Overview
Follow-up Assistant is an AI-powered feature that automatically analyzes meeting notes and Feed posts and suggests relevant follow-up actions on Client and Prospect records in Practifi. Instead of manually creating processes and tasks after client meetings, you can let Follow-up Assistant recommend specific workflows, templated tasks, and custom tasks based on the discussion.
Follow-up Assistant bridges the gap between basic AI notetaker outputs and Practifi's sophisticated workflow capabilities. Many firms use AI notetakers that create simple to-do list items, but these tools often lack understanding of your firm's established processes and templated tasks. Follow-up Assistant uses your existing Practifi workflows to suggest more powerful, standardized actions for your clients and supports advisors who prefer manual notetaking so that every team member can access the full value of your firm's processes.
Please note: Follow-up Assistant is a part of our Practifi Intelligence add-on. To request access to this feature, please reach out to your Client Success Manager or Practifi contact. Enabling Follow-up Assistant requires signing additional data processing agreements as part of our partnership with our AI provider.
- How Follow-up Assistant Works
- Accessing Follow-up Assistant
- Using Follow-up Assistant
- Improving Recommendation Quality
- Troubleshooting
How Follow-up Assistant Works
Third-Party AI Notetaker Integration
If you use an AI notetaking tool that integrates with Practifi, your AI notetaker automatically creates the complete note in Practifi. Analysis begins immediately, and suggestions appear within 30 seconds to one minute.
Please note: Follow-up Assistant is also integrated with Practifi's Notetaker. To learn more, see Using Notetaker.
Manual Notetaking
You can also use Follow-up Assistant when you manually type a note or copy and paste content from an AI notetaker or another external source into a note. When your note is complete, navigate to the Follow-up Assistant area on the Home page or the Client or Prospect record page where you created the note and click the refresh icon. Recommendations appear within 30 seconds to one minute.
Once suggestions appear, the process is the same regardless of how your note was created, giving every advisor access to the same quality of AI-powered recommendations. You can review recommended processes, templated tasks, and custom tasks, then accept, decline, or customize suggestions before creating actual work items in Practifi.
Smart Note Integration
You can generate Follow-up Assistant suggestions within the Smart Note Editor. To learn more, see Understanding and Using Smart Notes.
Understanding Recommendation Types
Follow-up Assistant provides three types of suggestions:
- Processes: Complete business workflows that trigger multiple related tasks and activities. For example, your firm may have processes that align with the different services you offer. When a prospect is promoted to client status, we attach these processes to their required services and make them highly repeatable, with clear requirements for any team member servicing their account.
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Templated Tasks: Pre-built task templates from your firm's library with standardized descriptions, priorities, and compliance guidelines. Examples include:
- Send a client gift for a significant milestone (within firm spending guidelines)
- Schedule a quarterly portfolio review meeting
- Prepare compliance documentation
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Tasks: Custom tasks generated specifically from your note content for unique situations. Examples include:
- Research alternative investment options for a retirement portfolio
- Contact a client about specific market volatility concerns
- Prepare documents for an upcoming compliance audit
Confidence Scoring
Each recommendation has a confidence score indicating how relevant the AI believes the suggestion is to your note's content. Practifi Administrators can set a minimum threshold (typically 50%), so you only see suggestions that meet your firm's quality standards, keeping recommendations focused and reducing time spent reviewing lower-confidence results. For instructions on adjusting the confidence threshold, see the "Enabling Follow-up Assistant" section.
Recommendation Scope
Follow-up Assistant only suggests processes and task templates you have permission to access. In multi-division firms, you'll only see workflows relevant to your division, keeping recommendations focused on the services and processes your team is responsible for. Suggestions are filtered based on your firm's workflow availability settings.
Note Compatibility
Follow-up Assistant works with notes that are uploaded to Client, Prospect, and Organization records in Practifi. Notes can be linked to events and other record types. When you click the Refresh icon to scan for suggestions, Practifi looks back at notes created within the last seven days. Notes older than seven days will not be picked up by the refresh scan.
Accessing Follow-up Assistant
In order to view the Follow-up Assistant component, you must have a Relationship Intelligence license and the Follow-up Assistant permission set. Unlicensed users cannot access Follow-up Assistant or generate suggestions, even if they create notes.
Follow-up Assistant appears in two locations within Practifi:
Home Page
The Follow-up Assistant area in the Home page sidebar displays all your notes and recommended follow-ups for all clients and prospects. The most recent three items are shown by default. Click View All to see the complete list.
Each entry shows the note name, the related entity, the creation date, and the number of recommendations.
Client/Prospect Record
The Follow-up Assistant area in the side panel of a Client or Prospect record shows follow-up recommendations specific to that entity. This area also displays the three most recent items and a View All link.
Please note: Users must be granted a special permission set to access Follow-up Assistant. For instructions on assigning permissions, see Enabling Follow-up Assistant.
Using Follow-up Assistant
AI Notetaker Integrations
If your firm uses an AI notetaker that is integrated with Practifi, suggestions will automatically appear in your Follow-up Assistant within approximately one minute of your note being sent to Practifi.
Manual Notes
Follow-up Assistant also works with notes you type in Practifi or content you copy and paste into a note.
Please note: Automatic generation requires both a Relationship Intelligence license and the Follow-up Assistant permission set. If those requirements are not met, no analysis is triggered for that note.
Standard Notes
- On the relevant Client or Prospect record, click to expand the Notes & Files heading in the side panel.
- Click the caret to the right of the Notes area and select New. A pop-up opens.
- In the pop-up window, enter a title for your note.
- Type or paste the content of your note into the text area.
- When your note is complete, click Done. A confirmation message appears.
- In the record side panel, scroll down and click to expand the Follow-up Assistant heading.
- Click the refresh icon in the Follow-up Assistant area.
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A message appears at the top of the screen, confirming that the system is analyzing your note.
Please note: You must click the refresh icon after adding a note for recommendations to appear.
Smart Notes
We introduced Smart Notes with our Sauvignon Blanc release. Just as with standard notes, suggestions appear in the Follow-up Assistant area on the Home page or within an Entity record after you save a Smart Note.
A green icon indicates suggestions based on Smart Notes, while standard note suggestions display a red icon.
To learn more about how to create Smart Notes and generate follow-up suggestions within the Smart Note Editor, see our article on Understanding and Using Smart Notes.
Feed Posts
As of the Sauvignon Blanc release, Follow-up Assistant suggests action items based on posts made to an entity's Feed. These suggestions are distinguished from standard note and Smart Note suggestions by a blue Chatter icon.
Please note: The creator of the Feed post must have both a Relationship Intelligence license and the Follow-up Assistant permission set. If those requirements are not met, suggestions are not triggered for the post. Only the original post triggers analysis; replies do not generate follow-up suggestions.
From the Follow-up Assistant section on the Home page or on a Client or Prospect record, click the checkmark icon to view suggestions.
At the top of the Complete Follow-up window, the Feed Post section displays the content of the post that generated the suggestions.
Reviewing Suggestions
Recommendations appear in the Follow-up Assistant area approximately one minute after a note is imported via integration or after a note is manually created and the refresh icon is clicked.
A badge appears on each item in the Follow-up Assistant area, indicating the number of recommended follow-up items. Click the checkmark icon to launch the Complete Follow-up window.
The Complete Follow-up Window
In the Complete Follow-up window, you can view action item recommendations based on your notes.
Here are some of the features of this window:
- Click the Refresh button to get updated recommendations if you've edited your note since the recommendations were generated. Clicking Refresh deletes the existing suggestions for that note and generates a new set based on the current note content. The new recommendations are owned by the user who clicked Refresh.
- Edit the subject line of the note to provide more context about what the meeting covered.
- Use the Related Event field to connect the note to a specific event in your calendar.
- Review suggested processes, templated tasks, and custom tasks:
- For each recommendation, you can review the details, including subject, description, and suggested due date.
- Click the X icon to decline any suggestions.
- Edit task names, descriptions, assignees, and due dates as needed.
- Add your own items:
- The AI might not catch everything, so you can click the plus icons to add processes from your firm's available workflows, templated tasks from your task template library, or create custom tasks for unique situations.
After you've reviewed and customized your selections, click Complete to generate the work items.
You'll be taken to a confirmation page that shows all the action items you've created. You can click the hyperlinks to view the process and task records.
Tasks are created immediately and appear on the Processes & Tasks page. Processes launch in the background and may take a minute or so to initialize fully; you'll receive a notification when they're ready.
As of the Sauvignon Blanc release, you'll also see topic suggestions in the Complete Follow-up window. Topics are used to categorize clients. If you don't want to add a suggested topic, click the X icon to remove it. Any topics you don't dismiss will be added to the Client or Prospect record when you click Complete. Follow-up Assistant will only suggest topics that already exist in your Practifi organization.
Please note: Follow-up Assistant is designed to enhance your existing workflow, not replace your professional judgment. Always review suggestions carefully and customize them to meet your specific client needs and firm requirements.
Who Can View Suggestions
Follow-up Assistant suggestions are visible based on ownership and your firm's user hierarchy. You can see suggestions you generated yourself, as well as suggestions generated by users who report to you within your firm's user hierarchy. Administrators can see all suggestions across all entities they have access to.
This means that when an advisor delegates follow-up creation to a team member, that team member can view and act on suggestions for the clients and prospects they support without those suggestions being bottlenecked by the advisor's availability. However, team members at the same level in your firm's hierarchy do not automatically see each other's suggestions.
For Client records, the servicing team configuration determines which users can access the entity. Users not on the servicing team cannot see the entity or its follow-ups.
For entities without a servicing team (e.g., prospects or entities with no stage), access follows standard sharing rules; typically, the owner, users in the role hierarchy above them, and administrators can view suggestions.
A user who cannot access the entity will never see the Follow-Up Assistant component for that entity.
Improving Recommendation Quality
Follow-up Assistant's effectiveness depends on three key factors you can control: the quality of your firm's process and task template descriptions, the content of your notes, and your confidence threshold settings. All three need to be optimized to generate the most relevant suggestions.
Writing Process and Task Template Descriptions
Your process types and task templates need descriptions that help the AI understand when to recommend them. Most firms provide minimal or no descriptions in these templates, but such descriptions are crucial for generating relevant suggestions.
These descriptions are written for AI matching, not for human readers. The system uses artificial intelligence rather than simple keyword matching, so you don't need to be perfect or overly comprehensive. Focus on clearly explaining what the template is for and when to use it. Avoid extremely long descriptions as they can confuse the matching logic.
Ensure your template descriptions use the same language as your notes. If your templates reference "retirement planning," use that exact phrase in your notes rather than "planning for retirement." Include multiple ways clients might express the same need in your descriptions: "Portfolio review, investment analysis, asset allocation review, performance evaluation," or "Estate planning, will preparation, trust setup, inheritance planning."
Include These Elements:
- Trigger scenarios: "When clients need comprehensive financial planning" or "For new client onboarding situations"
- Key topics: Related concepts like "investment review, estate planning, insurance analysis, retirement planning"
- Client situations: "High net worth clients, pre-retirees, business owners, inheritance planning"
- Related keywords: Terms that might appear in notes, like "beneficiary, coverage, premium, rebalancing, allocation"
Example Description:
"Comprehensive Annual Review process for existing clients. Triggered when clients mention portfolio performance concerns, life changes, retirement planning, estate planning needs, or annual check-ups. Includes investment analysis, insurance review, tax planning, and estate planning updates. Suitable for all client types requiring full financial reassessment."
Best Practices for Notetaking
Your notes are the primary input for AI analysis. To maximize the quality of recommendations, ensure your notes use the same terminology as your template descriptions.
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Include Specific Action Language: Use clear phrases that signal the need for follow-up.
- "Need to follow up on..."
- "Client requested..."
- "Action required..."
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Mention Specific Services and Products: Reference the exact services your firm provides.
- "Discuss life insurance options"
- "Review investment portfolio performance"
- "Estate planning documentation needed"
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Include Timing and Urgency Indicators: Help the AI understand priority and deadlines.
- "Urgent: Policy expires next month"
- "Annual review due in Q2"
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Be Comprehensive and Specific: Write detailed notes that capture the full context.
- Example: "Met with John Smith to discuss retirement planning concerns. He's worried about market volatility affecting his 401 (k) and wants to explore conservative investment options. Needs beneficiary information updated on all accounts. Expressed interest in long-term care insurance. Action items: research bond allocation strategies, schedule beneficiary update meeting, prepare LTC insurance quotes."
- Why it works: Specific person, clear concerns, multiple actionable items, references specific services your firm likely provides.
Ensure your notes and template descriptions use the same language for similar concepts. Use language your clients actually use in meetings, not just industry jargon, and regularly review and update your template descriptions based on what you learn about matching patterns.
Troubleshooting
Issue: Suggestions Not Appearing in Follow-up Assistant
Possible Cause: No recommendations met your firm's confidence threshold. This is normal for notes that don't contain actionable content or don't match your available workflows.
Other Possibilities:
- The note is still being processed (wait one to two minutes).
- The note isn't attached to any record, or it's attached to custom objects outside the standard Practifi data model. Notes attached to standard Practifi objects, such as clients, prospects, contacts, events, and services, are automatically processed.
- The user doesn't have the required permission set.
- The note was created by a user who did not have a Relationship Intelligence license and the Follow-up Assistant permission set when the note was saved. In this case, automatic analysis is not triggered, and the note will not appear in Follow-up Assistant.
- The note is more than seven days old. The refresh scan only covers notes created within the last seven days.
- The note already has suggestions associated with it. Notes that already have follow-up suggestions are not re-analyzed during a refresh scan.
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