In a busy summer full of mergers, new portals, and reimagined homescreens, the team here at Orion still found the time to build a number of new updates into the many tools available as part of our technology suite. As a reminder, these release notes are now mapped to the four pillars of the advisor-client relationship that drive the Orion Vision: Prospect, Plan, Invest, Achieve. 

Across each of these pillars, we are dedicated to building solutions that enable your firm to build a long-lasting, future-ready business. And to that end, we are excited to bring you all the latest updates below. You can also see these updates demoed during our upcoming product update webinar on Thursday, August 27th at 11:00 CT. During that webinar our Product team will walk through each update in detail and answer any questions you may have via the live chat box.  

Prospect

Market*r

New Campaign Topics

Each month, new content on engaging, up-to-the-minute topics will be added to the Market*r platform. This month, we’ve added two new topics: Client Engagement and Retirement Seminar. 

• Client Engagement: Boost engagement and easily show your clients they’re a top priority with automated campaigns on some of the most popular—and important—client communication topics.
• Retirement Seminar: Featuring customizable PowerPoint presentations, pre and post-event communications, and other useful assets, these campaigns will make hosting your next virtual or in-person workshop a sinch.

How to get there: Orion Connect > Orion Market*r

Glia Chat Support 

To help your team connect quickly to our team of Market*r platform experts, we have enabled Glia chat support in the platform. Simply click the,”Let’s Talk!” button to be connected to a Market*r Subject Matter Expert. 

How to get there: Orion Connect > Orion Market*r > Let’s Talk button

Plan

Orion Planning

Filing State & Filing Status Moved to Personal Information Page

Where previously you needed to indicate your client’s Filing State and Filing Status in the Taxes tab, you can now do this in the Personal Information tab. This will help with not only your user experience but also with your ability to make future updates and utilize this information for other inputs that happen before the Taxes tab.

How to get there: Orion Connect > Advizr > Profile > Personal Information

Trusts Moved to Personal Information Page

In the past we had a dedicated Trusts tab but we’ve moved this input to the Personal Information Page. This change will make the process of adding accounts owned by trusts more efficient as this allows you to add your client’s Trusts and their beneficiaries before the Accounts and Other Assets page. 

How to get there: Orion Connect > Advizr > Profile > Personal Information

Business Sale Enhancements

We have improved our business sale functionality so that now you can not only show proceeds from the sale beyond one year and into multiple years beyond the sale, but also show how their net worth will be impacted over time.

How to get there: Orion Connect > Advizr > Profile > Other Assets

Tracking Activity When a Client Views a Document

When you or your client upload a document to our Document Vault, it is tracked within our User Activity Page. Now, we’ll also be tracking when a client opens a document within this User Activity Page. This is in addition to you receiving an email and notification in our notifications bell when a client uploads a document to the Document Vault. Our goal is to help advisors and firms track these communications and client engagement. 

How to get there: Orion Connect > Advizr > Click on Client’s Name Near Top Left > User Activity

Client Portal 

The One Portal Project

As of today, Orion offers two separately powerful client portals advisors can offer via Orion that both provide unique solutions. Our One Portal Project is bringing our two portals together into one, helping advisors provide a comprehensive client experience that is consistent across platforms, without the need for multiple logins. This newly consolidated portal will provide your investors with a true personal financial management experience by giving them access to all the tools they need to oversee their financial lives including performance reports, account aggregation, account opening, financial planning information, and more—all from a single portal.

In case you missed it, we aired a webinar detailing the latest updates. You can watch that webinar here: Orion Client Portal Webinar. If you would like to be among the first to transition from the legacy client portal to the new client portal, sign up at: orionadvisortech.com/clientportal/

Client Portal Redirect

To help your firm transition clients from the legacy client portal to the new client portal, we’ve built a toggle that will redirect your clients to the new portal. Your clients will still use the same login page and credentials they are using for the legacy client portal so the transition will be seamless for them and this means you will not need to invite each of your clients one by one to the new portal.

If you would like to switch to the new client portal, please contact our Platform Support Team or sign up to learn more about the new portal at orionadvisortech.com/clientportal/.

Portfolio Groups Are Now Used in the Client Portal

In the past your clients had the ability to view their accounts either at the account level or Managed vs Unmanaged at an aggregate level. Now we utilize the Portfolio Groups to help them view their accounts in a more organized and meaningful way.

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

Ability to Choose Client Landing Page

You now have the ability to choose the first page your client sees when they log in to the client portal. The default landing page is the Consumer Overview page, but you can choose to send them directly to Personal Finances, Goal Results, Document Vault, Profile, Reports, or even Credit Monitoring if you are utilizing that service with your client. This setting can be not just a client setting, but also something you can set at the firm or advisor level. 

How to get there: Orion Connect > Advizr > Click on Client’s Name Near Top Left > Invite to Advizr / Configure Access

MoneyGuide Integration

For those of you who use MoneyGuide for your financial planning tool, we now have the same integration for our new client portal that you have been using for the legacy client portal. This includes your clients being able to see the Summary, Insurance, Goals and Net Worth Pages as well as giving them the ability to access their plan within MoneyGuide from our client portal. 

How to get there: Orion Connect > Advizr > MoneyGuide Financial Planning Tab

Riskalyze Integration

For those of you who use Riskalyze, we’ve improved our integration to not only be able to pull in your Riskalyze Models to use as part of your recommendations for your clients goals, but we can now also pull in the client’s Risk Score, the score of how their accounts are currently allocated and finally your Portfolio Recommendation Score as well. 

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

Invest

Eclipse

New “Expand” Option in the Tactical Tools Grid

Quickly pop out of windows and edit details more easily with the new option to expand the tactical tools grid. Expanded grids will still update real time when items are added/removed and can be collapsed as needed.

How to get there: Orion Connect > Eclipse > Trade Tools > Tactical Trade Tool

Improved Team Model Imports

To help your team import models more easily, we made two updates that improve this process:

• Import Team Assignments on Security Sets: You can now update assignments across your team with the new ability to import team assignments. Exporting the security set will only show the team ID’s that the user has access to and will only affect the teams the user has access to. If a user only has access to “view” the security set, then importing will not be possible. 
• Team ID Column Added to Model Import: We have added the Team ID column to the model import. Importing models with the Team ID will assign the teams on the file, and unassign all that are not on the file.

How to get there: Orion Connect > Eclipse > Models > Model Import

Remove Disabled Restricted Plan Trades

Currently any time a rebalance or other trade tool is ran, buys in restricted plan accounts are set to zero value.  Now, you can ignore  zero quantity “restricted plan” trades on the orders grid and avoid needing to delete them manually.

How to get there: Orion Connect > Eclipse

Allow Negative Cash in Tactical Rebalancer

Now, you have the ability to determine how much cash to protect in the tactical rebalance, allowing the account to go negative or keep all existing cash, depending on the best scenario for your trade. If you do not use the “rebalance cash” option, then the system will attempt to raise cash back up to target at the end of the rebalance. 

How to get there: Orion Connect > Eclipse > Models > View a model > Tactical Rebalance

Group Portfolios by Team in Zip Folder

You can now group portfolios by the Primary Team Name in the folder export for the trade analysis report, enabling you to easily sort and navigate the reports exported. When multiple trade analysis reports are exported, you can add sub folders using the Primary Team name assigned to the portfolios.

How to get there: Orion Connect > Eclipse > Trades > Orders > Three dot > Report > Trade Analysis

Accrued Interest Value Added to Eclipse

With this release, we have implemented a way for you to trade based on accrued interest in Eclipse. To do so, the Eclipse Extract will now find the value of accrued interest and add shares into the position to increase its value in Eclipse to include accrued interest.  

To enable this feature, contact: trading@orion.com. 

How to get there: Orion Connect > Eclipse > Start new import

Communities 

Retrieve Billing Reports from Communities 

Now, strategists can retrieve billing recon reports from the application enabling them to efficiently access reports and ensure their payout matches those reports.

How to Get There: Orion Connect > Communities > Menu > Billing

New Communities Strategist: Fidelity Institutional

Fidelity Institutional has made its core lineup of strategies available through Communities. Eight new investment strategies and a themed, separately managed account (SMA) join Orion’s Global lineup, comprising:

• Fidelity Sector Equity Business Cycle (I) Model Portfolio
• Fidelity Multi-Asset Business Cycle (I) Model Portfolio
• Fidelity Bond Income (I) Model Portfolio
• Fidelity Target Allocation 20/80 (I) Model Portfolio
• Fidelity Target Allocation 40/60 (I) Model Portfolio
• Fidelity Target Allocation 60/40 (I) Model Portfolio
• Fidelity Target Allocation 70/30 (I) Model Portfolio
• Fidelity Target Allocation 85/15 (I) Model Portfolio
• Fidelity Advisor Women’s Leadership SMA
• Single Ticker – Fidelity Select Gold Portfolio (FSAGX)

Achieve 

New Orion Connect Home Page Dashboard 

As you probably know, we have reimagined the Orion Connect Home Page so that it surfaces the details that matter most to you—decided by you—so you can prioritize your day-to-day appropriately. We are excited to announce that the new Homepage will be available to all Orion firms on August 31st. To learn more about the redesign, check our landing page. 

To get started, simply enable the new homepage or, for more guided help, reach out to our Platform Support team using “Contact Us’ on your current home page or call 888-279-8447.

Billing and Composites 

Create an “@” Tag for Related Households

To help identify the Related Households that are being aggregated together for Billing purposes, you can now tag those households with the “@” function. 

How to get there: Orion Connect > Reporting

Change Logic of Recurring Start Date

Currently, when you add a recurring adjustment with a start date during the billing period, it will not apply until the next billing cycle. To improve this, we now allow for a recurring adjustment to be prorated if the start date is during the billing cycle.  

How to get there: Orion Connect > Reporting

Recon and Dashboards 

Turn Held-Away Assets Into Billable Assets with FeeX 

Access Feex, the innovative technology that enables advisors to manage and trade held away accounts just like they do with custodied accounts. This enables your firm to turn held-away assets such as 401(k) holdings into billable assets while also working to help improve client returns. 

How to learn more: Refer to the “FeeX: Interface Setup” and “FeeX: Vendor Summary” articles in the Support App.

Integrations

Enhanced eMoney Data Export

We have added an option to allow new, unfunded accounts to be included in the export to the eMoney system that helps aid in the linking of new accounts into eMoney financial plans.

Reporting

Allocation as a Data Source

This month, we’ve added the ability to use allocation as a data source iIn report builder by simply clicking the bar chart and typing in “allocation” in the data source field of the editor. This update enables your firm to create more accurate visuals for allocation-focused bar charts while also providing more aesthetic diversity to the reports you build. 

How to get there: Orion Connect > Reports App > Custom Reports >Edit > Left click on an existing bar chart or add a new one > Under configuration enter in Allocation and select “Allocation Level 1

Compliance 

Add Custom Licenses to a Profile

To help create more accurate profiles of your team, you now have the ability to add custom licenses to a profile in the Inform Tool, in addition to the existing FINRA licenses already available. 

How to Get There: Compliance > Inform > Manage Options

2160-OAS-08/20/2020

Fidelity Institutional makes Fidelity Model Portfolios available through Fidelity Distributors Company LLC; and clearing, custody, or other brokerage services through National Financial Services LLC or Fidelity Brokerage Services LLC, Members NYSE, SIPC. 

Fidelity Investments® is an independent company, unaffiliated with Orion Advisor Solutions. Fidelity Investments is a registered service mark of FMR LLC.

The Fidelity Advisor SMAs (“SMA Models”) are made available to financial intermediaries on a non-discretionary basis by Fidelity Distributors Company LLC (FDC LLC), a registered broker-dealer, as a paid solicitor of its affiliate and provider of the SMA Models to financial intermediaries, FIAM LLC, a registered investment adviser. Financial intermediaries that utilize the SMA Models compensate FIAM LLC for such advice. FDC LLC and FIAM LLC are referred to collectively as “FIAM” or “Fidelity.”

Ask any financial advisor about the most important component of his or her practice, and undoubtedly the answer will have something to do with client experience. After all, clients are the heart of any advisory firm—as an advisor, you rely on their continued satisfaction, loyalty, and referrals to grow.

And in today’s world, technology is a critical component of the client experience, in the financial industry and beyond. Because the truth is, clients aren’t judging your technology against the advisor down the road. They’re comparing it to the experience they have with digital giants, such as Netflix and Amazon.

The baseline for that experience? The client portal.

But there’s a major disconnect in our industry between the importance of client portals and the rate at which investors adopt them, which is dismally low: 10-12%*.

What’s the reasoning behind this low engagement?

• Login fatigue
• Cluttered, non-intuitive user interfaces
• An inconsistent experience

And overall, too many portal options.

Solving the Portal Problem

At Orion, we’ve long offered a legacy client portal, built to support the core Orion portfolio management solution. Through the white-labelled portal, advisors can permission clients to access key portfolio information including quarterly performance reports, balance sheets, investment details, and more. 

In addition, the Orion Planning platform, formerly known as Advizr, also offers a dynamic client portal to support its powerful financial planning tools. Within this portal, clients can aggregate accounts, view their financial plan, address any action items, and both access and upload key documents.

At Orion, our goal is always to help advisors serve their clients to the absolute best of their ability. And considering the data on low client portal engagement, combined with the pressure on advisors to deliver a remarkable digital experience, we began thinking about how we could help advisors provide holistic access for their clients in a way that offered consistency across all platforms, without the need for multiple logins.

Amazon customers don’t log into one account to buy books and another to purchase clothing. Netflix users don’t have one app for TV shows and another for movies. Why couldn’t we offer that same streamlined experience at Orion?

The One Portal Project

The Orion One Portal Project will combine our two portals into a single platform for clients to access all the tools they need to manage their wealth and collaborate with their advisor.

This single portal will:

• Display financial planning and portfolio data side-by-side to empower more effective collaboration and conversation
• Streamline both advisor and client workflows
• Create a firm-specific look and feel supported by Orion’s premier planning, reporting, and portfolio management tools

And for your clients, the value of the consolidated portal goes far beyond the convenience of a single log in: 

• Transparency into financial plans, portfolio performance, progress toward goals, and more—all the information they need to view their full financial picture, available from a single, secure portal.
• Customization capabilities allow you to determine exactly what every individual client sees upon logging in, eliminating the confusion of unnecessary modules and surfacing the tools that are most important.
• Guidance they need from you, via a Document Vault that allows effortless uploading of relevant resources, as well as easy-to-address action items and next steps.
• Connection, service, and support through co-browsing, screen sharing, and video chat functionalities.
• Engagement with their financial lives and long-term goals, along with the necessary steps they need to take to be successful.

Effortless Account Opening

In addition to the ease and accessibility of a single portal, clients will also benefit from Orion’s new integration with Apex Clearing. 

While traditional account opening is still conducted with monotonous, back-and-forth paper pushing that can take days or even weeks, the Apex integration will enable clients to open accounts directly from the Client Portal within minutes, fund those accounts through ACH transfer, and view their performance. Those accounts will appear in the Orion Connect New Account Center and be added to the overall household asset allocation. 

What Does the One Portal Project Mean for…

End clients who currently use the existing Advizr portal? It’s the same portal they already know and love, only better. In addition to current functionality, such as client access to financial planning data and account aggregation, the portal will also include powerful new features: performance reporting, a suite of new reports, increased white label capabilities, and more.

End clients who currently use the legacy Orion portal? An elevated experience that combines the features and functionality they need from the legacy portal with the enhanced capabilities of the Advizr portal. Reporting, quarterly performance reports, screen sharing, and more legacy elements will be added to the Advizr portal so you can truly deliver all the elements of your client experience, from financial planning to performance reporting, all in a single place.

Net new end clients? A holistic, comprehensive experience, right from the start. Net new end clients will have access to the consolidated single portal, where they will be able to access their full financial picture from day one, as well as take advantage of the streamlined workflow and robust collaboration opportunities the single portal empowers.

Finally, what does the One Portal Project mean for you as an advisor? To put it simply, it places you at the center of each client’s financial world. By encouraging your clients to adopt the single portal, you’re handing them the tools, performance metrics, action items, documents, and resources they need to stay fully informed about their financial lives. 

By providing your clients with the modern, streamlined experience they’ve come to expect from today’s digital environment, you make staying engaged with you and your firm as easy as accessing their new favorite show on Netflix. 

Ready to take your client experience to the next level? Sign up to learn more about Orion’s powerful new portal, coming soon. 

*Celent Financial Research

1683-OAS-07/01/2020

How do you know that you really know your clients?

Knowing their favorite hobby, rattling off a list of their ten grandchildren, or having a postcard from their most recent vacation are all great—but those facts aren’t going to help you create a more tailored portfolio strategy.

Knowing a client’s goals and investment perspective are necessary when you help them plan for their financial future, but it’s equally important to prove you’ve done the legwork to truly “know your client” in the event of an audit.

Showing that you’ve taken the time to gauge their appetite for risk and have planned accordingly will go a long way to ensuring you’ve done the work required of your firm

We’re excited to announce that you can now complete a client Risk Tolerance Assessment directly from Orion Planning (formerly Advizr). This new feature makes it simple to set a solid foundation for your planning and investment management, with your client’s risk profile at its core.

Here’s how you can put risk front and center in your workflows, and what our methodology and approach to risk management looks like.

The Risk Tolerance Assessment

The Risk Tolerance Assessment is a short, seven-question process that can act as the foundation of your portfolio construction process. 

The questions focus on an investor’s time horizon for continuing to invest in the stock market, while also assessing psychological factors like comfort with potential highs and lows of possible portfolios, and their ability to handle financial emergencies.

A client’s risk is scored on a scale of 0 to 100, with 100 being the highest-risk portfolio available.

Once a client’s risk tolerance has been determined, Orion Planning matches the client with the most appropriate model from your current model list.

Here’s what the setup process looks like in Orion Planning:

Implementing the Risk Tolerance Assessment in Orion Planning

In order to match a client with the most appropriate model, Orion Planning will look at the model portfolios in your Settings page. 

Orion Planning will automatically divide the number of models you have by the maximum score of 100 to determine your risk bands. 

It’s important that you order your models appropriately, from most conservative at the top of the list to most aggressive at the bottom of the list.

How to Access Orion Planning

If you have already finished the financial planning training course, you can start using the Risk Tolerance Assessment right away.

If you have yet to sign up for access to Orion Planning, what are you waiting for? Click here to get started. 

Not working with Orion yet? Let’s talk about how unifying your risk management, financial planning, and investment management in one comprehensive platform can help you improve your business!

Understanding estate planning needs is an important aspect of every financial plan. Yet while your clients may have all their necessary documents, often those documents are scattered. As your clients’ primary advisor, helping organize these documents is a great way to demonstrate the value of your service. 

With the release of the new Estate Planning Checklist in Orion Planning (Advizr), we empower you to do just that.

The Estate Planning Checklist enables you and your clients to indicate which estate planning documents they have, upload those documents to their online Vault, and keep a record of when each document was last updated. 

Here is how it works

The Estate Planning Checklist can be found in the Goals section, along with the other key Financial Planning modules.

Once in the Estate Planning Checklist module, begin by selecting any number of documents important to the client’s estate plan such as their Will or Power of Attorney to be added to the system.

From there, you have the option to customize the title and description and then add the document to the client’s secure online Vault. Moving forward, your client will have easy access to those documents at any time.

Staying organized is just as easy as the initial setup. The system keeps note of important details like the date of the last update, so you know when it is time to review documents for accuracy. You can even assign the clients key tasks, like reviewing their Will after five years, that help keep their information up to date.

As time progresses, be sure to continue to update existing documents and add new ones as your clients’ lives grow more complex.

With the new Estate Planning Checklist, you now have the tools to give clients the peace of mind of knowing that all their most important estate documents are organized and accessible.

1043-OAS-4/20/20