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Bug Fix Coming For Collaboration With Outside Professionals In AdvisorVault
A fix is on the way for a bug in AdvisorVault that will enable advisors to share a single file with an allied professional.
AdvisorVault was developed principally to enable financial advisors to securely store files they want to share with clients, but it also enables advisors to collaborate with professionals outside your firm--CPAs, attorneys, geriatric care managers, personal coaches, business consultants and other professionals with which clients work.
You can enable an allied professional to have permission to view and upload a client's entire vault or just a single folder in a client's vault. You can also enable an allied professional to access his or her own vault and only see what you post in that vault. These collaboration features are working fine.
However, we have discovered a bug in the app that is preventing advisors from sharing a single file in a vault. We expect that bug to be fixed in the next upgrade release at the end of July.
We've been releasing upgrades and bug fixes monthly and just last week issued the latest release. That last release cleaned up a problem with moving an advisor's clients.
Now, if an advisor leaves your firm or if you want to switch the advisor for a client, it works smoothly.
We also fixed sporadic problems with creating a folder structure for firms using our online reporting solution for Advent Axys and Schwab PortfolioCenter.
While these are minor bugs, we know they are annoying and we apologize for the inconvenience.
The collaboration feature in AdvisortVault is important and we want to give you the ability to share just a single file with an attorney or accountant as badly as you do.
Collaborating with outside professionals is a key way for advisors to get referrals. We're seeing AdvisorVault users share folders and vaults with more and more outside professionals.
What we're hearing from advisors is that the collaboration feature widens their referral network.
A couple of advisory firms using AdvisorVault have actively encouraged their clients to enable file-sharing with their accountants and estate planning attorneys.
Clients logged into AdvisorVault have a link that lets them "Create a Professional." When a client clicks on that link, it prompts him to provide the name and email address of an allied professional who they want to grant access to their vault.
When clients fill in that professional's contact information, it sends their advisor a request to enable that outside professional's access to the client's vault.
What we're seeing is that advisors find those other professionals good referral sources.
Moreover, by just doing your routine work--sharing a spreadsheet with realized investment gains and losses--with an accountant, for example, advisors are building their referral network while improving their client service and abiding by security and privacy rules.
Yes, we have some bugs in AdvisorVault. But we're fixing them and advisors are getting important benefits by using the vault to securely share files with clients and allied professionals.
