Release Notes 03/17/2024

Deploy

You can expect up to an hour of downtime to deploy this release.

In This Issue:

• SFTP Server Update

• SFTP Document Clean Up

• Explicit Date and Time Fields for Letters

• PDF Export Zip File Letter List

• ETL Proper Case Names

• Estimated Commission

• Collection Costs Exceed Commission Triggers

• SQL Designer Credit Bureau Fields

• VA 2.0 Visible Docs - Can Now be Attached to Email

• VA 2.0 Settlement Reference Link

• VA 2.0 url Parameters

• VA 2.0 Languages

• Inbound Email Update

• Trigger Lists

• ITMS & Email

SFTP Server Update

InterProse is updating their SFTP server to meet security requirements on the evening of Tuesday, April 9, 2024.

Please consult with your technical resources to verify that the methods you or your clients are using to connect to an InterProse SFTP such as a SFTP client host like WinSCP or FileZilla server match those identified in this linked article: SFTP Connection Security Requirements.

You and your clients may already be compliant with these requirements.

If you would like to test this change by April 8th, please set up a test using host: "sftp2.interprose.com".

If you experience SFTP challenges, please contact support.

SFTP Document Clean Up

There is a new job task: “SFTP: Document Clean Up” that can be used to remove documents from the SFTP server based on document age.

Letters, Email and Texts

Explicit Date and Time Fields

New explicitly formatted date and time fields are now available for LibreOffice letter templates and for email templates.

LibreOffice fields (select from registered ACE Letter Data Source Layout):

• utils.currentTimestamp

• utils.currentDate

• utils.currentDayName

• utils.currentMonthName

Email (select from "ACE Fields") - and Text fields:

• ${currentTimestamp} - Example: 20240305191033

• ${currentDate} - Example: 03/05/2024

• ${currentDayName} - Example: Tuesday

• ${currentMonthName} - Example: March

PDF Export Zip File Letter List

There is now a csv file being included in the PDF letter exports zip file which lists the included letters.

ETL Proper Case Names

There is a new option [Clean Names] for Account Assignment and Account Update ETL Loaders. When checked, it will change names to proper case where the first letter of each word is capitalized (billy BOB, SmiTH -> Billy Bob, Smith). This impacts demographic first name, middle name, last name, name suffix, company name, and full name for Demographic Types Primary, Comaker, Spouse, Misc, Patient, and Business.

Collection Costs

Estimated Commission

There is a new field available in SQL Designer: estimated_commission. It is calculated only when collection costs are calculated. The estimated commission amount is any commission accrued in current transactions and any commission that would be accumulated if the account were paid off at the time of calculation.

Collection Costs Exceed Commission Triggers

A new setting has been added to the Collection Costs configuration page to set a Commission % Limit. By default  it will be set to 100% and will fire the following triggers when the costs reach the full estimated commission amount. If you reduce the percentage, the triggers will instead, be initiated when the costs reach the designated percentage.

• onAfterCostsExceedCommission

• onAfterCostsExceedBundleCommission

SQL Designer Credit Bureau Fields

Three credit bureau debt status code fields are now available in the SQL designer to include in reports.

• debt_status_code.cb_dispute_code

• debt_status_code.cb_status_code

• debt_status_code.cb_special_status_code

Virtual Agent 2.0

VA 2.0 Visible Documents - Can Now be Attached to Email

From the Demographic Email page, there is now an "Include Document" option. Using it will allow you to attach a VA visible document to an email.

For more information about this feature, please use this link to the article in ACE Help on Sending Emails with Document Links from the Demographic Email Page.

VA 2.0 Settlement Reference Link

There is a new VA 2.0 reference link that can be used in email messages so consumers can directly access the VA 2.0 Settlement page.

It takes the consumer to the /options page (or /reminders if there isn't any settlement offer available).

The VA 2.0 reference link is:

${debt.virtualAgentLoginUrl}?vaRef=SETTLEMENT

Please note: The VA 2.0 Settlement page will only be displayed if the ACE UI and the VA 2.0 Profile are appropriately configured. Please review this linked article to learn more about Setting up Settlement Profiles for VA 2.0.

VA 2.0 url Parameters

By providing a consumer with a url similar to the one in the example below, certain fields on the registration page can be pre-populated with the data you have for a consumer. The consumer will be required to complete the registration before being able to log in to your Virtual Agent 2.0. This is helpful if the data you have from the consumer or client is not be enough to reliably connect the consumer to their account.

The following url parameters can now be used to link a consumer to the VA 2.0 registration page.

• firstName

• lastName

• companyName

• email

• accountNumber

• phoneNumber (must be entered as numbers only / in the format of ########## with no other characters)

• address

• zipCode

• dateOfBirth (must be in the format of YYYY-MM-DD)

• ssn (must be entered as digits only, but if a full ssn is entered, only the last four digits will be recorded)

These url parameters can be used in conjunction with your VA 2.0 register page url. See the example below which combines:

• https://vendor.va.int001.com/register

• ?

• email = st@interprose.com (provided data)

• &

• firstName = Sandy (provided data)

• https://vendor.va.int001.com/register?email=st@interprose.com&firstName=Sandy

VA 2.0 Languages

VA 2.0 and the Custom Text default file have been updated to incorporate options for French Canadian and Russian languages in addition to U.S. Spanish. Each of these languages will be displayed when a consumer's browser is set up to use one of them  as the preferred language.

For more information about the Custom Text file, please use this link to the Custom Text in VA 2.0 article in ACE Help.

Inbound Email Update Coming Soon

Coming soon, Inbound Email will be available in ACE. To prepare for that availability, you will notice a few changes in the ACE UI (user interface).

Be on the lookout for a webinar demo on the topic in the near future. Until then here are a few notes about the changes you'll run across in the ACE UI.

1. Setup -> Emails -> Preferences will

   1. Now point to your Default Email Vendor

   2. Continue to store Category Opt-in Requirements

2. The rest of the email preferences have been migrated to

   1. Setup -> Vendors -> Email -> Default Email Vendor

   2. Where you will also find additional Email options that will be supported when Inbound Email is released

3. An Email Manager and Email Search feature are listed under the utilities menu

When adding new email profiles in ACE, you will now need to select an Email Vendor. The selected vendor for existing email profiles will be automatically associated with your Default Email Vendor.

Please note: The above is a brief outline of some of the changes you may see in ACE. While you now have visibility to these features, supporting documentation will be published when the Inbound Email feature is released.

Trigger Lists

There are now two new buttons on the Triggers screen, “Activate” and “Deactivate”. Using these buttons, multiple triggers can be selected at a time and activated (if currently inactive) or deactivated (if currently active).

This feature can be helpful when troubleshooting and testing workflow.

ITMS (Text Messaging) and Email

Auto-responses

Auto-response texts other than the “Msg No One Available” auto-response message will no longer result in agent alerts.

Inbound Stop Messages

Inbound ITMS “Stop” messages will now be marked as “REPLIED.”

Last Four of Client Account Number for Email, Text and Letters

There is now an option to include the last four characters of a client account number in email messages and text messages. The value used for this field (selectable from "ACE Fields" in an email profile) is:

${debt.clientAccountNumberLast4}

Fixed These:

• Payment destination payment reminders were not working for VA2. This has been fixed.

• The Payment System: Payment Plans Move job task was requiring a Logic Condition that is no longer needed for the task. That requirement has been removed.

• Inactive email addresses were visible in the account summary section and are no longer.

• There was a scenario where attempting to generate an invoice before the last attempt has completed may result in duplicate invoices with duplicate transactions. This has been fixed.

• The ACE UI was allowing new users to be created with 8 character passwords but subsequently requiring 12 characters. This has been corrected.

• The debt.in_legal field was not working as expected in logic blocks and SQL designer and is now.

• Collection costs were not being recalculated when bundle members were being added or removed and are now.

• The SOL Account Type was not correctly being updated via Account Update ETL. It is now.

• Some TCN phone logs were not showing up as expected in ACE. That has been fixed.

• Attempting to select a dialer agent response for a dialer code was resulting in an unknown property error. It’s no longer doing that.

• Text message profile selection drop down fields were not correctly representing options per permissions. This has been corrected.

• Payment plan changes in ACE UI were not being reflected correctly in VA2. This has been fixed.

• Account notes were not loading for phone location changes and are now.

• A specific provider message space resulted in the intelligent failure and reschedule options from working as expected. That has been fixed.

• Secure payment batches that remained in a pending states were being updated to a new batch with repeated instances of the “-PENDING” string. There will now be only one instance.

• Some LibreOffice templates were not completely rendering. This has been fixed.

• Invitation category ELS letters with attachments were not working when the consumer was not opted in. That has been fixed.

• Invoice filenames were incorrectly appearing in subfolders in downloaded zip files when using the Invoice Profile Filename Override. That has been fixed.

• Inbound ITMS texts with a unicode stop sign were not resulting in opt out for text messages. It is now.

• The account level “Do Not Email” setting was preventing emails from being sent to a client. That has been fixed.

• Validation notices being sent manually via email were not stamping the validation end date. They are now.

• Some processing errors were interfering with VA 2.0 payments being correctly updated to accounts. This has been fixed.

• Worklist changes weren’t represented in audit logs. They are now.

• Email opt out link urls (using the ${demographicEmail.optOutUrl} field) were not always showing up as expected in email messages. That has been fixed.

• Emails including a bundle loop were not including debt notes for each associated account. They are now.