Part one of a six-part guide to setting up, monitoring and troubleshooting datafeeds in Xplan.
Article 1: Datafeeds - getting started
If you work with client portfolios, insurance policies or other information held on an external platform, you already know how quickly manual updates can become a chore. Datafeeds are designed to take that work off your hands by keeping Xplan up to date with information supplied by third-party platforms.
Iress supports integrations with hundreds of platforms around the world, including brokers, investment platforms, asset and fund managers, and insurance providers. Behind the scenes, the process is facilitated by IressNet - the service that retrieves the data, checks it, reshapes it and imports it into Xplan.
Think of IressNet as the translator between a platform and Xplan. Each platform sends information in its own format, and IressNet converts that information into something Xplan can use across Portfolio, Client Focus, reporting and other workflows. Some platforms push data to Iress after their overnight processing is complete. Others are accessed by IressNet at a scheduled time.
The process has three broad stages:
- Retrieve: IressNet obtains data from the platform.
- Pre-process: the data is checked for formatting and quality issues.
- Import: the information is loaded into Xplan, with notifications and reports highlighting anything that needs attention.
Once portfolio data is imported into Xplan, key details provided by the platform (such as Units, Cost, and Market Value) undergo reconciliation. This step verifies that the data that has been imported into Xplan aligns with the figures calculated within Xplan itself. The extent of this reconciliation varies depending on the specific data available from each platform.
Any discrepancies found are flagged as reconciliation errors that require investigation and resolution.
A few terms to know
Before getting into the setup, it is worth becoming familiar with some of the language.
- A platform, provider or vendor is the third-party organisation supplying the data.
- An Adviser ID is the unique identifier the platform uses to recognise an adviser or firm.
- Adviser Mapping links that identifier to a user in Xplan.
- Client Mapping links a platform Client ID to an Xplan client entity.
- Account Mapping links a platform Account ID to an Xplan portfolio account or other Xplan entity.
- Processing Options control how different types of data are imported.
- A holding, also called a position, is the collection of transactions that make up an investment.
- A reconciliation error, or out-of-balance error, occurs when the transactions in Xplan do not add up to the balance supplied by the platform.
- A DateLock protects a period of data from being overwritten by a subsequent import.
Appoint a Datafeed Administrator
The most important role in this process is the Datafeed Administrator. Datafeeds are powerful, but they are not completely “set and forget”. We recommend appointing someone to manage configuration, check that processing has completed, review notifications and reports, investigate reconciliation errors and coordinate troubleshooting.
Centralising this responsibility at a head-office or firm level can prevent each adviser from repeating the same administrative tasks. It also gives the business a consistent process and a clear owner when something needs attention.
The administrator should typically be responsible for:
- setting up new users and adviser mappings;
- checking that datafeeds have completed processing;
- reviewing issues identified during import;
- checking automatically created clients were not already in Xplan;
- investigating reconciliation errors; and
- coordinating support requests when the issue cannot be resolved in-house.
💡 Pro Tip: Identify who owns the daily check in your practice. If the answer is “everyone” or “no one”, you may already have an opportunity to make the process more reliable.
Once you understand the terminology and have nominated an administrator, the next step is to build the connection: register with the platform, map the Adviser ID in Xplan, activate the datafeed and decide how the imported information should be handled. Check out our Xplan Datafeeds — Getting Started guide or search for datafeeds in the Iress Learning Centre.
The setup may feel like a few separate steps, but each one answers a different question: who is sending the data, who should receive it, which site should import it, and what should happen when it arrives? Get those foundations right and ongoing monitoring becomes far easier.
Check your own data
Before moving on, take a quick look at your site. How many providers are active? How many Adviser IDs are mapped? Do you have a named Datafeed Administrator? Are there any unmapped clients or accounts already waiting for attention?
