NAVIGATION

We're supporting a small charity called the Turing Trust which helps to educate in Ghana - partly through the donation of used computer equipment. We'd like you to help us.

Turing Trust was founded by James Turing the great nephew of Alan Turing, founder of modern computing, hero of Bletchley Park Enigma codebreaking, and the subject of the recent film "The Imitation Game"

James Turing comments

'Of all the things afflicting those in the developing world, a lack of opportunity does the most to ensure that people do not break free from the cyclical nature of poverty. This became abundantly clear to us when we first travelled to Ghana in 2009 and saw first-hand the desperation in which so many live every day. Above all, we were shocked at how a local school managed to operate, let alone deliver an effective education, with only a single textbook to instruct over 50 students. Searching for a way to help the school provide a chance for its students to break free from poverty, we had only look to one of the founders’ great-uncle for inspiration, Alan Turing, father of computer science, who once said that “We can only see a short distance ahead, but we can see plenty there that needs to be done”.'

The Optional £1 per month donation - how it works and how to remove it

We add an optional £1+VAT per month donation on every direct debit payment. We've got nearly 1500 direct debits at present and we'd like to think we'll raise at least £500 per month for them

If you donate £1, we'll send you a press release that you can use to explain how you are helping.

So, as well as feeling good, you'll get some practical benefit.

HMRC's rules regarding charity collection are strict. As we and you will derive some benefit from the donation (in terms of promotion or marketing), we have to levy VAT.

If you don't want to pay the £1+VAT donation, it is very easy to remove it from your direct debit.

Any super-user can follow the steps below:

1. Click the button to open your Expert Agent profile

2. Click View Invoices in the bottom right hand corner

3. Remove the tick in add £1 per month donation to Expert Agent's Chosen Charity.

You'll get a confirmation and you'll be able to click into your latest bill and reprint it without the donation either from the invoice list or from the billing notification email - both link to a "live" copy of the invoice. Once you've removed the tick, you won't need to do this again.

If you would prefer us to do it, please log a support ticket or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. However, we'd be really grateful if you would please have a go at doing it yourself - it will take less time than typing a ticket or email.

Expert Agent's existing Statistics are powerful and comprehensive. Too comprehensive, maybe! They contain over 90 rows of statistical data and we're conscious that managers and business owners can't see the wood for the trees as a result. Advanced Stats lets you choose the required rows and save your choice in a profile for later use. So, if you want to get weekly property-only stats, you can now create a profile (using relative dates such as "first of this month" rather than 1st March) and rerun it every week. You can create as many Advanced Stats profiles as you want and we think you'll probably create a handful to handle your various reporting needs.

Another big innovation is that once the Advanced Stats appear on the screen, you can click through to see the raw data. So, if advanced stats tells you that you've had 5 new instructions this week, you can click through to a grid containing the 5 records.

We've called the new option Advanced Statistics to reflect the fact that we plan to continuously improve it over the coming months. Please test it and log any issues that you find as support tickets.

To get started, click Advanced Statistics under Tools at the Expert Agent Touch main menu

Getting Started with Advanced Statistics

You need to be a SuperUser to access any stats (or a standard user that a superuser has given statistics access to - see Agency Staff). Like all stats in EA, data sharing permissions determine which branch data within your own empire you can see.

Click on Tools >Advanced Statistics as below:

Create Stats Profiles

You'll need a Stats Profile to extract your stats. Each profile contains the required dates, the required rows of data (examples of rows are no of valuations, valuation conversion ratio, no of new instructions), the required offices or staff and the required format

You can create as many Stats Profiles as you want. We don't supply any pre-configured profiles - you'll need to set them up yourself. If you are not sure what is available, run the standard stats.

Click 1. Add Profile and work through the numbered steps below:

2 & 3. Name your new profile and give it as description

4. Choose the required dates. Clicking in here pops up Expert Agent's Relative Dates Form. Select Relative Dates (1st of this month, 3 months ago etc where possible.

5. Statistics to include is where you choose the required rows of data ( (examples of rows are no of valuations, valuation conversion ratio, no of new instructions). Tick the required rows in the form below. There's a search box at the top to help you. So, to find all the applicant row options, put applicant in the search box.

We've created a list of the rows that are available with a specific definition to help you understand how each one is collated - see the What are the definitions for the Statistics option? FAQ.

6. Choose the required departments and branches from the pull down lists

7. Choose the required Staff

8. if you want one set of figures for the time period in question (so for example 3 months worth in one set of numbers), leave summarise by date unchecked.

If you want to separate the figures, tick the box and choose year by year, month by month, week by week or day by day.

Then, decide if you want a table or a graph.

You'll be able to go back and change all of this later

Press Save when ready and your profile will be applied and the results displayed.

Using Saved Profiles

When you go back into Tools-> Advanced Stats having saved a profile or two, you'll see them displayed as below.

Just click on the profile you want to use.It will open its results in a new page tab. You can then open another tab if required, go to Tools-> Advanced Stats and open up additional profiles.

The Select a Profile option also lets you edit, delete or clone a profile. Clone is particularly useful if you want to quickly set up several similar profiles.

Advanced Statistics Results

When you first create a new stats profile and save it or when you click on a stats profile, the results will appear as below in either a table or a graph

Example Table

The section marked (1) above is very clever. It lets you change the format of the table for an instant results comparison. So, the example above has summarise by date ticked in the profile and so shows different columns for each month beneath each member (a member is a branch and/or negotiator). If you click on the word dates in (1) and drag it to (2) unused then (3) apply, you'll see the table change - the Dec 2014, Jan 2015 etc columns will disappear.

Clicking on any element that is a simple number (so, the numbers in the first 2 rows in the example above) rather than a calculated result (3rd, 4th and 5th rows), Expert Agent opens a grid containing the records in question in a new page tab, allowing you to debug the results.

Export to CSV immediately downloads your results - in Chrome, you should see the downloaded file in the bottom left hand corner of your browser.

If you choose Save Settings, your changes get saved to the profile that you are using.

Example Graph

In this example, we have ticked both graph and table.

You can choose a different graph format in (1), above. Our example shows a column graph but there are lots of other options - just choose one from the dropdown and choose (4) apply

You can print or copy the graphs by clicking the 3 vertical bars button in the top right corner of the graph.

The section marked (2) above is very clever. It lets you change the format of the table for an instant results comparison. So, the example above has summarise by date ticked in the profile and so shows different columns for each month beneath each member (a member is a branch and/or negotiator). If you click on the word dates in (2) and drag it to (3) unused then (4) apply, you'll see the graph and table change - the Dec 2014, Jan 2015 etc columns will disappear. Very Clever!

Export to CSV immediately downloads your results - in Chrome, you should see the downloaded file in the bottom left hand corner of your browser.

If you choose Save Settings, your changes get saved to the profile that you are using.

To comply with the data protection act, how can I remove records from the system?

When dealing with lettings, there are lot of grey areas on what the requirements are for keeping tenants and landlord’s information. ARLA for e.g., state that you can remove any information for ended tenancies at the end of the “disputable period”.

With financials, the Data Protection Act requirements are that records are to be kept for at least SIX YEARS. Therefore we would require confirmation from you in writing that you consent to having the records removed for this reason.

If there is no financial data associated, please clearly mark the landlord or applicant records with the word DELETE as their first name or surname.

For property records, please clearly mark the record with the word DELETE in address line one or two.

Once you have done so, please log a ticket to request that all items marked with DELETE, are removed. One of our technical specialists will be able to assist you with this.

If you are trying to make changes to an Appointment and there is no Save button in the top right hand side or no option to Save in the Action Menu, someone has closed the appointment. This could have been because there was a task set on it and to mark the Task as complete, the Appointment has to be closed.

1. Check the box highlighted to see the closed date and who closed the appointment.