EDI Concepts Inc

EDI Client Portal

We have completed the release of the InStar Client Portal. Your clients will be able to log in and access functions that will make many day to day tasks much more convenient for both agency personnel and clients. See the Story of our Conclusions below and why we chose this direction.

Functions

  • Client Portal pages display the agency logos and contact information from the agency web site branding your agency to fill the customer needs. See our Client Portal for EDI Concepts.
  • 2 Factor Authentication by Text or Email.
  • Download Auto ID Cards on Phone or Computer.
  • Add a holder to a basic Master Certificate of Insurance Published by the agency.
  • Publish eDocs for secure document upload/download including documents to large to email. Clients may securely upload documents to the Agency.
  • eSignatures on Published eDocs *More work to do on this item and will not require paying a 3rd party.
  • List policies *We need input on this item as to what the agency would like to be available to the customer. Currently it is just a basic list of policies
  • Pay Invoices or On Account with Credit Card or ACH. Credit Card handling is working from the Client Portal and in the Cash Receipts in InStar. ACH is in beta on EDI and one other agency. We are using Gravity Payments and we will introduce you for the sign up process.

How it Will Work

2 Factor Authentication for Client Contacts

  • The agency does not need to do anything to allow a Client Contact to log in however the Client Contact must have must have a First and Last Name, email address or mobile phone number. Login name is Contact Firstname.Lastname, note the period in between.
  • The agency client will access the Client Portal from your web site or a link you include in email. We will assist to file a subdomain of “clients” so your Client Portal address is https://clients.myWebsite.com for example EDI Concepts Portal is https://clients.ediconcepts.net. We will talk to your web site people to make this happen.
  • InStar will determine if the Client Contact has 3 things; 1) Contact name is found 2) Has a stored password 3) Has email or a mobile phone.
    • If no password (first login) the user can set their password otherwise they enter their password.
    • A code will be sent to email and/or text.
    • Client enters the code and they now have access to their Client account(s)
  • Notifications to Agency Personnel, of Portal activity, will come into InStar using the InStar Messaging. Notifications are made in order of client CSR/CSA then Producer. InStar Users can also be set to receive all Portal Messages and there is a special setting for Accounting Personnel when online payments are being used.

Download Auto ID Cards

  • On Client login the system takes the Client to the “Dashboard” which will allow the Client to download Auto ID cards. We will be adding other information to this page like newly published eDocs etc.
  • Select cars and drivers and the auto ID card will be generated in InStar and downloaded to the client as a pdf to computer or phone. Agency Personnel will be notified via InStar Messaging and history will be created on the client in InStar.

Add a Holder to a Published Certificate and Download

  • Agency can publish 1 or more Master Certificates.
  • Client can ONLY add a Holder to the Cert and generate in PDF to phone or Computer. No modifications can be made to any other part of the certificate.
  • Agency Personnel notified via InStar Messaging and Cert shows in the list of Certs including history created on the client.

Publish eDocs for Download and eSignature/Upload of eDocs to Agency *eSign has not been released yet.

  • Check in the “Published” check box on the eDoc details and the items will instantly be available to Client on the Portal. We mean INSTANTLY. You could be on the phone with the client, you need to publish a document for secure download and once you Publish and save, the client can reselect the Document Upload/Download the the document is available to them.
  • Client will be able to eSign published documents and agency will be notified with history created on the client. **Still to be released.
  • Client will be able to upload documents if they download to sign or fill out. Agency notified of upload and history created on the client.

List Policies

  • View a list of active policies
  • We plan to make more available on this page based on what the users need.

Make Payments On Line (Optional)

  • We will introduce the agency to Gravity Payments to get started on your setup.
  • Agency personnel can also take payment information on the phone using the familiar cash receipt. In all cases a small web window from Gravity Payments opens for the CC and ACH information. NONE of the CC/ACH numbers are kept within InStar, only the last 4 char of the CC/ACH.
  • Client using the Client Portal may pick from a list of Invoices (agency bill only) and pay all or some of the invoice. We will only show the total of the invoice and policies, no detail. To pay a DB item the client just pays unallocated the the InStar User performs the allocation.
  • Client user may also just make a payment “on account” that the agency can then allocate as needed.
  • A Cash Receipt will be generated in InStar and invoice handled accordingly to the amount paid.
  • InStar will give the Client User guidance with payments for instance the user cannot pay a new invoice if they have an overdue invoice. Oldest invoices must be paid first. The agency may control this by “Publishing” only invoices they wish the client to see on line.
  • We use a use Gravity Payments and we store no CC or Bank information except for the last 4 digits of credit cards so the user can select a card which the payment service can identify.

The Story of How We Got Here

We have spent the last year studying on how to accomplish a Client Portal for the InStar Users. Many companies are offering upload of your InStar data to make these things available. We were close to contracting with a company to do it for us however I did not like sending your data to a server on the internet somewhere and since the data needed to be uploaded it is not always in sync with what you see in InStar, not to mention the price tag as we are just including this in your current support.

I met with the Omnis People and some other Omnis programmers at a convention and realized we could do things much better by sticking with Omnis. Primarily your data stays on your server and when you make a change like publishing an eDoc it is immediately available to your Client. (I mean immediately, you could have them on the phone and tell them to refresh the web page and the document just published will be available.) We hired 2 additional programmers as the task was too large for our small crew. We determined we must move InStar to Omnis version 11 (InStar currently runs on version 4) and have that work done. (Don’t anyone panic, we will continue to support version 4 for some time.) This also solves some other issues like running 64-bit programs and will allow users to change 1 workstation at a time from 32 bit to 64 when running Omnis version 11. We have completed testing on InStar in Version 11 of Omnis and have been running our InStar in version 11 since March 15th 2024 in our office.

EDI Concepts Provides Support and Programming Services for InStar and NOVA SalesPro