We’ve added a new member on the commercial side of the real estate world, and we’ve received a positive shout-out from across the Canadian border by a recent new member. Workgroups have been workgrouping so hard, including a recent foray into data flow diagrams by one group, a collection of TikTok dance videos by another and some big news on the Data Dictionary front.
We hope this finds you enjoying a warm summer. Unless you live in Barrow, Alaska, and prefer things just the way they are.
New Member
We would like to welcome CoStar Group to the RESO family. RESO continues to expand its value into new verticals and marketplaces, and CoStar’s unique position in the areas of commercial and multifamily real estate makes them an exciting and valuable new member organization for future endeavors. Welcome aboard!
RESO Member MPAC Discusses Importance of Data Standards
MPAC Streamlines Property Data Through Global Collaboration The Municipal Property Assessment Corporation (MPAC) is responsible for assessing Ontario’s five million-plus properties. But the vast amounts of data they collect and manage each day is used for more than just determining property values. It’s also used by banks, insurance companies and the real estate industry to inform key business decisions and meet customer needs.
While they have one of the most detailed databases in the world, they make complex property data easy to understand for today’s customers. Their custom reports help real estate professionals attract new clients and support property sales transactions through data insights and market intelligence. But how useful is that data if everyone using it speaks a different data language? That’s where data standards come in. | READ MORE
Data Flow Diagrams for Fun and Understanding
Are you the kind of person that likes to make a sketch of a plan from A to Z? Do you look at the floor plan before you look at the photos? Like John Hammond in Jurassic Park, do you understand how to read a schematic? Then perhaps you would be interested in working more with Chris Haran and the rest of the Cross-Platform Interoperability Workgroup on what goes into a data flow diagram. The group is currently working on a Lucidchart diagram as part of the process flow based on the Resource and Lookups of the TransactionManagementResource Working File. The current workflow basis is the type of transaction.
The group has decided that the benefit of creating diagrams is that they can lend themselves nicely to a business use case for working agents. It’s a work in progress, but it’s new and enjoyable work, and fresh help from data flow diagram experts and other interested parties is always welcome.
The next Cross-Platform Interoperability Workgroup meeting will be held on Tuesday, August 11, 2020 at 3:00 pm ET / 12:00 pm PT | LEARN MORE ABOUT THE CROSS-PLATFORM INTEROPERABILITY WORKGROUP
To the TikTok, Ya Don’t Stop
What could TikTok, the short video social media platform more popular with teens than MLS data wonks, possibly have to do with real estate, let alone real estate standards? Ask Chris Lambrou, the Internet Tracking Workgroup chair from beautiful Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Last week, the group voted to include TikTok in the EventTarget Lookups.
The next Internet Tracking Workgroup meeting will be held on Wednesday, August 19, 2020, at 3:00 pm ET / 12:00 pm PT. Consider attending to see if we add WhatsApp and a resurgent Myspace next. That’s supposed to be funny, but WhatsApp does have approximately 1 billion users per month, and your first Myspace friend Tom was trending on Twitter last week, sooo…
LEARN MORE ABOUT THE INTERNET TRACKING WORKGROUP
From the RESO Blog
July 20, 2020 | RESO Using “Primary” Instead of “Master” in Real Estate Display Names
The Data Dictionary workgroup voted to recommend the term “primary” be used in place of “master” in real estate technology display names. | READ MORE
July 17, 2020 | RESO Fuels A.I. Innovation: How to Enter the U.S. Market Effectively
In a video interview, Nathan Brannen, VP of Product and Sales at Restb.ai, discussed the role that RESO plays in helping A.I. companies like Restb.ai enter the U.S. market effectively. Brannen revealed how A.I. start-ups and other PropTech companies can speed up their development and understand how the U.S. market works by tapping into the resources RESO offers. | VIEW BLOG
RESO Committees and Workgroups
Note: Most links to workgroup information require member login to RESO’s online collaboration environment, Confluence.
Cross-Platform Interoperability Workgroup Meeting | July 14, 2020
Meeting Summary: The meeting began with a full introduction of new vice-chair, Catharine Macintosh, followed by a full questioning of our initial data flow diagram and the various possible perspectives from which we can view transaction management, whether its the transaction itself or from the perspective of the ActorTypes within a transaction. | CALL NOTES
Action Items
- We need to write out our stories, including a Listing Agreement story and an Offer story.
- Point of View: Angle of Transaction and Angle of Agent as part of that transaction.
- Should we separate out a VendorType? How does that work with Actor? Is OUID an option?
- Look into the documents themselves with Signature as the first node of the diagram. Share our working Lucidchart on Confluence.
Internet Tracking Workgroup Meeting | July 15, 2020
Meeting Summary: TikTok was added as an EventTarget enumeration without much fanfare, but the horns were blaring nicely for a discussion revolving around the Internet Tracking White Paper. The paper has undergone some recent changes, so if you have interest and have not looked at it lately, please do and consider continuing the discussion during the next meeting. | CALL NOTES
Action Items
- Continue review of the Internet Tracking White Paper
- Get feedback from ShowingTime staff on TotalShowingsRequested and TotalShowingsCompleted before moving forward with the white paper.
Data Dictionary Workgroup Meeting | July 16, 2020
Meeting Summary: The group touched upon the fact that a Tax Subgroup has formed and a meeting will be scheduled within the next week before spending the majority of the meeting on a discussion of new terms for Master Bedroom/Bathroom. The use of “Master” in housing terminology has come under fire of late, and MLSs around the country have begun to react. The workgroup has chosen “Primary” as a viable replacement and will work toward making that term part of the standard. | CALL NOTES
Action Items
- Schedule the first Tax Subgroup meeting.
- A new Primary thread will be started in the Discussions Forum to talk about the nuances around the Standard Name and where it appears in the Data Dictionary
Workgroup Meetings This Week
- July 22: Universal Property Identifier (UPI)
- June 23: Payloads
- June 24: Common Schema (Subgroup of Transport)
- June 25: Universal Licensee Identifier (ULI) (Subgroup of Research & Development)
