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Q4 2020 Connections Update

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We’re committed to providing a first-in-class aggregation experience. So we rely on feedback from clients like you to help us improve. And while we have a lot more work ahead of us, we’ve made huge strides in creating a more seamless and reliable connections experience.

See below for an update on our progress.

API Transition Progress

In 2017, eMoney announced we would begin shifting connections from screen scrapers—a method of data aggregation that relies on collecting data through a clients account portal—to APIs—a more secure token-based form of aggregation. Connections established via APIs are beneficial to clients, as they provide a more stable connections experience, offer enhanced security, and more control over their data.

At the 2019 Summit, we announced that 26% of all client connections were aggregated through APIs. We’ve now transitioned 49% of client connections from screen-scraping to API-based data aggregation, and are on track to convert over 60% in total by the end of 2020.

While this progress means many end-clients are enjoying a more stable connections experience, we also know that the experience with connections is more than APIs. Many institutions lack the capacity or capability for API-based data aggregation and we recognize that the ability to connect with these institutions is essential to your clients.

The Connections Management Experience

Our focus remains on you and your clients. Our immediate goal is to reduce the amount of time and effort your team requires to help clients add and maintain their connections. This means more visibility into client connections and real-time responses to your support requests.

Over the last year, we’ve improved the connections search functionality, streamlined the process of adding new connections and accounts, updated the support request workflow, and are hard at work upgrading the architecture behind eMoney’s connections infrastructure.

The work continues with our updated Connections Dashboard, designed to streamline how you navigate, troubleshoot, and monitor your advisor and client connections.

New Connections Dashboard

The new dashboard includes a Refresh option that allows you to easily refresh connections, and a newly color-coded connection status column that makes it simple to identify User Repairable (red) versus System Errors (yellow). We’ve also added new ways to search, filter, and fix connections errors.

What’s Next

We’re focusing on streamlining your office’s connections management experience while improving the in-app connections experience for your clients.

This initiative involves improving our ticketing workflow and exploring how to leverage artificial intelligence to provide real-time support for the most common connections-related issues.

Along with improving the connections management experience, we’re heavily investing in modernizing our screen-scraping technology to ensure the essential connections that cannot transition to an API offer just as smooth an experience to you and your clients.

A key aspect of improving the stability of screen-scraping based connections is building proactive workflows to stay ahead of the hundreds of monthly changes that require updates by our team. This will allow us to update our connections in real-time, reducing or even eliminating downtime caused by site updates.

As we close out 2020 and move into 2021, our focus will continue to be on the product, process, and people that power eMoney’s data aggregation engine. We hope you’ve already begun to see immense improvements in the aggregation experience and look forward to your feedback on everything yet to come.

Let us know how you feel about these updates on our Request a Feature page, and don’t forget to vote up your favorite product suggestions!


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