By Matt Abar on 6/22/2009 9:41 AM

On Friday, we posted an update to the FinFolio beta. We are planning on doing weekly updates during the Beta period as we make changes and fixes. This is primarily because we need to do regular custodial interface updates now that we're getting good feedback from the beta sites.

This last update included the developer example project, which is a Visual Studio 2008 project that can be compiled as a FinFolio add-in...

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By Matt Abar on 6/19/2009 7:52 AM

One of the benefits of building software from scratch is that you can eliminate limitations of existing systems. Sometimes this comes from better design, but often the new functionality comes at a cost, either in slower software speed or more complicated code maintenance. With Techfi, a good example of this was having current values and other calculations available in the software without having to run reports. In order to do this, we moved some of the business logic into the database, which made our imports take longer* than other systems.

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By Matt Abar on 6/8/2009 5:52 PM

We just released Beta1. Woo hoo!

I'm reasonably happy with the state of the product. The beta is as clean as we can make it without having any live installations; our bug lists are clean and we only have a small handful of known issues. Mike and I feel that the product is about where Techfi was in its last year in terms of release quality. We're a bit late but we haven't compromised on any of the features or promises we've made over the last year. I think we're well on our way to delivering a next generation portfolio management system.

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By Matt Abar on 5/28/2009 9:32 AM

I recently upgraded to a larger screen, a 30" 2560x1600 Samsung LCD panel. I'm not sure a screen this large is ever "necessary", but our GUI development environment takes up so much space, that my smaller screen was almost unusable. When we work on our WPF screens, we usually have five different panes open, with two main panes sitting side-by-side -- the GUI representation of the screen and the XAML code-behind where we write the screen code.

With my smaller 21" monitor, I could only see ten lines of code at once. With the new monitor, I can easily show the GUI and code-behind next to each other, at least 50 lines at once, making it much easier to debug and add features.

FinFolio follows the same paradigm, letting you put different panes beside each other. If you have a larger monitor, you'll have a richer user experience...

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By Matt Abar on 5/12/2009 11:40 AM

FinFolio graphs started off as a 2-day project to give our screenshots some sizzle. But the more we dug in and started playing with different graph layouts, the more we realized that graphs should be an integral part of the software.

FinFolio has a modular graphing system that offers visualization options for every major data type. Click the graphs button and a 2-graph tool window opens in the right side of the software; it dynamically changes depending on which household/account/etc. is displayed in the main window. Open up a client and the graph window shows you the client's accounts on the top pie graph, and his security positions on the bottom graph.

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By Matt Abar on 3/5/2009 2:30 PM

We've run into some feature creep with the beta and we're running late. Feedback from the beta sites prompted us to add additional features. Our goal is for clients to start running the FinFolio beta in parallel with their current systems which is a necessary step for any new software but doubly so for a portfolio management system, due to the numerous transaction interfaces with custodians, legacy software, and complementary systems.

Importing transaction data from custodians or legacy PMS systems is very tricky. If there *is* a specification for a particular interface, important details are usually missing. Information is often contained in comment fields or in undocumented alternate transaction codes. The sample data we work with rarely has anything but the most common transaction types, so we don't know how a custodian handles corporate actions, reversals, option expirations, or other uncommon situations until we see it come down in the live data.

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By Matt Abar on 2/20/2009 3:17 PM

FinFolio will be attending the Virtual Office Tech Tools conference next week in Texas. If you've been reading the blog and/or are planning on being a beta, please drop by the booth and say hello.

We're doing an in-depth demo of FinFolio Workstation after the last panel on Friday (around 6:30).  And I'm on the Portfolio Management Software I panel, along with reps from Morningstar, Portfolio Director, Open Finance Network and Arcorns.

• Portfolio Management Software I Panel - Friday,  9:10am - 10:25am
• FinFolio Demo - Friday, 6:30pm - 7:30pm in the Spectrum Room

I hope to see you there!

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By Matt Abar on 2/11/2009 8:56 AM

Techfi support had some deeply ingrained bad habits, and we never got to the point where service was one of our strengths. For the first few years, we didn't have systems in place to track our support calls and didn't have any way of knowing if we were doing a good job. About two years in, our press took on a negative quality, where any article about Techfi had comments about our horrible support.

The bad press was a wakeup call for me and, I like to think that it launched a turnaround. Over the next year we installed a CRM system, started doing client surveys on support quality, added numerous quality control checks to our service bureau, created a professional services department, and much more. We never got to the point where service was a strength but we did improve.

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By Matt Abar on 2/10/2009 4:45 PM

I've spent the last week getting our marketing material ready. There are now several new pages under the Software menu that describe the FinFolio Workstation product. Not all of the features listed there will be in the upcoming beta, but we do expect them to all to be in the final release.

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By Matt Abar on 2/4/2009 11:34 AM

I've taken a couple days off from coding and I've been working on various marketing items. We're preparing for our first trade show and beta releases, which means we need a trade show booth, brochure, and updated web site. We don't expect to have any marketing/sales types around for quite some time, so it mostly falls on me.

Designing our brochure got me thinking about Techfi. The first thing I did at Techfi was to write a brochure for our first product, Portfolio 2000. Weeks before I wrote a single line of code, I had a brochure that I was showing to various people, getting feedback about the imaginary product.

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