Automate Buyer Questionnaires in Resware
Buyer Questionnaire
At a recent conference I found myself discussing how other attendees gather information from their closing parties.
This information is called different things by different agencies: welcome email/letter, buyer info sheet, buyer onboarding form, buyer questionnaire, among others. The data points required are those that may or may not be in the contract but are necessary information for the closing officer to smooth the closing process. The information request might ask: marital status or vesting, post-close address, best form of communication during closing, whether this will be an in-person or remote closing, etc.
Please note that in the following information anywhere I say buyer, you could replace that with seller or realtor or vendor or partner or client. For simplicity, I will just talk about the buyer for now.
The History:
The old-school way of gathering that information was to pick up the phone, call, and ask. But who answers the phone, anymore, if they don’t recognize the number?
A more convenient way is to send an email with a list of questions. But that depends on the homebuyer or seller opening the email and filling it in completely. Also, most email services are insecure and not a good way to send PII (Personally Identifiable Information).
Lately, there are some great services that will host a bot or agent to accept the information in a more secure way. If you are using one of these services and like it and can afford it, that’s great..keep using it.
The Why:
If you would like to use something that you have total control over and don’t want to purchase yet another subscription, then you may already own the solution. Microsoft Forms is an app that is part of the Microsoft 365 suite of office apps. It allows you to build custom forms for questionnaires or surveys.
The first reason I would use Microsoft Forms is that I already use Microsoft 365 products, so I don’t need another subscription for forms. Second, it is hosted in my Microsoft tenant, meaning I can control its security and keep possession of all the data. Finally, Microsoft Forms is integrated with Microsoft’s Power Automate.
Power Automate is also available in the Microsoft 365 suite of apps. It allows users to build no-code/low-code automations. In this example, an automation will be triggered when the form is completed.
The Goal:
Microsoft Forms will automatically collect responses in an Excel spreadsheet. But we really need the response data to be in Resware, in the file where it belongs. For that, we need Power Automate to have a connection to Resware. The InfoQuery Connector for Resware is a certified connector available right in Power Automate. The InfoQuery connector allows you to securely send the Microsoft Forms response through a Power Automate workflow to your Resware file. The InfoQuery Resware Connector uses your Resware API URL and credentials. So, again you have ultimate control over permissions and security.
The Workflow:
The sequence of the flow:
- You build the buyer information sheet in Microsoft Forms, with as many questions or data points you want to receive. You can customize the look and feel to match your brand.
- You send a link to that Microsoft Form to your buyer or seller, preferably by text using MessageLeap.
- They (buyer/seller) click the link, complete the form, and then click submit.
- Microsoft Forms triggers Power Automate.
- Power Automate formats the response from the buyer or seller.
- The InfoQuery Connector for Resware creates a note in the Resware file.
You can build one Microsoft Form and reuse for every buyer and another for every seller, and any other partner you interact with.
If you want to go crazy with it, you could onboard clients, new employees, vendors, etc. with Microsoft forms and have them automatically populate in the appropriate system: TPS, CRM, HR management system, vendor management system or TPS partner instances.
The Demo:
Let’s look at a demo of this in action.
The Follow-up:
The purpose of this demo was to show you one possible way you could use forms to get data into a specific Resware file, in an automated way. There are other ways to make this even better such as populating specific fields with the responses such as the vesting on the buyer or seller.
If you would like to learn more about using Microsoft Office, MessageLeap, the InfoQuery Connector for Resware or Power Automate to enhance your Resware experience, reach out to me through:
This link! Contact Us
Or on LinkedIn
Or call/text 863.286.0100
