Tag Archive: Advent


The Future of Axys

Filed under: Axys, Client Communication, Custom Reporting, Portfolio Management Systems — 1 Comment
August 27, 2013

Earlier this year, Advent sent an alert to Axys users about Windows 8 issues and how to deal with them, as an interim solution to problems that Windows 8 users can face.  It is good that Advent is proactively alerting users, but I am not recommending that any of my clients move to Windows 8 just yet. Upgrading your office to Windows 8 is premature, unless you are willing to pay the premium and deal with the frustrations typically associated with being an early adopter of the latest Windows operating system.

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If your firm uses Axys, you may be wondering whether a new release is in the works. Though Advent hasn’t publicly set a release date for the next version yet, I expect they soon will. Based on what Advent has done in the past, users should expect a 3.9 release in the near future. That release will likely support Office 2013, and Adobe Acrobat 11, and may also feature improved Windows 8 compatibility.

Though these types of updates seem minimal, they have more substance than you might think. Axys remains a very functional and cost-efficient option for advisors. Compound reports generated in Axys 3.8.5 using Excel 2010 graphs rival output from APX at a fraction of the cost. If your compound reports look dated, find out what version of Excel you are using. Using the latest version of Excel in conjunction with a version of Axys that supports it can give your reports a newer look and feel.

Axys 4?

I would like to think that Axys 4 is in the works, but a major revision would probably mean a name change – perhaps “Cloud Axys?” Longer-term, expect Axys to undergo a technology transformation if Advent wants to keep the platform alive and decides to commit greater resources to future updates that keep pace with technology trends. While the number of APX, Geneva and Black Diamond users have continued to grow, Axys users still account for a considerable number of Advent’s clients.

Historically, Axys was the lynchpin of Advent Software’s success and center of their hub of solutions for their customers. Replacing the PMS of an investment advisor is more complicated than it seems.  It impacts many of the systems at an advisor’s office, as well as the people you need to support your business, the skills they need, and what third-party solutions are available.

It would be ideal for Advent if Axys customers moved to another Advent product in the future. Those conversions and newer software licensing agreements would generate more income, while eventually allowing Advent to phase out Axys without major renovations.  However, Axys users looking at APX, Black Diamond and Geneva don’t always see a clear path.

In the past two years, Tamarac/Envestnet and other competitors have won over some Axys customers. My firsthand knowledge of a couple of advisors who made the move to Tamarac leads me to believe that Advent didn’t need to lose these customers. Through better communication, negotiation or product positioning, they could have kept the business.  On that note, I spoke with an Axys user last week that requested an APX quote after seeing a demo in Q2 and never got one.

Perception is Reality

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“Be where your enemy is not.” -Sun Tzu

Current Axys users represent a ground of contention that will not be ignored by Advent’s competitors and should not be ignored by Advent. At stake is the perception of who provides the very best PMS platforms for investment advisors.  Advent may be willing to let some of their Axys clients go quietly, but in doing so they risk losing those relationships long-term, if not permanently, as well as other advisors in their sphere of influence.  Axys users represent a critical mass that could fuel the growth of  Advent’s competition in the near future.  Left unchecked, Advent competitors garnering Axys users now could ultimately vie for current APX, Geneva, and Black Diamond users down the road.

Obviously, Advent cannot be all things to all customers, but they can make a better effort to keep existing Axys clients in the fold.  In order to do so, Advent must improve communications with Axys users, affirm their commitment to Axys, and continue to add technology enhancements to Axys on a regular basis.

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About the Author: Kevin Shea is President of InfoSystems Integrated, Inc. (ISI); ISI provides a wide variety of outsourced IT solutions to investment advisors nationwide.

For details, please visit isitc.com, contact Kevin Shea via phone at 617-720-3400 x202 or e-mail at kshea@isitc.com.

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A New SEC Requirement for 13F Reports – XML

Filed under: APX, Axys, Compliance, Portfolio Management Systems — Leave a comment
August 14, 2013

iStock_000021815840XSmallAll things change – even things at the SEC.   Previously, investment managers could upload text (aka ASCII) files detailing their holdings to Edgar.  This quarter, a change was made, requiring the file to be formatted in XML.  Investors have 45 days from the end of the quarter to file their 13F reports, so Q2 reports are due today.

Some users that attempted to get these reports done earlier in Q3 expressed frustration with the XML issue and their ability to get more proactive assistance from Advent to address it.  Last week, as the filing deadline approached, Advent reached out to clients, alerting them of the change and directing them to an ASCII to XML conversion tool to facilitate the process.  In my own experience with Advent’s support team, I found them both helpful and knowledgeable in regard to the 13F reporting issues.

Though Advent’s documentation states that the 13F report and conversion tool requires Axys 3.8.5 or higher, the report from Axys 3.8.5 worked fine when we used it on Axys 3.7 with a client.  APX users can use the same utility.  The utility was simple to use and worked well;  the biggest challenge for users is finding the file they need to convert.

The 13F reporting mechanism is functional, but the setup seems cryptic and disjointed.  First-time users expecting a turn-key, intuitive solution will be disappointed.  Fortunately, the details of what is required to produce 13F reports are well-documented in Advent’s help file.

How 13F Reporting Works…

By default, the 13F report only includes the equity asset class.   It is possible to exclude individual securities through the use of the 13F.est file, but it is not possible to include individual securities.  Additional asset classes may be added.  Report-specific labels must be added to the 13F portfolio file to make the report work properly.

When the supporting files are properly configured, the report produces detailed holdings and simultaneously generates an inftable.txt file with the same information.  This file is placed in the specific user folder (i.g. f:\axys3\users\amy) of the person running the report on the network version of Axys or the root folder of Axys on the single-user version of Axys.  When users have generated a 13F report without missing data or error messages, they are ready run to the conversion utility to produce the inftable.xml file and upload the information to the Edgar site.

This quarter, running and filing 13F reports was more challenging than it has been in the past, since users were forced to correctly implement the 13F report in order to successfully generate an XML file.  Based on my experience with users, this was something they had not been doing in the past.  Most users would run the report to get something close to what they needed and then manually modify the text file, rather than keep all of the information updated in the 13F portfolio and 13F.est files.  Going forward, the process will still require that new securities and relevant asset classes be classified specifically for the 13F report, but future report runs should be simpler.

For more info on 13F reporting, refer to the SEC’s document detailing Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ).

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About the Author: Kevin Shea is President of InfoSystems Integrated, Inc. (ISI); ISI provides a wide variety of outsourced IT solutions to investment advisors nationwide.

For details, please visit isitc.com, contact Kevin Shea via phone at 617-720-3400 x202 or e-mail at kshea@isitc.com.

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Getting Data In and Out of Advent APX and Axys

Filed under: APX, Axys, Data Conversion, Featured, open systems, Portfolio Management Systems, SQL Server — Leave a comment
April 25, 2013

iStock_000011255731XSmallWhen Advent first introduced The Professional Portfolio (aka Proport) 25 years ago, one feature that contributed  largely to its long-term success was the ability to get data in and out of the program easily.  Advent software has continued to make this feature a priority throughout every iteration of their original portfolio management product line.

In contrast competing products like Centerpiece, which would eventually be purchased by Schwab and rebranded Portfolio Center, appeared to be a black box.  You could see what was being calculated, but could not see the components of the calculation.

Proport files were stored in an open text format and could be easily read and written as necessary.  Axys v1.x, Advent’s premier Windows product at the time, maintained a similar open file structure.  Axys v2.x was the first version to implement a binary file format.  At the time, some users were concerned that the format change would complicate maintenance of existing customized solutions and inhibit their ability to continue to create solutions that exchanged data with Advent’s portfolio management system.

Firms were slow to embrace Axys v2.x and some never upgraded to it.  Perhaps it was concern over the new file formats.  Instead, most firms eventually upgraded to Axys v3.x. Concerns about the format change were moot since Advent also introduced IMEX, which allowed users to import and export files in CSV, tab, and fixed formats.

Exceptions apply, but the IMEX tool facilitates the ability to move data in and out of Axys with relative ease.  The features of IMEX combined with the ability to import transaction and label data through the trade blotter provide a comprehensive means to get fundemental data in and out of Advent Axys and APX.  Additional methods of importing and exporting data follow:

Axys users may write or read data directly to data files if they have knowledge of the underlying data format.  However, this is not a best practice due to changing file formats between versions.  For example, upgrading from Axys v3.7 to v3.8 requires a file conversion process.  Some of the resulting Axys v3.8 files have a different file format, so any process directly writing or reading these files would need to be updated to take the new file formats into account.

APX users may

  1. query the APX database via Excel (and other software programs).
  2. write SSRS or Crystal reports to extract data.
  3. use many other SQL based tools to export and import selected data.

Axys and APX users can

  1. export reports directly to Excel with the push of a button or create a macro that stores report output in XLS and other file formats.
  2. create custom reports via Report Writer Pro, which can easily be changed to CSV format.
  3. modify existing replang reports to build CSV, other text formats, and various Advent file formats.
  4. use third-party Extract, Transform and Load (ETL) products like xPort.

APX (v1.x to v4.x) maintains the functionality of IMEX, but the ability to generate files in a fixed format has been eliminated.  In addition, you can export data to an Axys v3 format.

Due to these capabilities and a host of other Advent features that facilitate automation and integration, Axys and APX users as well as third-party vendors like ISITC.com have developed many custom solutions utilizing Advent Software’s infrastructure to address day-to-day investment operations workflow and reporting requirements.  The building blocks of these solutions faciliate subsequent projects and allow investment firms to further enhance Advent’s portfolio management systems to meet their evolving needs with less effort and cost.

Here is a sample of some VB code we use to integrate and automate data handling of exported Axys and APX data.  The code can be used in Excel with VBA and User-Defined Functions (UDFs) to pull data from Axys and APX like Bloomberg BLP functions are used in Excel. This function is just one of the routines in our library of code that enable us to seemlessly integrate our solutions with Advent’s infrastructure.  I wrote the original source code for this routine twenty years ago and have updated it as necessary to support later releases of Axys and APX.

Using similar resources, integrators can move quickly from prototype to production when developing solutions for Advent users.  In fact, Advent’s most recent annual report continues to cite customers building their own solutions as one of their largest sources of competition.  For instance, a number of firms have created their own Order Management Systems – not that I’d recommend it.

Advisors abhor inefficiency and are typically willing to make a reasonable investment to reduce it.  Automation not only increases efficiency, but lowers risk by eliminating manual processes that may rely on individuals and their exclusive knowledge of manual or semi-automatic procedures.  Some financial services firms have customized their systems to a degree that makes staying on the Advent platform for twenty plus years possible and the thought of switching to another platform regrettable.

Thanks to the way Advent handles getting data in and out of their systems, users can continue using Axys to meet their ever-changing system requirements and leverage most solutions created for Axys on the APX platform.   Similar and potentially better tech options may exist on other competing platforms, but most of those systems lack the maturity, depth of resources, third-party relationships, and corresponding reliability of Advent’s platform choices.  Knowledge and acceptance of these competing products among advisors, employees, and third-party solution providers won’t match Advent for a long time.

As a result, even though technologically superior portfolio management platforms may emerge, many firms will continue using Advent’s best known portfolio management systems for the foreseeable future.

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About the Author: Kevin Shea is President of InfoSystems Integrated, Inc. (ISI); ISI provides a wide variety of outsourced IT solutions to investment advisors nationwide.

For details, please visit isitc.com, contact Kevin Shea via phone at 617-720-3400 x202 or e-mail at kshea@isitc.com.

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Five Reasons APX Users May Never Create Their Own SSRS Reports

Filed under: APX, Custom Reporting, Featured, Portfolio Management Systems, SSRS — 1 Comment
December 17, 2012

iStock_000007871357XSmallYour firm has just completed its implementation of APX. All systems are go including a small collection of SSRS reports, which meet some but probably not all of your firm’s requirements. You have new reporting capabilities, and now the question is “will your firm ever use these new features?” SSRS is also known as Microsoft Reporting Services, which sounds a little less complicated. No matter what the name is, SSRS is a beast – the following issues will challenge your firm’s ability to embrace and leverage SSRS technology for the foreseeable future.

1. TOOL INSTALLATION – SSRS tools like Report Builder and Business Intelligence Development Studio (BIDS) will not be installed on most of your PCs. They are kept at an arms-length from most users, and rightfully so. Though SQL Server Manager and SSRS reporting tools can be accessed on the database server, it currently isn’t Advent Software’s policy to install the applications that give users access to these tools on all users’ PCs. Assuming you have someone at your office with relevant report-writing experience, getting their system configured to make SSRS reports and/or modifications is special request. I have worked with many APX users. By default, most of them do not have access to the tools, so they could not use them or even see them. Some firms using APX 3.x do not even have access to SSRS reports because they have not been installed.

2. ENVIRONMENTAL COMPLEXITY – Once the tools have been installed, the collection of SSRS reports is open to users’ review and modification, but the infrastructure and understanding it requires is cumbersome. Most APX users do not have the skills necessary to create SSRS reports, and very few of those who do are interested in doing it. For those unfamiliar with SSRS and other similar report-writing tools, seemingly simple reporting modifications can be a pain if datasets aren’t designed with your specific reporting needs in mind. Those writing reports need to make frequent backups. Occasionally, reports can become corrupted and cause their writers to lose hours of work.

3. TIME – Compared to creating compound reports and building reports using Advent Report Writer Pro, developing reports using SSRS and other similar report writers like Crystal takes much more time. This is the norm, but not the rule. There are specific report-writing tasks that SSRS is more efficient at performing, but overall report-writing with SSRS is exponentially more complex than using Advent’s standard report-writing tools. This is due to the fact that SSRS development and modifications are the domain of Business Intelligence (BI) professionals and other system integrators who do it for a living. Report Writer Pro and compound reporting were developed by Advent to be used by investment operations end-users with limited technical know-how. SSRS was created by Microsoft, and is not designed with these same users in mind. Some simple SSRS reports take minutes to create, but it is much more likely for users to spend hours, weeks or even months working on reports.

4. COST – Since your firm is unlikely to have BI report developer resources internally, you will need to hire outside resources to develop your reports. That sounds familiar, right? Assuming that you, like many Advent APX clients, spend somewhere around 100k to 200k annually on APX, you can expect to pay at least another 15k to 30k annually to get the reports you want and keep them maintained by qualified third-party resources. You may be able to get the work done cheaper, but anyone delivering reporting services on a platform this complex at a significantly lower price will not be in business for long.

5. AVAILABILITY OF QUALIFIED RESOURCES – Since SSRS is still relatively new to Advent users, there are very few BI resources available with specific experience working for APX users. The learning curve is steep. Significant integration and reporting work needs to be done for individual firms to fully embrace SSRS as their reporting platform, and short-term that leads to a smaller pool of available resources to do the work.

RUNNING WITH SSRS
Due to the complexity inherent in combining various data elements via SSRS and workflow automation, some APX users may still be better off using the REPLANG and compound report functionality first introduced in Axys. Standardizing your firm’s reports using SSRS on Advent’s APX platform could be tough. For many users, standardizing will mean trying to make standard (REPLANG) reports look like they were created in SSRS, or worse, completely reengineering those reports in SSRS.

Advent deserves credit for implementing SSRS. It is a progressive move aimed at satisfying the enterprise users for which APX was designed, but some firms using APX should ask themselves whether they truly are an “enterprise” before they start implementing tools designed for enterprises. (In the near future, I will be blogging on the issue of firm identity and the role it plays in the success or failure of technology implementations.)

Long-term, there is good news for many APX users. Though creating reports can be very complex, the format of SSRS reports is extremely portable, which should eventually lead to more report sharing among APX users. Unfortunately, while this may be good news for APX users, BI developers and integrators like ISITC have to be more concerned with the portability of their end product.

One could literally spend hundreds of hours developing a report and have someone walk away with it. In other stickier environments, reports might be developed at a discount, but an integrator’s sunk costs could easily be recouped through a nearly guaranteed long-term maintenance agreement. Given concerns regarding portability, you should expect to pay a premium to have SSRS reports developed for your firm.

Firms making a significant investment to develop distinctive reports in APX now should be equally concerned with maintaining those reports in the future. Advent and third parties that create reporting solutions regularly make updates to address bugs and/or add functionality to reports. Though APX users may not realize it, this environment is still fairly sticky. Those unfamiliar with specific reports can easily perform the simplest modifications, but firms will do well to retain those that write their SSRS reports to address more complex modifications in the future.

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About the Author: Kevin Shea is President of InfoSystems Integrated, Inc. (ISI); ISI provides a wide variety of outsourced IT solutions to investment advisors nationwide. For details, please visit isitc.com, contact Kevin Shea via phone at 617-720-3400 x202 or e-mail at kshea@isitc.com.

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