Client onboarding ("Setting up")
Setting up is the guided setup a client walks through in the portal, so you have what you need to run their compliance from day one. It sits in the portal's sidebar under Overview, shows how far along the client is, and Overview shows a Finish setting up banner until they send their answers.
The rule is deduce, don't ask. Whatever the city's records already say is shown as Found in city records, with the evidence, for the client to confirm (That's right) or correct (Not right). Only what no record answers is asked outright, one question per screen.
The ten steps
- Your company: legal name, what kind of client they are (owner, property manager, co-op or condo board, owner monitoring only), main contact, who gets invoices, mailing address, and whether the buildings on file are all of theirs.
- Your buildings: each building on their account with what the city has on file (year built, apartments, stories, BIN, BBL, HPD registration and its expiry, owner of record, managing agent, head officer). They confirm it, correct it, or say it isn't theirs; a missing building goes through Add a building (a building request, as usual).
- Building details: the facts that decide which laws apply, per building: heating and boilers, gas, elevators, stories and façade, landmark status, fire systems, water tank, cooling tower, parking structure, retaining wall, floor area, rent regulation, ownership, lead paint.
- Super and site contacts: super, how inspectors get in, emergency contact, managing agent, per building, with Same as … to copy another building's answers.
- Residents: per apartment, occupied or vacant, and for occupied ones the occupant, a child under 6, contact details, move-in date and whether this year's annual notice came back.
- Open items and paperwork: the open city items on each building (HPD lead orders, other HPD violations, DOB violations, summonses, tax liens), answered a group at a time as fixed, in progress or not aware; then which kinds of paperwork they hold.
- Vendors: thirteen trades, each kept, handed to you, none, or not sure.
- Insurance: four policies with carrier and expiry, additional-insured, and expiry reminders.
- Team and alerts: people to invite, and who should get which alert.
- Review and send.
Every step can be put off (I'll do this later) or handed to you (Not sure, let … handle it). Nothing is required and answers save as the client goes, so they can stop and come back on any device. Send needs them to confirm the answers are accurate; changing an answer afterwards reopens it until they send it again.
What is pre-filled, and from where
| Answer | From |
|---|---|
| Legal name, mailing address | The client's record |
| Main contact name, email, phone | The signed-in portal login, else the client's record |
| Super | The building's contacts in Complied, else HPD's registered site manager |
| Managing agent | HPD's registration contacts |
| Heating, boiler count, boiler fuel | DOB's boiler register, DEP boiler permits, boiler violations |
| Elevators and how many | DOB's elevator register and inspections, elevator violations |
| Gas service | DOB gas piping (Local Law 152) violations |
| Stories, façade | HPD's legal stories, DOB façade (FISP) filings and violations |
| Water tank, cooling tower | Health Department registrations |
| Over 25,000 sq ft | LL84 energy benchmarking |
| Lead paint | Year built: before 1960 is presumed lead, 1978 or later is not; 1960–1977 is asked |
Records only ever prove presence: no boiler on file does not mean the building has none, so a missing record never becomes a "no". Questions no dataset we load can answer (landmark status, fire systems, parking structures, retaining walls, rent regulation, ownership type, lead exemptions) say which dataset would answer them.
Reading the answers
The client's page, Portal access tab, Setting up (needs view-clients) shows the status (not started, in progress with its percentage and step, or sent, by whom and when) and every answer, step by step.
Answers are staged, not applied. Nothing the client says changes the city's building records, your client record, building contacts or portal logins. Check what they told you and update those yourself: contacts on the building, people to invite through Portal access, corrections to raise with the client.