March 2020 Software Update: Full Release Notes

The Madness is upon us. Of course, nothing basketball-related, but instead a host of new updates to our platform to help make you more efficient and effective. In fact, this month marks the release of Orion Communities, our investment model marketplace that addresses your need to scale by giving you access to models from well-known and well-vetted strategists. You can call this month Model Marketplace Madness, if you wish. 

Find out more about Orion Communities, as well as plenty of billing, compliance, and trading updates below. If you have questions about what’s included, join us for an “Ask Me Anything...About This Release” on March 31 at 2:00pm CST. 

Advisor Experience

Security is our top priority, and one way we can be more secure is through stronger passwords. Now, when you log in, Orion will know if you are using a password that has been compromised elsewhere on the internet. If that is the case, you will be immediately prompted to create a new password to ensure security. 

When creating a new password for Orion Connect, there will now be a gauge to determine if your password is weak or strong, as well as a checklist that indicates when the criteria for the password are satisfied. That way, you can make educated decisions when formulating a new password. When you enter your password, you will now have the option to click on an eye icon in the field that shows you what you’ve typed. You can hide the characters by clicking it again.

In addition, you will have the option to select “Remember my device” for devices that you trust, and the device will be remembered for the next login.

Orion Market*r

Market*r, Orion’s new turnkey marketing platform, marries personalized content campaigns with best-in-class marketing execution technology, complete with fully customizable, expertly written and designed content that’s seamlessly connected to your financial planning and client experience tool. 

Through these pre-built, interactive digital campaigns with a mad-libs style twist that allows you to easily personalize each communication, Market*r: increases awareness about the value of financial planning, speaks to investors’ unique goals and challenges, and drives prospect and client engagement through financial planning.

For more information on this product that will be coming soon, click here.  

Billing & Composites

We want you to have full transparency into payments and where they are going. Now, you can run a report that lists the amount paid to each entity when a payment is processed. The report includes Entity Name and Payee Amount, as well as an example of a payment made to reps. 

How to get there: Orion Connect > Payout Dashboard > Process Payment > Select Payment > Right Click > Create Excel Report

Payout Dashboard Optimization 

It’s understood that processing payments is a very important part of your day-to-day operations. In order to optimize that experience, we developed a way to make the entire experience faster. You’ll see the data in the Firm Dashboard load faster, along with a quicker experience when you need to create a payment in the payment window. That way you get time back in your day, all while getting the same quality report when all is said and done.

How to get there: Orion Connect > Payout Dashboard > Process Payment

Active Accounts Can Pay for Inactive Accounts

Currently, to set an account to pay for another account, both accounts have to have an 'Active' status. Since you now have the ability to bill inactive accounts, we removed this rule. The ‘pays for’ section saves, regardless of the account status. In order for this to run properly with both active and inactive accounts, bills will have to run for 'Both.’

How to get there: Orion Connect > Billing Audit > Accounts > Edit Accounts > Billing General > This Account Pays For

Account Billing Level Setting Copy Down to Sleeves

In the past, the only way to have one sleeved registration (A) pay for another sleeved registration (B) was to assign a custodial account to pay for all sleeves in B. This caused issues if a database opens and closes accounts on a consistent basis. Now, you are able to assign the custodial account in A to pay for the custodial account in B, automating an otherwise manual process. In other words, all account level billing settings will copy down to the sleeves, while only a handful of settings previously did. 

How to get there: Orion Connect > Portfolio Audit > Registrations > Sleeve Setup Tool

Date Filter Includes Bills Run on End Date

Currently, to include bills that were run that same day, you have to put the end date as calculation date, plus one day. So, if you were to run bills on 1/31/2020, to have them return in the slick grid, you needed to enter an end date of 2/1/2020. That’s no longer the case. We changed the end date filter to include bills that were run on the end date.

How to get there: Orion Connect > Post Payments > End Date on right side bar

Client Experience

Financial Planning

Setting goals with your clients is an important part of a financial plan. Establishing action steps for your client to take to meet those goals might be even more important. We enhanced our functionality to allow you to edit manually created action steps, assign any action step to a specific person, and add a due date for when the action steps are to be completed.

How to get there: Orion Connect > Advizr > Reports > Action Steps

Additional Input Options for Income Sources

To provide you with common milestones to choose from, we’ve added “At Retirement” as an end age for Employment Income, Business Income and Other Income. We’ve also added “End of Plan” as an option for Other Income.

How to get there: Orion Connect > Advizr > Profile > Income 

Estate Planning Checklist

No matter what your clients’ Net Worth, basic Estate Planning documents—such as a Will or Power of Attorney for Health Care or Financial Decisions—should be in place to make sure their wishes are honored. That’s why we created an Estate Planning Checklist that will allow your clients to determine if they have these documents, upload them to the document vault, and indicate when they were last updated.

How to get there: Orion Connect > Advizr > Profile > Goals > Estate Planning  

Improved Load Time of Performance Reporting Data

Now, when you view your client’s performance within the Financial Advisor or Client Portal, the load time is significantly faster and in many cases, the performance data will load instantly for a much more efficient experience.

How to get there: Orion Connect > Advizr > Personal Finances   

Ticker Symbols on the Positions Page

To help clients identify exactly which positions they're looking at, we've added the ticker symbol next to the name of your clients' positions. We've also added the ticker symbol next to the position name within the Unrealized Lot Details, which can be found by clicking on the position name.

How to get there: Orion Connect > Advizr > Personal Finances > Positions

Updated Household Performance View

In the past, we only showed Household-level performance if all of the investment accounts in the client’s profile were managed accounts coming from Orion Connect. We’ve updated the view to separate managed and unmanaged accounts. That way, we’ll be able to show the aggregate managed account performance regardless if there are unmanaged accounts in the household going forward.

Orion Connect > Advizr > Personal Finances > Transactions

Updated Realized Gains/Loss Time Periods

You typically view Realized Gains/Loss Transactions on an annual basis. We’ve updated our time periods so that you can view those particular transactions based on different calendar years.

How to get there: Orion Connect > Advizr > Personal Finances > Transactions

Reporting

We added a Grouping Option for Tax Type, which allows you to create the Account Value By Tax Type. This element will group the accounts based on the Registration Types that fall into Taxable, Tax Deferred, and Tax Free. 

How to get there: Orion Connect > Report Builder > Add Chart/Table > Grouping: Registration Tax Type

Investment Objectives in Report Builder

The following tags have been added for various investment objectives: Return Objective, Investment Objective, Time Horizon, Net Worth Include Residence, Net Worth Exclude Residence, Liquid Net Worth, and Net Worth. These have been added to display information from the Suitability section in Portfolio Audit on both the household and account level, so you can show clients the goals you have set for them. 

How to get there: Orion Connect > Report Builder > Add Grouping Table > Add Tags

Group Is Managed Column in Query Builder

As a user with access to create a query, we’ve given you the ability to add the ‘Group Is Managed’ column to a query so you can identify which entities are managed when grouping by account, asset or product. 

How to get there: Orion Connect > Query Builder > Row Grouping = Account, Asset or Product > Next > Select Group Is Managed in Available Columns

Transactions in Query Builder

You can now create a query based on transaction data so you can review transactions across your database. This opens up the ability for you to add the transaction setting option to select various transactions for transaction grouping. 

How to get there: Orion Connect > Query > Query Builder > New Query > Row Grouping = Transaction > Click on the pencil icon to select transactions to include

Compliance

There is now a custody tile on the ADV dashboard within the compliance app to address ADV Custody Rules 9a (first party) & 9b (third party), so that any advisors with custody accounts can visually confirm the information. To be included, the Account, Product, and Asset must be ADV reportable. To be considered for custody, the account must have either first party or third party selected. 

The tile will show: 

Number of Custody Accounts — Total of 9a and 9b identified accounts

First Party (9a) — Value and number of accounts 

Third Party (9b) — Value and number of accounts 

How to get there: Orion Connect > Portfolio Audit > Accounts > Edit Account > Compliance > Custody

Integrations 

Real time is better than once a day. That’s why Fidelity is now available in our client presentation tool, Insight, with tiles for things like balances, transactions and holdings that are all updated in real time. 

How to get there: Orion Connect > Insight > Fidelity

TD Version of Enhanced Salesforce Sync

Last month, we rolled out our enhanced Salesforce sync for FSC and Enterprise orgs. That included a faster sync, flexible field mapping, and error fix improvements. We said we would let you know when the TD version of the sync was ready. This is us letting you know. The TD version of Salesforce has customization built into it, so we’ve updated the field mapping to be compatible. 

RightCapital Single Sign-On

Orion and RightCapital have long had an integration that includes pulling in client account details and values, saving you time and duplicate data entry. Now, we've saved you even more time with single sign-on functionality from Orion Connect directly to RightCapital. 

How to get there: Orion Connect > RightCapital

Reconciliation

When viewing excluded accounts in the New Accounts Center, we gave you the option to add a column called “Advisor Notes.” Any time a new ID is added to the Excluded Accounts table, the system will automatically copy the “Notes” column into the “Advisor Notes” column. We also added a right-click option in the New Accounts Center on the Excluded Accounts grid to edit the “Advisor Notes” column.

How to get there: Orion Connect > New Accounts Center > Excluded Accounts Grid > Add Advisor Notes Column and ability to Edit Notes through right click

Trading

It’s finally here! We’re proud to unveil our model portfolio marketplace, Orion Communities, which marries convenient access to leading strategist models with the flexibility to make more intelligent, personalized investment decisions. As you look for ways to add scalability to your business, the trend toward outsourcing and model utilization continues to rapidly grow, but some advisors want the ability to retain trading discretion. Orion Communities seeks to offer a robust and diverse lineup of strategists for you to utilize, all while retaining full trading discretion to accept or deny any model changes submitted by the model manager. Register for our webinar on April 2 or read this fact sheet to learn more. 

How to get there: Orion Connect > Eclipse > Communities 

or Orion Connect > TOM > Communities 

ASTRO Enhancements

We’ve added the ability to leverage ASTRO to build or optimize models. Now, you can give ASTRO a list of securities and a target, to which the system will construct a portfolio based on that target. That way, you do not have to decide on the security selection and corresponding weights. Also, while using ASTRO, you can now select whether you see 15 minute delayed or real-time prices, depending on which best serves your business.

How to get there: Orion Connect > ASTRO

0580-OAS-3/11/2020