Overview
The following article covers what's new in our Pinot Blanc release (beginning in July 2024) to provide a detailed understanding of what's changing, how new features work, how to enable them and any additional factors your team should consider. If you're new to Practifi or our release documentation, please review our best practices for 📚 Using Practifi Release Notes.
With Pinot Blanc, we're adapting Deliverables, Deals and Services to accommodate a wider range of use cases.
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Release Highlights
- Resolved Issues
- Change Log
Release Highlights
Deliverable Enhancements
Activation Rules for Deliverables
Because not all clients need the same level of service, your firm might want to tailor Deliverables to fit different client types. Practifi already allows users to create ad-hoc Deliverables on a client's Service record, but this process is manual. With this release, we're introducing the ability to activate Deliverables automatically when specific criteria are met. 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
Practifi Administrators can create one or more rules using the new Activation Rules tab on Deliverable Type records. The system checks these rules daily. Any existing Deliverables for which the activation rules are true will have their status set to Active. If a Deliverable does not meet the criteria, its status is Inactive.
To learn more about activation rules and other Deliverable settings being introduced with this release, please see our Creating and Managing Deliverables article.
Automatic Completion of Services Based on Deliverables
While many of your firm's services are recurring, this isn't always true. Estate planning, for example, can be a one-off exercise comprised of a group of discrete tasks. Once the tasks are done, so is the service. To bring this behavior to Practifi, we’re leveraging Deliverables to track those tasks. It's now possible to automatically complete a Service when all its underlying Deliverables are completed or canceled. This feature can be used in conjunction with the ability to Complete, Cancel and Reactivate Deliverables and Automatically Complete Deliverables Based on Number of Fulfillments.
We've added a new Complete automatically with Deliverables setting on Service Type records. When this box is checked, the Service's stage will be updated to Completed when all its related Deliverables have a status of Completed or Canceled.
Complete, Cancel and Reactivate Deliverables
There are cases where a Deliverable has served its purpose and is no longer needed, or perhaps you want to discontinue it in favor of a new one. In these instances, your firm might prefer to update a Deliverable's status for reporting purposes rather than simply deleting it. We've added two new actions on Deliverable records and list views: Complete Deliverable and Cancel Deliverable.
The difference between these two actions is the status applied to the Deliverable. As you might expect, completing a Deliverable gives it a status of Completed, while canceling it changes the status to Canceled. When a Deliverable’s status is set to Completed or Canceled, the following things happen:
- The Deliverable no longer appears in the sidebar on Task and Event records.
- The Next Due Date field’s current value is deleted and stops recalculating.
- Fulfillment activities are not created.
A new Reactivate action is now available for completed or canceled Deliverables. It allows users to change a Deliverable's status back to Active. When a Deliverable is reactivated:
- It starts appearing again in the sidebar assistant on Tasks and Events.
- The Next Due Date field is recalculated based on the current date (today's date).
- Once the due date is recalculated, fulfillment activities will be created again.
These actions appear on the Deliverable record page and as row and mass actions in the Deliverable list views. You can include the Status field from Deliverable records when reporting on fulfillment.
Automatically Complete Deliverables Based on Number of Fulfillments
Along with the ability to manually complete Deliverables, we're also introducing automation around Deliverable completion. We've added an optional setting called Complete after X fulfillments to Deliverable Type records. When enabled, it allows Practifi Administrators to specify how many times a Deliverable should be fulfilled before it’s considered complete.
This is intended for Deliverables that are limited engagements rather than ongoing. For example, a quarterly review Deliverable specifically given to clients during their first year with the firm must only be fulfilled four times. Once that Deliverable has accrued four statuses of Fulfilled on Time or Fulfilled Late, the Deliverable's status is changed to Completed. This setting can be used with the new Complete Service with Deliverables setting to automate Deliverable and Service completion.
Handling Deliverables on Canceled Tasks
If your firm uses fulfillment activities for Deliverables, the Tasks created by the feature automatically display the Deliverable they're fulfilling in the Marked for Fulfillment section of the side panel. Previously, no automation was applied to Deliverables marked for fulfillment when the associated Task was canceled.
As of this release, when a user cancels a Task, the system deletes the fulfillment record for any associated Deliverables, which are moved from the Marked for Fulfillment section to the Available for Fulfillment section.
Please note: Tasks with a status of Canceled will display Deliverables in the Available for Fulfillment section, but plus icons will not appear next to them because canceled Tasks cannot be used to fulfill Deliverables. However, Deliverables previously marked for fulfillment by a Task that is then canceled can be fulfilled by other open Tasks.
Deals and Services Enhancements
New Options for Service Creation
The services your firm offers don't always follow a conventional sales cycle. For example, a client might ask your firm to invest the proceeds from a home sale. In this instance, they're already interested in the service, and creating and closing a Deal is unnecessary. To address this, we're introducing more flexibility around initiating Services in Practifi. We've added a new Available in field to Service Type records. This field controls where users can kick off Services. The options are as follows:
- New Deal action
- New Service action
- New Deal and New Service actions
The Available in setting allows you to tailor workflows to the specific needs of each Service Type, enhancing efficiency and usability. For example, you might make a Service Type available only in the New Service action if the service does not require a Deal to be tracked. If you want to let users decide how they want to start the Service, you can make it available in both the New Deal and New Service actions.
When Service Types are made available in the New Service action, users can create Services directly from the Services & Pipeline section of a Client record without creating a Deal.
Depending on how it's configured, the Available in setting on Service Type records can impact how users progress through the Promote to Prospect and Promote to Client workflows. For more information on this and other Service-related features coming with this release, please see our article on Creating and Managing Service Types.
Create Multiple Services for a Client
Let's say your firm wants to create Services to track the annual preparation of client tax returns. In this case, you'd want a separate tax preparation Service to be initiated and completed each year. Previously, users didn't have the option to create more than one Services of the same type rather than merging them together. We're giving Practifi Administrators the ability to determine what should happen when a Deal is won.
The new When a Deal is won setting on Service Type records determines what happens when a Deal related to the Service Type is marked as Closed Won. Admins can choose from the following options:
- Add to existing Service (if available)
- Create a new Service
- Let the user decide
The When a Deal is won setting impacts the behavior of the Promote to Prospect and Mark as Closed Won workflows. When it's configured to let the user decide, they will be prompted to choose whether to create a new Service or add to an existing Service (if available) when closing a Deal.
Custom Stages for Deals and Services
When looking at your firm's different services, the path from identifying a prospect to completing the work can vary greatly. Previously, only one set of stages was available for Deals and Services in Practifi, making it impossible to include variations in lifecycle management. We're addressing this limitation by introducing the option to create custom stages on the Deal and Service objects as well as Record Types that can then be associated with the Service Type record.
If you're considering enabling this feature, please click below to view important information.
Custom Stage Considerations
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For detailed instructions on enabling this feature, please see our Creating Custom Stages for Deals and Services article.
New Service Types Page in Settings
Practifi Administrators can now access Service Type records via a new Service Types page in the Settings app. Previously, Service Types were located on the Categories page. This change makes it easier and more intuitive to find Service Type records in the Settings app.
Please note: Existing Practifi organizations will see both the legacy Categories page as well as the Service Types page in the Settings app.
Streamlined New Deal and Promote to Prospect Workflows
We've updated the New Deal and Promote to Prospect workflows to improve usability. Previously, users had to click through multiple screens to complete these actions. With this release, the New Deal and Promote to Prospect windows will be responsive, updating dynamically based on users' selections. This reduces the number of clicks needed to advance through the workflow.
Flow Builder Enhancement
View Data Captured in Screen Flows
We've added the ability to display the data captured in Flow-based Active Forms on completed Task records. Previously, only Active Forms built using Form Elements allowed you to see what was entered in the form.
When building an Active Form using Flow Builder, a new option called "Completed task record pages" is now included in the Appears in field in the Details & Settings section of the Active Form Flow record.
When an Active Form Flow is configured to appear in completed Task record pages, the values captured during the Flow interview in variables enabled for input/output can be displayed on the Active Form tab of the Task record after it has been marked as complete.
To enable this, Practifi Administrators can edit the Screen Flow in Flow Builder to add a Decision element based on Task status and a Screen element with a Display Text component. Then they can create another instance of the Active Form Flow and configure it to display in completed Task records. For more information on using this setting, please see our article on Understanding and Using Flow Builder.
Resolved Issues
Active Forms
- Highlighting required fields in Active Form Tables: Required fields in Active Form Tables are now highlighted to make them stand out and indicate that users must fill them out to complete the related Task.
- Active Form multi-screen navigation fix: Users could not freely navigate back and forth between screens of a multi-screen form with incomplete required fields.
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Active Form prefill validation error: Pre-filling a lookup field with the ID of a record created by the Task (e.g., a Create a Record action) would fail a validation check.
Please note: You will not be able to see the value being prefilled in the Active Form, as it happens after the Task is completed. - Active Form Screen Flow navigation fix: Users advanced to the next Active Form screen but were immediately returned to the previous screen.
Other Items
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Use logged calls to fulfill Deliverables: We've added the ability to fulfill Deliverables using completed calls. On logged Call records, the side panel will display eligible Deliverables in the Available for Fulfillment section. Users can click the plus icon next to a Deliverable to fulfill it. This is the same fulfillment handling logic used for Events that occurred in the past.
- Days Before Due Date field now required: On Deliverable Type records, the Days Before Due Date field appears when the Auto Create Fulfillment Activities box is checked. Previously, the Days Before Due Date field was not required and if a user left it blank, an error occurred. With this release, we've made the field required to prevent errors.
- Asset Holdings moved to a separate tab: To improve visibility and accessibility, Asset Holdings (e.g., underlying portfolio records) have been separated from the Additional Information tab into a dedicated Holdings tab within Asset records.
- Duplicate custom field fix: A custom field with the same name as a packaged Practifi field caused records to stop displaying on the record table as new records were loaded in via an integration.
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Process Tasks completed without actions firing: Some Process Tasks were completed without firing the related actions. In the rare case this occurred, the failure would ordinarily be caught by the system and rerun, or admins would be notified to retry manually. Further investigation found that this issue may have stemmed from the backend use of Platform Events to trigger Task actions. Notifications were being sent to an automated user, making manual retries impossible.
We've now extended the notification system to use the Notification bell to alert users when Task actions have failed and require manual intervention. In addition, we introduced a new custom setting to allow admins to change the Task action trigger from using Platform Events to a queueable job. Users can verify the firing of Task actions by checking Apex jobs, where a queueable job will be visible after completing the Task.
With these changes, we aim to enhance the reliability of Task action execution and ensure timely notifications for manual intervention when necessary. - Large dataset in filter fix: Trying to load a page with 100+ unique filter options (such as Topics) could cause the page to either load slowly or crash altogether. Additionally, resetting filters would reload the page but not clear filters.
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Streamlined relationship creation for Contacts and Entities: As part of the Montepulciano release in April 2024, we extended the range of relationships you can use to link Contact records to other Contacts or Entities, ensuring you can enter details from either direction of the relationship.
We've now refined the Entity search when creating or editing a relationship to only return records relevant to the Entity type. For example, only matching records for Contacts will be displayed when relating to a Contact. This also applies to Individual, Household and Organization records, respectively.
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Rulebook fix for ContactPointAddress object: Users encountered an error when creating Rulebook rules based on the ActiveToDate field on the ContactPointAddress object. We've made the ContactPointAddress object compatible with the Rulebook, allowing users to create rules using fields from the ContactPointAddress, ContactPointPhone and ContactPointEmail objects without error.
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Translation Workbench fix for Actions menu: Practifi uses the native Salesforce Translation Workbench to display region-specific spellings of certain words. This ensures that UI labels are spelled as expected across US and Australian Practifi organizations.
The Actions menu on Entity records did not display all options correctly when the Australian translation was enabled. We've resolved this issue so that the spelling of Actions menu items respects the Translation Workbench settings. - Enhanced Key Details component for custom data field ordering: When adding custom fields to the Key Details component, the corresponding UI display did not respect the defined field order, leading to random display order. This update now enables users to organize fields as needed.
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New setting to hide Active Form field labels: As part of the Montepulciano release in April 2024, we introduced a feature allowing multiple Active Form fields to be mapped to a single Long Text Area field on a Process, including each field name with its value. We have received feedback that these field labels can disrupt the appearance of fields in subsequent steps and affect automatic flows.
To address this, we have introduced a new custom setting, Hide Active Form Field Labels in Mapping, located in Custom Settings under Practifi Settings. When this setting is enabled, only the values of Active Form fields will be mapped, excluding the field labels. This setting is unchecked by default, maintaining the previous behavior.
- Improved consistency for Tasks, Checklists, Active Forms and Deliverables: To simplify and standardize task execution, we have made the following actions available by default to all users (provided they have the necessary permissions): completing Process Tasks, checking off Checklist items, filling Active Forms and fulfilling Deliverables. This provides a more consistent approach.
Change Log
Several product areas have been altered to implement the features and enhancements in this release. The table below consolidates these updates, making it easier to understand the release’s changes as a whole.
🔧 Implementation Details The below product areas have changed as a part of delivering these enhancements. If you’ve customized them, you won’t receive the changes automatically. A copy of the updated item will be made available in your Practifi instance. You can either replicate the changes or switch to the updated item and replicate your customizations. |
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Product Area | Feature/Enhancement | What's Changed? |
Client record page | Overview - Active Services |
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Services & Pipeline |
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Services & Pipeline > Deals list view |
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Services & Pipeline > Services list view |
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Custom Settings - Practifi Settings | Custom Settings for Biz Dev Deal Record Type Name and Member Deal Record Type Name |
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Setting to Hide Active Form Field Labels in Mapping |
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Custom Settings - Practifi Trigger Settings | Custom Setting for Skip Serv. Type in Promote to Prospect |
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Deal object | Fieldset - Practifi - New Deal action |
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Deals list views | Mark as Closed Won - mass action modal update |
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Removal of the Mark as Closed Won action button from data tables related to closed Deals |
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Updates to data tables |
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Change Stage action |
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Mass Edit action |
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Deliverable Fulfillment object | Help text |
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Deliverable record page |
Days Before Due Date Field Now Required |
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Automatically Complete Deliverables Based on Number of Fulfillments |
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Activation Rules for Deliverables |
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Complete, Cancel and Reactivate Deliverables |
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Backend field to store activation rule |
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Deliverable Type record page | Days Before Due Date Field Now Required |
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Automatically Complete Deliverables Based on Number of Fulfillments |
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Activation Rules for Deliverables |
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Backend field to store activation rule |
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Deliverables list views | Complete, Cancel and Reactivate Deliverables |
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Column and Filter upgrades |
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Mass Edit action |
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Lookup Rollup Summaries | Config updates for Lookup Rollup Summaries related to practifi__Stage__c |
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Mark as Closed Won action on Entity record page | Contextual footer button |
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Implementation of Reactive Screen Components |
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New Deal action on Prospect record page | New Deal button |
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Implementation of Reactive Screen Components |
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Contextual footer button |
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Process Task record page | Improved Consistency for Tasks, Checkboxes, Active Forms and Deliverables |
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Promote to Client action on Entity record page | Contextual footer button |
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Implementation of Reactive Components |
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Promote to Prospect action on Entity record page | Contextual footer button |
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Implementation of Reactive Screen Components |
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Prospect record page | Overview - Pipeline |
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Pipeline - Deals list view |
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Potential Service field |
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Service object | Fieldset - Practifi - New Service Action |
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Service record page | New Deliverable action |
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Service Type record page | Category (Service Type) Record page improvements |
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Service Types app page | Settings app page for Service Types |
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Available Service Types list view |
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Services list views | Updates to data tables |
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Change Stage action |
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Mass Edit action |
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Task record page
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Deliverable Fulfillment on Logged Call Activities |
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Handling Deliverables on Canceled Tasks |
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