November 2017 Software Release Highlights

November is always one of my favorite months, and not just because Thanksgiving is on its way. This November marks the release of another Orion Software Update, and this year’s update is looking like one of our most exciting rounds of enhancements yet. Read on to discover all the biggest and best news from our upcoming release.

PORTFOLIO INTERACTIONS

HIDING EMPLOYEE HOUSEHOLDS

We are providing the ability to hide Employee type households from your users.  To denote these types of Households in Orion Connect, navigate to the Household Editor > Category field, and assign the the category of “Employee”. There will be a new privilege called “Employee Households” within the Manage Users app > Roles. Simply uncheck this privilege within your Roles and those users assigned to the Role will no longer have access to view the Households assigned to the Category of “Employee” within Orion Connect. It’s about time, right?!

REP PORTAL

We’ve added a new database option to make the Rep Portal the default app for your Rep level users!  Within the Firm Profile app, navigate to the Options Information menu.  Search for the option “Use Rep Portal as Landing for Reps” and check the box!

PORTFOLIO AUDIT

In the Portfolio Audit app, we’ve added a new column in the Accounts grid to quickly show you the Cash Balance of each account.  To add this new field to your view, hop over to the right side panel within the app, click on “Columns” and choose “Cash Balance.”

CLIENT PORTAL

Portfolio statements and tax statements can now be combined into folders by calendar year. This change will allow clients to find the statement they’re looking for quickly and easily.

We’ve also added a new option in the Client Portal settings that allows you to suppress related Households.

REPORTING

REPORT SPEED IMPROVEMENTS

We are enhancing our report speed by reengineering how cost basis is gathered for reporting purposes. This will allow your reports to generate more timely.

CUSTOM FIELDS

With the November Software Update, we are allowing custom field inputs to be tracked by “as of date” and be reported based on that “as of date” custom field input.

NEXT GENERATION REPORTING PLATFORM

We have built out Phase 1 of our next generation Report Builder. Although this will not be available yet, we are still very excited to make progress towards giving you ultimate flexibility when it comes to creating your own reports with your unique spin and touch.

ALTERNATE LINE SHADING

Orion is introducing alternate line shading into our existing Report Themes tool. This will allow you and your clients to better read reports and avoid any confusion while reviewing a portfolio on a PDF style report.

REPORT DESIGN CHANGES

One big item that you will all notice is our changing of sub-report disclaimers. Orion has implemented new design principals that will make your reports look brand new! Your disclaimers will now be at the end of each report where we will detail out the parameters of the report such as Net of Fee returns, including accrued interest, and the annualization method of performance.

INSIGHT – Riskalyze Integration Tile

Orion is building a new tile in cooperation with Riskalyze to bring to you the “Riskalyze Retirement Map” inside of Insight.

INSIGHT – Hidden Levers Integration Tile

Do you use Hidden Levers to speak about Risk vs. Return? We are building a tile that will bring that conversation inside the Orion platform. This tile will allow you as the Advisor to better speak to Risk vs. Return within Insight.

RMD DASHBOARD

We have added some efficiencies to Orion’s RMD Dashboard app.  We now allow you to utilize custom fields by enabling your custom fields to display in the grid.  There will also be a new cash value column for your accounts—just like the one we added in the Portfolio Audit app—as well as a qualified check box.

META-DATA

We are adding a user interface for you to control our Meta-Data compliance feature that allows you to send a copy of each report generated in the Orion platform to an SFTP server for archived storage and/or review.

BILLING

HOUSEHOLD FINANCIAL PLANNING

Many of the firms that work with Orion perform additional tasks besides managing a client’s assets. Previously, it was difficult to include fees for these services on an invoice. Sometimes these fees would have to be tracked outside Orion, especially if these service fees would be collected from the client when management fees will be collected from the custodian. This new feature will provide an opportunity to house and calculate these service fees within Orion.  At the Household level, fees instructions will be entered into a new Financial Planning billing tab.

AVERAGE MONTHLY BALANCE VALUATION METHOD

Not ready to go average daily balance for your advisory fees, but you would like to use more than a single day to calculate the billed value?  We’ve developed an option that will take the average value of the last day of each month within a quarter. For example: instead of using only 3/31 to calculate bills, our system would look at the value of 1/31, 2/28, and 3/31 and then take the average. This method is not as accurate as average daily balance, but more accurate than period ending.

TRADING

From the Trading front, we have been working hard to get Orion’s next generation trading platform, Eclipse™, up and running.  Eclipse™ is currently being beta tested by a handful of firms, with a full launch scheduled for later this year.  For more information on Eclipse™, please visit Orion Social, where you can view our Overview video, which provides an in-depth look at the functionality being developed.

We are also working to optimize a number of trade tools, such as the Trade to Target % tool and the FIX 4.4 mutual fund batch wizard. Optimizing these tools will allow for greater volume and speed within these tools.

MARKET DATA & RECONCILIATION

ACCOUNT CANCELLATION RESTORE

We’ve improved the process of undoing an account cancellation. Now when an account cancellation is undone in the Orion system, the system will restore all recent applicable data files from the exclusion table. This great new feature will significantly speed up the reconciliation of restoring a cancelled account!

INTEGRATIONS

 

INTEGRATIONS CENTER

All things integrations will be found in the new Integrations Center app. You will be able to learn about our integrations, watch videos and tutorials about what the integrations have to offer, and even setup the integration itself. It’s all coming in the Integrations Center.

0367-OAS-10/10/2017

About Joe Leyboldt
Joe Leyboldt serves as the Director of Orion's Technology Support. Joe is a native of Arizona and loves running, coffee, Nebraska football, and skinny jeans.