Migrating client records
Preserving staff roles assigned to client records
Preserving staff roles on migration saves you the time-consuming job of having to reassign staff to clients post migration.
If you have many client records and you have staff members that you have assigned to roles within client records, you can preserve the assignment of staff to clients on migrating to IRIS Elements. Taxfiler allowed you to set up different users, and users may be assigned to a role within a client record. The available roles are Partner, Manager and Staff. Users are created and maintained in Taxfiler by navigating to Settings (cog icon) and then the Users tab.
Each user has an ID, Name and Surname, a Role and Email address.
Email address is crucial to the successful retention of Partner, Manager and Staff roles within client records on migration of data to IRIS Elements.
People (assigned to roles) are found in the Responsibilities tab in client records.
IRIS Elements handles roles and responsibilities differently to Taxfiler, however, it is possible to create users and assign them to roles and match them to the people and roles in Taxfiler. The matching process is automated and occurs during the migration of your client data.
Step One: Review and create your Elements roles
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In IRIS Elements, go to the cog menu and select Settings and then Configure Practice Roles.
The roles of Account Manager and Account Partner are created for you. If you want to retain the Staff member assigned to client records, you must create the role before attempting to migrate any data.
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Select Create practice role and enter the following information:
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Practice role - Staff
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Description displayed on client record - Enter a description that makes sense for your organisation. For example, 'Staff responsible for client'.
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Field reference - accountstaff
It is important you make sure you have accountstaff here as this is what the Data Migration Agent (DMA) will look for.
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You can create further roles if you wish; you will need to review and reassign users to them post migration.
Step Two: Gather details of your Taxfiler users and create your IRIS Elements users
Creating users in Elements is a 3-step process:
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Create the users,
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Set permissions,
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Assign the user a licence for the product(s) you need them to access.
If you have clients in your Taxfiler data where you have restricted access to certain users (confidential clients), we strongly recommend that you complete step one but DO NOT complete steps two and three until you have completed the data migration and reviewed and reassigned your confidential clients. For more information on how the migration treats confidential clients and how you will need to manage them post migration, go to Migrating and managing restricted clients.
Before you start to create your Elements users, gather details of your Taxfiler users and decide on which users you will add to Elements.
Anyone that has left your practice but still exists as a user in Taxfiler may be excluded from Elements. It is not necessary to remove these users from Taxfiler, and if the user is still assigned to client records you can reassign either pre or post migration.
Take a screen print of your Taxfiler users or select the rows and columns on the screen by holding down the left mouse button as you scroll down the screen. Press Ctrl C to copy them, open Excel (or similar) and Ctrl P to paste the details for easy reference.
To create a new user:
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Go to the cog icon and select Users and then Invite User.
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Add the user details and select Send invite.
Important note about email addresses
As outlined above, the user email address is crucial to the successful matching of users during the migration of data. Ensure you use the same email address used in Taxfiler for each staff member you create in Elements.
When you click Send invite you may wish to check that the user has received an email inviting them to Elements. If the email is not immediately visible, please check the spam folder.
If you want to change an email address for a user, amend the email address on the user profile in Taxfiler before you migrate any data.
Step Three: Continue the migration
Now your users are created in Elements, their email addresses match their Taxfiler email addresses and you have created the Staff role and any others you wish to maintain in Elements you may proceed with the data migration. Follow the instructions for The Taxfiler migration process
Step Four: Check the migrated roles
Once the data migration has successfully completed, ensure your client records are all present.
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Go to the Clients menu and select the Clients list.
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To check the users have been correctly assigned to roles on the client record, open a client record, select the Information tab and scroll down the left navigation pane and select Practice roles. Check the Partner, Manager and Staff roles are populated with the same staff members that were assigned in Taxfiler.