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Snowbird & absence tracking

Who's home. Who's away. Your board knows in seconds.

Members mark their own travel in the portal. Management gets one live board of every away unit, with the emergency contact, the pet, the vehicle, and a key location stored encrypted. When a storm forms, the whole picture prints in one click.

The Who's Away board in SoShiny, showing which units are currently away

Who's Away is a live travel board for your community. Members log the dates they'll be gone, and management sees every away unit on one screen. Each entry carries the details that matter in an emergency: who to call, whether a pet stayed behind, which car is in the lot, and where a key is kept. That last one is stored encrypted, and only management can look it up.

How do members mark themselves away?

From My Profile, in about a minute. A member picks the dates, adds an emergency contact, and notes a pet, a vehicle, or a key location if they want to. Snowbirds get a shortcut: one click copies last winter's stay forward a year. The office can log an absence for anyone who calls it in instead.

What does the board see?

A grid of every unit with tabs for away now, scheduled, and home. Each row shows the date range, the reason (trip, snowbird, vacant, or worker access), and the contact details. The portal connects the dots on its own. Work orders and concerns flag a unit that's currently away, and Email Members can skip away members or write only to them.

What happens when a hurricane forms?

One click prints an emergency sheet: every away unit, sorted by unit number, with contacts, pets, and vehicles. A Florida condo ran its evacuation check from that sheet and knew within 30 seconds which 14 units were empty. Key locations stay off the printout on purpose. Those get looked up one unit at a time, and every lookup is logged.

Who can see a member's travel plans?

Management and the board. Nobody else. Neighbors never see who's gone, and no setting can change that. The privacy is a rule of the software, not a checkbox someone could flip by mistake. That matters for any homeowners association (HOA) or condo where an empty unit is information worth protecting.

How real communities use it

Condos: the office sees snowbird season in one view and knows which units sit empty from November to April.

Homeowners associations: boards line up neighborhood watch coverage for the peak vacation weeks.

Marinas: the dockmaster knows which boats have absent owners before storm season starts.

Campgrounds: seasonal sites that closed for the year get off-season patrols and frozen-pipe checks.

Pairs well with

Email Members · Work Orders · Resident & Board Directory

▶ See it in action

What you get

Log a trip in under a minute

Pick the dates, add an emergency contact, and note anything the office should know. All from your phone.

Snowbirds renew with one click

The portal remembers last winter's dates and offers to copy them forward a year.

Key locations stay encrypted

Stored scrambled, readable only by management, and every single lookup is logged.

Neighbors never see your plans

Who's Away is visible to the board and management only. No setting can change that.

One printout before the storm

Every away unit with contacts, pets, and vehicles, sorted by unit and ready for the evacuation check.

Reach people, not dark units

The emergency contact on file finds your member wherever they winter.

Notices that match reality

Skip away members or write only to returning snowbirds, straight from Email Members.

Work orders warn you first

File a work order or concern on an away unit and the portal flags it before anyone knocks.

How it works

1

A member logs the absence

Dates, reason, emergency contact, and optional pet, vehicle, and key details, entered from My Profile. The office can add one for anybody who phones it in.

2

The board watches one grid

Tabs for away now, scheduled, and home. Search by unit. Edit or cancel any entry.

3

The rest of the portal reacts

Away units get flagged on work orders and concerns. Email Members can skip or target away members.

4

Storm forming? Print the sheet

One page lists every away unit with contacts, pets, and vehicles for the walk-through.

Guides and terms for this feature

FeatureBoard Notes
From the blogYour Building's Hurricane Deductible Is $840,000. Here Is Your Share.
FeatureGlobal Search
From the blogWhat New Board Members Never Get Told Before Their First Meeting

Private by design, useful by default.

Members see their own travel and nothing else. The board sees everything it needs in an emergency. Key locations are stored encrypted, kept off every printout, and each lookup leaves an audit trail.

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