Some of the functionality described in this article is available in our Mencia release and will not be available if your Practifi instance is not upgraded to this release.
Overview
Deliverables help track the entitlements your firm provides to clients across your book of business. This article outlines key aspects of Practifi's Deliverable functionality to help give a broad understanding of the feature. For information on configuring Deliverables in your organization, please consult our Creating and Managing Deliverables article.
Please note: This feature is not automatically enabled in your Practifi instance. To enable this functionality or answer any questions regarding this feature, please reach out to your Client Success Manager or Practifi Support. For instructions on setting up Deliverables in your organization after enabling them, please see our Enabling Deliverables article.
- How Deliverables Work
- Deliverable Types
- Basics
- Assignment
- Schedule
- Fulfillment
- Activation Rules
- Customized Deliverables
- Accessing Deliverable Records
- Fulfilling Deliverables
- Adjusting Deliverables for Specific Services
- Deliverable Reporting
- Deliverable Tiles
- Deliverable FAQs
How Deliverables Work
The Deliverable functionality in your Practifi organization allows you to automatically generate a schedule of recurring client entitlements for your team to deliver. This automation ensures that your service standards are consistently met across the firm's book of business, giving every client the level of attention your firm has committed to.
Once set up, each Service maintains a schedule of Deliverables, which are fulfilled by linking them to Tasks and Events with our dedicated sidebar assistant. Over time, each Deliverable gathers a history of successful and unsuccessful fulfillment. This history forms the basis for meaningful reporting on client outcomes, such as identifying clients at risk of churning or flagging opportunities for add-on services.
For example, your firm has a new prospect, Ryan Beger, with an open Retirement Planning deal. Before you promote him to a client, you'd ensure your firm's Deliverables are set up for his eventual Service Type. Once the Deliverables are created, they're attached to Ryan's required Services and become highly repeatable, with clear requirements for any team member at your firm servicing Ryan Beger's account.
Deliverable Types
A Deliverable Type is a template within your Practifi organization that represents the individual Deliverables attached to a specific Service Type. This means that each time a client has this Service Type, your team will be expected to fulfill these Deliverables. Deliverable Types are configured in the Settings app, under Entity Management > Servicing > Service Types.
When you create a Deliverable Type, you'll progress through four sections: Basics, Assignment, Schedule, and Fulfillment. You'll answer plain-language questions and see a live preview of the resulting schedule as you go. This makes it easy to confirm that the schedule looks correct before saving.
Before creating Deliverable Types, your firm should align on the Deliverable schedule you're committing to. Conducting these discussions as a business ensures that your Deliverable Types accurately reflect what clients are entitled to and sets a consistent standard across your team.
Basics
The Basics section captures the fundamental information about a Deliverable Type:
- Name — How the Deliverable appears throughout Practifi, including on Client records and in the Deliverables sidebar on Task and Event records.
- Type — The category for this Deliverable, selected from a picklist of available types in your organization.
- Status — Controls whether the Deliverable Type is available for use. Active types are automatically added to new Services of this type. Draft and Inactive types are not added to new Services, though setting a type to Inactive does not remove existing Deliverables from Services that already have it.
- Description — A plain-language explanation of what this Deliverable represents and why it matters. End users can see this description on the Deliverable record and by hovering over the info icon next to the Deliverable's name in the Task and Event sidebar.
Assignment
The Assignment section of the Deliverable Type record determines who a Deliverable will be assigned to when it is added to a Service. The available options are:
- Service Owner
- Deliverable Type Owner
- Entity Owner
- Role
- Business Role
- Queue
Selecting Queue reveals a Routing Queue picker that lists only queues configured to accept Deliverables, so you cannot inadvertently choose one that routing would reject. For more information on routing Deliverables to a queue, please see our Creating and Managing Deliverables article.
Please note: If an Entity lacks a Servicing Team and the assignment is set to Role or Business Role, the Deliverable will be assigned to the owner of the related Service.
Schedule
The Schedule section of the Deliverable Type record asks a series of plain-language questions that determine when the Deliverable first comes due, how often it recurs, and how subsequent due dates are calculated after each fulfillment. The resulting schedule is reflected in the Next Due Date field on each Deliverable record, giving your team a clear picture of when the client's Deliverable needs to be fulfilled.
The first choice is whether the Deliverable is Recurring or One-time. For a one-time Deliverable, the only scheduling question is when it is due: either a specific date, a calendar date, or a number of days, weeks, or months after the service starts. The questions below apply to recurring Deliverables.
For in-depth guidance on working with these settings, please see our Best Practices for Scheduling Deliverables article.
How Often
For recurring Deliverables, the first scheduling question — How often? — specifies how frequently a Deliverable must be completed. The available options are:
- Monthly
- Quarterly
- Semi-annually
- Annually
- Biennial
- Triennial
- Every N years
- Every N months
- Every N weeks
For the last three options, a number box appears where you enter the value of N. For example, to make a Deliverable due every six weeks, select Every N weeks and enter 6.
Please note: When you change the frequency of a Deliverable Type and sync those changes to active deliverables, the system prompts you to choose how to recalculate the due dates for existing Deliverables.
When Is the First Occurrence
The When should the first occurrence be? question determines how the Deliverable's initial Next Due Date is set when it is created. There are three options:
- One cycle after the service starts
- At the end of the calendar period the service starts in
- On a specific day in the calendar period the service starts in
One cycle after the service starts calculates the first due date by adding the frequency interval to the Service's start date. For example, with a quarterly frequency and a service start date of July 15th, the first due date will be October 15th.
At the end of the calendar period the service starts in calculates the first due date as the last day of the nearest calendar period as defined by the frequency. With a quarterly frequency and a July 15th start date, the first due date will be September 30th — the last day of the third calendar quarter.
On a specific day in the calendar period the service starts in lets you choose a date other than the last day of the period. Selecting this option reveals a When in the calendar period? question with three choices: a specific numerical day (e.g., the 15th), a relative day that varies with the period (e.g., the first Monday of the month), or the last day of the period.
For example, to set up a tax preparation Deliverable due every year on April 15th, you would configure the schedule as follows:
- How often?: Annually
- When should the first occurrence be?: On a specific day in the calendar period the service starts in
- When in the calendar period?: Specific day
- Month: April
- Day: 15th
The day picker is context-aware and only offers valid choices. Selecting February limits available days to 28, with 29 offered alongside a note that it falls back to the 28th in non-leap years. Impossible date combinations cannot be selected, preventing silent corrections from happening after the fact.
Calculate Subsequent Due Dates From
The Calculate subsequent due dates from? question determines how the Next Due Date is recalculated after a Deliverable is fulfilled. There are two options:
From the previous due date keeps the schedule calendar-aligned. The next due date is calculated by adding the frequency interval to the Deliverable's previous due date, regardless of when it was actually fulfilled. For example, with a quarterly frequency and a previous due date of September 30th, the next due date will be December 31st — even if the Deliverable was fulfilled on July 15th.
From the previous fulfillment date means the schedule follows actual completions. The next due date is calculated by adding the frequency interval to the date the Deliverable was fulfilled. With a quarterly frequency and a fulfillment date of July 15th, the next due date will be October 15th.
Fulfillment
The Fulfillment section of the Deliverable Type record controls whether a dedicated activity is created automatically for each due date, whether the fulfillment date can be modified, and what happens when a Deliverable is not fulfilled on time.
Fulfillment Activities
Toggling on Automatically create a task to fulfill this deliverable? enables the system to create a dedicated activity each time the Deliverable comes due. When an end user opens that activity, the Deliverable automatically populates in the Marked for Fulfillment section of the Deliverables sidebar, reducing the manual steps required to record fulfillment.
When this toggle is on, two additional settings appear:
-
What kind of task? — Choose from:
- Task Template — A task is created from the selected template to fulfill the Deliverable.
- Task within a Process — The parent Process is created automatically. Completing the selected task within the Process fulfills the Deliverable.
- Reminder Task — A task is assigned to the Deliverable owner at the configured interval. The task inherits its subject, description, and assignee from the Deliverable Type.
- How many days before the due date will this task be created? — A numeric field that specifies the lead time. Defaults to 0, meaning the activity is created on the due date itself.
Fulfillment Date
The Can the fulfillment date be changed? setting controls whether users can edit the Fulfillment Date on the Task or Event that fulfills a Deliverable. The available options are:
- Yes, until the work item is completed (default) — The Fulfillment Date can be modified while the Deliverable has an open status. The Update Fulfillment Date icon appears in the Marked for Fulfillment area of the Task or Event sidebar.
- No, never — The Fulfillment Date is not editable. The Update Fulfillment Date icon will not appear in the sidebar.
- Yes, at any time — The Fulfillment Date can be edited both while the Deliverable is marked for fulfillment and after it has already been fulfilled.
Due Date
The What if it isn't fulfilled in time? setting determines what happens when a Deliverable is not fulfilled by its due date. The available options are:
- Skip it and recalculate the next due date (default) — The Deliverable is given the status Missed, and the next due date is recalculated.
- Keep it open as overdue — The Deliverable remains open and can still be fulfilled after the due date has passed. Deliverables fulfilled late are marked as Fulfilled Late.
Please note: When Automatically create a task to fulfill this deliverable? is turned on, the What if it isn't fulfilled in time? setting is locked to Keep it open as overdue, since an automatically created task implies the Deliverable should remain open until that task is completed.
Complete After X Fulfillments
If you want a Deliverable to be automatically marked as complete after it has been fulfilled a set number of times, toggle on End the deliverable after [ ] fulfillments and enter the number in the field that appears. Once that many fulfillments are completed, the Deliverable stops recurring and is considered finished. This is intended for Deliverables used for transactional services with a defined engagement scope, such as tax preparation.
Activation Rules
Because not all clients need the same level of service, Activation Rules let your firm automatically tailor Deliverables to different client types. Practifi organizations can automatically activate Deliverables when specific criteria are met, eliminating the need for manual intervention when a client's profile changes. For example:
- If Client Segment = Platinum, activate the Quarterly Review Deliverable
- If Client Segment = Gold, activate the Semi-Annual Review Deliverable
- If Client Segment = Silver or Bronze, activate the Annual Review Deliverable
Activation rules are evaluated each night by a scheduled job and can also be run on demand on individual Deliverable records. When a rule's conditions become true, the Deliverable's status is set to Active; when conditions become false, it is set to Inactive. Inactive Deliverables behave the same as those with a status of Completed or Canceled — they don't appear in the fulfillment sidebar, their Next Due Date is blank, and fulfillment activities are not created.
Practifi Administrators can create one or more rules using the Activation Rules tab on Deliverable Type records. For more information on creating and managing activation rules, please see our Deliverables Admin Guide article.
Customized Deliverables
Individual Deliverable records can be edited independently of their Deliverable Type. A Deliverable becomes customized when its schedule or fulfillment settings have been changed so that they differ from its Deliverable Type's defaults. Customization lets specific clients receive a different standard of service from what the type template defines — for example, giving a high-value client monthly check-ins instead of the default quarterly frequency.
Customized Deliverables are treated differently during syncs: when an administrator saves a change to a Deliverable Type and syncs it to active Deliverables, customized Deliverables are skipped by default so that individual overrides are not overwritten. An administrator can explicitly choose to update customized Deliverables during a sync if needed.
To help users track drift between a customized Deliverable and its type, a read-only Deliverable Type Description field appears on the Deliverable record page when the Deliverable's own description differs from its type's. This makes the type's current description visible alongside any customized wording on the individual record, and continues tracking the type's description as it is updated over time.
If you want to return a customized Deliverable to its type's defaults, use the Reset to Default action on the Deliverable record. This restores all settings to the type's current values in a single step, without needing to undo each change individually.
Accessing Deliverable Records
Deliverable records can be viewed on Client records or from the Data Management app.
Client Record
There are record lists of Deliverables and Deliverable Fulfillments on the Services & Pipeline section of the Client record page.
Deliverable information attached to the Service is also available in the Service record under the Deliverables subtab.
In both locations, selecting the Deliverable Name opens the specific Deliverable record. The record page displays the Deliverable's current schedule and fulfillment settings, which can be edited using the pencil icons on each section. The Fulfillment tab on the Deliverable record contains a history of successful and unsuccessful fulfillment, providing a clear record of how the Deliverable has been managed over time in relation to the Client. The System tab includes fields that tend to only matter to System Administrators and displays a list of changes made to fields on the Deliverable record itself — useful for investigating changes different users have made.
Data Management App
In addition to viewing Deliverables at the individual client level, Practifi Administrators can access organization-wide lists of Deliverables and Deliverable Fulfillments within the Data Management app.
Please note: These pages are not available in the Data Management app by default. For instructions on adding these pages to the Data Management app, please see our Enabling Deliverables article.
Fulfilling Deliverables
When it comes time to record a Deliverable that you've met successfully, you will do so from the record page of the Task or Event that fulfilled it by using the sidebar assistant located on the right-hand side of the record page.
The sidebar assistant displays any fulfilled or open Deliverables, along with their key dates. For Open Deliverables, the date displayed will be the Next Due Date. The date displayed for a Fulfilled Deliverable is the date the Deliverable was fulfilled, not its Next Due Date. Once the checkbox for the Deliverable the task or event fulfills is selected, the Deliverable will move to the fulfilled list and disappear from the open list. Additionally, on the Deliverable record, the Fulfillment subtab will show a record created for the successful fulfillment.
If a Deliverable's Next Due Date passes without fulfillment, a Deliverable Fulfillment record is created with no Fulfillment, Fulfilled By, or Fulfilled checkbox field values provided. These missed fulfillment records help when reporting on the fulfillment rate, which relies on the Fulfilled checkbox.
Adjusting Deliverables for Specific Services
Users can modify an individual Deliverable record directly to give specific clients their agreed-upon entitlements. For example, changing the frequency of a check-in Deliverable from quarterly to monthly gives that client a higher standard of service than the default Deliverable Type template. Clicking the edit control on either the Schedule or Fulfillment section opens both sections together in a single guided view, with the same plain-language questions and a live preview of the resulting schedule. When a schedule change moves the next due date, the guided view asks under "When you save" whether to recalculate from today's date or from the last fulfillment date. This choice is required, so dates never shift silently.
When you save changes to an individual Deliverable's schedule or fulfillment settings, that Deliverable becomes customized — its settings diverge from its Deliverable Type's defaults. See Customized Deliverables above for details on how customization affects syncing and how to reset a Deliverable back to its type's defaults.
Users can also add new Deliverables to a Service through the New Deliverable button in the page actions on the Service record. Creating records in this location uses the same guided experience, but the Deliverable applies exclusively to the Service in question. To apply a change across multiple clients, it must be created as a Deliverable Type in your organization.
Deliverable Reporting
While every firm has different reporting goals surrounding Services and Deliverables, a set of sample reports is included with this feature to help teams start tracking Deliverable fulfillment performance right away. These reports can be accessed from the Deliverable Reports folder within your Practifi organization.
The sample reports available are as follows:
- Fulfillment % by Service Type & AUM YTD
- Fulfillment % by Division, Owner & Type YTD
- Fulfillment % by Owner YTD
- My Missed Deliverables by Client YTD
The first three sample reports present different ways to summarize fulfillment rates and are intended for managers seeking to track indicators of Deliverable performance over time. The last sample report, My Missed Deliverables by Client YTD, is intended for end users rather than managers and provides an overview of any Deliverables missed by the current user to support improvements in fulfillment rate. The charts in these sample reports include a reference line indicating a realistic target fulfillment rate. This has been set to 85%, but it can be easily adjusted in the Report Builder to suit your firm's needs.
Deliverable Tiles
Once the Deliverable functionality is enabled in your organization, you can add tiles to track Deliverables on the Home Page of the Advisor, Client Service, and Compliance apps. These tiles help your firm's Advisor and Client Service app users track upcoming Deliverables and their due dates. For Compliance users, these tiles highlight missed Deliverable fulfillment within your organization.
All available Deliverable tiles may be enabled, or you may select only those that make the most sense for your firm's needs. For additional information on enabling tiles within your organization, please consult our Adding and Removing Practifi Tiles article. The tiles available are as follows:
Advisor App
- Advisor - Key Dates - Deliverables due in the next 7 days
- Advisor - Key Dates - Deliverables due in the next 14 days
- Advisor - Key Dates - Deliverables due in the next 30 days
- Advisor - My Alerts & Exceptions - My overdue deliverables
- Advisor - My Alerts & Exceptions - Overdue deliverables for my clients
Client Service App
- Client Service - Key Dates - Deliverables due in the next 7 days
- Client Service - Key Dates - Deliverables due in the next 14 days
- Client Service - Key Dates - Deliverables due in the next 30 days
- Client Service - My Alerts & Exceptions - My overdue deliverables
- Client Service - My Alerts & Exceptions - Overdue deliverables for my clients
Compliance
- Compliance - Missing Info - Clients with missed deliverables in the last 30 days
- Compliance - Missing Info - Clients with missed deliverables in the last 60 days
- Compliance - Missing Info - Clients with missed deliverables in the last 90 days
- Compliance - My Alerts & Exceptions - Overdue deliverables for my clients
Deliverable FAQs
Here are some answers to frequently asked questions about Deliverables:
-
What happens when you delete an activity that has Deliverables?
The Deliverable (if not fulfilled) becomes active and can be fulfilled by other activities. Deliverables that have already been fulfilled stay as is for tracking purposes. The previous fulfillment record is also retained. -
What happens when Deliverables are associated with Services that have inactive stages such as Terminated, Canceled, Completed, Draft, or a blank stage?
The Deliverables will remain inactive as long as the associated Services remain inactive, even if the Deliverables' activation rules are met. -
What happens when a Deliverable was initially active, but later becomes inactive (e.g., due to the activation rule becoming false)?
While in its active state, the Deliverable will be displayed in the Available for Fulfillment section in the side panel on Task and Event records. Once it becomes inactive, it will no longer be visible in the Available for Fulfillment section. If an activity was previously associated with the inactive Deliverable, it remains open and is unlinked from that Deliverable. -
When Deliverable Type settings within a Service Type are configured to automatically create fulfillment activities, how are those activities created for related Service records if they are backdated?
If the time between today and the Deliverable's due date is greater than or equal to the interval specified for the fulfillment activity, the activity is created that many days before the anticipated due date. Otherwise, the activity is created immediately. -
What is the effect of canceled Services on related Deliverables and activities?
Deliverables associated with the canceled Service are also canceled. If an activity was previously associated with the canceled Deliverable, it remains open and unlinked from the Deliverable. -
What happens to ad hoc Tasks that are created to fulfill a Deliverable using the New Task action on the Deliverable record?
The Deliverable is not automatically marked for fulfillment on the ad hoc Task. The user needs to manually mark it for fulfillment using the plus icon in the Task record's side panel. -
What is the effect of canceled Tasks on Deliverables?
When a task is canceled, all Deliverables previously marked for fulfillment will be moved to the Available for Fulfillment area of the Task and Event records. Deliverable Fulfillment records that were associated with these Deliverables and the canceled task will be retained and given a status of Task Canceled. Any pre-nominated Deliverables on the task before cancellation should also transition accordingly. These pre-nominated Deliverables will display a plus icon next to them, indicating their status is Active and that they are now available for fulfillment by other tasks, as applicable.
When a task's status is Canceled, the plus icon will be unavailable for any Deliverable displayed in its Available for Fulfillment section, because canceled tasks cannot fulfill Deliverables. -
I customized a Deliverable. Will an admin's sync overwrite my changes?
Not by default. Customized Deliverables are skipped during a sync unless the administrator explicitly chooses to update them. If you want to return a customized Deliverable to its type's defaults, use the Reset to Default action on the Deliverable record.
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