Announcements | Outages, Service Charter updates etc

Hi Community,

Good news, you can still lodge and settle on Melbourne Cup Day (6 November 2018).

Giddyup!

Aoife

With PEXA Release 9 going live on Monday 5 November 2018, the Service Charter, Participation Agreement and Standard Operating Environment Requirements will be updated. You can access clean and marked up versions of these documents via the links and attachments below.

Service Charter

Clean version

Marked up version: see attached

Participation Agreement

Clean version

Marked up version: see attached

Standing Operating Environment Requirements

Clean version

Marked up version: see attached

Hear from Simon Bray (Chief Product Officer) and our Customer and Product teams as they introduce some of the new features our members are most excited about.

The webcast covers the following:

• See: new Workspace Summary screen
• Sign: option to manually add workspaces to the Ready to Sign dashboard
• Settle: reduction of automated rollover time to 30 minutes

We weren't able to answer all your questions during the webcast so we'll be posting responses here from our product owners and subject matter experts. See the posts below to find your question. 

Good news for members in New South Wales! During daylight savings, two additional settlement slots have been made available: 6:00 p.m. and 6:30 p.m.

Over in Western Australia, settlement rebooking cut-off time will be at 1:00 p.m. More information can be found here.

Daylight savings runs from 7 October 2018 to 7 April 2019.

WA-based practice management system, ContactsLaw, has integrated with PEXA. This means that PEXA activities can be completed from within the ContactsLaw software. 

The enhancement provides users with a more efficient experience. Information from Contactslaw is automatically sent through to PEXA, removing the need for additional data entry.

Bradley Smith, the Software Development Manager of Contactslaw said the feedback has been positive, “Users find that being able to view and accept workspace invitations through ContactsLaw saves a lot of time.”

December 2018 signals the introduction of mandated electronic lodgement of transfers in WA, and Contactslaw believe the integration will make a significant impact for their users. Bradley said, “As the volume of PEXA settlements increases, so too will the time and cost savings delivered by the software.”

What is integration? 

Integration enables your system to communicate directly with the PEXA platform - automatically sending information from your software to PEXA. This reduces the need to manually re-enter data into PEXA. To integrate, a technology communication method called API (Application Programming Interface) is utilised.

To learn more about integrating with PEXA contact APIServices@pexa.com.au

Hi Community,

Land Use Victoria has advised us that lodgements will not be available from Wednesday 26 September at 6pm to Thursday 27 September at 12.01am. 

regards

Aoife

Hi all,

Land Use Victoria has advised that there will be outages to the system on Friday 21 September 2018 at 5.30pm until Saturday 22 September 2018 at 1.00pm.

Therefore, Workspace Creation, Land Title Reference Verification, Lodgement Verification and Lodgement won't be possible via PEXA during this period.

Kind regards
Jarrod

With the Western Australian 1 December 2018 mandate just around the corner, the Training Team is offering free Transfer webinars to ensure you can confidently make the transition from paper to electronic conveyancing. The Team will be running multiple sessions showing you how to complete a 4 party transfer from the perspective of both a Proprietor on Title (Seller) and an Incoming Proprietor (Buyer) as well as lodging and withdrawing a caveat.

Registrants may be able to claim one CPD point for their attendance.

REGISTER FOR THE WEBINARS BY CLICKING ON THE LINKS BELOW:

Transfers Representing the Seller:

27 November 2018 at 10am WST: WA Representing the Seller in a transfer

29 November 2018 at 10am WST: WA Representing the Seller in a transfer

Transfers Representing the Buyer:

27 November 2018 at 1pm WST: WA Representing the Buyer in a transfer

29 November 2018 at 1pm WST: WA Representing the Buyer in a transfer

Caveats and Withdrawals:

28 November at 10am WST: WA: Caveats & Withdrawals

PEXA Projects (the Developer's solution):

5 December at 2pm WST: WA: PEXA Projects

If you are unable to attend these webinars, recordings will be added to this post for your convenience.

Hi Community,

Please note, PEXA will be offline from Saturday 6 October 3pm – midnight   midnight on Friday 5 October 2018 to 4am on Saturday 6 October 2018 for regular maintenance.

Cheers

Aoife

Hi Community,

NSW LRS has advised us that NSW Lodgement Services will be unavailable every Saturday and Sunday from 1 September until 30 September. This is due to the bulk conversion of certificates of title in NSW.

Kind regards

Aoife

Hi Community,

Our Security Policy and Standard Operating Requirements will change from 15 September 2018 and new versions are available on the Policy page on PEXA’s website.

Marked up versions are attached to this post.

Hi Community,
The Reserve Bank of Australia have provided the following update:

"This morning the RBA experienced an issue with the supply of power to its Head Office Data Centre. As a result both RITS and FSS services are still currently unavailable.The RBA is working to restore these services to its secondary site. An ETA is not currently available".

If your Workspace(s) has commenced settling it might remain in a status of 'Settling' for longer than usual. 

Workspaces are still expected to settle today, please continue to check your Workspace until it's resolved.

Thanks

Emily, Community Manager

Kind regards

Hi Community,

We’ve launched a new Help feature which will provide you with easy access to our Help articles and videos. This is based on your feedback to have in-platform help and to avoid clicking between two screens. If you are currently logged into PEXA, please log out and back in to view this feature.

To access this new feature, click on the Help icon located to the right of the screen.

A Help slide out will appear and allow you to search for content or navigate through the topics.

The video content will appear within the slide out. You can maximise this by clicking on the full screen button on the bottom of the slide out.

Over the coming weeks we’ll be adding guided help to this slide out which will walk you through completing your transactions and managing your PEXA account.  

 We’re keen to hear your feedback so we can continue to enhance the help feature! You can share your feedback below this post, or by sending me a private message.

 Thanks
Amber Maher – PEXA Product Owner

We're rolling out new help features to the PEXA platform!

You can now access Community from the PEXA platform through the orange help button located at the top right:

Soon we'll be introducing guided help to the PEXA platform too, keep an eye out in the next few weeks!

PEXA Guided Help provides on-demand assistance that walks you through how to complete certain tasks in PEXA. It promotes self-service by enabling you to turn on guided help when you need it and turn it off when you don’t. The integration of WalkMe with the PEXA Platform means guidance is delivered through one interface, so you don’t have to navigate away from the PEXA Platform to search for help. You won’t need to download or install additional add-ons because WalkMe is supported on all browsers.

When it arrives, to turn on guided help, simply click on the guided help widget, then search for the content you’d like help on. PEXA Guided Help assists by providing:

• Tooltips – Hover over a button to view contextual help.
• WalkThrus – Receive step-by-step guidance on how to complete tasks in PEXA.
• Search help widget – Search for help content via a slide out search widget.

With the Victorian 1 October 2018 mandate in place, the Training Team is offering free webinars to ensure you can confidently make the transition from paper to electronic conveyancing.

Recordings of the webinars can be found below:

Hi Community,

PEXA will be unavailable from 4pm until midnight Saturday 18 August 2018 for regular maintenance.

If you have any questions, please reply below.

Cheers

Aoife

Please note, PEXA will now be available this weekend.

Hi Community,

PEXA will be unavailable from 4pm until midnight Saturday 11 August 2018 for regular maintenance.

If you have any questions, please reply below.

Cheers

Aoife

We’ve prepared a list of the most commonly asked questions relating to the PEXA Residential Seller Guarantee. Can’t find the information you’re looking for? Reply to this post and we’ll get back to you.

If you're after information to provide your customers, you can direct them here: https://www.pexa.com.au/pexa-residential-seller-guarantee

Hi Community,

Please note, PEXA will be unavailable from 4pm until midnight Saturday 14 July 2018 for regular maintenance.

Kind regards

Aoife

Sharing an email that was recently sent to PEXA Subscriber Managers regarding staying safe online. 

Hi Community,

We are currently investigating an issue which is impacting financial payment file responses across the Electronic Lodgement Network in all jurisdictions. Workspaces with financial settlement will likely remain in a status of 'Settling' or 'Disbursing' for longer than usual until the underlying issue can be resolved. We will provide a further update in approximately 1 hour. 

Thanks

Emily Billing, Community Manager PEXA

In the first of a number of initiatives to be rolled out across PEXA, additional tools are now in place to assist you in upholding the highest possible security standards to safeguard transactions conducted via the platform.

The following new features are now available:

Authentication of new users

Any new users created in an existing Subscriber account will remain in an ‘inactive’ status until PEXA activates them following identity and authenticity checks. The verification process will be initiated by PEXA with a phone call to the Subscriber. Authentication may take up to two business days and the new user will not appear in your user list until complete.

Remember: only users who have been assigned signing permissions and have a bespoke digital certificate with accompanying password can sign documents and the financial settlement schedule in PEXA.

Workspace time stamps for modifications

The financial settlement schedule now displays the date and time of the latest changes made to destination line items, as well as the specific user who made the change. This can be used as an additional method to validate details prior to signing. The document signing screen also displays the destination line items owned by you based on your role in the workspace to assist with your final checks.

More information on these features and what else is to come later in Release 8.0.2 can be found in the Release Notes.

Keeping the network safe, together

In the coming weeks, PEXA will introduce multi-factor verification when logging in to PEXA. Once enabled, members will be prompted to follow a simple set-up process allowing their identity to be confirmed at log in.

As ever, we encourage members to continue practising security measures such as verbally confirming bank account details with clients, not using public Wi-Fi for business, keeping security patches up-to-date and importantly, checking payment directions immediately prior to signing.

If you have any questions around these new features, please ask here in Community.

We are writing to update you on new assurances being introduced by PEXA which will further safeguard all transactions conducted via our platform.

We also want to ensure you are kept fully informed of the security measures we have in place, as well as our continuing response to incidents reported in recent days.

Hi Community,

Last week, we informed our members of an incident whereby an unknown party gained unauthorised entry to a practitioner's compromised email account, accessed a change-in-password email sent from the PEXA platform and used it to gain access to the practitioner's account, creating a new user.

As an extra measure of assurance for your practice, you can check your PEXA account to ensure all users are authorised by following these steps:

1. Login to PEXA as normal
2. Select the Administrator Tools tab (the fifth tab on the grey ribbon)
3. Select Manage Users. You can organise them in alphabetical order by clicking the column header you would like to sort by
4. Look for any unusual or incorrect email addresses, additional users or change of permissions. You can view a user’s permissions by either:

• Clicking on the user in the list and looking at the box called User Permissions
• Clicking the action wheel, selecting Edit, and scrolling to the bottom to view the permissions

If you suspect there has been changes or new users have been added without your consent, please delete the suspicious user account and contact PEXA at security@pexa.com.au

Current activities underway to bolster the security of the network

As custodians of the network, it’s our responsibility to ensure all our members have confidence in the broader network. This means leaving no stone unturned in the management of security measures, and there are plans in place to deploy new features in the immediate future including:

• Increased monitoring of PEXA Workspaces: PEXA has been monitoring all Workspaces to identify any unusual activity surrounding password resets, new user creations and changes to BSB and account numbers. PEXA has been actively contacting practitioners to confirm any such activity is legitimate. No new instances of this fraud have been found and these continue to be isolated incidents.
• Creation of new users within existing accounts: As of this week, PEXA will only allow new users to be created to existing Subscriber accounts in an ‘inactive’ status, and PEXA will be required to activate them after verifying their authenticity. 
• Workspace time stamps: As of this week, PEXA will add a feature to the system which highlights the date, time and specific user that last updated the settlement schedule. This will provide an additional method to validate the details prior to signing and will be displayed on the signing screen.
• Multi-factor verification: Over the next few weeks, PEXA will introduce additional two-factor authentication. All Subscribers will be required to confirm their identity through this additional verification layer when logging into PEXA.

Keeping the network safe, together

We encourage members to continue practising security measures such as verbally confirming bank account details with clients, not using public Wi-Fi for business, keeping security patches up-to-date and importantly, checking payment directions immediately prior to signing.

Thank you for your understanding. If you have any concerns, and need to speak to us, please contact the PEXA Support Centre on 1300 084 515, available 8.30am – 8.00pm AEST Monday to Friday.

Lisa Dowie

Chief Customer Officer

Hi Community,

PEXA has been alerted to an incident whereby an unknown party gained unauthorised access to a practitioner's email account where a change in password email, that was sent from the PEXA platform to the Subscriber, allowed this person to access the Subscriber's PEXA account. As a result, the destination account details in the settlement schedule were fraudulently changed. We want to assure you that the PEXA platform was not compromised. A practitioner's email account was compromised. 

This in isolation isn't enough for a fraudulent payment to occur. Any payment instruction requires you to digitally sign (or re-sign) the financial settlement schedule confirming the account details that you have entered, allowing settlement to proceed. Please be conscious of checking the settlement schedule immediately prior to signing to ensure that the information you are signing off on is correct.

We are working closely with all parties, including the relevant authorities to assist in every possible way.

While attempts of this nature are not specific to e-Conveyancing, PEXA urges all practitioners to take steps to reduce the risk of fraud. This includes, among others, verbally confirming bank account details with clients, not using free public Wi-Fi and keeping security patches up to date.

The PEXA security team is currently undertaking detailed monitoring of all Workspace activity, checking for any similar scenarios where passwords have been re-set in close succession among a number of other things, which may be considered ‘unusual’ behaviour.

If we find any Workspaces or accounts that fall into this category, we will immediately call you to double check if you undertook the activity in question. PEXA is also in the process of adding additional security measures. We will continue to keep you updated. 

The Law Institute of Victoria offers a practical guide covering cyber security which we would encourage you to read. In addition, The Queensland Law Society has also published a warning in relation to email scams.

PEXA will continue to provide its members with the latest in cyber security awareness tools and tips via our seminars, newsletters and bespoke security page on the PEXA website.

If you would like guidance on how to stay safe online, please visit the Online Security Group on the Community or the security page on our website. We also have an FAQ page. 

Kind regards, 

James Ruddock

Acting CEO, PEXA