Release notes - June 2024

Our product development team is constantly innovating, to build a better Alto software experience.

Every time we've added a new feature, we've notified all our users within Alto itself utilising in product messaging. 

However, for a full list of the changes on a monthly basis such as new features, any improvements or product fixes to our software, please see the relevant articles in our 2024 Release Notes section of the Help Centre.

This article includes:

• New features
  • New property marketing event
  • National Trading Standards - Part B & C compliance
  • Alto conveyancing - automated milestone notifications
  • Alto conveyancing - referrals dashboard
• Improvements
  • Address look-up improvements when creating a contact through the add a property page
  • Duplicate charge detection
  • One-click unsubscribe for marketing emails
  • Improved documents page for properties
  • Negotiator name added to the Client Feed API
  • New tenure type of ‘Non traditional’
  • File notes updated to include hyperlinks

New features

New property marketing event

This new feature went live on 21st June.

We’ve created a new Property Marketing event which fires whenever a property is shared with applicants. The event contains the property id and contact id(s).

This will allow integration partners to consume the event via a webhook and construct a marketing message for other platforms, i.e. Whatsapp using Alto’s APIs.

National Trading Standards - Part B & C compliance

This new feature went live on 19th June.

On a property record (Properties>Property), we've added the new fields that need to be completed for National Trading Standards - Part B & C compliance, to the Property and Marketing top tabs. These fields are also available for properties in the Appraisal state.

Alongside this, we’ve updated the National Trading Standards Legal Requirements checklist within Alto and added help information and tooltips alongside the new fields to provide you with guidance on completion.

These fields will be published to Rightmove, Zoopla and the Client Feed API.

For more information on National Trading Standards - Keeping your property listings compliant, click here.

Alto conveyancing - automated milestone notifications

This new feature went live on 14th June.

Once a Conveyancer referral has been made, when the conveyancers update their CMS (Case Management System) with important milestones, they're now automatically sent to Alto for your visibility, speeding up your sales progression.

This functionality adds an email notification when those important milestones are received.

• Emails will contain the property address, the latest milestone, and all milestones that have been previously received, so you can understand the update without logging in
• There will be a link in the email to visit the sales progression screen
• You'll automatically have these emails enabled, but you'll have the ability to toggle them off, if preferred

For more information on this, as well as the Sales progressions (beta) dashboard, click here.

Alto conveyancing - referrals dashboard

This new feature went live on 14th June.

We've built the Referrals dashboard to help you keep track of referrals made from Alto.

If referrals have been made (either via one of our Client Service Referral integrations or as a Conveyancer referral), you can view an analytical/graphical view within the dashboard to easily understand:

• The number of referrals made
• The status of referrals (at an individual contact level)
• Who the top referrers are
• Any upcoming referral payments

You can also click View full conveyancer table to drill into leaderboard details which you may find useful for:

• Running any incentives programs
• Understanding how different conveyancers perform compared to others
• Tracking and understanding what payments are scheduled (i.e. referral fees)

For more information on Viewing the Referrals dashboard, click here.

Improvements

Address look-up improvements when creating a contact through the add a property page

This improvement went live on 20th June.

We’ve made some improvements to the address look-up when creating a contact through the add a property page, including:

• When the address is looked up, it will now show in the form offering better visibility of the address selected and allowing for edits, if necessary
• We've updated some of the address matching logic to reduce issues where address lines were not always mapped into the Alto fields

Duplicate charge detection

This improvement went live on 20th June.

When raising an expense charge, if a duplicate Supplier invoice reference number has been entered on a raised/unraised charge for the same Supplier, you'll be notified at the bottom of the window.

The 5 most recent duplicates will be listed. If there are more than 5, the number of other duplicates will be shown. Credits are also included in the list of duplicates.

You can also click the duplicate Invoice to view the linked .pdf if it's been attached, to verify that it was correct for that expense charge.

For more information on Raising an expense charge on a property, click here.
For more information on Raising an expense charge to a supplier, click here.
For more information on Raising an expense charge on a tenancy, click here.

One-click unsubscribe for marketing emails

This improvement went live on 10th June.

In line with a new directive from both Gmail and Yahoo, when marketing emails are sent via Alto, your contacts will be able to utilise a 'one-click unsubscribe' feature.

We were required to make this update to prevent emails being blocked.

Any contacts that do unsubscribe via this feature will have their General Marketing consent changed to a thumbs down in the Preference Centre on their contact record.

For more information on Preference Centre - GDPR consent, click here.

Improved documents page for properties

This improvement went live on 10th June.

We’ve improved the Documents page for properties.

The new page brings a cleaner look and allows sorting to make it easier to find documents for properties.

You can click the headings to sort by file Type, File name and Date added. Documents can also be downloaded for preview, or deleted, by selecting the download or delete (bin) icons. 

For more information on Uploading documents to a property, click here.

Negotiator name added to the Client Feed API

This improvement went live on 7th June.

The Negotiator name has been added to the Client Feed API so that you can populate this on your own website listings.

New tenure type of ‘Non traditional’

This improvement went live on 5th June.

We’ve added a new Tenure type of Non-traditional to the list of options available in Alto. This was required as part of the most recent National Trading Standards Material Information changes.

Non-traditional should only be used for properties with non standard tenures such as park homes and houseboats.

For more information on National Trading Standards - Keeping your property listings compliant, click here.

File notes updated to include hyperlinks

This improvement went live on 5th June.

File Notes (which can be added via the + in the Recent Activity section on the Properties/Contacts/Tenancies Overview) have been updated to include hyperlinks.

Hyperlinks can be added using markdown and should use the following format whereby the square brackets hold the text and the round brackets hold the link:
[Hyperlink text here](https://hyperlink-url-here.co.uk)