The Ultimate IDX product has been around for awhile. It is still maturing and adding new markets to its currently limited list of supported MLSs. But it is a very promising entry due to its native ability to integrate well with websites built with Word Press, Joomla or Drupal open source CMS platforms, providing fully SE spider-able listings on those platforms. IDX via FTP or RETS is supported, depending on MLS requirements and capabilities.

Full integration and SE spider-ability requires IDX and website hosting on the vendor's servers. The client has total control over their own CMS platform environment, including full cPanel, ftp access, and MySQL Admin access to their CMS files and database, but not to the IDX database or its core code, which resides on vendor servers to comply with security and compliance requirements of many MLSs and Boards, and enabling several clients to share the same IDX data feed. Integration of the IDX utilizes custom server routing of vendor-specific urls to their servers, but are still considered part of the primary domain. It also uses a "wrapper" concept that allows the client to use their own CMS's theme or template html and css to "wrap" the IDX product's forms and pages for a consistent user interface look and feel.

Given the flexibility and complexity of integration with a wide variety of non-vendor managed CMS platforms, it is not surprising that integration can be somewhat daunting for the average non-technical agent. The vendor can provide turn-key Word Press integration and support in-house, including standard Word Press CMS and theme installation, and integration of their "core" IDX templates for a given MLS. But if you want to use your own theme, or take full advantage of the advanced IDX template customization capabilities of this product, including full control over appearance, design and functionality of the search forms and display layouts, and/or integrate the product with Joomla or Drupal, then strong css and html skills would be required. To do that, you may need additional (extra charge) vendor services, or an independent consultant familiar with those coding skills and CMS platforms, and with the Ultimate IDX product, at least to get you started on the right foot. The vendor can provide referrals to several qualified consultants that they work with for various CMS platforms and client project needs. A new "Admin Control Panel" is coming out that will simplify most basic IDX display layout customization tasks, but in the meantime, new clients may need lots of hand holding in order to do any significant customizations.

The vendor is also working on adding an interactive Google map search, which should be released some time mid-2010. This seems to be the only major feature currently missing compared to many other IDX solutions.

The lead management capabilities are significant. Single agent, small team and large team versions are available, and are priced accordingly. Open IDX and Virtual Office models are supported, allowing the client to specify if and at what point a user is required to register to see search results and/or property details. New leads can be assigned to agents by an agent duty roster, or on a round-robin basis. New lead assignment by territory or other lead attributes is not currently supported.

Activities of registered and logged in leads are tracked and reported in the broker/agent back end, including initial registrations, searches, specific listings viewed, and listings saved to favorites. Brokers and agents can add unlimited notes to their assigned lead records. A variety of different graphical lead status indicators are provided, which the client can define according to their own needs and lead management policies. The lead status indicators can also be used to select leads for blast emails. Google Analytics can be easily integrated into the client's website wrapper to track all IDX page accesses.

Centralized lead management is also supported for clients who may have several different websites, such as a main brokerage site plus several community specific micro sites, that all feed a common lead management database for that client and their agents. Each website can have its own theme/template wrapper, searches and display templates for the IDX, and in fact can be based on totally different CMS platforms.

Email blast supports emails to selected leads, with lead selection being very flexible. Email template libraries are available for Company standard emails, and each agent can also have their own personal library of email templates. Drip email is not directly supported, but since new lead notifications can be routed to multiple email addresses, any third party drip email system that can receive and parse the new lead notifications to obtain lead names and email addresses can be fed by the new lead notifications. Lead export to csv files is also provided, allowing third party drip email and CRM systems to be interfaced in that way.

If they desire, clients have pretty much full control over the IDX fields included in the various provided search form templates, as well as the ability to build and integrate custom searches. A "Quick Search" form, as a custom html widget, can also be easily added to any widget area provided by the client's WordPress theme, or into any module position of a Joomla or Drupal template. Using template custom code, the client can also control which search forms are available to users. For example, the "Full" search form may be available to registered users only, and unregistered anonymous users can access only the "Basic" search form.

Custom search results can be integrated directly into Word Press pages or posts with a special UIDX content widget, either in the main page or post content area or in a sidebar. All search results integrated in that way are fully SE spider-able, as are all details pages, each of which has its own unique url. Integration of spider-able custom search results into Drupal and Joomla pages is also possible, using the same php libraries that the Word Press widget employs. IDX display results are also client or vendor customizable, subject to MLS compliance frameworks, with several templates provided for paginated search result summaries, detail pages, print layouts, agent views and a "micro" listing view, typically used for "featured listings".

The flexibility and total control over the CMS environment and the IDX forms and display layouts also means that the product can be custom tailored to support mobile phones and other mobile devices, which I have done for my website and IDX.

Used with vendor installed and supported Word Press CMS and themes, this product is a very affordable alternative to higher priced and less functional spider-able IDX systems. Even when additional vendor and consultant support services are added to the cost for a major custom website based on advanced Joomla or Drupal CMS and templates, and lots of client customizations, the final project costs can be significantly less than a comparable major competitor's proprietary custom website. And the added client control and flexibility of an open source CMS may be a major consideration and benefit for some.

I am not the vendor. I am a client of this company and user of this product.

Sample screens include my own custom basic search form, summary search results, and top fragment of details display, on my Joomla 1.5 website. I also included samples of the mobile phone versions of those same screens, as they would look on a 320px wide iPhone.