Release Notes - SmartOffice Pro Australian Edition 11.1.8

About This Document

For general information about SmartOffice release notes, visit the Release Notes home page.

Enhancement Highlights

This section provides quick links to the featured enhancements in this release.

Core System

• Improved phone number formatting

• New plug-in workflow for Chrome users

• Browser-based Excel export

• Browser-based analytic (Excel) reports

• Page layout customization improvements

• SmartPad auto-save

• "Do not market" communication privacy option

• Age information in key relations column

• Setting to ignore small e-mail attachments

• Unlimited grouping levels in charts

• Admin ability to edit/delete "Only Modifiable by Me" records

• Enhanced admin control over two-step authentication

• Improved dialog box size for high-resolution displays

• KB/MB file size columns for documents

• Automatic Dynamic Report FTP upload

• User-level default opportunity sales process

• Mass modification of opportunity custom fields

• Higher character limit for opportunity remarks

Agency Management

• Presale Status report

• Presale advisor license/appointment check

• Ability to edit Carbon Copy List for multiple advisors/agencies

• Ability to view agency key relations' policies

• Policy Inception Date field

• Policy transaction portlets for policy page layouts

• Expanded requirements view in pending cases

• Option to hide case IDs from e-mail subject lines

• Ability to choose different sender address for policy/pending case correspondence

• New requirement type for health records

• Modal premium update without annual premium calculation

• Credit card details in APS requirements

• Ability to retain historical group plan data

• Mass projection improvements

• Rate merge

• Policy creation from Speed Receipts

• Carrier Direct column in Advisor Payment List

SmartOffice Anywhere

• Revamped calendar and tasks screens

• Redesigned Settings screen

System Requirements

SmartOffice has dropped support for Windows 7 to coincide with Microsoft's end of support for that product. Ebix recommends that users upgrade to a later version of Windows.

For current system requirements, see System Requirements.

Note Regarding Text Changes in SmartOffice

This release may contain minor changes to text in dialog boxes and other areas of the SmartOffice user interface. Changes of this type are typically made to correct spelling, grammar, punctuation and other language-related issues. Such changes normally are not listed in this document unless they affect the way the application works.

SmartOffice Pro Changes

Core System

Featured Enhancements

Improved Phone Number Formatting

SmartOffice now formats Australian phone numbers with proper spacing so that they conform to Australian standards. This enhancement applies to SmartOffice Pro and SmartOffice Anywhere.

New Plug-in Workflow for Chrome Users

A recent Google Chrome update included changes that could interfere with SmartOffice correspondence and other workflows that rely on the Microsoft Plug-in for SmartOffice. To address these changes, SmartOffice no longer pushes .sopro files to Chrome users for these workflows. Instead, Chrome now asks users for permission to open the SOProLauncher app.

Clicking the Open SOProLauncher button allows users to proceed with these workflows. Users can select the Always allow \[URL\] to open links of this type in the associated app option to hide the prompt in the future. This change applies to Chrome only; other browsers will continue to receive .sopro files. (PMG-893527)

Browser-Based Excel Export

Users can now export data from SmartOffice in Excel (XLS) format without the Microsoft Plug-in for SmartOffice. The process is now completely browser-based, making Excel exports available to SmartOffice users who cannot (or prefer not to) install the plug-in. As part of this enhancement:

• When a user exports a list containing more than 1,500 rows, SmartOffice now sends the request to the Job Queue to minimize any impact on system performance. When the export file is ready to download, the user receives a notification through the Alert Center.

• Customers who prefer the plug-in based Excel export method can switch back by navigating to the office Detail content link (Setup > Office Settings) and selecting Plug-in in the Export Method section.

• When users on non-Windows devices export lists in Excel format, the system now automatically uses the new browser-based workflow, even when current office settings or user preferences specify that the Windows-only Microsoft Plug-in for SmartOffice be used.

(PMG-863799, PMG-872782)

Browser-Based Analytic (Excel) Reports

The process for generating analytic (Excel) reports-reports---introduction) has been revamped. When users run these reports, SmartOffice now creates them on the server by default and delivers them to user's browser as Excel (.xlsx) file downloads. Because of this enhancement, the Microsoft Plug-in for SmartOffice is no longer required for these reports (offices can switch back to the plug-in method by going to Setup > Office Settings and selecting Plug-In under Export Method). (PMG-834130)

Page Layout Customization Improvements

Several key improvements were made to page layout customization:

• Household page layout customization: The contents of the household Detail content link are now customizable, enabling users to choose the data they want to see when viewing household records. To start customizing the page, select Menu > Page Layouts (this requires the Page Layout Customization user right). . (PMG-735844, PMG-873336)

• Improved control over applying page layouts to all users: When an administrator user assigns a custom page layout to all users in an office, the layout now applies even when those users do not have page layout customization rights themselves. Previously, users without page layout customization rights were getting the default page layout. (PMG-841040)

• Easier field removal in custom page layouts: To quickly remove individual fields from a custom page layout, users can now click the "x" button on the field in the template editor. Previously, the only way to remove a field was to drag it to the field list.

(PMG-859453)

• Better field width control in custom portlets: When modifying a custom portlet in a page layout, users can now adjust individual fields to half width or full width, enabling two-column field arrangements. This enhancement makes control over fields in custom portlets more flexible and consistent with that of predefined portlets.

(PMG-811398)

SmartPad Auto-Save

SmartOffice can now be configured to automatically save SmartPad entries in the background as users write them. This enhancement helps to prevent situations in which a user's session expires before he/she saves a SmartPad entry, causing the loss of any unsaved text. An administrator can enable this feature from the office SmartPad/New Contact/E-mail Posting content link by entering a value (in minutes) for the auto-save interval.

(PMG-867025)

"Do Not Market" Communication Privacy Option

Users can now quickly select or clear communication privacy options for contact and other records. In contact records, go to the Add'l Personal content link and select or clear the new Do not Market option under Communication Privacy.

Selecting this option automatically selects all options in that section. The same option is available on the advisor Add'l Personal content link, as well as the business and agency Add'l Detail content links. (PMG-876133)

Age Information in Key Relations Column

The All Key Relations column, available on lists such as the Contact List, now displays the age of each key relation in parentheses.

 This can be useful for quickly identifying important relations, such as dependents over age 18. (PMG-836408)

Setting to Ignore Small E-mail Attachments

Office administrators can now configure SmartOffice to ignore e-mail attachments that fall below a certain file size when users post e-mail messages to the system. In Setup > Office Settings, go to the SmartPad/New Contact/E-mail Posting content link and look for the Ignore e-mail attachments below \_\_\_ (KB) field under E-mail Posting Options.

When this field is blank, SmartOffice uses the default setting of 5 KB. Entering 0 in this field allows attachments of any size to be posted to SmartOffice. (PMG-883684)

Unlimited Grouping Levels in Charts

Charts added to lists now support unlimited levels of grouping. In previous versions, SmartOffice supported only three levels. (PMG-884456)

Admin Ability to Edit/Delete "Only Modifiable by Me" Records

Users with the Administrator: User Rights & Creation/Licenses/Groups user right can now modify and delete records that other users in the office have marked as "Only modifiable by me," including sets, Dynamic Reports, correspondence templates and page layout templates. This enhancement gives high-level administrator users greater power to edit or remove records that have become outdated or are no longer needed. (PMG-858225)

Enhanced Admin Control Over Two-Step Authentication

To help administrators better enforce security practices, SmartOffice now requires a user to have the Administrator: User Rights & Creation/Licenses/Groups user right to enable or disable two-step authentication for a user account. Users without this right can still access their two-step authentication preferences to specify how long they want SmartOffice to remember their last successful verification, but they can no longer turn the feature on or off themselves.

Also as part of this enhancement, the choices in the Two-Step Authentication drop-down list indicating the state of two-step authentication for a user's account were renamed Active and Inactive.

(PMG-858857)

Improved Dialog Box Sizing for High-Resolution Displays

When a dialog box containing a list (e.g., the SmartPad) opens in SmartOffice, the box's width is now 85% of the width of the browser window. In previous SmartOffice versions, these dialog boxes were opening at a fixed width that was not optimized for high-resolution displays and larger browser window widths. This enhancement makes more columns visible, reducing the need for horizontal scrolling. (PMG-879408)

KB/MB File Size Columns for Documents

In document lists, users can now view file sizes expressed in kilobytes or megabytes (previously, the only option was bytes). Two new columns, Size (KB) and Size (MB), are now available for these list layouts.

(PMG-883248)

Automatic Dynamic Report FTP Upload

Users can now set up Dynamic Reports so that they are automatically generated and uploaded to an FTP site on a defined schedule. The options for specifying an FTP server are in the E-mail Rules Detail dialog box, accessible from the Automatic Report E-mailing step of the Dynamic Report Setup wizard.

For more information, see Dynamic Reports - Report Setup. (PMG-889902)

Other Enhancements

General

• Additional page layout customization improvements: In addition to the featured page layout customization enhancements described in the previous section, this release contains the following improvements:

• Custom page template command enhancements: In the side menu, the Setup > Custom Template Creation command was renamed Custom Template to reflect the fact that it is used for general page layout template management. In addition, when users select this command, the Search Custom Template dialog box that opens now contains a New button for creating a page template immediately. (PMG-859475, PMG-859477)

• Show My Favorites in page layout editor: In the page layout editor, users can now select the new Show My Favorites option at the top to limit the choices in the Template drop-down list to their favorite layouts.

(PMG-859530)

• Improved page layout reset control: After a custom page layout is applied to the entire office, users with the Page Layout Customization - User user right who apply their own layouts can now reset to the SmartOffice or office default layout. Previously, these users lost the ability to reset to the SmartOffice default layout once a template was applied to all users in the office. Also as part of this enhancement, a new Office Default Template column is now available in page layout template lists so that users can more easily identify templates that have been applied office-wide. (PMG-873021)

• New page layout save options: For users who have the Page Layout Customization - Office user right, the options for applying custom page layouts have been improved to provide greater control. When these users select Apply or Save & Apply on a page layout, they now have more flexibility in determining which user accounts the changes will apply to.

(PMG-873945)

• Permissions column in user lists and reports: When viewing a list of user accounts, administrators can now see data about the permissions assigned to each user by adding the new User Permissions column to the list layout. The column is also available for Dynamic Reports in the Admin-User Proxy and Office/User Access Log categories (Other report family). (PMG-883478)

• Better sorting of user account data: When the User Roles and User Permissions columns from the User table appear in lists and Dynamic Reports, the contents of those columns are now sorted alphabetically to make the information easier to consume. (PMG-885459)

• URL hyperlinks in certain SmartOffice fields: When users enter a web address (URL) in any free-form text input field like Remarks, Description, or the Notes field in SmartPad entries, they can now click the address to go to the specified website. (PMG-894506)

Alert Center

• Improved Alert Center column layout: The Action column in the Alert Center is now visible by default. This enhancement makes it easier for users to access the actions available for each alert they receive. (PMG-880030)

Contact Management

• Ability to create spouse records on the fly: The workflow for adding a spouse/partner to a contact record was improved. When a user clicks the Add Spouse/Partner link and searches for a spouse/partner contact that does not exist in SmartOffice, the system now asks whether the user wants to add the contact. Selecting Yes triggers workflows for adding the contact, confirming the key relation and linking the spouse to a household. (PMG-185766)

• Modified by/on columns in Document List: Users can now more easily see when a document posted to a contact record was last modified and by whom. On the contact Letters/Documents content link, the Modified By and Modified On columns are now available for addition to the Document List. Users with the appropriate user rights can modify the list layout to add these new columns. (PMG-865917)

• Additional field in contact quick-create dialog box: When a user selects Contact from the Add New menu, the New - Contact dialog box that opens now includes the Sub-Type field. (PMG-674965)

• Non-Flash referral visualizer: The graphical Customer Referral Visualizer has been rebuilt to operate natively in the browser without requiring the Flash extension. The new visualizer differs in some ways from the Flash-based version. For more information, refer to the help topic. (PMG-879376)

• Custom data columns in business hierarchy list: While viewing a business's key relations, users can now add columns for contact custom fields. To do so, go to the business Key Relations content link and customize the list layout of the Business Hierarchy section to add columns from the Contact Custom table. (PMG-883020)

• Improved address/phone management for key relations: When a user adds a dependent or a Family-type key relation to a contact, SmartOffice now asks whether all of the contact's addresses and phone numbers should be copied over. Previously, the system was copying that information over automatically. (PMG-884449)

• Text option for preferred communication: Users can now indicate a contact's preference to receive communications by SMS text. On the contact Add'l Personal content link, a new Text Message option is available under Preferred Communication. The option is also available on these content links:

- Business Add'l Detail

- Advisor Add'l Detail

- Agency Add'l Detail

- Carrier Detail

The new option can also be made the office default for new records in Office Settings - SmartPad/New Contact/E-mail Posting. (PMG-890315)

Correspondence

• New contact merge codes: Three merge codes that expand to display data from the contact Personal content link were added for use in correspondence templates:

- F\_PE\_CITIZENSHIP displays the contents of the Citizenship field.

- F\_PE\_Tax displays the contents of the Tax field.

- F\_PE\_TotalIncome displays the contents of the Total Income field.

(PMG-892905)

• New preferred address state merge code: Users can insert the new PreferredAddressState merge code into correspondence templates to display only the state from the contact's preferred address. (PMG-895373)

Data Import/Export

• Improved advisor/agency import matching: The Data Import Wizard was enhanced to enable matching of imported advisor/agency records with existing SmartOffice records based on advisor/agency ID. (PMG-792538)

Dynamic Reports

• Increased character limit for Dynamic Report e-mails: When configuring automatic e-mailing rules for Dynamic Reports, users can now enter up to 6,000 characters in the E-mail Body field. The previous limit was 4,000 characters. (PMG-883655)

Filters

• Ability to ignore year for additional popular date ranges: When defining filters that involve date columns, users can now select the Ignore year option for most popular date ranges. Previously, the option was available for only a few popular date ranges. (PMG-847913)

• New date range option for filters: When filtering on a date column using the Popular Date Ranges option, users now have an additional choice: Previous 13 Months. This date range covers the previous 12 months plus the current month up to the current day. (PMG-896025)

Resolved Issues

General

• When a user tried to edit the layout of a page that had the default layout, the portlets and fields displayed in the layout editor were different from those on the page itself. This issue was resolved. (PMG-810072)

• While typing characters into the Search box, users who selected one of SmartOffice's suggested matches from the dynamic menu using the keyboard were finding that the record was not opening. This issue was resolved. (PMG-810604)

• Multiple issues with page layout customization were resolved:

- When the Contact Identifications portlet was added to a contact custom page layout, removing the driver's license Expiration Date field from the portlet and then re-adding it was causing issues with the arrangement of fields.

- In portlets containing two columns of fields, removing a field from the left column was causing the adjacent field in the right column to shift over and lose its label.

- For many record types, users were able to add the same field to a custom page layout more than once. This was occurring because these fields were appearing in column searches even after they had already been added to the layout. Now, columns that are already part of the layout no longer appear in column search results.

- When a user added an individual field to a portlet in a custom page layout, the field was appearing at the bottom of the portlet instead of the location where the user had dragged it.

- When a warning or informational message appeared at the top of the page layout editor, the message was scrolling along with the rest of the page. These messages now remain visible while the rest of the page scrolls.

- When users clicked the Reset to Default button on the page layout editor, the confirmation dialog box's appearance was inconsistent with that of other dialog boxes in SmartOffice.

- Selecting the Add to My Favorites option while editing a custom page layout template was not adding the template to the user's favorites in some instances.

- The first portlet that the user dragged into the layout was not appearing in the upper-left corner of the layout.

- When a user dragged fields into a portlet, the fields were always appearing on the left side of the portlet, regardless of where the user had dragged them.

- Users were unable to drag a field to the bottom of a portlet.

- Moving a portlet below another portlet was causing other portlets to change position unexpectedly.

- Users were unable to add fields to a custom portlet or drag fields into the custom portlet from another portlet.

- When the Primary Advisor field was added to a custom portlet, the field label was appearing as First Name, Last Name in the page layout.

- In some instances, adding all of the fields from the Personal Information portlet to a custom portlet was resulting in an error.

- In some page layouts, users who changed the height of the Remarks portlet in the page layout editor were finding that the change was not being reflected in the records themselves.

- Users were unable to move portlets from the bottom of the layout to the top when a scroll bar was present on the page.

- After changing a page layout from two columns to three columns, users could not move the first two portlets to the third column.

- Users were unable to drag predefined portlets into certain blank areas in page layouts.

- When a user dragged a predefined portlet into a page layout, the portlet's fields were not appearing until the user saved the layout.

- Users were unable to drag portlets to the last column in a multi-column custom page layout.

- Users could not drag a portlet between two horizontally stacked list portlets.

- Users could not drag a portlet below a full-width portlet.

- Users could not increase the width of a half-width list portlet to full width unless they first moved the portlet.

- When a custom page layout contained a custom field, subsequent changes to the field label were not being reflected in the page layout.

- After changing a custom page layout from a two-column layout to a three-column layout, users were unable to move portlets containing custom fields to the new column.

- In some instances, changes made to the Primary Advisor field on a custom page layout were not being recorded properly in the SmartPad.

- When a custom page layout containing Dynamic Report portlets was applied to a record, opening the layout template again was removing those portlets.

- Dragging a custom portlet under a full-width portlet was creating duplicates of the custom portlet when the template was saved.

- When a contact custom page layout included a custom field with a label containing a special character, applying the layout was producing an error.

- In household custom page layouts, users who entered data in household custom fields were unable to save their changes.

- Moving the Current Stage field from the Opportunity Detail portlet to another portlet was producing an error when the layout was saved.

- In advisor custom page layouts, users could not make changes to the Case Manager field when that field was part of a custom portlet.

- While editing a custom page layout, users who removed a field from the layout were finding that the field was not appearing in the list of available fields until after the page layout was saved.

- Removing a custom field from a custom page layout was leaving the field label in the layout until the user saved the changes.

- When users tried to type a column name in the search box, they were experiencing lag, and the column list was loading slowly.

- Users who have the Page Layout Customization - User user right were able to reset page layouts to office defaults but not SmartOffice defaults.

(PMG-853045, PMG-858816, PMG-859439, PMG-859442, PMG-859457, PMG-859463, PMG-859467, PMG-859471, PMG-859473, PMG-859588, PMG-859590, PMG-859592, PMG-859594, PMG-859596, PMG-859599, PMG-859601, PMG-878621, PMG-880387, PMG-881793, PMG-881794, PMG-881987, PMG-882055, PMG-882858, PMG-882647, PMG-883023, PMG-884650, PMG-892488, PMG-897310)

• The SmartOffice Sync for Outlook/Lotus Notes user right was removed from the system (support for this feature officially ended with the release of SmartOffice Pro). (PMG-863792)

• Under User Preferences > Basic Info, users who chose the Day option from the Default location at sign-in (SOPRO) drop-down list were encountering an error when they signed in. This issue was resolved. (PMG-864531)

• In User Preferences, an issue with the E-mail Posting Count section on the Basic Info content link was resolved. When 50 or more posting records existed, this section was expanding into the next column and causing layout issues. (PMG-865317)

• In some instances, when the system required a user to create a new password after sign-in, SmartOffice was displaying an error after the user entered the new password. This issue was resolved. (PMG-866400)

• Several buttons, including the Menu button, were not registering users' clicks in some instances. This issue was resolved. (PMG-871799)

• In Office Settings, an issue with e-mail SMTP settings was resolved. The issue occurred when SmartOffice could not connect to the specified server and then tried to connect to the default SMTP server specified in the SmartOffice server configuration. Because not all of the original SMTP settings were reset, SmartOffice could not connect using the fallback server settings, either. This issue was resolved. (PMG-872884)

• Internet Explorer users who changed user account permissions were finding that the system was not saving their changes. This issue was resolved. (PMG-875793)

• In lists displaying three or more levels of grouping, charts were displaying incorrect data. This issue was resolved. (PMG-875939)

• Two issues with record tag management were resolved:

- On the Office Settings > Record Tags content link, the Menu commands for creating and deleting tags were missing.

- For enterprise customers, when a System office user tried to access the Office Settings > Record Tags content link of a child office, the Office Settings > Detail content link was opening instead.

(PMG-878876)

• In some instances, the division and multiplication features in calculated columns were not producing correct results. This issue was resolved. (PMG-881389)

• Several issues affecting Internet Explorer users were resolved:

- The Search and Add New menus were not displaying any choices.

- The Sign In and About hyperlinks were visible even after users signed in.

- The Advanced Search hyperlink next to the Search box was not working.

(PMG-883211)

• Some users were unexpectedly being taken to the SmartOffice home page in the middle of a workflow or when reloading a page in Chrome. This issue was resolved. (PMG-885734)

• An issue that was preventing users from permanently deleting records from the Deleted Records area of the system was resolved. (PMG-892709)

• Several issues with charts were resolved:

- In bar charts, bars were all the same color.

- Total counts were not displaying.

- Labels on the X and Y axes were missing or nor formatted correctly.

- Drilling down to different levels of data in groupings was not working properly.

- Goal charts were appearing left-aligned instead of centered.

- Percentages were not bolded.

- The data that appears when users point to a bar or line was not displaying correctly.

- Labels in bar charts were being truncated in a way that made them unintelligible.

- Goal charts were not resizing themselves appropriately when displayed in smaller home page portlets.

- Numbers were missing commas.

- Numbers in goal charts were not aligning properly.

- Colors in charts were changing unpredictably.

- Fonts were inconsistent.

(PMG-894176, PMG-894509)

Alert Center

• In the Alert Center, several issues with the Navigate To button in the Action column were resolved:

- When the Regarding column was removed from the list layout, the Navigate To button was not working.

- When the Regarding column was positioned as the first column, clicking the Navigate To button was opening the Alert Details dialog box.

- Clicking the Navigate To button was inconsistent in terms of the browser tab/window that was opening.

(PMG-862476)

Contact Management

• During key relation creation, when the contact search came up empty, the command to create a contact was missing from the Contact List dialog box. This command was restored. (PMG-645287)

• During an advanced contact search, entering a name in the Set field and then clicking the Set link was causing an issue. When the list of matching sets opened and the user selected a set, the list was not closing automatically. This issue was resolved. (PMG-664011)

• While creating a set membership record on the contact Add'l Personal content link, users were receiving an error when they closed the Set List - All Sets dialog box instead of selecting a set. This issue was resolved. (PMG-841984)

• When a contact's birth date was modified, the prompt to validate the policy age and recalculate the conversion period end date was appearing when the contact had investment positions but no policies or pending cases. The prompt now appears only when the contact has policies or pending cases. (PMG-845296)

• E-mail addresses with the E-mail for Commission Information designation that are also marked as preferred were not appearing in the Preferred E-mail and All E-Mail Addresses list columns. This issue was resolved. (PMG-858394)

• After adding a list of contacts to a marketing campaign using the Marketing Options command, users were encountering an issue. If the campaign's handling options included creating an initial activity, the Marketing Options command was creating that activity for only some of the selected contacts. This issue was resolved. (PMG-861838)

• An issue with updating the address of a head of household was resolved. When SmartOffice offered to also update the addresses of key relations, users who clicked the Yes button were finding that key relations were not being updated in some instances. (PMG-866141)

• An error that occurred when users tried to restore deleted contacts was resolved. (PMG-868904)

• Errors that were occurring when users tried to merge contacts were resolved. (PMG-868914, PMG-890109)

• Users who added the ExtLinkSource and ssHeadEXTLInkObjectID columns from the ContactExtLink table to the Contact List were encountering an error when they accessed the list. This issue was resolved. (PMG-869028)

• Users whose permissions were configured to prevent them from modifying contacts or other record types were unable to see the following options in phone number records:

- Mark as Preferred Phone

- Primary Business Phone

- Do not call

This issue was resolved. (PMG-870449)

• Phone numbers and addresses that were not marked as primary were not being transferred to new key relations created for a contact. This issue was resolved. (PMG-873483)

• On the Contact List, the Letters Sent column was displaying inaccurate values. This issue was resolved. (PMG-873567)

• Some users who customized the layout of the contact Personal content link were finding that, when they added a primary advisor to a contact and saved their changes, the advisor information was disappearing. This issue was resolved. (PMG-874354)

• While viewing a contact list, users who selected the Add to Set command were encountering an issue. After searching for a set and customizing the column layout of the results list, users were seeing an error when they closed the list. This issue was resolved. (PMG-875290)

• An issue with using the Add to Set command from a record list was resolved. The issue occurred when a set name and user were entered in the Search Sets dialog box. When the specified user was not the set's creator, closing the set search results dialog box was producing an error. (PMG-875291)

• Searches for contacts whose last names contain spaces were not returning results. This issue was resolved. (PMG-880792)

• An issue that occurred during key relation entry was resolved. After the user selected the Professional relationship type using the keyboard (by pressing P twice), the relationship type was reverting to Family when the user selected a choice under Define the Relationship using the mouse. (PMG-881431)

• An issue with contacts having plus (+) signs in their names was resolved. When these contacts were entered in SmartOffice fields, the list of matching names that automatically appeared was not displaying the plus sign. (PMG-881628)

• Users were encountering an error when they copied a contact's address from the Addresses section to the Remarks field and then saved the record. This issue was resolved. (PMG-882887)

• Users who customized the Personal Information and Business Information portlets in contact records were finding that some fields in those portlets were missing. This issue was resolved. (PMG-887071)

• An issue with the Remarks field on the contact Personal content link was resolved. The issue occurred when a user maximized the field, entered text containing HTML formatting, and then selected the Remove Format button. After saving these changes, any attempt to view an address record in the contact was resulting in an error. (PMG-890043)

• Selection of multiple records by shift-clicking in a contact list was not working when the list was sorted by the Preferred E-mail column. This issue was resolved. (PMG-892792)

• Users who tried to change the layout of the contact Add'l Personal content link by selecting a choice from the Template drop-down list were finding that their choice was not being applied. This issue was resolved. (PMG-892948)

• When a user linked a contact to another contact as a spouse, SmartOffice was transferring the contact's address information to the spouse record but not the phone number data. This issue was resolved. (PMG-897456)

Correspondence

• In contact lists, the Communication Privacy column was not displaying a Yes value for contacts that had the Do not phone dial, Do not e-mail or Do not SMS privacy options selected. This issue was resolved. (PMG-858587)

• An issue with sending calendar activity confirmation e-mail messages from SmartOffice was resolved. When a default subject line was specified for the correspondence template, the e-mail message's subject line was displaying the activity's subject instead of the template's default subject. (PMG-869040)

• The Menu > Communication > Correspondence command was not available from the results list of a Household- or Household Members-category Dynamic Report. This issue was resolved. (PMG-869763)

• When a secure delivery e-mail subject prefix was configured in Office Settings, SmartOffice was not adding the prefix to the subject lines of outgoing e-mail messages as expected. This issue was resolved. (PMG-883328)

Data Import/Export

• While performing a contact import, users who mapped a column to the SmartPad's Memo Date field were finding that the system was inserting the current date in that field instead. This issue was resolved. (PMG-863781)

• An error that was preventing users from importing employee census data with key relations was resolved. (PMG-873167)

• An issue that was preventing users from exporting presale activity Dynamic Report results was resolved. (PMG-877777)

• While viewing the details of a .csv file import in the Data Import Log, users were unable to customize the list layout because the relevant command was missing. This issue was resolved. (PMG-880540)

Dynamic Reports

• An issue with Dynamic Report filter configuration was resolved. When users applied certain Next or Previous popular date ranges to a date column (e.g. Next 3 Months), the report results were not properly reflecting the selected date range. (PMG-220557)

• When running a Dynamic Report produced only one result, SmartOffice was directly opening the record instead of displaying a list of results. This issue was resolved so that reports always display a list of results. (PMG-811836)

• An issue that was preventing users from importing Dynamic Report definitions into SmartOffice was resolved. (PMG-817332)

• An issue that was preventing the Dynamic Report Setup wizard from opening properly was resolved. (PMG-858225)

• An issue with using the Remove from Favorites command on a Dynamic Reports list was resolved. The command was not working properly when the reports had been added to the user's favorites using the Add to Office Favorites (All Users) option. (PMG-863001)

• An issue with filter creation during Dynamic Report setup was resolved. After the user entered and saved criteria for the new filter, the filter name was not appearing in the filter list. (PMG-863418)

• An issue that was preventing users from creating correspondence from certain advisor Dynamic Reports was resolved. (PMG-863566)

• An issue that was preventing the results of a presale activity analytic (Excel) report from opening in Excel was resolved. (PMG-865604)

• An issue with Dynamic Reports using the Summary report layout was resolved. When a report was grouped by more than one column, clicking the group hyperlinks in the results was displaying a blank dialog box. (PMG-866548)

• Users who tried to export the results of a Dynamic Report were encountering an error when the record count was high. This issue was resolved. (PMG-869814)

• An issue that was preventing users from saving changes to automated e-mail rules in Dynamic Reports was resolved. (PMG-871439)

• When creating a Dynamic Report, users were finding that the Only Modifiable by Me option on the Detail/Add Filter screen was not available in some instances. This issue was resolved. (PMG-874555)

• Users who exported the results of a Summary-layout Dynamic Report to .csv or .xls format were finding that the export file was blank. This issue was resolved. (PMG-875859)

• An issue with SmartPad Dynamic Reports displaying E-mail-type entries was resolved. When a report's layout contained the Notes column and the row layout was set to Full, SmartOffice was displaying text in the Notes column with the formatting removed. (PMG-876631)

• When a SmartPad Dynamic Report was added to a custom page layout, long notes were not displaying in their entirety. This issue was resolved. (PMG-877114)

• When attempting to create a Dynamic Report from the report search dialog box, users who clicked the Quick Report button and then selected a report category were encountering an error. This issue was resolved. (PMG-878745)

• During quick Dynamic Report creation, selecting the Contact ID choice from the Look For drop-down list was making the Range drop-down blank. This issue was resolved. (PMG-880140)

• Layout issues affecting Dynamic Reports that display pie charts were resolved. (PMG-881277)

• After running a Contact/Business-category Dynamic Report, users were unable to mass modify fields in the Business Custom table because that table was missing from the Mass Modification dialog box. This issue was resolved. (PMG-882836)

• When a Dynamic Reports was configured to be e-mailed automatically on a monthly schedule, modifying the report was resetting the schedule and causing the report to be sent the next day. This issue was resolved. (PMG-889300)

• When users added certain Dynamic Reports to a customized business Detail content link, the reports were appearing blank. This issue was resolved. (PMG-889592)

• An issue with custom-sorted Dynamic Reports was resolved. When users selected Open Report Filter on the results page and opened the custom sort options, the selected columns were not in the correct order. (PMG-897903)

Home Page

• Several RSS feeds available for addition to users' home page tabs were no longer valid. These feeds were removed from the list of choices. (PMG-867055)

• An error that users were encountering when they clicked the Go to List button on home page Dynamic Report portlets was resolved. (PMG-868147)

• Users without administrator rights were able to edit Dynamic Reports on home page tabs in some instances, even when the report's creator had selected the Only Modifiable by Me option. This issue was resolved. (PMG-874246)

• When a dashboard administrator selected the Force Focus on Next Login option for a shared tab, the tab was not appearing at sign-in for all users as expected. This issue was resolved. (PMG-874917)

• When displayed within a custom portlet on a user's home page, SmartPad Dynamic Reports were not displaying appended SmartPad entries. This issue was resolved. (PMG-875996)

• An issue that was preventing some dashboard reports from loading properly was resolved. (PMG-877435)

• Several dashboard management issues were resolved:

- Renaming a dashboard was not updating its modification date in the database.

- Dashboard creators were unable to assign or delete their dashboards in some instances.

- When office security was enabled, Super Users were unable to assign or delete dashboards in some instances.

(PMG-886472)

• When users tried to add certain websites to a SmartOffice home page tab, the system was displaying the message "Error Loading URL. Open this content in a new window." This issue was resolved. (PMG-887533)

• An issue that was preventing charts from displaying in Dynamic Report portlets on the SmartOffice home page was resolved. (PMG-893551)

SmartOffice Sync for Microsoft Exchange

• SmartOffice was not creating SmartPad entries for Exchange sync activity updates in some instances. This issue was resolved.  (PMG-860188)

• When the Exchange user name in a sync setup was updated while a regular sync operation was in progress, SmartOffice was not displaying the confirmation message stating that the sync mode would change. This issue was resolved.  (PMG-869804)

• When a recurring activity was created in Microsoft Exchange, only the first occurrence was synchronizing to SmartOffice. This issue was resolved. (PMG-875524)

SmartPad

• In custom page layouts, users were unable to forward or reply to posted e-mail messages from the SmartPad Notes portlet. This issue was resolved. (PMG-748754)

• While viewing the SmartPad using Compact Mode or Preview Mode, users who pointed to the text in the Notes column were not seeing a preview of the entire note. This issue was resolved. (PMG-682385)

• Two SmartPad commands that are no longer functional, Do Not Archive and Allow Archive, were still accessible from the SmartPad's Menu button. These commands were removed. (PMG-875910)

• An issue affecting E-mail-type SmartPad entries containing a small amount of text was resolved. When the SmartPad's row layout was set to Preview or Compact, the Notes column was displaying e-mail text with line breaks, which was limiting the amount of text that users could preview in that column. The line breaks no longer appear. (PMG-877001)

• An issue that occurred when the SmartPad Notes portlet was added to the contact page layout was resolved. Entries added through that portlet were not visible in the SmartPads of other contacts from the same household using the SmartPad household view. (PMG-887996)

• From the search box, users who selected Tools > Notes (Last 30 Days) and then selected Advanced Search were finding that selecting All as the date range was still displaying notes from the last 30 days. This issue was resolved. (PMG-893792)

• An issue that resulted in an Advice option displaying for SmartPad notes and other records was resolved. This feature is normally disabled in most SmartOffice server configurations, but SmartOffice was ignoring those server settings. (PMG-895546)

SmartCalendar

Enhancements

• Enhanced activity privacy for contacts: When a user marks a contact as Private, any activities linked to the contact are now automatically privatized. Previously, those activities had to be privatized manually to prevent other users with access to the user's calendar from seeing the activities' contact names and subject lines. (PMG-738544)

• Persistent agenda view settings: When a user filters the calendar Agenda view using the data range and status drop-down lists, SmartOffice now remembers those options the next time the user navigates to the agenda. (PMG-744999)

• Activity detail improvement: When a user expands or collapses the Options section in the Activity Detail dialog box, SmartOffice now remembers the section's current state and displays it the same way the next time the user views an activity's details. (PMG-852718)

• Enhanced SmartPad entries for activities: When an activity contains a subject and description, any system-generated SmartPad entries related to that activity now display both pieces of information. Previously, these entries displayed only the description, even when the activity also had a subject. (PMG-852986)

• Tracking of activity status changes: When an activity's status is updated, SmartOffice now adds an entry to the Activity History section of the Activity Notes dialog box, enabling users to track status changes over time. (PMG-892476)

• Spouse added as dependent in some activity outcome workflows: In specific instances, when a spouse is added through the Comprehensive Activity Outcome Wizard, the spouse is now created as a dependent in SmartOffice rather than a contact. This occurs when the user selects the Obtained Permission to Keep in Touch and Fact Finder Completed/Updated outcome options in the wizard. (PMG-897317)

Resolved Issues

• When creating all-day activities, users were finding that the Show Time As drop-down list in the Activity Detail dialog box was set to Free by default instead of Busy. This was happening when the user's Activity Add Mode setting in User Preferences > Activity Options was set to Comprehensive Add. This issue was resolved. (PMG-560888)

• On the activity Scheduling tab, issues with the alignment of participant names and times were resolved. (PMG-652519)

• In the Activity dialog box, users who pointed to the linked contact's name to display its information card were finding that the card data was cut off in some instances. This issue was resolved. (PMG-839537)

• Tasks created for users in the UTC+12:00 and above time zones were shifting to the next day in the calendar. This issue was resolved. (PMG-848847)

• When a user deleted a recurring activity, the system was generating an "Activity Logically Deleted" entry in the SmartPad for each deleted recurrence, cluttering the SmartPad. The system now generates a single entry for deleted recurring activities. (PMG-861176)

• The system was creating a SmartPad entry when a calendar activity was deleted, even when office settings were configured not to create entries for activities in the SmartPad. This issue was resolved. (PMG-861490)

• In the Activity Outcome dialog box, clicking the Customize Choice button next to the Outcome Options list was not opening the Drop-down Choice Customization dialog box. This issue was resolved. (PMG-867943)

• When using the Add Important Dates to the Calendar feature, Internet Explorer users who selected the Extract Dates from Specific Table option were finding that, when they selected a table name, the list of fields for that table was blank. This issue was resolved. (PMG-870763)

• In the calendar Agenda view, choices were disappearing from the Date Ranges drop-down list after the user navigated away from the page and then back. This issue was resolved. (PMG-873884)

• On the calendar Agenda view, some users who selected Specific Day as the date range and then clicked the Next Day button were seeing all activities rather than just the activities for the next day. This issue was resolved. (PMG-874324)

• An issue that was causing users to receive notifications for deleted activities was resolved. (PMG-877429)

• Users who printed calendar activity reports using the Calendar Month Portrait layout were finding that, when an activity's description contained a web address, the address was overlapping with content in the next column. This issue was resolved. (PMG-881400)

• When users created activities during the activity outcome workflow, choices in the activity Sub-Type drop-down list that should have been hidden were visible. This issue was resolved. (PMG-882159)

• On the contact Personal content link, when a user created a Done activity by selecting Menu > Activity Options > Activity Outcome, any text entered in the Activity Description field was not appearing in the saved activity. This issue was resolved. (PMG-885342)

• In some instances, using the Menu > Print Calendar command was producing calendar printouts with text that was cut off. This issue was resolved. (PMG-886022)

• When a Call or Appointment activity was marked Done, the Calls Made or Appointments Made column in the Contact List was not updating accordingly for the linked contact. This issue was resolved. (PMG-886753)

• Issues with rescheduled activities not being recorded properly in the SmartPad were resolved. (PMG-886799)

• An issue with the Add Important Dates to the Calendar utility was resolved. When users selected the Contact DOB and Ignore Year options, entered a specific date range, and then ran the utility, the progress bar was displaying an "error processing request" message. (PMG-892090)

SmartOpportunities

Featured Enhancements

User-Level Default Sales Process

The default opportunity sales process that is selected when a user creates an opportunity can now be configured at the user level. In User Preferences > Basic Info, use the new Default Opportunity Process field under General Information to specify the default (this field is visible only when the user has an Opportunity license).

This user-level default process takes precedence over any default process specified for the entire office in Opportunity Setup. It also applies to opportunity creation in SmartOffice Anywhere. (PMG-780671)

Mass Modification of Opportunity Custom Fields

If custom fields are defined on the opportunity Custom content link, those fields can now be modified for multiple opportunities at once. On the Opportunity List, open the Mass Modification dialog box (Menu > Advanced Options > Mass Modify) and select a field under Opportunity Custom.

(PMG-887377)

Higher Character Limit for Opportunity Remarks

The Remarks field on the opportunity Detail content link can now accept a maximum of 4,000 characters. The previous limit was 2,048. (PMG-886251)

Other Enhancements

• Activity columns for opportunity action reports: When creating opportunity Dynamic Reports in the Actions report category, users can now include columns from the Activity table. One example is the Mark Done column, which can be included in a report so that users can mark action-related activities Done directly from the report results. (PMG-808256)

• Role filtering for advisor opportunities: On the advisor Opportunities tab, users can now filter the list to display only those opportunities in which the advisor has a specified role (e.g., primary advisor, writing advisor, etc.). To filter the list, select a choice from the new Role drop-down list. (PMG-883476)

• Add to Set command for opportunity stage history reports: When viewing the results of a Stage History-category Dynamic Report, users can select the new Menu > Add to Set command to add the contacts linked to the selected records to a set. (PMG-894214)

• Opportunity stage data in activity history reports: Columns from the Opportunity Stage table are now available for use in Activity History-category Dynamic Reports. (PMG-895344)

Resolved Issues

• On the opportunity Detail content link, when the Mark Done column was included in the list layout of the Stage Actions for Current/Previous section, the Mark Done icon was missing from the column. This issue was resolved. (PMG-808253)

• After viewing the Opportunities tab of a contact linked to multiple opportunities, users who then navigated to the same tab of a contact with only one opportunity were seeing the first contact's opportunities when they clicked the List content link. This issue was resolved. (PMG-814646)

• An issue with the contact Referred By column in opportunity lists and Dynamic Reports was preventing users from properly sorting on that column. This issue was resolved. (PMG-849789)

• An issue with opportunities created for an advisor using the Marketing Options feature was resolved. In some instances, the opportunity was not visible on the advisor's Opportunities tab but was visible in Dynamic Reports displaying all opportunities in the office. (PMG-857218)

• Users who performed Event-type stage actions from an opportunity record were encountering errors when they tried to send correspondence or add invitees. These issues were resolved. (PMG-859634)

• In custom page layouts, the opportunity Current Stage and Previous Stage drop-down lists were not working in these instances:

- When any field was removed from the Opportunity Detail portlet

- When the drop-down lists were added to a custom portlet

These issues were resolved. (PMG-859844, PMG-881809)

• While recording an activity outcome, users who moved a contact to the next stage of a linked opportunity were not being given the option to cancel any unfinished activities in the current stage. This issue was resolved. (PMG-863288)

• The Menu button, Options button and tabs were disappearing when users navigated to the contact Opportunities tab and browsed certain opportunity content links. This issue was resolved. (PMG-863426)

• An error that users were encountering when they tried to save a new opportunity process record was resolved. In addition, while editing an opportunity stage, users who selected the Automatically advance stage if actions are completed option and then selected the stage to advance to were receiving an error after clicking the OK button. This issue was also resolved. (PMG-864533)

• Customizing the page layout of the opportunity Detail content link was causing the Current Stage and Previous Stage fields to display numerals instead of stage names. This issue was resolved. (PMG-867783)

• When the layout of the opportunity Detail content link was customized to include the Opportunity Notes portlet, users who tried to create a note using the portlet's buttons were encountering an error. This issue was resolved. (PMG-874464)

• On the opportunity Detail content link, users were unable to delete multiple items simultaneously or change the current selection in the Stages drop down list in the Stage Actions for Current/Previous section. These issues were resolved. (PMG-878743, PMG-880988)

• An issue with linking opportunity stages to activity outcomes in Opportunity Setup was resolved. After selecting an opportunity process, users who tried to select a stage in certain ways were being presented with a list of all stages rather than just those stages linked to the selected process. (PMG-882262)

• When correspondence was generated by an opportunity stage action, SmartOffice was adding an entry to the linked contact's SmartPad and Letters/Documents content link but not to the opportunity notes. This issue was resolved. (PMG-882437)

• Several issues with the opportunity Related Resources/Competition content link were resolved:

- Changing the primary owner was not updating that information on the opportunity Detail content link.

- The Role and Percentage columns in the Related Resources section were not always displaying values.

- Attempting to add a user who was already in the Related Resources section was displaying an incorrect error message.

(PMG-884345)

• In Opportunity Setup, when a user added an activity to a stage action, the activity Description field was accepting no more than 1,024 characters, which is lower than the limit for activities created elsewhere in the system. This issue was resolved. (PMG-885293)

• Time discrepancies that users were noticing in the opportunity stage history were resolved. (PMG-893908)

• An issue with activities created from opportunity stage actions was resolved. When the action setup specified a long activity description (more than 3,000 characters), the system was truncating the description in newly created activities. (PMG-897124)

SmartLeads

Resolved Issues

• While performing an advanced leads search, users who selected All from the Status drop-down list were seeing an empty leads list. This issue was resolved. (PMG-892212)

SmartRecruiting

Enhancements

•  Candidate import enhancements: Several improvements were made to the candidate import workflow:

- The Source to Hire field was added to the Select Options step in the import wizard. If a record in the import file does not contain a Source to Hire value, the value entered here is inserted into the imported record.

- The Source to Hire field is now also available on the Select Mapping step of the import wizard.

- On the Select Options step, the value entered in the Recruiting Source field now populates for all imported records that do not already have a value for that field.

(PMG-858234)

Resolved Issues

• In Recruit Information-category Dynamic Reports, Set Membership filters were not working properly, causing reports to incorrectly display no data. This issue was resolved. (PMG-862519)

• When trying to merge a candidate record into an advisor record, users were encountering a "contact merge failed" error. This issue was resolved. (PMG-875299)

SmartEvents

Resolved Issues

• When adding a venue record in Event Setup, users who saved the record without entering any data were finding that the size of the Event Setup dialog box was changing unexpectedly. This issue was resolved. (PMG-837391)

• The EventDateTime merge code in event-related correspondence was displaying the wrong event start date and time when expanded. This issue was resolved. (PMG-860673)

• An issue that was causing duplicate records to be created during the invitee import process was resolved. (PMG-874981)

• When an event's status was changed to Active, SmartOffice was creating duplicate calendar activities corresponding to the event start and end dates/times. This issue was resolved. (PMG-886276)

Advisors/Agencies

Featured Enhancements

Presale Status Report

Similar to the existing Case Status feature, the new Presale Status report enables users to send print or e-mail reports to advisors detailing the status of their presale activities/proposals. This feature is available to any user who has the Presale Activity/Proposals user right. To get started, select Sales & Marketing > Presale Status from the side menu to see the report options.

The system generates reports for all advisors with presale activities, unless the user limits the report to specific advisors using the By selected advisors option. The Preview button shows the user a list of advisors who will receive a report given the selected options. For more information, see the Advisors/Agencies - Presale Activities/Proposals help topic. (PMG-790701)

Presale Advisor License/Appointment Check

While viewing a presale activity/proposal, users can now quickly check for missing and outdated licensing, appointment, contract and other information in the associated advisor's SmartOffice record. From an open presale activity record, select Menu > Check License/Appointment to open a dialog box that lists any issues detected.

 (PMG-796632)

Ability to Edit Carbon Copy List for Multiple Advisors/Agencies

The Carbon Copy List feature can now be configured for two or more advisors or agencies at a time. On the Advisor List or Agency List, select multiple records, and then select Menu > Communication > Carbon Copy Mass Assignment/Removal. (PMG-816817)

Ability to View Agency Key Relations' Policies

button and select Related Policies to open a list of policies. This feature is also available on the business Key Relations content link. (PMG-829313)

Other Enhancements

General

• Faster presale activity creation: When a user who is viewing a policy or pending case creates a presale activity from the Add New menu, SmartOffice now automatically transfers data from the policy/pending case fields to the new presale record. This enhancement saves the user from having to manually enter the primary advisor, primary insured, carrier, product, and other information. (PMG-800584)

• Custom fields for advisor appointments: Two custom alphanumeric fields were added to the advisor Appointment Information dialog box, enabling users to track additional data about the appointment that is not already tracked in other fields.

(PMG-868031)

• New option for presale status updates: Administrators can now set up SmartOffice so that the status of a presale activity is not updated when the status of the linked pending case changes. To enable this option, go to Setup > Policy/Case Setup > Follow-up > Presale Activity/Proposals and select Do Not Cross Update PCM/Proposal Status.

When enabled, this option leaves the presale activity status as Converted to Pending Case when the linked case moves to an Underwriting or Inactive stage. (PMG-875101)

• New columns for agency lists: The DBA and Abbreviation columns from the AgencyAdditionalInfo table can now be added to agency list layouts. (PMG-875699)

• Improved case status follow-up logic: When no policy-based follow-ups are configured for the office, SmartOffice now moves a pending case's Next Follow-Up date to the Last Follow-Up field once a case status report is sent. This leaves the Next Follow-Up field blank so that the case will not be included in a subsequent case status report. (PMG-879833)

• Ability to track life suitability compliance: Users can now track the status of an advisor's compliance with life insurance suitability training. On the advisor License/Compliance content link, add a record to the Compliance Status section and set the Compliance Type drop-down list to Life Suitability (Training).

(PMG-882313)

• Improved carbon-copy recipient configuration: When adding a recipient to an advisor's Carbon Copy List, users can now select all of the options under Select Letter Purpose at once using the new check box at the top of that section.

(PMG-883815)

• Referral information in presale activities: Users can now track customer referral information in presale activities. A Referred By field was added to the presale activity Detail content link under SmartOffice Reference Data.

If the presale activity is converted to a pending case, the data in this new field is transferred to the case record. (PMG-886553)

• SmartPad portlet for custom agency page layouts: When customizing the layout of the agency Detail content link, users can now add the SmartPad Notes portlet to display notes linked to the agency. (PMG-890159)

• New columns for license reports: Users can now add supervisor data to license Dynamic Reports. When creating a License-category report (from the Advisor/Agency report family), select the Supervisor table to view and select the new columns. (PMG-890481)

• New advisor merge codes: Users can now pull data into correspondence from the six custom fields on the advisor Add'l Detail content link. The following new merge codes expand to display that data:

- F\_AGENT\_ALPHAKEY

- F\_AGENT\_ALPHANUM1

- F\_AGENT\_ALPHANUM2

- F\_AGENT\_ALPHANUM3

- F\_AGENT\_ALPHANUM4

- F\_AGENT\_ALPHANUM5

(PMG-891093)

SmartView for Advisors

• User rights hidden for regular user accounts: Two user rights that apply only to SmartView for Advisors user accounts—Show Riders & Reinsurance to SVA users and Show Additional Info. Content Link to SVA users—are now hidden for non-SmartView for Advisors accounts. Previously, the rights were visible but could not be modified. (PMG-883042)

Resolved Issues

General

• Users who navigated to a supervisor record from the advisor Personal content link were encountering an error when they clicked the Commission content link on the supervisor record. This issue was resolved. (PMG-848598)

• An issue with creating an advisor request from the advisor Request/Requirement content link was resolved. When trying to add an advisor requirement to the request, users who tried to close the Requirement Detail dialog box without completing the required fields were encountering an "insert/update" error. The correct error message was restored. (PMG-849900)

• While converting a presale activity to a group pending case, users were seeing a blank message box when the presale insured was a contact instead of a business. This issue was resolved so that the message "Insured should be a Business" now appears. (PMG-859130)

• On the advisor Pending Cases tab, users who tried to apply a column filter to the Annualized Premium column were encountering an error. This issue was resolved. (PMG-875295)

• An issue with filling in the Agency field of an advisor record was resolved. When SmartOffice asked whether the agency's address should be added to the advisor record, users who selected Yes were finding that the address was being copied, but the address Remarks field was not. (PMG-875746)

• An issue with mass modifying follow-up dates for presale activities was resolved. When a presale activity was assigned an action that was configured as an action exclusion in Policy/Case Setup > Follow-up > Presale Activity/Proposals, the mass modification was still creating a follow-up activity for the presale. (PMG-876995)

• A server issue that was preventing users from sending case status reports was resolved. (PMG-880000)

• In offices configured to automatically generate e-mail case status reports, the system was not updating the Next Follow-up and Last Follow-up date fields of cases included in those reports. This issue was resolved. (PMG-880164)

• Users who tried to preview or send a case status report with the All pending cases based on follow-up date option selected were encountering an error. This issue was resolved. (PMG-881586)

• A navigation issue affecting the advisor Policy tab was resolved. When users opened a policy record and clicked a contact's name in the Policy Insured List, the system was displaying the contact record, but clicking any tab on the page was producing no result. (PMG-883560)

• Several issues with advisor/producer and agency/firm custom page layouts were resolved:

- On the agency Detail content link, users who clicked the Supervisor link were seeing a "Missing Primary Keys in URL" error.

- On the advisor Personal and agency Detail content links, adding or removing fields from the Miscellaneous Information section was causing the Case Manager field in the same section to become mandatory.

- On the distributor Personal and Firm content links, SmartWholesaler users were finding that adding or removing fields from the Personal/Business Information section was causing the Case Manager field in the same section to become mandatory.

(PMG-884008)

• Users who customized the Business Information section of the agency Detail content link were finding that the Tax ID field was formatted incorrectly. This issue was resolved. (PMG-884087)

• When configuring advisors' carbon copy recipients for case status reports, users who selected the Check here if the contact above is the only recipient of correspondence option were unable to clear that option. This issue was resolved. (PMG-884537)

• When agency records were mass modified, any changes that caused key relations to change were not triggering a key relations refresh in the modified records. This issue was resolved. (PMG-884795)

• The system was not allowing users to save changes to an advisor record when the Case Manager field was blank. This issue was resolved. (PMG-886000)

• When changes were made to a presale activity, the Modified On field was being updated in the database, but the Modified By field was not. This issue was resolved. (PMG-886199)

• In presale activities for disability insurance, the Benefit section was displaying fields related to life insurance. This issue was resolved. (PMG-890284)

• While viewing the details of an advisor request from the advisor Requests/Requirements content link, users who added a Manual-type requirement to the Requirement List section were finding that they could not edit the requirement. This issue was resolved. (PMG-890458)

• When creating a custom page layout for advisor records, users who added the Detail Information portlet to the layout were encountering an issue. The portlet's Status field was still appearing in the list of available columns, allowing users to add a second instance of the field to the layout. Once the layout was applied, the Birth Date field was displaying dates using an incorrect format. This issue was resolved. (PMG-891188)

• In some instances, users who tried to save new presale activities were encountering an error stating: "Result Data does not match with the data stored in SmartOffice." This issue was resolved. (PMG-892075)

• When an advisor record linked to active and disabled user accounts was linked to a pending case, the User Assignments section of the advisor record was displaying the name of the disabled user. This issue was resolved. (PMG-892270)

• An issue with agency records imported into SmartOffice or added during creation of an advisor record was resolved. These agency records were not available for selection in the Company field of contact and business records. (PMG-894567)

SmartView for Advisors

• On the advisor Cont./Appt. content link, two issues affecting SmartView for Advisors accounts were resolved:

- The Process Contract Commission and Contract Change Utility commands were available in the Advisor Contract List. These commands were removed because they do not apply to SmartView for Advisors accounts.

- The Contract Hierarchy command in the Advisor Contract List was not displaying any hierarchy data. This command now displays advisor-level data.

(PMG-879171)

SmartPolicies

Featured Enhancements

Policy Inception Date Field

Users can now track a policy's inception date to indicate when coverage begins. The Inception Date field was added to the default page layouts of the policy Basic Information and group policy Detail content links. For more information, see SmartPolicies - Basic Information Content Link.

(PMG-863886)

Policy Transaction Portlets for Policy Page Layouts

When creating custom page layouts for policies or pending cases, users can now add two new predefined portlets:

• Policy Transaction

• Commissionable Premium Payment Transaction List.

These portlets display data from the policy/pending case Policy Transactions content link. (PMG-879312)

Other Enhancements

• Rider annual premium field: When viewed from a policy's Benefits or Coverage content link, rider records now display annual premium information. The rider Annual Prem field is calculated in the same manner as the policy annual premium (modal premium divided by modal factor). The system now calculates commission based on this new field for Annual and Annual First Year Only options in rider rates. (PMG-846197)

• Presale columns for policy reports: In Policy-category Dynamic Reports from the Policy report family, users can now add presale activity-related columns. The Presale Activity/Proposals table was added to the list of available tables for these reports. (PMG-849429)

• Search by policy priority: When using the advanced policy search feature, users can now search by priority. The Search Policies dialog box was enhanced to includes a Priority drop-down list.

(PMG-857777)

• New policy correspondence merge codes: Several merge codes for party relationship roles were added in the Policy/Pending Case Management category:

- BeneficiaryFirstName

- BeneficiaryFullName

- InsuredFirstName

- InsuredFullName

- OwnerFirstName

- OwnerFullName

- RelationshipManagerFirstName

- RelationshipManagerFullName

- TrusteeFirstName

- TrusteeFullName

The "FullName" merge codes expand to display the interested party's first name, middle name, last name and suffix. In addition, a new NetDeathBenefit merge code expands to display the net death benefit on a policy rounded to the nearest dollar. (PMG-858119)

• Custom fields for policy transactions: To allow users to store additional data for policy transactions, SmartOffice now displays nine custom fields in the Policy Transaction dialog box: three alphanumeric, three numeric and three date fields.

(PMG-860927)

• Mass modification for policy/pending case custom fields: Users can now mass modify custom fields defined on the PCM Custom and Policy Custom content links. While viewing a policy or pending case list, select two or more records, and then select Menu > Advanced Options > Mass Modify. Under Policy Custom or PCM Custom, choose the field/column to be modified for all of the selected records, and then enter a value. (PMG-863063)

• Referral advisor merge code: A new ReferralAdvisor merge code enables users to include policy referral advisor information in correspondence. (PMG-880350)

• New created/modified columns for interested parties: To help users determine when interested parties were added or modified on policies and pending cases (and by whom), the Interested Party table now has three new columns: Created By, Created On, and Modified By. These columns can be added to areas such as the Policy Insured List and Policy Relationship List in policy/pending case records, as well as to interested party Dynamic Reports. (PMG-881366)

• Improved policy page layout customization: When customizing the page layout of policy records, users can now rearrange the fields in the Basic Information and Premium information portlets by dragging them. (PMG-881608)

• New death benefit options: On the policy Benefits content link, the Death Benefit Option drop-down list has several new choices that correspond to ACORD standard values:

- Adjustable

- DB = Face Amount + interest percent)

- Decreasing based on a commuted value

- Decreasing DB based on client specified schedule

- Increasing (DB = Face + Cash)

- Increasing (DB = Face + Return of Cumulative Premiums)

- Increasing (DB = Return of Cumulative Premiums)

- Increasing (Face + Compound Percent)

- Increasing (Face + Simple Percent)

- Increasing (Face + Sum of Deposits with Interest)

- Increasing by Greater of Invest AV or Net Deposits

- Increasing Choice (Greater of sum insured and FV)

- Increasing DB based on client specified schedule

- Level (DB = Face)

- Level Choice (DB=greater of Face or Investment AV)

- Other

- Unknown

(PMG-884210)

• Policy date warning message: When a policy date is updated, SmartOffice now displays a warning if the new date does not fall within the effective and expiration dates of the linked product. (PMG-885282)

• Rider options in rider reports: The Rider Options column is now available for use in Rider-category policy Dynamic Reports. (PMG-892605)

• New policy relationship roles: When adding entries to the Policy Relationship List of a policy or pending case, users can now choose from several new interested party roles:

- Administrator

- Contingent Annuitant/Insured

- Contingent Indirect Participant

- CoParticipant

- Correspondence Entity

- Coverage Insured

- Custodian for UGMA

- Decedent

- Designated Participant

- Executor

- Indirect Participant

- Insured

- Investment Advisor

- Joint Insured

- Joint Owner

- Key Contact

- Legal Guardian

- Owner/Annuitant or Insured

- Participant

- Payee

- Plan Name

- Plan Participant

- Plan Sponsor

- Power of Attorney

- Primary Beneficiary

- Registered Investment Adviser

- Successor Participant

- Tertiary Beneficiary

(PMG-894650)

Resolved Issues

• An issue was occurring when a contact's preferred address was changed. While viewing any of the contact's policies, users who opened the primary contact record in the Policy Relationship List were finding that the Address field was still displaying the old preferred address. This issue was resolved. (PMG-850616)

• When users copied policy records, policy notes related to posted e-mail messages and documents were not being transferred from the original policy to the new one. This issue was resolved. (PMG-852961)

• On automobile and homeowner policies, a misalignment of buttons on the Custom Button Bar was resolved. (PMG-855759)

• For some automobile and homeowner policies, users were encountering an error when they tried to create policy claim records. This issue was resolved. (PMG-858040)

• When viewing existing policy owner service (POS) requirement records, users were finding that the Requirements History List section was too small. This section was expanded to display more history entries at once. (PMG-858115)

• On the Policy Transactions content link, transaction records appearing in the Commissionable Premium Payment Transaction List were no longer visible once commissions were generated for those records. This issue was resolved. (PMG-858661)

• In the requirement follow-ups list, users who selected a policy owner service (POS) or group requirement record and then selected Menu > Policy List were encountering the error "This option is not available for this record type." This issue was resolved. (PMG-858693)

• On the policy Basic Information or pending case Detail content link, when users cleared the MultiLife Policy option and then saved the change, the message instructing them to unlink any linked policies was not appearing. This issue was resolved. (PMG-860953)

• After an advisor's role on a policy was modified, adding a contract for that advisor and rebuilding the commission hierarchy was resulting in an issue. When contracts were later removed from all advisors on the policy, the policy was not being unlinked from the rates. This issue was resolved. (PMG-862026)

• When users opened a rider record from the policy Benefits tab and then clicked the Rider Product hyperlink to view product information, the contents of the Remarks field were not visible. This issue was resolved. (PMG-869205)

• An issue that occurred when a custom page layout was applied to policies or pending cases was resolved. When users opened the policy/pending case notes and then clicked the Open Link icon in the notes list, the policy dialog box that opened was distorted. (PMG-870291)

• On the policy/pending case Benefits or Riders/Reinsurance content link, adding any column from the Error Log table to the Rider List was causing rider entries to disappear from the list. This issue was resolved. (PMG-873785)

• When trying to create a policy using the same policy number and carrier found on a deleted policy, users were encountering a confirmation message stating that the policy already existed. The system no longer displays this message for deleted policies. (PMG-874845)

• Several issues with using the Launch Word correspondence feature from a policy or pending case were resolved:

- Users were being prompted to select one or more recipients even when they had already done so.

- Policy merge codes were not expanding.

- Letters were being saved only to the primary contact record and not the policy/pending case record.

(PMG-877255)

• During the policy merge process, the system was not transferring commissionable policy transactions from the source record to the target record. This issue was resolved. (PMG-878431)

• When the Policy Summary PDF report was run for a household, the Grand Total was incorrect. This issue was resolved. (PMG-879128)

• In the Rider List on the policy Benefits content link, users who tried to use the Show Hierarchy command with more than one rider selected were not seeing the message stating that only one record can be processed at a time. Instead, multiple policy advisor lists were opening. This issue was resolved. (PMG-884043)

• The following issues that users were encountering when they added policy/pending case requirements in Edit Mode were resolved:

• The Type column was displaying numerals instead of labels.

• When the Type column was not present, requirement descriptions were not displaying or being saved in requirement records.

• Adding multiple requirements was producing an error when users tried to save their changes.

• When adding requirements to a case that had no requirements, users were finding that the new requirements contained no data.

• (PMG-885091)

• In the Requirements field of newly created policy/pending case requirements, the spelling checker was not working. This issue was resolved. (PMG-885210)

• When the advisor on a policy had a single valid contract, updating the policy through a policy import was not automatically selecting that contract. This issue was resolved. (PMG-886630)

• Two issues with policy custom page layouts were resolved:

- When a field was added under Important Contacts, users could not save any changes to field values unless they entered a value in the Team field. In addition, once the record was saved, the value entered in the Team field was being discarded.

- Renaming the AlphaNum1 field under Important Contacts was also renaming the Team field with the same name.

(PMG-887210)

• After the primary advisor on a policy or pending case was changed, the Advisor and Primary Advisor columns on the Global Policy List were still showing the old advisor's name. This issue was resolved. (PMG-888023)

• In some instances, household records were not displaying correct total policy counts under Policy Annual Premiums. This issue was resolved. (PMG-888353)

• Users who selected the Menu > Advanced Options > Copy Policy command were finding that the copy process was hanging in some instances. The issue was occurring when no contract was linked to the policy's advisor and the user tried to create the contract during the copy workflow. This issue was resolved. (PMG-892076)

• Issues with the Proposed Class column on policy and pending case lists were resolved. In some instances, the column was displaying a numeral instead of the proposed class. In others, the column's value didn't match the value displayed on the policy or case record. (PMG-892711)

• When a Dynamic Report was set up to look for specific text in policy notes and retrieve the associated policies, SmartOffice was not always returning policies as expected. The issue was occurring when the text specified in the report filter appeared only in notes not linked to a policy's primary contact (e.g., system-generated notes). This issue was resolved. (PMG-894105)

• When users modified or deleted the Flat Extra/1000 value on the policy Detail content link, the system was not refreshing the Comm Modal value accordingly. This issue was resolved. (PMG-894667)

• When a policy's premium mode was set to Semi-Monthly, SmartOffice was incorrectly using a x6 multiplier instead of a x24 multiplier to calculate values such as annualized premium. This issue was resolved. (PMG-894935)

• The AllTrustees and Trustee policy merge codes were displaying nicknames when expanded. This issue was resolved. (PMG-895310)

Insurance Products and Carriers

Enhancements

• Faster product option selection: On the product Detail content link, the Product Options section now allows users to select multiple product options at once. Previously, selecting the New 'Options' Record command from the Options menu in that section allowed users to select only a single product option. (PMG-822208)

• Carrier HO rep/underwriter SmartPad: The system now gives users access to the SmartPad for carrier home office reps and underwriters. On the carrier HO Reps/Underwriters content link, select a rep or underwriter record, click the Options button, and select View SmartPad Notes. (PMG-829206)

• Rider product code list: Users can now view a history of changes to a rider's product code, just as they can for other insurance products. While viewing a rider list or the rider's Detail or Product Settings content link, select Menu > Rider Code List to view past product codes associated with the rider. (PMG-864861)

Resolved Issues

• An issue with customizing the page layout of the carrier Detail content link was resolved. When the layout included the Advisor Items to Verify portlet, the portlet's CE Check drop-down list contained more options than the same drop-down list on the carrier's PCM Options content link contained. The choices are now the same in both locations. (PMG-847017)

• Users who ran Product-category Dynamic Reports were finding that the following Menu commands were not working from the report results list:

- Product Merge

- Copy Product

This issue was resolved. (PMG-863907)

• When viewing a product's details from the carrier Products tab, users who tried to add an entry to the Product Options section were finding that the new entry was not appearing. This issue was resolved. (PMG-875827)

• On the Product Settings content link, the Calculate Benefit and Calculate Cash options were available for product types other than Life and Critical Illness. This issue was resolved. (PMG-877256)

• Users who tried to add columns from the Product Custom or Carrier Custom table to the Rider Product List were encountering an error. This issue was resolved. (PMG-878687)

SmartCaseManager

Featured Enhancements

Expanded Requirements View in Pending Cases

On the pending case Requirements content link, a new Requirement Type drop-down list enables users to view not only underwriting requirements (which is still the default view) but also delivery and policy owner service (POS) requirements.

Selecting All from the drop-down list displays all of these requirement types in a single list. (PMG-879610)

Option to Hide Case IDs from E-mail Subject Lines

In Policy/Case Setup > PCM Communication, a new option labeled Do not show Unique Case ID in Correspondence Subject Line provides offices with increased control over the information automatically displayed in pending case/policy/group policy e-mail correspondence. This option applies to all e-mails generated from policies and pending cases in the office.

(PMG-885379)

Ability to Choose Different Sender Address for Policy/Pending Case Correspondence

When sending e-mail correspondence from a policy, group policy or pending case record, a user can now change the e-mail address from which the message is sent under certain circumstances. This can be useful, for example, when an advisor's assistant is sending an e-mail to a client on the advisor's behalf and wants the advisor's e-mail address to appear in the From field of the message.

In the Main tab of the correspondence dialog box, under E-mail Layout, select an address from the Sender Address drop-down list.

To see multiple e-mail addresses in this drop-down list, the current user must proxy for another user---user-proxies) (typically an advisor) and must be viewing that user's data (using the See Data For feature). (PMG-873760)

New Requirement Type for Health Records

A new underwriting requirement type, Electronic Health Records, was added to the system. Users can create requirements of this type to distinguish requests for health records from requests for full attending physician statements.

(PMG-895435)

Modal Premium Update Without Annual Premium Calculation

In the Premium Information section of a policy or pending case record, selecting the Do not calculate option now allows users to update the Modal Premium field without having the system automatically calculate the Annual Prem field. (PMG-883820)

Credit Card Details in APS Requirements

Users can now track credit card information for attending physician's statement (APS) reimbursements. To do so, a user must first have the new Track Credit Card Information license enabled (this license is listed under the SmartPolicies category on the user account User Rights content link). The user can then open an APS requirement in a pending case and click the Credit Card button to reveal fields for entering the credit card type, number and expiration date.

(PMG-816606)

Other Enhancements

• New pending case status options: Several new status choices were added to the system for pending cases (the corresponding status is shown in parentheses):

- Approved - Shopping (Approved)

- Approved - Moving (Approved)

- Approved - Awaiting Reqs (Approved)

- Branch Manager (Issued)

- Declined by OSJ (Issued)

- Formal Case Setup (Informal Application)

- Life Settlement/Sold (Inactive)

- Non-Transaction Account (Issued)

- OSJ - Branch Manager Review (Issued)

- Pending Application (Underwriting)

- Pending Direction (Informal Application)

- Pending Underwriting (Underwriting)

- Pre-Screen (Proposed)

- Regional Compliance Review (Issued)

- Sale Not Approved by Regional Compliance (Issued)

- Signature Needed Informal (Informal Application)

(PMG-860300, PMG-863887, PMG-868922, PMG-872196, PMG-876332, PMG-879623, PMG-894684)

• History columns in requirement reports: In pending case requirement Dynamic Reports, users can now add and/or filter on columns from the Requirement History table, including Status, Completed, Remarks and more. (PMG-864804)

• Improved entry of second-insured data: The method for entering second-insured information in the Pending Case Add Detail dialog box was improved. The Last Name and First Name fields were replaced by a Second Insured hyperlink, which users can click to perform a contact or business search. (PMG-866374)

• Improved pending case delivery logic: SmartOffice's logic for automatically updating certain date fields on the pending case Delivery content link was updated:

- When a case reaches the Issued stage, SmartOffice now updates the Office Expiration and Carrier Expiration date fields only when those fields are blank.

- When a case reaches the Approved stage, SmartOffice now updates the Decision Date field only if that field is blank.

(PMG-885704)

• Mass modification of processing type: From pending case lists, users can now edit the Processing Type field for multiple cases at once when using the Mass Modify command (Menu > Advanced Options > Mass Modify). (PMG-887777)

• Ability to include Required Of data in status merge codes: When defining the data that is displayed when PCM status merge codes are expanded, administrators can now add Required Of information using the new Required Of drop-down list in Setup > Policy/Case Setup > PCM Status Merge Code Definition.

(PMG-890706)

• Ability to edit requirement remarks in Edit Mode: When using Edit Mode to create a requirement or edit multiple requirements at once, users can now modify the Remarks column (note that any existing text formatting will be lost).

(PMG-892287)

Resolved Issues

• An issue with mass modifying records on policy and pending case lists was resolved. In the Mass Modification dialog box, users who tried to search for columns belonging to the Pending Case group were getting no results, and the Pending Case group was disappearing from the column list. (PMG-841977)

• From the Pending Cases tab of a business record, users who selected Menu > Workflow to Enter a New Case were getting an error when they tried to edit the Insured-1 section in the Pending Case Add dialog box. This issue, which affected annuity pending cases, was resolved. (PMG-860667)

• The Last Letter On date column from the Holding table was not displaying a value for some pending cases. This issue was resolved. (PMG-864545)

• In some instances, users who selected the Post to Letter Log/SmartPad option in User Preferences > Correspondence Options were finding that policy and pending case correspondence was not being posted to the policy/pending case letter log. This issue was resolved. (PMG-865256)

• When the status and status date on a pending case changed, the status of the linked presale activity's status was changing as expected, but the status date was not updating in some instances. This issue was resolved. (PMG-869670)

• An error that users were encountering when they tried to preview or send a case status report was resolved. (PMG-871191)

• On the Requirements History List, accessible from the Requirement(s) detail dialog box, users were able to add columns from the Requirements table. Because the columns in that table are not relevant to this list, that table was removed. (PMG-871232)

• Users who opened notes for a specific requirement and navigated to the Archived Notes tab were seeing all archived SmartPad entries created in the office. This issue was resolved so that only those archived notes related to the requirement are visible. (PMG-871813)

• The underwriting, delivery and POS requirements of dependent insureds were not being included in case status reports. This issue was resolved. (PMG-872585)

• Updating the status of a pending case underwriting requirement to Received - GA was automatically updating the Required Of field to GA, even though some organizations preferred that the field remain blank. Now, the status is labeled Received, and the Required Of field is no longer updated automatically when the status is selected. (PMG-875620)

• In some instances during pending case creation, users who selected a carrier and then tried to select a plan were being presented with a list of products available from all carriers. This issue was resolved. (PMG-877317)

• On the Pending Case List, the Last Letter On date column was not updating when a new letter was edited during the preview process and then sent. This issue was resolved. (PMG-879818)

• In some instances, advisor request merge codes were not expanding during automated letter workflows. This issue was resolved. (PMG-880442)

• An issue with the settings in Policy/Case Setup > PCM Workflows > Requirement Completion Workflow was resolved. Any requirement completion workflow that did not have the Required Of field set to All was not working for users when they updated requirements. (PMG-892222)

• When trying to add multiple requirements containing long descriptions to a pending case, users were encountering the error "The description exceeds 1024 characters. Please remove some requirements from selection." This issue was resolved. (PMG-893137)

• When creating Manual-type pending case requirements, users who copied text from HTML e-mail messages and pasted it into the Requirement(s) section were seeing HTML tags in the pasted text. This issue was resolved. (PMG-893463)

• When a user entered incorrect data on the pending case Benefits tab, the error message was incorrectly appearing in the Rider List section of the record. This issue was resolved. (PMG-893663)

• In custom pending case page layouts, the system was ignoring the height that the layout creator specified for the Underwriting Requirement List portlet. This issue was resolved. (PMG-895118)

• Several issues with group requirements were resolved:

- When users added a record in Policy/Case Setup > PCM Workflows > Requirement Completion Workflow, the Group Requirement option in the Requirement Type drop-down list was mislabeled Group Stage.

- When users finished adding a group requirement completion workflow, the new workflow was not appearing in the Requirement Completion Workflow list.

- After being added to a group policy, group requirements were not appearing in the Insurance > Requirement Follow-ups list when users searched by requirement manager and filtered the results to show only group requirements.

- In group policies, users who viewed the details of the Primary Advisor entry in the Policy Advisor List were finding that the Office Code, Marketing Mgr and Region Code fields were blank, even when the linked advisor record itself contained values for those fields.

(PMG-895551)

• When the layout of the pending case Detail content link was customized, users were unable to modify the Plan Name field. This issue was resolved. (PMG-895904)

SmartBenefits

Featured Enhancements

Ability to Retain Historical Group Plan Data

Users can now renew a group plan in an existing policy while retaining the old plan information for historical purposes. On the policy's Group Plans list, select a plan, and then select Menu > Renew Group Plan to choose the new plan.

Note that you can select the same group plan; the restriction to selecting a plan only once for the same group policy has been removed as part of this enhancement.

The newly selected plan is added to the Group Plans list with an Active status, while the old plan remains on the list with a new status of Inactive. Group certificates linked to the inactive plan also become inactive, and status dates for both plans are updated to the current date (to see status and status date, you may need to customize the Group Plans list to add those columns). (PMG-890216)

Other Enhancements

• Streamlined group policy creation: The system no longer asks users to select an insurance type (i.e., product type) when they create group policies. The product type is now determined automatically when the user selects the product for the new policy. (PMG-795391)

• State information for group products and policies: Users can now enter state availability information for group products using the new Group Product State List on the group product Detail content link. As part of this enhancement, a State field is now also available on the Detail content link when users view or create group policies. (PMG-849380)

• Fast navigation to group policy from requirement follow-up: Users can now open the full group policy record from an associated group requirement follow-up. First, open the requirement follow-ups list (Insurance > Requirement Follow-Ups) and select Group Requirements from the drop-down list at the top. Then select a requirement and select Menu > Policy List. SmartOffice opens the full group policy record and automatically navigates to the policy's Group Requirements content link. (PMG-849442)

• Page layout customization for group policies: Users can now modify the layout of group policy records to tailor the information presented to their business needs. While viewing the group policy Detail content link, select Menu > Page Layouts to get started. For more help, see Page Layout Customization. (PMG-849443)

• Role filter for Group Policies tab: When navigating to the Group Policies tab of a contact, business, advisor or agency record, users can now filter the list of policies by role using the new Role drop-down list at the top. For example, when viewing group policies for an advisor, the user can select Writing Advisor from the Role drop-down list to display only those policies for which the advisor is a writing advisor. (PMG-868616)

• More custom fields for group plan premium: On the Premium content link of a medical group plan, users now have access to two additional rows of alphanumeric custom fields: AlphaNum8 and AlphaNum9. Like the existing custom fields, these new fields can be used to track additional plan data that SmartOffice does not normally track. (PMG-873259)

• Column displaying group plans: On the Group Policy List, users with the appropriate rights can now add a Group Plans column that lists the names of all plans sold under that policy. (PMG-875606)

• Show Benefit command in more locations: While viewing the Group Plan List of a group policy, users now have access to the Menu > Show Benefit command from any group plan content link, not just the List content link. (PMG-890214)

Resolved Issues

• Issues that were preventing users from merging group products were resolved. (PMG-858815)

• In some instances, users who clicked an employee's name on the business Employee Census content link were seeing a blank contact list instead of the appropriate contact record. This issue was resolved. (PMG-863586)

SmartWholesaler

Resolved Issues

• When creating a producer record, users who included a Firm Name were finding that the firm was not appearing on the Personal content link of the producer record. This issue was resolved. (PMG-884455)

• When a user added a firm to a producer record, the system was not asking whether the user wanted add a firm address as well. In addition, users were unable to save changes to fields on the producer Personal content link under Personal Information unless they edited the Firm field first. These issues were resolved. (PMG-885940)

• When the layout of the firm Detail content link was customized to include the Tax ID field, users who tried to enter values in that field were encountering an error when they tried to save their changes. This issue was resolved. (PMG-893442)

SmartCommissions

Featured Enhancements

Mass Projection Improvements

Several fields in the Mass Projection utility were reorganized and/or relabeled to make them more intuitive, and an option allowing users to refresh advisor contracts and the commission hierarchy without calculating commissions was added.

As part of this enhancement, the options for manually calculating commission projections for a single policy or pending case were similarly revised.

For more information, refer to the Projected and Expected Commissions help topic. (PMG-885124)

Rate Merge

Users can now merge two commission rate records into a single rate record. This feature is useful for cleaning up duplicate rates that exist for the same carrier, product and contract.

Open the Commission Rates List (Insurance > Rates), select a rate (this will be the "source" rate), and then select Menu > Merge Commission Rates. SmartOffice displays a list of "target" rates that the source rate data can be merged into (only those rates with the same contract, carrier, and product are listed). Select the target to complete the merge.

Any age/face/option/state combinations in the source rate that do not exist in the target rate are moved over. In addition, any pending cases linked to the source rate are also moved over to the target rate. (PMG-855023)

Policy Creation from Speed Receipts

button and select Create Policy. (PMG-860518)

Carrier Direct Column in Advisor Payment List

When viewing the details of a commission transaction, users can now see amounts paid directly to an advisor who received multiple payments from the house and the carrier. The new Carrier Direct column is available in the Advisor Payment List. (PMG-880753)

Other Enhancements

General

• First commission payment in reports: In certain Commission-family Dynamic Reports, users can now display the very first commission payment for any type of commission transaction on a policy, regardless of premium mode. To do so, configure the report's column layout to include the First Commission column from the Commission Amount Reconciliation table. (PMG-852559, PMG-890873)

• Commission note reports: A new Dynamic Report category called Commission Notes is available in the Notes report family. This new category enables users to report on notes entered for commission transactions on a policy's Expected Commissions List. (PMG-872278)

• Improved commission band selection: When determining which commission band from a rate to use when calculating commission on a policy, the system now makes its selection in this order:

1. Age + Face + State + Option

2. Age + Face + All States + Option

3. Age + Face + State + No Option

(PMG-875995)

• Admin ability to edit more payment dates: Users with the Administrative Database Maintenance user right can now edit the Payable Due Date and Paid-to/Next Due Date fields in the Advisor Payment Detail dialog box. (PMG-882829)

• Advisor payment reports in supervisor/advisor views: Users who have the CTM Supervisor View or CTM Advisor View license now have access to the Advisor Payment category of commission Dynamic Reports. (PMG-884542)

Speed Receipts

• Better validation of positive and negative commissions: Improvements were made to the Speed Receipts area of the system for positive and negative commissions. When a positive commission is matched with a negative one during validation, the system now displays the status "Projection Found but out of Date Range" for that transaction. (PMG-873347)

• Modified by/on columns for speed receipts: The Speed Receipt List can now track which user last modified each speed receipt record and when. Users with the appropriate rights can customize the list layout to add the Modified By and Modified On columns from the Speed Receipts table. These columns track changes to the General Information section of the speed receipt Detail content link. The columns are also available in Speed Receipt Entry-category Dynamic Reports. (PMG-874187)

Resolved Issues

General

• Commissions were not recalculating from the rider side when the premium amount was changed at the rider level. The issue was occurring when the product's Accumulate Prem Comp field was set to Base + Rider and commissions were calculated for Base + Rider for a policy. This issue was resolved. (PMG-841759)

• When Accumulate Prem Comp was set to Base + Rider at the product level, the system was calculating rider commissions based on the policy date and not the rider effective date. This issue was resolved. (PMG-844747)

• An issue with advisor payment calculations was resolved. The issue was occurring when commissions were calculated with target and excess. When the commission transaction prior to the transaction that hit the target was deleted and then manually added, the advisor payment was being calculated on the full premium rather than the base portion. (PMG-850960)

• When an advanced commission split was linked to a policy, additional advisors (such as servicing and additional writing advisors) were not being selected automatically in some instances, even when they were present on the policy. This issue was resolved. (PMG-851072)

• While editing multiple rates at once on the Commission Rates List, users who clicked the Save or OK button were seeing the message "You are not authorized to add a new record(s) or modify any record(s) in this module." This issue was resolved. (PMG-851506)

• Bonus commissions payable to advisors were not being calculated when the House rate was set up as Base & Excess Commission and there was no Base commission. This issue was resolved. (PMG-857002)

• The system was not calculating commissions on policies when negative rates were involved, unless the rate was for Base commission. This issue was resolved. (PMG-858641)

• Several issues with rider commission calculations were resolved:

- When a rider's effective date fell after the policy date and the rider premium mode was Single Pay, rider commission was not being calculated.

- When a user added a policy rider with a product option, the rider rate associated with that option was not being selected automatically. The user had to rebuild the hierarchy to select the rate.

- From the rider Commission Hierarchy Detail dialog box, when a user selected a house/carrier rate and then clicked the Rate hyperlink (before clicking OK to save the rate), the Commission Bands section was appearing blank.

(PMG-861344)

• Several issues with the policy Expected Commission List dialog box were resolved:

- Changing the premium value for a commission record and recalculating only that record was resulting in an incorrect premium value and YTD amount in some instances.

- When a commission record was recalculated, the new modal premium value was including the rider premium in some instances.

(PMG-861825)

• After a policy import, the contract was not being selected automatically on the primary advisor even when there was only one active contract. For this reason, the commission hierarchy was not being built, and commission records were not being calculated. This issue was resolved.  (PMG-863457)

• When customizing the column layouts of commission lists and Dynamic Reports, users with the CTM Advisor View or CTM Supervisor View license had access to columns in the Commission Amount Reconciliation table. This issue was resolved. (PMG-864915)

• When a rate was set up to pay a percentage of premium and a flat amount to the advisor, supervisor and house, the system was incorrectly calculating commissions to include the flat amount in the base commission for the advisor and supervisor. This issue was resolved. (PMG-868239)

• Commission Upload-category Dynamic Reports were displaying house commissions but not agent commissions from the Carrier Interface. This issue was resolved. (PMG-868836)

• Several commission recalculation issues were resolved:

- When a user reconciled/processed the first few commission records for a policy, created a future premium entry and changed the policy date, the system was calculating the commission based on the old policy date.

- When commission was recalculated for the As Paid with Months Advance and the Annualized First Year Only rate options, the system was not checking whether the record was the first based on policy date. This was causing the system to accumulate based on the months-advance and annualized values instead of calculating per the premium mode.

- When a future premium payment was present and commission was recalculated only for the first year, the system was creating duplicate commission records.

- When a commission was reconciled/processed and the policy's premium mode was changed (e.g., from Quarterly to Monthly), recalculating the commission was resulting in the paid-to/next due date of the last reconciled/processed commission being updated per the current premium mode. In addition, changing the policy's premium mode and then recalculating commission was resulting in the next commission being calculated per the current premium mode, but the commission records of the two months in between were not being calculated.

(PMG-869033)

• Sorting and grouping issues affecting Advisor Commission-category Dynamic Reports were resolved. (PMG-871688)

• While editing a policy's commission records using the Edit Multiple Records command, SmartCommissions for Advisors users were finding that certain values they entered for the Actual Amount Paid and Status fields were not being saved. This issue was resolved.  (PMG-872238)

• On the Commission Rates List, users who tried to view a rate's associated policies using the Menu > Related Policies command were encountering an error. This issue was resolved. (PMG-872597)

• When the Track Comm. option was cleared on a policy or rider, the system was logging errors related to that record in the Commission Error Log. This issue was resolved. In addition, when users try to calculate commissions for these records, the system now displays a message stating that the Track Comm. option is not selected. (PMG-878563)

• An issue that was preventing the Commission Rates List from opening to its full length was resolved. (PMG-879063)

• An error that occurred when users tried to print the results of All Commission Rates-category Dynamic Reports was resolved. (PMG-881261)

• After running an Advisor Commission Check-category Dynamic Report, users were unable to send correspondence from the list of results. This issue was resolved. (PMG-882206)

• An issue with the Mass Projection utility was resolved. The issue occurred when the Advisor, Supervisor 1 and Supervisor 2 contracts were blanket contracts but the rates were carrier/product-specific. When a user ran the utility with the Refresh commission hierarchy option selected, the contracts were linked properly in the policy's commission hierarchy, but the rates were not. (PMG-883849)

• An issue that occurred when a commission record was on hold due to an advisor licensing issue was resolved. When a user added a valid license for the advisor and selected the Recheck Advisor For Lic/Cont/Appt command from the advisor Commission content link, SmartOffice was displaying an incorrect error message and was not releasing the record. (PMG-884298)

• The system was calculating receivables incorrectly when the advisor or house was set up with a rate paid mode of As Paid with Months Advance and a commission amount on rates. This issue was resolved. (PMG-887859)

• The Mass Projection utility was processing policies that were in the Inactive stage. This issue was resolved. (PMG-889742)

• An issue that was causing the Mass Projection utility to generate duplicate commission transactions was resolved. The issue was occurring in certain instances when projections were processed in the Job Queue. (PMG-891334)

• When users selected Insurance > Contracts from the side menu and then selected Search, the results page kept refreshing. This issue was resolved. (PMG-891549)

• An issue that was preventing the Mass Projection utility from generating commission projections for group policies was resolved. (PMG-894323)

Batch Processing

• Commission statements sent to advisors from batches were displaying several text formatting issues related to special characters and line breaks. These issues were resolved. (PMG-848736)

• An issue with processing commission batches was resolved. In some instances, SmartOffice was displaying a "Calculating Commission" progress bar that was hanging and requiring the user to abort the process. (PMG-885924)

• Commission batches were taking a long time to process when the Include Adjustment Entries option was selected. This issue was resolved. (PMG-893244)

• In some instances, the check amount for a Smart Check was different from the actual total of the receivables. This issue was resolved. (PMG-896147)

• After a commission batch was processed and posted, users who e-mailed commission statements to advisors were encountering an issue. The date in the statement's file name was not matching the batch's posting date in some instances. This issue was resolved. (PMG-897563)

Speed Receipts

• Two issues with calculating commissions or using current-value calculations from speed receipts were resolved:

- For Excess commissions in renewal years, the commission type was appearing as Base instead of Excess.

- For Excess commissions in first and renewal years, the advisor/supervisor commission was not being calculated. Only the house advisor payment was being calculated.

(PMG-864877)

• An issue with the matching algorithm for validating commission transactions in speed receipts was resolved. Users were getting a "Multiple Policies Found" error even when only one matching active policy existed in SmartOffice. (PMG-870848)

• In speed receipt records, the system was allowing users to reset commission transactions that had a status of Validated and Linked. This issue was resolved. (PMG-875046)

• In speed receipt records, when users manually linked a commission transaction to a policy using the Policy Selection command, the policy search results included group certificates. This issue was resolved. (PMG-875280)

• While validating transactions in speed receipts, the system was trying to match insurance products by policy type even when a product match was already found using the product code/name. This issue was resolved. (PMG-876209)

• In a speed receipt record, when a user reset an adjustment transaction, the transaction's link to the commission payable at the policy level was not being cleared. This issue was resolved. (PMG-876427)

• Premium and commissionable premium values calculated from speed receipts were incorrect when there was a target amount and the target period was 99. This issue was resolved. (PMG-876932)

• When commissions were calculated from a speed receipt, the premium and commissionable premium values for second-year commission were incorrect when the policy had a target amount and the target period was 99. This issue was resolved. (PMG-877312)

• An error that users were encountering when they tried to move reconciled transactions from Speed Receipts to Carrier Posting was resolved. (PMG-882457)

SmartInvestments

Enhancements

Investment Accounts

• New ways to create rep ID entries: Users now have additional ways to create rep number entries for investment accounts. From the Account Detail content link, select the Rep Number field link and note the New button added to the Search Rep Numbers dialog box.

(PMG-884306)

• Higher character limit for account remarks: On the Account Detail content link, the character limit for the Remarks field was increased to 4,000 from 512. (PMG-892046)

Resolved Issues

Investment Reports

• The Asset Allocation PDF report was displaying extra spaces and improper text wrapping for account numbers. These issues were resolved. (PMG-844447)

• Users who ran the Dollar-Weighted Returns By Date Range - Gain/Loss PDF report at the household, investment account or account group level were encountering an error. This issue was resolved. (PMG-857025)

• Several date range choices, such as "All Days in Future," were removed from the options for these categories of PDF Reports because they are not applicable: Investment, DWRR, Performance, Transaction. (PMG-864363)

Investment Securities

• In the Internet Quote Service utility, the Yahoo Quote Service option was still available, even though the service has been discontinued. This option was removed. (PMG-878681)

• Internet Explorer users were encountering layout issues when they tried to enter the details of a new Blended Index-type investment security record. This issue was resolved. (PMG-891834)

SmartOffice Anywhere Changes

Featured Enhancements

Revamped Calendar and Task Screens

The calendar and task screens in SmartOffice Anywhere have been redesigned for improved usability on mobile devices.

• Calendar improvements: The calendar screen now displays a month view, with dots under those days containing activities.

Tap a day to display a list of the day's activities below the calendar. Tap any activity in the list to open a redesigned activity detail screen containing tabs for notes, participants, and letters/documents. Tap the plus (+) button above the calendar to open a redesigned new-activity screen featuring a more streamlined set of fields.

• Task improvements: The tasks screen now displays tasks for multiple days in the same list, grouped by date.

Click the filter button to sort the list by different criteria (e.g., client type, contact name, due date). In addition, users can now call the contact associated with a task directly from the list by tapping the phone icon. The new-task and task detail screens have also received the same redesign as those for calendar activities. (PMG-848451, PMG-884350)

Redesigned Settings Screen

The SmartOffice Anywhere settings screen now features improved readability and organization. To access the new settings screen, tap User on the navigation menu (you may need to tap More on the navigation menu to see this option).

The different sections are now accessible using labeled tabs across the top of the screen (to see additional tabs, swipe left or right on the tab row). In addition, field names are now larger and better aligned. (PMG-848452, PMG-884350)

Other Enhancements

• Office name in settings: At the top of the Settings screen on large-screen devices, SmartOffice Anywhere users can now see the name of the office they are signed in to. This enhancement particularly benefits enterprise users who sign in to more than one office. (PMG-847888)

• Close probability on activity outcome screen: When using the activity outcome wizard in SmartOffice Anywhere, users can now enter the probability of closing the sale when the activity linked to an opportunity. The Close Probability field is visible on the Activity Disposition - Opportunity Details screen that appears when the Update Opportunity Details outcome option is selected.

(PMG-850123)

• Send activity outcome notes as alerts: Users can now tell SmartOffice Anywhere to send their activity outcome notes as alerts to other SmartOffice users. On the Activity Disposition screen, select Send Notes to Other Users and choose the users that should receive alerts. Then tap or click Send.

(PMG-854967)

• Advanced opportunity sorting/filtering for desktop: On desktops/laptops, SmartOffice Anywhere users now have more advanced filtering and sorting controls available on the Opportunities List. Click the funnel icon in the upper-right corner of the page to access them. Because these new controls include filtering by status, the existing Status drop-down list at the top of the Opportunities List has been removed. The list now displays all active opportunities owned by the current user by default. (PMG-854968, PMG-868294, PMG-868295)

• Actual Sale Amount field in opportunities: When an opportunity's status is updated to Sale Made, the Actual Sale Amount field now appears in the opportunity record as well as the activity outcome screen for any linked activities. (PMG-868296)

• Activity and note detail from opportunities: While viewing an opportunity in SmartOffice Anywhere on a mobile device, a user can now tap or click any linked activity or note to view its details. (PMG-874148)

Resolved Issues

• For some users with two-step authentication enabled, entering a one-time code from the SmartOffice Anywhere mobile app to sign in was redirecting them to the sign-in page. This issue was resolved. (PMG-865467)

• An issue that was causing the Opportunity Name and Process fields to overlap for Chrome users was resolved. (PMG-876025)

• “404 not found” errors and other navigation issues that users were encountering when using SmartOffice Anywhere were resolved. (PMG-884350)