AMA: I'm Rob Borthwick, Head of Product - Datafeeds at Iress, Ask Me Anything!

Do you have a burning question about Datafeeds in Xplan? Join me here on Thursday 12th September from 2pm to 2:30pm.

With over 25 years of experience developing financial planning software and, in particular, datafeeds, 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 and make sure you tag me at @rob.borthwick

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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 Datafeeds or IressNet questions you have, Rob 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!

luke

Hi Rob, can you explain the difficulty in getting accurate data feed for insurance providers that include the features of the covers etc? Our licensee recommends we switch data feeds off for insurance as there are issues with this. Obviously this isn’t ideal and I would love to use the feeds, particular when merging the data into documents. Cheers, Luke

tina.ching

Hi Rob,

We are new to datafeeds and we are trying to get everything set up so we can start using the reports and rely on the data. There are a few questions that we have:

We currently have over 15,000 items in our reconciliation summary report. Many of these items are false negatives and can be set to "Do not report". Is there an easy way to do this in bulk?
There are some securities that are unlisted and the pricing is not coming through in the datafeed. We need to manually update the unit pricing in XPLAN. How can this be done?
Similarly, there are some unlisted securities that we need to add to XPLAN and update pricing. Are there instructions on how this can be done? We've tried searching the online help, and can't find any material.

Thanks for your help.

TIna

carolyn.pretorius

We have 3 questions:

We are finding that that cover information coming through on the datafeeds seems to be duplicating or containing incorrect amounts (such as 2 lines on the same cover for 2 different amounts, which don't add up to the correct total cover amount the client has). This means the client total cover amount and the individual cover line amounts are incorrect. When you check the insurer portal the information is correct so how is it coming through incorrectly on the datafeed?
Some insurers contain information that can't be mapped - clients are coming through as both clients and companies (e.g. Mr C & Mrs J Weber come through as a company (this is the addresses field on a letter not an actual entity, but also as Carl Weber, and Jess Weber come through as individuals) thus causing hundreds of Do Not Map or duplicates for the company record. Is there a way to stop these Company entities company coming in? If we turn on this datafeed we are going to have thousands of entity records to go through and mark as Do Not Map.
We have only 4 insurers with datafeeds and 6 who don't have datafeeds, is there a timeline to have the other insurers provide datafeeds?

raman.singh

We have raised issue with IRESS about the Datafeeds not working also have asked the insurers if they have been sending the data feeds. The conclussion we came to is that Insurers have been sending the datafeeds and IRESS has been doing the datafeeds but somehow we cannot see the data at our end.

When we raise the ticket with IRESS we are told to check with the Insurer and the insurer sends us to IRESS, but there is no resolution till date.

Can you please advise what could be the issue here?

luke

In addition to this we use CDM solutions to compile all of our insurance data (great platform, but not ideal as I dont want to be paying additional subscription fees). They have been trying to work with Xplan for several months now to feed this data into Xplan and are getting very little help from the Xplan end. Could you please look into this.

primrose.foster

@Asini.Pathirage69456 we have this discussion specifically on data feeds, if you have any additional thoughts or questions?

deborah

Hi @rob.borthwick thank you for creating this discussion, data feeds have been a source of pain for us for a long time, we often get told it is the product provider ie platform that is the issues, they will say it is iress can you explain why data feeds are such an issue maybe understanding may assist. We do need to fix our data quite a lot

jaclyn.bazin4

Hi Rob,

My query relates to Client Focus data feeds for insurance and super funds (who provide Client Focus data).

When you manually enter data into Xplan for a plan/cover that has been imported through a datafeed, the feed generally overrides the manual entries. Providers often don’t supply all the necessary data, requiring advisers to manually input missing information.

While datafeeds improve efficiency, the issue of manual data being overridden leads many advisers to avoid using them for the Client Focus feeds.

Do you have any suggestions to prevent this so that advisers can utilise datafeeds without losing manually entered data?

I am aware IPS datafeeds have a date lock functionality, is there such an option I may have overlooked that is available for the Client Focus datafeeds at a client level?

Thanks

Jackie

jaclyn.bazin4

Hi Rob,

With regard to datafeeds that require an EPI log in and password that expire every 12 months, do you have any suggestions in XPLAN that can automatically send out the adviser a reminder that their code is about to expire?

The only options I can think of is either diary or tasks, but both these are additional steps for the advisers to add or create the task/event.

Ideally, we would like to use scheduler as this would be the most efficient way as we would only need to set it up once for all advisers, however I cannot find an option to search for adviser mappings that are expiring.

Thanks
Jackie

annabelle.peters

Hi Rob,

We have regularly been finding ourselves having problems with our data feeds. We often see asset units out, cash account balances incorrect and data feeds just are not refreshing for weeks. To fix these, we are needing to remap portfolios, delete additional transactions (that did not occur at all on the platform), or finding other work arounds to continue with our workflow.

Is there a solution to ensure that data feeds are a reliable source of information? Recently we have had consistent issues with Expand and Netwealth data feeds.

Annabelle

rainier.reyes

Hi everyone and welcome to today's AMA!

Please ensure you read the instructions above before you post.

In order to see new questions and responses, make sure you refresh the page regularly.

Let me know if you need any assistance!

rob.borthwick

Hi @luke.watson3

The data that Iress receives for Insurance datafeeds comes directly from the Insurance Provider. To be able to provide an accurate response, I would need more detail on the specific issue that you are encountering.

I would be more than happy to discuss this with you further.

rob.borthwick

Hi @tina.ching

Thanks for your questions.

I am not a fan of the term ‘False Negatives’ as all reconciliation errors are raised for a reason. Please note that the reconciliation report will show every holding that is held within a Datafeed account, whether supplied via the datafeed or manually entered. You can then use the filter ‘Quantity Reconciled = false’ to show holdings that do not reconcile based on units.

Regarding questions 2 & 3 – You can enter pricing via the Portfolio Products module. You will need to have appropriate capabilities ‘Edit Portfolio Products’, ‘Add/Maintain Private Products’ & ‘Create/Edit Product Details’

rob.borthwick

Hi @jaclyn.bazin4,

Great question

If the data provider informs Iress of the expiry date as part of the datafeed (the majority do if their datafeed has an expiry), Xplan will provide a notification one month out from expiry via User Notifications.

Ensure that all Advisers have Notifications turned on for datafeeds. refer to Iress Community to find out how.

https://community.iress.com/t5/Help-Guide-IressNet-and/Configuring-User-Notifications-for-Datafeeds/ta-p/41805

rob.borthwick

Hi @carolyn.pretorius

Thanks for your questions.

1 – Without knowing the specifics of your situation I am going to assume that you had a conversion done that brought through the Insurance Policies initially. It has been identified that there was an issue with the Conversion process that resulted in causing the datafeeds to duplicate cover details. Please contact Iress support to assist with this.

2 – I would need an example to be able to look into this further.

3 – There are currently about 20 datafeeds that supply Insurance data. Iress continues to work with Insurers to get more datafeeds. We currently have projects underway with Neos to get datafeeds for MLC Life & NobleOak which will be available prior to end of year. We are also in early stages of discussions with Metlife. Which other Insurers are you after?

rob.borthwick

Hi @deborah.kent

Thanks for the questions.

Without knowing the specifics of your items, I am only able to provide a general comment.
Datafeeds can be likened to putting a sqaure peg into a round hole at time. Platforms store data in their systems in one way (each platform different to the other), and this needs to be converted to format that is suitable to send to Iress (Iress uses an Industry standard file format which allows the Platforms to send data to not only Iress, but any software). At times, the conversion of data from the Platforms system to the file format is not always an easy fit, and issues arise.

If Iress has identified an issue that is impacting a datafeed we will document it as a ‘known Issue’ which is reported on Iress Community in Datafeed Service Updates (https://community.iress.com/t5/Service-Updates-IressNet-and/bd-p/IressNetandDatafeedsServiceUpdates)

You can also see details specific datafeeds Platform Summary (https://community.iress.com/t5/Platform-Summaries-IressNet-and/tkb-p/PlatformSummaries/label-name/Australia)

Iress continues to work with all data providers to improve any issues that exist within the datafeeds.

rob.borthwick

Hi @raman.singh

Without knowing the specifics of the issue, my assumption would be that the Adviser Registration (adviser mapping) is the issue. If your Adviser registration is not valid, data providers will not supply data to Iress.

If you can provide addtional detail, I would be able to look into further. Do you have Iress Support ticket reference (IDS) that I can refer to?

rob.borthwick

Hi @jaclyn.bazin4,

Thanks for your query.

Datafeeds will only update\override fields where the Data Provider is supplying that value. Fields not supplied by the datafeed provider will not be touched, and are OK for users to enter data manually. Just remember that different data providers do supply different data points (fields).

Out of interest, what fields are users manually populating for which datafeeds?

rob.borthwick

Hi @annabelle.peters,

Without knowing the specifics of your items, I am only able to provide a general comment.

There are a lot of moving parts in datafeeds
- Platforms retrieving data from their systems,
- Platforms converting the data to meet the agreed file format used for the datafeed
- Sending the data to Iress
- Iress converting the data from the file format to meet the data structure requirements of Xplan
At times, during this process, issues can arise.
Iress continually works with the Platforms with the aim to have a reliable, high quality service

If Iress has identified an issue that is impacting a datafeed we will document it as a ‘known Issue’ which is reported in Iress Community Service Updates

We also provide details in the specific datafeeds Platform Summary

You can also track Platforms that are having issues with Iress Community File Delivery Issues

Iress continues to work with all data providers to improve any issues that exist within the datafeeds.
If you are able to provide more details on the issues (e.g. not refreshing for weeks, additional tranasctions etc) I will be able to provide a more targetted response.

carolyn.pretorius

Hi Rob,

1 - the policy came through only from the datafeed, have deleted and re-mapped/refreshed but it still comes back on with multiple lines and incorrect amounts but the insurer portal is correct.

2 - We have a ticket for this but neither the insurer or Iress could resolve. I can send you screen shots and an explanation?

3 - we are in New Zealand, so NIB, Southern Cross, Chubb Life, Resolution Life (who used to have one), Unimed and AIA (not Sovereign).

Thanks

rob.borthwick

Hi Carolyn,

If you can provide me the Iress Support ticket reference (ISD), I can take a look

annabelle.peters

Hi Rob,

Specifically we see the last date the feed was updated was updated 2 weeks ago and nothing since then. With regard to the additional transactions, I had an account with a cash account that was -$150k, due to two withdrawals in the XPLAN transaction details, however, this did not occur in the Netwealth account. To rectify this, we had to manually remove the two withdrawal transactions from the account to correct the cash account balance.

We are finding more often that we are needing to manually fix data feeds like I did in the above.

Is there a way to ensure that these weird transactions do not occur and make the cash account go out?

Annabelle

rob.borthwick

Hi Annabelle

Do you have a Iress Support ticket (ISD) that I can refer to, to get more detail on this issues you are encountering.

Re Netwealth - There are some Known Issues with the datafeed, and some in particular impacting their Cash Accounts.

jaclyn.bazin4

Hi Rob,

I will send you a request through Iress Connect with more details.

From memory it was a super fund datafeed and it wiped things like beneficiary details so we had to stop importing client focus data.

It's also a hard one to test as we can only do it on live data but I will see if I can find the audit trail history or previous ticket I raised.

I'll do some research with our advisers on manually entered data and get back to you on this, but I believe it would be things like taxable components, beneficiaries etc.

Thanks

jaclyn.bazin4

Thanks Rob, I may have to investigate another way as the notifications do go through, but it is very common for them to be overlooked and not actioned.

Thanks again!

rob.borthwick

Hi,

There is a current defect with impacts beneficiary. This is currently being fixed, and will be released in coming weeks.

Please remember that if the datafeed is bringing through the beneficiary, it will delete what is entered manually. If this is the scenario, I would like to get more details as to why you are needing to enter different details to what the datafeed is importing

monica

@rob.borthwick - do you have a checklist for when when a key datafeed administrator leaves what tasks you should complete?

rob.borthwick

Hi @monica.cullen

Happy to have a call to discuss this with you. It will help me get full contect of what you are facing. If you lodge a ticket via Iress Connect, asking for it to be passed to me, then we can tee up a time.

Rob