RESO’s Identifier Products Prepped to Make a Splash / Part 2 of 3, UOI
Providing identification is a basic aspect of moving about in the world, and we all have several pieces of important ID to manage. In the real estate world alone, there are a series of identifiers to manage, including things like tax ID, agent license ID and the NRDS (National REALTOR® Database System) ID number assigned by the National Association of REALTORS® (NAR).*
RESO is building or upgrading three more IDs to streamline your real estate technology in order to simplify how you, your business and all the properties in the world operate within the real estate space.
The three identifiers in RESO’s wheelhouse include:
- Universal Property Identifier (UPI)
- Unique Organization Identifier (UOI)
- Unique Licensee Identifier (ULI)
Identifiers are invaluable tools that can be used to track source data to a specific MLS for vendors, locate agents across multiple states and MLSs for associations, and manage properties across multiple MLSs without duplication.
We discussed the UPI in Part 1 of this series. We will now go over the UOI in Part 2.
Unique Organization Identifier (UOI)
Introduction
The UOI (Unique Organization Identifier), formerly known as the OUID and still referenced in the Data Dictionary as the OUID Resource, is a key to organizations tied to the real estate industry. Identifying where data originated with a UOI lends greater accuracy to industry tools and other metrics related to location, size and other organizational factors.
History & Why A Change Matters
The UOI as originally designed had different ID numbers for a single organization based on function. For example, the Lubbock Association of REALTORS® has a UOI of A00001517 for its association business and M00000811 for its MLS. This created some confusion in the industry, where the “A” and “M” numbers were used interchangeably, causing the ID to not be truly unique per organizations in many cases.
The new UOI model, which has been in development in RESO’s workgroup over the past year, is based on a single organization receiving one ID across multiple functions. Lubbock’s UOI is 101285.
Purpose
The new approach has been presented as a business case and draft worksheet and has been discussed at length in the Research & Development Workgroup. The worksheet highlights several proposed changes and additions that will be discussed further in the workgroups, which are listed in the next section.
Going Forward
Old numbers are collapsed for organizations with multiple numbers as OrganizationUniqueId1 and OrganizationUniqueId2, while a new Uoi field represents the new, simplified, six-digit UOI.
A new “Type” system is presented as OrganizationType1, OrganizationType2, etc. The Types are letter codes representing different organizational functions.
Sorting organization names by function will still be possible. For example, all local associations are gathered together under OrganizationNameAssnLocal and all MLSs under OrganizationNameMls.
A field called RelatedUoi will cover not just the association-to-MLS relationship of the AssnToMls field but future tracked relationships like franchise-to-broker, pooled platform-to-region and MLS-to-vendor. Whether we will need multiple variations of this field to cover specific relationships or if one comma-separated field that accounts for them all is still to be determined.
Attempts have been made to align organization names by their most identifiable brands, including commonly used acronyms. A separate field called OrganizationNameLegal will capture full names from corporate documents, including Inc., LLC, doing business as (dba) and other information.
Consider, for example, Doctor’s Associates Inc. dba SUBWAY. In organized real estate, the equivalent is something like Regional Multiple Listing Service of Minnesota, Inc. dba NorthstarMLS. The OrganizationName remains NorthstarMLS, but the longer incorporated name goes under OrganizationNameLegal.
Even after the new UOI model is approved, the former multi-ID system will continue to exist for as long as needed for members to transition ensuring that all of its current users are comfortable with and are getting what they need from the new format.
Conclusion
RESO is of the mind that unique IDs, once codified into their best selves, will be used as happily as passports for island vacations, credit cards to buy stuff that gains miles for those vacations and the last four digits of your social for everything in between.
It’s the dawn of a new day for RESO ID standards, and your involvement will make the real estate industry run more efficiently than ever before.
Look for more information to be presented about the UOI at the 2022 RESO Spring Conference.
* Note: REALTORS® M1 or Members First, a new member engagement system, is being introduced by NAR this year to eventually replace NRDS.
