Happily Aligned Center!

This one is for those of you that like things “centered”.  This one just makes me smile thinking about it!  How many times have you typed some text in a field and it is all the way over to the left and you wished it had some “space”, well you can with a click of the button, move all the text to be “centered”.  First click and drag over all the fields you want to align this way (text, name or date field).  Do not click and drag over signatures, initials, check boxes or radio buttons or this will NOT work.  Now that they are selected you will see at the top the menu of options and close to the middle you will see some lines.  Click on the one that has them centered and it says right above it ALIGN CENTER and done!  You can also use this trick to align all the text boxes on your templates so that they will always be that way each time you use that form!  

 

Don’t forget, while you are making these changes, you can also add any “default” information that you use 80% of the time.  It’s the 80/20 rule, if you do something 80% of the time then that is what you should have typed in.  That way you only have to change it 20% of the time or less.

Hope you enjoy this tip because it is a big hit in class!  Keep in mind that if the office admin makes these changes to the office documents in the templates, then it will be applied to all agents within the office.  Likewise, if you make these changes on your own templates, it will always be that way when pulling in that document.  Remember, if you need to do something more than once, you need a SYSTEM and this is a great one!

I can be reached at CarolynTechPertise@gmail.com, by phone or text at 918-951-9020 or visit my real estate website at http://www.SearchTulsaHouses.com.  For technology training or consulting assistance visit http://www.iCarolyn.com.

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Editing Heaven

This part of my class gets so many people excited and they always want to know if I have more information, so here we go!  Let’s start with a blank PDF.  If you have a document that you want to turn into your own customized form, then these tips will make you very happy, especially the “OCD and willing to admit it students”.  I’m going to be giving you tips from both the PC and MAC users so look for the one that applies to your type of computer.  

Load your document in your loop or templates, “drag and drop” is my favorite way to put a PDF in the loop.  For this we are going to add a lead based paint document in the loop.  Now that you have a document, open it.  At the top you will see “add” and you have several things you can add to a document.  Many of these items share the same properties and options for shortcuts.  Let’s start by adding some initials.  After you click on “add initial” at the top, you notice that it follows your curser.  Put the TOP LEFT corner in the place you want it to be.  When editing using these shortcuts, the top left is the fixed point and the bottom right is where they will move from.  

To MOVE the field added, hold your SHIFT KEY down and then select the arrows to move the direction you want to move the box to.  If you press the right arrow key it will move the box right, if you press the down arrow, it will move the box down and so on.

To RESIZE you will want to hold the ALT KEY on a PC/OPTION KEY on a MAC and then move the arrows away from the top left to make it larger or toward it to make it smaller.  For example if you want to make it smaller, then you will need to hold the ALT KEY/OPTION KEY and push the left or up arrow.  To make it larger would go the opposite direction, by holding down the ALT KEY/OPTION KEY to the right and down.  

Another option for resizing is best used for a “radio button” but can be used for many fields.  If you have clicked on or if an item is highlighted, you will see at the top right the “more” and when you click on it you will see the “advanced” and once selected will it will open a new box and display the exact pixels for the field highlighted.  You can alter the size of the item be changing the pixel number to higher to increase the size and lower to make it smaller.  You have the options of the X and Y axis which is hight and width.  The radio button is the one button that does not have the arrow to increase or decrease the size with the mouse and this allows your to still resize it.

To DUPLICATE you will combine buttons and hold both the SHIFT AND ALT KEY/OPTION KEY and then push the arrow in the direction you want to duplicate it to.  If you have placed an initial box, then resized it to the correct proportions and need another one exactly like it, then use this tip to duplicate another one.

A lot of times we need to have more than one client initial or sign so a great way to prepare a form to be used for either 1 or 2 buyers then you will want to GROUP.  This is very easy to do and extremely helpful.  Once you have put the initials, signatures or radio buttons on the page, you will need to “click and drag” over each of the items you want to group.  You will notice that they will be highlighted and at the top of the screen (in the menu area next to “assign”) you will see 4 squares (either red or blue) and then when you hover over it you will see the word GROUP above it.  Once you click it, they will be grouped together and will show white with the word UNGROUP above it, signaling they are already grouped together.  Once you have them grouped accordingly, you will need to also ASSIGN it to the ROLE  that you want to be the one to sign or select it.  What this does is makes it so that you can only have 1 of the items grouped together initialed, signed or selected by each person.  For example, if you have 3 items you have “grouped” then only one can be selected or if you have 2 initial boxes grouped then if they are assigned to a buyer then only 1 buyer can initial in each  of the group.  They can not initial both, it’s what I call “client proof”.  Very helpful for setting up templates and not wanting to duplicate efforts.  

When you get the document the way you want it AND you want to use this as a template again, then under “file” at the top you will see an option that says SAVE AS TEMPLATE.  Then it will ask you about saving your work and I would say “yes” and then you will be prompted to select a place to save the template.  It will only allow you to put this in one of your folders in your templates and not in an office template so if you don’t have a custom folder created in your templates, you may want to do that first.  Now that your template is created, you can use this on other documents over and over.  

APPLY TEMPLATE is how you use the template that you just created.  Open a document that you want to apply a template to and click the “file” and APPLY TEMPLATE, then select the template you want to use.  This can also be used if you have an updated document that needs to be slightly edited.  For example, your real estate commission or association puts out an updated version of a form already in Dotloop.  You have it as a PDF from the commission or association and load it into your loop or templates and then APPLY TEMPLATE and select the older version to layer over all of the fields from the old form onto the new one.  Then you can adjust the boxes as needed to be in the right place sets for the new version of the document.  

One thing to note is that in order to save the templates and apply the templates, you will need to have Dotloop Premium.  If you are not a Premium user, you will need to upgrade in order to use these two features.  If you want to know all of the custom features and everything that you can do for all of the shortcuts, they are called “Hot Keys” and this is a link to the Dotloop support page with Hot Keys.

Two more tips: COPY and PASTE which are also shown on the bottom right of your screen when you are in a document, but here is how to use them.  First to COPY you will select or click on the item(s) you want to copy and then push these buttons on your keyboard together once: PC – CONTROL+SHIFT+C or MAC – COMAND+SHIFT+C and then click somewhere else on the screen or page you want to past them on and click all together once: PC – CONTROL+SHIFT+V or MAC – COMAND+SHIFT+V.  Then it will follow your curser and when you click, it will past the item you copied where ever you click and if you hold your SHIFT key down, it will allow you to past it multiple times until you let go of the SHIFT key.

I hope you enjoy these tips on Editing Heaven.  If you would like to have me come to your office to show you even more tips and tricks, complete the information below to get the ball rolling!  You never know what state I will be in.  I have trained in 34 states now and have 17 left to go (including D.C. as one of the places I have trained).  If you are in one of the 17, I’m ready to come your way!!

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I can be reached at CarolynTechPertise@gmail.com, by phone or text at 918-951-9020 or visit my real estate website at http://www.SearchTulsaHouses.com.  For technology training or consulting assistance visit http://www.iCarolyn.com.

3 Amazing Dots

Many times we work in a program or system and we want to do something that we don’t see on the main menu. In Dotloop if you are looking for more things to do or more information, it has 3 little dots next to documents, folders, people and tasks. I have many names for the “3 little dots”, I call them: click right here, you want this, find more stuff and any other combination of 3 words that makes you think to click on it to find more features.

Document 3 Amazing Dots have all kinds of things, the longest list is going to be in a loop and next to a document that has been modified because remember they can’t give you a feature for something that doesn’t exist yet. For example. If you load a PDF and have not modified it or sent it for signatures then you can’t have a “history” or “signature verification” because there is only 1 version that does not have signatures yet. Once you have done things to the document, then it will have more menu items listed in the 3 amazing dots. On the templates page next to the document, you will not have a history or signature verification because those are templates and don’t have those items yet either. The items on an edited document with signatures in a loop would be: open, rename, make a copy, history, print, download, signature verification, archive, fax. If you do not have a premium account, you may not be able to use all of these features, but you can see them all. Most of these are pretty self explanatory, but the 3 I think worth mentioning are the make a copy, history and signature verification. Make a copy will allow you to copy a document from one folder to another or from one loop to another loop or to your templates to reuse in another loop. The History is where you can find out the progression or “history” of what has happened, also known as the “versions”. If the document has been modified, saved, signed, then it will have a new version each time and the number can ben found in this pop-up window along with the ability to view or download any one of the versions that you had permission to view. The signature verification is going to take you to the page for verifying the signatures for that document. It will take you to the latest or current version, but if you want to go to an older one, just view the version you one from the history and then click the “signature verification” link at the top left of any document. Every single document that is signed in Dotloop has one of these and can be viewed by anyone by either clicking on the link or typing the link in a web browser!

Folder 3 Amazing Dots will list items affiliated with folder options such as: open all, share all, rename, duplicate, archive. Open all will allow you to view and/or edit all of the forms in the folder at once by scrolling through them. The other 3 are mostly common since: rename the folder, duplicate the folder or archive (hide) the folder.

 

 

 

People 3 Amazing Dots are probably clicked on the least, but can be ver useful. They only have 4 options: edit, add to my team, introduce and remove. Edit can be tricky because sometimes we type the email address in wrong and want to fix it, which you can, but sometimes when you have shared the document it has an issue “re-sharing” and you end up removing the person and adding them back in to make sure it is working 100% correctly. I would try the edit first and I f you have not shared it at all, this should work just fine. Add to my team is VERY important you know what this does BEFORE you use it. This is ONLY for people that are working on the same side of the transaction and the same cupassity as you. For example some that would be on your team is an assistant that works for you or someone on a team or you have a property “co-listed” with another agent. Adding someone to your team will automatically show them all people, documents and tasks in the loop so if you add the wrong person this can be a big deal! The introduces is one of the most “unused” sections mostly because people don’t know it’s there or what to do with it. If you have a Buyer that you want to “introduce” to a lender, this is where you can do that. All it does is allows the people you are “introducing” to communicate inside the loop. Keep in mind that you may not always be a party to their conversation just like you can have a conversation with any one person independant of another person. Remove can be used to take someone out of the loop, but remember that it does not “unshare” things that you have already sent them. They will still have access to everything that has been sent to them, but you will not be able to send them anything else unless you add them back to the loop. You can also use this feature if you have entered an email address that was incorrect and it is not sharing to the new one for some reason.

3 Amazing Task Dots! First I have to say that if you are not using tasks, you are MISSING OUT!!  If you want to know more about tasks, check out my other post about tasks.  You have a different set of options between the task folder and the tasks in that folder. Next to the task folder you will see: create template, share, rename, delete and hide task list from team members. The create template is great for making a list in a loop and then deciding that you want to reuse it in another loop so you can “create template” and name it. Share sends it to someone else in the loop to view, rename and delete are self explanatory. Yes, I said delete. You can delete tasks, they will be listed in the activity log if you want to know what you did, but you can delete them. “Hide task list from team members” does exactly that, hides it from other people “on your team” in the loop. Keep in mind that the client can not see the list unless you share it (one of the original Loop Rules: #2 Everything you add to the loop is private until you share it.). The only exception to this is that when you “assign” a task to someone in the loop, they will then be able to see all of the tasks on that list with the item that was “assigned” to them so if you don’t want them to see the rest of the list, then make a new list per person. Next to the tasks you will find only two options under the 3 amazing dots which are rename and delete, both exactly what they say. The other items next to the task are to “assign” it to someone which is listed as “unassigned” until you select a person and a date that auto fills but can be changed to any date or can be tied to another task for example, if you want one task to be due after another task is completed.

That’s the basics of the “3 Amazing Dots”. It looks like a lot, but it just a matter of clicking the 3 little dots to find out what options are available so go check out the 3 Amazing Dots and explore what you can do!

I can be reached at CarolynTechPertise@gmail.com, by phone or text at 918-951-9020 or visit my real estate website at http://www.SearchTulsaHouses.com.  For technology training or consulting assistance visit http://www.iCarolyn.com.