TD Ameritrade Institutional has completed an agreement with technology consultancy Actifi Inc. to help it build automated workflows for TD's Veo Open Access platform.
Specifically those workflows will be built for and in concert with the dozen third-party technology vendors that are currently partnered with TD, many of which have already completed some level of integration with the Veo platform.
The workflows will help automate common processes that occur between third-party vendors and Veo, TD's back-office account management and trading platform.
Jon Patullo, director of technology product management at TD Ameritrade Institutional, said that the first few of these workflows will be completed within the first quarter of 2012.
TD did not disclose the terms of its contract with
Actifi but it has worked closely with the firm for several years, most notably in a collaboration building the company's
Roadmap online tool.
“We think we will get the investment back through improved efficiency among advisers,” said Mr. Patullo, responding to questions about the cost of the workflow development project.
He made it clear that TD would foot the bill for Actifi's services on the project, and not pass them on to its partner technology firms.
“We want to make workflows part of the adviser's practice and so we envision that through the Veo platform there will be an area that advisers can go in and leverage those workflows for the particular applications they are already using — we have already seen a ton of success with the Salesforce workflows in the library there,” he said referring to the customized version of Salesforce.com that the custodian had built (see below).
Mr. Patullo noted that instead of an adviser carrying out 30 different tasks when say, opening a client account, he or she would be able to hit a button in the CRM system and initiate a repeatable set of steps and processes.
JUST ANOTHER SET OF TOOLS ON VEO OPEN ACCESS
Through its Veo Open Access initiative, TD Ameritrade has provided its approved partners with a development environment that mimics the open- application programming interface for Veo.
Integrations that already have come out of this open-access project include passing of account alerts in real time to the systems of partner applications used by advisers.
For example, when a new client account has been opened on TD's Veo platform by an adviser at one of the 300 firms using the web-based
portfolio management system from Orion Advisor Services LLC. that information is passed directly to the user's Orion screen. The plus? An adviser will not have to log in separately to Veo to know when an account has been opened, but instead will be notified in real time.
TD is familiar with creating such workflows. Two months ago, the brokerage announced it had built a customized iteration of the customer relationship management application Salesforce.com, complete with 50 workflows.
TD had worked closely with AppCrown LLC, a technology firm and developer and reseller of advisory-oriented Salesforce.com applications.
The Veo Open Access initiative has proven very popular among third-party technology vendors since
it was first announced in August of 2010.
A total of 50 vendors are in discussion with or have already participated in joining the platform, 33 are currently in the process of completing a security review or in active development of an integration.
Twelve vendors are currently in production on the platform.
TD Ameritrade Institutional made another significant announcement just two weeks ago with the rollout of its integration between Veo, Laser App and e-signature vendor DocuSign.
Laser App is an extremely popular form-filling application used widely throughout the financial services industry.
Use of electronic signature and applications like Laser App can, when implemented properly, equate to straight-through processing, reducing or eliminating the need for paper documents.
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