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Document
Mgmt.
Feature
TYPE
New feature in software portal
OUTCOME
Created 0-1 new feature which increased portal invites sent by 6x from 40k to 237k in 2024
TIME
January 2024-October 2024
VIEW PROTOTYPE
In 2024 our team at AppFolio was tasked with increasing invitations to our vendor portal by way of adding value to the portal. While our ultimate goal was to increase invitations to the vendor portal resulting in Vendor Pay conversions, in our discovery we found that collecting vendor portal documents can really be a pain for property managers.
Results were:
- 6x vendor portal invites sent in 2024
- 150,000 documents submitted in 2024
- 75,000 new Vendor-Portal users and 13,000 vendor pay submissions solely from the vendor document requests.
There were a lot of things we learned throughout the development process. We started at the end of 2023 with talking to customers and conducting a survey.
In the current process, customers (property managers) had to manually email their vendors and ask for documents like their W-9, liability insurance, and Workers' Compensation insurance. Then they need to go into the vendor record in the software and update the expiration dates. Not having up to date documents puts the PM company at risk and it also can delay the payment for the vendor.
When talking to property management customers we heard two different concerns:
1) the manual effort it takes to collect the documents
2) The legal risk of not having up to date documents from their vendors
“If they forget to send us the new one, we have to go and hunt them down. That’s a job in itself!”
“Our reputation is important and if Appfolio can make this better it would helpful for the industry as a whole”
From our discovery we knew that there are two milestones where PMs can request vendor documents
1) During Onboarding: PMs request documents like W-9, liability and Workers’ Comp. There was an opportunity to add the ability for customers to request documents when they were entering a new vendor.
2) On an ongoing basis: And they need to request updated liability and worker’s comp. Documents from their vendors
For our first iteration we focused on the ability for vendors to upload documents through the vendor portal since the document status was already being pulled in from the vendor page.
In February 2024 I facilitated a design studio to align on next steps for property managers to organize, request, and collect documents in bulk. From that exercise with the team we identified two focus areas:
1) Allowing property managers to request documents through a new vendor form and
2) a dashboard page for property managers to see what documents were expired from what vendors
We often used lo-fi versions to validate early designs with our customers. We wanted to show a handful of customers ways they could see all of their expired documents in one place and a way for them to request documents from new vendors.
We first worked on the ability for vendors to upload documents in the vendor portal.
Towards the end of Q1 we added on the ability for property managers to request documents. One of the first places we did this was on the new vendor form which allowed property managers to request documents and payment information from their new vendors.
We then added buttons within the vendor page so that property managers could request documents from their existing vendors that had expiring documents.
We launched the feature to beta customers in March 2024. We collected feedback through feedback banners and following up with customers. I also sent out a survey in March 2024 asking users in the beta group for specific feedback from their vendors. We also had feedback forms in the vendor portal to collect feedback and see where vendors were getting stuck. We also looked at Mixpanel data to see where vendors were dropping off the flow.
When we added the ability for property managers to request documents like W-9 and liability insurance from new vendors, it resulted in a huge jump in vendor portal invitations and vendor pay revenue.
Once we had finished an MVP version of a "bulk request" page, I conducted more calls to make sure that customers understood how to use the feature. Based on those calls I mocked up some better ways to filter and sort the columns so they matched the mental model for users. During those customer calls I also gauged customer feedback to better understand if they saw more value in W-9 requests, a vendor document dashboard, or automated emails. That helped the team prioritize the enhancements to the feature.
Based on user feedback and also an activity called “Walking the Store” which is when our team (developers included) would go through the feature together and log any “paper cuts” in the user experience. As a result of this exercise we created and prioritized JIRA cards for us to improve the user experience for both the vendor and the property manager.
New Vendor Document Page
Based on conversion rates for vendors submitting documents and our team’s work on “Walking the Store”, we moved the upload feature out of the settings page and onto a new documents page. This documents page served as an index page for all of the vendor’s clients and their documents status along with clear expiration dates.
Customization of Vendor Documents request
Based on research and validation done with customers, we worked on a way for property managers to customize the emails they sent to vendors requesting documents. We found that there were often certain language and requirements needed for the documents they collected from their vendors.
Automated Emails
When conducting validation calls and surveys, we also heard that property managers wanted the ability to automate the emails requesting expiring documents. We added the ability for property managers to automate emails so that they were sent on their behalf 1 month, 1 week, and 1 day prior to the document’s expiration date.
AI Integration
One of the ways we expanded the feature was to integrate the vendor request actions through the AI component of our software. We were one of the first teams to integrate prompts through our software’s version of ChatGPT.
Overall we saw an increase in customers using the feature, vendors receiving document requests and documents submitted resulting in over 150,000 documents submitted in 2024.
This has resulted in over 75,000 new Vendor-Portal users and 13,000 vendor pay submissions solely from the vendor document requests.
