Real Estate – jack of all trades master of some http://jackofalltradesmasterofsome.com/blog Consultant - Real Estate - Author - Business Intelligence Mon, 26 Dec 2022 16:53:56 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.5.3 Power BI to Yardi Real Estate Data http://jackofalltradesmasterofsome.com/blog/2021/02/16/power-bi-to-yardi-real-estate-data/ Tue, 16 Feb 2021 14:07:59 +0000 http://jackofalltradesmasterofsome.com/blog/?p=1142 Most of the basic CRE tools have a deep suite of reports and analytics baked in with standard reporting, but everyone’s business is unique, and everyone’s reporting and integration needs are slightly different. Data from a single property ERP usually needs to be combined with other data points from other systems such as Salesforce, Accounting Software, Construction Software and even static excel files. This is why most CRE organizations must use tools such as Power BI to conduct analytics outside of the core tools. With Yardi, the data is usually harder to get too and there is no ODBC connection, it is doable just with a few extra steps. Let’s review how to Connect Power BI to Yardi Real Estate Data.

If the contents of this post are a outside of your wheelhouse, don’t worry, this is why I started CREXchange.io! We have free Commercial Real Estate Power BI Reports to help clients get up and off the ground with Yardi Data Integration and Advanced Power BI Custom Reports to help run your CRE business. Contact us there for more details or a demo!

1.     Export and Restore your Yardi Database backup locally

The first step to be able to analyze your data is going to involve getting access to your data. Most SaaS platforms including Yardi do not allow direct access to the database or data model but most do allow for you to export this data to your local instance to do as you please. You will need to build a process that imports and restores the back up database copy to a local SQL Server. This process can be tricky, but it can be done. See our whitepapers below to get more informational on this step. You will require a SQL server license and a virtual machine to host the back up.

Connect Power BI to Yardi Real Estate Data
Get our free Power BI reports here!

2.     Transform the Yardi data into a usable data model

There are thousands of tables in the database, most which you will never need. Extract the handful of tables you need for your data that pertain to occupancy, revenue, properties, tenants, units and accounting and others you may need and organize this data into a data model that can be easily sliced and diced. The model can be complex so be sure to use the right ID and ensure you have similar rules and logic tied to the type id’s and param to be sure you are getting the right data for the right timeline. If you need help with this piece, reach out for more help to get access to our proprietary real estate data model.

3.     Connect Power BI do your Data Model

Once you have your data model created and a process to refresh and reload this data nightly, you are ready to connect your visualization tools to being building cool new reports, analytics, and visualizations. Using Power BI’s default SQL server connector, you can connect to your database weather it is on the cloud or on-prem and import the data into Power BI. Your data model should have the foreign keys establish so that it is inherited and be able to create reports and dashboards. Here is an example of one of our Reports that enables tenant and leasing data.

Connect Power BI to Yardi Real Estate Data
Get our free Power BI reports here!

4.     Connect Power BI to other data sources and combine to your Yardi real estate data

Having Yardi or Real Estate data is never enough. Now with Power BI, you can connect to numerous data sources in your business to begin to combine data too create analytics across all your business units and lifecycle of the real estate business.

Step 1 and 2 are the more technical heavy steps of the process. In previous post I have written white papers about getting data from Yardi nightly or even hourly using transaction log shipping, both available for download.

Connect Power BI to Yardi Real Estate Data
Get our free Power BI reports here!

If the contents of this post are a outside of your wheelhouse, don’t worry, this is why I started CREXchange.io to help clients get up and off the ground with Yardi Data Integration and Advanced Power BI Custom Reports to help run your CRE business. Our reports are free with integration! Contact us there for more details or a demo!

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How to find the best Yardi Consultant http://jackofalltradesmasterofsome.com/blog/2020/07/26/how-to-find-the-right-yardi-consultant/ Sun, 26 Jul 2020 00:24:27 +0000 http://jackofalltradesmasterofsome.com/blog/?p=882 Yardi can be a very complicated tool and with all the modules and features to set up, It is important you know How to find the best Yardi Consultant.

Modules such as investment manager, rentcafe, or just basic task as setting up an account tree should be done correctly so that your real estate business can run effectively and efficiently.

Yardi consultants can be very expensive so it is important you get what you are paying for. There are some key skills and questions you should ask for.

1. Do they have experience with accounting in Yardi

Accounting is the bread and butter for Yardi’s functionality. From a book keeping perspective it cannot be beat in the multifamily space and is the industry standard. Whether it is reversing journal transactions or month end close processes, a good consultinat must understand how to work with ahd edit accounting processes in Yardi.

2. Have they been involved in a Yardi 6 to 7S upgrade

Now that most users have upgraded, most consultants at some point were probably involved in an upgrade. As we have documented in the past, this was not an easy task and required a lot of coordination and updates. Consultants would have learned the ins and outs of the 7S system in the process. See our Yardi 6 to 7S checklist if you are still one of the few looking to upgrade.

3. Have they been involved in bulk uploading properties

Properties are not always bought one at a time. When you purchase a portfolio it comes with many properties, tenants, and general ledger and bank details that will need to be uploaded at once and correctly.

4. Have the configured fund and investment manager

If you are an asset manager, than this is a critical tool for operations and reporting. Being sure this is set up correctly can make life significantly easier to manage your assets.

5. Are they familiar with custom reports and task runner

If you do not know, Yardi offers the the ability to add custom reports, automate processes and auto run jobs via a tool called Task Runner. Any good consultant will be able to help you set up processes that help you run your business while you sleep!

6. Do they have experience in the “Cafe’s”

Yardi’s offering is expanded by many tools like RentCafe and VendorCafe. Each of these tools must be configured and setup correctly to run smoothly. Be sure to have a subject matter expert that understands these tools before purchasing.

How to find the best Yardi Consultant

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Bridging the Owner to Property Manager Data Gap http://jackofalltradesmasterofsome.com/blog/2018/08/10/bridging-the-owner-to-property-manager-data-gap/ Fri, 10 Aug 2018 19:33:54 +0000 http://jackofalltradesmasterofsome.com/blog/?p=104 One of the more common reoccurring problems seen in the real estate space is the disconnect between the data created and stored by the individual property managers and the transfer of that very data to the respective owners, operators and fund managers. In most scenarios, individual property managers are using management and accounting tools of their choosing or one that was already in production use prior to when the property was acquired. In this (very common) scenario, the owners end up with multiple properties and multiple property managers each using different systems, processes and accounting timelines. Let’s take a look at Bridging the Owner to Property Manager Data Gap.

In this situation, owners must employ a team of analyst’s whose job is to collect the different exported file formats from each manager, clean and consolidate into one central source, usually a massive Excel spreadsheet. This leads to a few common issues.

  • Data is provided in different formats and a manual mapping exercise must take place every month end.
  • All the manual steps and consolidation of data sheets introduce risk of dirty data and data errors.
  • The manpower required could be spent elsewhere had the process been streamlined and automated.
  • Data history is now preserved in a series of Excel sheets on a shared drive
  • Files sent from managers to owners are usually sent via email. This introduces a security risk as well as a data retention problem.

The solution to this problem is not specific to the real estate space rather building safeguards and efficiencies into this process is a data transfer solution that can be implemented across industries that have to deal with disparate flat file data sources coming from out of the network. In a more common solution you have the following architecture.

  • The property managers would be instructed to use easy to use and inexpensive encryption software like PGP, once their file processing is complete at month end.
  • The files would then be saved to an SFTP such as ShareFile, ensuring secure file transfers. This process usually can be automated based on the source tools capabilities, but manual loads are not uncommon either.
  • This is where the true automation is built. A process on the owner’s side using simple high-level data transfer languages can be used to download, decrypt and and archive the files from the SFTP automatically. This will allow raw files to be stored for future reference.
  • Once the file is decrypted, the process would have a set of mapping and translation rules to convert and conform the data into a standard and clean format. This removes the risk of human related data errors that could be introduced.
  • Data is stored to a database rather then an Excel document. This allows for larger datasets to be stored and queried by the analyst team. Data from the database can be extracted to Excel or a reporting tool for future analysis but the primary source of data remains the database, eliminating multiple copies of excel documents floating around the organization.
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Accelerating the Staging Process for your Data Warehouse http://jackofalltradesmasterofsome.com/blog/2018/06/27/real-estate-data-warehouse-accelerating-the-staging-process/ Wed, 27 Jun 2018 21:09:56 +0000 http://jackofalltradesmasterofsome.com/blog/?p=85 Real Estate Data Warehouse – Accelerating the Staging Process

The script below can be used to build a staging environment for any sort of industry and not just real estate related databases. The specifics of a RE Data warehouse will be covered in future blog post. It will allow you to Accelerating the Staging Process for your Data Warehouse

When starting the process to capture data analytics, whether you planning to eventually build a data warehouse or eventually feed a big data Hadoop cluster, it helps to stage your data away from your source systems. This provides many benefits; the primary being having a copy of data to work with and process that is no longer in the transactional operational system. Having large processes or queries running against your transactional operation system provides unnecessary risk, can introduce bottlenecks or slowdowns and even open security holes that may not be needed. When you have a staging environment, all you need is one service level account managed by IT security that has read access to the source systems. From there, building a scheduled refresh process to load this data as a blanket truncate and reload can be set up easily. Many tools for ETL can be used and robust auditing and scheduling should be set up but getting off the ground quickly to start prototyping and profiling your data will allow you to get moving a lot sooner and providing value to the business.

For this reason, I wrote the SQL script below a while back to help me on new projects. Running this script against a linked server connection or a replicated database will quickly allow you to build a staging database with procedures to load all the data as truncate and reloads. This can then be wrapped in a master SQL procedure and scheduled, giving you a full Staging ETL process with out needing ETL tools. Remember, this is just an accelerator and will require some tweaking and optimization to get to a final state, but this should get you off the ground with your basic SQL based source systems.

/***********************

Start of Script

************************/

/***********************

Configuration

************************/

DECLARE @sqlCommand varchar(1000)

DECLARE @DatabaseNameStaging varchar(75)

DECLARE @DatabaseNameSource varchar(75)

SET @DatabaseNameStaging = ‘Staging’

SET @DatabaseNameSource = ‘SourceDB’

— Add all tables to ignore to this list

DROP TABLE #TablestoIgnore

CREATE TABLE #TablestoIgnore

(

TableName varchar(255)

)

INSERT INTO #TablestoIgnore

Select ”

–UNION

–Select ”

— Table to Store List of all Table is Source Database

DROP TABLE #TableList

CREATE TABLE #TableList

(

TableName varchar(255)

)

/***********************

Create Staging Database

************************/

SET @sqlCommand = ‘IF NOT EXISTS(SELECT * FROM sys.databases WHERE NAME = ”’+@DatabaseNameStaging+”’)

BEGIN

CREATE DATABASE ‘+@DatabaseNameStaging+’

— Set Logging to Simple

USE master ;

ALTER DATABASE ‘+@DatabaseNameStaging+’ SET RECOVERY SIMPLE

END’

EXEC (@sqlCommand)

/***********************

Get List of All Tables

************************/

SET @sqlCommand = ‘INSERT INTO #TableList SELECT DISTINCT T.name AS Table_Name

FROM   ‘+@DatabaseNameSource+’.sys.objects AS T

WHERE  T.type_desc = ”USER_TABLE”

AND T.name NOT IN (SELECT TableName FROM #TablestoIgnore)

ORDER By 1′

EXEC (@sqlCommand)

–Create Drop and Create Statements

SELECT ‘IF OBJECT_ID(”’ + @DatabaseNameStaging + ‘.dbo.’+ TableName +  ”’, ”U”) IS NOT NULL DROP TABLE ‘ + @DatabaseNameStaging + ‘.dbo.’+ TableName  + ‘;’ AS DropStatement,

‘SELECT Top 1 * INTO ‘ + @DatabaseNameStaging + ‘.dbo.’+ TableName  + ‘ From ‘ + @DatabaseNameSource + ‘.dbo.’+ TableName  AS CreateStatement

INTO #DatabaseStatements

FROM #TableList

–Create Drop and Create Statements

— Run Drop Commands

DECLARE @MyCursor CURSOR;

DECLARE @MyField varchar(500);

BEGIN

SET @MyCursor = CURSOR FOR

SELECT DropStatement FROM #DatabaseStatements

OPEN @MyCursor

FETCH NEXT FROM @MyCursor

INTO @MyField

WHILE @@FETCH_STATUS = 0

BEGIN

EXEC (@MyField)

FETCH NEXT FROM @MyCursor

INTO @MyField

END;

CLOSE @MyCursor ;

DEALLOCATE @MyCursor;

END;

— Run Create Commands

BEGIN

SET @MyCursor = CURSOR FOR

SELECT CreateStatement FROM #DatabaseStatements

OPEN @MyCursor

FETCH NEXT FROM @MyCursor

INTO @MyField

WHILE @@FETCH_STATUS = 0

BEGIN

EXEC (@MyField)

FETCH NEXT FROM @MyCursor

INTO @MyField

END;

CLOSE @MyCursor ;

DEALLOCATE @MyCursor;

END;

/***********************

Create All Stored Procedures

to Load Staging

*** THIS SECTION MUST BE RUN AGAINST STAGING ENVIRONMENT ***

*** This step may result in Error for Identity Tables. Those ETL’s will need to be created

************************/

USE Staging

— Run Create Commands

BEGIN

SET @MyCursor = CURSOR FOR

SELECT TableName

FROM #TableList

OPEN @MyCursor

FETCH NEXT FROM @MyCursor

INTO @MyField

WHILE @@FETCH_STATUS = 0

BEGIN

EXEC ( ‘IF OBJECT_ID(”spLoad’+@MyField+”’, ”P”) IS NOT NULL DROP PROC spLoad’+@MyField+”)

EXEC ( ‘TRUNCATE TABLE ‘+@DatabaseNameStaging+’.dbo.’+@MyField+’

CREATE PROCEDURE dbo.spLoad’+@MyField+’

AS

BEGIN

SET NOCOUNT ON;

— Insert statements for procedure here

INSERT INTO ‘+@DatabaseNameStaging+’.dbo.’+@MyField+’

SELECT * FROM ‘+@DatabaseNameSource+’.dbo.’+@MyField+’

END’)

EXEC ( ‘CREATE PROCEDURE dbo.spLoad’+@MyField+’

AS

BEGIN

SET NOCOUNT ON;

— Insert statements for procedure here

INSERT INTO ‘+@DatabaseNameStaging+’.dbo.’+@MyField+’

SELECT * FROM ‘+@DatabaseNameSource+’.dbo.’+@MyField+’

END’)

FETCH NEXT FROM @MyCursor

INTO @MyField

END;

CLOSE @MyCursor ;

DEALLOCATE @MyCursor;

END;

DROP TABLE #DatabaseStatements

/***********************

End of Script

************************/

 



Be sure to check out my full online class on the topic. A hands on walk through of a Modern Data Architecture using Microsoft Azure. For beginners and experienced business intelligence experts alike, learn the basic of navigating the Azure Portal to building an end to end solution of a modern data warehouse using popular technologies such as SQL Database, Data Lake, Data Factory, Data Bricks, Azure Synapse Data Warehouse and Power BI. Link to the class can be found here or directly here.

Part 1 – Navigating the Azure Portal

Part 2 – Resource Groups and Subscriptions

Part 3 – Creating Data Lake Storage

Part 4 – Setting up an Azure SQL Server

Part 5 – Loading Data Lake with Azure Data Factory

Part 6 – Configuring and Setting up Data Bricks

Part 7 – Staging data into Data Lake

Part 8 = Provisioning a Synapse SQL Data Warehouse

Part 9 – Loading Data into Azure Data Synapse Data Warehouse



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Creating Embedded Yardi SSRS Reports Tutorial http://jackofalltradesmasterofsome.com/blog/2018/05/08/creating-embedded-yardi-ssrs-reports/ Tue, 08 May 2018 14:23:46 +0000 http://jackofalltradesmasterofsome.com/blog/?p=61 In previous posts we covered topics such as getting your data out of Yardi using the FTP method and the Log shipping method to facilitate building your own custom reports outside of the tool and being able to combine the data with other operational data sources. The tool comes with a comprehensive set of reports but there is always a need to create custom reports to supplement the book of reports. The tool also gives the ability to build your own SSRS reports and place them back in the tool so that they appear in the SQL Reports section for all users to access. Below we will cover the basics on Creating Embedded Yardi SSRS Reports Tutorial.

SSRS reports in Yardi require two files – a text file containing your SQL, and an RDLC containing the report definition.

If the contents of this post are outside of your wheelhouse, don’t worry, this is why I started CREXchange.io to help clients get up and off the ground with Yardi Data Integration and Advanced Power BI Custom Reports to help run your CRE business. Contact us there for more details or a demo!

The SQL File

The SQL file will contain most of the necessary primary elements and logic. It’s where you will define the title, the filters, the columns and most importantly the SQL statement.

In the filters section (marked //Filter), you can specify the parameter type, data type, caption, values and other attributes for the report. This section is what the Yardi SSRS module uses to create the parameter section before you run a report, not what is in the RDLC. Note: Creating a parameter in the RDLC can cause the report to run into errors.

The SQL is written as regular T-SQL and users must have a working understanding of the tables and data elements to be sure they are writing accurate queries. In the “Where” clause, the filters set up in the previous section can be referenced using hashmarks. (Example: Where Property = #Property#). The filter in the hashmarks will be replaced with the correct value at run time.

Once created, save the file as SampleReport.SSRS.txt – the naming convention is needed for the tool to know how to render the report.

The RDLC File

The second file you’ll need is the RDLC, which can be created in Visual Studio 2012. (The version is important, as later versions of Visual Studio may create rendering errors. I’ve had issues with filters working correctly.)

From new projects, you will want to create a VB Reporting Application project. This is usually included in the default installation.

Once created, skip or cancel all the wizards that pop up. We will be creating all items manually, as it is fairly simple. Once the project is created, you will see the solution on the right-hand side.

Right-click the solution and click “add new Item.” We will be adding a DataSet first. Be sure to the name matches the name on the report. Although not critical, it helps later with tracking your SQL.

Once created, you will find tool box on the left side of the page. Grab “Table Adapter” and drag it into the work space. Then, create a SQL Connection. This will give you a local database to write and test your queries against. Do not worry about the connection string, this does not get used at run time when you deploy. (NOTE: If you are not on a VPN or network where you can connect to a Yardi database, then you will need to follow the steps from our previous blog posts on getting your data out of Yardi.)

On the next step of the Wizard, select “Use SQL Statement”. Add your SQL here, but do leave off any non SQL formatting such as the Hash tag filters. Just the Raw SQL that returns the columns needed should be placed here so the report can create the metadata needed for the report render. We just used two test columns here for the example.

Once the Table Adapter is created, it will appear in the “Solutions” section. Add another “New Item.” Select “Report” – also giving it the same name as the data connector and the SQL text file, just to keep things clean.

Once you have the RDLC file created, you can create the report using typical SSRS development skills (those instructions can be found in basic Microsoft training material online). There’s no need to add parameters or filters, since that’s handled via the text file. Only the table data and layout items need to be defined at this stage.

Once both files are created, they need to be uploaded to the server using Client Central. This is done by an administrator with access to the front-end. The folder and location will be specific to your file system. Be sure the files are added to the correct section and to the correct environment test or production, based on your goals.

That is it! Once uploaded, your report should be searchable via the SQL Reports menu item. Complex reports can be created as long as you have a good power user. The limit of what you can do is only limited to the skill of the report writer.

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Automate your Real Estate Software – Yardi ETL and Automation http://jackofalltradesmasterofsome.com/blog/2018/04/05/automate-real-estate-software-yardi-etl-automation/ Thu, 05 Apr 2018 20:23:07 +0000 http://jackofalltradesmasterofsome.com/blog/?p=53 Interesting in learning how to Automate your Real Estate Software – Yardi ETL and Automation. This blog post will help you drive your CRE business forward.

When running your Real Estate business, it helps to not have to think about the small things. This is where process automation can help free up time for your resources and eliminate the risk of missing tasks or checklist items when certain actions occur.

Need help with getting this solution up and running for your business? Email me at bettermentstudio5@gmail.com to discuss a low cost solution to host your reporting, analytics and integration needs!

If the contents of this post are outside of your wheelhouse, don’t worry, this is why I started CREXchange.io to help clients get up and off the ground with Yardi Data Integration and Advanced Power BI Custom Reports to help run your CRE business. Contact us there for more details or a demo!

For example, most of your Property ERP like Yardi will automatically book transactions to the ledger and to the tenant at the beginning of the month for rent, or automatically trigger an email notification when the lease is nearing sixty days to completion. But there are many tasks that are unique to your business that need to occur without thought based on the rules you have defined, and some of these tasks will not be readily available in your tools automation drop downs.

Supplementing your tools automation can be completed with smart SQL stored procedures. When using tools like Yardi, there are data flows that can be created using the Task Runner Tool. This tool can be used to kick off steps like property list rebuilds or refreshing of occupancy. But when combined with called to custom stored procedures, you can use it to automate property onboarding from 3rd party systems.

Another clever way to utilize stored procedures is to auto trigger payments and charges. For example, as a tenant moves through the eviction process, you can check for status changes to certain fields to trigger charges directly to the tenant. A high-level screenshot is shown below.

Overall, if you have database access to your core system you can be as creative as you like with making sure processes are followed by elimination humans from the steps and making sure the data drives your business instead.

Automate your Real Estate Software – Yardi ETL and Automation

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Real Estate Data Analytics Tenant Analytics – Tenant Analytics and Boosting your Cap Rate per Unit http://jackofalltradesmasterofsome.com/blog/2018/02/12/real-estate-data-tenant-analytics-cap-rate-per-unit/ Mon, 12 Feb 2018 22:22:06 +0000 http://jackofalltradesmasterofsome.com/blog/?p=42 Do you own a few rental properties or a multi-family unit? Do you know your best tenant? Is it the tenant that pays slightly lower than market rent but always pays on time? Is it the tenant that pays above market rent but seems to have some sort of maintenance request every other month? Maybe it’s the tenant that you haven’t heard from in years, always pays a few days late but you know the check will be in house before the first week of the month has passed? Let’s take a look at your Real Estate Data Analytics and Tenant Analytics

The answer can be any one of those or a multitude of other scenarios. The trick is to get a good understanding of your customer, and in this case your customer is your tenant. The retail industry has been doing this for many years under the name Customer Analytics. They are engaging their customers via marketing promotions, collecting data via loyalty cards or simply capturing and storing demographic information to make better decisions around their customer base. All this to be sure they are selling the right items to the right people, ensuring the cross-sell is always in play.

Similar strategies can be leveraged when looking at your tenants, which we I call tenant analytics. Whether you’re using a large platform like Yardi, another smaller software as a service offering or just plain old Excel, you are already gathering a large amount of valuable information organically. You may not be gathering demographics and other slightly more abstract details on your tenants, but we will revisit how to close that gap in a later post. Let’s focus on what you should already have in place and how to do this once you have your Yardi data extracted into your data warehouse.

Let’s start with some basics for this post:

  • How profitable is a current tenant?
  • How much revenue do they generate over the lives of all their leases vs. how much do they cost you over that same time period?

Every month you record revenue and expenses at the unit level for a single lease. As the years pass this data accumulates but most people only look at the current month or the current year, not the whole picture.

First let’s start by pulling data from Accounting. This data comes primarily from the tables Total, GLTotal, Trans and Detail. This is a great way to obtain all financial information needed for the first part of the picture at the unit level. Remember, it is valuable to look at marketing cost and turn cost leading up to the lease, as that initial investment really can help provide the baseline for your investment at the unit level.

Next, by extracting the lease, tenant and collection information you now have the more “human” side of the equation. Most systems like Yardi, will capture specific work order information, as well. This will allow you to deep dive what items were basic wear and tear maintenance vs. what could have been prevented with some planning or better tenant placement.

Simple analysis of just these data elements will give you a base understanding of a tenant. Does it make sense to cut a quiet tenant lose if you can recoup the vacancy cost with a rent maximized tenant in place. Maybe you have a tenant that always pays just a few days late. They aren’t a risk for non-payment leading to eviction and net you a few hundred dollars in late charges. How do they compare to the tenant that always pays on time, but complains about everything and hassles you for endless minor repair items. Although reviewing each tenant on a case by case basis can be difficult and time consuming, it’s a good start and significantly better than flying in the dark.

In your data warehouse, you can use these metrics, as well as others, to derive a Tenant score. The score itself gets smarter and more accurate with every passing day as it continues to collect, store and analyze the information coming out of the aforementioned data points. This score can be used to sort, scan and make decisions very quickly on how you want to proceed with your tenants.

Let’s say you have a unit that cost $100,000 with a monthly rent of $1000. For the sake of simplicity we will assume there are no expenses. Having a forgetful tenant continue to pay $50 of late fees every month on a lease increases the cap rate from 12% to 12.6%. Although this may not seem like a lot, the changes at the micro will drive the changes at the macro level of the property or investment which you start multiplying this value add out across a portfolio.

Of course, all of this is only doable if you’re capturing your data! For more information on some of the best practices, check out our blog post from the previous series; “Getting your data from Yardi”. In the next post we will deep dive some more cool analytics around your custom…I mean tenants.

If the contents of this post are outside of your wheelhouse, don’t worry, this is why I started CREXchange.io to help clients get up and off the ground with Yardi Data Integration and Advanced Power BI Custom Reports to help run your CRE business. Contact us there for more details or a demo!

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Is the Yardi Private Cloud Right for You? http://jackofalltradesmasterofsome.com/blog/2018/02/12/yardi-private-cloud-right/ Mon, 12 Feb 2018 21:38:53 +0000 http://jackofalltradesmasterofsome.com/blog/?p=32 Yardi software offers two versions of their services offerings, SaaS Select and Hosted Private Could. They are essentially same offering from a front end user’s perspective, but vary significantly on the back end. Deciding on which one is right for you depends on your business requirements, the maturity of your organization, and your data analysis needs.

Need help with getting this solution up and running for your business? Email me at bettermentstudio5@gmail.com to discuss a low cost solution to host your reporting, analytics and integration needs!

Below is a high level guide which should assist in the selection.

If the contents of this post are a outside of your wheelhouse, don’t worry, this is why I started CREXchange.io to help clients get up and off the ground with Yardi Data Integration and Advanced Power BI Custom Reports to help run your CRE business. Contact us there for more details or a demo!

Software as a Service (Saas Select)

What is it?

Yardi’s default set up is a classic Software as a Service model. Behind the scenes you’re sharing some of your servers with other Yardi clients, however you do get your own protected database as well as a protected front end client surfaced through the internet.

How do I get it?

This is your entry level instance of Yardi that most people use usually charges on a dollar per asset license.

Pros

Going Saas Select is the most common and cost effective set up if you are small to medium sized client. It offers a stable platform with standard support. It provides the lowest barrier to entry and also the best cost for smaller or growing businesses. There are no risk of performance or resource sharing as this is handled quite well with dedicated resourcing and databases.

Cons

The biggest downside of going Software as a Service is that you are limited to only nightly backups of the data. For more real time access, more complex extracts leveraging Task Runner and FTP are needed and do not scale well.

Hosted Private Cloud

What is it?

Hosted private cloud is your own personal server spun up to host your individual instance of the Yardi application and database. It provides better performance, security and control over the server where your Yardi instance lives.

How do I get it?

This is offered at an increased annual cost, but also is included free once you reach a certain level of spend against your AUM.

Pros

This offering comes with a dedicated server, database and environment and with all the support of SaaS select. This set up will allow for more real time data access and facilitate inbound data (such as property onboarding) as simpler process. Dedicated resourcing will also give flexibility into adding to the database structure to host any additional data points your business requires.

Cons

The largest downside to Private Cloud is that it can cost more than SaaS select, especially for smaller to mid-size companies. Outside of cost, all functionally, support and actions are available of the Software as a Service model.

In conclusion, no matter which version of Yardi you go with the tool will help you run your business. The ultimate decision point should be based on what your organization requires to be successful and most of all efficient.

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Getting Data from Yardi Log Shipping Part 2 http://jackofalltradesmasterofsome.com/blog/2014/06/08/getting-your-data-out-of-yardi-log-shipping/ Sun, 08 Jun 2014 20:08:34 +0000 http://jackofalltradesmasterofsome.com/blog/?p=76 Until recently obtaining data externally from Yardi was reserved to two methods. The first was via a nightly backup of the database or if you were paying for private cloud, then the second was via direct SQL query access over VPN. Both worked very well but both also had some minor flaws. We also have Getting Data from Yardi Log Shipping.

If the contents of this post are outside of your wheelhouse, don’t worry, this is why I started CREXchange.io to help clients get up and off the ground with Yardi Data Integration and Advanced Power BI Custom Reports to help run your CRE business. Contact us there for more details or a demo!

Getting Data from Yardi Log Shipping

The nightly back up process would allow you to only refresh your data environment once a night with the previous days data. As an organizations reporting and analytics requirements evolve into needing faster more real time updates, having day old data sometimes hinder those requirements. In addition to this draw back, as the database size grows, the entire process of pulling the database from the FTP server, unzipping and restoring can take multiple hours and possibly bleed into early morning reporting if the database is very large.

The second method of direct SQL query solved a lot of the issues previously mentioned. Data could be queried ad hoc and change capture logic could be built in directly into this layer. Efficient load logic could be used to identity and load only new records but even this could be very cumbersome on the server’s memory as look ups comparing hundreds of millions of rows just to determine the deltas in the data can be quite intensive. In addition to this, many Yardi clients are not using private cloud which would mean this option is not available at all.

The third option is SQL Server Log shipping. In this method, we are able to refresh a replica of the database by resorting the change logs of a database to a restored copy (after our initial restore of the full database). This means smaller files are needed to only catch the replica up from the most recent set of changes that occurred in the database.

Download the free whitepaper on Getting Your Data Out of Yardi Part 2 Log Shipping Here

Getting Data from Yardi Log Shipping

All of this will allow you to have a truly replicated instance locally to be used for reporting and analytics that will have up to date data for powerful insights and more instant reactionary reporting. If you have any questions on the process, email us at the address in the contact us section!

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Getting your Data from Yardi http://jackofalltradesmasterofsome.com/blog/2014/02/12/getting-data-yardi/ Wed, 12 Feb 2014 21:27:33 +0000 http://jackofalltradesmasterofsome.com/blog/?p=26 With the landscape of Real Estate companies growing and turning to Yardi’s expansive Application Stack and infrastructure to manage their business there is a growing need to get your data out of Yardi and into the hands of an analyst or power user via extracts or a data warehouse for analytical purposes.

Getting data back from any software as a service platform can be tricky especially due to proprietary rules.  Unfortunately, out of the box reporting is never robust enough to meet your specific needs and the data you need is stuck behind their servers. Fortunately, there are two efficient ways to get your data from Yardi based on if you are using their service as their primary software as a service or if you choose their hosted private cloud option. To see which one is right for you, please reference this post.

How to get your data from Yardi

There are two primary options you can use. First, Yardi provides a mechanism to download your database backups from an SFTP they will configure for you. You can script a job using Python or Command line to do this for you and restore the SQL database locally. Second, if you hit a high enough property threshold and pay extra, they can grant you direct VPN access to your data.

Download the free whitepaper below to see get more details on how to download and access your data from Yardi Voyager. This white paper will show you the step by step process on how to set up the Yardi data refresh process.

Get the Free CRE Data Whitepaper on Getting Data from Yardi Here

If the contents of this post are outside of your wheelhouse, don’t worry, this is why we started CREXchange.io. We even have free out-of-the-box Power BI Reports to help you get off the ground with Yardi Data Integration and help run your CRE business. Contact us there for more details or a demo!

Real Estate Yardi Data

Update!

There is a new method available which allows you to accomplish this same task more efficiently as well as more frequently. Please see the respective post on Getting Data from Yardi via Logshipping!

Get your data via SQL Logshipping!

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