• Enhanced Agency Workspace:
  • Standardize agency processes with checklist templates
  • Create checklists through Automation Center
• Text Messaging:
  • Single threaded view of entire conversation
• Commissions:
  • Beta 2.0 enhancements
  • Additional details on all commission statements
• Client Center:
  • Five additional lines of business now available in Client Center with summary screens
• Email Notifications:
  • Receive email alerts for bounced emails or emails marked as spam
• New LOBS for Manual Policy Entry:
  • Equipment Breakdown
  • Excess Liability

What’s New in Agency Workspace

With this release we are excited to unveil new enhancements to our checklist functionality we introduced in the last release. Admins can now create templates for checklists and then users can apply them to tasks in the Agency Workspace. This great new addition to checklists provides better management of your agency’s tasks. We also added a few additional enhancements to our department tasks functionality, as well as enhancements for tasks in EZLynx mobile.

Before we begin, it is important to note the new checklist functionality for tasks is associated to the EZLynx Enhanced Workspace. If your agency does not have access to the Enhanced Workspace, please contact [email protected] to request this time saving feature for your agency. Enhanced Workspace allows you to associate tasks to departments (groups of users), mark tasks as important (giving them better visibility in your tasks list), set a time when your tasks are due, and now you can add checklists to tasks.

Access the New Checklist Management Area

There is a new area in EZLynx where an admin can manage the agency’s checklist templates.

To view:

• Hover over EZLynx Settings
• Click Activity Settings
• Navigate to the Checklist Management tab
  • Please note: If your agency does not have Enhanced Workspace, the Checklist Management tab will not be available.
  • Selecting this tab directs you to the new management area where you can:
    • View your agency’s templates
    • Create a new template
    • Edit existing templates

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There are a few important things to note on this page. Use the search field to locate the templates by their titles. Notice the checkbox to show disabled templates. You can also see which user in your agency created a specific template, the date it was created, and the status of each template.

Checklist Templates can either be ENABLED or DISABLED. Once enabled, Checklists can be added to tasks by any user in your agency. If disabled, a checklist will not be available for task assignment. One reason an agent may decide to leave a template in a disabled status is if he or she is in the process of editing the template. Another reason might be if you have not fully fleshed-out all the items you would like in the template. These are just a few reasons why you might want to disable a template.

Before we move on to creating checklist templates, it is important to note key functionality for agencies setup in EZLynx with branches. If you are positioned at the main office, you can share the checklist templates you create with your entire organization. This means your sub-branches can all see the same templates as you. This allows for better consolidation and streamlining of processes. If you are in a sub-branch and you have permission to this page, the Created By column will show the Main Office name instead of the specific user’s name, if the template was shared by the main office.

Create a Checklist Template

It’s easy for an admin to create a new checklist template.

To begin:

• Hover over the EZLynx Settings icon and click Activity Settings.
• Navigate to the Checklist Management tab and click the green New Checklist button in the top right corner.
• You’ll land on the New Checklist Template page.
• Enter all desired items, including a Checklist Title.
  • EZTip: Make your title descriptive enough for users to understand what it is for later. For example, if the checklist is for adding new commercial auto accounts and it is applicable to accounts over a certain dollar value, then make that distinction in the title. This helps your agency’s users easily identify the checklist’s purpose later when they are adding a task.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Notice there are a few other options available to select when creating a template.

For agencies set up with branches in EZLynx, the option to Share this Checklist appears. Mark this box to share this checklist with all your organization’s branches. For agencies without branches in EZLynx, this option is not available.

Once the checklist template is ready for use, check Enable this Checklist to allow all users in your agency – and branches, if shared – to be able to select the checklist template when adding a task.

Similar to the one-off checklist that went out in our last release, you can add up to 10 actionable items to a checklist template.

Edit a Checklist Templates

Admins can edit a checklist template from the Activity Settings page.

To edit a checklist template:

• Hover over the EZLynx Settings icon and click Activity Settings.
• Navigate to the Checklist Management tab and locate the template to be updated.
  • EZTip: Use the Search field to locate by the checklist title, or simply adjust the page size to see up to 100 templates on the same page.
• To the right, click Actions and select from the following:
  • Edit – this opens the create template page and allows you to adjust your template settings.
  • Enable/Disable – depending on the template’s status you can either enable or disable it.
  • Copy – allows you to copy a template to make similar templates quickly.
  • Delete – allows you to delete a template. Please note this cannot be undone.

Assign a Template to a Task

Some of you are already familiar with how to add a one-off checklist to a task – a feature from our last release. With this release, we have updated the functionality in the Add Checklist area for tasks.

Users now have two options:

• Create One-Off Checklists
• Select a Checklist Template
  • Please Note: The checklist template selector only appears if an admin in your agency has created at least one checklist template from the Activity Settings page.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here you can select from the currently enabled checklist templates for your agency, or you can create a one-off checklist by clicking Create Checklist. After you select the template from the drop down, we show you the items that make up the selected checklist. If you chose the wrong one, then simply open the drop down again and select the correct checklist template.

Please Note: you can edit a one-off checklist you have applied to tasks; however, we do not allow you to edit Checklist Templates once applied to a task. This helps maintain the integrity of the templates your admins create. This means that if you are unable to complete a checklist item, then you need to check it off as done and make a note about why you could not complete it, in order to close the task.

Assign Checklist Templates to Automation Center Workflows

For agencies with EZLynx Automation Center, our new Checklist Template functionality is a welcome addition to Workflows. If your agency has Enhanced Workspace and an admin has created Checklist Templates for your agency, then when you add or edit the task in a Workflow, you have the option to Add Checklist. This allows you to apply a checklist template to an automated workflow.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Please Note: we do not permit the creation of one-off checklists in Automation Center. Rather, you can take advantage of your agency’s checklist templates.

New Department Task Enhancements

With this release we have added two new enhancements to the Department Task functionality. We now display an automatic task reassignment message when a user attempts to edit a department’s task. We have also made departments available for tasks when creating Automation Center Workflows.

• Automatic Task Reassignment
  • When you edit one of your department tasks, you’ll notice the system now attempts to automatically reassign the task to you.
  • This enhancement prevents you from needing to transfer the task’s ownership from the department to you. Notice the message indicating that this department team task was automatically reassigned to you.
  • Click the blue Undo link if you don’t want the task automatically reassigned to you. This reverts the task assignment back to the department.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

• Departments for Automation Center Workflows
  • When you create or edit a workflow, and you want the task assigned to a department:
  • Simply toggle the task assignment to Specific Users.
  • This allows you to select the department you want to assign the task when its automated event is triggered in EZLynx.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

• For agencies set up with branches in EZLynx:
  • When you select the departments, remember you choose each branch’s respective department. You also need to select the corresponding branches you want the workflow to apply to.
  • For example, if your organization has a Personal Lines Support department at your main office and Branch Offices A and B, but you only want to create the tasks for the branches, then you would do the following:
    • For the Task action select Specific User as the assignee.
    • In the drop down, select the Personal Lines Support department for Branches A and B.
    • On the final step of the workflow creation, apply the workflow to Branches A and B.
    • Doing this ensures that the workflows execute correctly in the system and you do not experience any errors.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Updates to Mobile Tasks

With this round of workspace enhancements, we have also updated EZLynx mobile to support Checklists and Department Team Tasks. This helps provide you a more encompassing experience when working in EZLynx.

We also updated the task list in EZLynx mobile to provide additional filters.

You can filter your task list by:

• My Tasks
• All My Tasks
• Departments

We hope you enjoy these new enhancements. At EZLynx, we strive to enhance our product to make your life easier. We have a lot a great new functionality on the horizon for the Agency Workspace, so stay tuned for that!

What’s New in EZLynx Text Messaging

We are excited to announce our new Text Messaging pane for the Agency Workspace. If you have ever used EZLynx Text Messaging, you might have asked yourself, “How do I see the conversation associated to the number I’m texting?” With this release, we transitioned the texting process away from the pop-up screen and moved it to the workspace. This new enhancement allows you to see the full historical conversation with your customer. Plus, you can send texts to other phone numbers associated to the account!

Access the New Texting Conversation Pane

You can access the new Text Messaging pane for the Workspace by clicking on the text message icon in the Account’s sidebar. This will launch the new texting pane for the Workspace.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The pane allows you to see the full conversation associated to the phone number on the account. In the next section, we will show you how to filter to other numbers, but for now it is important to note who is saying what in the conversation. The blue messages are from you and the grey colored messages are from the customer.

Filter the Conversation Pane to See Other Numbers

For customer accounts with more than one phone number, you can select the desired number from the dropdown in the Workspace texting pane.

Contacts saved to the applicant account will also appear in the dropdown. Please note that we do not filter the dropdown list to only show Mobile numbers. This is because some agencies enter mobile numbers in the Home phone number field. For this reason, we allow you to select any phone number and we indicate the phone number type (i.e. home, mobile, work, business).

Attach Documents to Text Messages in the Workspace

It’s easy to attach documents to a message in the new texting pane for the Workspace. In the bottom left corner of the pane you will notice an attachment/paper clip button.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Please Note: If your agency does not have MMS for your EZLynx texting service, then you will need to upgrade your account for this feature. If you do not have the MMS option, then the paperclip button will be disabled.

Click the button and you will land on the screen to select your attachments. Here, you will notice the same attachment functionality that is available today with texting. You can add documents from the account’s document library and you can upload documents from your computer.

When uploading a document from your computer, we will automatically select the option to add the respective document to the account’s document library. This is a time-saving feature that you can choose to unselect if you would like.

After adding your document/image, it appears below the message box. You can choose to remove the item if you would like, prior to sending. After sending the message, you can click on the image icon in the message pane to download and view the image. The same is true for viewing messages sent to you from the customer.

We hope you enjoy this new enhancement. We are already hard at work on getting additional items added to the Text Message area of Communication Center to update its look and feel as well as functionality.

What’s New in EZLynx Commissions

At EZLynx we have been working on enhancing Commissions to make life easier for your agency. We made some helpful changes to commission rule creation and the Commission Rules page.

New Option to Filter by Payees

You will see an additional filter field on the Commission Rules page called Payees. The rules will filter according to the payees selected in this field. You can add unlimited payees to this filter.

To access:

• Click Payees
• Filter the table by the payees of your choice

New Name for Copied Rules

Currently, when you copy a rule it doesn’t indicate that you are working with a copy of the rule. With this release, copied rules will now include “Copy of” at the beginning of the rule name, in order to make it clear that a rule is being copied. This name can be modified when creating the new rule.

To copy a rule:

• On the Commission Rules page, select Actions next and click Copy.
• This opens the commission rule creation workflow.
  • EZTip: The final step of rule creation allows you to remove Copy of from the title, if desired.
• As you can see in the image below, our copied rule indicates that it is a copy with a new name.

Add a Description for Your Rule

You can now see the description entered when a rule was created on the Commission Rules table. In the image below, New Rule for Bill has a description that was entered during the rule creation. Click the description icon in the table, and you can see the description without editing the rule.

Validation for Rules that use the Transaction Effective Date

You now receive an error message if you create a rule that uses a transaction effective date outside of the policy effective date range. The system will not let you proceed with creating the rule if you do this. In the image below, the transaction effective date is outside of the policy effective date range, causing the error message to pop up and red warning boxes to appear around the date fields.

General Bug Fixes & Enhancements

Importing a commission statement with more than 500 line items for unique policy numbers will now automatically match all possible matches.

View Additional Details on Commission Statements

You can now view additional details on commission statements. Add new columns to the statement using the Statement Details Column Editor. Currently, you can only see columns for Applicant, Policy #, LOB, Trans Type, Match Status, Premium, and Commission. With this enhancement, you can add the following columns to a statement: Transaction Effective Date, Effective Date, Expiration Date, Agency Code, Producer Code, and Producer Code Override.

Steps to do this:

1. Go to a commission statement that has line items.
2. Click Edit Columns.
3. Move columns from Hidden to Visible, and vice versa. In addition, you can change the display order of the columns. Then, click Save.
4. You will now see the columns that you selected in the column editor populate in the Commissions / Rules table.

We hope you enjoy these new enhancements. At EZLynx, we strive to enhance our product to make your life easier. Click HERE if you are interested in applying to join our commissions beta!

What’s New in EZLynx Client Center

We have added five additional lines of business to the full policy summary view support in Client Center. When a policy is issued for the state of New York, the insured will see an updated Client Center message to contact the agent for an ID card. This is to help agents maintain compliance with all state laws.

Additional LOBs

We updated the policy screen in Client Center to be consistent with the summary screens displayed in EZLynx and added five additional LOBs with this release. This update allows you to provide additional policy information for your customers’ convenience and reference.

 

LOBs with full policy support in Client Center (New Lines in Green)

• Business Owners
• Commercial Auto
• Commercial Property
• Commercial Umbrella
• Crime
• Dwelling Fire
• Earthquake
• Errors and Omissions
• Excess Liability
• Flood
• Garage
• General Liability
• Homeowners
• Inland Marine
• Inland Marine Personal
• Mobile Home
• Motorcycle
• Personal Auto
• Personal Umbrella
• Professional Liability
• Recreation Vehicle
• Small Farm and Ranch
• Watercraft
• Workers Compensation

View Policy Details in General Client Center Settings

To manage the display of your customers’ policy information, an admin can navigate to the Client Center settings area.

To access:

• Hover over the EZLynx Settings icon and select Client Center.
• For agencies with multiple portals, select the desired one from the dropdown.
• Scroll down to the Display Options area and decide what your customers should see when they log into Client Center.
  • EZTip: Uncheck View Policy Details if you want to hide the policy details from the insured in Client Center. Customers will still see basic policy information including the carrier, line of business, policy number, effective date and expiration date. The details such as coverage limits, locations, additional interests and more are hidden from view.

New York ID Card Display Updates

We also updated Client Center messages policies issued for the state of New York (See Below). This update applies to all auto policies. This does not affect Certificate Self-Generation for commercial policies.

What’s New in EZLynx Email Campaigns

EZLynx is proud to announce a new enhancement to Communication Center! Agents will now automatically receive an e-mail notification when a one-off email (not bulk email blasts) that you send out from EZLynx fails to be delivered due to a bounce or a spam complaint. Even though our system already records in the applicant’s activity log when an email bounces or is flagged as spam, if you are not actively checking the log then you might not realize an email failed to deliver unless the applicant contacts you directly. With Email Campaign Notification Options, the user that sent the email will by default automatically be notified as soon as the email failed.

• The feature can be found in EZLynx Preferences, under the Settings icon. Once there, navigate to the bottom and toggle the checkbox to turn the feature on and off.
• EZLynx alerts you by email you whenever any single email you send bounces or is marked as spam by the recipient.
• These notifications only apply to one-off emails that you send to individual applicants (i.e. non-marketing emails). The intention here is to notify you only when, for example, those important and time-sensitive policy documents that you sent failed to be delivered. We will address reporting enhancements to Marketing Emails in a future enhancement, which would include better visibility as to the deliverability of your marketing campaigns.
• 

What’s New in EZLynx Policy Management

EZLynx is proud to announce the addition of two new lines of business for manual policy entry. This now allows agents to easily:

• Enter full application details for coverages, scheduled items, and more
• Reduce duplicate entry by converting your application to a policy when sold
• Create pre-filled ACORD Forms and Certificates

New Lines of Business Include:

• Equipment Breakdown
• Excess Liability

Please Note: Equipment Breakdown will be replacing the Boiler and Machinery line of business to stay up to date with ACORD form standards.

The new lines of business will be available to use within the policy creation screen.

Additional Features

Custom Form for Other Named Insureds

• Removed the limit of named insureds a user can add in the policy entry screen
• The first three named insureds will flow onto the ACORD form. Any additional named insureds will flow onto a custom named insured form, property of EZLynx

Support for ACORD 64Custom Form for Other Named Insureds

The Personal URL feature allows a prospect to complete a new EZLynx application, or a customer to update their existing application information at renewal time. The information is saved to the agent’s EZLynx account for quick and easy quoting. This is convenient for the customer, and frees the agent’s time to sell more business. As an added benefit, the PURL works in conjunction with an agency’s EZLynx Consumer Quoting portal, displaying the agency’s custom logos and branding.

Personal URL benefits:

• Prospect completes a new EZLynx rating application themselves and information updates in EZLynx.
• Existing customers can update their own EZLynx application before the agent re-quotes at renewal time.
• Agencies with a CQLive portal can enable live quoting, which provides prospect/customer with all successful quotes immediately after submitting the application from the Personal URL. For agencies without CQLive, the prospect/customer receives a message that “an agent will be in touch shortly”.

For more info watch the video below or review our guide.

Highlights:

• • • MSB Home Lookup for Rating
      • Replacement Cost Estimator
    • Agency Workspace Enhanced
      • Set up departments with users
      • Assign tasks to a department in your agency
      • Manage the department queue
      • Add a Checklist to a Task
    • Client Center Enhancements:
      • Share documents to prospects without active policy
      • 19 new LOB summaries including commercial lines of business
      • Enhanced setting options
    • Multiple Addresses Support (Coming Soon to ALL Management System Users)
      • Ability to store up to 5 additional addresses for personal and commercial accounts
      • Leverage additional addresses in other products including:
        • Postal Mail
        • Applications
        • Detailed policy entry screens
        • Contact management
      • Users with EZLynx Accounting will have the ability to include billing address information on invoices
      • Primary address on personal accounts is the rating address
    • New & Updated Reports
      • NEW Department Workload Distribution Report
      • Enhancements to New Business Transaction Detail Report
      • Birthday Detail report changes
    • Beta Commissions 2.0 Rules
      • Simplified step by step workflow
      • Ability to select multiple conditions leading to less rules
      • New matching conditions including Agency, Departments, Policy Effective Dates, and more!
      • Side by side comparison of current rules vs new rules

MSB Home Lookup for Rating

EZLynx has integrated with CoreLogic® to bring you residential pre-fill and reconstruction cost valuation in the EZLynx Rating Engine through the RCT® Express estimating platform from CoreLogic. Residential pre-fill will drastically improve your home quote process by allowing you to use MSB lookup within EZLynx to automatically pull information about a home prospect. This will help streamline an agent’s homeowner policy quote process and improve the consumer experience by allowing agents to simply validate the property characteristics instead of attempting to fill in data fields themselves with homeowner-supplied information. You can further improve your process with the MSB reconstruction cost valuation tool to predict the cost of replacing the entire home.

New Home Lookup Options

Our new Home Lookup provides you with a few options for the home lookup; normal Home Lookup and Home Lookup with Replacement Cost. You can access the new Home Lookup option in the Home Rating portal on the Policy Info tab, as shown below.

Like our Vehicle Lookup, the new Home Lookup does require the user to review and consent to our usage agreement. To start the ‘Home Lookup’ workflow, simply click on the green Home Lookup button shown above.

This will direct you to the ‘Home Pre-Fill Search Page.’ In the image above, notice that the option to search for the desired home is not enabled. Once again, this is because you will need to accept the terms of the Usage Agreement.

To do so, click on the blue ‘Usage Agreement’ hyperlink. Once you have reviewed the Usage Agreement, you can click the ‘Accept’ button at the bottom. This will place a check mark in the box next to ‘I accept the terms of the Usage Agreement’. After you have accepted the terms the Search Home button will be enabled.

New Home Lookup Results Page

On the new Home Lookup results page, you can see the applicant who you are preforming the home lookup on and the address you entered when creating the applicant. In the next section, the Matching Address Results, you can see the returned address for the applicant from the lookup. Depending on which version of the product you have enabled, you will see either the normal Home Lookup returned values or the Replacement Cost followed by the Home Lookup values. In the image to the right, you can see that this user was enabled for Home Lookup with Replacement Cost.

In the returned pre-fill table, you can deselect any of the returned values. We have provided this option in case there is a value you wish not to pre-fill in to the Home Rating application.

It is also important to note that for each of the two product options, Home Lookup and Home Lookup with Replacement Cost, we will display all the supported fields we will return values for depending on the version of the product that is enabled. If there is a returned field that we did not receive a value for, then we let you know this by displaying ‘Value Not Found,’ as shown in the image above.

The next important section we would like to highlight is the ‘View additional rating data,’ which is located directly below the returned field/value table. This will allow you to view all the fields and values returned on the Home Lookup that are not applicable in EZLynx. The information returned here is not applicable in EZLynx, but might be information that can be entered on the Carrier’s site during quote finalization.

Finally, just like with our Vehicle Lookup, for the Home Lookup, we provide you with an audit trail detailing the number of previous Home Pre-Fills for the respective home address being searched.

If you want to prefill the returned values for the home lookup, then simply click the green Pre-Fill Home button and the system will add the returned values to the appropriate fields in EZLynx.

To confirm that the prefilling is complete, you will see a completion message appear when you are directed back to the Policy Info tab in the Home Rating portal, as shown in the image below.

Home Lookup with and without Replacement Cost

There are two versions of the new home lookup enhancement; a standard Property Lookup and Property Lookup with Replacement cost. The replacement cost value returned is the cost to replace the dwelling, minus the cost of debris removal. For agents that don’t need the applicant’s home replacement cost pre-filled, we recommend using the standard Property Lookup option. The two different options do return different fields during their respective lookups. The table below details the possible values that can be returned for the two prefill options.

PREFILL VALUES	PROPERTY LOOKUP	PROPERTY LOOKUP WITH REPLACEMENT COST
Replacement Cost
Dwelling Type
Exterior Walls
Foundation
Heating Type
Roof Type
Number of Stories
Square Footage
Year Built
Construction Style
Swimming Pool Type

Controlling who Can Access the New Home Lookup

Like our LexisNexis product, you can control which users can access the new home prefill product in your organization. Simply navigate to the Product Settings area in the left navigation menu. Once there, you will notice a new option in the ‘Select a Product’ dropdown, either Home Prefill or Home Prefill with Replacement Cost (depending on which product your organization has enabled). Once you have selected the respective Home Prefill product, you can then determine which users to give access to.

Viewing Usage of the New Home Lookup Product

You can easily view your organization’s usage of the new Home Lookup product via the Product Usage Report in the EZLynx Settings menu. Simply select the product your organization is enabled for and we will provide you with details as to the number of uses, remaining complementary uses (if applicable), your pre-use price point, and maximum monthly charge.

We hope you enjoy this great new product and add-on to the EZLynx Home Rating portal. It is our goal to strive to provide you with new and exciting enhancements that will make your job of managing your agency easier and more efficient. Stay tuned for more great Rating enhancement to come shortly.

CORELOGIC, the CoreLogic logo, Interchange and RCT Express are trademarks of CoreLogic, Inc. and/or its subsidiaries.

Agency Workspace Enhanced

With this release we are excited to add several features to our Enhanced Workspace product. The first new enhancement will allow you to add users in your agency to department in EZLynx and then assign tasks to the individual departments. The second enhancement adds checklist functionality to your tasks. A checklist is simply a grouping of items that you want your assignee to complete. This is the first version of checklists that will be coming out this year.

Set up Department Task Groups

Departments can be associated to policies and can now be associated with a group of users. To create departments, navigate to the EZLynx Settings menu and select Manage Departments. Here you can create your own custom departments that can be associated to lines of business on policies and used to group users in your organization for tasks.

(Note: If you are in an organization with branches, then the departments are always created at the parent office and then all branches under the parent have access to them.)

When creating departments at the parent office, be sure to create all the departments your sub-branches will need. For example, if your sub-branches have different names for their particular departments, be sure to create them in accordance.

Adding Users to a Department

We have updated the Note Setting area in the EZLynx Setting menu. It is now titled ‘Activity Settings.’ This is where you can create labels via the existing Label Management tab and now add users to the departments via the new Department Team Management tab.

Now, to utilize this great new feature, you will need to have access to our Enhanced Workspace.

On the ‘Department Team Management’ tab you can see a single instance of the departments for your organization. If you have branches in your organization, then you will see a column titled ‘Agencies’ that allows you to see which branches in your organization have users associated to the respective department. For those users without branches, you will not see this column.

To add users to a department team, click on the ‘manage’ option for the department. This will launch the ‘Manage User’ modal where you can select the users who you want to place in the department.

Please note: only users with ‘Peer Access’ (the ability to see other people’s applicants in their agency) can be added to a department team.

For those organizations with branches, when a user at a branch is selected to be part of a department, this creates an instance of the department at that branch. You will always only see once instance of the department in the department table, but you will easily be able to see if your branches have an instance of the department based on the ‘Agencies’ column.

In the image below, we see that the Personal Lines – Support department has 2 members in it. One user is located at the Main Office and the other is located at the Sub-Branch A.

The users assigned to the department, when they access the workspace, the respective user will see that department as an assignee to assign to a task.

It is important to note that if you are assigning a task to an applicant in a sub-branch and you want it to be worked by the users in that respective branch, then be sure to select the department in that specific branch. We will look at this in greater detail in a later section.

Assigning Tasks to a Department

On an applicant, click on the notes Icon and click the task icon. In the task assignee drop down, the departments that have users associated to them will appear in the assignee drop down. When a task is assigned to a department, it will assign it to the users in that department.

Notice that departments have an icon with a group of people, while the individual users in the drop down have a single person icon in-front of their name.

Also notice in the image to the below that you can now see the ‘department assignee’ icon in the details regarding the task. This has been done for you to clearly see which tasks are for individuals and which tasks are for departments. The example we just reviewed is looking at an individual location, that does not have access to branches.

Assigning Tasks to a Department in a Branch

When assigning tasks to departments in branch organizations, the tasks assignee drop down will have the branch’s departments alphabetized with the other tasks assignee options to select.

Note: To have the department appear in the assignee drop down, you will need to have users from the respective branch assigned to the department

Filtering to View Your Department’s Tasks

Currently there are a few ways to view tasks that are assigned to you. You can look at the Tasks List in the Workspace and you can look at the Agency Tasks page. With this release, we have updated these pages to reflect the new department teams enhancement.

In the Task list you will notice a few new filter options:

• • • All My Tasks – these are all the tasks assigned to you and the departments you are associated to.
    • Department – these are the tasks assigned to the individual department at your respective branch. You will only see departments that you were assigned to.

When viewing your tasks on the Agency Task page, you will now see the departments you are associated to appear in the ‘Filter Assigned Users’ drop down. Like the Task List filter, simply select the assigned user to filter the page by. If you are wanting to filter the page by the Personal Lines (P/L) department, then select it from the drop down and your page will be filtered to those results only.

For those users in the organizations with branches, remember on the Agency Task page, you will need to first select the branch you would like to filter by and then the assigned user of the task.

Adding a Checklist to a Task

A checklist is a list of items, added to a task, that must be completed for the task to be able to be marked ‘complete’ and closed. When you are editing the task, all the checklist items MUST be marked completed in order to access the complete option for closing the task.

For those who have the Enhanced Workspace, you will now notice a new item when creating a task, the option to ‘Add Checklist.’ This new option is easily located above the ‘Add Reminder’ option in the workspace pane.

The ‘Add Checklist’ option allow you to create a list of items needed to be completed for the task assignee. This is a great way to ensure that your agencies standard practices are being handled and done correctly. Checklists allow you to list off items needing to be address by the assignee and then track their status in EZLynx. This feature will help add confidence that your team is attending to all necessary actions for your clients.

Click on the ‘Add Checklist’ option in the workspace. This will launch the Checklist area where you can type out your items needing to be completed as part of the task you are creating.

As you can see in the image to the right, we have added 5 checklist items that will become part of the task when it is created. If there is an item you have added to the list that you would like to remove, then simply click the ‘X’ to the right of the item description field.

If you find that you made a mistake during the tasks creation and do not want to add a checklist, simply click the ‘X Remove’ option to remove the entire checklist.

Adding items to the checklist is simple. When you are finished entering the description, you can hit ENTER on your keyboard to add another item or you can click the ‘Add Item’ option in the checklist area.

One thing to note, while creating a checklist for a task, is that if you leave a checklist field blank, then the system will automatically remove it from the checklist when you save the task.

Editing a Checklist in a Task

If you have created your new tasks and added a checklist but find yourself needing to edit an item in the list, you can do so if you choose the edit the task. When you are editing the task click on the ‘Edit Checklist’ option.

Here you can remove items, update wording and add extra item to the list if needed. Items in the checklist that has already been completed are greyed out and can’t be edited.

If you need to edit a completed item, then simply exit the edit mode and ‘uncomplete’ the item. This will then permit you to edit it. We will discuss more about completing and uncompleting items in a checklist in the next section.

When you are finished editing, simply click the ‘Finish Edit’ option to save your edits to the checklist. Remember, that the checklists are part of the actual task, so for your changes to be applied, you will need to SAVE the actual task.

Completing and Uncompleting an Item in a Checklist

When viewing a task with the checklist, to mark an item as completed click on the checkbox next to the item. You’ll notice that in the completion bar when you update an item, the completion bar will update as well as the items completed. When you are done checking or unchecking items in the list, simply click the SAVE button on the task. You DO NOT have to add a note to complete or un-complete items in a checklist; however, you are required to simply save the task to retain the edits.

When viewing a checklist, if there are completed items, you can see who completed the item and the date/time the item was complete by simply hovering over the item that has been stricken through. This quick notification provides you with a fast and easy way to review completion details without having to access the Applicant’s or Agency’s Activity pages.

Viewing a Checklist’s Completion Details

You can access the details of a task via the Applicant’s Activity page, the Agency Activity page, and the Agency Task page. In the image below, you can see the we have expanded the Task’s discussion and we can see a few new things.

• • 1. You can see what items have been completed on the checklist
    2. You can see the checklist’s completion bar and completion rate
    3. You can see the EZLynx system notes detailing what was done to the checklist and task.

We will provide you with the following system notes for edits you make to a checklist:

• • • 1. Notation and description of a completed item
      2. Notation and description of an uncompleted item
      3. Notation and description of an item added
      4. Notation and description of an item removed.

You can also view the completion status of a tasks having a checklist in the Task List in your Agency Workspace.

Notice in the image above, you can see the green completion bar for the task and the number of completed items (2/6 completed).

We would love additional feedback on how your agency is using checklists while we develop the ability to create checklist templates to support your agency’s standard operating procedures.

We hope you enjoy these new enhancements. At EZLynx, we strive to enhance our product to make your life easier. We have a lot a great new functionality on the horizon for the Agency Workspace, so stay tuned for that!

EZLynx Client Center Enhancements

Client Center has always helped agents provide secure information and convenient self- service any time any place to their insureds, but with this release, we are expanding those capabilities to additional lines of business and to leverage with prospects during the sales cycle. A potential customer can log into the agency’s Client Center to share documents such as financial and employee information with the agent without fear of the security risks that come with email. We’ve also added functionality to let your commercial insureds view additional policy details.

Share Documents to Prospects without Active Policy

With this update, we wanted to give additional access to prospects in your system who do not have an active policy. This allows the secure transfer of documents and confidential information during the sales process.

19 Additional LOB Summaries

We have updated the policy screen display in Client Center to be consistent with the summary screens that are displayed in EZLynx and added 19 additional LOBs. This update allows you to provide additional policy information for your customers convenience and reference.

LOBs with full policy support in Client Center:

• • • Business Owners
    • Commercial Auto
    • Commercial Property
    • Commercial Umbrella
    • Crime
    • Dwelling Fire
    • Earthquake
    • Excess Liability
    • Flood
    • General Liability
    • Homeowners
    • Inland Marine Personal
    • Mobile Home
    • Motorcycle
    • Personal Auto
    • Personal Umbrella
    • Professional Liability
    • Recreation Vehicle
    • Workers Compensation
    • Additional LOBs coming soon.

Enhanced Settings and Control Options

Allows agencies to customize their customer’s experience within Client Center to an even greater degree.

Policy Detail Settings

• • 1. Navigate to “Settings” on the main icon menu and click “Client Center”
    2. In the Client Center settings page under “General Settings”, you will find two additional display options:

Show Option to View Policy Details

Unchecking this box hides the policy details from their insured in Client Center. Insured’s will still see basic policy information including the carrier, line of business, policy number, effective date and expiration date. The details such as coverage limits, locations, additional interests and more are hidden from view.

Show Option to Request New Certificate

Agencies who do not perform any commercial servicing requested the option to hide the “Request Certificate” section from their clients. Unchecking this box removes the certificate section and the ability from insureds to request a certificate from the documents tab of Client Center. The agency is still able to share generated certificates through the documents area if required.

Multiple Addresses Support (Coming Soon to ALL Management System Users)

Over the next month, we are rolling out the ability for Management System users to store additional addresses in their customer accounts. This will help you to stay more organized and reduce duplicate entry.

Store up to 5 Additional Addresses for Personal & Commercial Applicants

This feature gives the users the ability to store multiple addresses for personal and commercial applicants. With this rollout, you will be able to add five addresses in addition to current and previous addresses that you can maintain for EZLynx Rating today.

Once we’ve rolled this out to your agency, you will see a new option for “New Address” in green on the applicant details screen. Once you click on “New Address”, you will be able to enter additional address details.

You can select from multiple address types to categorize the address:

• • • Home
    • Office
    • Mailing
    • Billing
    • Business
    • Seasonal
    • Rental
    • Other

Primary Address

First added address is always the primary address. It is the one that will flow into EZLynx Rating Engine and will display across the platform as the primary address. This will also be the address that flows into reports.

Military Addresses

You will be able to store overseas military addresses for the applicants. It must contain the APO or FPO designation in the “City” field along with a two-character “state” abbreviation of AE, AP, or AA and the ZIP Code or ZIP+ 4 Code. AE is used for armed forces in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Canada. AP is for the Pacific; and AA is the Americas excluding Canada.

Use Additional Addresses for Contacts

On the add contact form, you will see a new arrow at the end on address line one. This will display any account level addresses you have added for use with contacts.

Use Additional Addresses for Postal Mail

While sending postal mail, with this feature update you will be able to take advantage of the addresses stored for the applicants and send the mail to any of those additional addresses. These additional addresses will be available for selection in the “Mail To” dropdown as indicated below.

Use Additional Addresses for Applications

While creating applications for your customers, our system will now enable you to leverage the additional address information stored on the details tab. This will prevent rekeying the information when you need to provide the mailing/physical address of the insured while preparing the application for various lines of business

As indicated below, all the addresses saved for an applicant will be available for selection while selecting the mailing/physical/location address in the application/policy entry screens. You can either select any of these addresses or choose to enter a new address. If you choose an existing address and update it within the application, the address on the details tab will remain the same.

Use Additional Addresses for Invoices

With the ability to save billing address for an applicant, now you can generate invoice and send it to the billing address. Our system will automatically select and pick the billing address as the “Bill To” address whenever the billing address information is available. If there is not a billing address, we will prefill the primary address in that field.

We believe that, this feature update to save additional addresses and leveraging in multiple instances in the system will result in enhanced productivity and increase the efficiency of agency operations.

New LOBs for Manual Policy Entry

EZLynx is proud to announce the addition of 4 new lines of business for manual policy entry. This now allows agents to easily:

• • • • Enter full application details for coverages, scheduled items, and more
      • Reduce duplicate entry by converting your application to a policy when sold
      • Create pre-filled ACORD Forms and Certificates

New Lines of Business Include:

• • • • Personal Umbrella
      • Personal Flood (Preferred and Regular)
      • Watercraft
      • Personal Inland Marine

What’s New in EZLynx Reporting

We have been working towards updating the Reporting product. With this release we have created a new report and have further enhancements to our existing reports.

NEW Department Workload Distribution Report

Agencies with Enhanced Workspace can access this new report in the Activity Reports section. This report allows you to view departments and agents task information for workflow distribution. Like other Detail report you can filter by Branch, Assigned Agent and Department.

New Business Transactions Detail Report

New Business Transactions Detail Report has been updated to show one-line item per policy. This would help the agencies to get the count of New Business policies sold.

Birthday Detail Report

Birthday column has been updated to sort using the date instead of the whole birthday.

What’s New in EZLynx Accounting

In this release, EZLynx continued to focus on performance and stability of the Accounting system. We’ve also included a couple of frequently-requested enhancements to provide more flexibility with how you report your revenue.

Direct Bill Revenue Recognition

We added a new configuration option for the recognition of direct bill revenue. The system now allows you to recognize revenue based on the statement date. The system configuration setting for Use Accrual Basis for Recognition of Direct Bill Income has been replaced by the new setting Post Direct Bill Income By.

To change the configuration setting, go to Accounting | Configuration | System Settings.

The options are:

• • • Receipt Date: when selected, this posts direct bill revenue on the payment date of the receipt attached to the commission statement. This option replaces the former configuration setting of unchecked for Use Accrual Basis.
    • Statement Date: when selected, this posts direct bill revenue on the statement date. You still must attach the statement to a receipt in order to post to the ledger, but once attached, the revenue will be posted as of the statement date instead of the receipt payment date.
    • Transaction Date: when selected, this posts direct bill revenue on the individual transaction dates of each commission statement detail. This option replaces the former configuration setting of checked for Use Accrual Basis.

Deferred Income on Future Agency Bill Invoices

Previously, future agency bill invoices were posted as of the billing effective date, so that income was not recognized before the policy effective date or endorsement date. Because the receivable was also posted as of the effective date, this could result in scenarios where a received payment was posted with a date before the receivable.

The system now allows you to define a Deferred Income account for any existing income accounts. If you define a Deferred Income account, the invoice will post to receivables (and payables if applicable) and Deferred Income as of the bill date, then move the money from Deferred Income to the regular Income account on the effective date. For example, if you bill an agency bill policy on 10/15/2018 for a policy effective 11/1/2018, the system will create the following postings:

Date	GL Account	Debit	Credit
10/15/2018	Accounts Receivable	$100.00
10/15/2018	Accounts Payable		$90.00
10/15/2018	Deferred Income		$10.00
11/1/2018	Deferred Income	$10.00
11/1/2018	Income		$10.00

To configure a Deferred Income account

• • 1. Go to Accounting | System Settings | Accounts
    2. Select Edit on the Income account you wish to configure
    3. Check the box for Use deferred income account
    4. Enter the account name and number
    5. Click Save

Bug Fixes and Performance Enhancements

In addition to several performance enhancements, this release includes the following bug fixes:

• • • Line items are now displayed in the correct order on a printed invoice according to the line item configuration.
    • Occasional errors in the total A/R balance on printed customer statements have been resolved.
    • Direct bill payment receipts of type Forward now show the correct policy details on the overview screen.
    • The due date can be edited on a financed invoice
    • Occasional errors in the QuickBooks Online (QBO) interface that would “strand” transactions in a “processing” status have been resolved.
    • QBO authorization for the live interface will now be refreshed automatically, so you will not have to manually reconnect QBO every six months.
    • When invoices in a branch are paid with a receipt from a different branch, the Applicant A/R Balance on the Invoices tab will now reflect the correct balance.
    • The Refund Credits action on a Check will now allow you to select receipts in a branch.

What’s New with EZLynx Document Management?

Throughout our Forms Beta we have been receiving your feedback and have been able to make some great updates. Let’s look at what the beta includes along with our latest updates.

Forms Grouped by Category: Policy Service, Proof of Insurance, and Applications

EZLynx has updated the Forms link to include a shortened list of forms displayed by category to make it easier to locate a specific form quickly.

These categories are:

• • • Policy Service
      • These forms are used to service the policy. The Policy Change Request form displays for commercial policies.
    • Proof of Insurance
      • Certificates according to the policy LOB, including personal and commercial ID Cards.
    • Applications
      • Instead of a long list of ACORD forms, now a user can access all ACORD forms associated with the Applications.
    • View all forms redirects you to our ACORD library.

New Form Selection Screen

The New Form Selection screen can be access when you click on ACORD Applications, Agency Forms, or View All Forms.

• • • Pre-Fill Info From
      • When chosen from a policy’s Forms link, the policy number will automatically display in the Pre-Fill Info From box.
      • To change, click the applicable drop-down to select another policy or an application.
    • ACORD Forms
      • Access the most current versions of ACORD forms.
      • Need a form with a different Version date? Then check the box Show Historical Versions.
      • Search by ACORD form number, name or version.
      •  Filter by State, LOB, or Category.
      • 
    • Agency Forms
      • Access all Agency Forms templates.
      • Search for any form by name or document type.
      • Filter by the user who created the form.
      • 
    • Documents Library
      • Select from any documents already stored in the applicant’s Documents tab in EZLynx.
      • Search by document name or policy #.
      • Filter by document type or user who created the form.
      • 

• • • Upload
      • Upload documents from your PC.
      • Drag-and-drop to upload for these form types: PDF, JPG, PNG or DOC.
      • 

• • • Selected Documents
      • Click ACORD Applications to land on the Selected Documents tab.
      • Displays a list of documents matching the policy or application LOB.
      • Reorder the documents by using the dots icon to drag-and-drop.
      • Click the trash can icon to remove a document from the list.
      • Click on any other tabs (ACORD Forms, Agency Forms, Document Library and Upload) at any time to add more documents to the Selected Documents tab.
      • 

Enhanced Forms Editor

Click Preview to open our new and improved Forms Editor.

• • • Actions Menu
      • Find the Actions drop-down in the upper-right corner with more options.
    • eSignature
      • No need to save and leave the document and return to the Documents Library to distribute it! We added more ways to distribute the document, like eSignature, within the Forms Editor.
    • Add More Documents
      • Return to the Forms Selector to add a missed document(s) and/or reorder the documents.
    • Table of Contents
      • Notice a Table of Contents on the left.
      • Click any form name to review the form and make any changes.
      • The document appears with the applicant’s information in the middle window.
      • As a reminder, when one form is selected that is considered a subset of another, then EZLynx automatically adds that corresponding form.
    • Beta Feedback Updates
      • Added Policy status indicators
      • Added Pre-fill Info Removal
      • Updated ordering functionality
      • Added auto-naming
      • Added the summary screen form back
      • Enhanced search and filters

Change Requests – Expanded Lines of Business

With this release, the change request feature will be now available for niche lines of business that do not have policy data entry support. Users will be able to enter the change description, generate a memo and take advantage of all the change request features. Click here for more information on EZLynx Policy Change Requests.

Below is the change request example for “Contractors Equipment Floater” line of business.

Users can enter the change description and click on “Change Request” to generate the memo that can be sent to carriers

• • • There is another update that is going out with this release based on user feedback. Change request remarks are moved from the bottom to the top of the memo as “Requested Changes.”

EZLynx Search Enhancements

At Ezlynx we have taken the time to address some exciting changes. With this release, we have added changes to our search functionality when looking for an account within EZLynx. These changes will help your day to day operations by allowing you to see additional information while searching for customers so that your workflow moves seamlessly.

Users can now see the status of their customers while searching for them. While you search for an applicant you will see their status (Active, Prospect, Inactive, Unknown). This value is set automatically for accounts with active and inactive policies and can be updated on the details tab. You will also be able to see the assigned user and agency. This will help your agency easily stay up to date on the status of your customers.

BETA – Commissions 2.0 Rules  

EZLynx is excited to announce a new and efficient commission rules workflow. With this beta version, you will be able to create and manage your commission rules using our new simple yet powerful workflows. We have also introduced more criteria/conditions in the rules so that you can expand how you track and pay producers.

Sneak Peak:

Rewritten Policy Enhancements

EZLynx is excited to announce enhancements to the Policy Management system that grant you greater control over your agency’s book of business. We understand that not all policies you receive from carriers are new business. Sometimes carriers consider policies as new business, for what the agency looks at as existing business. This causes issues with commissions in your agency. With the Rewritten Policy enhancements we are giving you better control for how you want policies listed in your agency. This provides you with a more accurate book of business and improved commission tracking.

Highlights:

• Improved Policy History to Group by Policy Term
• Greater Visibility of a Policy’s History
• Commission Rules for Rewritten Policy Term
• Create Rewritten Policy when Converting Application to Policy
• Viewing Potential Rewrites from Downloaded Policies
• New Reporting Coming Soon for Rewritten Policies

Let’s start by defining a ‘rewritten policy’ in EZLynx.

If you have a customer that wants a better auto policy rate, you shop that customer around to other carriers.  Once you find a carrier with a better rate, you cancel the current policy and create a new one. In EZLynx, we consider this new policy a rewritten policy.

• The customer is the same and the LOB is the same.
• The only difference is the carrier, but the new carrier sees the policy as new business.
• To your agency its existing business.
• And of course existing business pays a different commission rate.
• This enhancement allows you to better manage these events, and gives you greater control over your book of business and commissions.

Questions? Contact [email protected].