Housing Association Eigen Haard Improves Appraisal Process with Mendix

Housing association Eigen Haard had an application developed to support the property appraisal process. This is an important business process carried out annually to determine the value of real estate. Property valuation matters for the annual accounts and, as a result, for Eigen Haard's financial position. On behalf of Eigen Haard, E-mergo developed a custom application with Mendix for this purpose. This application replaces outdated software and automates a significant number of manual steps in the process. In this blog, we describe the bottlenecks in the process, how the new Mendix application removes these bottlenecks, and how the process has improved as a result.

About Eigen Haard

Eigen Haard is one of the largest housing associations in the Netherlands, operating in eight municipalities in the Amsterdam Metropolitan Area. With nearly 600 employees, Eigen Haard has been developing, renting out, and maintaining affordable housing since the early 20th century. Eigen Haard currently manages more than 56,000 homes, more than 1,500 commercial spaces, and nearly 5,500 parking spaces.

About the appraisal process

Eigen Haard's appraisal process consists of several steps, including generating standard reports, exporting data from source systems, and processing data using the SAS DI (Data Integration Studio) tool. All these steps produce multiple datasets in the form of Excel files, which are imported into the TMS (Appraisal Management System). Within the TMS, the calculations for determining the value of the real estate are then carried out.

Bottlenecks in the process

In the old situation, SAS DI was used for merging, transforming, and preparing the various datasets. Due to the phasing out of SAS DI, Eigen Haard needed to find an alternative solution.

The appraisal process consisted of a large number of manual actions, where data was modified in Excel. These data transformations were carried out by an Eigen Haard employee. Not only were the changes made manually, but the log of changes made also had to be kept manually.

Besides preparing datasets, checking the data is also an important part of the process. At Eigen Haard, a number of automated checks were supplemented with manual checks for data quality. As a result, a lot of time was spent on analysis and resolving issues caused by incorrect or incomplete data.

The choice for Mendix

After thorough preliminary research, Eigen Haard found that, given the specific nature of the requested solution, no usable standard software was available on the market. For that reason, a selection process involving several low-code platforms was carried out, and Eigen Haard chose Mendix. Mendix meets all aspects of Eigen Haard's wishes and requirements, which we at E-mergo applied in the new application.

• The application runs in the Mendix Cloud (Mendix's SaaS environment), which minimizes the required resources (infrastructure), dependency, and support needed from Eigen Haard's IT department.
• Large Excel files can be imported into the application. This eliminates the need for a separate application and infrastructure for SFTP (file transfer).
• Imported datasets can be analyzed and modified within the application in a data grid.
• The application includes a workflow that guides the user through the process steps.
• Large datasets can be exported from the application to Excel according to a fixed export format.
• The application offers the ability to configure transformation rules and data validations (input checks).
• The configured transformation rules are automatically applied when importing the Excel files.
• The application includes a built-in simulation feature for running checks on the data. When running the simulations, the configured data validations are used as input.
• The application automatically saves every change to the data in an audit trail (log). This happens both for manual changes and for mutations resulting from importing update files.
• The application offers a reporting feature for retrieving information from the audit trail. This information can easily be exported to Excel for sharing with, for example, accountants.

The benefits for Eigen Haard

The application offers Eigen Haard several benefits in carrying out the appraisal process.

• Several steps in the process that used to be carried out manually have been automated by the application. This applies, among other things, to running simulations (data checks) and maintaining the log in the audit trail. This saves a lot of time and prevents errors.
• The audit trail in the application helps with the accountant's review of the annual accounts, since it's used as supporting evidence for the market valuation in the accountant's file.
• Transformation rules and data validations can be configured in the application by users, meaning the application's behavior can be adjusted to some extent without needing support from the IT department.
• Management and further development of the application are also handled by E-mergo. This gives Eigen Haard assured support and safeguards the continuity of the process. The latter is important, since we expect the application will need to be adjusted annually as a result of changes in regulations.

Want to know more?

Has this blog piqued your interest in the benefits of low-code application development, and are you curious about what Mendix can do for your organization? Then get in touch with us via the contact form below.

Written by Steven Samuels Brusse,
Senior Consultant