All your workflow questions, answered

Iress client solutions design consultant Laura Capozzi recently jumped onto Advisely to answer all your burning questions on Xplan Cases.

Here are five of the most interesting conversations that came out of his AMA: 

Q: We are just starting to set up our first workflows (with our auditors) which will include Cases and Benchmarks etc.  Are there any "pre-built" or standard workflow examples we can view to know how to get started (new business and renewal)?  We need to map out our processes as well but knowing even where to start is overwhelming.

I'm with the others that we will need to download notes and attachments for the auditors so this would be very helpful.

That's great to hear that you are starting out and thinking about what steps you need to take to ensure a successful and compliant friendly workflow structure. You are definitely on the right track by firstly mapping out your processes. My tips for this would be:

1. Keep it simple - try to combine like tasks/actions into the one step. This reduces users from continuously clicking the “complete” button for tasks that all get done at the same time.
   
   
2. Visually map out each process and think about all possible outcomes - for example ensure that you can “close off” a workflow at a step where a client has decided to not proceed, rather than completing several tasks just to get to the end.
   
   
3. What can be used to help automate the steps? For example, do you have a file note template that you need advisers to complete after a review meeting? This can be built into Xplan and configured as a benchmark on the case for the adviser to complete. It can automatically pop up upon completion of the “task”.
   
   Another example is a confirmation email for a client appointment. This can automatically pop up or even automatically be sent to the client based on booking the meeting/appointment task being completed. Each might only save a few minutes individually, but added up can make a big difference in efficiency.
   
   
4. For ongoing service / annual reviews consider combining the case/workflow functionality with the Xplan Review Module so that the first task of the workflow kicks off coming up to the review/anniversary date of the client.
   
   The review can then reset for the following year upon completion of the case ensuring nothing is missed and rescheduling the review is not a manual exercise.

With regards to your question about some “out of the box” sample workflows, Iress does have Adviser Tool Kit which has some standard workflows built as cases that you can take a look at. If you would like a demo or trial access, please let us know.

If the above standard workflows don't meet your needs, you can engage Iress to assist you in mapping out and configuring your workflows with you as a project.

Q: We would love to have a specific Note template attached to a case benchmark item so that when you click the "+" to add a note to the benchmark, the specific Note template automatically loads. Is this anywhere in the current dev roadmap? Our advice delivery team would love this for efficiency rather than having to manually navigate to a specific note template that we want used for that benchmark item.

Another thing our [compliance] team would love would be the ability to efficiently download all files linked in a case (the files are attached to Notes linked to benchmark items). At present they need to expand each benchmark item to download each of the attached files, but it would be good if they could 'download all' attached files in one click if that was possible.

If there's already a way to do these two things, I'd love to hear how please.

With regards to automatically loading the file note template for the benchmark, it is possible for this to be done. However, without fully understanding your scenario I can only assume you need this to be off the back of an outcome of a task within the case itself.

If so, you can set the benchmark file note template to automatically pop up when completing the task. Once it is saved, it can also automatically mark off the benchmark itself as complete and link it to the case.

To answer the second part of your question,  we would firstly need to understand the purpose of retrieving the files; Are they going to be read and reviewed by compliance? Do compliance need to store these elsewhere in another system? Or do they just need to see that benchmarks have been met with evidence?

However if we assume the file notes and attachments need to be read and reviewed by compliance.  This can be done, with some configuration within your site.

There are multiple ways this could potentially be achieved and each would depend on what exactly the business is trying to achieve and how. One solution is to use Xports. However, these can be tricky when dealing with a large scale set of data.

File note details can be reported on via this method, but extracting attachments may prove to be difficult. Advanced search criteria could be added to identify which clients to run the Xport against, or alternatively, the Xport can be generated against one client at a time.

Secondly, using an xmerge template against one client at a time might be the way to go. The template can search for the name of a specific case against the client and extract the data from the benchmarks and also the linked file note attachments.

These will generate as separate documents and be delivered in a zip file, however the template document would contain all of the benchmark data details such as name of benchmark, type, date etc.

Finally, Iress has some exciting news in the space of data services and Xplan Business Insights (XBI) coming soon. Keep an eye out for future roadmaps and announcements to learn more about this offering.

Q: We are wanting to try and streamline our annual review process and we are wondering how we can achieve the following: (i) Create a thread linked to the Upcoming Fee Disclosure date in Xplan to generate a Task to go to the Administrator 30 days prior to start the annual review process? Is this possible? (ii) Send an automatic email through Xplan to our client 1 month prior to their upcoming fee disclosure date in Xplan to arrange their annual review? (iii) Set up an automatic SMS to our clients 1 day prior to their appointment?

Thank you for your question. It's great to hear you want to automate your reviews. This is a topic that is very close to my heart when it comes to efficiency, and I highly recommend using a combination of the Review Module and a case workflow for this exact purpose.

You can set the anniversary date as a type of review in the Review Module and set up a case workflow to automatically kick off the first task 30 days before the date in the module. The configuration of the workflow itself can be whatever you need it to be.

For example, you can have both the initial task to the administrator to activate AND you can have the automated email sent to the client off the back of this task (or even the task following the administrator's one).

The SMS reminder can also be set up as a template and can be sent via a diary event template (even if you don't use Xplan calendar, you could still set up the diary even just for the purpose of sending the SMS reminder to save you time and you won't need to remember to do it manually).

The biggest advantage of using a combination of the two functions together is that upon the completion of the entire review process and the case itself, it can automatically reset the next review for the following year based on the frequency you have selected in the Review Module.

Q: I think Cases and Benchmarks are awesome, not just to help with current workflow but to have everything relating to that workflow in one easy place to view historically.  However, I'm hesitant to use them when Cases can't be migrated to another Xplan site if I were to move Licencees, therefore all my hard work putting the cases together over time lost.  Is there anything IRESS is working on that will enable Cases to be migrated in the future?

I'm so happy to hear you’re loving Cases and Benchmarks (I think they are awesome too). Firstly let's talk about the case template: whilst generally the shell of cases templates can be converted across XPlan sites (ie the workflow template), the actual benchmarks and case details are a lot harder to transition smoothly as there can be unique template IDs across different sites.

We must also consider privacy and IP when moving between licencees, especially when we are talking about templates (including document templates, file note template, and email templates containing logos and disclosures). 

However, the easiest way to move a case template between sites is to begin with a conversion which will move across the bones of the case (ie the workflow / thread), then export and import the linked benchmarks (or manually recreate these).

An alternative to conversions is an export and import of the case workflow, but you will still need to follow the same process with re-linking the benchmarks.

Secondly we understand your frustrations that completed cases against clients don't get converted across in their original form, and the data contained in the benchmarks are not linked (ie, file notes are converted separately and not linked back, scenarios are also not linked and the benchmarks are not linked), but we are always happy to get feedback to improve our customers experience, so we will be providing this to our product team. 

Q: Do you have advice for businesses looking at migrating from templated threads and tasks to cases? What steps can be done to minimize workflow disruptions and allow for a smooth transition into cases. We are primarily looking at cases for initial advice workflow, review workflow and implementation workflow and client offboarding processes.

Great question. I would suggest that firstly you export the thread templates and re-import them as cases. There is a solution offered by another Iress Community member located here. While this currently works, please note that it is not standard functionality and isn't officially supported by Iress. Note, there is a step for you to change the type in the exported file so that Xplan knows to create it as a Case.

Once you have the new cases set up, add a date to the end of the name (or an identifier) so that people know to use the new ones going forward. That way you can gradually phase out the old ones. 

I would recommend that your users complete any in-flight threads through to the end as replacing them mid way could potentially cause issues as the new case would start from the first task again.

If this sounds like a bit too much re-work, a workaround could potentially be to add the existing thread to a new case (and not create a new workflow in the case itself). You could still add benchmarks to the case but you would also need to remind users to go back to the case under the client to manually link anything you have automated off the threads task outcomes.

So out of the above 2 options would you put up with a little bit of short term pain for long term gain or implement a work around that you need your users to remember to manually add benchmark item links to client cases when they could have been automated?