Formation CRM Blog and Roadmap

Trading Names are now Business Names – 1 November 2023

We’re replacing the phrase Trading Name with Business Name. We’ll make this change everywhere that the term Trading Name appears.

Why are we making this change?

We’re aligning Formation CRM with changes made by Australian Business Register (ABR) and Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC). In 2012, ABR stopped collecting and updating trading names. If a business operates under any other name, it must register its additional business names with ASIC. In November 2023, ABR will stop displaying old trading names on the ABN Lookup tool.

Do you need to do anything?

If you refer to trading name anywhere in your internal or customer-facing documentation, you may want to update your documentation to instead use the term business name.

Multi-factor authentication (MFA) – 20 September 2023

Formation CRM now supports multi-factor authentication (MFA) when logging in to our Company Portal and Member Portal.

With MFA, Formation CRM is more secure than ever. Company contacts and members can feel safer, knowing that their accounts are protected from unauthorised logins.

How does it work?

Multi-factor authentication is a method that helps to keep logins secure.

When people logging in must provide additional evidence that they are who they say they are, it’s harder for malicious actors to break into people’s accounts.

When MFA is enabled, and a person logs in to either the Company Portal or Member Portal, Formation CRM provides a unique code that the person must enter to complete the login process.

Configuration options

Formation CRM is a flexible platform that you can customise to meet your users’ needs. Funds can configure Formation CRM to:

  • Require MFA for everyone logging in to either portal
  • Require MFA only for the Company Portal and not the Member Portal, or vice versa
  • Not offer MFA as an option

For the strongest security, we recommend requiring MFA for both portals.

Release 3.2 – March 2023

Formation Technology is excited to welcome the latest customer to the Formation CRM Platform, the Anglican Church Long Service Leave Fund.

Returns

We’re continually looking for ways to streamline operations for our customers. We have enhanced our Returns to give you more flexibility in how you capture one-off service for a Member, outside of the regular Return cycle.

Security

We’ve enhanced security through Single Sign On and two-factor authentication for Fund staff. In early 2023, we will be introducing two-factor authentication for our Member and Company Portals.

Coming soon!

Over the next few months we will be upgrading our existing customers to Release 3.2 with enhancements including:

  • Two-factor authentication (described above).
  • Batch creation of Reimbursements to streamline your Back Office processing.
  • Bulk actions for Members and Returns that allow the user to perform the same action across multiple Members with a single click.
  • Allowing Member properties (such as Full Time, Part Time or Casual employment) to be changed part way through the Return period, with different levy rates calculated for each period of service.

Release 3.1 - Sep 2022

Returns

We’ve expanded our product offering to include a wider range of return product types, including severance and income protection insurance payments. We now support detailed customisation of rates, down to industry awards and agreements.

We revamped our user interface to make it easier for companies with thousands of workers to manage workers, employments and entitlements, and introduced a range of ‘bulk actions’ to reduce the amount of time required to process returns. Compliance is also made easier through the ability to automatically generate back-payment returns for missing service.

Claims

We’ve been working hard to streamline the online claims experience. Some of the features we’ve launched include:

  • Financial delegation limits
  • Automatic calculation of public holidays as part of leave payments
  • Online reimbursement claims through our Company Portal
  • Straight-through claims processing within defined parameter
  • STP Phase 2 compliance

Security

We’ve enhanced security through Single Sign On and two-factor authentication for Fund staff. In early 2023, we will be introducing two-factor authentication for our Member and Company Portals.

Integrations

Formation CRM now supports fully integrated banking with your nominated financial institution. We are continuing to evolve our Business Intelligence offering giving you secure, insightful visibility into your business and data.

Lastly, we would like to welcome Protect, who launched onto the Formation CRM platform in July of this year.

Release 2.3 - Feb 2022

Release 2.3 is scheduled for Summer 2021/22. Some of the features you can look ahead to include:

  • Expanded BI reporting
  • Improvements to the online employer claims process
  • Support for broadcast email campaigns.

Release 2.2 - Jul 2021

Welcome to the newest member of the Formation CRM family, QLeave Community Services Industry. Formation Technology was proud to be selected by QLeave to administer their newly launched portable long service leave scheme for the community services industry in Queensland.

Enhanced Case Management

Release 2.2 focused on enhancing our case management features:

  • We now support the linking of multiple sources to a single Task, allowing for a comprehensive view of your customer interactions.
  • A further enhancement allows an operator to create a task or add a note to existing tasks in bulk, supporting large compliance campaigns.
  • Additionally, we support bulk SMS campaigns to employers or workers (requires third party integration).
  • We’ve also extended our email templates to include a keyword replacer and source type, allowing more targeted correspondence to be generated at the click of a button.
Read Only Employer Portal Access

Formation CRM now supports read only access to employer records following account closure. When enabled, employers are able to access historical files for record keeping and reporting.

Universal Search

We’ve improved our search functionality, giving you greater control over your data:

  • Search across all party types and all funds within your scheme
  • Free-text search on Correspondence and Tasks.

Custom Forms

Formation CRM can customise contact forms in your employer and worker portals, allowing your constituents to easily raise enquiries with your scheme. Custom Forms are integrated with Task Workflow and our back office document repository.

Release 2.1 - Feb 2021

Formation Technology is proud to welcome Portable Long Service Leave to the Formation CRM platform. Formation Technology and the PLSL have been partnering together to bring important enhancements to the Formation CRM platform, which will provide an enhanced experience for back office operators, and scheme constituents alike.

Online Claims

We’ve revamped the look and operation of online claims! The new user interface for online claims provides an easy-to-follow experience for workers. Formation CRM can optionally display an estimated claim payment in the worker portal. The worker has the opportunity to notify you if something does not look right, saving you from the need to make adjustments after a claim has been paid. Before a claim comes to you for processing, you can also have it reviewed by the employer to approve the leave. The employer can also be prompted to provide additional information, such as up-to-date ordinary rate of pay.

Security

Formation CRM can now be configured with Multi Factor Authentication (MFA), with support for both time-based phone authenticator devices and SMS authentication. The system can be configured to bypass MFA for users connecting from trusted addresses.

Additionally, Formation CRM provides support for single sign-on (SSO), including integration with Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS) for identity and authentication.

Formation CRM Release 2.0 is here! - July 2020

We are excited to launch Formation CRM 2.0. This is our first major release since inception, and we are delighted to deliver significant enhancements to transform how you administer your worker entitlement schemes.

Work Smarter

We’re improving the way you work! Formation CRM 2.0 has over 180 unique Activity Feed events that can be used to automatically trigger a task for you to review, schedule, escalate or complete. Or, you can manually create your own tasks from just about anywhere within Formation CRM. Tasks can be linked to a Document, Return, Entitlement, Email, and more, with visual cues throughout our platform, so you will always have a birdseye view of Tasks relating to your Employers and Workers.

Other features of tasks include:

  • Modify Due Dates, Priority, Assignees, Labels, and Status
  • Add one or more classification labels to filter your organisation’s work
  • Control edit and delete of notes with permissions
  • Bulk-edit task characteristics or assign work to your members
  • Email Integration

In Release 2.0 we have created a Correspondence Dashboard. Here you can see inbound and outbound email and SMS for your Fund. Formation CRM supports multiple mailboxes with row-level permissions on mail items.

Where an email comes from an address stored in Formation CRM, and that address is unique to one entity, the email will automatically associate to that entity. If the email address is unknown, or it is used by multiple entities within Formation CRM, you might see a list of potential matches, to help you identify the right party, or you can search across your database. Emails can be associated to more than one entity at a time.

You can reply to and compose emails directly within Formation CRM, including the ability to create and use email body templates. Our inbuilt document repository means you can see the full correspondence history between your Fund and its Employers and Workers.


Customisable Forms

Formation CRM can customise forms for completion in the Employer or Worker Portals. Forms can be customised specifically for your Fund and can include a requirement to provide supporting documentation. Request foundation service, notify of missing service, request a change to your registration type, and more! Once submitted, the form will be associated with the entity that completed it. It will trigger a task for processing by a back office operator. No more need to scan, upload and store paper forms!

Other Contacts

We understand that not everyone you deal with is an employer or a worker. That’s why we’re introducing customisable Other Contacts’. You can customise your new contact types, including prospective employers, unions, credit agencies, media, and more! Just like employers and workers, your new contact types can be automatically, or manually, associated with correspondence. You can also create tasks for review and action. Return Import Files and Status.

Back Office operators now have greater insight into the status of CSV return imports when assisting customers, detailing the number of import attempts, time taken to upload and workers included in the file. You can also download a copy of the uploaded file.

Reciprocal service

We’re making it easier for you and your workers to manage their entitlements when they work interstate. Operators can create a reciprocal return in Formation CRM to recognise a worker’s eligible reciprocal service. This service can count towards the worker’s threshold for claiming an entitlement. When a worker has accrued enough eligible service across schemes, they will be able to create an online claim in their host scheme. When reciprocal service is included in a claim, you will be able to generate an invoice for reimbursement of that service.

Contact us today for a demo of Formation CRM.

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