- Refresh single property command
- Refresh w/uid instead of MLS#
- Refresh all properties command
- Response for missing property
- Contacting MLS for missing property
- Let the client know after contacting MLS
- Example missing listing scenario
If someone asks why their listings aren't updating or not displaying, their board is probably having an issue that we will need to investigate. (the email responses are beautifully created by the glorious Paul)
Here is a list of steps you can take that will help you figure out what is wrong:
Debugging
The first thing you will want to do is get an example MLS number and try to view this listing on their site.
If the listing is not there, you will want to try debugging the listing such as this example:
Refreshing single property
If you can debug the listing, try running a refresh_property on this individual listing such as this example:
Refreshing single property with its UID
If this does nothing, look for the UID number from the debug above, and instead run a refresh_property on that:
Missing Property Command
After updating their listing individually, If this listing was a missing property, you will then want to run missing_properties such as this example:
If you don't have access to papertrail, please let Brian know.
In the meantime, you can either let someone know who does have access and they can keep track for you or you can run it in the foreground. If you choose to run it in the ./foreground.sh, you can't close the terminal window or else it will stop running.
Refresh known properties - Please have Boards Support refresh boards.
If their example listing needed to be refreshed and wasn't missing, you'll want to run a refresh_known_properties such as this example:
(skipping the images will make it run quicker)
Before you send this out, make sure you try to look for their listing by trying to debug, missing_properties, etc
Google it
Sometimes the listing isn't even in the MLS feed and is in a different MLS. Before contacting the MLS board, try finding the listing by googling it. It should say which MLS it is in at the bottom of the page.
For example, MLS#5725463 is in ARMLS. You can tell by their logo:
They will either have their logo or it will be in text format.
So if the listing is on another MLS, you can reach out to the client and let them know and they can contact either Lida (lida@realgeeks.com) or Victoria (tori@realgeeks.com) and they will help them out.
Response for explaining a missing property (in same MLS)
Here is an example reply for someone who is trying to find a listing, but yay you found it:
--------------------------------------
Hi ___,
Here is your listing:
<the link to their listing>
etc..
------------------------------------
If they are curious why it didn't update, you can say:
------------------------------------
Our system runs a process 24/7 that attempts to pull in and refresh listings every 5 minutes. Though an important note to make is that it can take longer than 5 minutes to update the batches of listings that need to be updated. We run constantly but are limited by the speed of data that your MLS board provides.
For example, say 1000 listings need to update, our system will start updating these listings, however this batch of listings could take anywhere from a few minutes to over a few hours to update depending how fast the RETS feed transfers the data. Once this batch of listings are updated, within 5 minutes of this update finishing, our system will start another batch of listings to refresh and pull listings starting from the timestamp of where the last update left off, which again can take anywhere from a few minutes to over an hour to update depending how many listings need to be updated and how fast the RETS feed transfers the data.
<and anything else you would like to add>
----------------------
(make sure you mention that we run constantly but are limited by the speed their board provides)
Contact MLS
If you still are unable to find their listing, you will need to first contact their MLS board. Here is an example email by Miss Kat:
Hi,
This is Kat with Real Geeks, we are an IDX vendor. Our client (CC'd) is looking for the following listing on their site: MLS # R2165783 I am unable to locate it in our RETS feed, could you please advise? Here are our credentials: RETS URL: http://reb.retsiq.com/
Let the client know after contacting MLS
So after you contact the MLS board, let the client know by saying something like:
--------------------------------------
Hi ___,
We were unable to find your listing. We cc'd you in an email to your MLS board about this.
and then add the:
Our system runs a process 24/7 that attempts to pull in and refresh listings every 5 minutes. Though an important note to make is that it can take longer than 5 minutes to update the batches of listings that need to be updated. We run constantly but are limited by the speed of data that your MLS board provides.
For example, say 1000 listings need to update, our system will start updating these listings, however this batch of listings could take anywhere from a few minutes to over a few hours to update depending how fast the RETS feed transfers the data. Once this batch of listings are updated, within 5 minutes of this update finishing, our system will start another batch of listings to refresh and pull listings starting from the timestamp of where the last update left off, which again can take anywhere from a few minutes to over an hour to update depending how many listings need to be updated and how fast the RETS feed transfers the data.
<and anything else you would like to add>
----------------------
Updating listing status
If there is a listing that is supposed to be updated to a different status, you can refresh the listing.
for example:
If Photos are not updating:
Refresh the listing = they should be good to go.
- and if they are interested why it didn't update, here's what you can say:
---------------------
Hi __,
Our system attempts to update and pull listing data every 5 minutes based on the timestamp modification field. If the timestamp modification field doesn’t change for a listing, our system doesn't know to pull any new information for the listing. So it’s possible something happened in the RETS feed that caused it to not pull photos for this listing initially, and the timestamp modification field never changed after this point, so our system was never prompted to pull the photos in.
In the case that the photo is blurry, we will need to check RETS-MD to see if the mls sends us a larger image size.
1) You would need to go to rope: http://rope.realgeeks.com/rope/retsboard/
2) Go to the MLS you need to go to and on the right, click the RETS-MD button.
3) Make sure the credentials are the same. Sometimes the User-Agent and the RETS Version is different. If there is no User-Agent, then leave it as the default: RETSMD/1.0
4) After logging in, scroll down to "Property". Usually, it has the different property types, in this case, it has Listing. So usually, you would click on the Residential property type but we shall click on "Listing" for this case.
You won't see anything happen until you scroll down.
5) Find Object Types and click on "View Object Types".
REMOVED status
If there is a listing that wasn't on the site that had a REMOVED status before, but appeared after refreshing, here's a response:
Hi ___,
It looks like the listing was marked as REMOVED by our system.
This is not a common occurrence, and we do have safe guards in place to prevent this from happening, but it can still happen for a variety of reasons.
The most common reason is because a change occurs in the RETS feed upstream at the MLS causing the listings to temporarily disappear, which subsequently causes our system to remove what doesn't exist in the feed.
I ran an update to restore the listing:
<link to listing>
Let us know if you have any questions.
Example missing listing problem and how to solve it
For missing listings:
Diane gives another reference of how to troubleshoot:
https://realgeeks.zendesk.com/agent/tickets/177726