Xplan Expert14th August AMA: We're Leah, Xplan expert, and Rob, IressNet product manager, Ask Us Anything!
Thanks for hosting this AMA, I really appreciate the opportunity to raise a few questions around adviser mappings and credential management.
As a site administrator, one of the ongoing challenges we face is managing adviser credentials for datafeeds, especially with more providers that now require credentials to be re-entered annually. Is there a central reference or cheat sheet available that outlines which providers have these requirements, and any best-practice tips for checking adviser mappings regularly? I remind advisers to diarise this to remind them, however when 12 months comes around it will sometimes get missed.
Additionally, we’re looking for a scalable way to notify advisers when their mappings are due to expire, ideally something automated that includes clear instructions on what they need to do. Is there a recommended approach within Xplan that supports this kind of workflow?
Lastly, we’ve recently encountered cases where advisers re-enter valid credentials, but the validation still fails. We've been advised that deleting and re-adding the mapping can resolve this, is this a known issue, or the expected process in these scenarios? If so, is there a guide or documentation that outlines this I can provide to advisers?
Being proactive with datafeeds is critical to maintaining the integrity of data across reports, the client portal, and other advice tools, so it's definitely an important topic for us. Keen to hear your thoughts!
Jackie
Xplan ProductThanks for the question Jackie,
We have broken the response up to make it easier.
Credential requirements
The bad news is that, at present we do not have a central reference that identifies the requirements of each of the data providers in regards to credentials. We hear you and will investigate how we can make this easier for you.
Expiry Date Notifications and Management
Within Xplan, the expiry date for credentials is clearly displayed on the Adviser Mappings page. To ensure timely updates:
- One Month Prior to Expiry: Advisers will receive an email notification warning them of upcoming credential expiry.
- One Week Prior to Expiry: Daily notifications will be sent to advisers if credentials remain un-updated.
- Post-Expiry: Advisers will continue to receive notifications indicating their adviser mapping is invalid, and data will no longer be received.
Administrators have the option to receive these notifications on behalf of advisers as well.
We strongly recommend that all users of datafeeds enable datafeed notifications. Details on how to configure these can be found on the Iress Community ‘Configuring User Notifications for Datafeeds’ .
Jackie, in your situation, follow the above and go to the All user config option.
Addressing Incorrectly Flagged Invalid Credentials
A scenario can arise where credentials are flagged as invalid by Iress, even though they are factually correct. This typically occurs when a data provider temporarily indicates an invalid status to Iress. Iress then records this status.
To enhance performance and avoid re-checking thousands of invalid mappings, the Iress datafeed system does not automatically retry the validity of an adviser registration if it hasn't been edited.
Here is my workaround for Incorrect Invalid Flags:
- Delete and Re-enter: While effective, this is less efficient.
- Edit Comment Field (Recommended): A simpler solution is to edit the comment field (e.g., by adding a single character like a period ".") and then saving. This action signals to the datafeed service that the adviser mapping has been changed, triggering a revalidation of the mapping the following day.
Future Enhancements: Daily Credential Revalidation
If you have been reading our 2nd Half roadmap, you will see that we have been concentrating on data security. This initiative will significantly assist advisers and administrators by automatically cleaning up old and expired adviser registrations, improving overall data management. We will provide updates on its release soon! Linked to this is, is a project to enable daily revalidation of credentials!
Thanks again for your feedback last week.
Regarding the user notifications, my aim was to be able to customise the notifications so advisers/users can clearly see the steps required to update their credentials. Is this something that can be supported? Otherwise, I would like to investigate other options where I could send my own automated notifications to advisers/users with detailed instructions on what needs to be actioned. Unfortunately, I can't find a way I can perform a search to identify this to automate the email. Are you able to confirm if this is possible?
For future enhancements, it would be incredibly helpful if the credential expiry notification could include a direct link to the adviser mapping section to streamline the process.
Thanks
Jackie
leah.saundersHey Jackie,
I have added your request for credential expiry to link to adviser mappings into to product feedback.
I will let Rob answer the rest for you!
Leah
- rob.borthwick
Hi Jackie,
Unfortunately there is no way to customise the notifications that are sent to users, at this time.
Regarding searching. The capability on the Adviser Mapping page allows you to filter for Invalid Credentials to get a list, which you could then export and do your emails. This however is one datafeed at a time.
I'll lodge this feedback / suggestion as possible future enhancement to this area.
Thanks
Rob
Thanks Rob! Much appreciated. I will look into more about the adviser notifications, great tip!
Hi Rob,
Are you anticipating this this automatic cleanup would remove expired mappings? And if so after what period of time? Thanks, Ashleigh
- rob.borthwick
Hi Ashleigh,
Yes it will.
The thinking is that we will identify Adviser Registrations that have been invalid\expired for more than 90 days, at which time advisers will receive a notification giving 30 days for them to rectify, before it is deleted.
Thanks Rob. I like the idea in theory, but given the Valid credentials column isn't active unless ESI/epi it would be so great to see this work in some way to report before you rolled something like this out . I've always preferred the idea of the valid credentials column at least reporting an NA or invalid rather than the - so we can distinguish invalid between providers or if its not relevant - for example Zurich I am assuming is not ESI/EPI and does not utilise the Valid column but it does validate with password, and we do find the password expires, but there is no way of us knowing short of data not appearing. Would this then not be picked up Is it only EPI/ESI you would be able to determine invalid?
Then there is another item of feedback from Advisers that I hear quite a bit - they may not have current clients in a platform but they know they will at some point in the future again so they don't want to remove the mapping and go through the process of re-adding the mapping, so we often leave their mapping expired until we hear back from them they have a client in that platform.
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