Quarterly Performance Reports
Problem
The ops team had so much anxiety about about generating Quarterly Performance Reports (QPRs) that we were wasting thousands of hours per quarter manually checking for errors.
Approach
Sit down with members of ops team
Watch them do this work
Listen to them explain the work
Comprehensively document the process
Analyze tasks and find gaps
Redesign process
This user completes this process 4 times a year for 8 years and still isn’t able to memorize the process.
11 of 22 steps are just for error checking
Creating a list of accounts to receive QPRs
Step 1
Pull a list of all accounts (over 68,000 and grows every day)
Reduce list to just active accounts
Identify the email delivery accounts
Remove subadvisory accounts
Compare lists to account information pulled from APL
No way to confirm everyone has been included
Error checking the list
Step 2
Run the list through Morningstar Office with virtual desktop in Mumbai
List must be batched into 1000 each or Morningstar Office doesn’t work
If an error occurs, the run breaks
Office doesn’t tell the user what caused the error
Process of eliminating bad account is smaller batching
Run the smaller list again
Using Morningstar Office to generate reports
Upload list to Morningstar Office and generate the report
Any mechanical or data error breaks generation
Office doesn’t explain cause of error
Keep laptop plugged to power
Keep laptop plugged into internet
Can’t use Office for anything else
Can’t leave laptop alone in case of errors
Second round of error checking
Compare reports generated to original list
Is anything missing?
Run reporting again for missing accounts
Check for errors again (could be endless)
On average there are 300-400 errors per batch of 1000
Estimated person-hours
20 business days for error checking
22 people
3,520 person-hours
Timeline
Takes several days to complete
Often several days after quarter ends
The ops team is stacked with other work
Our advisors note we’re behind competitors
Why is so much time spent on error checking?
Each error exponentially increases work because they can’t address any specific error
They use a tool that isn’t reliable and have to check its work
Errors have serious repercussions
A lot of time is spent checking for errors — and they’re still a problem
Business leadership was completely unaware of the anxiety for operations team
The Results
Reducing error checks from 11 days to 3 days saves 1,408 person-hours
If reruns are eliminated, we save 512 person-hours
Eliminating Morningstar Office saves 880 hours — we need data, not software
The Game Plan
We couldn’t just implement a new, improved process. We started by building a new framework that would allow us time to create the proper hook-ups and databases to get around using Morningstar Office.
Our solution
We were able to develop a portal for the operations team that allowed them to upload lists of our clients pulled directly from FiServ, the server that manages active accounts in good standing, and our system would cross check that list with the data we automatically pull from Morningstar Office. The most tedious work is now automated.
Now the reports are delivered on time, every time.
This new workflow may not seem like much, but it cut 2320 person-hours from generating these reports every quarter.
Revised workflow