Onboarding with Maestro

We know that one of the biggest challenges with Maestro is the onboarding process. For those of you not familiar with this term, onboarding is the process of setting up your Maestro – getting your data into the system. For most downtowns this can be a cumbersome process for a number of reasons. The first, and most obvious is that your data is probably not in one convenient place. You’ve got one spreadsheet for your property owners, another for your businesses, another for your volunteers, and the lists go on. So with all of your data all over the place, where do you start?

While there is certainly an order to inputting data that we recommend, which list you start with doesn’t matter nearly as much as getting started. Because your downtown is going to continue to grow, your lists will never be complete… so don’t worry about having your data completely fixed before it goes into the Maestro system. If your data isn’t perfect, that’s ok. In fact, Maestro can be a tool that helps bring your data under control. When it comes to onboarding, think about this quote from Walt Disney, “The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.” It’s quite profound when you think about it, and it is especially true when it comes to your data. Don’t make excuses or talk about doing it, just get started and you will find that your onboarding experience becomes a lot more manageable.

There are a few tips and tricks along the way to help you get started with your onboarding experience. First, start with your organizational settings.  These can be found in the tools from the left hand navigation. By getting this data such as zoning, TIFs, SSA/BIDs, and more into the system it will allow you to tag those properties during input and save you from going back and adding that data to each one later. Additionally, we encourage you to use the importers that have been built. These can be found in the tools section as well.

Once you are ready to start adding your data, we suggest you to start with Contacts. Remember that Contacts are all individuals and businesses that are not in your geographic district (this will keep these businesses from being calculated in your reporting).  Adding Contacts first will allow you to make the connections as you are putting in the businesses and properties. The second step should be to add your businesses, and finally your properties. This will set you up to make as many connections as possible and save you from having to go back and make connections later.  This will make the onboarding much easier for your organization.

Once you have created and linked all your profiles (contacts, businesses, properties) you can now start adding involvements, work plans, and other data to really take your Maestro to the next level.

As another incentive for Maestro Communities, we have onboarding specialists that can assist you with this process.While we are always happy to provide you with support for your onboarding, we also want you to utilize the system rather than spending all your time setting it up. That is why we provide free onboarding to current Maestro Communities. Simply send us your data and our onboarding specialists will go through your data and put it into your Maestro system for you. We encourage you to take advantage of this service while it lasts and let us get you up and running even faster.

Regardless of where you begin, the key is that you get started. Your data doesn’t have to be perfect, it needs to be useable and that becomes easier with Maestro!