📝 Community Setup: ACC/ARB Form

Most HOA's/COA's operate a committee that makes decisions around architectural submissions among the members. Our platform supports customization of the terminology (ARB/ACC) as well as the form itself including the information, the text, and the payment.

Note: You can configure the name and abbreviation of your specific committee in the Form Settings options box for ACC Settings. This article and most help articles will refer to "ACC" but this is just one naming option.

You will find the ACC Setup in the Management Section of the General Settings page.

As the ACC process is very specific and often very different than standard "form" approaches, Vlge has a highly customizable ACC workflow. You can start in Form Settings by setting the name and abbreviation of your committee (ACC/DRB/ARB, etc).

Take note of the various tabs across the top that you can use to customize the experience. We will cover each one in detail here below.

Show Guidance Section: Near the top of your members' form is a section called "Resources to Help Plan." One of the top complaints among homeowners is the difficulty at times in submitting projects to the review board. It is often unclear what is required, if there is any guidance, etc. To avoid flooding board members' inboxes or taking the committee's limited time on repetitive questions, this section offers a change to place common questions and guidance right in front of the member when they need it.

👉 Once a member selects their project type, any Guidance items that you have created and associated with that project type (including items associated with "All Projects" will appear below.

👉 They can click on the Guidelines and see entries that you have provided for your community to make the process easier. See example below. You can add as many as you like and adjust the order. Each Guidance item can be associated with one, multiple, or all project types. Your members select a project type before seeing the guidance, so only the guidance items that apply to their project will be seen. Guidance items maybe applied to all projects in which case they will see the item regardless of project type.

The second option in the resources is AI Question & Answer. When selected, the AI Agent will be available in the top right of the screen like the image below "Ask the Expert." When you include your CC&R's as well as other items like Guidance items, Vlge's AI Agent will be trained on those items and can answer questions at the point of submission here - taking the burden off the Board and committee volunteers. The AI Agent will only use what is in your own community submitted forms to answer the questions. Try it out!

LINK: For a complete set of details on how AI is used, see this article.

You can setup a custom list of project types that allow you to customize guidance and share requirements unique to each type.

Drag each line to change the order that these appear in the ACC submission dropdown form for members/residents.

You can select topic tags that assist in indexing and search as well as AI references. Manage Topic Tags in General Settings - see "Tag Manager".

You can link each project type to one or more Guidance Items. For example, with Pool project types, you may have specific guidelines on Fences and the timing of installation relative to construction of the pool. You can create that Guidance Item (In the ACC Settings page) and then link it to this or other project types. This will display the specific guidance item when a resident selects that project type in the form.

You can customize your application fees by Project type. You can turn fees on or off by project type as well as set the amount.

‼️ Note: If you do NOT select an application fee here, but you have application fees set as required in your general form settings, the app will default to that setting. In other words, this setting overrides the general setting ONLY if there is an amount specified here.

In the main ACC settings page, under Form Settings you will find the general settings. Turn this OFF if you prefer setting a fee per project.

You can design specific questions to be asked per project type selected in your ACC form. See below for an example of questions that have been designed specifically for pool projects in a community :

👉See the screenshot of this setup in the Custom Questions page in ACC Settings

👉Design the question(s) and then choose which project types to apply them to.