1. Participating Departments
Because different product teams can have unique workflow or compliance needs it is important to establish the specific groups that will be participating in your Company’s initial setup of 4U Connect.
Mutual Funds | UITs | 401(k)/Retirement Plans |
ETFs | Insurance | 529 Plans |
SMAs | Annuities | Alternatives |
Closed End Funds | Offshore Mutual Funds | Other Products |
2. Third Party Marketing Review
By default, 4U Connect assumes that a Marketing Review and Approval is required by a designated team or individual at your Company for ALL Partner Content prior to use with Advisors.
As part of your setup, your Company can establish alternate rules to apply your Company’s specific policies through automated flags that specify which Partner Content requires Marketing Review and Approval by your Company (in addition to the Content Provider’s RP), and which does not.
When determining your Company specific rules, you can consider various attributes of the Content such as:
Intended Use (Public Use vs Advisor Use Only)
Content Format (Presentation, Email, Video etc.)
Content Category (Product, Insights, Practice Management, Client Education, Tools, etc.)
Content Subcategory (Retirement, Market Education, Who we Are, Market Outlook, etc.)
FINRA Filing Status
Product Team
3. Approval Request Workflow Configuration
As soon as an Investment Company is designated as a “Partner” they can begin making their content “Available” to your organization. Once Available, your Workflow Configurations will dictate whether the piece requires an Approval Request submission and how each Submission is routed internally.
Consider what rules should apply to each piece by determining which of the three Workflows below is appropriate
Consider what logic should be applied for the Individual or Team assignment rules
A) Accepted for Use:
“Accepted for Use” Rules are run as soon as the Piece is marked as Available. If Rules dictate, the Investment Company will see that the piece does not require approval and is "Accepted for Use".
The rules for Accepted for Use are very nimble allowing flexibility for configuring to meet Wealth Manager firm needs. The full ruleset is below and the screenshot at the bottom provides an idea of how it appears in the 4U Connect Workflow Settings.
Intended Audience >
IS any of or IS NOT any of >
Public Use or Advisor Use Only
Product Team >
IS any of or IS NOT any of >
Alternatives or Annuities or Close End Funds or ETFs or Insurance or Mutual Funds or Offshore Mutual Funds or Other Products or SMAs or UITs or 529 Plans or 401(k) Retirement Plans
Category >
IS any of or IS NOT any of >
About or Client Education or Insights or Practice Management or Product or Tools
Subcategory >
IS any of or IS NOT any of >
Breaking News or Contacts or Investment Committee or Investment Philosophy & Process or Press Room or Who We Are or College Savings or Investment Ideas or Investment Education or Lifestyle or Market Education or Retirement or Asset Class Insights or Charts or Market Commentary or Financial Planning or In the News or Industry Insights or Market Outlook or Portfolio Management or Product Insights or Qualitative Research or Quantitative Research or Business Development or Business Optimization or Client Management or Client Segmentation or People Management or Portfolio Management or Process Management or Regulatory Education or 529 Plans or Annuities or Closed end Funds or ETFs or 401(k)/Retirement Plans or Insurance or SMAs or Mutual Funds or Offshore Mutual Funds or UITs or Calculators or Dividend & Capital Gains Distributions or ETF Analysis or Other or Portfolio Construction or Retirement & Planning or Tax Planning or Other Products
Content Format >
IS any of or IS NOT any of >
Article Reprint or Audio Presentation or Brochure or Capital Gains/YE Distributions or Commentary or Email Blast or Event Invitation - Advisor or Event Invitation - Client or Fact Sheet or Flyer or Fund Review or Mailer or News Letter or Other or Presentation/Seminar or Rate Sheet or Sales Idea or Video or White Paper or Workbook
Clean FINRA letter>
IS/IS not Clean FINRA Letter
B) Direct Submission:
IC Submits a piece which is routed to a Compliance Review Team or Individual within the team based on Assignment Rules.
C) Business to Compliance Review:
IC Submits a piece which is routed to a Business Review Team or Individual within the team based on Assignment Rules. Business Reviewer can then Assign to Compliance Review Team or Individual within the team.
4. Compliance Record-keeping
All compliance activities conducted through 4U Connect are logged and stored for a 7-year period using a write-once-read-many (WORM) model in accordance with FINRA and SEC electronic Storage and Retention requirements. In addition, all audit logs are available on demand and can also be produced via a Support Request in response to Audit Requests.
Wealth Management Companies rely on a variety of systems for maintaining their compliance books and records. Because 4U Connect is used specifically for the purpose of reviewing 3rd Party Content (and not for the review of proprietary Content), most legal and compliance teams have decided that it is more effective for them to also rely on 4U Connect for their 3rd Party Content books and records moving forward.
While the use of 4U Connect for Books and Records is recommended, 4U Connect will support requests to integrate your Company’s data with your current compliance system if preferred.
4U can establish a batch file process with your IT or Vendor IT team to export compliance records in the necessary format for your Company to securely import on a periodic basis.
5. 4U Engage Planning
If you choose to implement 4U Connect before moving forward with the implementation of 4U Engage, there are several questions which can be reviewed to assist with the planning process and accelerate your Company’s ability to take advantage of the 4U Engage features:
1. Will Advisor account setup be managed by Company Administrators via manual entry or bulk upload or via “just in time provisioning” which automatically sets up an account via your Single Sign On configuration?
2. What location (e.g. branch, complex) level information does your company want to incorporate into 4U Engage for Analytics and Field Management purposes?
3. What other systems do your Advisors use which would benefit from integrated approved third party content?
CRM/email marketing
Client-facing websites
Social media tools
5. What, if any, peer to peer sharing would your Company want for Advisors to work more effectively?
Team sharing
National/regional sales ideas
Advisor to Advisor “following”
Appendix
4U Content Categories & Subcategories
