Residents List
Content
Residents List
Forum
Admin Forum
Notice Board
Calendar
Document Repository
Vendor List
Instant Poll
My Flat
Residents List
Accessible to: All Residents
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Online directory of all residents of the community. Phone numbers and Email address can be masked by the choice of individual resident. Networking information such as hobbies, profession, personal website links, etc. can also be viewed. Sub-list of Management Committee members Emails can be sent to any resident right from this directory Ability to Search on name, flat, intercom, occupation, languages, hobbies etc.
Forum
Open to all residents Completely integrated with the Residents List - can easily identify the author of a Forum post Conversations can be made visible to all or to "owners only" Advanced editor can include images, text formatting, and hyperlinks
Accessible to: All Residents
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Encourages participation and takes the bulk away from your email inbox. However email notifications on Foru can be activated by choice
Complete email integration with Forum. Instant notification sent whenever a post happens, response to the p made by replying to the email. Response gets recorded on the Forum
Admin Forum
Accessible to: Only Residents with Admin Access ( typically Management Committee )
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Admin Forum is available only to the Admin Team Same features as that of the Resident Forum Can control instant email notification, receive and reply to and from email
Notice Board
Accessible to: All Residents
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A snippet of all notices can be seen in one screen.
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Simple categorization of notices by "Admin Notices", "Buy/Sell Notices" & "General Notices". Set default expiry dates of notices.
Notices that announce an event, can be assigned an event date which will link these notices to the Event Cale
Reports such as Cash Flow report, Maintenance Fee Defaulters, Expense Reports that are generated in your A published on this Notice Board with a single click Integarted with e-mail. New notices trigger email notification ( which can be configured )
Calendar
Accessible to: All Residents
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Events due on a certain day can be viewed Pulls information from the Notice Board, no duplicate data entry. A notice for a particular date can be easily created by clicking on that date in the calendar
Document Repository
Repository of uploaded files. Reference documents, By-Laws, Forms etc. can be stored here. Documents can be made accessible to All or to "Owner's only". Documents published by Admin ( Management Committee ) can be classified separately.
Accessible to: All Residents
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Vendor List
Accessible to: All Residents
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List of common service providers in the community. Quality of service of each vendor can be rated Helps any new resident to settle down with a single click
Instant Poll
Any resident can create a quick poll or participate in one. Results visible to a user after he has voted. Both multiple choices or only one-option, and Other as Choice are supported
Accessible to: All Residents
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My Flat
Accessible to: All Residents (Information changes according to the individual user /resident)
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A Resident can view financial details and alerts pertaining to his flat He can view the invoices/receipts against his flat and take printout if required
The resident can view the other members registered from his flat - eliminates any chance of a stranger hangi in your Adda! The resident can view the staff working in his flat and trigger correction if required
Broadcast
Accessible to: Admin Team
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Sophisticated Broadcast application using email and SMS Various options to select Recipients - all residents, residents of a particular block, owners only, tenants only, live here, management committee only, etc.
Broadcast E-mails, SMS can be scheduled for delivery at a later date/time. E.g., SMS alert can be scheduled t residents an hour before a General Body Meeting, for better turn out
ApartmentAdda offers a comprehensive set of management tools for the Association Committee to effectively manage their Apartment Complex in a transparent and efficient manner.
Manage Users
Admin Files
Issue Tracker
Asset Tracker
Complaint Tracker
Secret Ballot
Maintenance Contacts
Setup Adda Profile
Staff Manager
Manage Users
Accessible to: Admin Team
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Resident accounts can be added, approved, deactivated Bulk upload from spreadsheet to create Resident Accounts Admin Access to users provided from this Application Access can be provided specifically to a Management Application Manager roles can be created for Office Staff
Admin Files
Accessible to: Admin Team
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Storage space for scanned agreements, work in progress documents Once document is ready to be shared with all residents, one click publishing sends it to the Document Repository
Issue Track er
Accessible to: Admin Team
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Long running issues can be logged under customizable categories, responsibility and status can be assigned Work-in-progress notes can be updated. Notes get saved with the author and date automatically Ensures continuity of work on issues - easy hand over of issues if the
issue owner is going to be away for a long while
Asset Tracker
Accessible to: Admin Team
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Information on capital assets can be stored in this application - Asset name, tag number, purchase price & date, scanned documents etc. Service providers can be assigned to each Asset Email or SMS alerts can be setup for preventive maintenance appointments, renewal of AMC contracts etc. Easy documentation of Service History
Complaint Tracker
Accessible to: Admin Team
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A resident can lodge two types of complaints - My Complaints and Community Complaints "My Complaints" can be viewed only by the resident and other members of his or her flat. "Community Complaints" can be viewed by all residents Complaint updates sent through E-mail and SMS All complaints can be viewed and acted upon Driver for each complaint can be assigned, status can be changed with relevant notes
Secret Ballot
Accessible to: Admin Team (Individual ballot accessible only to the designated Election Officer)
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The Online Secret Ballot mimics the physical ballot and has more features Only the election officer who sets up the poll can view the results online. Ballot can be configured with various settings - e.g., one vote per flat Once poll is closed, the scores and attendance reports are readily available and can be printed by the election officer
Maintenance Contacts
Accessible to: Admin Team
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The central directory of your AMC contacts, other maintenance contacts. Due dates of upcoming payments can be set so that you can avoid penalties. These contacts can be assigned to designated Assets in Asset Tracker
Setup Adda Profile
Accessible to: Admin Team
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Here you set up the the public face of your Apartment complex ( My Adda Profile) Residents need not repeat directions to their visitors. ApartmentAdda lets them email this page to their visitors.
Staff Manager
Accessible to: Admin Team
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Directory of all staff specific to a flat, such as domestic help, driver, cook etc. Status such as 'Active', 'Temp', 'Expired' can be assigned to control entry Details such as Badge Number, phone number, email, address, photograph can be stored for each staff member Easy and efficient Search Facility
Admin Reports
Accessible to: Admin Team
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Reports from all Management and Accounting Applications consolidated in this application. Very useful readymade reports such as Residents List, Vehicle report, Maintenance Fee defaulters, Cash Flow report, Expense report etc. Any report can be published to the Notice Board with single click, so they can be shared with all residents.
ApartmentAdda enables the Treasurer to easily set up and monitor Accounts for tracking the income and expenditure of his Apartment Community.
Income Tracker
Expense Tracker
Bank & Cash
Data Entry
Income Tracker
Accessible to: Admin Team
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Automatic Invoice generation against each flat for regular, fixed charges - e.g., Maintenance Fee. Manual invoice can be keyed for all other receivables such as Ad-Hoc fees or penalties Easy set up of Income Heads - separate income from residents and income from non-residents Easy posting of Amount Collected, with generation of e-receipt which can be sent by email, sms or print Post Dated Cheques can be tracked easily Financial details against each flats viewed with ease, with color coded lights to identify defaulters Email/SMS reminder can be sent to payment defaulters, with amount
specific to each defaulter (similar to mail merge of MS Word)
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Very easy to use - be compliant with accounting standards without being an accountant
Expense Tracker
Accessible to: Admin Team
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Easy setup and tracking of Direct and Indirect Expense Heads Expenses for past periods can be compared Budgeting for selected Expense Heads, with variance tracking Selection of Petty Cash / Bank Accounts while posting Expenses Printable vouchers generated for every payment posted
Bank & Cash
Accessible to: Admin Team
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Configure Bank Accounts and Petty Cash Seamlessly integrated with Income Tracker and Expense Tracker all income and expenses posted reflect against Bank Accounts or Petty Cash Transfer between accounts, withdrawal to Petty Cash can be captured Makes Bank reconciliation very easy
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Data Entry
Accessible to: Admin and Office Staff
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Easily post payments and expenses Set Accessibility levels
Extremely simplified application so Office staff can be easily trained to use this application The pricing below is on a per flat / apartment / villa basis. The payment to ApartmentAdda is made as a whole by the Association Office.
BASIC
PREMIUM LITE
PREMIUM PRO
Price per flat per month
Free Free
Rs.10/Rs.100/-
Rs.15/Rs.150/-
Price per flat per year Forum
Residents List
Notice Board
Calendar
Apartment Landing Page
Document Repository
Vendor List
Instant Poll
Admin Forum
Admin Reports
Manage users
Complaint Tracker
Maintenance Contacts
Admin Files
Online Secret Ballot
Issue Tracker
Asset Tracker
Bank & Cash
Income Tracker
Add-ons
Price per flat per month Rs.1/-
Price per flat per year Rs.10/-
Expense Staff Manager Tracker
Data Entry
Inventory Tracker
Rs.1/-
Rs.10/-
PREMIUM PREMIUM ApartmentAdda Services Email Support Phone Support SMS Integration No advertisements on Portal and SMS SMS pool ( SMS per flat x No. of flats ) Total Document Storage ( Storage per flat x No. of flats ) None 20 per flat 40 per flat 1 MB 3 MB per 5 MB per per flat flat flat BASIC LITE PRO
Note : For Apartment Complexes with less than 50 flats, the price for Premium LITE is a flat fee of Rs. 5000 per annum and price for Premium PRO is a flat fee of Rs. 7500 per annum.
IT enabling your operations
Lending perspective to apartment complex management
Most owners associations are under staffed , dependent on a few full time staff and have to constantly deal with inefficiencies in the system. Work is voluntary but the expectations from the governing body are similar to that of a business entity. Information flow is slow and bottlenecks aplenty. The integrated web based service offered by Onesolution addresses many of these issues and makes information flow and office administration efficient and effective, brings transparency to operations, dramatically improves reporting , enables management of fixed assets / stores, improves maintenance receivables management, provides easy monitoring and control of receipts and payments, allows you to monitor move ins/outs, change in ownership of apartments, provides detailed complaints registration and resolution mechanism, provides effective services to residents with 24/7 office on the web etc. IT enabled operations would increasingly become mandatory for
medium to large complexes. Owners/ residents are used to technology driven services in their offices and their expectations are high with regards to services offered by their associations. High rise buildings and gated properties are the order of the day and apartment complex management is increasingly becoming more demanding. On the other hand, members expect accountability, transparency and participative style of functioning. Apart from the operations and maintenance issues of running an apartment complex, other social issues have also gained prominence in the recent past. The need to securely share information across apartment complexes has always been a challenge. Most apartment complexes have similar issues and residents expect a system where one can store and search for data easily. Onesolution attempts to address issues related to the maintenance of an apartment complex and also social issues related to networking among owners/residents from various complexes.
Services that improve operational efficiency
Office application
A. Master Database of Owners / Residents Maintain an updated list of owners and tenants that is searchable on various parameters. You can capture data such as Vehicle numbers, Parking slot numbers, Maid ID, Card Driver ID, number of access cards issued, Intercom, Contact numbers etc.. B. Move In/Out Keep track of residents moving into and out of your complex. You can view the history of occupancy of any apartment in your complex. You can also print the Move In/Out form. C. Maintenance Charges Receivables Management You can view the maintenance charges and penalty charges outstanding against all apartments. Mass/Individual mailers can be sent along with the statement of receivables as an attachment to all owners. Reminder mailers can be sent, follow up phone calls made by your staff can be recorded and history of changes made to penalty and maintenance charges can be viewed. D. Fixed Assets Management You can maintain an online Fixed Assets register to keep track of various FAs on your campus. You can also keep track of the expenses incurred against specific fixed assets which would assist you in charting out a preventive maintenance plan. E. Stores Management Maintain an online stores register and keep track of the issue / receipt of various consummable items. Store items can be categorized according to departments and you can also create sub categories for every store item. F. Complaints Registration and
Resolution This comprehensive module also serves as a self service for a resident wherein the resident can raise a complaint from the comfort of his/her home or office. Complaints can be assigned to specific staff, prioritized, categorized and the progress of the complaints can be tracked by the resident too. Visual colored bar trackers assists the manager in quickly identifying pending tasks. Complaints raised by owners who have defaulted on their maintenance charges can be identified. Third party complaints can also be raised. All complaint heads are customizable. The complaints module comes with various reports for the purpose of analysis G. Notices Management Association notices can be uploaded as a word or excel document. Residents would be able to view notices from anywhere in the world. Notices are categorized into different headings. H. Hall / Tennis Court Bookings You can reserve Halls / Sports facilities (such as tennis courts) based on availability of the facility on the date of booking. This is a self service and can be used by residents. If the offline payment is not made within 48 hours of reserving the facility, the facility will automatically be made open to other members for online booking. Time slots can also be booked on any specific day eg. Tennis court, Squash court etc. can be booked for time slots in multiples of 30 minutes. I. Receipts and Payments Enter details of all your receipts and payments in this section. You can print receipts and vouchers from the site. You have the option of automatically generating voucher numbers. All accounting heads are customizable. Receipts and Payments data can be searched on various parameters. You can generate a summary receipts and payments report for a period of your choice. All reports are downloadable as Excel files. You can also maintain a separate petty cash account. A user friendly Bank Reconciliation facility has been provided to enable easy reconciliation of various receipts and payments. Interesting monthly summary sheets can be generated for all receipts and payments. J. Alerting Services Global alerts can be used as reminders for important events. Eg. AMC renewal dates, B check dates, regular maintenance schedules, meeting with vendors etc.. One can also set Personal alerting services. Each alert can be set according to the need of the event. Alerts will automatically pop up on the first page as per the settings for the event.
K. Service Providers Details You can store the CVs / Profiles of all service providers in your complex . Eg. Security, Housekeeping staff, Car Drivers, Maids, Ironwallah, Gardeners etc. You can also upload their passport size photographs. L. Vendor Lists You can maintain the database of all your vendors/service providers that can be easily searched based on city, locality etc. Data related to providers of services such as taxi service, hardware stores, motor repairs, civil works, carpenters, fabricators, road hump providers etc.. can be entered. This database can be shared among association members across apartment complexes. Mails can be sent to relevant vendors and quotations can be invited from them on your specific requirements M. Global Updations The Maintenance charges can be globally updated based on various formulae used by apartment complexes to calculate maintenance charges. The Penalty charges can also be set to ensure automatic updation of the Penalty charges on a regular basis. N. Polling Associations can run polls wherein only authenticated members can participate. The poll is authenticated and ensures that one voter can cast only one vote. The polling facility enables associations make appropriate decisions. P. Parking Slots Management Parking Slots that have not been allotted to any of the apartments but are typically rented out to residents for a nominal fee can be managed using this module. Q. SMS Groups Form utility SMS groups to enable members of the group to send SMSes to other members of the group from the web site. R. Audit Compliant Internal audit teams and audit all the online receipts and payment vouchers. S. Add on Features Some of the other features that users would find useful are - Track ownership change of apartments : One can record changes of ownership and view the history of the change in ownership for any apartment - Electricity Receivables : Associations in India are
made to pay on behalf of the members who default on their Electricity bill. This additional task of tracking such cases can be managed through the optional BESCOM module. - E-Mail Extractor : All Mail IDs of Owners / Tenants residing in various blocks/wings within the complex can be downloaded as a text file. You can use these mail ids to send mass mailer through your own mail server. - Post It note : A post it note on the first page can be used like a reminder tool ("Things to do") - All search results (across modules) are downloadable as Excel files. - Graphical view of trend lines : Line graphs showing trends of various receipts and payments for the last 12 months can be viewed on the fly. One can also view Bar charts and Pie charts. - Budget Planner : You can view the variance between actual and budgeted capital and revenue expenditure in this section.
Services that add value to the Resident
Resident application
A. View Maintenance Charges outstanding Apartment owners can view their Maintenance Charges and Penalty charges (on account of delayed payment of Maintenance Charges) outstanding online from anywhere in the world. Owners can also view details of the various payments made by them in the past. The history of changes made to the Maintenance charges and Penalty charges can be viewed too. B. Complaints Registration Resident users can book complaints from the comfort of their home or office. The progress of the complaints can be tracked and the status of the complaint can be viewed. Residents can also provide feedback on the service provided. If the resident does not have access to a computer, they can get in touch with their association and the authorized staff can register a complaint on their behalf. C. Hall Bookings Residents can reserve a Hall on a specific date and for a time duration of their choice. Hall availability can be viewed before booking a Hall. However, the payment would have to made within 48 hrs of booking the hall. In case of failure to do so, the Hall will be released for others to book. This facility can also be used to reserve time slots for Tennis / Squash court usage.
D. View Notices Online Residents can view all the association notices, rules and regulations, policies etc online. This enables residents to view old notices that are no longer displayed on any physical notice board. E. Post advertisements We have provided a facility to post FREE ads to all resident members. The advertiser can also upload HTML pages with images. Ads can be viewed by members of all complexes or the advertiser has the option of restricting viewership to members of his/her complex. Ads can be edited and de-activated too. F. Share your Experience Residents can share their experience on specific service providers such as Taxi service, Maids, Carpenters, Interior designers, Vacation getaways, Restaurants, Schools, Workshops, Car Drivers etc..The sharing of information across members of apartment complexes provides users referrals on specific service providers. We have provided powerful boolean search. G. Share Poetry If you have a flair for poetry or if there is a young budding poet in your house, you can post your Poems in this section. Other members can view and post their comments. H. Participate in Polls Residents can participate in Polls conducted by their respective associations. A resident user is entitle to only one vote. I.All India Forum Residents can create topics and participate in the All India Forum that would enable sharing of ideas across complexes. J. Other features - All users can change their password - You can visit the website of your association from our site or you can view the web pages of the association (provided they have uploaded the pages on our site) - Owners can provide tenants access to view details of the Maintenance charges outstanding
1. How do I create users for the office application ? How do I create apartment owner users ? The office application can be accessed only by authorized users. On subscribing to the services, an Administrator username and password will be provided to enable creation of various users. Apartment owners would have access only to services that are being extended to them. They would have no access to the office application suite of services. 2. Can I restrict user access to various modules ? Yes, you can . You can set permission levels for all users - module wise based on the task to be performed.
3. I wish to Customize the application ? Can I do it ? Yes, you can. Most of the features are customizable. The Administrator is authorized to customize various features and the customization will have global impact across modules. You can also have your own logo displayed on all the pages. 4. I wish to update the Maintenance Charges for all the apartments at the click of a button, instead of making entries against each apartment. Is it Possible? You can do it - based on the formula you use to calculate the Maintenance Charges for your apartment complex. We have provided multiple ways to update the Maintenance Charges for all Flats. 5. Can I have a user friendly Receipts & Payments statement generated for the period of my choice ? Can we substitute Tally with the services provided ? You can generate on the fly Receipts & Payments statement for the period of your choice. If you are following the accrual system of accounting, Tally or similar software would be useful. Please note that the service provided is not a substitute to a financial accounting package. You can print receipts and vouchers directly from the site. 6. We have multiple staff who are likely to make entries from the Receipts and Voucher books. This would create a duplication. How can I address this issue. Duplicate entries are not allowed during the entries of Receipts & Vouchers. This is automatically taken care of by the software. However, you have the option of choosing automatic voucher numbers generation facility. 7. What is a Primary / Secondary Access Card ? If you issue Access cards in your complex, the Primary cards refer to the FREE cards (usually restricted to 2) that have been issued to Owners. Secondary cards are PAID cards (with a restriction per apartment eg. 2) and are usually issued to tenants or other members of the family. 8. I wish to be reminded of the various services / AMCs that are scheduled for renewal well in advance. Do you provide any service in this regard? We provide 2 types of alerter service - Global and Personal. Global alerts can be viewed by all members of the governing body / staff and is customizable item wise. Eg. You can set your alert for Lifts AMC - 30 days before the renewal date , service contracts for various vendors at different dates from the renewal date etc. This enables you to plan for the renewals well in advance. Personal alerts can be seen only by the individual user. Eg. alerts regarding meetings etc. 9. What is Move In / Out ? Most apartment complexes charge a nominal amount towards Move In / Move Out charges whenever a resident moves into or out of the complex. This is towards the usage of lift , extra house keeping costs, extra power used and inconvenience caused to other residents. You can view the history of occupancy of any apartment in the complex. 10. I would like to inform the residents of the various activities on campus. Is there any way to do it from your site. Yes,you can . We provide you with space on the site to enable you to upload multiple HTML files to enable residents view them from anywhere in the world. And you have full control on your uploads. 11. I would like to keep track of all the Fixed Assets on my Campus ? Can I do it. We have provide a Fixed Assets module where you can keep track of various asset types. Also, we have provided a facility for you to keep track of the health of specific Fixed Asset by keeping track of the repairs undertaken on those assets over time. 12. I want to manage the maintenance charges receivables , send reminder mailers to members and update the penalty charges. Can this be done? The Maintenance receivables modules enables you to manage the receivables. You can send reminder mails, automatically generate and send the "Statement of Receivables" as an attachment, keep track of reminder mailers, record follow up calls made to members and also keep track of the history of changes made to both Maintenance and Penalty receivables. Maintenance charges can be globally updated for all apartments. The Penalty calculation is also an automated process after you make the necessary global settings. 13. We would like to provide services for complaints registration and hall bookings to our residents. We wish to be IT savvy and we are keen on implementing this. Can we do it ? Yes, you can. We have provided a facility for residents to register complaints and book halls and keep track of their status. The office staff can keep track of the bookings and update the status on the site after receiving the appropriate payment. The residents would be able to view the status of the complaint online and would be able to track the progress of the complaint. The complaints process is SMS enabled. 14. I would like to know about Doctors or Lawyers in our complex for any emergency ?
The Master Database of Owners / Residents can capture such information to enable quick retrieval of this data at the time of emergencies. 15. I would like to send E-Mails to Owners. Can I extract E-Mail IDs from the database Yes, you can. You can send mass mailers to residents and can send the statement of receivables (automatically generated) as an attachment. We have a facility wherein the E-Mail IDs can be extracted in an E-Mail friendly format as a text file based on your search preferences. 16. I wish to generate various reports based on the requirements of the governing body. Is there a simple way to do it. You can generate excel files of all reports that are generated on the site. You can easily share the information with members of the governing body.
What is CommonFloor?
CommonFloor is an online application that provides a feature rich and private portal for your residential community (Apartment Complex, Gated Layout, Villas or a Colony), to help you have better and effective information sharing among all members. For Members of Management Committee or Resident Welfare Associations (RWA): CommonFloor offers superb and easy tools to manage the following:
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Residents Directory o Directory of Owners & Tenants, Move in-out Fast & Effective Communication o Send Free SMS Notification to the residents o Emails/SMS to selected blocks, owners, tenants, association members All Complaints, Issues and Suggestions at One Place o Central Repository of issues o Track Progress and Enable Collaboration Maintenance Dues & Reminders o Safe Repository of Maintenance Dues o Notification, Payment Status & Reminders o Reporting & Archiving
For Owners, Tenants and other Resident Members of the Community CommonFloor brings your neighborhood online.
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Community o Important updates from the association on mobile and email o Connect with neighbors over issues and queries Locality o Complete Directory of local business & services o Buy/sell/rent across all apartments in your locality Knowledge o Get Expert Advise: Legal, Interior Design, Parenting o Articles on Property Tax, Khata Transfer, etc
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Services o Home Delivery Services o Weekend Guide: Offers, Events, Movies from the locality
Is CommonFloor a social networking site?
CommonFloor offers you a platform for communication with neighbors, raise issues, share ideas to improve living, create group of Owners, Find other bengali families, discuss carpooling plans with other parents for taking kids to school, crib about maids, ask reviews on local services and every other thing that you are now imagining. Now, all that’s Social for sure.. but not sure about “Social Networking”.
Security
How secure is CommonFloor portal? At CommonFloor we take security very seriously.We make every effort to protect your personal identifiable information. All confidential information is processed through Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) technology via our secure web servers.Our secure certificates are provided Thawte , (a Verisign company) you can verify the certificate by clicking on the “Secured By” Thawte logo . The portal follows Web 2.0 standards in design and security measures. We follow all the security guidelines and adhere to the latest in security standards. How secure is my data at CommonFloor? Your data is perfectly secure at CommonFloor. CommonFloor has password protected access to your private portal to only approved members. What is the privacy policy of CommonFloor? CommonFloor protects privacy of its users and its clearly mentioned in our “term and conditions” of service. We do not sell, share or rent our users data nor spam our users. Can anyone access our portal at CommonFloor?
No, only people who have been approved and verified by the administrator of your CommonFloor can enter your portal.
LifeAt creates private, password protected websites for exclusive use by members of residential communities. Residents use LifeAt sites to communicate with neighbors; post classifieds; and rate and review local retailers, restaurants, & delivery services. Property managers and building developers use the sites to post news and updates for residents and to attract potential buyers and renters. The success of each site is fueled by the active participation of its membership. The story of LifeAt begins like that of most successful businesses---with an observation of need in the marketplace. While working with some of New York City’s highest profile real estate developers, the founder realized that people moving to newly constructed buildings were coming from other countries, or at least other neighborhoods, and felt uprooted when settling in their new homes. Understanding that potential buyers were hoping to find a community and not just an apartment in which to live, the founder racked his brain to come up with some way to foster that sense of community in a new building. That’s when inspiration hit: create a safe, online community where fellow residents can meet and help each other out as they explore their new surroundings. With that simple thought- LifeAt was born. From its very first days LifeAt has grown organically- much like the individual sites themselves- to suit the growing needs of an ever expanding client base and the list of building developers and managers requesting their services. In little over a year, LifeAt has ballooned from dozens of sites to hundreds of sites, to where they are today with close to a thousand sites in various stages of production. The business model is simple and flexible enough to be applied to any residential community, anywhere in the world. And that’s just what the founders are hoping. Plans to expand internationally are already in the works as this little NYC based company has already moved into markets across the country with great success. CEO Matthew Goldstein believes his company’s astounding growth is a result of passion and a sound business model. His faith in the intrinsic value of his product allows him to be flexible and work with each developer or building manager to create a site that will benefit each and every building’s individual needs. Fueled by an unwavering entrepreneurial spirit, Matthew’s enthusiasm for the future of the company is not only contagious, it leaves everyone who works with him believing that there is no limit to what a LifeAt site might bring you!
Babajob.com is a Bangalore-based start up that uses the web and mobile technology to connect employers and bottom-of-the-pyramid (BOP) informal sector workers (i.e. maids, cooks, drivers, etc.) with the goal of creating a scalable, replicable and profitable solution to combat poverty. Babajob aims to do this by creating greater market efficiency in the informal sector through voice and web features such as SMS, UssD, automated voice systems, and operator manned call centres, enabling employers and job seekers to find each other. The value that babajob offers to both its employers and job seekers is in its ability to provide access to critical job and job seeker information through various technology platforms. By leveraging web and mobile technology, babajob is able to scale and engage a wider audience creating greater efficiency for employers and having a social impact on job seekers. Employers can conveniently browse job seeker profiles based on salary, location, languages, employment background, skills and references. Babajob offers several feebased services to help in the matching and hiring of seekers. Similarly, job seekers can discover and access multiple job opportunities based on their preferences of location, salary, job category, etc. They have the added-benefit of applying to nearby-jobs using their low-end mobile phones. Because Babajob offers a scalable form of livelihood enhancement to India’s base of pyramid users, babajob resonates strongly with India’s Telco carriers and handset makers. Why? Babajob’s services on their networks and devices allows companies to make credible claims that buying a better handset or additional VAS services will lead to higher incomes and better job opportunities for their customers. As the next 300 million India phone
customers are likely to poorer than the first 400 million customers, telcos and handset makers must enable incomes to increase through the use of their services to maintain growth. Babajob currently has a staff of 16, over 60,000+ customers and sends out over 1 million job alerts per month. Babajob.com and babalife.com are a combined effort to provide the best social networking and job site in India and worldwide. Our effort is based on two simple ideas: 1. 2. Everyone deserves to get a better job, no matter what their income or skill level, and Technology can enhance our ability to both hire more efficiently, and better communicate with those we care about.
Most people find jobs through people they know – namely their extended social network – and most employers – particularly when hiring employees that work in the home - would like to hire a person who someone they trust can vouch for. Babajob.com and babalife.com are an attempt to digitize this process to efficiently “get the word out” and importantly provide an incentive for the folks in between an employer and employee to connect people together. Here's how we hope to achieve this: First we have created the most compelling social-networking site for everyone in India – babalife.com – including folks who may not be interested in finding a new job or hiring anyone right. Babalife.com is available through both the web and a rich SMS UI, combines a blog, photo/video-sharing and social-networking site and is available in local Indian languages. We hope you’ll be able to connect in richer ways with the people you care about and find it fun too. Second, on babajob.com, we aim to connect employers and employees - especially those in the informal sector - by leveraging when possible their social relations from babalife.com. Perhaps most interestingly, we also provide a real incentive – in the form of mobile phone credits or a check when monthly earnings exceed 300R (~$7) – to help others get jobs or simply be a person who socially connects employers and employees. Here’s an example: Let’s say Rajesh is looking for a cook. He creates a posting on babajob.com and adds a few people he knows on babalife.com. Now let’s assume that he ultimately decides to hire his uncle’s driver’s sister. Assuming all these folks are on babalife.com, then both Rajesh’s uncle and his driver, will earn 100R (~$2.5). We also know that many of the people who might be hired through babajob may not have access to a computer or phone, and so their accounts can be managed by a friend, relative, NGO or even a cyber-café operator – called a mentor. Again, whenever someone is hired, their mentor also earns 100R. We hope that by offering the most compelling social network and a set of cash based incentives, we can build a solution that leverages technology to help more people get better jobs and meaningfully connect to each other. It's an experiment and in the end, we hope it works.
The Why of Babajob and Babalife. What inspired this project?
While at Microsoft Research India in 2005, our CEO, Sean co-ran the Advanced Development and Prototyping Team and worked very closely with the Technology for Emerging Markets research group, whose aim was to study and invent new ways that technology could be used to positively impact the social and economic development of the world’s poorest 4 billion people. While there, a colleague Aishwarya Ratan presented a
study (http://www.pubpol.duke.edu/krishna/documents/Krishna_Rajasthan_poverty.pdf, Escaping Poverty and Becoming Poor: Who Gains, Who Loses, and Why?, ANIRUDH KRISHNA, 2003) that sought to explain why families in India get in and out of poverty. In short, the answers were relatively simple:
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Poor families everywhere often fall into poverty when major health calamities occur – if a father and primary income earner is a day laborer and loses a hand, his family may often fall destitute (It should be noted that the solution to sudden calamity found in many developed nations is also simple – insurance). • On the positive side, the study showed that poor families often left the poverty trap through income diversification i.e. they got other jobs. If a farmer started fixing tractors on the side or a young son got a better paying job in the city, eventually that extra income really did raise the real economic status of the family. How were these jobs obtained? Well, the employee knew someone who knew someone. Sean’s first thought was “Great – all they need is the village version LinkedIn.com!” but obviously in order to make such a system work, one has to overcome the problem that most low-income workers of the world may not be literate, nor own a mobile phone and rarely own or have ready access to an Internet-connected PC. Thus, babajob and babalife are really an attempt to bridge a social networking and job site – allowing people to hire people that someone that they know can vouch – but importantly provide a direct financial incentive for those people who connect people in a trustworthy manner across classes AND who would be willing to help job seekers represent themselves online, in return for compensation whenever such a job seeker is hired. It is an experiment – a possible solution to provide all levels of job seekers more with job opportunities while efficiently helping employers find suitable employees in their social network. We don’t know if this will work, but we do collectively believe that the idea is interesting enough, that we simply had to quit our day jobs to give it shot.
So why then are there 2 sites, babajob.com and babalife.com?
We know this is a little confusing on first blush, but it’s our hope that this will make more sense over time. Babajob is obviously a job site, but in order to capture and keep the attention of everyone, we have simultaneously built babalife.com to be the best of breed Indian social networking site. Why? Because of a belief that in order to correctly model social relationships in a community and keep the attention of those people that are not hiring nor need a better job, a system should be – or at least leverage – the communication medium of its users (That’s why start-ups like friendster.com seek to mine the Outlookcontacts). Also, would a teenager really want their homepage to be http://babajob.com/princessyamini/ ? And yet, we really want that teenager as a socially connected user of our system, because it is quite likely that her parents may want to hire someone such as her best friend's maid's sister.
Why do you pay people in your system, just for being socially “in between” an employee and employer?
Given that we know that many jobs are filled through known references, we figured it is important to get those known references working on our behalf. The simplest and most useful incentive we could think of was money. Obviously, a money distribution network is difficult and expensive to create and maintain and thus, we pay in the form of mobile minutes for payments under 300R (about $6) and for greater amounts, we pay via a State Bank of India check – which can be cashed by any Indian with a voter registration or ration card. As mobile payment systems become more widespread in India, we certainly plan to leverage them and believe that these systems will hopefully enable lots of new innovative businesses like babajob.com, once people and businesses can easily move money using only a mobile number as an identifier.
Why do you feature maps so prominently?
In short, traffic. In any urban city in India and much of the developing world, there is a growing middle class that is purchasing cars and motorbikes like mad. This has caused huge congestion and commute times that routinely go beyond 90 minutes. For those that use public transportation, the bus systems are often incredibly slow and thus, finding employment near one’s residence is often an acute priority. Given that India and many developing countries often lack systems with well formed addresses, we believe that points on a map will work better when comparing and searching across locations than addresses. We also think it’s just cool to see all your friends on a map and in the future, we may integrate these features with our SMS services to enable people to update their location via SMS.
ABOUT DHANAX
"dhanaX is an online-offline person-to-person lending platform that allows Indians to lend and borrow money from each other"
DHANAX is inspired by the idea of an online community's ability to come together and help each other. dhanaX works within the ambit of Social Business or Social Enterprise. Successful experiments worldwide in micro-credit have shown how low income people can also aspire for financial and social advancement. Dhana signifies wealth and dhanaX stands for the exchange of wealth. dhanaX is a stable, secure platform for exchange of micro loans. dhanaX works at two levels Online it communicates with individual lenders and generates loans; Offline it networks through agents to build a database of credible borrowers. Willing lenders are then brought in direct contact with needy borrowers. Loans thus accessed go a long way in helping small farmers or entrepreneurs to supplement their farm income or start a small business.
Location
dhanaX Information Services Pvt. Ltd., is headquartered in Bangalore. The company was flagged off by a team of enthusiastic, highly dedicated individuals with competent track records in financial services, management and technology. dhanaX foresees an economically stronger society created by a community-led revolution. dhanaX aims to be a pioneering model for successful and innovative online social lending. 1.Provide easy access to credit for unbanked Indians and help them escape from debilitating debt cycles. 2.Provide a profitable social investment opportunity for the investor. With only 34% of its population having access to formal banking systems, India has the second-highest number of unbanked population in the world - about 135 million or approximately 675 million people. Total credit supply, through existing formal channels, responds to only 15% of the $90 billion demand. The only credit
alternatives for millions of underprivileged people are local pawnbrokers or moneylenders, who usually charge anything between 40-120% interest rates per annum. Research has established that micro loans boast a 95% repayment rate worldwide. This is incentive enough for Investors to consider social lending as an attractive investment avenue. Nothing is more rewarding than the ability to empower the community around you. Both emotionally and financially too. dhanaX aims to prove just that. dhanaX salutes the entrepreneurial spirit in India's small towns and villages. At dhanaX, the power of microfinance to transform lives motivates and drives our passion. dhanaX draws inspiration from the entrepreneurial spirit of thousands of small farmers, underprivileged women and small business owners across the globe.
HOW DHANAX WORKS
dhanaX is an online-offline person-to-person lending platform that allows Indians to lend and borrow money from each other.
For a lender looking for a social investment, or a borrower seeking an affordable loan, dhanaX is the best forum. We facilitate lending or borrowing of small capital using scientific, credible methods. dhanaX works in partnership with a network of carefully selected, well-established agents who represent the borrower you choose. Broadly the process is something like this.
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Borrowers form themselves in Self Help Groups (SHG). These SHGs are formed on the basis of affinity, profession, location etc. These SHGs take loan under joint guarantee. These SHGs approach Dhanax for Micro Credit. DhanaX does a two step due diligence: o Due diligence on the SHG - Some of the checks done on SHGs include: Verification of their passbooks Number of years of existence Maintenance of proper ledgers and other books of accounts Frequency of meetings and mechanism of operation Leader's credentials o Due diligence on individual members of the SHG - DhanaX checks each member's credentials on an internally developed 40 parameters. Some of these parameters are: Their residence history Their financial position The purpose of the loan Other outstanding loans
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The profile of these borrowers is displayed on the website. Lenders can see the profiles of the members and decide which SHG they want to lend to Lenders then lend the money to the SHG that they have chosen either online or offline The borrowers then make a regular monthly repayments by cheques which is collected by us from their doorsteps and deposited to the lenders account The lender earns back his money with an interest rate of 14% (reducing EMI method) with repayments every month
The THREE-STEP Process
REGISTER NOW
DhanaX on CNBC In lenders' words
Vedha says We had previously donated to organizations like CRY and ISKON, but we found that lending through dhanaX is a better option as we are aware of the exact purpose for which money is being used for. SHARATH says The whole idea of Microfinance is a revolutionary one, and one that will be beneficial to both the borrower and the lender provided the means are trustworthy. In dhanaX we have that 'trust' that can go a long way in helping the investor realise his money's worth, especially in a scenario where many farmers in India are in dire need of loans and are susceptible to be spending more than what is necessary in paying off the intermediaries. For a start i have invested a nominal sum of Rs. 3000/-. Ofcourse, from the investor's point of view i am hopeful and confident that i get good returns on my investment. It makes me happy to invest in dhanaX. I recommend the same happiness to one and all.
DhanaX on Cashcow
"Cashcow has been following the developments in the Peer to Peer lending sector with interest. We have blogged about Dhanax nearly a year ago and followed its progress keenly." Read more...
Delivery Model
How LabourNet Works: LabourNet uses mobile technology, such as automated, multilingual SMS messaging, GIS and GPS applications, to announce daily job openings. It provides training opportunities, access to health insurance, the ability to open bank accounts and receive proper identification cards for workers who have been denied these social benefits. The system also offers assistance to the growing professional class and mid-sized business community who find it difficult to access the “unorganized” labor sector. LabourNet provides an answer to this growing demand by providing simplified access to qualified, reliable, skilled workers, and taking care of the time-consuming hassle of training workers and arranging benefits. “At one level, LabourNet is clearly impacting lives by providing services to workers ranging from job information to financial inclusion to health management systems,” says Gayathri Vasudevan of LabourNet. “At another level, the effort is being recognized by NGOs and state governments, CHF's grant funding and technical support has enabled LabourNet to pilot various strategies and prepare its systems for scaling up across the country.”
Read More about LabourNet through CHF
Customers 1.What is LabourNet's relationship to the workers? LabourNet was initiated to support informal sector workers as an institutional network which would train workers, facilitate their financial inclusion and increase their ability to access jobs, government schemes and social security. LabourNet is an interface that tries to help you find the help you need! We profile and train workers. We also provide a whole range of services to workers. We do not
employ workers. We train and database workers on a continuous basis and make them accessible to customers. We also enable routing of payments from client to worker through established banking systems (Punjab National Bank). We do not oversee and choose their jobs. However, we enroll workers and train them to be professionals who are quite capable of choosing the correct jobs and completing them to customer satisfaction. 2.Is there a registration fee? Yes, there is a nominal registration fee of Rs. 200. 3.If I am not satisfied with the work done by the worker? You can report the same to the call centre. Your feedback will be stored and it will have an impact on the workers ratings. If you feel completely dissatisfied, you can ask for a replacement. LabourNet will first send an executive and assess the situation. If it is the workers fault, you will get a replacement worker at no cost. 4.How can I tell which worker or labour contractor is the best one for the job? That is the eternal question! And we have found an answer to this question. We capture your requirements and make recommendations based on your requirements. We also advice you on the choice to make – which worker to hire. We have developed a matrix which helps you choose workers. But you have the freedom to choose “the right person” from amongst our vast database. You can then employ the worker. 5.How do I know that it is safe to allow the worker to come into my house? • All workers will have a LabourNet identity card. • All workers have bank accounts • Most workers have local address proof documents. Some have home town address proof documents • Many workers in our database have previous employer referrals
Workers and Labour Coordinators 1. How do I get benefitted by joining Labournet This is the only network which solely works for your benefit. If you are a LabourNet member you become eligible to the following additional benefits: a) Assured payment through prescribed LabourNet banking system. b) Opportunity to attend trainings when you have the time and money and thereby upgrade your skills. c) Opportunity to open a bank account and start Savings, and you will get a debit card. d) Accident insurance e) Opportunity to get medical treatment (hospitalization) in the best few hospitals in the city at a nominal cost That adds up to a lot of benefits... why shouldn't you get into the action, especially to get the best jobs?
Of course, the response you get will be somewhat dependent on your skills and performance. Which you can improve by attending our training programmes. But as more and more people register, more and more customers will come to LabourNet to find services such as yours, your income will increase and you will benefit by becoming a LabourNet member. 2. Will I financially benefit by joining LabourNet? Absolutely!! Yes. If you are a repair worker or are fully employed and would like to take up temporary jobs.
3. Will you accept anyone as a member? Any worker who is a construction worker – electrician, plumber, painter, carpenter, bar bender, fabricator, mason, domestic worker – house cleaner, cook, gardener, driver, baby sitter and nursing assistant can be a LabourNet member. We will also accept small building contractors, electricians, plumbers or other tradesmen who do a significant amount of labour and or material works. 4. Can you tell us how many jobs I will get through LabourNet? As LabourNet would be actively marketing your services across all parts of the city, your chances of getting multiple jobs is guaranteed. 5.Will I ever loose LN membership? Yes, if you do the following: • • If you are a temp worker and do not respond to more than 3 calls If you are a maistri and are given a short project, all money needs to be routed through LN. If you settle it independently then your membership will be cancelled
Forum
Admin Forum
Notice Board
Calendar
Document Repository
Vendor List
Instant Poll
My Flat
Residents List
Accessible to: All Residents
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Online directory of all residents of the community. Phone numbers and Email address can be masked by the choice of individual resident. Networking information such as hobbies, profession, personal website links, etc. can also be viewed. Sub-list of Management Committee members Emails can be sent to any resident right from this directory Ability to Search on name, flat, intercom, occupation, languages, hobbies etc.
Forum
Open to all residents Completely integrated with the Residents List - can easily identify the author of a Forum post Conversations can be made visible to all or to "owners only" Advanced editor can include images, text formatting, and hyperlinks
Accessible to: All Residents
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Encourages participation and takes the bulk away from your email inbox. However email notifications on Foru can be activated by choice
Complete email integration with Forum. Instant notification sent whenever a post happens, response to the p made by replying to the email. Response gets recorded on the Forum
Admin Forum
Accessible to: Only Residents with Admin Access ( typically Management Committee )
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Admin Forum is available only to the Admin Team Same features as that of the Resident Forum Can control instant email notification, receive and reply to and from email
Notice Board
Accessible to: All Residents
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A snippet of all notices can be seen in one screen.
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Simple categorization of notices by "Admin Notices", "Buy/Sell Notices" & "General Notices". Set default expiry dates of notices.
Notices that announce an event, can be assigned an event date which will link these notices to the Event Cale
Reports such as Cash Flow report, Maintenance Fee Defaulters, Expense Reports that are generated in your A published on this Notice Board with a single click Integarted with e-mail. New notices trigger email notification ( which can be configured )
Calendar
Accessible to: All Residents
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Events due on a certain day can be viewed Pulls information from the Notice Board, no duplicate data entry. A notice for a particular date can be easily created by clicking on that date in the calendar
Document Repository
Repository of uploaded files. Reference documents, By-Laws, Forms etc. can be stored here. Documents can be made accessible to All or to "Owner's only". Documents published by Admin ( Management Committee ) can be classified separately.
Accessible to: All Residents
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Vendor List
Accessible to: All Residents
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List of common service providers in the community. Quality of service of each vendor can be rated Helps any new resident to settle down with a single click
Instant Poll
Any resident can create a quick poll or participate in one. Results visible to a user after he has voted. Both multiple choices or only one-option, and Other as Choice are supported
Accessible to: All Residents
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My Flat
Accessible to: All Residents (Information changes according to the individual user /resident)
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A Resident can view financial details and alerts pertaining to his flat He can view the invoices/receipts against his flat and take printout if required
The resident can view the other members registered from his flat - eliminates any chance of a stranger hangi in your Adda! The resident can view the staff working in his flat and trigger correction if required
Broadcast
Accessible to: Admin Team
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Sophisticated Broadcast application using email and SMS Various options to select Recipients - all residents, residents of a particular block, owners only, tenants only, live here, management committee only, etc.
Broadcast E-mails, SMS can be scheduled for delivery at a later date/time. E.g., SMS alert can be scheduled t residents an hour before a General Body Meeting, for better turn out
ApartmentAdda offers a comprehensive set of management tools for the Association Committee to effectively manage their Apartment Complex in a transparent and efficient manner.
Manage Users
Admin Files
Issue Tracker
Asset Tracker
Complaint Tracker
Secret Ballot
Maintenance Contacts
Setup Adda Profile
Staff Manager
Manage Users
Accessible to: Admin Team
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Resident accounts can be added, approved, deactivated Bulk upload from spreadsheet to create Resident Accounts Admin Access to users provided from this Application Access can be provided specifically to a Management Application Manager roles can be created for Office Staff
Admin Files
Accessible to: Admin Team
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Storage space for scanned agreements, work in progress documents Once document is ready to be shared with all residents, one click publishing sends it to the Document Repository
Issue Track er
Accessible to: Admin Team
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Long running issues can be logged under customizable categories, responsibility and status can be assigned Work-in-progress notes can be updated. Notes get saved with the author and date automatically Ensures continuity of work on issues - easy hand over of issues if the
issue owner is going to be away for a long while
Asset Tracker
Accessible to: Admin Team
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Information on capital assets can be stored in this application - Asset name, tag number, purchase price & date, scanned documents etc. Service providers can be assigned to each Asset Email or SMS alerts can be setup for preventive maintenance appointments, renewal of AMC contracts etc. Easy documentation of Service History
Complaint Tracker
Accessible to: Admin Team
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A resident can lodge two types of complaints - My Complaints and Community Complaints "My Complaints" can be viewed only by the resident and other members of his or her flat. "Community Complaints" can be viewed by all residents Complaint updates sent through E-mail and SMS All complaints can be viewed and acted upon Driver for each complaint can be assigned, status can be changed with relevant notes
Secret Ballot
Accessible to: Admin Team (Individual ballot accessible only to the designated Election Officer)
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The Online Secret Ballot mimics the physical ballot and has more features Only the election officer who sets up the poll can view the results online. Ballot can be configured with various settings - e.g., one vote per flat Once poll is closed, the scores and attendance reports are readily available and can be printed by the election officer
Maintenance Contacts
Accessible to: Admin Team
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The central directory of your AMC contacts, other maintenance contacts. Due dates of upcoming payments can be set so that you can avoid penalties. These contacts can be assigned to designated Assets in Asset Tracker
Setup Adda Profile
Accessible to: Admin Team
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Here you set up the the public face of your Apartment complex ( My Adda Profile) Residents need not repeat directions to their visitors. ApartmentAdda lets them email this page to their visitors.
Staff Manager
Accessible to: Admin Team
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Directory of all staff specific to a flat, such as domestic help, driver, cook etc. Status such as 'Active', 'Temp', 'Expired' can be assigned to control entry Details such as Badge Number, phone number, email, address, photograph can be stored for each staff member Easy and efficient Search Facility
Admin Reports
Accessible to: Admin Team
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Reports from all Management and Accounting Applications consolidated in this application. Very useful readymade reports such as Residents List, Vehicle report, Maintenance Fee defaulters, Cash Flow report, Expense report etc. Any report can be published to the Notice Board with single click, so they can be shared with all residents.
ApartmentAdda enables the Treasurer to easily set up and monitor Accounts for tracking the income and expenditure of his Apartment Community.
Income Tracker
Expense Tracker
Bank & Cash
Data Entry
Income Tracker
Accessible to: Admin Team
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Automatic Invoice generation against each flat for regular, fixed charges - e.g., Maintenance Fee. Manual invoice can be keyed for all other receivables such as Ad-Hoc fees or penalties Easy set up of Income Heads - separate income from residents and income from non-residents Easy posting of Amount Collected, with generation of e-receipt which can be sent by email, sms or print Post Dated Cheques can be tracked easily Financial details against each flats viewed with ease, with color coded lights to identify defaulters Email/SMS reminder can be sent to payment defaulters, with amount
specific to each defaulter (similar to mail merge of MS Word)
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Very easy to use - be compliant with accounting standards without being an accountant
Expense Tracker
Accessible to: Admin Team
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Easy setup and tracking of Direct and Indirect Expense Heads Expenses for past periods can be compared Budgeting for selected Expense Heads, with variance tracking Selection of Petty Cash / Bank Accounts while posting Expenses Printable vouchers generated for every payment posted
Bank & Cash
Accessible to: Admin Team
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Configure Bank Accounts and Petty Cash Seamlessly integrated with Income Tracker and Expense Tracker all income and expenses posted reflect against Bank Accounts or Petty Cash Transfer between accounts, withdrawal to Petty Cash can be captured Makes Bank reconciliation very easy
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Data Entry
Accessible to: Admin and Office Staff
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Easily post payments and expenses Set Accessibility levels
Extremely simplified application so Office staff can be easily trained to use this application The pricing below is on a per flat / apartment / villa basis. The payment to ApartmentAdda is made as a whole by the Association Office.
BASIC
PREMIUM LITE
PREMIUM PRO
Price per flat per month
Free Free
Rs.10/Rs.100/-
Rs.15/Rs.150/-
Price per flat per year Forum
Residents List
Notice Board
Calendar
Apartment Landing Page
Document Repository
Vendor List
Instant Poll
Admin Forum
Admin Reports
Manage users
Complaint Tracker
Maintenance Contacts
Admin Files
Online Secret Ballot
Issue Tracker
Asset Tracker
Bank & Cash
Income Tracker
Add-ons
Price per flat per month Rs.1/-
Price per flat per year Rs.10/-
Expense Staff Manager Tracker
Data Entry
Inventory Tracker
Rs.1/-
Rs.10/-
PREMIUM PREMIUM ApartmentAdda Services Email Support Phone Support SMS Integration No advertisements on Portal and SMS SMS pool ( SMS per flat x No. of flats ) Total Document Storage ( Storage per flat x No. of flats ) None 20 per flat 40 per flat 1 MB 3 MB per 5 MB per per flat flat flat BASIC LITE PRO
Note : For Apartment Complexes with less than 50 flats, the price for Premium LITE is a flat fee of Rs. 5000 per annum and price for Premium PRO is a flat fee of Rs. 7500 per annum.
IT enabling your operations
Lending perspective to apartment complex management
Most owners associations are under staffed , dependent on a few full time staff and have to constantly deal with inefficiencies in the system. Work is voluntary but the expectations from the governing body are similar to that of a business entity. Information flow is slow and bottlenecks aplenty. The integrated web based service offered by Onesolution addresses many of these issues and makes information flow and office administration efficient and effective, brings transparency to operations, dramatically improves reporting , enables management of fixed assets / stores, improves maintenance receivables management, provides easy monitoring and control of receipts and payments, allows you to monitor move ins/outs, change in ownership of apartments, provides detailed complaints registration and resolution mechanism, provides effective services to residents with 24/7 office on the web etc. IT enabled operations would increasingly become mandatory for
medium to large complexes. Owners/ residents are used to technology driven services in their offices and their expectations are high with regards to services offered by their associations. High rise buildings and gated properties are the order of the day and apartment complex management is increasingly becoming more demanding. On the other hand, members expect accountability, transparency and participative style of functioning. Apart from the operations and maintenance issues of running an apartment complex, other social issues have also gained prominence in the recent past. The need to securely share information across apartment complexes has always been a challenge. Most apartment complexes have similar issues and residents expect a system where one can store and search for data easily. Onesolution attempts to address issues related to the maintenance of an apartment complex and also social issues related to networking among owners/residents from various complexes.
Services that improve operational efficiency
Office application
A. Master Database of Owners / Residents Maintain an updated list of owners and tenants that is searchable on various parameters. You can capture data such as Vehicle numbers, Parking slot numbers, Maid ID, Card Driver ID, number of access cards issued, Intercom, Contact numbers etc.. B. Move In/Out Keep track of residents moving into and out of your complex. You can view the history of occupancy of any apartment in your complex. You can also print the Move In/Out form. C. Maintenance Charges Receivables Management You can view the maintenance charges and penalty charges outstanding against all apartments. Mass/Individual mailers can be sent along with the statement of receivables as an attachment to all owners. Reminder mailers can be sent, follow up phone calls made by your staff can be recorded and history of changes made to penalty and maintenance charges can be viewed. D. Fixed Assets Management You can maintain an online Fixed Assets register to keep track of various FAs on your campus. You can also keep track of the expenses incurred against specific fixed assets which would assist you in charting out a preventive maintenance plan. E. Stores Management Maintain an online stores register and keep track of the issue / receipt of various consummable items. Store items can be categorized according to departments and you can also create sub categories for every store item. F. Complaints Registration and
Resolution This comprehensive module also serves as a self service for a resident wherein the resident can raise a complaint from the comfort of his/her home or office. Complaints can be assigned to specific staff, prioritized, categorized and the progress of the complaints can be tracked by the resident too. Visual colored bar trackers assists the manager in quickly identifying pending tasks. Complaints raised by owners who have defaulted on their maintenance charges can be identified. Third party complaints can also be raised. All complaint heads are customizable. The complaints module comes with various reports for the purpose of analysis G. Notices Management Association notices can be uploaded as a word or excel document. Residents would be able to view notices from anywhere in the world. Notices are categorized into different headings. H. Hall / Tennis Court Bookings You can reserve Halls / Sports facilities (such as tennis courts) based on availability of the facility on the date of booking. This is a self service and can be used by residents. If the offline payment is not made within 48 hours of reserving the facility, the facility will automatically be made open to other members for online booking. Time slots can also be booked on any specific day eg. Tennis court, Squash court etc. can be booked for time slots in multiples of 30 minutes. I. Receipts and Payments Enter details of all your receipts and payments in this section. You can print receipts and vouchers from the site. You have the option of automatically generating voucher numbers. All accounting heads are customizable. Receipts and Payments data can be searched on various parameters. You can generate a summary receipts and payments report for a period of your choice. All reports are downloadable as Excel files. You can also maintain a separate petty cash account. A user friendly Bank Reconciliation facility has been provided to enable easy reconciliation of various receipts and payments. Interesting monthly summary sheets can be generated for all receipts and payments. J. Alerting Services Global alerts can be used as reminders for important events. Eg. AMC renewal dates, B check dates, regular maintenance schedules, meeting with vendors etc.. One can also set Personal alerting services. Each alert can be set according to the need of the event. Alerts will automatically pop up on the first page as per the settings for the event.
K. Service Providers Details You can store the CVs / Profiles of all service providers in your complex . Eg. Security, Housekeeping staff, Car Drivers, Maids, Ironwallah, Gardeners etc. You can also upload their passport size photographs. L. Vendor Lists You can maintain the database of all your vendors/service providers that can be easily searched based on city, locality etc. Data related to providers of services such as taxi service, hardware stores, motor repairs, civil works, carpenters, fabricators, road hump providers etc.. can be entered. This database can be shared among association members across apartment complexes. Mails can be sent to relevant vendors and quotations can be invited from them on your specific requirements M. Global Updations The Maintenance charges can be globally updated based on various formulae used by apartment complexes to calculate maintenance charges. The Penalty charges can also be set to ensure automatic updation of the Penalty charges on a regular basis. N. Polling Associations can run polls wherein only authenticated members can participate. The poll is authenticated and ensures that one voter can cast only one vote. The polling facility enables associations make appropriate decisions. P. Parking Slots Management Parking Slots that have not been allotted to any of the apartments but are typically rented out to residents for a nominal fee can be managed using this module. Q. SMS Groups Form utility SMS groups to enable members of the group to send SMSes to other members of the group from the web site. R. Audit Compliant Internal audit teams and audit all the online receipts and payment vouchers. S. Add on Features Some of the other features that users would find useful are - Track ownership change of apartments : One can record changes of ownership and view the history of the change in ownership for any apartment - Electricity Receivables : Associations in India are
made to pay on behalf of the members who default on their Electricity bill. This additional task of tracking such cases can be managed through the optional BESCOM module. - E-Mail Extractor : All Mail IDs of Owners / Tenants residing in various blocks/wings within the complex can be downloaded as a text file. You can use these mail ids to send mass mailer through your own mail server. - Post It note : A post it note on the first page can be used like a reminder tool ("Things to do") - All search results (across modules) are downloadable as Excel files. - Graphical view of trend lines : Line graphs showing trends of various receipts and payments for the last 12 months can be viewed on the fly. One can also view Bar charts and Pie charts. - Budget Planner : You can view the variance between actual and budgeted capital and revenue expenditure in this section.
Services that add value to the Resident
Resident application
A. View Maintenance Charges outstanding Apartment owners can view their Maintenance Charges and Penalty charges (on account of delayed payment of Maintenance Charges) outstanding online from anywhere in the world. Owners can also view details of the various payments made by them in the past. The history of changes made to the Maintenance charges and Penalty charges can be viewed too. B. Complaints Registration Resident users can book complaints from the comfort of their home or office. The progress of the complaints can be tracked and the status of the complaint can be viewed. Residents can also provide feedback on the service provided. If the resident does not have access to a computer, they can get in touch with their association and the authorized staff can register a complaint on their behalf. C. Hall Bookings Residents can reserve a Hall on a specific date and for a time duration of their choice. Hall availability can be viewed before booking a Hall. However, the payment would have to made within 48 hrs of booking the hall. In case of failure to do so, the Hall will be released for others to book. This facility can also be used to reserve time slots for Tennis / Squash court usage.
D. View Notices Online Residents can view all the association notices, rules and regulations, policies etc online. This enables residents to view old notices that are no longer displayed on any physical notice board. E. Post advertisements We have provided a facility to post FREE ads to all resident members. The advertiser can also upload HTML pages with images. Ads can be viewed by members of all complexes or the advertiser has the option of restricting viewership to members of his/her complex. Ads can be edited and de-activated too. F. Share your Experience Residents can share their experience on specific service providers such as Taxi service, Maids, Carpenters, Interior designers, Vacation getaways, Restaurants, Schools, Workshops, Car Drivers etc..The sharing of information across members of apartment complexes provides users referrals on specific service providers. We have provided powerful boolean search. G. Share Poetry If you have a flair for poetry or if there is a young budding poet in your house, you can post your Poems in this section. Other members can view and post their comments. H. Participate in Polls Residents can participate in Polls conducted by their respective associations. A resident user is entitle to only one vote. I.All India Forum Residents can create topics and participate in the All India Forum that would enable sharing of ideas across complexes. J. Other features - All users can change their password - You can visit the website of your association from our site or you can view the web pages of the association (provided they have uploaded the pages on our site) - Owners can provide tenants access to view details of the Maintenance charges outstanding
1. How do I create users for the office application ? How do I create apartment owner users ? The office application can be accessed only by authorized users. On subscribing to the services, an Administrator username and password will be provided to enable creation of various users. Apartment owners would have access only to services that are being extended to them. They would have no access to the office application suite of services. 2. Can I restrict user access to various modules ? Yes, you can . You can set permission levels for all users - module wise based on the task to be performed.
3. I wish to Customize the application ? Can I do it ? Yes, you can. Most of the features are customizable. The Administrator is authorized to customize various features and the customization will have global impact across modules. You can also have your own logo displayed on all the pages. 4. I wish to update the Maintenance Charges for all the apartments at the click of a button, instead of making entries against each apartment. Is it Possible? You can do it - based on the formula you use to calculate the Maintenance Charges for your apartment complex. We have provided multiple ways to update the Maintenance Charges for all Flats. 5. Can I have a user friendly Receipts & Payments statement generated for the period of my choice ? Can we substitute Tally with the services provided ? You can generate on the fly Receipts & Payments statement for the period of your choice. If you are following the accrual system of accounting, Tally or similar software would be useful. Please note that the service provided is not a substitute to a financial accounting package. You can print receipts and vouchers directly from the site. 6. We have multiple staff who are likely to make entries from the Receipts and Voucher books. This would create a duplication. How can I address this issue. Duplicate entries are not allowed during the entries of Receipts & Vouchers. This is automatically taken care of by the software. However, you have the option of choosing automatic voucher numbers generation facility. 7. What is a Primary / Secondary Access Card ? If you issue Access cards in your complex, the Primary cards refer to the FREE cards (usually restricted to 2) that have been issued to Owners. Secondary cards are PAID cards (with a restriction per apartment eg. 2) and are usually issued to tenants or other members of the family. 8. I wish to be reminded of the various services / AMCs that are scheduled for renewal well in advance. Do you provide any service in this regard? We provide 2 types of alerter service - Global and Personal. Global alerts can be viewed by all members of the governing body / staff and is customizable item wise. Eg. You can set your alert for Lifts AMC - 30 days before the renewal date , service contracts for various vendors at different dates from the renewal date etc. This enables you to plan for the renewals well in advance. Personal alerts can be seen only by the individual user. Eg. alerts regarding meetings etc. 9. What is Move In / Out ? Most apartment complexes charge a nominal amount towards Move In / Move Out charges whenever a resident moves into or out of the complex. This is towards the usage of lift , extra house keeping costs, extra power used and inconvenience caused to other residents. You can view the history of occupancy of any apartment in the complex. 10. I would like to inform the residents of the various activities on campus. Is there any way to do it from your site. Yes,you can . We provide you with space on the site to enable you to upload multiple HTML files to enable residents view them from anywhere in the world. And you have full control on your uploads. 11. I would like to keep track of all the Fixed Assets on my Campus ? Can I do it. We have provide a Fixed Assets module where you can keep track of various asset types. Also, we have provided a facility for you to keep track of the health of specific Fixed Asset by keeping track of the repairs undertaken on those assets over time. 12. I want to manage the maintenance charges receivables , send reminder mailers to members and update the penalty charges. Can this be done? The Maintenance receivables modules enables you to manage the receivables. You can send reminder mails, automatically generate and send the "Statement of Receivables" as an attachment, keep track of reminder mailers, record follow up calls made to members and also keep track of the history of changes made to both Maintenance and Penalty receivables. Maintenance charges can be globally updated for all apartments. The Penalty calculation is also an automated process after you make the necessary global settings. 13. We would like to provide services for complaints registration and hall bookings to our residents. We wish to be IT savvy and we are keen on implementing this. Can we do it ? Yes, you can. We have provided a facility for residents to register complaints and book halls and keep track of their status. The office staff can keep track of the bookings and update the status on the site after receiving the appropriate payment. The residents would be able to view the status of the complaint online and would be able to track the progress of the complaint. The complaints process is SMS enabled. 14. I would like to know about Doctors or Lawyers in our complex for any emergency ?
The Master Database of Owners / Residents can capture such information to enable quick retrieval of this data at the time of emergencies. 15. I would like to send E-Mails to Owners. Can I extract E-Mail IDs from the database Yes, you can. You can send mass mailers to residents and can send the statement of receivables (automatically generated) as an attachment. We have a facility wherein the E-Mail IDs can be extracted in an E-Mail friendly format as a text file based on your search preferences. 16. I wish to generate various reports based on the requirements of the governing body. Is there a simple way to do it. You can generate excel files of all reports that are generated on the site. You can easily share the information with members of the governing body.
What is CommonFloor?
CommonFloor is an online application that provides a feature rich and private portal for your residential community (Apartment Complex, Gated Layout, Villas or a Colony), to help you have better and effective information sharing among all members. For Members of Management Committee or Resident Welfare Associations (RWA): CommonFloor offers superb and easy tools to manage the following:
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Residents Directory o Directory of Owners & Tenants, Move in-out Fast & Effective Communication o Send Free SMS Notification to the residents o Emails/SMS to selected blocks, owners, tenants, association members All Complaints, Issues and Suggestions at One Place o Central Repository of issues o Track Progress and Enable Collaboration Maintenance Dues & Reminders o Safe Repository of Maintenance Dues o Notification, Payment Status & Reminders o Reporting & Archiving
For Owners, Tenants and other Resident Members of the Community CommonFloor brings your neighborhood online.
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Community o Important updates from the association on mobile and email o Connect with neighbors over issues and queries Locality o Complete Directory of local business & services o Buy/sell/rent across all apartments in your locality Knowledge o Get Expert Advise: Legal, Interior Design, Parenting o Articles on Property Tax, Khata Transfer, etc
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Services o Home Delivery Services o Weekend Guide: Offers, Events, Movies from the locality
Is CommonFloor a social networking site?
CommonFloor offers you a platform for communication with neighbors, raise issues, share ideas to improve living, create group of Owners, Find other bengali families, discuss carpooling plans with other parents for taking kids to school, crib about maids, ask reviews on local services and every other thing that you are now imagining. Now, all that’s Social for sure.. but not sure about “Social Networking”.
Security
How secure is CommonFloor portal? At CommonFloor we take security very seriously.We make every effort to protect your personal identifiable information. All confidential information is processed through Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) technology via our secure web servers.Our secure certificates are provided Thawte , (a Verisign company) you can verify the certificate by clicking on the “Secured By” Thawte logo . The portal follows Web 2.0 standards in design and security measures. We follow all the security guidelines and adhere to the latest in security standards. How secure is my data at CommonFloor? Your data is perfectly secure at CommonFloor. CommonFloor has password protected access to your private portal to only approved members. What is the privacy policy of CommonFloor? CommonFloor protects privacy of its users and its clearly mentioned in our “term and conditions” of service. We do not sell, share or rent our users data nor spam our users. Can anyone access our portal at CommonFloor?
No, only people who have been approved and verified by the administrator of your CommonFloor can enter your portal.
LifeAt creates private, password protected websites for exclusive use by members of residential communities. Residents use LifeAt sites to communicate with neighbors; post classifieds; and rate and review local retailers, restaurants, & delivery services. Property managers and building developers use the sites to post news and updates for residents and to attract potential buyers and renters. The success of each site is fueled by the active participation of its membership. The story of LifeAt begins like that of most successful businesses---with an observation of need in the marketplace. While working with some of New York City’s highest profile real estate developers, the founder realized that people moving to newly constructed buildings were coming from other countries, or at least other neighborhoods, and felt uprooted when settling in their new homes. Understanding that potential buyers were hoping to find a community and not just an apartment in which to live, the founder racked his brain to come up with some way to foster that sense of community in a new building. That’s when inspiration hit: create a safe, online community where fellow residents can meet and help each other out as they explore their new surroundings. With that simple thought- LifeAt was born. From its very first days LifeAt has grown organically- much like the individual sites themselves- to suit the growing needs of an ever expanding client base and the list of building developers and managers requesting their services. In little over a year, LifeAt has ballooned from dozens of sites to hundreds of sites, to where they are today with close to a thousand sites in various stages of production. The business model is simple and flexible enough to be applied to any residential community, anywhere in the world. And that’s just what the founders are hoping. Plans to expand internationally are already in the works as this little NYC based company has already moved into markets across the country with great success. CEO Matthew Goldstein believes his company’s astounding growth is a result of passion and a sound business model. His faith in the intrinsic value of his product allows him to be flexible and work with each developer or building manager to create a site that will benefit each and every building’s individual needs. Fueled by an unwavering entrepreneurial spirit, Matthew’s enthusiasm for the future of the company is not only contagious, it leaves everyone who works with him believing that there is no limit to what a LifeAt site might bring you!
Babajob.com is a Bangalore-based start up that uses the web and mobile technology to connect employers and bottom-of-the-pyramid (BOP) informal sector workers (i.e. maids, cooks, drivers, etc.) with the goal of creating a scalable, replicable and profitable solution to combat poverty. Babajob aims to do this by creating greater market efficiency in the informal sector through voice and web features such as SMS, UssD, automated voice systems, and operator manned call centres, enabling employers and job seekers to find each other. The value that babajob offers to both its employers and job seekers is in its ability to provide access to critical job and job seeker information through various technology platforms. By leveraging web and mobile technology, babajob is able to scale and engage a wider audience creating greater efficiency for employers and having a social impact on job seekers. Employers can conveniently browse job seeker profiles based on salary, location, languages, employment background, skills and references. Babajob offers several feebased services to help in the matching and hiring of seekers. Similarly, job seekers can discover and access multiple job opportunities based on their preferences of location, salary, job category, etc. They have the added-benefit of applying to nearby-jobs using their low-end mobile phones. Because Babajob offers a scalable form of livelihood enhancement to India’s base of pyramid users, babajob resonates strongly with India’s Telco carriers and handset makers. Why? Babajob’s services on their networks and devices allows companies to make credible claims that buying a better handset or additional VAS services will lead to higher incomes and better job opportunities for their customers. As the next 300 million India phone
customers are likely to poorer than the first 400 million customers, telcos and handset makers must enable incomes to increase through the use of their services to maintain growth. Babajob currently has a staff of 16, over 60,000+ customers and sends out over 1 million job alerts per month. Babajob.com and babalife.com are a combined effort to provide the best social networking and job site in India and worldwide. Our effort is based on two simple ideas: 1. 2. Everyone deserves to get a better job, no matter what their income or skill level, and Technology can enhance our ability to both hire more efficiently, and better communicate with those we care about.
Most people find jobs through people they know – namely their extended social network – and most employers – particularly when hiring employees that work in the home - would like to hire a person who someone they trust can vouch for. Babajob.com and babalife.com are an attempt to digitize this process to efficiently “get the word out” and importantly provide an incentive for the folks in between an employer and employee to connect people together. Here's how we hope to achieve this: First we have created the most compelling social-networking site for everyone in India – babalife.com – including folks who may not be interested in finding a new job or hiring anyone right. Babalife.com is available through both the web and a rich SMS UI, combines a blog, photo/video-sharing and social-networking site and is available in local Indian languages. We hope you’ll be able to connect in richer ways with the people you care about and find it fun too. Second, on babajob.com, we aim to connect employers and employees - especially those in the informal sector - by leveraging when possible their social relations from babalife.com. Perhaps most interestingly, we also provide a real incentive – in the form of mobile phone credits or a check when monthly earnings exceed 300R (~$7) – to help others get jobs or simply be a person who socially connects employers and employees. Here’s an example: Let’s say Rajesh is looking for a cook. He creates a posting on babajob.com and adds a few people he knows on babalife.com. Now let’s assume that he ultimately decides to hire his uncle’s driver’s sister. Assuming all these folks are on babalife.com, then both Rajesh’s uncle and his driver, will earn 100R (~$2.5). We also know that many of the people who might be hired through babajob may not have access to a computer or phone, and so their accounts can be managed by a friend, relative, NGO or even a cyber-café operator – called a mentor. Again, whenever someone is hired, their mentor also earns 100R. We hope that by offering the most compelling social network and a set of cash based incentives, we can build a solution that leverages technology to help more people get better jobs and meaningfully connect to each other. It's an experiment and in the end, we hope it works.
The Why of Babajob and Babalife. What inspired this project?
While at Microsoft Research India in 2005, our CEO, Sean co-ran the Advanced Development and Prototyping Team and worked very closely with the Technology for Emerging Markets research group, whose aim was to study and invent new ways that technology could be used to positively impact the social and economic development of the world’s poorest 4 billion people. While there, a colleague Aishwarya Ratan presented a
study (http://www.pubpol.duke.edu/krishna/documents/Krishna_Rajasthan_poverty.pdf, Escaping Poverty and Becoming Poor: Who Gains, Who Loses, and Why?, ANIRUDH KRISHNA, 2003) that sought to explain why families in India get in and out of poverty. In short, the answers were relatively simple:
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Poor families everywhere often fall into poverty when major health calamities occur – if a father and primary income earner is a day laborer and loses a hand, his family may often fall destitute (It should be noted that the solution to sudden calamity found in many developed nations is also simple – insurance). • On the positive side, the study showed that poor families often left the poverty trap through income diversification i.e. they got other jobs. If a farmer started fixing tractors on the side or a young son got a better paying job in the city, eventually that extra income really did raise the real economic status of the family. How were these jobs obtained? Well, the employee knew someone who knew someone. Sean’s first thought was “Great – all they need is the village version LinkedIn.com!” but obviously in order to make such a system work, one has to overcome the problem that most low-income workers of the world may not be literate, nor own a mobile phone and rarely own or have ready access to an Internet-connected PC. Thus, babajob and babalife are really an attempt to bridge a social networking and job site – allowing people to hire people that someone that they know can vouch – but importantly provide a direct financial incentive for those people who connect people in a trustworthy manner across classes AND who would be willing to help job seekers represent themselves online, in return for compensation whenever such a job seeker is hired. It is an experiment – a possible solution to provide all levels of job seekers more with job opportunities while efficiently helping employers find suitable employees in their social network. We don’t know if this will work, but we do collectively believe that the idea is interesting enough, that we simply had to quit our day jobs to give it shot.
So why then are there 2 sites, babajob.com and babalife.com?
We know this is a little confusing on first blush, but it’s our hope that this will make more sense over time. Babajob is obviously a job site, but in order to capture and keep the attention of everyone, we have simultaneously built babalife.com to be the best of breed Indian social networking site. Why? Because of a belief that in order to correctly model social relationships in a community and keep the attention of those people that are not hiring nor need a better job, a system should be – or at least leverage – the communication medium of its users (That’s why start-ups like friendster.com seek to mine the Outlookcontacts). Also, would a teenager really want their homepage to be http://babajob.com/princessyamini/ ? And yet, we really want that teenager as a socially connected user of our system, because it is quite likely that her parents may want to hire someone such as her best friend's maid's sister.
Why do you pay people in your system, just for being socially “in between” an employee and employer?
Given that we know that many jobs are filled through known references, we figured it is important to get those known references working on our behalf. The simplest and most useful incentive we could think of was money. Obviously, a money distribution network is difficult and expensive to create and maintain and thus, we pay in the form of mobile minutes for payments under 300R (about $6) and for greater amounts, we pay via a State Bank of India check – which can be cashed by any Indian with a voter registration or ration card. As mobile payment systems become more widespread in India, we certainly plan to leverage them and believe that these systems will hopefully enable lots of new innovative businesses like babajob.com, once people and businesses can easily move money using only a mobile number as an identifier.
Why do you feature maps so prominently?
In short, traffic. In any urban city in India and much of the developing world, there is a growing middle class that is purchasing cars and motorbikes like mad. This has caused huge congestion and commute times that routinely go beyond 90 minutes. For those that use public transportation, the bus systems are often incredibly slow and thus, finding employment near one’s residence is often an acute priority. Given that India and many developing countries often lack systems with well formed addresses, we believe that points on a map will work better when comparing and searching across locations than addresses. We also think it’s just cool to see all your friends on a map and in the future, we may integrate these features with our SMS services to enable people to update their location via SMS.
ABOUT DHANAX
"dhanaX is an online-offline person-to-person lending platform that allows Indians to lend and borrow money from each other"
DHANAX is inspired by the idea of an online community's ability to come together and help each other. dhanaX works within the ambit of Social Business or Social Enterprise. Successful experiments worldwide in micro-credit have shown how low income people can also aspire for financial and social advancement. Dhana signifies wealth and dhanaX stands for the exchange of wealth. dhanaX is a stable, secure platform for exchange of micro loans. dhanaX works at two levels Online it communicates with individual lenders and generates loans; Offline it networks through agents to build a database of credible borrowers. Willing lenders are then brought in direct contact with needy borrowers. Loans thus accessed go a long way in helping small farmers or entrepreneurs to supplement their farm income or start a small business.
Location
dhanaX Information Services Pvt. Ltd., is headquartered in Bangalore. The company was flagged off by a team of enthusiastic, highly dedicated individuals with competent track records in financial services, management and technology. dhanaX foresees an economically stronger society created by a community-led revolution. dhanaX aims to be a pioneering model for successful and innovative online social lending. 1.Provide easy access to credit for unbanked Indians and help them escape from debilitating debt cycles. 2.Provide a profitable social investment opportunity for the investor. With only 34% of its population having access to formal banking systems, India has the second-highest number of unbanked population in the world - about 135 million or approximately 675 million people. Total credit supply, through existing formal channels, responds to only 15% of the $90 billion demand. The only credit
alternatives for millions of underprivileged people are local pawnbrokers or moneylenders, who usually charge anything between 40-120% interest rates per annum. Research has established that micro loans boast a 95% repayment rate worldwide. This is incentive enough for Investors to consider social lending as an attractive investment avenue. Nothing is more rewarding than the ability to empower the community around you. Both emotionally and financially too. dhanaX aims to prove just that. dhanaX salutes the entrepreneurial spirit in India's small towns and villages. At dhanaX, the power of microfinance to transform lives motivates and drives our passion. dhanaX draws inspiration from the entrepreneurial spirit of thousands of small farmers, underprivileged women and small business owners across the globe.
HOW DHANAX WORKS
dhanaX is an online-offline person-to-person lending platform that allows Indians to lend and borrow money from each other.
For a lender looking for a social investment, or a borrower seeking an affordable loan, dhanaX is the best forum. We facilitate lending or borrowing of small capital using scientific, credible methods. dhanaX works in partnership with a network of carefully selected, well-established agents who represent the borrower you choose. Broadly the process is something like this.
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Borrowers form themselves in Self Help Groups (SHG). These SHGs are formed on the basis of affinity, profession, location etc. These SHGs take loan under joint guarantee. These SHGs approach Dhanax for Micro Credit. DhanaX does a two step due diligence: o Due diligence on the SHG - Some of the checks done on SHGs include: Verification of their passbooks Number of years of existence Maintenance of proper ledgers and other books of accounts Frequency of meetings and mechanism of operation Leader's credentials o Due diligence on individual members of the SHG - DhanaX checks each member's credentials on an internally developed 40 parameters. Some of these parameters are: Their residence history Their financial position The purpose of the loan Other outstanding loans
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The profile of these borrowers is displayed on the website. Lenders can see the profiles of the members and decide which SHG they want to lend to Lenders then lend the money to the SHG that they have chosen either online or offline The borrowers then make a regular monthly repayments by cheques which is collected by us from their doorsteps and deposited to the lenders account The lender earns back his money with an interest rate of 14% (reducing EMI method) with repayments every month
The THREE-STEP Process
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DhanaX on CNBC In lenders' words
Vedha says We had previously donated to organizations like CRY and ISKON, but we found that lending through dhanaX is a better option as we are aware of the exact purpose for which money is being used for. SHARATH says The whole idea of Microfinance is a revolutionary one, and one that will be beneficial to both the borrower and the lender provided the means are trustworthy. In dhanaX we have that 'trust' that can go a long way in helping the investor realise his money's worth, especially in a scenario where many farmers in India are in dire need of loans and are susceptible to be spending more than what is necessary in paying off the intermediaries. For a start i have invested a nominal sum of Rs. 3000/-. Ofcourse, from the investor's point of view i am hopeful and confident that i get good returns on my investment. It makes me happy to invest in dhanaX. I recommend the same happiness to one and all.
DhanaX on Cashcow
"Cashcow has been following the developments in the Peer to Peer lending sector with interest. We have blogged about Dhanax nearly a year ago and followed its progress keenly." Read more...
Delivery Model
How LabourNet Works: LabourNet uses mobile technology, such as automated, multilingual SMS messaging, GIS and GPS applications, to announce daily job openings. It provides training opportunities, access to health insurance, the ability to open bank accounts and receive proper identification cards for workers who have been denied these social benefits. The system also offers assistance to the growing professional class and mid-sized business community who find it difficult to access the “unorganized” labor sector. LabourNet provides an answer to this growing demand by providing simplified access to qualified, reliable, skilled workers, and taking care of the time-consuming hassle of training workers and arranging benefits. “At one level, LabourNet is clearly impacting lives by providing services to workers ranging from job information to financial inclusion to health management systems,” says Gayathri Vasudevan of LabourNet. “At another level, the effort is being recognized by NGOs and state governments, CHF's grant funding and technical support has enabled LabourNet to pilot various strategies and prepare its systems for scaling up across the country.”
Read More about LabourNet through CHF
Customers 1.What is LabourNet's relationship to the workers? LabourNet was initiated to support informal sector workers as an institutional network which would train workers, facilitate their financial inclusion and increase their ability to access jobs, government schemes and social security. LabourNet is an interface that tries to help you find the help you need! We profile and train workers. We also provide a whole range of services to workers. We do not
employ workers. We train and database workers on a continuous basis and make them accessible to customers. We also enable routing of payments from client to worker through established banking systems (Punjab National Bank). We do not oversee and choose their jobs. However, we enroll workers and train them to be professionals who are quite capable of choosing the correct jobs and completing them to customer satisfaction. 2.Is there a registration fee? Yes, there is a nominal registration fee of Rs. 200. 3.If I am not satisfied with the work done by the worker? You can report the same to the call centre. Your feedback will be stored and it will have an impact on the workers ratings. If you feel completely dissatisfied, you can ask for a replacement. LabourNet will first send an executive and assess the situation. If it is the workers fault, you will get a replacement worker at no cost. 4.How can I tell which worker or labour contractor is the best one for the job? That is the eternal question! And we have found an answer to this question. We capture your requirements and make recommendations based on your requirements. We also advice you on the choice to make – which worker to hire. We have developed a matrix which helps you choose workers. But you have the freedom to choose “the right person” from amongst our vast database. You can then employ the worker. 5.How do I know that it is safe to allow the worker to come into my house? • All workers will have a LabourNet identity card. • All workers have bank accounts • Most workers have local address proof documents. Some have home town address proof documents • Many workers in our database have previous employer referrals
Workers and Labour Coordinators 1. How do I get benefitted by joining Labournet This is the only network which solely works for your benefit. If you are a LabourNet member you become eligible to the following additional benefits: a) Assured payment through prescribed LabourNet banking system. b) Opportunity to attend trainings when you have the time and money and thereby upgrade your skills. c) Opportunity to open a bank account and start Savings, and you will get a debit card. d) Accident insurance e) Opportunity to get medical treatment (hospitalization) in the best few hospitals in the city at a nominal cost That adds up to a lot of benefits... why shouldn't you get into the action, especially to get the best jobs?
Of course, the response you get will be somewhat dependent on your skills and performance. Which you can improve by attending our training programmes. But as more and more people register, more and more customers will come to LabourNet to find services such as yours, your income will increase and you will benefit by becoming a LabourNet member. 2. Will I financially benefit by joining LabourNet? Absolutely!! Yes. If you are a repair worker or are fully employed and would like to take up temporary jobs.
3. Will you accept anyone as a member? Any worker who is a construction worker – electrician, plumber, painter, carpenter, bar bender, fabricator, mason, domestic worker – house cleaner, cook, gardener, driver, baby sitter and nursing assistant can be a LabourNet member. We will also accept small building contractors, electricians, plumbers or other tradesmen who do a significant amount of labour and or material works. 4. Can you tell us how many jobs I will get through LabourNet? As LabourNet would be actively marketing your services across all parts of the city, your chances of getting multiple jobs is guaranteed. 5.Will I ever loose LN membership? Yes, if you do the following: • • If you are a temp worker and do not respond to more than 3 calls If you are a maistri and are given a short project, all money needs to be routed through LN. If you settle it independently then your membership will be cancelled
