Overview
The following article covers what's new in our Albariño release (rollout beginning in May 2022) to provide a detailed understanding of what has changed, how new features work, how to enable them and any additional factors that teams should consider. If you are new to Practifi or our release notes, we highly recommend you review our article on the best practices of 📚 Using Practifi Release Notes.
In Albariño, Practifi focuses on major enhancements to process tasks and task templates (i.e. workflows), Microsoft 365 Sync for email, our new Business Development app and a number of other improvements.
Read on to learn more about various features of the release, and remember that if you have any questions, your Client Success Manager will be happy to help you learn more.
- Enhanced Workflow Experience
- Microsoft 365 Sync for Email
- Business Development App
- Welcome App for New Users
- Other Features and Enhancements
- Resolved Issues
Enhanced Workflow Experience
We’re introducing a range of serious enhancements to our workflow engine in this release, unlocking the door to countless new possibilities and making the completion and configuration of workflow steps easier than ever. With these changes, we're adding powerful functionality to processes (multi-step workflows) and task templates (single-step workflows) in Practifi.
Active Forms
When completing a workflow step, there’s often information encountered along the way that needs to be recorded elsewhere in Practifi, such as scheduling a meeting with clients. With Active Forms, that information can now be entered directly on the workflow step’s record page, avoiding the need for any additional navigation and ensuring that team members are capturing what’s needed before marking an item as complete. Once captured, that information gets used as inputs by the workflow step’s actions, sending it to exactly where it needs to go. This could mean the completion of a process task automatically creates a post on the Noticeboard to alert the team to a recent change.
Accessing Active Forms
If a workflow step has a form associated with it, users will see it in the Active Form tab on the Task record page. The form also appears when a user marks the task as complete, ensuring that the data capture requirements are addressed before the step is completed.
Here are some things to keep in mind when using Active Forms:
- Only the Assigned To user can edit the Active Form; all other users see a read-only version (except Practifi Administrators).
- Every time a user exits a form field, the form’s contents are saved automatically so the data captured in the form is not lost.
- Required fields must contain a value before a task can be marked as complete, but this only applies to the fields that are relevant based on the outcome selected; other fields are hidden. For example, if a user is assigned a task to book an appointment and they select an outcome of Unable to Contact Client, then any required fields for creating an Event record to represent the appointment won’t be visible in the Active Form as it appears in the Mark as Complete action.
- Text fields can hold up to 255 characters, and long text fields can hold up to 131,072 characters.
- After a task is completed, the Active Form will still appear on the page, but it will be archived in read-only mode.
Active Forms in Practifi support all the common field types provided by Salesforce, making it easy to capture data in the format you desire. To simplify the mapping process between Active Form fields and Salesforce objects, we’ve created like-for-like equivalents with their existing field types.
Active Forms are configured alongside other workflow step elements—like outcomes and actions— from the Process Task record page within the Settings app.
📚 To learn more about setting up Active Forms in your Practifi organization, please see our Configuring Active Forms article.
Validation Check
To help manage the increased configuration complexity of Active Forms, we’ve created the Validation Check, a component on the Process Task record page that evaluates 14 complex scenarios, ensuring the steps you create function as intended. Once you run the check, the results appear in a table within the component, making it easy to identify what issues need resolving, what to do to resolve them and what will happen if they’re left unresolved.
The Validation Check does not need to be passed before a workflow step is activated; the status of a Validation Check doesn’t affect whether steps are available to Practifi users. If issues raised during the check cause problems when team members complete the workflow step, they’ll receive a prompt explaining this to them. If a workflow step is edited after the Validation check is run, the component displays a prompt to inform you that the check needs to be run again, as the results may change.
📚 For more details, please see the Understanding the Validation Check section of our Configuring Active Forms article.
Expanded Action Types
We’ve introduced six new actions to the multi-step workflow engine, all designed to automate work that happens outside of the workflow itself. The new action types are:
- Create a Deal
- Create an Event
- Post to Noticeboard
- Send an Email
- Send Notification
- Save to Related Record
Save to Related Record
This action allows you to push data captured in an Active Form to records related to the task or process record, either directly or indirectly. An example of this would be capturing contact details in an Active Form and updating the primary member of the related Household with those details.
Keep in mind that the Save to Related Record action type requires an Active Form in order to work. Without it, there’s no data to save to the related record.
Send an Email
Emails sent by the workflow engine follow a 📚 Lightning Email Template, which can be created using Salesforce’s 📚 drag-and-drop email builder tool. If you want to give team members the opportunity to slot in a personal message before the email is sent, include the %AdditionalMessage% string in the email template at the relevant point.
Only one additional message per email template is supported. If you add the above string to a template multiple times, the same message will appear in each instance.
Please note: Emails triggered by the Send an Email action are sent via the Salesforce platform. Salesforce supports 📚 sending emails via Microsoft 365 or Gmail, but only for those created manually using the email composer found in the Global Actions menu and the Activity Timeline. Emails sent using other means, such as our workflow engine, can only be sent via Salesforce’s own email servers. 📚 Learn more about sending emails via Salesforce.
Action Types and Active Forms
The six new action types listed above were designed with Active Forms in mind, as they become much more useful when they can factor in information captured while completing a workflow. Take the Create an Event action type as an example: fields like Start and End Date/Time can’t be meaningfully set ahead of time; users determine them while working with the event attendees to coordinate schedules.
The lone exception is the Send an Email action type, where the content is handled by the 📚 Lightning Email Template and the dedicated preview step that appears in the Mark as Complete window.
Adding New Action Types to Workflows
The new action types are available from the same place as other actions, on the Process Task record page. 📚 To learn more, please see our Understanding Action Types article.
Redesigned Task Completion
With this release, we’re introducing several enhancements to the Mark As Complete workflow users see when completing a process task. These changes include the following:
- A confirmation step for Active Forms and emails
- A prompt to inform users what actions are about to be taken
- Status reports of successful and unsuccessful actions once the step is completed
- Flexibility to log time using minutes or hours
Send an Email Confirmation
Any workflow step using the Send an Email action displays a preview of the email to the user before sending it. The preview step also allows users to add additional recipients, choose what email address the message is sent from and add an additional message (if supported by the action’s email template).
Active Forms and Task Completion
For tasks with Active Forms, required fields must contain a value before a task can be marked as complete, but this only applies to the fields that are relevant based on the outcome selected; other fields are hidden. For example, if a user is assigned a task to book an appointment and they select the Unable to Contact Client outcome, then any required fields for creating an Event record to represent the appointment won’t be visible in the Active Form.
Status Reports
If one or more actions aren’t executed properly, or at all, users will see prompts on the confirmation page describing the issues. In most situations, issues are due to incorrect workflow configuration and can be resolved by running a Validation Check on the relevant process task.
Log Time in Minutes or Hours
With this release, we are giving users the ability to log time on a task in terms of minutes or hours. Previously, the Hours field was required. This meant that for tasks taking less than an hour to complete, there had to be a 0 in the Hours field. With the change, users can opt to enter time in terms of minutes or hours rather than having to enter values for both.
Task Template Compatibility with Outcomes, Actions and Active Forms
We’re introducing outcomes, actions and Active Forms to task templates, turning these predefined tasks into true single-step workflows. All the new inclusions in our Action Type library are focused on automating work that occurs outside of the workflow itself, rather than orchestrating a business process. This means they have serious value for single-step workflows and can be just as effectively leveraged by task templates as they can by process types (multi-step workflows).
| 🛠 Implementation Details Existing templates will be unaffected by this change, but Practifi Administrators can update them to take advantage of these new possibilities. As with process types, the configuration of outcomes, actions and Active Forms for task templates takes place within the Settings app. |
Microsoft 365 Sync for Email
Seamlessly align your digital correspondence with the client system of record for better relationship management and whole-of-firm compliance. Our Microsoft 365 email sync solution ensures that your firm has reliable access to a comprehensive history of email engagement, making it easier than ever to understand client relationships deeply and ensure your team is communicating in a compliant way.
The existing integration with Microsoft Outlook remains a great option for firms looking for a low-cost option, but Microsoft 365 Sync improves on it in two crucial ways:
- Emails are captured automatically, rather than relying on the user to opt-in. This ensures your email history in Practifi is comprehensive and accurate and reduces the workload for your team.
- Microsoft 365 Sync is enabled for your email server rather than on devices themselves, meaning you only have to set it up once for everyone to be included, instead of installing it for each employee individually.
Please note: Microsoft 365 Sync is a paid feature, so if your team is interested in learning more, please contact your Client Success Manager.
Email Storage and Security
Our solution is built using Microsoft’s industry-leading Azure cloud services, so there are no additional vendors to perform due diligence on. Thanks to its serverless architecture, the sync engine never stores your firm’s emails, meaning you can be confident that the content of your emails remains for your eyes only.
📚 Learn more about what makes Microsoft Azure the trusted cloud for organizations of all sizes, from startups to enterprises to governments.
Historical Sync Scope
When performing the initial sync with your Microsoft 365 instance, we retrieve the last six months of message history, meaning only your most relevant communications will make their way into Practifi.
When enabling a new user for the sync service, we go back to the same point in time used when initially syncing the two systems so their message history has continuity with all other users. Configurable historical sync is unsupported in this release.
A Note on Internal Emails
Internal emails are ignored by the sync service. An internal email is defined as one where all the email addresses found across the To, From, Cc and Bcc fields are on internal email domains. Defining the set of email domains considered to be internal is done by the administrator when setting up the service.
📚 Please see our Enabling Microsoft 365 Email Sync article for further guidance.
Setup and Configuration
🛠 We’ve made the initial setup and ongoing management of Microsoft 365 Sync simple and straightforward by integrating everything into a dedicated Microsoft 365 Sync page in the Settings app. The Setup Assistant tab lays out the required steps clearly, making it easy to get up and running.
Business Development App
Our new Business Development app leverages the power of Practifi’s award-winning business management platform to bring you comprehensive lifecycle management of growth through mergers and acquisitions. We’ve taken the best of Practifi’s core capabilities and made them available to teams responsible for business development, whether through M&A activity or growing your network.
The Business Development app offers the following features:
- An interactive Home page experience with tiles and charts that bring insights to your fingertips, spanning tasks, pipeline, lifecycle stages and more.
- A specialized Navigation Menu, which provides easy access to key record lists such as your directory, pipeline and processes.
- A dynamic record page experience that guides team members through the acquisition lifecycle with clear descriptions, contextual actions and conditionally-displayed page sections.
The Business Development app uses the same configurable components as our advice apps - tiles, charts and record lists - and it leans on the same core concepts of Key Entities and People used by those apps as well. But where those apps are primarily concerned with managing the client lifecycle for Households, Organizations and Individuals, Business Development is instead focused on progressing Firms (Organizations) and Advisors (Individuals) through the acquisition lifecycle.
To that end, we’ve made significant extensions to the Entity object, providing a comprehensive set of fields for capturing crucial data points in the lifecycle. These fields are outlined in the table below. Please note that fields in italics aren’t visible on-screen by default to minimize clutter, but they can be enabled if desired.
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Field Section |
Field Name |
Notes |
|
Top section |
Year Founded |
|
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Structure |
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Services Offered |
|
|
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Employees |
Employees |
|
|
Number of Offices |
|
|
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Number of Advisors |
|
|
|
Number of Principals |
|
|
|
AUM |
AUM |
|
|
Discretionary AUM |
The total value of managed assets where buy and sell decisions are made by the firm on behalf of their clients. |
|
|
Non-Discretionary AUM |
The total value of managed assets where buy and sell decisions are made by the clients themselves, and the advisor or firm must be granted approval before making any of their own. |
|
|
Foreign AUM |
|
|
|
Charitable Organization AUM |
|
|
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High Net-Worth AUM |
|
|
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Non-High Net-Worth AUM |
|
|
|
Business Metrics |
EBITDA |
Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization. |
|
Number of Clients |
|
|
|
AUM per Client |
|
|
|
High Net-Worth Clients |
|
|
|
Non-High Net-Worth Clients |
|
|
|
Foreign Clients |
|
|
|
Charitable Organizations |
|
|
|
Clients Average Age |
|
|
|
Estimated Revenue |
|
|
|
Number of Referrals per Year |
|
|
|
Average Client Tenure |
|
|
|
Fee Standard |
|
|
|
Valuation |
Valuation |
|
|
Valuation Date |
|
|
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Standard of Value |
|
|
|
Methodology |
|
|
|
Fit |
Book Fit |
How well do the investments they manage fit your strategy and philosophy? Use an agreed-upon rating scale, e.g. 0 - 5, 0 - 10 or 0 - 100. |
|
Client Fit |
How well do their clients fit your desired demographics? Use an agreed-upon rating scale, e.g. 0 - 5, 0 - 10 or 0 - 100. |
|
|
Culture Fit |
How well does their organizational culture fit your own? Use an agreed-upon rating scale, e.g. 0 - 5, 0 - 10 or 0 - 100. |
|
|
Investment Philosophy |
|
|
|
Tech Stack |
CRM |
|
|
Portfolio Manager |
|
|
|
Custodians |
|
|
|
Financial Planning |
Welcome App for New Users
Transitioning to a new system is always challenging, particularly one as powerful as Practifi. Currently, a new user is dropped onto the Home page with no on-screen guidance, making it difficult to understand where to go and what to do. This can lead to issues with engagement and adoption at the outset.
That's why we're introducing the Welcome app, a series of pages that introduce the core concepts of Practifi, accessed using big, clickable tiles and a persistent side menu. These pages focus on product fundamentals such as basic navigation and using the Home page, allowing users to get up and running quickly. Each of these areas is described in summary detail, with links to the Practifi Success knowledge base allowing the user to explore further if they so choose.
This app is the very first thing new users see when they first log in to Practifi, and it remains available to them from the App Launcher as a handy reference guide in the future.
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🛠 Implementation Details
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Other Features and Enhancements
Enhanced Data Model for Portfolio Management
Effectively managing financial assets for clients means having information at your fingertips regarding how well those assets are performing and how your firm bills the client for managing them. This information has historically lived in portfolio management tools at advice firms, but they now have a home in Practifi alongside all the other elements that make up your comprehensive profile of that client.
These fields have been added to maximize compatibility with the native Salesforce integrations provided by Orion and Envestnet Tamarac, as well as integrations we build ourselves. We’ve extended our Addepar integration in this release to similarly take advantage of these fields (see below).
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💡 Considerations
🛠 Implementation Details The following Lightning pages have been modified by this enhancement:
🔧 If your firm has customized the above pages, an administrator will need to either copy the changes into your customized version or switch to the Practifi version and redo the changes. |
New Fields
Please note the following about the tables below:
- Field names in italics are editable fields; all other fields are read-only.
- Field names in bold are roll-up summaries and are calculated automatically.
- Orion and Tamarac compatibility is noted where relevant (both apps sync with Asset/Liability and Entity, but not Service). Where fields are compatible, use the declarative mapping tools found in those apps to add these new fields to the sync.
Asset/Liability
|
Name |
Field Type |
Help text |
Orion |
Tamarac |
|
Custodian Name |
Text (255) |
|
|
|
|
AUM Valuation Method |
Picklist (Period End Value, Avg Daily Balance) |
How is the AUM value of this asset factored into its fee calculations? |
|
 |
|
Billing Frequency |
Picklist (Monthly, Quarterly, Semi-Annually, Annually) |
|
|
|
|
Billing Start Date |
Date |
|
|
|
|
Fee Schedule Description |
Text (255) |
How are the fees for this asset calculated? |
|
|
|
Contributions Last Year (Rolling) |
Currency (12,2) |
The amount paid into the asset in the last 365 or 366 days. May include receipts of securities, depending on the portfolio management tool used. |
|
|
|
Exclude from Billing |
Checkbox |
If checked, then the asset is not factored into billing calculations for this client. |
|
|
|
Performance Last 12 Months |
Percent (7,2) |
Time-weighted return, or compound rate of growth, for the asset in the twelve calendar months that precede the current one. |
|
|
|
Performance Last 36 Months |
Percent (7,2) |
Time-weighted return, or compound rate of growth, for the asset in the thirty-six calendar months that precede the current one. |
|
|
|
Performance MTD |
Percent (7,2) |
Time-weighted return, or compound rate of growth, for the asset so far this month. |
|
|
|
Performance QTD |
Percent (7,2) |
Time-weighted return, or compound rate of growth, for the asset so far this quarter. |
|
|
|
Performance YTD |
Percent (7,2) |
Time-weighted return, or compound rate of growth, for the asset so far this year. |
|
|
|
Realized Gain YTD |
Currency (12,2) |
Profit from selling shares so far this year. |
|
|
|
Realized Gain Last Year |
Currency (12,2) |
Profit from selling shares in the previous calendar year. |
|
|
|
Revenue Last Year (Rolling) |
Currency (12,2) |
The total amount of fees received for managing this asset in the previous 365 or 366 days. |
|
|
|
Total Return Last 12 Months |
Currency (12,2) |
Total gain or loss - including capital appreciation and income, net of fees, and expenses - incurred in the twelve calendar months that precede the current one. |
|
|
|
Total Return Last 36 Months |
Currency (12,2) |
Total gain or loss - including capital appreciation and income, net of fees, and expenses - incurred in the thirty-six calendar months that precede the current one. |
|
|
|
Total Return MTD |
Currency (12,2) |
Total gain or loss - including capital appreciation and income, net of fees, and expenses - incurred so far this month. |
|
|
|
Total Return QTD |
Currency (12,2) |
Total gain or loss - including capital appreciation and income, net of fees, and expenses - incurred so far this quarter. |
|
|
|
Total Return YTD |
Currency (12,2) |
Total gain or loss - including capital appreciation and income, net of fees, and expenses - incurred so far this year. |
|
|
|
Unrealized Gain |
Currency (12,2) |
Gains or losses not yet traded in for cash. |
|
|
|
Withdrawals YTD |
Currency (12,2) |
The total value of cash withdrawals made so far this year. Used to calculate whether eligible assets have met their Required Minimum Distribution for the year (if enabled). |
|
|
Entity
|
Name |
Field Type |
Help text |
Orion |
|
Performance Last 12 Months |
Percent (7,2) |
Time-weighted return, or compound rate of growth, for this client’s assets in the twelve calendar months that precede the current one. |
|
|
Performance Last 36 Months |
Percent (7,2) |
Time-weighted return, or compound rate of growth, for this client’s assets in the thirty-six calendar months that precede the current one. |
|
|
Performance MTD |
Percent (7,2) |
Time-weighted return, or compound rate of growth, for this client’s assets so far this month. |
|
|
Performance QTD |
Percent (7,2) |
Time-weighted return, or compound rate of growth, for this client’s assets so far this quarter. |
|
|
Performance YTD |
Percent (7,2) |
Time-weighted return, or compound rate of growth, for this client’s assets so far this year. |
|
|
Realized Gain YTD |
Currency (12,2) |
Profit from selling shares so far this year. |
|
|
Realized Gain Last Year |
Currency (12,2) |
Profit from selling shares in the previous calendar year. |
|
|
Revenue Last Year (Rolling) |
Currency (12,2) |
The total amount of fees received for managing this client’s assets in the previous 365 or 366 days. |
|
|
Total Return Last 12 Months |
Currency (12,2) |
Total gain or loss - including capital appreciation and income, net of fees, and expenses - incurred in the twelve calendar months that precede the current one. |
|
|
Total Return Last 36 Months |
Currency (12,2) |
Total gain or loss - including capital appreciation and income, net of fees, and expenses - incurred in the thirty-six calendar months that precede the current one. |
|
|
Total Return MTD |
Currency (12,2) |
Total gain or loss - including capital appreciation and income, net of fees, and expenses - incurred so far this month. |
|
|
Total Return QTD |
Currency (12,2) |
Total gain or loss - including capital appreciation and income, net of fees, and expenses - incurred so far this quarter. |
|
|
Total Return YTD |
Currency (12,2) |
Total gain or loss - including capital appreciation and income, net of fees, and expenses - incurred so far this year. |
|
|
Unrealized Gain |
Currency (12,2) |
Gains or losses not yet traded in for cash. |
|
Service
|
Name |
Field Type |
Help text |
|
Realized Gain YTD |
Currency (12,2) |
Profit from selling shares so far this year. |
|
Realized Gain Last Year |
Currency (12,2) |
Profit from selling shares in the previous calendar year. |
|
Revenue Last Year (Rolling) |
Currency (12,2) |
The total amount of fees received for managing this service’s assets in the previous 365 or 366 days. |
|
Total Return Last 12 Months |
Currency (12,2) |
Total gain or loss - including capital appreciation and income, net of fees, and expenses - incurred in the twelve calendar months that precede the current one. |
|
Total Return Last 36 Months |
Currency (12,2) |
Total gain or loss - including capital appreciation and income, net of fees, and expenses - incurred in the thirty-six calendar months that precede the current one. |
|
Total Return MTD |
Currency (12,2) |
Total gain or loss - including capital appreciation and income, net of fees, and expenses - incurred so far this month. |
|
Total Return QTD |
Currency (12,2) |
Total gain or loss - including capital appreciation and income, net of fees, and expenses - incurred so far this quarter. |
|
Total Return YTD |
Currency (12,2) |
Total gain or loss - including capital appreciation and income, net of fees, and expenses - incurred so far this year. |
|
Unrealized Gain |
Currency (12,2) |
Gains or losses not yet traded in for cash. |
Expanded Sync with Addepar
The fields in our enhanced data model for portfolio management (see above) have been included in our sync with Addepar where the two systems overlap.
New Asset/Liability Sync Fields
Where relevant, time periods used in Addepar are included.
|
Addepar |
Practifi |
|
Account Number |
Account Number |
|
Billing Fees (Relative Time Period - 1 Week) This returns the average daily billing fee over the past week. |
Annual Revenue |
|
Total Contributions (Trailing Time Period - 1 Year) End date of the current time period is set to today’s date. |
Contributions Last Year (Rolling) |
|
TWR (Custom Time Period)
|
Performance Last 12 Months |
|
TWR (Custom Time Period)
|
Performance Last 36 Months |
|
TWR (Relative Time Period: 0 Months) |
Performance MTD |
|
TWR (Relative Time Period: 0 Quarters) |
Performance QTD |
|
TWR (Relative Time Period: 0 Years) |
Performance YTD |
|
Realized Gain (Relative Time Period: 0 Years) |
Realized Gain YTD |
|
Realized Gain (Relative Time Period: 1 Year) |
Realized Gain Last Year |
|
Billing Fees (Trailing Time Period - 1 Year)
|
Revenue Last Year (Rolling) |
|
Total Return (Custom Time Period)
|
Total Return Last 12 Months |
|
Total Return (Custom Time Period)
|
Total Return Last 36 Months |
|
Total Return (Relative Time Period: 0 Months) |
Total Return MTD |
|
Total Return (Relative Time Period: 0 Quarters) |
Total Return QTD |
|
Total Return (Relative Time Period: 0 Years) |
Total Return YTD |
|
Unrealized Gain |
Unrealized Gain |
Improved Constant Contact Integration
We've made the following enhancements to our integration with Constant Contact:
- The Add/Remove from Constant Contact List action has been expanded to support all Key Entities, including prospects, influencers and any undefined households, organizations or individuals.
- If a Key Entity is marked as a Lost Prospect or Lost Client, or if their record is deleted from Practifi, then their corresponding entries in Constant Contact lists are removed automatically.
Hands-free Upgrade Experience
Upgrading to the latest version of Practifi just got a whole lot easier. The installation process now occurs entirely behind the scenes with no administrator intervention necessary. Administrators still have full visibility into the process; they can view the results of the upgrade from the Releases page in the Settings app.
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🛠 Implementation details The hands-free upgrade experience works as follows:
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New Sharing Scope Fields
Our Sharing Scope feature has made it easier to define 📚 record sharing rules by providing a field to reference in the sharing criteria that always contains the same value across Key Entities and their related records like Assets, Tasks and Services. In this release, we’ve expanded the number of available Sharing Scope fields from one to five, making it possible to support even more complex sharing scenarios.
For example, in a firm with multiple divisions where team members in each division can only see their division’s clients, you can grant a team member from Division A access to one advisor’s clients in Division B without exposing everything else in Division B at the same time.
If you need assistance taking advantage of Sharing Scope and defining record sharing rules for your firm, contact your Client Success Manager.
Resolved Issues
The Albariño release includes resolutions for the following issues:
- Filtering the Birthdays in the next 30 days Home page tile table by Created Date triggers an error message.
- The Topics filter in record lists displays a limited number of available topics. In this release, that limit has been increased to 2,000, the maximum amount allowed on the Salesforce platform.
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