AMA: I'm Courtney Youngblutt, Xplan Design Consultant and efficiency expert, Ask Me Anything!

We have prospect clients that are continuation options (when someone leaves one of our Employee Benefits Employer Groups - clients are not in Xplan).  These need to be entered into Xplan and a series of emails sent, if they take up the option they then become clients and we will servicing the client going forward.  If they don't then it needs recording then the prospect is archived.  We will have a good few hundred a year (or thousand).  Are we best to import a csv file and create opportunities, or prospect client with tasks/cases, or is there another option?

Creating a thousand, or even a few hundred clients, can take quite a while if done manually - importing via csv will certainly streamline this process. Make sure your imported clients can be found via search - e.g. set a unique category or update a specific field in your import that is identifiable - you may even just be able to use the standard ‘created date’ field.

Using Opportunities and Cases is certainly one way you could track this, but may be overkill when contacting the prospect initially. Have you thought about using Campaigns?

You could add the imported clients to a campaign and have the team contact each in turn and indicate whether they have accepted/declined the offer. You could auto activate a case once someone has been marked as accepting the offer, then go through the new client steps.

Check it out in Community here: Campaigns

In New Zealand we have a specific requirement for "replacement business with advice" that has to be reported to FMA each year.  We don't use Risk Researcher so is there a way we can record this information and run a report in Xplan?  

If you were using Risk Researcher, you could export the data via Xport and analyse the replacement of product recommendations. In theory, it is also possible to create custom fields then report on this via xmerge or xport. Before doing this, you need to consider whether this would actually add efficiencies or just introduce unnecessary effort & complication into the process. 

Without knowing the exact requirements, it is difficult to offer a recommendation - you may be able to simply add a file note using a template that outlines the replacement details and report on that each year - you can direct the user to which template to use by having it set as a task outcome in a thread or case. 
If you need more detailed data, see what fields are available in the standard insurance group and whether any of the information you need to report on could be captured here. I’d suggest first looking at the exact details you need to report on, then looking to see where in Xplan’s standard fields you might record this.

If 90% of the information you need can be captured, you may be able to add a single custom field to ‘flag’ which clients need to be reported on.

Alternatively, if more detail or evidence is needed to meet the reporting requirements, using Cases where you can record tasks and activities in Xplan (file notes, wizards etc) would be a great place to start.

There are great documents/help files to set up a review process but there doesn't seem to be any other types of workflows (such as a new business workflow or new opportunity with tasks etc), is this something that will be added that could be used a a base template?

Hi Carolyn, thanks for posting your questions!

The Iress Learning Centre has some great micro learns that show some sample workflows for New Business and the Advice Process. Micro Learns are short and easy to follow.

Example New Business Process covers creating a Thread (workflow) for an example New Business Process and includes a sample flowchart of the process (and it’s only 7 minutes long) 

There’s also a more extensive micro learn that goes for 21 minutes and has more detail around an Example New Client Process. 

The Advice document process micro learn is also a great one to help start mapping out your own advice process.

I don’t believe there are any out-of-the-box workflows for NZ to use as a base just yet, but the above in conjunction with the general Case & Thread learning events are a great place to start.