Introduction to the Document Vault

The document vault is a secure cloud-based file storage system available within Advisor View. You can use it to share, store, and organize files—both external documents and PDF reports generated within Advisor View—with clients, third parties, and within your firm. If you choose to enable add a document vault page and enable posting on the client portal, clients can see and share files with you, too.

Exchange Files With Clients

The document vault provides a system for securely, smoothly, and seamlessly sharing and viewing electronic files among your firm, your clients, and any third parties who should have access to files.

Example

During tax season, Advisor Kelly provides clients with custodian tax files as well as a firm-generated report on realized and unrealized gains and losses for each client's taxable accounts.

Kelly uses Post From FTP to upload the clients' tax files and adds them to the Taxes folder with the Tax Documents 2016 label. Then, within the document vault, Kelly uses multi-edit to grant specific clients access to the appropriate files and add Household-specific labels.

If you choose to enable the document vault for your client portals, clients will see a vault very similar to yours—but you can control whether they can upload files or see folders or labels.

Posting a file, whether by an advisor or a client, generates a variety of notifications that alert the recipient to new files as they arrive.

File Sources and File Types

Documents you share in the document vault can come from reports generated within Advisor View or external sources. You can also add external files to PDF reports automatically using Document Assembly.

Page	Document Source	Upload Location
Accounts Page	Internal	Generate PDF Reports. Use this to post PDF reports generated within Advisor View to clients.
Households	Internal	Generate PDF Reports. Use this to post PDF reports generated within Advisor View to clients in that Household.
Clients/Client Portals	External	Post Document. Use this to post external files such as Word and PDF files to clients.
Documents	External	Post From FTP to post external files in bulk to many clients using automated file matching.

Format	File Type	Preview
Global	Files shared globally. This icon may appear in the corner of any file type. These files are shared to all clients using Post to All Future Clients.	NA
Spreadsheet	.csv, .xls, .xlsx, .xlm	X
Image	.jpg, .jpeg, .bmp, .png, .tif, .tiff	X
Video	.mov, .mp4, .mpeg4, .wmv, .mp2, .mpeg2, .avi, .mpg, .mpeg
Audio	.mp3, .mpeg3, .wav, .aiff, .aif, .aac, .wma
Document	.pdf	X
Document	.xps	X
Presentation	.ppt, .pptx, .pps	X
Word Processing	.doc, .docx, .docm .rtf	X
Text	.txt	X
Other	Other

File Name Restrictions

The following characters will cause an error if included in the Document Name or Description:

Organize Shared Files Using Folders and Labels

In the document vault, you can organize files into folders and further sort using labels, facilitating effective filtering.

Category	Folders	Labels

Organization	High level organization One folder per file	Detailed organization Many labels per file
Arrangement	Arrange in your preferred order	Arranged alphabetically by default
Filtering	Click the folder to see only files stored in that folder.	Click multiple labels and can see either files with Any or All of the selected labels. Choose Any to see all files that have at least one of the selected labels applied to them. Choose All to see files that have all of the selected labels applied to them.
Client Portal	Control client access to folders Client sees only folders containing files in their document vault	Control client access to labels Client sees only labels applied to files in their document vault

Example

Advisor Kelly's document vault includes the a variety of different documents, which he organizes using folders and labels.

File Types	Folder Filed In	Labels Applied	Which Clients Get Access
Onboarding documents	Onboarding	Onboarding and Forms	All new clients
Firm-wide quarterly reports	Reporting	Quarterly Report	All current clients
Performance reports unique to the Household	Reporting	Unique label of the client's last name. For example, Alvarez Family, Jones Family, etc.	Only clients in the unique Household
Client meeting reports and meeting-related files	Client Meetings	Unique label of the client's last name. For example, Alvarez Family, Jones Family, etc.	Only clients involved in the meeting

The entire advisory team can quickly find any document using the appropriate combination of folders and labels. For example, they can find the following:

To find the Taylor family's tax documents: Filter by the Taxes file and further filter by the Taylor Family label.
To find all files pertaining to the Taylor family: Filter by just the Taylor Family label.

To learn more about how to create, edit, organize, and delete folders and labels, see Manage Folders and Manage Labels.

Control What Clients See

You can control whether clients see folders or labels at all. Folder and label visibility in the client portal is controlled on Client Views. If you do enable viewing folders or labels in the client portal, clients will only see folders and labels applied to files in their document vault.

If a client is not given permission to see folders, no folders will be displayed on the client portal document vault regardless of whether the individual documents are sorted into folders in the firm's document vault.

Example

The document vault for Georgia Abbey's client portal has permission to see folders and labels. Advisor Kelly adds files the Client Meeting folder and adds the Abbey Family label. The Client Meeting folder also contains files with labels for other families—for example, the Taylor Family. When Georgia Abbey logs in to her document vault, she sees only the Client Meeting folder and, under labels, only Abbey Family.

Manage Document Characteristics

Once you've uploaded a file to the document vault, you can perform the following actions:

For more information on the different actions you can take on files in the document vault, see Use the Document Vault.

Confirm What Files Are Assigned to Clients or Households (Find Documents For)

It's important to confirm that the right file went to the right client or Household. To give you a quick window into what documents are assigned to whom, Advisor View includes the Find Document For list, which filters your document vault to display only files visible to the selected record.

Example Onboarding Workflow Using the Document Vault

Let's take a look at an example of how the document vault's features integrate into a firm's onboarding procedures.

Example

When new clients come on board at Cherry Street Financial, the firm collects a number of financial statements from them to build the initial financial picture. Advisors at Cherry Street also provide a number of firm documents and forms, some standardized and some unique to the client.

Cherry Street Financial uses the document vault to facilitate these digital file exchanges through the following workflow:

1. Firm Posts Files to Clients Via the Document Vault
For generic firm-related files, Cherry Street Financial uses Post to all future clients to provide all new clients with the ADV Part 2, welcome kit, contact sheet, etc. Those files are stored in the Onboarding document vault folder. For client-specific files such as the Investment Advisory Agreement, the Cherry Street Financial CSA uses Post Documents on the Clients/Client Portals page to post directly to the individual new client. Those documents are filed in the Onboarding folder and labeled with the client's Household name, for example, Taylor Family. For large numbers of external files, such as a batch of custodian tax documents, Cherry Street Financial uses Post From FTP to automatically match large batches of files with the appropriate client portals.
2. Client Notified of New Files
When files are posted, the advisor chooses to have a notification email sent to the client. When this automatic email is used, only one email is sent per batch of files shared. When the client logs in to the portal, a red badge on the Documents tab on indicates new files are available. Clicking the Documents tab, the client sees the new files marked in bold.
3. Client Downloads Firm Files
The client selects all the new files and downloads them for review. When the CSA notices that the new client has logged in to the client portal, the CSA uses the Access panel for each file in the document vault to confirm that the client has downloaded the files.
4. Client Uploads Personal Financial Statements
Cherry Street Financial enables uploading for all client portals to allow clients to securely share sensitive financial statements with their financial advisory teams. The client uploads financial statements in one batch using the client portal Post Document.
5. Firm Downloads Client's Files
When the client uploads files, the team who manages that Household is alerted with the New Document Posted by Client email notification. They also see new items in the announcements list. The Cherry Street team member responsible uses the Find Documents For list to sort the document vault by Posted By to find files uploaded by the client. She selects all the files, applies the Household's unique label to them to facilitate finding the files in the future, and downloads the all the files at once to the firm's servers.

For more information on specifics of uploading, downloading, editing, deleting, sharing, and more document vault actions, see Use the Document Vault.

Documents Dashboard View

You can use dashboard views to see an at-a-glance summary of recent documents within your clients' accounts on your dashboard using the Documents module.

Contents

Introduction

Exchange Files With Clients

Example

File Sources and File Types

Note

File Name Restrictions

Organize Shared Files Using Folders and Labels

TIP

Example

Control What Clients See

Example

Manage Document Characteristics

Confirm What Files Are Assigned to Clients or Households (Find Documents For)

Example Onboarding Workflow Using the Document Vault

Example

Documents Dashboard View