Over the past several months, we have received excellent feedback from our clients and from our college-aged user base. The team is working diligently on upgrading the RoomSync application to make for an easier experience during roommate-selection. Below are the features that we plan to roll out in the latest version of the RoomSync application this fall.
Recommendations List
The top feature requested by our users was an easier way to find a short list of ideal roommates. Currently, users can filter all users by a set of lifestyle preferences like preferred bedtime. To expand upon this lifestyle preference filter, the ‘Suggested Roommates’ feature will present each user with a list of their top 20 recommended matches. These top matches are based upon the lifestyle preferences set by each user and will make it easier for users to find a small group of highly compatible potential roommates.
Academic Major and Hall Preference
Academics are a very important college roommate characteristic and was something that up until now, we were not asking users to enter. No more! Users will be able to select one or more majors and then search roommates based upon their majors. In addition, users will be able to enter their desired hall preference and then search other users with the same hall preference. This is important for on-campus users who desire to reside in a certain area of campus or be involved with a specific living/learning community. All of this information is customized based upon the institution’s available academic majors and residence halls.
Tag Favorites
Another feature we received lots of requests for was the ability to tag potential roommates as favorites that could later be officially requested as roommates. This useful tool lets our users self-organize a short list of potential roommates and easily keep track of their matching process. All tagged users will be placed in a ‘Favorite Roommates’ section on the RoomSync app home page, from which they can easily request them as a roommate.
Automatic Reminder E-mails
As exciting as choosing your own roommate on Facebook is, life can be hectic. We all have lots of stuff going on and we can all use reminders from time to time. As residents approach the end of the network’s closing date for matching, reminder e-mails will automatically be sent out encouraging them to find the roommate(s) of their dreams if they have not done so already. Administrators will be able to send up to three reminder e-mails to residents and will also receive their own reminder email about the network close date approaching. All of this means higher usage and more roommate matches.
E-mail Access
As an administrator, you may need to communicate with everyone inside of the matching network beyond simply reminding about network access close dates. Administrators will be given access to the e-mail addresses for users, which can be used to communicate additional information about roommate matching and/or other important housing information.
The Writing on the Wall
The Facebook wall is a great communication method on Facebook, whether its on a fan page, a personal profile, a group or a Facebook app like RoomSync. Moving forward, we will be replacing our community discussion board with an interactive wall on each community matching network for residents to easily interact and connect.
Increased Speed & Flexibility with iFrame
All of these new features will be introduced in a new iFrame version of the RoomSync app. The app previously functioned as an FBML (Facebook Markup Language) app, however the new iFrame version app allows for increased web surfing speed within RoomSync, greater flexibility for increased features and increased application analytics.
Have ideas for additional app features? Post your comments here, we’d love to hear them!