RISMEDIA, March 9, 2011—LPS Real Estate Group, Inc., a division of Lender Processing Services, Inc. (LPS), a leading provider of integrated technology and services to the mortgage and real estate industries, announced the release of its new Paragon 5 (P5) MLS platform to more than 200 Multiple Listing Services (MLS) customers. The new platform greatly expands the capabilities of real estate professionals to better manage their businesses and collaborate with clients.
LPS Real Estate Group released P5 in phases during 2010, notifying its customers in November that the platform was “agent-ready.” The division completed the integration of all administrative functionality in January 2011.
“Paragon 5 has greatly expanded the capabilities of MLS software,” said Rich Lull, senior vice president of LPS Real Estate Group’s MLS Solutions. “Its new features and enhancements provide real estate professionals unsurpassed tools to track, analyze and communicate information in the most timely and efficient manner possible. One of our primary goals was to enhance the flow of information between real estate professionals and their clients and prospects.”
The new P5 features and functionality include:
-Cross-platform capability with PC and Mac operating systems
-Cross-browser compatibility with Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari, Google Chrome and Opera
-Overall system multitasking and inline auto completion
-New wizard approach for Contact Manager, Comparative Market Analysis (CMA) and user preferences
-New Client Connect module for collaboration between agents and their customers
Other platform enhancements include a new and improved spreadsheet grid control that does not require Microsoft Java or Sun Java; the redesign of listings input and maintenance; updates to third-party integration and export functionality; and updates to the Paragon Tax Solution.
The new Client Connect module within the P5 Contact Manager provides each agent with a free, customizable Paragon Web page that gives them added Web presence and more efficient communication with their clients.
“Through Client Connect, agents create a unique URL for each client that connects them to an individual page of content generated by that client’s search preferences,” said Rudyard Henry, Paragon product manager. “From these individual pages, clients have direct contact with their agents and a real-time, interactive way to track, categorize and comment on their property search results.”
LPS Real Estate Group designed its three-phase release strategy to effectively gather and respond to feedback from selected beta test sites and customers as the Paragon 5 MLS platform came online, as well as to minimize disruption to the MLS community.
“It was extremely beneficial to gather user feedback as we went through the project,” said Henry. “Paragon is a dynamic platform serving more than 160,000 individual real estate professionals, and one person can suggest an improvement that will benefit thousands. The phased release allowed us to integrate the most valuable ideas, as well as make other adjustments as we went along, resulting in a more user-driven product that benefits all. Also, we architected the new release to eliminate required database changes for an evolutionary deployment rather than a disruptive ‘conversion’.”
The Paragon 5 Launch Site is another innovation built to improve user experience. This one-stop website contains all P5 training and promotional materials, P4 to P5 comparisons, FAQs and customer care information. In the training area, agents can sign up for upcoming Webinars, view recorded Webinars and other product videos, as well as download Quick Start guides and manuals. With P5’s new “GoTo Assist” tool, users can permit an LPS customer service rep to ‘remote in’ to the user’s computer to troubleshoot, detect and correct issues on their system in real time.
As each MLS and its users transition to Paragon 5, LPS Real Estate Group will continue to provide parallel access to the Paragon 4 system until sometime in 2011.
For more information, visit www.lpsvcs.com.
