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Are you an IGEL user? IGEL property management software is now connected to ICRS. This year, we developed the ICRS Badger, an interface that allows you to import new data or changes in data from IGEL into ICRS quickly, easily and without complications – for an automatic and daily synchronization that facilitates your portfolio management. 

What are the benefits of the ICRS Badger for IGEL users?

The ICRS Badger connects IGEL with ICRS. It was developed by our metamagix team so that you can monitor the performance of your real estate portfolio even more closely and intervene at an early stage if need be.

• Automatic synchronization for daily monitoring

With the ICRS Badger it is possible to keep an eye on the daily updated KPIs of your real estate in the ICRS. Turnover, yield, vacancies, rent roll entries/debit position lists or open items – now you can view the daily updated data in ICRS or decide yourself when and how often you would like to arrange the exchange of data between IGEL and ICRS.

• How the ICRS Badger for IGEL works

Our ICRS Badger retrieves the necessary data via the IGEL API (web interface) and automatically imports it into ICRS. The main issues for data transfers of large real estate portfolios are that either the amount of data becomes too large, or data transfers take too much time. Both issues are solved with the interface, as the ICRS Badger retrieves, in a resource-saving manner, the data at non-critical times – usually at night -, and the data reconciliation cannot be noticed by the users of both systems in live operation, even during the day. The badger is put in between and picks up IGEL data, but only passes on data that has changed or is new. For example, open items are usually picked up on the first day of the month and in the middle of the month, accounting journals, however, every night, rental income starting with the 2nd week of the month but only if data has changed in a property since the last synchronisation.

If you do not use IGEL, but Leikom, SAP, ITS, FIO or another property management software: no problem!  We already have other direct synchronization interfaces for ICRS and we are constantly developing new ones. For about 50 other property management and accounting systems there is the possibility of a monthly data transfer via Sharepoint, mail or the data transfer platform of metamagix. Contact us if you are interested or try it yourself with our tool for an easier data transfer (https://mmxen.metamagix.net/product/metamagix-transfer).

If you are already working with ICRS, we would like to introduce you to alarms and their administration. With this module, you can define KPIs and thresholds, which then trigger alerts when they are exceeded or not reached in a timely manner. These messages can also be sent automatically to target groups you defined. This means that you do not always have to proactively monitor every change but can leave this task to ICRS.

Set up and automate alerts and warnings in ICRS

Via the tab Other Modules > Alerts > Alerts List you can create an alert or display the list of alerts already set up. Further to this, you can then set up automatic alerts.

• User-friendly alarms in ICRS

If you specify KPIs or thresholds for management, these are also displayed accordingly in ICRS and appear in red when they are exceeded or not reached. Alarm checks can be performed at different times and with different intervals, the group of alarm addressees can be easily configured.

• Setting up automatic alerts for KPIs

You can also set up automatic alerts to be sent to ICRS users or a mail distribution list when a KPI is too high or too low. Our customers use this feature when a threshold is reached, i.e., when a vacancy rate above a certain percentage threshold for a property or when a property does not reach set profitability targets. Expiring leases or other operational conditions can also trigger alerts.

Learn more about ICRS and its features here.

 

aspern The Urban Lakeside of Vienna, located in the north-east of the Austrian capital, is one of the largest and most ambitious city development projects in Europe. The project, which won the Austrian State Prize for Architecture and Sustainability in 2019, aims to create housing and living space for more than 25,000 people. In addition, around 20,000 jobs will be created. The total investment volume amounts to roughly 5 billion euros.

As a development company, Wien 3420 aspern Development AG and its partners coordinate urban planning and the building of the infrastructure in Seestadt. Order management and budgeting are essential. So far, these have taken place in two different tools. They no longer met the requirements of the project. Wien 3420 found its match with our metamagix experts and together, we started to introduce ICRS in spring 2020. The metamagix team made adjustments to the system to meet the special challenges of urban development. Now both, order management and budgeting, are possible in ICRS for Seestadt.

“We are very happy with the ICRS solution from metamagix. It is much leaner and more intuitive than the previous solution, which consisted of two systems. With ICRS we can process the large volume of different tenders and the related budgeting quicker and easier,” says Thomas Lincz, who is responsible for controlling at Wien 3420 AG.

If you are also facing a challenge and are looking for a flexible property management system, contact us.

Whether you own or manage a real estate portfolio that includes a shopping center, a restaurant, a hotel or an office campus, the question is what consequences the current crisis has on your portfolio. Or maybe you want to make an investment, but not without a location analysis?

If the answer is yes, you might be interested in the prototype of a potential new ICRS feature. In cooperation with a large Austrian mobile network operator, we can now determine the number of visitors to a given address using anonymised mobile network data. With this prototype feature, we can track how the number of visitors to a location changes over time. For an office campus, for example, all visits of 4+ hours during the day can be evaluated, for a hotel, we can track how many visitors stay there during the night and for businesses we can track the number of visitors who stay longer than 30 minutes.

As a later ICRS feature, this prototype can be quite useful both for the forecast of sales-based rent and for the early indication of potential downsizing of large tenants. It can also be used for location analysis for future business locations.

Please give us your feedback on this prototype and tell us what we should consider when developing it further.

Those who know Ayse and Mercedes also know that they are dealing with two determined, strong developers. They are women in technology and their paths are very similar. One thing is especially important to Mercedes: “I am a fashion-conscious programmer who likes to mix up traditional gender roles, as Coco Chanel did in fashion design during her age. ” Ayse’s goal shows her pragmatic nature: “I just want to get more women enthusiastic about technical professions.”

For both of them, their path to coding was paved in school or university, respectively. Mercedes discovered the fun of programming at school with great enthusiasm. For Ayse it took a bit longer. She always wanted to go into medicine, but she did not want to work in a hospital. Her logical conclusion was to study pharmacy. However, she quickly realized that she was more enthusiastic about the curriculum of her friend’s computer science studies, than her own.

“Ayse was the first developer to join us nine years ago,” says Randolph Kepplinger, “and Mercedes joined us just before the first lock-down this year. Both are an absolute enrichment for us and very valuable team members”. Ayse and Mercedes see it the same way. They describe the metamagix team as a family at work and note that the job profile is diverse and not for someone who just wants to sit in front of the computer”. Ayse also took on the training of new employees, while Mercedes was involved in customer projects from the start.

 

We continue to grow and enlarge our team. Take the chance to further develop the leading asset and portfolio management solution together with us!

We are looking for new employees in the following areas

• Java backend development / database
• Javascript / frontend development
• Project management and customer support

Click the link to see job offers

Together with Erste Group, the metamagix team has implemented an ICRS-based special project in the area of ​​risk management. The goal of the ICRS expansion is the presentation of financing and object data for risk management with self-service features.

The challenge in this project was the data collection and data import, due to the complex data structure and the large volume of data. We now excel at writing large Excel files and are 5 times faster at writing a file than Excel needs time to open it. And yes, we’ve turned this into a competitive challenge.

We are particularly pleased with the feedback coming from Martin Tamborsky, Head of EBA Commercial Real Estate from Erste Group, our counterpart and Project Manager:

“Metamagix has completed our challenging project that included many tailored requirements, both within the planned time and the agreed budget, which makes metamagix a reliable partner in the IT industry. During development, metamagix also supported us with very valuable contributions from their personal experience to make our database as user-friendly and easily accessible as possible for all users. ”

Randolph Kepplinger, Managing Director of metamagix, says:

“We have been working with Erste Group and its subsidiaries for 10 years. In every project, including complex projects such as this one, it is important to us to adhere to the agreed timing and budget. I would like to thank the entire project team for their excellent collaboration: 6 months, 6 sprints, on time and on budget – that is a great achievement.”

ICRS creates an ideal basis for individual solutions. Here is a screenshot.

Small, but significant, very popular or just practical: these are just some of the new ICRS feature attributes. We considered giving them sounding names, and then opted for the minimalist version: the “just describe what it is” features. Read more about our selection:

• Show the sum of marked fields in the grid
• Easier upload of accounting and planning data
• New standard report: evaluation of arrears
• Hierarchical checkbox lists for buying & selling properties
• Edit tags in picture lists and other lists
• Field sorting in ad hoc reports
• Extension of our document management module, connection to Amazon Web Services (AWS) and other document management systems

Are some of you already cheering? Perfect. For everyone else, we have added a more detailed description below with screenshots.

Show the sum of marked fields in the grid

A small but practical feature: you can click and sum numbers in a table, as you do in Excel. Here is a screenshot.

Easier upload of accounting and planning data

Accounting and Controlling applaud this feature. It makes fast data imports possible. You can save time during budgeting, keep an overview of rental income, and can carry out planned vs. actual comparisons for individual objects or groupings of objects in the ICRS. Here is a screenshot.

New standard report: evaluation of arrears

We are introducing an essential report for property development and property valuation managers as a standard report. This report helps you to quickly find answers to the following questions: Which company or which object has the largest arrears, how much and how did they develop? Where is it likely for rent losses to occur and to what extent? Which tenants may not be able to pay? How do my property managers perform in comparison to each other? Click here for the standard report demo.

Hierarchical checkbox lists for buying & selling

For anyone who likes to use the CRM component of ICRS for scouting and sales, we have good news: we have added the option to create categories or taxonomies for your customers. In this way, you can keep track of a large number of contacts. Here is a demo screenshot.

Edit tags in picture lists and other lists

The name already says it all. Here is a screenshot.

Field sorting in ad hoc reports

This feature is for all report DIYers among you. You can now select the order of data in the self-created reports.

Expansion of our document management module, connection to Amazon Web Services (AWS) and other document management systems

This feature simplifies invoice management and allows ICRS data to be stored in a central document management system or the amazon cloud.

Our team has tested an array of web conferencing tools last year, a self-motivated side project and experience gathering that a) comes in handy right now and b) we thought it might be useful for you as well. So, here are our top 3:

Our winner and therefore warmest recommendation is Mikogo. It is similar to the now popular conferencing tool Zoom, it does not require software installation as a participant. That’s a big plus for us because let’s face it: how many apps have you downloaded to connect with friends and family in the past two weeks? Also, Mikogo is based in Germany, so you entrust your conversations to a company based in the EU. We use Mikogo for presentations and project meetings.

If you’d rather be more self-sufficient – you never know who is listening besides your cat – Jitsi might be for you. It is a self-hosted solution, giving you full control over all data and there is the added bonus of no licensing fees. The downside: you have to manage everything yourself, including the necessary in-house infrastructure.

If, however, you are planning a large-scale, virtual conference, or webinar with many international participants or are looking for a full-service provider, we recommend Adobe Connect. Features such as “speaker line-ups” and “live voting” make calls with numerous participants an interactive event for everyone.

Here are the links to the providers:

https://www.mikogo.de
https://jitsi.org/jitsi-meet/
https://www.adobe.com/de/products/adobeconnect.html

The MSCI is an independent provider of various research-oriented results and insights for institutional investors. The MSCI has a broad range of risk and performance measurements and expertise which has been built over more than 40 years of meticulous academic research and hands-on experience in close collaborations with clients.

The Austrian Real Estate Index has been collected for 13 years and forms the basis for the comparability of real estate investments together with other asset classes, thus underpinning the public importance that the real estate industry has due to its economic volume.

At the Austrian Real Estate Index Launch Event of the MSCI on April 3^rd, 2019 not only the new index was presented but also the best prognosticator. The index is the result of 2018. Each year, participants estimate the real estate index for the current calendar year and in the following year, the person with the right estimation is celebrated as the winner.

Based on his numerous years of experience in the industry, our managing director, Martin Gilly, has given the right tip for the second time in a row and was, therefore, able to defend his title.

Congratulations!