Skip to main content

Engagement Letter Implementation Overview

Christa Mason
Updated

Aiwyn's Engagement Letters is an add on module, please contact support@aiwyn.ai if you are interested in adding this feature to your existing Payments & Collections system.

Summary

Implementing Engagement Letters requires the time and attention of your firm's key stakeholders. This article outlines and describes in detail the process for implementing Engagements at your firm. 

Payments & Collections is required to have and implement before Engagements can be implemented and launched in your aiwyn system. 

 

Timeline

Click the item below for more information

  1. Pre-Kickoff
  2. Kickoff Meeting
  3. Review Data Points
  4. Establish Configurations & User Permissions
  5. Data Health Check
  6. Engagement Template Admin Training
  7. Data Validation & Testing
  8. Engagement Admin Training for Trainers
  9. Launch Support

 

Pre-Kickoff

Prior to kicking off Engagement Letters implementation, you should begin to consider a few important factors:

Engagement Contact Data

Each Client must have at least one Contact in your Practice Management System. This must be a "CONTACT" record, with a First Name, Last Name, Email Address, Physical Address, and Category or Type selection. This is possible with most Practice Management Systems.

An email address on the Client record (a "CLIENT BILLING EMAIL") is not the same as a Contact record as it would lack "First Name" and "Last Name".

The contact data used in Aiwyn Engagements comes from the Contacts of the Clients in your Practice Management System (by default). This means your Engagement contacts need to truly be "CONTACTS" each with first name, last name, email, and physical address, and a classifier such as "Type" or "Category" (e.g. Engagement Contact, Primary Contact, A/P Contact) in your Practice Management System.

Each potential signer of an Engagement Letter must have a unique Contact record, with their own unique name and email address. You cannot use the same email address for more than one Contact you want to sign a letter (e.g. Contacts need unique emails).

The better, more quality, Contact data you have in your Practice Management System, the better response you will see with Client Engagement Automation.

 

Engagement Letter Templates

Start now and consider what type of Engagement Letters do you need to send out first.

Compile into a single working folder all the letter templates you currently have for this new fiscal year and have these documents in Microsoft Word or Google Doc format and be prepared to share a few of the letter templates with Aiwyn during implementation.

Consider the data available as placeholder variables in the Engagement letter templates in Aiwyn, and explore what elements of a letter can be restructured or changed based on Aiwyn functions. Slight changes to your Engagement Letter layout, format, and content are likely and should be expected when adopting CEA.

 

Involved Staff

Prior to kickoff, you must identify the key staff who will be directly responsible for managing Engagements rollout at your firm. These staff must have ability to make decisions and provide requested information relevant to Engagements. 

During implementation we will ask questions of your key staff that explore topics such as:

  • How are Engagement Letters managed and sent at your firm currently?
  • What process is used to create a new Engagement for a particular Client?
  • How do you approve and send an Engagement letter currently?
  • Your Engagement creation and sending process will change with Aiwyn. What will this change look like? What staff need to be trained?

It is unlikely that a larger segment of your staff need to participate directly in Engagements Implementation. Rather, towards the end of Implementation, you will begin to pull those staff in for Training purposes.

 

Kickoff Meeting

Immediately before your Kickoff meeting, Aiwyn will Enable Engagements for your Super Admins. This allows us to review and demo Engagements in your system during kickoff and enables you to begin building engagement templates afterwards.

Suggested Attendees

  • Staff member responsible for overseeing the staff who send engagement letters
  • Staff member responsible for editing and creating engagement letter templates, if by department then invite leader from each (if different from above)
  • Staff member who is the main point of contact at your firm for Aiwyn (if desired)
  • Staff member who is most knowledgeable about how your firm uses your Practice Management System (if different from above)
  • Limit to 2 or 3 staff members who are directly responsible for managing Engagement rollout at your firm
  • Please do not invite larger Engagements team
  • IT is not required to attend as the related IT tasks are typically limited and managed via email/ticket

Agenda

  1. Introductions
  2. Engagements Overview
  3. Engagements Demo
  4. Implementation Overview
  5. Identify First Type of Engagement Letter to Send
  6. Desired Go Live and defined goals for first batch to send
  7. Next Steps
    1. Schedule next meeting
    2. Firm Homework (Engagements Team): Send IMP Manager the first Engagement Letter template
    3. Firm Homework (IT): SSO Guest User for Aiwyn
    4. Firm Homework (Engagements Team): Read Client Engagement Automation User Guide

 

Review Data Points

This meeting is a working meeting, and screenshare by one of your Engagements key staff showing your Practice Management System is required.

We use this meeting to review the current data structure of Client and Contact data in your Practice Management System and how it is mapping to Aiwyn.

Any remapping needs are identified during this meeting and documented in your Engagements Implementation plan.

After this meeting, your Implementation Manager will schedule your data remapping work, and we request a turn around time for this remapping work to take approximately 3 weeks for our engineering team to complete. 

During the remapping phase, other areas of Implementation are still addressed.

Click here for full outline of all Data Points requiring review and possible remap work.

 

Establish Configurations & User Permissions

This topic is either combined with an existing meeting or conducted over email.

During implementation of Engagements, there are a few configuration adjustments and user permission changes that must be addressed.

There are only two "configuration options" that need to be addressed:

  1. Do you want to require a PDF in order to execute a manual engagement?
  2. Do you want to adjust the Engagement Name template for your system? 

User Permissions

With the addition of this new module, your firm will need to have a variety of user permission groups so that you can control what staff can see and do in the Aiwyn Firm Portal based on their role at your firm.

Remember, access to your Aiwyn Firm Portal is granted to users via your firm SSO (Azure/Microsoft, Duo, Okta, Google Workspace). Users must first be granted access to the Aiwyn application by your firm IT administrator. 

Unless otherwise noted and adjusted during Payments & Collections Implementation, your firm's current Default User permissions are likely "Super Admin", meaning this user can do everything. 

However, unlike Payments & Collections, you will find a larger number of staff will soon need to access your Aiwyn Firm Portal for Engagement purposes and should not have administrative permissions related to Payments & Collections. 

As such, during Engagements implementation you must first determine your updated Default User permission settings to be applied to all users by default. Then, consider which staff need elevated permissions based on their role and what permissions should be granted or revoked.

Staff who need a permissions group higher than the default must have their user profile configured by Aiwyn in our backend settings for your staff.

Accordingly, during implementation we will request you provide a list of staff (first and last name) you would like to have per each elevated user permission group. Only one permission group can be applied per user at a time.

 

Data Health Check

During implementation, we will run a series of reports to help you understand the current state of your data.

These reports could include:

  • List of all active Client Contacts that are mapping to Aiwyn as Primary Contact and Billing Contact (for Engagements)
  • Client Contact Addresses including clients without an address
  • Ad-hoc report based on needs

 

Engagement Template Admin Training

Virtual hands on training session, can occur soon after Engagements is enabled in your system. Session is recorded and provided to attendees afterwards.

Materials & Resources:

Attendees:

  • Staff who are responsible for creating and editing Engagement Templates
  • Engagement key staff, send list of staff who need "Engagement Admin" and/or "Engagement Template Admin" permissions to Aiwyn prior to this meeting

Agenda:

  1. Quick refresher on how Engagement Letters appear
  2. Review placeholder variables and understand what is available for merge into a letter
  3. The 99% complete concept: How to create an engagement letter template that requires minimal manual edits prior to sending
  4. Understanding Engagement Templates
    1. Section Types
    2. Section Templates
    3. Letter Templates
  5. How to Create/Edit Section Templates
    1. Placeholder variables
    2. Rich text formatting tools
    3. Source code edit available
    4. Copy/Paste best practices
  6. Best Practices and Suggestions
    1. Naming convention and consistency enhances visibility
    2. Client Signature Block Requirement
    3. How many different sections do you need?
    4. Locking Section Content from edits by non-admins
    5. Locking Section template into place to prevent changing section template in use for that Section on Letter

 

Data Validation & Testing

Once the technical remapping work is completed by Aiwyn, we can begin data validation and run through various testing scenarios.

Data Validation

Remapped data points identified and documented in your Engagements Implementation plan are validated in your system by Aiwyn. Your assistance may be needed as well, therefore specific instructions and data validation process to follow is unique to your firm and is further outlined and detailed in your Engagements Implementation plan.

Engagements Testing

The process for testing varies based on your Practice Management system, therefore specific instructions and testing process to follow is unique to your firm and is further outlined and detailed in your Engagements Implementation plan.

 

Engagement Admin Training for Trainers

Virtual hands on training session, should occur after Data Validation & Testing and after all data remapping work has been complete. Session is recorded and provided to attendees afterwards.

Materials & Resources:

Attendees:

  • Staff who are responsible for overseeing the staff who will send engagement letters
  • These are the "trainers" of your firm for Engagements
  • Staff who are the decision makers regarding process staff follow to create, edit, and send engagements
  • Please do not invite entire staff who will send Engagements

Session Goals:

Establish, define, and solidify the process Engagement Users must follow in order to:

  • Create Engagements
    • Define responsible person
    • Define how they will know which Engagements to create and when
    • An Engagement Admin is typically the Creator of a new engagement
  • Edit Engagements
    • Define responsible person
    • Define how they will know which engagements to edit
    • Define how they will know which edits to make on a letter
    • Define what they do once edits are complete and letter is ready to send (do they send?)
  • Send Engagements
    • Define responsible person
    • Define how they know when to send engagement (if not the editor)
    • Explore use cases for Manual Engagement Execution
  • Revise and Delete Engagements
    • Define responsible person
    • Define how they know a revision is needed
    • Define and confirm who can delete an engagements and circumstances leading to delete an engagement
  • Manage Executed Engagements
    • Define responsible person
    • Define how they know engagement is executed
    • Define the next steps they must follow in order to begin the work related to the Engagement (as appropriate)

Launch Support

Your firm's implementation process is complete when the Engagement tool passes our data validation and testing process and your Admin training is complete. At that time, the tool could be used to send Engagements to Clients and you may choose how and when you have staff begin to use this new tool.

Related articles