Release Notes 07/14/2024

Deploy

You can expect up to 30 minutes of downtime to deploy this release.

In This Issue

• State Interest Rates

• Account Flags

• User Misc Fields

• Email Delivery Date

• Email Threads

• Logic Blocks

• User Mobile Phone

• Client Access Notes

• Restricted Letters

• Transaction Spreader

• Letter/Email Trans Loops

• Max Payment Amount

• Min Payment Amount

• Client Min Settlement

• Status Code Flow Action

• Client Document Upload

• Debt Flag Notes

• SSO Authentication

• Overpayment

• ITMS Outbound Status

• ACE System Metrics

• SQL Field Width

• HTML Reports in Email

• Statute of Limitations

State Interest Rates

In addition to existing options to configure Client specific interest rates and to set a distinct interest rate at the account level, ACE now supports State/SOL Account Type specific interest rates. To learn more about configuring State /SOL Account Type interest rates and associated workflow, please refer to the article: Configuring and Evaluating Interest Rates in ACE

Account Flags

Please note: In ACE Action Paths, Logic Blocks and the Account Manager, "Export Flag" has been renamed "Account Flag".

User Profile Miscellaneous Fields

There are 5 new Miscellaneous fields available for manual entry in User Profile pages.

Labels for these can be customized under Setup → Accounts → Labels in the Users section.

These fields are reportable as Misc1, Misc2, Misc3, Misc4, Misc5 from the SQL Designer in the auth_user_passwd table.

Email Delivery Date

The Delivery Date is now visible when viewing an email in the email manager.

Email Threads

When replying to an email message, you will see the preceding message thread.

Please note:

If the consumer sends in a new inbound email message, a new email thread will be created as a result of it.

Logic Blocks

Logic blocks have been updated to include null results for date ranges when <> is used. Previously custom code was often required to include null results.

Example: I want to return all accounts where the Account Last Pay Date is <> (not equal to) the range of dates between 10/01/2014 and 10/04/2014.

In the past, records without a date in that field would not be returned in the logic block results

Now, records will without a populated date will be returned; based on customer feedback, returning those empty values with the results is the preferred behavior

Note

If there is a need to exclude null results, that can be done using custom code moving forward. Below is an example.

User Profile Mobile Phone Number

There is now a mobile phone number field that can be added to the user profile by an admin or by the user.

One of the primary use cases for the addition of this field is so client access user additional authentication can be used with a provided mobile number.

Client Access Pending Transaction Notes

Notes associated with “Client Access Pending Transactions” will now be “client” type notes instead of “debt” type notes.

If a customer configures their Client Access User Interface to expose client notes to their clients and allow transactions to be posted with “Transaction Approval Required,” Client Access Users will be able to see the notes.

Restricted Letters

Restricted letters are now visible in the View Letters Log list. They appear in the list grayed out.

Transaction Spreader

The transaction spreader identifier originally associated with a payment is now visible in the “Transaction Information” section.

Letter/Email Transaction Loops

Two new letter/email transaction loops are now available from the ACE Fields submenu for email templates and from the Letter Data Source for use in pdf letter templates.

They are:

• bundle_trans_received_loop

• bundle_trans_owing_loop

These loops show transaction history for the accounts in a bundle, just as the debt_trans_received_loop and debt_trans_owing_loop show transaction history for a single account.

Please Note:

these loops present the data as spread debt trans segregated by bucket.

Maximum Payment Amount

A "Max Payment Amount" can now be set for a payment destination.

If there is an attempt to apply a payment to the payment destination that exceeds that amount, the user in ACE will see a message like this example: "The transaction amount cannot be more than the max set on the destination: $500.00."

Likewise, if a consumer attempts to make a payment in the Virtual Agent in excess of the maximum amount, the consumer will see a message like this example: "Payment above maximum, setting to $500.00."

After entering a payment plan on the Plan setup page in VA 2.0, a consumer will see the message on the next page if the scheduled payments exceed the maximum.

Minimum Payment Amount

The VA 2.0 payment pages will now require a consumer to update the payment amount before moving to the next page when the consumer has entered an amount that does not meet the minimum accepted payment amount. The VA 2.0 will no longer automatically reset the amount entered to the minimum amount.

Client Minimum Settlement

The Client Minimum Settlement amount now displays in the account page summary section as a percentage instead of a decimal value.

Status Code Flow Action

When using the "Set Status Code" flow action the user no longer needs to manually enter the status code as a text string.

A drop down list of available status codes is now available for selection.

Client Access Document Upload

A new trigger, onAfterClientAccessAccountDocumentUpload, initiates when a Client Access user uploads a document on the client access account page.

For document uploads via dropbox on the client access account page, the onAfterClientAccessDocumentUpload trigger is initiated.

For additional details related to triggers in ACE, please review the article: Available Triggers in ACE and When They Initiate.

Debt Flag Notes

There is a new feature that enables customers to determine which debt flags will create debt flag notes on the account page.

By default, existing debt flags being used will be initialized to the debug list. New flags will only create notes if they have been added to this list.

Multiple comma separated flag values can be entered into the field.

The debug list can be found and configured under Setup → System.

Note

This feature enhances overall system performance. In order to prevent degraded performance, reduce the number of flags you post notes for by using this feature.

SSO Authentication

Single Sign On (SSO) authentication will automatically map new ACE users using their email. Deleted or disabled users will be removed from SSO access to ensure only active users can log in.

Overpayment

To reduce the likelihood of erroneous overpayments being entered, there is now an explicit permission required in order to post an overpayment to an account. The permission is: TRANSACTION_POST_OVERPAYMENT.

This permission has been updated automatically to any permission role that had the TRANSACTION_POST_ADJUSTMENT permission.

ITMS Outbound Status

Device delivery status will now be populated in the text message log for ITMS outbound messages. This will define if a carrier blocked text messages.

ACE System Metrics

There are new system utilization metrics in Help-> About menu that monitor CPU usage and Memory usage. For details, read ACE System Metrics: Tracking CPU and Memory usage.

SQL Field Width

In the SQL Designer, when typing field names, the selection field is much larger now making it much easier to locate the desired fields.

HTML Reports in Email

Previously, when a recipient attempted to open an html report received via email, it would not render the html as expected. Now, as long as the email client supports it, the html report will open in the browser window with formatting rendered as expected.

Statute of Limitations

A Statute of Limitations (SOL) disclosure message can now be configured to be displayed related to SOL payment revival after payment. It can be used to notify consumers that making a payment or starting a payment plan will reset the SOL period.

For additional details related to this topic, see the article on Statutes of Limitation and State Configuration.

Fixed These:

• Some dropdown options on the email logs page were not working. They are now working.

• A query used for aging reports was excluding undelivered invoices, setting the paid state later than expected and was not including all current data in totals. These problems have been fixed.

• Payments for judgment accounts were not correctly spreading to original accounts party to the judgment. That has been corrected.

• There was a scenario identified where account balances appeared to not be updating as expected for VA payments when there was a concurrent account modification error. ACE will be validating and updating mismatched balances daily to account for this situation.

• A problem was identified where accounts that erroneously appeared to be duplicates of cancelled accounts, were not being properly included in credit reports. This issue is now fixed.

• Previously, opting a phone number out for text messages in VA 2.0 was also making the phone number inactive. Now, opting out for text in VA 2.0 does not make a phone number inactive.

• There was a scenario where two decimal points were showing up in the current amount owed on the VA 2.0 Summary page. That has been fixed.

• Consumers were seeing a “Text Me” option on the VA 2.0 Contact options page when a customer is not using text messaging. That has been fixed.

• When VA 2.0 Chat was disabled it was only disabled for the DEFAULT VA 2.0 profile. That has been fixed, it will now apply to all VA 2.0 profiles.

• Users with access only to view Client Profiles were erroneously able to update certain fields on a Client Profile page. That has been fixed.

• If a company's current monthly goal was set to zero, it was not updating the system monthly goal. It is now.

• Some inbound text messages were not being updated with “REPLIED” text message status. They are now.

• In VA 2.0 payment plan 6 month and 1 year buttons were not always showing up even though the maximum number of payments was configured to allow at least 6 and/or 12 payments. It is working as expected now.

• When the Document: Rename job task was used to modify the extension for a file name, it was not accurately renaming files with a txt type file extension. It is now.

• A problem was discovered where the system was freezing when attempting to set up payment plans. It has been fixed.

• Customers were sometimes seeing a permanent failure error when attempting to opt in a phone number on the phone demographic page. A fix is in place for this.

• The "Document: Transfer From" job task was not using the wait time correctly. It is now.