Advisor Xi Archives

FPPad Bits and Bytes for December 6

Posted on December 6, 2013 by Bill Winterberg in Bits & Bytes

On this week’s broadcast, learn the hits and misses from the year’s most anticipated advisor technology survey, the pending termination of several financial planning software products catches advisors off guard, how the leading independent custodians are stepping up their technology, and more.

So get ready, FPPad Bits and Bytes begins now!

(watch FPPad Bits and Bytes on YouTube)

This week’s episode is brought to you by Angie Herbers Incorporated, a consulting and research company to financial advisory firms, who just released a new white paper called Take Two: The New Direction of Succession that addresses the key elements to create a successful transition to your junior advisors.

Download the Take Two white paper for free, along with other practice management resources, by visiting fppad.com/ahi

Here are this week’s top stories:

Tech Survey 2013: What’s New iIn Advisor Tech? from Financial-Planning.com

[Leading off as the top story is one of the most anticipated technology articles that comes out every year. The first of December marks the release of the annual Financial Planning Magazine Technology Survey, where Joel Bruckenstein digests over 1,100 responses about the various software programs and practice management tools used by financial advisors today.

So who are the winners and losers from this year’s survey?

Redtail Technology, Salesforce, and Tamarac Advisor CRM are the winners among CRM software, as advisors continue to embrace cloud-based technology, with slippage coming from Junxure, ProTracker, ACT, and Goldmine.

In financial planning software, this year’s results are essentially a carbon copy of last year’s survey, with MoneyGuidePro, eMoney, and MoneyTree claiming the top three spots.

And the same is true with portfolio management software, as the top 6 vendors are also a total repeat of last year’s results.

So who missed out on opportunities this year? The survey randomly selected new products from Blueleaf, inStream, and Market76, but found that few advisors had even heard of these relatively new players, which tells me that financial advisors, well, those who don’t watch Bits and Bytes, continue to be a challenging market for new providers to gain exposure.] The move to the cloud is finally taking place. In category after category of this year’s Financial Planning Tech Survey, we found software providers making the shift, and advisors responding.

NaviPlan financial planning desktop products to be discontinued from InvestmentNews

[The next story features news from Advicent Solutions, the company formerly known as Zywave, who provides a suite of financial planning software to advisors under the NaviPro brand.

In an unexpected announcement to some users, the company announced it will sunset six of its NaviPlan products on March 31, 2014, citing an “ever-changing marketplace.”

Going away will be all of the NaviPlan Extended and NaviPlan Standard desktop-based variants, making the cloud-based NaviPlan Premium and NaviPlan Profiles the sole applications that will receive ongoing support and enhancements in 2014 and beyond.

This news reinforces the trend of advisors adopting cloud-based solutions as seen in the Financial Planning Software Survey, so don’t be surprised when other providers announce the discontinuation of their own desktop-based software in favor of cloud-based alternatives.] NaviPlan financial planning products for desktop computers will be discontinued as the owner develops its NaviPro products for online use.

Plowing Ahead from FA-Mag.com

[Software providers aren’t the only ones making big changes in advisor technology, as four of the major custodians are also investing heavily in advisor-facing technology in a very competitive arms race. Once again, Joel Bruckenstein interviewed executives from Fidelity, Pershing, Schwab Advisor Services, and TD Ameritrade Institutional to reveal their strategies to help make advisors more efficient and more profitable through enhanced technology.

There’s a ton of great information in this article, so be sure to read it to see what your custodian is doing to help you grow your business.] Over the last several years, custodians have been investing in advisor-facing technology like never before.

Envestnet | Tamarac’s Advisor Xi(R) Platform Added To Pershing’s NetX360(R) Technology Channel from WSJ.com

[And finally, one company benefiting from custodian technology enhancements is Envestnet|Tamarac. This week, the company announced that its Advisor Xi suite will soon integrate directly with Pershing’s NetX360 custodial platform, giving advisors straight-through processing capabilities for trades in accounts held at Pershing, as well as access to real-time custodial account data.

The real-time data feeds will compliment existing integrations with Schwab and TD Ameritrade supported today, and expand straight-through processing trading capabilities announced at Schwab IMPACT several weeks ago.

Tamarac anticipates that the new integrations will roll out to its 660 firms during the first quarter of 2014.] Envestnet | Tamarac, a division of Envestnet, Inc., a leading provider of integrated, web-based portfolio and client management software for independent advisors and wealth managers, announced today that it has formally begun the integration of its Advisor Xi(R) platform into Pershing’s NetX360(R) custodial channel for investment professionals and Registered Investment Advisors (RIAs). Advisors will have access to this integration in the first half of 2014.

Watch FPPad Bits and Bytes for December 6, 2013

Envestnet | Tamarac builds Tamarac University Online, a massive online training program for the Advisor Xi software suite

Posted on October 17, 2013 by Bill Winterberg in Portfolio Management Software, Practice Management, Technology

Envestnet | Tamarac releases Tamarac University Online for comprehensive on-demand training

Envestnet | Tamarac builds an online university to help advisers master the company’s total office software

Training, or the lack thereof, can make or break the successful introduction of any new technology in a financial adviser’s business. (see Attend Redtail University and learn how to use Redtail CRM like a power user)

Fortunately, the time it takes to master many adviser technology tools has been decreasing consistently, since many applications have been thoughtfully updated with modern, intuitive interfaces and a uncluttered designs.

But when it comes to robust tools like portfolio rebalancing software, better design by itself just isn’t enough to make technology easier to use.

One example of this comes from the Advisor Xi suite of tools from Envestnet | Tamarac.

Better Adoption Through Training

Let’s walk through an example. Open up the Advisor Xi Rebalancer, and you don’t exactly know where to begin.

Tamarac University Online includes hours of video tutorials to guide users through various features

If you plan on rebalancing client accounts, your household positions first need to be up to date. That requires an update from your portfolio management software. Time to get some training.

Then when client account positions are current, you next need to compare current allocations with each client’s target portfolio. Time to create and define model portfolios. That requires training.

Next, when you identify what trades to execute to rebalance accounts, you need to know how to generate a trade file and submit it to the appropriate custodian. Training is required here, too.

The lists of processes goes on, and without proper training, acclimating to Advisor Xi (and to be fair, other similarly complex tools, too) can take much longer than originally anticipated.

Training On Demand

Envestent | Tamarac knows this all to well, and for years has been hosting live training events called Tamarac University.

Advisers new to Envestnet | Tamarac, as well as those looking to sharpen their mastery of the Advisor Xi suite, are welcome to attend the company’s two-day classroom style curriculum for a nominal fee.

But for advisers and back office employees unable to travel to the company’s live events in Seattle and Chicago, Tamarac University was not an accessible option for training.

Now the company is providing access to comprehensive, on-demand training through a new massive online training course called Tamarac University Online.

Tamarac University Online

All clients can now access Tamarac University Online through the Support & Training Center. Once in the Support & Training Center, a Tamarac University tab launches clients into Tamarac University Online.

Tamarac University Online features modules for all three of the products in the Advisor Xi suite: Advisor CRM, Advisor Rebalancing, and Advisor View.

Inside each module are dozens of courses designed to cover the primary functionality of each product.

An example of the curriculum found in each of the Tamarac University Online modules.

As they navigate through the online courses, users are challenged with “knowledge check” activities to validate their lesson retention, followed by a final exam at the end of each course.

At any time, users with administrator privileges can monitor the progress of employees and advisors as they complete their training. In addition, users can complete evaluations at the conclusion of each course to provide feedback to Envestnet | Tamarac on the quality and organization of the curriculum.

Training Anywhere

Envestent | Tamarac invested in high quality learning management software to deploy Tamarac University Online, so the interface and user experience are overall very attractive.

The software is also HTML5 compatible, meaning Tamarac University Online can be accessed from any mobile device using the mobile web browser, so training need not be limited to one’s office computer.

Pricing

Tamarac University Online is available to all users at no additional cost. What else is there to say?

Users gain access to comprehensive training materials which cover much of the curriculum offered in the live events without requiring the commitment of time and travel.

Nevertheless, connecting with other Envestnet | Tamarac users face to face is valuable in its own right, so the company will continue to host Tamarac University in Seattle and Chicago in the future.

If you’re a Tamarac Advisor Xi user and haven’t yet enrolled, contact customer service to get enrolled, or if you’re considering Advisor Xi for your office, ask for a brief introduction to the available training resources so you know how well you will be prepared to make a transition.

Tamarac announces Advisor® Xi, new integration partners, facilitates document management for advisers

Posted on November 1, 2011 by Bill Winterberg in Portfolio Management Software

Tamarac’s integrated platform expands connections to popular document management software applications.

In a press release today, Seattle-based Tamarac Inc. announced the first wave of integration partners for the latest iteration of its platform for advisers, Advisor® Xi.

Click here to read the full release on PRNewswire.

Three popular document management software applications headline the integration, with support announced for Laserfiche® from Cities Digital, Worldox® from Trumpet, and NetDocuments®. In addition to the document management integrations, Advisor Xi will also include integrations with Laser App for online form submissions, MoneyGuidePro™ for financial planning, ByAllAccounts® for account aggregation, and Rackspace for hosted Microsoft Exchange®.

Matt Stroh, VP of Marketing at Tamarac said in the press release, “Partnering with these first-class vendors represents Tamarac’s commitment to taking integration to the next level. Together, we will offer a complete best-of-breed platform that will give financial advisors greater opportunities to replace manual processes with fully automated workflows that span across multiple, integrated products.”

FPPad