LINZ News

News

April figures for electronic lodgements

• A total of 1,125 law firms out of a possible 1,420 lodged an e-dealing in April. Forty-three of those firms lodging were first time users.
• The e-dealing share of total e-dealing-capable lodgements sat at 99.0% in April (up 6.0 percentage points from March).
• A total of 183 survey firms out of a possible 343 lodged an e-survey in April. Eight of those firms lodging were first time users.
• The e-survey share of total survey lodgements was 69.0% for April (up 4.1 percentage points from March).

Landonline website changes coming up…

Over the next few months, we will be gradually introducing some changes to the Landonline website to support the move to 100% e-lodgement and improve site usability.

Information in the e-dealing and e-survey sections will be re-ordered to help users find what they need more quickly and easily. Similar changes will then be applied to e-search and TA e-certification. The 'look' of all pages on the site will also be refreshed.

New 'buttons' for Technical and System Admin information will be placed on each page so users can go straight to that information from anywhere on the website.

By September, we aim to have reviewed and updated all pages on the site. See future editions of Landwrap for specific information about the changes as they are applied.

Getting the best out of your broadband connection

In the March 2007 edition of Landwrap, we briefly outlined how the internet works, what types of internet broadband we have in New Zealand, and things to consider when using the internet.

Telecom has published an article to help its customers get the best out of their broadband connection. Xtra Broadband – connection speed and availablity (article no longer available) provides advice on what can affect broadband connections speeds, reasons why connection speeds vary, why some connections get slower over time, availability and other related issues.

Landonline customers may find this information useful in conjunction with that published in Landwrap.

Landonline

Landonline 2.9 Release update

LINZ is working towards 11 June 2007 for the rollout of Release 2.9, with an alternative date of 18 June.

To implement Release 2.9, Landonline and Customer Support will be unavailable on either 9 June or 16 June 2007. We will confirm the exact date via email on 1 June.

As advised earlier, Release 2.9 contains a number of benefits for surveyors and conveyancers.

If you have any queries, please contact Customer Support on 0800 665 463.

Near real-time data replication system now in place

We have trialled the new near real-time replication system in Landonline over the past three months, in tandem with the existing user activity log (UAL) process. Due to the trial's success, the new system is now in operation.

Benefits of the new near real-time data replication system in a disaster recovery situation are:

• The time to recover the database will be significantly reduced (from approximately 72 hours to under 10 hours)
• On average, approximately 20 seconds of data could need to be recovered compared to the current UAL situation of having to restore up to one day's worth of data
• The database will become available to customers more quickly.

This change was a result of the 2006 LINZ review of the options for data recovery to ensure that in the event of a disaster, the impact to Landonline customers and data repositories were minimised.

We identified an opportunity to implement a near real-time data replication system that would hold a replication of the data in the event of a disaster. A full working replica of the Landonline database would then be able to be developed when required.

Previously, the data recovery process involved daily back up of the database and maintaining user activity logs that capture the key (not all) events for each transaction. In the event of a disaster, LINZ would have advised customers of what data needed to be restored through a review of the database and user activity logs. While effective, this process took time and influenced when the final database was available to customers again. Customers were also required to re-key in any lost information.

The near real-time data replication system is now in place and will result in better service to customers in the event of a disaster.

New 0800 ONLINE options reminder

Most Landonline customers calling the 0800 ONLINE (665 463) for technical and application support will now be aware that it's simpler and quicker to get the assistance they need.

Instead of selecting two options, customers now only have to select one.

The new call structure is as follows:

Please change any automatic prompts programmed into your telephone to reflect the new structure.

Search and Request Product List process to be improved

Upcoming changes to the search and Request Product List (RPL) process will help to provide customers with greater speed and reliability. Changes include limiting searches to 15 items per request and processing requests in the order they are received.

Over the last couple of months, some Landonline customers have experienced delays when receiving searches and RPL requests. The process for these is outlined below, including the fixes scheduled in Release 2.9 to address the delays.

Searches and RPL requests are designed as a 'within 24 hour service' and often are completed much quicker. For an e-dealing, there are two parts to this process:

1. When an e-dealing is submitted, Landonline sends a registration notification email informing you that your e-dealing has been successfully completed. If you have also requested a post registration search (by leaving the post registration search checkbox checked), then step 2 below applies.
2. The search request is put into a queue to be processed by Landonline. When the request is processed, the search is sent out by email.

The length of time it takes to process your request may depend upon the number of requests ahead of you in the queue and the number of items within each request.

For e-survey and e-search customers, search and RPL requests follow the process outlined in step 2 above.

Landonline has recently experienced delays in this process, which has meant some searches and requests have taken longer than 24 hours. Contributing factors include:

• Currently there is no limit to the number of items that can be requested as part of an RPL from a customer. They range from 1 to 200 per request
• RPL requests and searches are currently processed by the system one request at a time
• RPL requests are not necessarily processed in the order they are received (i.e. some earlier requests may get processed later than more recent requests).

To address these issues, and to ensure we have the ongoing capacity to process the increasing volumes, the following changes are planned:

• Limiting each request to 15 items, however, customers will still be able to submit as many RPL requests as they wish
• Enabling requests to be processed in the order they are received
• Moving the batch process to a new server to increase speed of processing.

The first two changes will be implemented with Release 2.9 on 11 June while the third change will be undertaken after Release 2.9.

Updating your profile

Have you ever wondered why some people in your firm receive information from LINZ when others don't? Or why the details of some firms don't appear when you search for them?

It's all to do with your user profile stored within Landonline. The details you provide and update determine which information is able to be viewed, and how it can be accessed from within Landonline.

As more customers use Landonline, it's important that customers keep their profiles up to date so we can all work within Landonline more efficiently.

Some common updates you can undertake are as follows:

1. Your contact details – i.e. phone, mobile, fax, email, physical and postal address details. Use the 'change individual details' form on the Landonline website.
2. Your Landonline preferences – i.e. communications about notices, post registration searches and changes in lodgement fees. Use the 'my details' area in the Landonline workspace, otherwise the system will automatically set your preferences to the email and user fields.
3. Your Landonline rights – e.g. for a conveyancer wanting certify and sign rights, use the Web Request Form, attaching the appropriate certifications. These rights are used within Landonline to allow fields to be searched and populated such as a conveyancer using the 'create dealing' screen. This will allow Landonline users to search for a particular conveyancing professional in the 'create dealing' screen by clicking on the icon next to the CP field and searching on the firm name (followed by an asterisk).

If you are leaving your current firm and /or moving to another, it is important that you complete the processes and forms associated with 'remove individual user' and 'add individual user' as early as possible. This will help ensure your access to Landonline is uninterrupted.

Windows Microsoft VISTA

In February this year, Microsoft released its latest operating system – Windows VISTA. At that time, we advised we would test VISTA to confirm its operability with Landonline, specifically the Citrix environment we operate.

Citrix has advised us that while some of their products are VISTA compatible, the ICA client version Landonline customers use to run Landonline is not supported by Citrix. This means that if your ICA client running VISTA has an issue, Citrix and LINZ will not be able to help you sort it out.

Given this and the need to ensure Landonline is reliable and stable, we are not able to support VISTA until Citrix fully supports its ICA client on VISTA. Citrix has indicated they are likely to have a product they can support in a few months. We will keep you informed of progress on a monthly basis.

e-survey

More focus on key e-survey areas

Over the next six months, LINZ will be focussing on several key e-survey areas in addition to its 'business as usual' e-survey activities. This approach will ensure we realise the benefits of 100% e-lodgement for surveyors.

Specific areas of focus will include:

• Plan generation – looking at options to improve the process of entering survey data into and the quality of the output from plan generation
• Developing comprehensive web-based modules to help surveyors deal with complex areas such as natural boundaries and stratum titles within Landonline
• Continuing to ensure the performance of Landonline is actively managed

• Continuing to provide our existing e-survey training offer until 1 September
• Looking at opportunities to assist surveyors to achieve compliance, first time.

Starting in June, we will profile a focus area each month in Landwrap reporting on progress, expected outcomes and timeframes.

Making the transition to e-survey

April figures for e-survey showed that all regions continue to increase their usage in the lead up to the 1 September mandatory deadline. National uptake reached 69% with both southern regions, Dunedin and Christchurch, above the national average on 85% and 84.7% respectively.

Before 1 September

During the next few months, both e-surveys and paper surveys can be lodged with LINZ. However, from 1 September 2007, only plans in e-survey will be accepted no matter how they were initiated. For this reason, you should now be starting all new plans in e-survey.

With this date in mind, it's worth considering what your firm can do with existing paper plans before 1 September. You can:

• ensure that the plan can be completed and lodged in paper before 1 September
• move paper plans that are in their early stages to e-survey now. This will mean that if a plan is unexpectedly delayed until after 1 September, there will be no added costs of moving the plan to e-survey.

When you are converting plans to e-survey, you need to remember some key points:

• The pre-allocated plan number and the title reference for a manual survey are not interchangeable with an e-survey number (Landonline will allocate a new number when you start your survey).
• If you have moved your plan to e-survey and you have a new plan number or title reference, you will need to inform others involved who are using those numbers such as Territorial Authorities and lawyers.  

After 1 September

The mandatory date of 1 September 2007 will mark a clear change – all cadastral surveys will need to be submitted through e-survey. The paper process that currently exists in parallel to e-survey will no longer exist.

A letter sent to all surveyors in March from Sharon Cottrell, General Manager Customer Services, outlined a process for the rare circumstances when a survey may be permitted to be lodged through alternative electronic means.

Example – acceptable exception

An acceptable exception is a rare circumstance is where it's not possible to lodge a plan through e-survey when the delay is outside the control of you or your client.

An example may be a paper plan substantially completed before March this year that was reasonably expected to pass through the Environment Court process in time for lodgement before 1 September. If this plan was then held up in the court process for reasons that could not be influenced by you or your client, it may be considered for alternative lodgement after 1 September.

Examples – not exceptions

There are some clear instances that will not be deemed acceptable reasons for alternative lodgement:

• plans held in abeyance for a client where it's within the surveyor's control to convert it to e-survey
• plans for different types of titles such as tenure review plans or stage unit plans where processes are already in place to allow lodgement through e-survey.

For tenure review plans, LINZ provides the allocated surveyor with instructions on how to deal with the plan.

When a stage unit plan that precedes 300,000 is lodged, LINZ will back capture (WIP) the previous stages prior to lodgement in to order to process the new survey. An enhancement in Release 2.9 will run a business rule to check that for a subsequent stage or redevelopment, the preceding or base plan has been capture in Landonline. If it has not been captured, a message instructs the surveyor to contact LINZ to request that a WIP action be completed. The new stage (or redevelopment) will not Submit until a WIP action has completed.

After 1 September, if you think you have circumstances that may require alternative lodgement, it's important to start dialogue with LINZ as soon as possible. You will need to apply in writing to the National Processing Manager with any supporting evidence).

Surveyors get value out of the e-survey web forum

More than 90 surveyors are now registered on the e-survey web forum.

Surveyors have been posting under a variety of topics including pre-validation, capture, supporting documents, plan generation, online TA e-certification and general Landonline issues.

Plan generation is still proving the most popular topic with 37 postings.

New e-survey tips, hints and FAQs

The e-survey Tips, Hints and FAQs on the Landonline website are continually being refined and added to.

The e-survey Pre-validation Report explained

The Pre-validation Report can provide a Quality Assessment tool to help surveyors examine the dataset in preparation for submitting. Any issues identified should be addressed before lodgement to ensure streamlined processing and prompt approval.

LINZ has prepared a detailed explanation of the items in the Pre-validation Report to assist surveyors' understanding. The explanation includes:

• Definition of report item categories
• Structure of the Pre-validation Report
• Y (LandXML) rules
• C (Cadastral e-survey) rules
• P (Plan Layout) rules

You can access the Pre-Validation Report explanatory document on the Landonline website.

Opening Layout Sheets in Plan Generation

Some surveyors are receiving error messages when opening Layout Sheets in Plan Generation. LINZ developed workaround instructions (TPR 6175) for these post Release 2.8, which can be found on Landonline Systems Updates section of the Landonline website.

Irregular boundary capture

Do you find that irregular boundaries disappear from your e-survey when you open up the Layout Sheets in Plan Generation? If so, you need to unlink the parcel(s) related to the missing irregular lines in the Layout Sheets and delete the appropriate irregular line(s).

To prevent this from occurring, read Irregular Boundaries and Missed Marks on the Tips and Hints page of the Landonline website.

After importing a LandXML file, how do I edit the plan to be in terms of Old Cadastral Datum (OCD)?

The correct process for editing an imported LandXML file (which is in terms of 1949 or 2000 co-ordinates) to be in terms of OCD has recently been queried by surveyors.

We have prepared some tips for surveyors on how to successfully complete the process of importing LandXML files in e-survey when using 1949 or 2000 coordinates.

Are you using the e-survey tools and tips?

There is a wealth of self-help information on the Landonline website to assist surveyors complete an e-survey.

The e-survey Tips, Hints & Training Tools section includes links to the full online e-survey user guide, quick reference cards, quick links and training tools. The comprehensive Landonline Education Centre can be accessed by searching any topic.

e-dealing

Celebrating a very successful 'non event'

The 1 May deadline passed with scarcely a whisper.

The excellent preparation of the legal community meant that almost all e-capable discharges were being lodged by e-dealing well in advance of the 1 May deadline. Tuesday 1 May was just business as usual for most firms.

The smooth transition is likely to continue for the next mandatory date of 1 August 2007. Most Landonline users are already lodging the majority of their e-capable mortgages and transfers by e-dealing.

Customer Services General Manager, Sharon Cottrell, put the smooth transition down to the hard work of the LINZ team, matched by the equally hard work of the conveyancing profession. Sharon would like to pass on her congratulations and thanks to the legal profession.

“We know that firms have worked hard to make the move to e-dealing a success. The ease with which the first deadline has passed is a testament to the preparation put in by partners and practitioners across the board.”

e-dealing training reminder

With the free training offered by LINZ ending in November last year, many firms have chosen to augment their in-house training with the help of support tools available on the Landonline website. These include:

• quick reference cards
• e-dealing online practise tools
• user guides
• Landonline F1 Help and wizards

New law firm staff will be able to use these tools to self-train. We recommend they sit alongside a trained staff member as they process a transaction to get a good idea of how it's done.

If you would like refresher training, or would like to train new members or your team, LINZ continues to offer e-dealing training on a cost recovery basis. To find out more about this training offer, ring Customer Support on 0800 665 463 (select option 1) or check out the information about e-dealing training on the Landonline website.

Territorial Authorities

Technical aspects of TA e-certification no barrier for TAs

A case study

Territorial Authorities (TAs) around the country continue to show a keen interest in TA e-certification and, as at the end of April 2007, 35 now have licences.

Several TAs that successfully moved to online certification were recently interviewed by LINZ about the processes they applied to get started.

Landwrap's March and April editions covered how two TAs got started and how they incorporated TA e-certification into their business, respectively.

This is the third and final article in the series and focusses on how a larger TA (population more than 60,000) and a smaller TA have managed the technical and security aspects of TA e-certification.

Landwrap: What electronic environment does your council have?

Larger TA: We have a Citrix system running through PCs that have their C drive locked off. Everything is run through a network of 95 servers.

Smaller TA: Windows 2003 with 50% on terminal servers, GIS for map information, and we are introducing TRIM.

Landwrap: How does the TA e-certification software sit within that environment?

Larger TA: It sits on an SMS server and is only accessible by personal logins. A person cannot access their security certificate unless they are working on their own computer.

Smaller TA: It sits on a terminal server.

Landwrap: How do you ensure that only those with a Digital Certificate can access the TA e-certification software?

Larger TA: They have to be in certain security groups to get access to the software. The security certificates are not kept on the installation.

Smaller TA: Only those with the correct login can access the software.

Landwrap: Did the installation of that software create issues that e-search and or e-search plus did not?

Larger TA: No.

Smaller TA: It's compatible with the rest of the system.

Landwrap: Did installing the software into your IT environment cause you any concerns over compatibility or security?

Larger TA: We didn't have any issues with the original installation. Some problems did occur when the software was moved from PCs to a network environment, especially with Uniprint. The system ran a lot better using the XP environment.

Smaller TA: No.

Landwrap: What input did LINZ have?

Larger TA: Any problems were discussed with LINZ.

Smaller TA: The LINZ helpdesk was used when required.

Landwrap: What involvement did your IT department have in the council deciding to take up TA e-certification? Did you feel you had sufficient input into that decision?

Larger TA: There was no IT involvement with the original decision and the later moving of software did cause some issues. We changed to a citrix server system with locked off C Drives, however, adjustments were required to accommodate the Digital Certificate software – it was taken off PCs and transferred to the network. As a result, Landonline users can only access their Digital Certificates from their own PCs.

Smaller TA: Installing e-search was quite a big hurdle, which IT had a big role in including doing compatibility tests. Installation of TA e-certification wasn't a problem.

Landwrap: Have there been any issues with the day to day management of your system that is related to Landonline?

Larger TA: The system has been stable and we've had no real problems.

Smaller TA: Only the need to update Digital Certificates every year.

Landwrap: Does your council have any concerns about the security of the documents once signed? Is this greater or less than under the paper system?

Larger TA: No more than with paper.

Smaller TA: No, we consider this system is more secure.

Landwrap: Are there any issues relating to the availability or stablity of Landonline?

Larger TA: Not now.

Smaller TA: Not now there are longer hours.

How do TAs sign up to TA e-certification?

If your TA is interested in finding out more about TA e-certification, email your contact details to info@linz.govt.nz or ring 0800 ONLINE (665 463) and LINZ's Customer Support staff will help get you started. Further information is available on the Landonline website.

Tips on printing and saving TA e-certification packages

Some Territorial Authorities (TAs) are unsure at what point in the process they should save or print documents created in the TA e-certification application, e.g. printing receipts as proof of signing the survey plan.

When a TA certifies a survey plan in TA e-certification in Landonline, the Signing Status screen displays an option to either 'print' a copy of the TA Approvals Notice or 'close'. When the printer option window opens, the 'prints to file' functionality can be used to save the file to the user's computer.

This is the only time a TA can either save or print a signed copy for their records. However, evidence of signing is readily available within the TA Workspace right up until the time of plan deposit. Once the 'close' button is clicked, the signed certification package is automatically attached as a supporting document.

The only way to get a copy of the Approvals Notice after this point is to request it from the surveyor.

Landwrap

Landwrap is the authoritative news and information source for survey and title customers.

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