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Contents
Power to the People 3
Data Integration 3
Workflow Scripting 4
Peripheral Integration 4
Data Entry and Transaction Validation 5
Email Generation 5
NetTeller® Online Banking™ Customization 6
To varying degrees, the developers of core processing systems attempt to keep up with the needs and demands of credit unions. Some may add features by producing add-ons or extensions to their primary system or by purchasing a third-party solution. They may rely on the release of upgrades or new versions to add functionality.
Many developers provide consulting and programming assistance to help institutions adapt and customize their systems. Everyone recognizes, however, that the almost endless variety of credit union environments makes it impossible to anticipate every potential need.
While it’s a cliché, it’s nonetheless true that technology is changing quickly. These changes will also require customization. Circumstances dictate that flexibility is the key to success in providing core processing services. The use of open, common programming protocols enables maximum flexibility for changes.
Power to the People
Symitar® takes this technological challenge very seriously and we have created a tool that both Symitar programmers and
credit union IT departments can use. This tool, called PowerOn, places control directly in the hands of credit unions. They can modify their Episys® core processing systems in a multitude of ways. Institutions can, for example, design and create
data screens, create user-defined inquiries for data mining, automate tasks, develop interfaces with other systems, and integrate data from multiple sources.
These changes are made within the structure and protection of the core system, but independent of the core code. The goal is to give credit unions maximum freedom to adapt the core platform to their requirements. Most of the customization created with PowerOn falls into one of six areas:
Data integration
Workflow scripting
Peripheral integration
Data entry and transaction validation
Email generation
NetTeller Online Banking customization
User-created PowerOn “specfiles” enable credit unions more control over their customization. These files are sets of instructions in scripting language, each one designed to create a specific result involving Episys data or actions. Each of the six areas above is detailed in the pages that follow with real-world examples of institutions stepping up and creating the capabilities they need.
Data Integration – Alliant Credit Union
PowerOn can pass records to and from a Web service to validate data, such as addresses. It can read and display information from corporate intranet and Internet pages—a typical use of this ability is to display reference material. Along the same lines, the software can read, write, manipulate, and incorporate data stored in an external SQL database or other XML-compatible
database. It can display data in text or graphical form. PowerOn can also use applications programmed in JavaScript®,
VBScript, and other scripting languages.
Chicago-based Alliant Credit Union provides a good model, illustrating how to put this data integration potential to work. Alliant needed an efficient way to convert more than 18,000 Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) from an external organization into its own system. It also wanted a platform for automated setup of new accounts.
At the time, the credit union handled only about 50 HSA accounts, so the increase constituted a significant change. Alliant’s programming team used PowerOn to create scripts that read the account holder files provided by the previous HSA custodian and then created new Alliant accounts. When the scripts were completed and tested, they opened the floodgates. More than
Amazingly, only eleven individual accounts needed to be manually reviewed for data cleanup, and Alliant handled the entire conversion process without involving the HSA account holders. The team also created scripts that would update information on existing HSA accounts and create new accounts through an interface with the members’ employers’ benefits system. New account setup up is simple and Web-based – members don’t even need to make a phone call.
Alliant Credit Union completed the project in less than three months, without any external help.
Workflow Scripting – Right Choice Credit Union (now called First Service Credit Union)
Many credit unions use PowerOn to code applications that will walk users through complex tasks, such as loan applications or opening and closing accounts. By scripting the task, credit unions can ensure that all data entered is valid and correct, that all necessary fields are updated, and that monetary transactions post accurately.
Because these tasks occur within the Episys database, user security privileges are required to make changes, and Episys creates a proper audit trail. Scripts can also automate decision making when they’re programmed to take actions based on credit scores, loan balances, and so on.
PowerOn scripts can promote cross-selling by suggesting products to the teller based on member account data. The program can record the member’s response to the product suggestion, create a referral to another department, and keep track of staff members’ progress toward cross-selling goals.
Right Choice Credit Union of Houston, Texas is one institution that made profitable use of workflow scripting. When the credit union decided it needed an incentive program to boost its loan portfolio, PowerOn was the tool of choice to run the program. The Right Choice incentive plan rewards employees by paying them a monthly amount based on a percentage of the outstanding balance of the employee’s loan portfolio. As the balance grows, so does the incentive. Right Choice also provides an incentive for generating non-loan activities. The full program is multi-tiered and fairly complex. The institution needed to track this information, calculate incentives, and give employees full visibility of their progress.
Using PowerOn, Right Choice created a new incentive compensation module. Mike McWethy, Vice President of Retail Sales and Branch Operations, said, “By using PowerOn, we were able to accomplish this customization quickly and have the new process merge into our way of doing business seamlessly.” They completed the module in just a few weeks.
“We created a method that would perform all the calculations, that would be easy for management and staff to review, and that would be accurate, fair, and up to the moment,” McWethy said. “Being a $100 million credit union, we don’t have an enormous amount of man-hours to spend,” he added. “Using any other platform, it would have been extremely costly and labor-intensive.”
For Right Choice, it was the right idea and the right tool at the right time. Since introducing the incentive program, the credit union has doubled its non-interest income from lending and today has 80 of member shares invested in loans.
Peripheral Integration – Alabama Telco Credit Union
If Episys has a standard interface to a peripheral such as a signature pad, thermal printer, or optical system, PowerOn can create the ability to interact with that peripheral and customize its behavior.
This enables institutions to accomplish tasks such as printing targeted marketing messages—based on near-real-time analysis of database records—on a member’s receipt. PowerOn also enables sending and retrieving forms to and from an optical
storage system, especially in conjunction with Symitar’s SymForm™ or SymForm PDF products. The information gathered
can be used to update database fields.
Many credit unions also use PowerOn to place information or marketing messages on a signature pad. Alabama Telco Credit Union used this feature to push member relationship management questions to the displays on its Topaz Systems signature pads.
Justin Orr, CIO and Vice President at Alabama Telco explained their need: “Our marketing department was looking for a way to easily ask members if they had a car financed with another financial institution. We identified the signature pad as a point of contact that could present this question during routine transactions.”
Orr reported that it took a single programmer a couple weeks of part-time work to complete this project using PowerOn. Once installed, the software displayed questions and appended member answers to Episys database files. This project has enabled the credit union to carry out targeted direct mail programs.
The institution went on to use the signature pad for compliance activities, such as obtaining authorizations for overdraft protection programs. “With PowerOn,” said Orr, “we can do anything.”
Data Entry and Transaction Validation – Unitus Community Credit Union
If there is a need to validate entries in a database field based on specific criteria, PowerOn is the perfect tool. It enables credit unions to add an extra layer of protection that ensures data integrity.
A validation specfile can prevent the user from making an invalid entry. It can set the accepted value range of specified fields before the record loads. A valid entry may also be made dependent on the value of an existing field. The specfile can run a final record validation to ensure that all required fields have valid entries and that no entry conflicts with another entry. To enhance safety, the specfile can require a specific security level or a security override before accepting a field value or allowing a user to delete a record.
In addition, PowerOn can validate monetary transactions and calculate the appropriate fee for transactions based on the member’s relationship with the credit union and other criteria.
In Portland, Oregon, Unitus Community Credit Union put the power of entry validation to work. Due to new regulatory requirements for fee disclosures, the credit union needed to (1) ensure that fee reversals were posted and tracked accurately, and (2) reduce the possibility of duplicate reversals.
This is a situation made for PowerOn. The institution created a specfile that walks credit union staff through the selection of fees that may be eligible for reversal (late charge, NSF, etc.). If an employee selects a fee that doesn’t exist for that member, an error message appears, and the action terminates. Similarly, the specfile prevents an employee from accidentally reversing a fee that has already been reversed.
If a reversal is successful, the specfile determines the GL code, the subsource code, the comments, and it posts the activity. The file also creates a note record, which is set to expire in 18 months. The system automatically updates year-to-date fees
in the database.
Automation and error checking work together for everyone’s benefit. Unitus staff members like the system because it prevents mistakes and ensures that proper disclosures appear on statements.
Email Generation – Mountain America Credit Union
If a credit union configures Episys to allow email generation, PowerOn specfiles can automatically send email under set conditions. Many credit unions, for example, use PowerOn programs to examine the Episys report queue and send email to the appropriate individuals when particular reports are in the queue.
Mountain America Credit Union (MACU) of West Jordan, Utah, created a particularly ingenious use for the email generation feature. MACU programmers used PowerOn to create a system that provides overdraft protection to those members who need it the most. This homemade utility within Episys recognizes a debit card decline due to lack of funds. An email message to that member is generated, which includes an opt-in selection for overdraft protection. A member receiving this email on a smart phone can choose to opt-in immediately. Overdraft protection is established and the transaction can be re-run and accepted on the spot.
With this system, members do not even have to log in to their accounts. Those who opt-in will automatically receive an opt-out form as well, should they decide to stop overdraft protection in the future. All of MACU’s bases are covered, and all without staff involvement. Hundreds of members have opted in using this service.
This system is so clever and effective that MACU received the Creative Solutions award at the 2010 Symitar Educational Conference & Technology Expo in San Diego. As MACU CIO Alex Barker said, “It [PowerOn] puts you in the driver’s seat instead of the core provider. Our business is not held back by technology.”
NetTeller Online Banking Customization – Beacon Federal
For many institutions, adding new functionality to a home banking system requires the system’s vendor to make core code changes. This is not the case for Episys clients who use NetTeller Online Banking.
PowerOn provides special functions that allow the writing and installation of online banking modifications by the institution. A good example of Episys NetTeller customization is found at Beacon Federal, based in East Syracuse, New York. Justin Carson, the IT Manager, has added or changed a variety of features to suit the needs of the institution’s account holders. For example, some Beacon Federal customers spend the winter in Florida. Carson used PowerOn to enable NetTeller to maintain a temporary second mailing address. Customers input the new address before they go, and simply delete it upon their return.
Another feature Beacon Federal added to NetTeller is an easy lost/stolen card reporting mechanism. “When most people lose a card,” Carson said, “they don’t know the card number.” Beacon created a screen that displays all cards that belong to a customer and the customer’s family. “They just look at the cards and click on the missing one,” said Carson. “That card information is captured and blocked.”
Beacon Federal also chose to completely revamp the account summary page to meet its particular needs, using PowerOn to add some options. If an available balance for an account doesn’t match the actual balance, a letter “H” appears on the summary line for that account. When customers click the letter “H,” they see any holds on that account. If there’s a pending transaction, they just click the letter “P” to see pending transactions and posting information.
Those are just some of the modifications Beacon Federal made using PowerOn. Some others include:
Enabling account holders to see if a check has cleared
Enabling the calculation of loan payoffs for a customer-selected future date
Creating a log-in feature that will (within three log-ins) require account holders to accept e-statements
instead of paper or to formally opt out of e-statements
Creating a similar feature that encourages the adoption of overdraft protection
There’s a PowerOn Solution
Because PowerOn is an integral component of Episys, it can take control of the user interface and direct the user’s experience to each client’s specifications. As previously mentioned, this occurs without changing the underlying core software.
Credit unions can deliver a customized experience with speed, flexibility, and security. The program uses HTML and scripting languages for on-demand applications, offering a wide range of options for look and feel. This provides an effective response to evolving business needs.
For committed users, Symitar’s PowerOn Studio offers IT experts a well-organized visualization of their coding project. Like popular commercial development kits, PowerOn Studio offers collapsible work regions and a tabbed interface. Code snippets and other shortcuts keep the project moving along.
Whether driven by customer demand, competition, or a need for increased efficiency, it’s both comforting and empowering for an individual credit union to know that it’s up to the task of modifying its core platform. It’s also good to know that the processing vendor, Symitar, is supporting the effort and providing the tools.
