to what I found on the county website! Why is that?
Elizabeth P. Unum
Great question, Elizabeth. Of course the county is going to have the most up-to-date data—they’re the source!
Tax data on RMLSweb covers the entire state of Oregon as well as part of southern Washington—a one-stop shop. In order to provide that much data, we work with four intermediate data providers, and in a few cases the county itself. In nearly all those cases, the data still comes initially from the county.
RMLS™ will always have less up-to-date data than the county assessor.
When you enter in a listing on RMLSweb with a Tax ID, the system fills in some values for you. Confirm these values and if they’re not 100% accurate, you may edit them before the listing goes live. After the listing is live, you’ll need to contact RMLS™ to make changes.
One last note: RMLS™ updates different counties on a schedule. Tax data for some counties is updated once a year (like those in southeastern Oregon), and some (like Multnomah and Clark County) are done weekly.
Technical Terry—
I’m not finding my client’s property in the tax system on RMLSweb. How can I enter the listing?
Penny Gerettet
Through the front door?
But seriously. A property tax ID (APN) is required to enter a listing into RMLSweb.
If you’re not finding the correct Tax ID, skip it. The system will enter Not Found into the Tax ID field. Every week, the RMLSweb servers find listings without Tax IDs and tries to match them up with tax data using several components of the property address.
If the property has been subdivided, added, or reassessed within the past year, RMLS™ will likely not have updates until the next yearly update—late fall for Oregon and early spring for Washington.
Dear Technical Terry,
The tax information on my client’s property is just flat wrong. How did this happen?
Sincerely, Ron R. Ronger
When you enter in a listing on RMLSweb with a Tax ID, the system fills in some values for you. Confirm these values and if they’re not 100% accurate, you may edit them before the listing goes live.
If tax information is incorrect on your published listing on RMLSweb, the first thing to do is note the incorrect data in the private remarks so that other agents will know there’s a potential issue. Next, email RMLS™ tax staff and describe the problem, making sure to identify the county, Tax ID, and MLS number (if appropriate). Attach any relevant documents.
When RMLS™ receives this information, tax guru Kim Hutchinson will attempt to verify the data with the county. (If the county’s data is incorrect, contact them directly to resolve the issue.) If the county verifies RMLS™ data is incorrect, Kim will update the data on RMLSweb and work with the data provider for a long-term solution, emailing you about the outcome.
After all, we wouldn’t want you to be taxed by the details.
Does your seller want daily updates about how many people are seeing their listing on RMLSweb and RMLS.com? Do they want this information only on Saturday? Or perhaps Tuesdays and Thursdays?
RMLS™ can help. Starting Thursday morning February 25th, RMLS™ subscribers will be able to schedule automatic emails to clients with listing view count information.
Not only can subscribers schedule these automatic emails, but the emails will now directly send the data to the recipient, instead of a link to the information.
Here’s how it works. On RMLSweb, use Listing Load to locate the listing. Access the view counts report by clicking “VC” (list view) or “View Counts Report” (detail view). Click the Email button located on the upper right of the screen. Fill in the form as you normally would.
If you wish to send automatic emails, clicking the box marked “Auto Email to Contact” will open the automatic email options below. If your client prefers to see data in a bar or line graph, click on the appropriate option underneath the scheduling information. Check the boxes for days you wish automatic emails to be sent, then click “Schedule” to save.
At this time, RMLS™ can only send one email per day. Emails will be sent as long as the listing is in ACT, BMP, or SSP status.
MLS Insight is a series about how things work at RMLS™.
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) was signed into law in 1998 with the intent to bring US copyright laws into the digital age. MLS listings normally contain several items subject to copyright, most prominently the photos and remarks. When a listing is loaded into RMLSweb, the understanding is that the listing content is authorized or legitimate, and there is no copyright issue.
This understanding is stipulated in the RMLS™ Rules and Regulations under Section 10.3 – Authority to Publish: By the act of submitting any property listing content to RMLS™, the Participant represents that the Participant has been authorized and also thereby does grant authority for the MLS to include the property listing content in its copyrighted MLS compilation and also in any statistical report on comparables.
In addition to the responsibility of the listing broker to ensure that there is no copyright infringement in the listing content they provide, RMLS™ also has responsibilities as a publisher under the DMCA. In order to limit liability for copyright infringement we may unknowingly include on our site, we have followed the safe harbor provisions of the DMCA since 2009. These provisions include appointing a copyright agent and making it easy for someone who spots a copyright infringement to contact us. RMLSweb and RMLS.com have a link on every listing to report any claims of copyright infringement, and there are specific steps we follow to meet the requirements of the safe harbor when we are notified of a problem.
That covers the responsibility of the listing broker and RMLS™.
Does it end there? NO!! It does not.
Each website posting listing data is individually responsible for copyright infringement that might appear on that site. That means that every IDX website needs to protect itself under the DMCA safe harbor provisions.
The National Association of REALTORS® (NAR) became concerned about potential liability for brokers, and in their model rules for 2016 they have required the addition of a section about copyright and the DMCA. The RMLS™ Board of Directors adopted this language and it has now been added to Section 10.3 of the RMLS™ Rules and Regulations. This is an important advisory recommendation from NAR. If you have a website that displays listing content, make sure you ask your website provider about their compliance with the DMCA. Here is the new RMLS™ Rules and Regulations language in full.
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is a federal copyright law that enhances the penalties for copyright infringement occurring on the Internet. The law provides exemptions or “safe harbors” from copyright infringement liability for online service providers (OSP) that satisfy certain criteria. Courts construe the definition of “online service provider” broadly, which would likely include MLSs as well as participants and subscribers hosting an IDX display.
One safe harbor limits the liability of an OSP that hosts a system, network or website on which Internet users may post user-generated content. If an OSP complies with the provisions of this DMCA safe harbor, it cannot be liable for copyright infringement if a user posts infringing material on its website. This protects an OSP from incurring significant sums in copyright infringement damages, as statutory damages are as high as $150,000 per work. For this reason, it is highly recommended that MLSs, participants and subscribers comply with the DMCA safe harbor provisions discussed herein.
To qualify for this safe harbor, the OSP must:
Designate on its website and register with the Copyright Office an agent to receive takedown requests. The agent could be the MLS, participant, subscriber, or other individual or entity.
Develop and post a DMCA-compliant website policy that addresses repeat offenders.
Comply with the DMCA takedown procedure. If a copyright owner submits a takedown notice to the OSP, which alleges infringement of its copyright at a certain location, then the OSP must promptly remove allegedly infringing material. The alleged infringer may submit a counter-notice that the OSP must share with the copyright owner. If the copyright owner fails to initiate a copyright lawsuit within ten (10) days, then the OSP may restore the removed material.
Have no actual knowledge of any complained-of infringing activity.
Not be aware of facts or circumstances from which complained-of infringing activity is apparent.
Not receive a financial benefit attributable to complained-of infringing activity when the OSP is capable of controlling such activity.
Full compliance with these DMCA safe harbor criteria will mitigate an OSP’s copyright infringement liability. For more information see 17 USC §512.
