Overview
Welcome to Practifi, the business management platform that powers growing financial advice firms worldwide. The topics in this article will help you gain a broad understanding of how the system works so that you can put it to work for your firm.
Understanding Role-Based Apps
Advice firms consist of individuals who perform many vital roles. Whether they manage assets, book appointments, or ensure everything the firm does is compliant, each user has different information needs. One common thread among these roles is the need for fast access to all the information they care about most.
Practifi enables a personalized experience through our role-based apps, ensuring users can quickly and efficiently access the most relevant information. Out of the box, Practifi provides users with a suite of apps designed to cater to common roles in a firm, such as Advisor, Management, Client Service, Compliance, and Marketing (the Marketing app requires the Practifi Promote add-on to use). However, the firm can create additional apps as needed to give every team member the best tools for the job.
Practifi apps differ from each other in a few ways:
Each app's home page features a collection of tiles displaying key metrics, along with various chart types, including line, column, bar, and donut. This means advisors see charts that visualize their pipeline, while client service representatives see others that focus on regularly engaging existing clients.
Navigation items - the pages users can access vary between apps. For example, only the Management app contains a page listing all the divisions in a firm, and only the Marketing app contains a page listing active and inactive marketing campaigns.
- Pages shared between apps may contain varied record table filters accessed from the teal table viewer menu on the page. For example, the Clients page in the Advisor app contains the My Clients and My Division's Clients record tables, while the same page in the Management app contains the All Clients table instead of My Clients.
- Tiles, charts, and record tables shared between apps may contain different record visibility settings. Each of the Advisor, Management, and Client Service apps includes a chart that groups clients by the number of days since their last contact. Still, the Advisor and Client Service apps include clients only if they either own the record or are the nominated advisor or client service representative on the servicing team. In contrast, the Management app shows all the clients across the division.
Each Practifi user has an app assigned to them that best suits their role; a system administrator can assign additional apps. If users need to switch between apps, they can do so from the App Launcher available in the top-left corner of the screen.
Using the Navigation Bar
Upon first logging in to Practifi, users will be directed to the app's home page. Below is an example taken from the Advisor app. The home page is covered in more detail in the Understanding the Home Page article, but for now, the focus is on global navigation, which appears at the top and bottom of every page in the chosen app:
Here's a rundown of what to look out for in global navigation:
The App Launcher is where users can shift between the Practifi apps they have available and access any other apps the firm has installed from the Salesforce AppExchange. Clicking the App Launcher icon reveals a drop-down menu with a list of apps and a search bar. The search bar isn't necessary for day-to-day system use, but if users ever need to find a page not accessible from the navigation menu, they can do so by searching here.
- Use the navigation menu to access the app’s navigation items, such as Clients, Tasks, or Calendar. Users can view the list of available items by clicking the drop-down arrow. The menu itself behaves like a workspace tab: selecting it takes the user to the currently selected page.
Workspace tabs line the top of the page, displaying clients' names, prospects, reports, and other records currently open. Keep multiple workspace tabs open at once and easily switch between them to view different records without loading a new browser tab. Google Chrome users can install Salesforce's Lightning Extension, which allows any Practifi URLs opened on the computer to open new workspaces within the existing browser tab.
The search bar is where users can find a specific record. Recently viewed records appear as suggestions when typing and will provide the full set of search results when submitting the search. The search results page allows filtering using the left-side panel. To learn more about how the search works and best practices for using the search results page, look at Salesforce's related help section.
The Favorites menu provides a quick shortcut to the records, reports, and dashboards that team members access most often. When reviewing these records, you can add them to favorites by clicking the star icon to access them quickly from this menu later. Once starred, favorites are found anywhere in Practifi and the Salesforce app, available for iOS and Android.
The Global Actions menu also contains shortcuts for creating records rather than opening them. Create tasks, events, households, and other records from this menu. Multiple global actions can also be used at once: they appear as collapsible containers docked along the bottom of the screen. They can be collapsed, expanded, and maximized as needed.
-
In the utility bar at the bottom of the screen, two pop-up components are available on every page:
- Tools & Resources includes shortcuts to close all open workspace tabs, as well as handy links to news sources in the advice industry and to articles in our knowledge base. System administrators can customize these, so be sure to send any suggestions their way.
- History surfaces a list of recently accessed records so that it's always easy to retrace steps or pick up from the most recent project.
Comments
Article is closed for comments.