Using the Xplan Integration - SPA

Summary

Our integration with Xplan provides a seamless flow of data between systems, keeping your clients in sync, along with their critical financial information. Data moves in both directions with some exceptions, making it simple to keep your business management & financial planning platforms up-to-date. Here's a breakdown of how information is shared between systems:

NB:

Real Time = Automatic sync only on creation of that record. Updates need manual intervention either by pressing the 'Send to Xplan' button or via a nightly feed which requires professional services intervention and therefore development to your org.

Client	Real-time 🠞 🠜 Scheduled	Client
Primary Contact		Client
Partner Contact		Partner
Dependent		Dependent
Goal		Goal
Income		Income
Expense		Expense
Asset (excl. Investments)		Asset
Asset (Superannuation)		Superannuation Details
Liability		Liability
Feed Post (Only related to Client, Primary and Partner contact, includes attachments)	Manual & Scheduled 🠞	Document Note
Attachments under Interactions (Only related to Client, Primary and Partner contact)
Interaction (Only related to Client, Primary and Partner contact, excluding attachments)	Real-time 🠞
Service (Only Opt-in and FDS Dates)
Investment Asset (incl. Holdings)	🠜 Scheduled	Portfolio (Account and Holdings)
Insurance		Policies

How are records synchronised?

This integration creates a direct connection between the client records in both Practifi and Xplan, which causes all related child records - People, Income, Expenses, Goals, Assets & Liabilities - to be shared between systems. This means that if a Practifi record is linked to a client indirectly, e.g. an asset that's linked to a service that's linked to a client, then that record will not be in sync. Certain child records only sync one way such as Portfolio, Policies and Chatter Post.

If your Practifi client contains primary and partner contacts, they will initially appear in Xplan as unlinked contacts which can cause some data accuracy issues, e.g. if income is owned by the partner, then upon initial sync it will appear to be owned by the primary. You can resolve this by linking the contacts in Xplan, then resyncing from Practifi.

Once clients are in sync, any updates to existing child records will be shared, as well as newly created ones. Changes made in Practifi are sent to Xplan in real-time, while changes made in Xplan are sent to Practifi on a scheduled basis; this schedule can be configured by your administrator.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Interactions will be auto-synced in near real-time. Feed Posts under interactions needed to be synced manually. All Feed Posts can be synced manually by using the 'Send to Xplan' button and also by a scheduled job for Feed Post.

Using the integration

Sending a Practifi client to Xplan

From the client record, go to the overflow menu in the record header and click Send to Xplan. This process can take some time - up to a minute or two - but you'll know it's been completed when the client is visible in Xplan, or when the Send to Xplan button has been replaced by a Sync to Xplan one.

If there is any issues with sending the data across from Xplan to Practifi you'll see error icons next to child records for that Client. You would need to resolve those errors. Then in Practifi, click the Sync to Xplan button on the overflow menu to complete the sync.

Linking an existing Xplan client

Select Data Management from the user menu, then Xplan in the left-hand navigation menu. You'll be taken to a page containing a list of all clients in your Xplan instance.

• Click the Edit icon next to the Client Name to enable field editing for that row.
• To associate an Xplan client with an existing Practifi one, enter the client name in the Practifi Client field.
• To create the Xplan client as a new Practifi one, tick the Create Practifi Client checkbox.
• Once you've chosen which clients you wish to link, and how to link them, click Save. Please note that if you populate the Practifi Client and Create Practifi Client fields for a single Xplan client, the sync will fail (because this would mean the Xplan client is synced to two Practifi ones).
• If you can't find an Xplan client in this list, you might need to refresh it by clicking the Sync Unlinked Clients button.

Updating records manually

There are situations where you might want to force the systems to update each other, e.g. changes have been made in Xplan that a Practifi user needs to see, however the scheduled job is yet to run. In order to force a manual update:

• From Xplan to Practifi for a single linked client, go to the client record, go to the overflow menu in the record header and click Sync from Xplan. This process can take up to a minute or two.
• From Practifi to Xplan for a single linked client, go to the client record, go to the overflow menu in the record header and click Sync to Xplan. This process can take up to a minute or two.
• From Xplan to Practifi for all linked clients, select Settings from the user menu, then Xplan from the left-hand navigation menu, then click the Sync All button.
• From Xplan to Practifi for all unlinked clients, select Data Management from the user menu, then Xplan from the left-hand navigation menu, then click the Sync Unlinked Clients button.

Managing sync errors

Xplan maintains a set of data validation rules to ensure data quality, and on occasion your Practifi data may not meet the criteria. If this happens, you should see a warning icon next to the record when viewing them from the client menu. If you need more information regarding Xplan's data validation rules, please contact IRESS.

Other integration errors can be found on the Integration Logs page. To find it, select Data Management from the user menu, then Logs from the left-hand navigation menu. Please note that the error messages found on this page are technical in nature, and you may need to contact IRESS for more information.

Practifi usage changes

In order to use the integration effectively, the way in which you use Practifi has to more closely match the way you use Xplan. These behaviour changes are summarised below.

General

• Linking existing Clients: When linking two existing Clients from both systems, child records will be duplicated, i.e. if the same Asset has been created in both systems, and then the Clients are linked, both Practifi and Xplan will have two copies of the same Asset. To resolve this, delete the duplicate records from one system or the other prior to establishing the sync.

Data management

• Asset & Liability Ownership
  • Practifi allows you to allocate Asset and Liability ownership to Clients, People or Client Entities. Xplan only allows ownership to be allocated to People and requires that ownership percentages between People add up to 100% in order to sync successfully. As such, you cannot assign ownership to Clients or Client Entities for synced Assets and Liabilities.
  • Xplan currently does not accept updates to Assets or Liabilities made from Practifi that only change ownership information. If you wish to update these values, either do so in Xplan or make the change alongside another one to the Asset, e.g. editing the Description field.
  • Xplan requires that both Primary and Partner People have their ownership percentages defined, even if one of those is zero. Attempting to create an Asset or Liability in Practifi without both People defined will cause a sync error. Also when viewing Assets and Liabilities in a table in Practifi, the Ownership column will show a Person's name even if their ownership percentage is zero.
• Expense Frequencies: Xplan contains values with no Practifi equivalent, which may cause some inaccuracies with summary calculations. We've addressed these as below:
  • Twice a month: Mapped to Fortnightly
  • Four weekly: Mapped to Monthly 
  • Bi-Monthly: Unmapped; selecting this value will exclude the expense from calculations

Unsupported behaviour

• Deleting records: Record deletion events aren't synced between systems; if you need to delete a record, it will need to be carried out in both systems separately. Because Practifi sync in real-time and Xplan syncs on a schedule, deleting from Practifi first removes the risk of the record being resynced before it's deleted in Xplan.
• Record owners: Modifying user ownership of records that are already synced is currently not supported. Changes to record ownership will need to be carried out in both systems.
• Relationship types: Modifying relationship types on records that are already synced is currently not supported. Changes to a relationship type will need to be carried out in both systems.
  
  

Configuring the integration

The Xplan page in our Settings menu is the administrator's control panel for all things Xplan, including value and user mapping, object sync settings and performance. To access it, select Settings from the user menu, then Xplan from the left-hand navigation menu:

The At a Glance section summarises the number of recent sync errors, as well as the number of unmatched client records; click either tile to be taken to the relevant page.

Linking users

In order to keep client ownership information consistent across systems, Xplan IDs must be provided for advisers. From the settings page, go to the Mappings tab, then filter the table by the Adviser mapping type to see the existing list of mapped users.

• To add a new user, click the plus icon in the column heading row. Place the adviser's Xplan ID in the External Key field, and search for their Practifi user record in the User Value field. Add or edit more users if necessary, then click Save.
• To edit an existing user, click the pencil icon next to their table row and change the relevant fields. Add or edit more users if necessary, then click Save.

Mapping custom values

Both Xplan and Practifi ship with a series of pre-defined values in a number of fields, yet provide you the option of changing them to suit your business. We've extended this flexibility to our integration through the Mappings tab on the settings page.

• You can find the field values you wish to modify by filtering the Mapping Type selector at the top of the table.
• To add a new field, click the plus icon in the column heading row. Place the Xplan value in the External Key and Value fields, and search for the corresponding Practifi category in the Internal Category field. Add or edit more fields if necessary, then click Save.
• To edit an existing field, click the pencil icon next to their table row and change the relevant values. Add or edit more fields if necessary, then click Save.

Changing sync behaviour

• Direction - The Send Data to Xplan and Receive Data from Xplan checkboxes determine whether outgoing sync requests are made, and incoming ones received. You can disable either of these to make the integration work one-way only. Please note that this may introduce unexpected behaviour, check with your Customer Success Manager before making this change.
• Object sync - This section of the settings page allows you to include or exclude specific objects from the integration.