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Client360°® Comes Full Circle
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Author: Darren Tedesco
On April 27, Commonwealth released the first complete overhaul of Client360°® since its inception over three years ago. Combining portfolio, document, contact, and wealth management under one umbrella, Client360° generates approximately seven million hits each year, making it Commonwealth’s most used application.
Feedback about the changes has been categorically positive. While we expected this—the changes we made were the result of a compilation of ideas we gathered from more than 100 members of our field force—success was not preordained. All companies get feedback from their customers; it’s what companies do with that feedback that ultimately determines their fate.
We’re pleased that we can continue to simplify and improve your business lives and will continue to do so. If you missed the specifics on the changes we made, here’s an overview, along with an explanation of why we did what we did.
“You won’t know where you’re going if you don’t know where you’ve been.”
Aesthetics and usability. Substantial efforts were made to improve the aesthetics and usability of Client360°:
- Colors are easier on the eye.
- The font is easier to read.
- A larger screen expands automatically to take advantage of larger monitors and screen resolution.
- The left navigational menu has been moved to the top.
- Several tabs have new names to reflect user feedback.
- The Documents section has a more intuitive, Windows Explorer-style interface.
- An Administration section has been added.
Improved workflow. We spent a good deal of time making sure that Client360° works more like the way you think:
- A quick household search is now available right from Client360°.
- You can sort by column headers in select areas.
- Account activities can be filtered by date range.
- Custom subfolders can be added to existing folders in the Documents tab.
- A link to ACCESS is available on all screens within Client360°.
- The Householding application is now embedded within the aforementioned Administration tab.
- The print function prints a cleaner-looking copy.
- We’ve added a Help menu, complete with user guides, quick reference guides, and frequently asked questions, to help you get up-to-speed with new functionality.
- Most recently, we added a global address and phone number change function. This allows you to update all accounts within the household with the click of a mouse.
Infrastructure. We also worked hard to improve the infrastructure of Client360°. Like the adage, “A house is only as strong as its foundation,” we wanted to ensure that we reinforced our foundation. Many of these behind-the-scenes changes were made to handle future enhancements to the system; a few notable items include:
- Page load speed has been improved by as much as 50 percent on some screens.
- The Client360° and Investor360°® integration foundation has been laid. This means that we will have the ability to make enhancements to both systems simultaneously going forward. No changes have yet been made to Investor360°, although we expect a new release sometime shortly after this edition goes to print.
- Because we are combining the “plumbing” of Client360° and Investor360° behind the scenes, Client360° will be Commonwealth’s first advisor application to support browsers outside of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (IE), such as Firefox. Please keep in mind that the rest of COMMunity Link® is currently designed exclusively for IE.
“The best is yet to come and won’t it be fine.”
While it’s always nice to reflect upon past accomplishments, as a key coordinator of IT and business strategy, it’s the path laid out before us that gets me revved up. So what can you expect to see in the upcoming 12 months? Some key items that may be music to your ears include:
- Account aggregation: This will allow your clients to pull assets that you do not manage into Investor360°.
- Overview tab: Our intent is to make this tab a true overview—a portfolio “executive summary” of sorts.
I encourage you to read the July/August 2007 edition of the CBR for a more in-depth look at what’s ahead. And be sure to keep abreast of other projects in the technology pipeline by visiting our In the Works page, which you can access from the homepage of COMMunity Link.
“A body in motion stays in motion.”
Many thanks to all involved for helping us to create a core system “of the people and for the people.” Remember, like all Commonwealth applications, Client360° is not a home office system; rather, it’s a field force system that we merely designed on your behalf.
If you would like to share comments or feedback on how we can make Client360° (or any system, for that matter) work more intuitively, please don’t hesitate to send an e-mail to feedback@commonwealth.com or call our Service Center at x9992. We will continue to push the envelope on your behalf and look forward to the second half of 2007.
Darren Tedesco is the director of business systems and strategic development in Technology. He is available at x9139.
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