AMA: I'm Matthew Townsend, Xplan tasks expert and product manager at Iress, Ask Me Anything!

Got a burning question? Join me here on Wednesday 10th July from 2pm to 2:30pm.

With years of experience helping advisers, paraplanners and licensees streamline their task management on Xplan, I’m here to help.

Start popping in your questions below and Ask Me Anything!

Update: This AMA has now ended but please continue to pop your questions in the discussion forums.

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rainier.reyes

Welcome everyone to an Advisely Ask Me Anything (AMA) thread!

Here's how to get involved:

Submit Your Questions: Just type them out and post now ahead of the AMA! This is a text-based event, so no audio or video is needed. Whatever Xplan Task Hub questions you have, Matthew will be here to answer during the scheduled time.
Be Respectful: Keep it friendly and professional. Respectful dialogue makes the AMA enjoyable and informative for everyone.
Stay Engaged: Feel free to follow up or ask about different topics as the thread goes on. The more you interact, the richer the conversation.
Enjoy the Experience: Use this opportunity to gain insights, share laughs, and connect. Let’s make this AMA one to remember!

Looking forward to all your amazing questions and let the asking begin!

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mat.tenison3

Hi Matthew, I paid someone a couple of years ago to create our current threads in xplan. They're great as they automatically open up emails and file notes at specific times of the thread. If I want to make changes to these, where would I go and do you feel this is something most people could set up on without IT or xplan guru support? How would someone get started setting these up from scratch as can make a real difference to a business!

timothy.lehnis

Hi Matthew,

When an email is sent when completing a task (task outcome). Is it possible to have the email template open (to allow it to be edited) rather than send immediately?
Under 'Classic tasks' I'm able to search by 'Case / Thread Template' which I find very useful. How can I do this using the new 'Tasks' hub.

sarahb

Hi Matthew,

I somehow received an email re complete Review Automation from the South African Iress site. They sent through a review process for their users. I would want to use this - is there a reason why this sort of templating is not available to us here

carolyn.pretorius

We don't have any tasks/threads set up on our site, is there a "best practice standard" guide to set up from scratch? Or are we best to have an xPlan consulting company come in and review our site to see what we need?

jgorniak

Hello Matthew,

Some workflow software tools generate a visualisation of a workflow/thread; to make it easier to understand, or to allow for intuitive editing (e.g.: drag the box in the flow chart, instead of editing a long list of conditionally linked tasks). Could we ever see a feature like this in Xplan Tasks?

jaclyn.bazin4

Hello Matt,

Would appreciate your guidance on the situation where a practice may have previously used threads and no longer use them. However there are a number of incomplete tasks that are part of that thread. They wish to tidy up their database and start with new workflows. How do you best recommend they remove those threads without manually removing them one by one? The only option I can find is to abort the tasks (as they cant be deleted when part of a thread) however the thread still sits there in the current list.

If not possible to do as a bulk action, is this something that is on the roadmap?

Thanks

Legacy Contributor

Hey @mat.tenison3,

Thanks for kicking us off with a great first question and I couldn't agree more with you when you say they can make a real difference to a business.

You can find all your workflow (Threads/Cases) templates by searching for
'Threads' in the navigation - it will be the first result that appears under Global - or by navigating to: Admin > Site > Templates > Tasks & Thread template > Threads
I'm not going to say there's not a learning curve because there is, but we see practices big and small creating and updating their own workflows without the need to hire others so its definitely achievable, deciding factor might be whether you have the time or not. Editing existing workflows can be a simple way to start.
Keep in mind yYou can also export your templates (use the action menu dropdown next to each template) so you have a back up and removes some of the risk.
If you want to start from scratch my main tip would be to pick a simpler workflow or process, build that out, get your automations and then tackle some of the more complex ones.

If you want to learn more there's a number of webinars and courses on the Iress Learning Centre that can help. This one can be a good starting place: https://learningcentre.iress.com/course/view.php?id=636

Legacy Contributor

Hey @timothy.lehnis

This is a great use of the automation and to answer your question - yes you can. when setting up the outcome and selecting to send email or sms from a template you have an option labelled 'prompt to edit', if you set this to yes, you will get the email loaded up in the Xplan email editor and can review/update before sending (managed to include a pic below).
Unfortunately that filter is not there yet. Tasks has a number of filters and we started by introducing the most used and requested one but we are getting more feedback for this filter and are looking to see when we might be able to bring this one over into the new experience.

mat.tenison3

Nice one! Thanks for the help!

Legacy Contributor

Good afternoon @sarah.burke38,

That's interesting, i'll need to look into what was sent over but that's really helpful feedback to know you liked the content and would like to see more of these kind of resources.

In terms of why we don't have that or move of that for here, sounds like this might be something we need to look into but in the meantime please keep letting us know what resources help and you want to see more of as this certainly guides us.

sarahb

Yes thanks it looked good and something we were immediately going to use rather than reinventing the wheel. I have the email I just can't attach it here for some reason

Legacy Contributor

Awesome idea and question @jeremy.gorniak

In the workflow research we heard a number of clients interested in something like this or we heard of friction points that could perhaps be solved by visualising the workflow. In my view there's 2 elements to it as you kind of alluded to:

Visualising the workflow: so you can quickly see and understand the flow of the process, where you are at, what comes next etc. We would be aiming to include something like this when we look at moderning the workflow layers in Xplan. It then could be incorporated back into Tasks so you can find out where you are at and see that whole process right when you need it.
Building workflow: Possibly, this one we see coming later and we also think there's a number of ways you could go about solving this - a kind of drag and drop flowchart may be one way, but there could be others which we'd need to explore but still a ways away at this stage.

So in short, yes something like this is part of our future thinking for workflows at least in terms of helping view and follow them

Legacy Contributor

Hi @carolyn.pretorius

Good question and as I'm sure there's other clients who could be in the same boat. There are a number of resources on the Iress Learning centre that can help get you started with a view to understanding and building your own - they aren't all labelled best practice though - As an example, this one for an ongoing review process i've heard before was helpful: https://learningcentre.iress.com/course/view.php?id=348

Probably one of the best all round workflow overviews I have seen was from @jessica.lamb and you can find the session she did on this over on youtube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kih1A7rYMQ

There's a lot of providers out there that could help review your workflow and set you up, let me see if I can track down a list of partners Iress recommends. Alternatively, I wonder if the Advisely members might have some suggestions for Carolyn?

carolyn.pretorius

Thanks Matthew, I will look up both of those, finding time is my main issue but keen to get it underway.

I have heard of Enzumo & Umlaut Solutions - just considering if that would be easier or just as complicated. Keen to hear if anyone else might have outsourced this portion to start with.

Legacy Contributor

Hi @jaclyn.bazin4,

Sorry we didn't get to this one in the AMA and my delay in replying. Unfortunately as you have suspected there aren't any bulk actions in this area that would suit this one. The only options for the user would be to either:

Manually remove the threads - if you don't want to retain any of the thread or task data. OR
Manually abort the threads - this will retain the data but you will also need to bulk abort the tasks afterwards.

You've definitely highlighted a good use case here for that functionality, it's something we've recorded down but it's not on the roadmap at this time.

Thank you,

Matthew

timothy.lehnis

Hi Matthew,

I would like to set an Activating Condition for a task in a thread that activates 1 month before the Review date (Service > Reviews).

What would be the best way to do this?

sarahb

Hi Matthew,

Our business uses Revex rather than Commpay, is there any way of getting a datafeed for Revex? we don't want o have to manually import data every month. Do you know who I need to speak to?

Thanks

Sarah

Legacy Contributor

Hi @sarah.burke38, thanks for your question.

This one is outside my Labs and Tasks wheelhouse, but I've checked in with the teams involved in that space and this isn't something being explored with Revex at this time and you would need to speak to them about integrations as a starting point.

Kind regards,

Matthew

sarahb

ok thank you Matthew

sarahb

Hi,

Can someone share standard xport reports? i.e. we want SMSF list with the ages of members i.e specific 67 years and above. When I filter the excel output if I filter on age it removes the SMSF name. We want to save this report and run it on an adhoc basis and I don't want to have to filter each time. What is the best way to do this and can you share screenshots? There would be a number of standard reports firms use that would save us time rather than creating this ourselves separately each time.

Thank you

rainier.reyes

Thanks for your question @sarah.burke38 !

I worry your post might not be easily visible to the rest of the community as this is an old AMA thread. Would you mind posting it again as a new thread here?

All you need to press is 'Start a Discussion' at the top of the page. Let me know if you need assistance!

Asini.Pathirage69456

Hi Matthew,

Can I know how to fully activate datafeeds for OneVue and Netwealth please.

rainier.reyes

Thanks for your question @Asini.Pathirage69456 !

I worry your post might not be easily visible to the rest of the community as this is an old AMA thread. Would you mind posting it again as a new thread here?

All you need to press is 'Start a Discussion' at the top of the page. Let me know if you need assistance!