Inspectors understand the importance of maintaining a solid network of contacts, including real estate agents, buyers, and sellers. The Inspector Dashboard offers a way to manage and interact with your contacts. In this article, we will walk you through searching for and viewing contacts, adding new contacts to your network, editing contact information, removing contacts from your network, and setting permissions for customers and representatives. Let's dive in!
Search for and View a Customer or REP
The first step to managing your contacts is to locate and view them within the HomeGauge Dashboard. Here's how you can do it:
Log into your Dashboard
From the menu, click Contacts
Click Real Estate Pros or Buyers / Sellers. Your contacts will be listed here.
Search by clicking Search My Contacts, fill in the Search box and, choose an option from the Search By box, then click Search.
Add a Customer or REP to your Contact Network
Expanding your network of contacts is vital for growing your home inspection business. You can add contacts to your network through appointments and reports:
Adding Contacts through Appointments
When creating a new customer or representative in the "New Appointment" screen, they will automatically become part of your contact network once the appointment is finalized. For more information on this process, please refer to the article Inspector Dashboard: Creating and Managing Appointments.
Adding Contacts through Reports
By including contacts in a report, they will also be added to your contact network. For detailed instructions on this method, please look at the article Inspector Dashboard: Add, Remove and Troubleshooting a Customer or REP to a Report.
Edit a Customer's or REP's Info
Keeping your contact information up to date is essential for effective communication. If you need to make changes to a customer's or representative's details, follow these steps:
If the report has not been uploaded, see: Report Writer Desktop: Add, Edit, and Delete Customers and REPs.
If the report has already been uploaded to the Dashboard with the incorrect information/email address, follow these instructions:
Find the report with the incorrect customer information
To the right of the customer's name is their HomeGauge user name. Click the user name.
Click Edit Customer/REP Info to change name, address, or phone number. Click Submit when finished.
If the customer or REP has logged in, click Submit Request asking them to log in and update their information.
The email address(es) are listed on the right of the page. Change the email address or add a new one, then click Update Email Addresses.
On the next page, click the Submit Change button near the bottom of the screen.
If you happen to receive an error, see: Inspector Dashboard: Add, Remove, and Troubleshooting a Customer or REP to a Report.
NOTE: Once a customer or REP has logged in with their username and password, their account is locked and inspectors can no longer edit the account information. This ensures the legality and security of signed documents and reports.
Customers and REPs Can Edit Their Own Info
Empowering customers and REPs to update their own information helps maintain accuracy and ensures the privacy of their accounts. They can make changes by following these steps:
Log in at https://account.homegauge.com/
At the top left, click My Account
Edit the info
Click Submit at the bottom to save changes
If the customer or REP sees a message stating their "email is already in use", they have multiple accounts. Have them contact Support, so we can merge the accounts.
Remove a REP or Customer from your Network
Managing your contact network may require removing some contacts. If you are in a multi-inspector firm and need to delete an outdated contact, you can remove the contact for everyone in your company. Here's how you can do it:
From the menu, click Contacts
Click Real Estate Pros or Buyers / Sellers. Your contacts will be listed here.
Search by clicking Search My Contacts, fill in the Search box, choose an option from the Search By box, then click Search
Note for multi-inspector firms: Check the box Also remove contact from inspectors in my company to remove a contact for everyone in your company.
Once you find the contact, click Remove from Network
Edit Permissions for Customers and Reps
Setting appropriate permissions for your contacts helps control report access and ensures confidentiality. To modify permissions for a particular report, follow these steps:
Find the report you want to change permissions for
Above the report name, click the Viewing tab, then Edit Permissions
Check the box in the Viewing column next to each person you would like to be able to see the report
Set Permissions Quickly
You can click the All or Clear buttons near the top of the Viewing column to set or clear all the checkboxes at once.Check the box in the Forward column next to each person you would like to be able to forward the report to another party
Click Set Permissions to complete the task
Set Default Viewing and Forwarding Permissions
To streamline the process of granting permissions, you can set default permissions for customers and real estate professionals. This will automatically grant viewing and/or Forwarding Permissions when a report is uploaded from the Report Writer Desktop. Default permissions should be done with caution since it could give a customer access to documents before you want them to have them.
From the menu on the left, click Account Settings
Click Upload/Email Options
Check the boxes under Customer and Real Estate Pro to set permissions appropriately
Click Save Upload Document Options
Download Customers and REPs Lists from the Dashboard
For your convenience, you can download your Online Contacts list from the HomeGauge Dashboard:
From your Dashboard, select Contacts
Choose either Real Estate Pros or Buyers/Sellers from the sub-menu.
Once in the desired contacts database, scroll to the bottom of the page and use the Export feature.
You can choose a contact for All Years or a specific year. This will create a .csv file that can be opened with your MS Excel spreadsheet or Open Office program. (Open Office is a free download if you don't own Excel.)