With a spotlight on some exciting new features recently released, in this 90-minute webinar Rob Cameron and Cassie Kaddatz introduce what’s new and share their ideas on best practices for Jobs and Workflow Jobs.

You can watch the full 90-minute recording below: 

For those short on time, here’s a quick recap:

1. New ways to maintain client data 

We are excited to introduce new ways to maintain Xero Practice Manager client and job data in FYI, minimising the need to jump backwards and forwards between the two platforms.

The ability to update partner and manager has been available at a job level for some time, and you can now update the partner and manager for your clients – either individually in the client workspace or as part of a bulk update.

We have also introduced the option to create and maintain custom fields for both clients and jobs directly in FYI, with your changes syncing back to XPM. This avoids any sync delays in FYI, ensuring you have accurate client data instantly available for use by your team and your automations. And it means you now have the flexibility to update from either platform.

​We’ve also introduced User Roles. These are roles that go beyond partner and manager. You can define user roles that reflect the way your practice works, allowing you a deeper level of granularity on jobs and clients. Simply define the accountant, senior accountant or bookkeeper on clients or jobs across your practice and sync back to Xero Practice Manager. These roles can be used to assign tasks and workflows in automation steps – making sure the right person is assigned the first time.

2. New ways to manage your Jobs in FYI

XPM tasks can now be synced to FYI as workflow jobs to make your workflow management that much simpler! You no longer need to set up both billing jobs and workflow jobs in XPM in order to track workflow while still billing from a single job. They can easily be separated in FYI from your XPM Jobs, and you have the added bonus of using job states to move these workflow jobs through your workflow cycle, using the Jobs Board and bulk update.

There are many ways to set up your jobs in Xero Practice Manager. Two common approaches we see are to create a job for each piece of work you complete, or to have an annual billing job. Our new Best Practice Guide to Jobs covers both standard jobs (the current approach most practices are all familiar with) and our new Workflow Jobs, and the benefits of each these approaches in FYI. Standard Jobs syncs only the Xero Practice Manager job. This is the approach that you are all working with today. For practices that want to monitor and track interim pieces of work – the XPM Tasks – under an annual billing job, then Workflow Jobs is your solution.

Click here to download our Jobs Best Practice Guide.

We also recap some exciting new features when working with jobs in FYI. You can now create a job directly within FYI or as part of an automation. Upon creation, these new jobs are immediately available for use in FYI and sync back to Xero Practice Manager. Custom fields and user roles can be edited in FYI – use bulk update to quickly get your practice’s data up to date.

And soon, you will be able to update more details on a job – name, budget, start date and due date. These changes can be made to the individual job or in bulk and are tracked in the Activity tabs so you can always see the ‘what, who and when’ of any updates made. Rest assured, your team need to be given permission to these features by an FYI Admin giving you granular control on what features your practice wants to adopt.

3. eLearning courses, available to all

Learn, our new eLearning platform is now available with courses for new users and FYI admins. In less than two hours, every new FYI user can be ready to hit the ground running, thanks to easy-to-follow instructions to help check your computer is set up correctly, learn how to navigate FYI, file documents, create emails and more. Additional courses for admins cover everything you need to know to configure FYI to suit your practice.

Dedicated dashboards in FYI allow you to track course completion at an individual user level – so it is easy to see everyone’s progress, at a glance.

We will continue to add new courses in the future. It’s a great resource for new team members joining your practice, or as a refresher for your team.

4. New Automation Library

In case you missed it, you can now import sample automations created by the FYI team straight into your platform from our Automation Library. These sample automations have been created by the FYI team, and even come with email and document templates included! Simply customise to suit your practice, test and activate.

5. New Sample Clients

Sometimes the best way to learn is to be able to put your hands on the keyboard and experience it for yourself. You can now use a set of Sample Clients to test new features, or new templates and to explore automations. This avoids concerns around using real client data when you are testing and learning what works for you.

6. Even more support from the FYI team

There are now even more ways you can engage with our team. Log a support ticket via our in-app support to speed up resolution time. This provides our team with valuable context along with your query. Our Status Page has had a makeover with the addition of regions and core services. Sign up to receive notifications by email or Microsoft Teams. And don’t forget to join the FYI User Community on Facebook – a great way to keep up to date with new releases and tips from our team, plus a place to connect with other users.

Coming soon – More insights across your practice

We are continuing to build new lists in all FYI workspaces, with even more powerful functionality. Practice Insights, for example, will transform visibility on key job details and give you even more power to customise your practice data. And that is only the start.

Using automations and user roles we can also deliver a flexible capacity planning report. The end result is an easy-to-read report that shows your team’s availability and allocated workload. Use this to compare with your client requirements, deadlines, and deliverables. And if you need to make a change, simply adjust the allocations and re-run for updated results. With leave and productivity percentages taken into account, and the ability to simply adjust and re-run – it cannot get much easier! Capacity Planning will be at beta within the next few weeks.