Industry type - all


Available with - Essentials


If you own multiple brands but have centralised Property Maintenance teams, then this article on multiple front-ends is for you! If however you own multiple brands and each of those brands has its own Property Maintenance team, then we recommend that you purchase a Fixflo system per brand.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

General overview


Our multi front-end feature - also referred to as brands - works in the following way:


- You can have a unique Fixflo reporting site for each brand, that feeds into one back-end (core Fixflo system)
- Each unique site can have a custom logo, colour scheme, URL and name
- You have the ability to customise the fault tree on each brand, hiding icons as necessary. You can also have different types of fault tree, e.g. Build-to-rent, Property management etc to accommodate mixed portfolios
-  Customise advice and guidance pop-ups per brand, providing relevant numbers for emergencies
- Emails sent out for each front-end have the unique branding
- On the agent side, maintenance issues can be filtered by 'Brand', so custom dashboard queries can be created to track issues by brand

- Agents and Contractors can be linked to a certain brand (visibility purposes only). Alternatively, if you want the contractor to receive emails related to the brand the issue itself is associated with, you can set this up too


 


This feature is also great if you wish to have separate reporting sites per development you manage (Block or BTR/PRS). This allows you the freedom to customise each front-end as per required (e.g. remove or add 'Swimming Pool'), and provides residents with a reporting tool that suits their needs.


If you ever forget the URL of each brand, you can always reference this via the 'Promote' feature, where you can switch between the collateral for each front-end.


For more information on multiple front-ends, do check out the further information below. In addition, you can discuss this with the Sales Executive you're speaking to, or the member of the Customer Success team who is helping get your account up and running. Please note, there is an additional cost to adding multiple brands/front-ends to your Fixflo system.


How to change the design per brand


Having multiple brands allows you to have separate reporting URLs that all feed into the same 'back-end'. Each of these URLs can be branded individually, creating the sense from a reporting/occupier side that they are unique.


To amend the design - logo and color scheme - of each brand, an Administrator can simply click via Setup > Design:



If you need any assistance with regards to how to use the colour schemes available, please click here.


Customising the fault tree per brand


Each different front-end (Brand) you own has its own fault tree. These can be different, for example one can be Commercial Lettings, while another can be Residential Lettings.


An Administrator profile can click via Setup > Fault tree edit, where they can filter between each individual brand:



You have the ability to hide or display whole categories or individual faults, as well as create and publish additional advice and guidance pop-ups as desired. For more information on how to do this, check out:


- Our guide on editing this content here

- Our webinar recording on editing the content here
- Useful videos to use in pop-ups here  

Customising email content per brand


Emails will be sent from your Fixflo system at various stages. Emails can be sent to Agents, Landlords, Contractors and Occupiers [if you're on a Block or BTR/PRS system, also Leaseholders]. For a full breakdown of Fixflo emails, please click here.


Each email is white-labelled with a brand; this brand will depend on:


- The brand (URL) that the issue was created on

- The brand that the issue itself may have been changed to (see further below)

- The brand of the Contractor (if applied)

- The brand of the Agent (if applied)


Email content can be edited by Administrator profiles via Setup > Content edit. As an example, this guide will now run through how to amend the Contractor welcome email for one specific brand. 


The Administrator profile - within Content edit - will need to click on the email template titled 'Email - New issue report to occupier'. This will take you to the general template for this email on your system - you can see on the right-hand side if there are any overrides for any of your brands. The Administrator is able to click on a Brand name within Add override for brand if desired:



This will take them to an override of that particular email content for that specific brand. In this instance, I may want to inform occupiers reporting issues on my Block brand that they are able to speak to the Site manager at any point if necessary:




Once they hit save, they will remain on the override, which is highlighted at the top of the screen. They can then make any necessary changes for the other brands as well. 


Customising invoice settings per brand


Each brand you manage may have different invoicing specifications. To cater for this, you are able to set varying invoice settings for each brand.


To do this, click via Setup > Settings > Invoicing (Administrator users only). Here, simply select the brand you'd like to create the invoicing default settings for, and enter the relevant information required underneath:



Just remember to hit Save once it's done!

Properties/Units by brand


Our multi front-end feature allows you to apply brands to property profiles. The benefit of doing this is that - when using an issue submission option of 'Only display uploaded properties' - the occupier will only be able to select from a property linked to the relevant brand (see guide here for more details).


To apply a brand against a property or unit, simply go to the profile of said property/unit and use the 'Brand' option to apply the relevant brand:


Property/unit brands can also be applied via import. Please contact our support team for more assistance with this.


Once branding is applied at the property/unit, you can also use this to filter your property list to view only properties/units by their relevant brand.

Raising issues per brand


Each of your brands will have their own URL. This is important as it allows you to promote to the occupiers of each brand, providing them with a distinct URL applicable to them. Alternatively, if you had a different brand (front-end) for each Site you manage, you could have a unique URL for each Site.


Once issues are raised, they all feed into the same Fixflo back-end (agent side of the system). 


From within the agent side of the system, you too can easily raise issues on behalf of occupiers. Via Create issue on the left-hand navigation, you can use Create on behalf of to create an issue on behalf of an occupier already existing in your system. This will brand the issue from the brand linked to the occupier profile.


Alternatively, you can use Create issue > Enter as you go, where you will first need to select the brand you're raising the issue for. You will then be able to click through the fault tree and report an issue for that brand; please note, you'll need to enter all property and occupier details if using this method:




Issue branding rules


Due to the complexity of branding rules across your system, it is important that you are aware of how issues/jobs themselves are branded.

When jobs are raised by tenants/occupiers/leaseholders, the relevant URL is used the correct branding applied. However, there may be scenarios whereby branding logic either contradicts itself or hasn't yet been applied. These are outlined below, with the branding logic explained:


  • When raising a private issue at a property/unit, regardless of the URL used, if the property entity has branding applied, the issue will take this brand
    • If property brand is not set, the issue will take the brand of the URL used
  • When raising a communal issue at a block, regardless of the URL used, if the block has branding applied, this issue will take this brand
    • If block brand is not set, the issue will take the brand of the URL used
  • If an issue is created from a service event, then the property or block brand is applied

Changing the brand of an issue


There could be occasions where an issue is raised against the wrong brand - these things happen! To mitigate this, we've made it a simple process to quickly change the brand of an issue.


From within the issue, simply click on the Edit issue button (or Actions > Edit issue):



From here, you can scroll down towards the bottom where you can find the current issue, which can be edited as desired - just remember to hit Save!


Contractors and brands


Contractors on your system will be notified when they are awarded a job, requested to quote etc. Unless the contractor has specifically had a brand set on their profile, then these emails will be branded as per the brand of the issue.
For example, if an issue was raised via Brand A and Awarded to Contractor X, the email will have the logo of Brand A.
In another instance, Contractor X would receive an email with the logo of Brand B if the issue is associated with Brand B.


Some clients prefer that their contractors receive all communication from one central brand. If this is the case, please inform the member of the Customer Success team who is getting your system up and running. They will be able to assist in applying this brand in bulk to your contractors.


If you wanted to do this manually, you can click via People > Contractors, and click into a contractor profile. Here, you can scroll down and set a brand for that contractor:



You can always filter your contractor data by brand should you wish to understand your data a little more.


As a reminder, the brand set on h will supersede the branding of any issue. This means that even if the contractor is emailed about an issue for Brand A, the email will be branded as whatever brand their profile is attached to.

Filtering by brands


It's important that - as an agent user - you know which brand an issue is associated with. For example, you may only work across certain brands, or you may just want to understand for reporting purposes. 


Via Issues > Issue search, you are able to open up the search parameters on Fixflo. Here, you have the option to filter by brand:




The brand of an issue is also available to see when looking at a group of issues, or at an issue-specific level:





You are also able to filter user types by Brand. For example, if you click via People > Occupiers, you can see a list of the occupier profiles on your system. Here, you can open the search parameters, amend the default brand list you're looking for and then hit Search to find the relevant results:



Similarly, you can filter your list of Properties by brand using the 'Brand' filter available, simply select the relevant brand you're filtering by and hit search:



Demo


To request a live demonstration of this feature please contact our support team.