Technology

User Tips Battle Royale

Published: April 14, 2020

This article originally ran in the December 2019 print issue of Connections, “Embracing the Digital Agency.”

We asked, you answered. Applied Client Network users assist fellow Applied Epic and Applied TAM users in mastering your respective systems through a series of tips and tricks. Conquer your day-to-day fight with these tips!

Applied Epic

"At the ‘Home Base’ screen in Epic, the open activities for follow up are listed. Additionally, there is a screen on the right that defaults to: ‘Activity – Tasks.’ You can change that to default to: ‘Activity – Last Note Entered.’ This view gives you a quick look at the last thing that happened on the activity. My staff was extremely excited.”
“Many times, an activity will get closed accidentally or someone is trying to remember the client that called or came in. So, I set up a quick view report for CSR's to see their closed activities for the previous 10 days. This way they can just look at the report to jog their memory.”
“Customizing and setting up user default from within the user’s home base can save a lot of time. You can set user defaults so that your users will not have to think about certain things, such as: What department should this client be added to? What structure should I be using? Is the account personal or commercial lines? When I add a new client, is it added as a prospect or an insured? Doing this setup for each user allows less room for error and fewer keystrokes.”
“We set up a separate ‘user’ in Epic to use as a report distribution account for our entire organization so that all of our agency's standard scheduled reports sit in one place. We also follow a specific naming convention to aid in locating reports in both the distribution account and the scheduled jobs. Each report includes the region code, report name, branch code and user code (Example: NEE Expirations (Today +185) - SBV - SMIJO1). When we need to cancel scheduled reports, this naming convention makes it possible to quickly pull and cancel a group of reports by region, branch or user. #EpicReports”

Applied TAM

“Setting Columns: You have the ability to modify most list views to include the items that are important to you. To insert a new column, determine where you want the column to appear and simply right click on the header that is in that current location. Select Insert Column. A blank column now appears before the header you selected. Right click on the new column, and select the item that you wish to appear in the listing. You can remove columns as well. Don't worry......if you think you made a mess of it, you can always Reset Columns. This will put it back to the default. Adding the producer, branch or CSR in the listing might be helpful."
“Right-clicking: You can right-click in many areas to save additional clicks. For example, right-clicking on a policy line brings up your available options to quickly access the billing screen, current app, future app, binders, auto ID, certificates, etc."
“You can create a prefill for personal lines applications, commercial lines applications, life forms, custom applications, company forms, binders, certificates and evidence of property. Pre-filled forms are a great time saver! If your agency typically writes certain coverages for an auto policy, certain liability limits, certain wording, etc., you can create a pre-filled form for that line of coverage and those limits, and you can have as many variations as you need.”
“I am always trying to impress the importance of maintaining clean data. For all of the information that an agency [or brokerage] typically puts into its system, realizing the full potential of that data requires well-organized data with consistent use of codes and other fields throughout the system. One of the most beneficial things an agency can do is establish a clear set of rules for entering data into the system, and ensure that your office is adhering to those rules.”