ACE Release Notes - 11/15/2020

Hi Name,

Below are the updates and fixes we will be pushing out to all of our customers. 

We can’t wait to deliver further improvements to you in the months ahead!

We are expecting the downtime for deploying this update to be ten to fifteen minutes.

All the best,

Your friends at The InterProse Corporation

Cool New Upgrades

This was a busy month for the Development Team!

Please note, this is the last major deploy of the year. Our next feature heavy release with associated release notes will be in January.

Accounting

NSF Batches

NSF batches now post within the trust account register, any NSF batches will be displayed with a negative balance.

Accounting Role Admin Restriction

Previously the core accounting roles within ACE could only be assigned to admin accounts, this restriction has been removed. 

Action Paths

Serialize Interest Action:

A new action path action called 'serialize Interest' can be used to serialize interest up to a specified end date. Simply specify the end date within the action and run it against the account(s) you wish to serialize. This function can be useful for adjusting the interest rate of an account without affecting the already accumulated interest balance. 

'If Form' Action:

The 'if form' action is intended to work in tandem with the 'onAfterFormUpdate'  or 'onAfterFormInsert' triggers. When associated with these triggers, the action will evaluate if the update/insert occurred within the form specified in the action; if it did it will activate any following tasks, if not they will be skipped.

In the following example, after a form is updated the action path will fire and check if the updated form was 'GT information', if so it will assign the next work date to today and move the account to a worklist for GT type accounts.

Accounts

Client Access Created Account Source:

Accounts created by client access users will automatically have their source set to be from 'client'. 

Credit Reporting

Client Profile ECOA override:

A new field has been added to client profiles called 'ECOA Override'. If a value is set in this field it will override any default ECOA code when credit reporting runs for that client, for example a value of 'W' can be set to report on commercial accounts. For most cases this field will be left blank.

Dialers:

TCN best guess phone matching:

If a call log is imported from TCN without an account number, ACE will now attempt to match using the phone number associated with the call. If multiple accounts share the same phone number it will populate the phone log to the most recently updated account. 

ETL

New Buckets Available for Balance Sync Profile:

The Court Cost and Attorney Fee buckets have been made available when using the Balance Sync ETL profile.

First Priority Address Loading Duplicates:

When an ETL address import/update profile has the 'first contact priority' option enabled, the system will now update already existing addresses (The address is already associated with the account AND is in the incoming file) with the new priority. Previously ACE treated the address as a duplicate and ignored the priority update.

SSN Verification:

A new option is available for all ETL profiles, SSN verification. When this option is enabled, incoming social security numbers will be evaluated to ensure they are valid. This process checks for SSN's that are too short/long, have certain invalid character strings (start/end in 9999, 0000, 6666, etc.), or contains invalid characters.

If the system determines an SSN is invalid the field will be blanked and an error will be logged in the ETL job log. While invalid numbers are not loaded into any active fields it will still be stored in the original demographic for reference.

Letters

View Letters Improvements:

The view letters feature has been enhanced to show more detailed information about the letter history on an account. The interface now shows more details such as who sent the letter, what the status code on the account was at the time of sending, and the current status of the letter send request. Please see the 'Take a Closer Look' section for more details.

Payment Plans

Payment Reactivation:

The timeframe ACE allows for payments to be reactivated/rerun after a failure has been extended from 24 hours to two weeks. 

Reports

Liquidation & History Analysis by Assignment Report Real Time Reporting:

Both the client and company liquidation reports, as well as client and company History Analysis by Assignment Reports are now real time reports, that is, they can be run to include the current month's transactions.

To do so, you'll need to run the Report: Client Statistics By Placement Refresh job task on a frequent period (e.g. daily) and those reports will show data up to the time that job was last run.

History Analysis Reports - New Columns:

Previously, the Collections/Current column was the amount collected on the previous month.  Now the current column is the partial amount collected for the current month.  We know many of you still want the last completed month, for which we added a Last Month column which will show the same data as it did previously.

Core Report Access Permissions:

Each core report within ACE now has its own permission that controls access to that specific report. This allows ACE administrators to have precise control over which reports users can/cannot access.

User Session Report Total Time Logged In:

The user sessions report has a new column that displays the total duration of each user session. 

New Inventory Designer Fields:

The 'status code description' and 'cancel accounts addition information' fields are now available for reporting via inventory designer.

States

Zip code specific regulations:

Within each state profile, user can now restrict state regulation profiles to specific zip codes:

If a regulation is created without a zip code specified, the message will display for any account located in the state. If zip codes are specified, the message will show only if the account is within one of the specified zip codes. 

Search Function

Transaction Search - Search multiple status Groups:

While using the transaction search, it is now possible to search for more than one transaction group. As an example, you can search for transactions that fall under the paid, void or credit groups:

Toolbar

New feature!  - Alert System:

(Sponsored by Credit Collection Partners & Collection Bureau, Inc)

ACE now has an alert feature that will display a list of notifications based on approaching or elapsed next work date/times. If an account has a next work date time specified and it is within 24 hours it will display in the alert menu. The function will display accounts with an elapsed time in red. Please see the 'Take a Closer Look' section for more details.

Take a Closer Look

Alert System:

ACE now has an alert feature that will display a list of notifications based on approaching or elapsed next work dates. Located to the right of the recent account menu, this interface will display approaching or elapsed next work dates that have a time specified. These alerts will only show for the primary agent assigned to the account, or to the primary agents of the worklists the account is assigned to. 

Shown below, the alert menu displays a number for how many accounts have an approaching or elapsed next work date. If the lightning bolt symbol is present, that means the agent has accounts with an elapsed next work date.

Users can expand the menu to show which accounts are listed as well as some detail about them (next work date, name of the consumer, balance, etc.). Alerts showing in red have already passed, yellow alerts are ones close to the current time. Clicking on any of the listed accounts will navigate the user directly to it.

It is also possible to generate a manual alert via the 'Create User Alert' action path action:

When this action is used, it will display the text from the message field in the relevant users alert menu along with the account details. The user field specifies who the message goes to; you can set it so it goes to an accounts primary agent, the agent associated with a worklist, or directly to a specific user. The 'days from now' and 'hour' field will specify when the alert is assigned to the user. 

Note the bottom alert in the image below was created by the alert action:

The color coding and alarm feature has also been integrated into the callbacks agent dashboard:

Letter Logging:

ACE has expanded the information available for sent/scheduled letters in the view letters menu on an account. Users can now choose to view more detailed information including:

• Address - Address the letter was sent to, or address at the time the letter was sent.

• Agent - Who sent the letter.

• Scheduled Date - The date the letter scheduled to be sent.

• Letter Type - Was the letter; Mailed, Emailed, Printed.

• Sent Status - Has the letter been sent or is it still pending export/ been canceled?
• Mail Return - Has the letter been sent back with a mail return reason?

• Current Balance -  Reflects the current balance at the time the letter was sent.

• Status - Reflects the status of the account at the time the letter was sent.

Making Things Right

- Renamed the 'Account Type' field to be 'Account SOL'. 

- Adjusted the agent performance core report to properly factor responsible party accounts.

- Fixed a bug with the sort order on some core reports being alphabetical instead of date based. 

- Fixed an error preventing invoices from populating data in very specific situations.

-Fixed a bug with some trigger actions not re-assigning worklists.