Release notes for Onvio Centre

Firms can now turn on Daily Digest notification email for their staff and clients in Client Notification. Additional details and setup instructions are available on this Help & How-To Centre article (hyperlink will be added here for the UK and CA articles).

Daily Digest notification email templates will now have updated date format for [TODAYS DATE] variable, and [CONTACT NAME] and [FIRM NAME] variables. This is applicable to Client Adds Files and Staff or Client Adds Files within the default document templates.

Notification emails will now have updated date format for [TODAYS DATE] variable. This is applicable to Client Adds Files and Staff or Client Adds Files within Document templates.

Printing client web tax returns to Onvio Client Centre will utlize the "Client or Staff adds files" Document notification template instead of the "Clients Documents" Client Centre notification template to take advantage of the new digest notification feature.

This change applies to the printing of client copy returns with electronic delivery type set to "Web" found in File > Print Returns. The document management selection should be set to "Onvio Documents" and the client portals selection to "Onvio Client Centre" in Setup > Office Configuration > Onvio tab (when licensed).

We resolved an issue that caused the Documents quick link, found on the top of the page, to not take you to the documents of the client’s dashboard you were viewing.

We resolved an issue that caused the client selection drop-down list to be unavailable when viewing Client Centre as the client.

The client import no longer formats non-numeric fields as numbers. 

You can now designate a client or a contact as confidential. For more information, see Confidential Contacts.

The Setup Assistant now includes steps to set up clients.

Improving the speed of Onvio applications is a priority for our product and technology teams. With this release we're improving performance in the following areas:

• Improvements in loading Project and Task lists 
• Improvements in loading the Client list 

Client Centre users can now download a copy of a document immediately after it is signed or approved.

When you complete a task in Client Centre, you'll go to the next available task instead of going back to the top of the task list. 

• In Project fields, you can filter the project dropdown list to only show open projects by marking the Open Only checkbox. 
• The current due date is now displayed in the project dropdown list.  This will help distinguish between projects with the same name.  

The Client Centre Task widget allows you to easily view the status of Client Centre Tasks from the Client Dashboard.  

You can add relationships to the primary contact and the spouse at the same time from within the primary contact.

You now have the option to add Office, Partner, Manager and Department columns to project lists.  You can add these new columns to any project lists, including the My assignments widget on the Home page and the Projects and Tasks widget on the Client Dashboard.  

To ensure you get the best Onvio experience, we are no longer supporting Internet Explorer 11 or non-current versions of supported browsers. For more information, see Supported internet browsers.

We've updated Client Centre to a new version that has updated functionality and a new look and feel. This change allows us to add new features (like e-Signatures) in future releases.

• Clients can use a mobile device to scan and upload requested documents.
• Clients can locate tasks and mark them as complete so it's clear what's left for them to do and what's ready to be sent to you.

Note: The tax questionnaire is not available, but we will make it available again in a future release.

In the My Assignments widget, you now have the ability to hide or show columns, filter data, and group rows.

In the Projects and Tasks widget, you can now group rows and hide or show columns.

To ensure you get the best Onvio experience, we will no longer support Internet Explorer 11 starting October 15, 2020.

You can add relationships to the spouse from within the primary contact.  

Onvio now includes two “system” permission groups. The firm’s primary Onvio administrator is a member of these groups by default and can add staff as needed. System groups are indicated by  badges in the list of permission groups.

Staff with appropriate permissions can now designate clients and contacts as confidential. They can then use permission groups to control staff access to that data.

Staff members and clients can now choose to receive Onvio notifications on their mobile devices, using the Onvio mobile apps. For more information, see a href="../setup/email-messages-that-are-sent-by-onvio.htm">Event notifications overview.

Onvio now formats phone numbers automatically based on the country that is selected for a client, contact, or staff member on the General tab of the relevant setup screen.

Note that phone numbers previously entered in Onvio will not be automatically re-formatted, but if you place the cursor in the field for an existing phone number and press TAB, re-formatting occurs.

You can now create custom fields to gather additional information about your clients. See Custom fields for information on setting up these fields.

We added text to help clarify the various relationships you can create between clients and contacts.

For example, on the Relationships tab of client ABC Co.'s Client setup screen, to designate the contact John Smith as the client's Billing Contact, choose Billing Contact, and Onvio will display the following text:

(John Smith is the Billing Contact of ABC Co.)

If you choose Billing Contact Of, the text will instead say:

(ABC Co. is the Billing Contact of John Smith)

The latter relationship is unlikely.

If you create the same relationship between ABC Co. and John Smith from the Relationships tab of the Contact setup screen for the contact John Smith (rather than from the Client setup screen for ABC Co.), choose Billing Contact Of, and Onvio will display the same text as the first example above:

(John Smith is the Billing Contact of ABC Co.)

This text helps you verify that you chose the correct relationship type, regardless of whether you added the relationship from the Client setup screen or Contact setup screen.

We added a new Onvio Security screen and moved the firm Multi-Factor Authentication settings (Required/Optional) to this page from their former location under Onvio Site Settings. Choose Setup > Onvio Security to access the new page.

Access to the new Onvio Security screen is controlled by a new Onvio Security permission under Onvio Setup on the Permission Groups setup screen. Permission groups that have "Everything" access to Onvio Setup will have access to this new page. Any other staff who should have access to this screen will need to have that access enabled in a permission group to which they belong.

You can now expand rows in the client list to show any contacts who have relationships with the client. Click the Show Details  button to expand a row.

You can now filter the client list by Entity Type.

The Contacts widget now includes an entry for an individual client's spouse, if applicable.

We added a View All Contacts link, which you can click to view all contacts with relationships to the client.

You can now filter the contacts list by Country and Client Centre Access status.

Onvio and Client Centre users will now be prompted to copy or print emergency access codes during initial MFA setup. Users will be asked to save them in a secure, accessible location for use when their MFA device (smartphone or tablet) is unavailable. 

See Generate your own emergency access codes for more information.

We added the following items to the Recommended tab of Setup Assistant.

• Set up terms and conditions
• Add project statuses
• Add tax rates
• Set up tax groups
• Add activity categories

If you do not see Setup Assistant on the Home screen, you can re-activate it via your user preferences.

You can now display a Doing Business As column on the Clients setup screen. Select this column using the Show/Hide Columns  button.

If a contact has a login for Onvio or Client Centre (also known as a Thomson Reuters ID), that email address is now shown in a read-only field in the Onvio / Client Centre Account section of the General tab on the Contacts setup screen (choose Setup > All Contacts and click the Edit  button for a contact). This field enables staff to see when a contact's email address has changed from the address with which they originally registered for Onvio or Client Centre access.

We added a column to the All Contacts screen to indicate whether Client Centre is enabled for a contact. To display the column, click Setup > All Contacts, click the Show/Hide Columns  icon, and mark the box next to Client Centre Access.

We added the Client Comments widget to the dashboard. Comments that are added or edited in the widget are also saved on the General tab of that client’s setup screen. 

In the last release, we moved filters to their own panel on the left side of the Projects screen. With this release, the Projects screen includes “(Filtered)” in the heading if a filter has been applied.

The new Onvio Setup Assistant appears on the Home Dashboard for your firm’s primary Onvio administrator, and guides them through crucial initial setup tasks. If you’re a primary administrator, you can click the Start Setup button for quick access to the following required and recommended tasks.

Required

• Set up permission groups 
• Set up staff
• Add staff rate descriptions
• Set up project templates 
• Set up activities

Recommended

• Set up firm
• Set up notifications
• Customize Client Centre
• Set up folder templates
• Set up service templates 
• Add staff levels
• Add departments
• Add offices 

Click the button to begin the relevant task. You can click the  Mark as Complete  link to indicate that you’ve completed a task. Click the  Learn more  link next to each task description to open a Help & How-To Centre article with detailed information. When finished, click the "X" to hide Setup Assistant.

We made a change to the settings for notifications that are sent when staff or clients add files to a shared folder in Client Centre (Setup > Notifications > Wording tab > Documents section). You can now enable these notifications separately for when a staff member adds files and when a client adds files.

We reconfigured the Setup menu to better organize its categories and make it more intuitive to use.

Click the new Client Dashboard  icon on the Setup > Clients screen to open the Client Dashboard for the client.

You can now change the display name format for batches of staff, clients, or contacts.

To make these changes, select multiple staff, clients, or contacts from the list on the applicable setup screen, then click the Edit button, choose the Change General Information option, and click Next. Use the Display Name Format field to select a display format for the names of the selected individuals. Click Next to review your changes, then click Done.

The Registration Status report now exports all rows included in the report, instead of only the displayed rows. To perform the export, choose Reporting > Onvio Usage and select the Registration Status report. Click Export to send the data to a file in .XLSX format.

The updated Add Project screen provides simplified views of the Add Client and Add Project screens, combined in one location. You can now quickly add a project to an existing client or a new client.

Click Projects on the menu bar and then click the Add icon.

• Add a project to an existing client: Click the Existing  button. When you choose a client from the list, their entity type and name will automatically display. In the Add Project section, select an existing template or scroll through the template list and click Add Project Template. If you need to add information to fields that are not displayed, click View Full Project Setup.
• Add a project to a new client: Click the New  button and add the required information. You can click View Full Client Setup to add information to fields that are not displayed. After you add client information, add project information as described above.

Click Save and Close to return to your project list or click Save and Open to open the project in its associated application. If there isn't an associated application, you'll be returned to your project list.

We added a Projects widget to the Client Information section of the Client Dashboard. To access the dashboard, click the Client Dashboard  icon at the top of the screen (or click Client Dashboard on the menu bar) and select a client from the field at the top of the screen. 

We updated how your client's name is displayed on the Client Centre home screen. Onvio now pulls the client name format you enter in the Display As panel in client setup. To open the panel, choose Setup > Clients and select a client. On the General tab, click the Edit  icon next to their name at the top of the screen. You can choose a format from the list or select Custom to add text in the Value field.

We updated the HTML code that you can embed on your firm’s website, linking clients to the Client Centre sign-in page. The new HTML code will take your clients directly to the Thomson Reuters Client Centre sign-in page, where they will now receive appropriate password and multi-factor authentication prompts. See Embed Onvio login fields on your firm's website to learn more about using the embedded code. If your firm uses DT Web Builder, we’ve already updated the HTML code for you.

You can now select default display name formats for individual contacts, clients, and staff on the Preferences tab of the Firm setup screen. The default formats will be applied to any new individuals added to Onvio.

We improved the performance of the Registration Status report.

We updated the My Assignments widget on the Home Dashboard to more closely resemble the project grids elsewhere in Onvio.

When you delete a contact for whom there are relationships to other contacts, Onvio will alert you that those relationships will also be deleted.

When you filter for projects assigned to a specific department or staff member, your results will now include all projects for whom that department or staff member is assigned, including ones with multiple assignments.

We added filtering capabilities to project-related firm reports. Now, all firm reports offer filtering.

We changed the Home Dashboard so that hiding unused widgets will improve the performance of the remaining widgets.

We added the ability to add or remove departments when editing multiple staff or editing multiple projects. Use the Add Departments button or Remove Departments button to add or remove one or more departments for each selected staff member or project. Added items are appended to any existing lists of departments. Removed items are removed from any existing lists.

We added a new address type, Postal, that you can select for clients, contacts, staff, and offices.

We added a badge to the Comments  icon in the Projects list to show the number of comments present for each item.

When you set up a project recurrence and specify that due dates must occur on weekdays, you can now choose to move any weekend due dates forward to fall on the Friday before the weekend. The default is for the due date to occur after the weekend.

You can change this setting on project templates or on individual projects.

When generating the next occurrence of a project, Onvio will now pull the value for the Application field from the previous instance of the project, rather than from the project template.

You can now assign project templates and projects to multiple departments. Under Assignments on the General tab, click the Select button for Department, mark the box for each applicable department, and click Done.

We added the ability to customize the Home Dashboard and Client Dashboard by reordering the dashboard sections and rearranging or hiding widgets.

To customize either of these screens, click the Edit  button in the lower right corner, which activates an edit mode. Then click and drag items to rearrange them, or click the Options  button on a widget and choose Hide to hide it. Show me.

Hidden widgets are represented by buttons placed at the bottom of the dashboard section. Click this button to restore a hidden widget. The example below shows the button for the Staff Assignments widget on the Client Dashboard, when hidden.

To reorder dashboard sections, click and drag a section heading in the left column to a new position. Click the Hide  button to hide an entire section from the dashboard.

When you are finished customizing your dashboard, click the Done  button in the lower right corner of the screen.

Your clients can now use third-party applications like Dropbox, Google Drive, and Box to upload documents for submission to your firm.

This update affects most project lists throughout [[product-name]], such as those on the Projects screen and the Projects tab in Client setup.

In response to customer feedback, we restored grouping and sorting capabilities on the project grid. Drag column headings to the grouping area to group projects by status, primary staff, current due date, or other criteria. Click any column heading to sort the data in that column. You can still change project status and update comments directly from the list.

We also changed the Open Projects Only option from a checkbox to a button. Select the Open Projects Only  button once to limit the view to open projects. Select it again to turn off that limited view. Your selection will remain in place when you navigate to another screen or log out of [[product-name]].

See Edit a project for a client for more detailed information.

We enhanced the project grid to group information by client and then by project, to enable you to change the status of projects and update comments directly from the list. To accommodate this new structure, other grouping and sorting options are no longer available. We recommend using filters and the search capability to find the data you need.

This update affects the project list on the Projects tab in Client setup, as well as the project lists in other [[product-name]] applications.

We added more detail and grouping options to some firm management reports. Click Reporting > Firm Management Reports, and then edit a report. You can now choose Project Primary Assignment Staff and Project Secondary Assignment Staff options in the Group By and Detail By fields.

You can now disable notifications by email or notifications within Onvio on selected message templates. To view your firm’s message templates and edit their settings, choose Setup > Client Notifications > Wording tab. Choose the Documents menu and select any of the following notifications.

• Staff Shares Folder — Contributor
• Staff Shares Folder — Owner
• Staff Shares Folder — Reviewer
• Staff or Client Adds Files
• Staff or Client Adds New Folder

Click the switch  for each type of notification you want to disable (within Onvio or by email).

Multi-factor authentication

Emergency login codes

Users who have MFA enabled can now generate emergency access codes. These codes can be used to access an account if the paired device is not accessible during login. It is important to keep these codes in a secure location. For more information, see Generate your own emergency access codes.

Compatible third-party authentication applications

While we recommend using the Thomson Reuters Authenticator mobile application for the best user experience, we recognize that you may already use a third-party authentication app. Onvio is now compatible with third-party applications that are Time-based One-Time Password (TOTP) compliant. See Learn about third-party multi-factor authentication apps for more information.

Multiple devices

You can now associate multiple devices with your Onvio login, to ensure that you have a backup device available. To learn how, see Manage multiple devices for Onvio multi-factor authentication.

We’ve tightened password complexity requirements to improve Onvio login security. New passwords cannot include certain common words or phrases, such as the word “Password.” For more information, see Password guidelines and tips.

Changing a staff member’s status to Inactive now disables Onvio access for that staff member automatically.

Note that changing the status back to Active does not restore Onvio access to the staff member.

When you add a project for a client, the Contact field is now required.