I encouraged a friend to buy Online so I can help teach him pralana and of course so that he/we can work together on some planning, e.g. as if he were a client. He imported an excel data file I had created into his account, then used my advisor code which allowed me to see his plan.
We've each been making changes and running analyses that I'm 99% certain we've each seen reflected on the other side, i.e. like a shared cloud-based document.
But I was browsing the manual for the first time and found this:
If you are working with a client who has his or her own subscription to Pralana Online and they wish to share their plan with you, you can give them your Pralana Advisor Code shown on this form. If they grant you permission to see their plan, it will appear in your list of client plans. You will be able to review all such plans but cannot edit them and they will not count against the maximum number of client plans you are able to have in the tool.
Is that true? On the flip side, if I create a plan in my advisor version to share with a client who buys pralana, are they limited to a view-only version as well?
I now wonder whether my buddy has actually been seeing the changes I've been making. It certainly seems that's been the case! I'm doing a test with him later on this but of course would love clarification here. Part my business model if you will was to teach people personal finance through collaboration on building their own plans in Pralana, and that's going to be difficult if there is no option for us to see/create shared changes.
@stkeros I'll wait for the official word on this from the team, but here's how I do it. I like to keep full control of the plan I'm building for the client until we agree it's done, then have them adopt it so they now have full control and it's off my radar and count. I think both being in there making changes is a recipe for disaster. Not only from a tech perspective, but how do you know they didn't fudge something up? I'd feel like I have to constantly search the tool top to bottom to ensure they didn't do something wrong, and that would take a lot of time.
Very interested in whether both can actually change the tool in shared mode, to me it should be read only. I use that when folks pay me to take a second look at what they've done and provide feedback, without changing anything. I advise them what to change, then tell them to unshare it.
Totally understand what you're saying regarding read only. But in many cases I'm TEACHING the pralana. The planning is "done". I have my own "fixed" copy of the plan for clients. But then I give a copy to the client and teach them how to change assumptions, look at outputs. They share with me for verification "did I do this right", etc. Other times I go into their file and a make a video where I explain certain settings, how to change things, etc. It's an iterative back and forth. With my existing non-online clients, we have a shared folder where we have a "master" data file we export/import from.
With my friend, he managed to get the online version. And he's confirmed that he CAN see my changes. E.g. he shared his plan with me, but if I go in and change something, he can see those changes when he logs in. Sure, things could get messed up if we are both working simultaneously, but I'm using this for education in this case so there is no "harm" and actually, troubleshooting unexpected results is part of the learning.
@stkeros Ah, got you. If the PRC team is confident there can be no trampling (usually not the case due to discreet database transactions) it's cool from that perspective. Maybe the sharing capability should have a flag for read only vs updatable.
@stkeros and @hines202: Stuart and I were just on a zoom and talking about this. I will send him today corrected text for the user manual. As you found out, if a client shares a plan with you, you can both edit it. There is currently no 'read-only' capability, but it is conceivable we could add it in the future.
I need to get your thoughts on this. If client Susan shares her plan with you, you can:
- Change any input
- Copy one scenario to another
- Delete all the data in the plan
- Make a backup
- Import another client Bill's PRC Gold export file into Susan's plan which would create 2 big problems: a) you lost Susan's data and b) you exposed Bill's personal data to Susan, if you didn't catch it.
What are your thoughts about having some protections put in to limit what you can do to a shared plan???
I think you cannot restore Bill's .pralana_backup plan into the Susan's plan because the plan code would not match and a new plan would be created with Bill's data. We need to test this!
Thanks,
Charlie
Hi Charlie, yes I guess it should be updatable, so I agree with what you laid out. For SURE the protections should be in place about overlaying a plan accidentally, the plan code should match.
What are your thoughts about having some protections put in to limit what you can do to a shared plan???
I guess if restrictions were an option, they could be enabled on a case by case basis?
But here's why it doesn't bother me for each to edit a shared plan.
1) I create the plan on my end, as an advisor. They can't touch this.
2) I give them the export file to import into THEIR (purchased) Pralana Online account.
3) Client shares with me and we can both edit.
So now...
- If they/I mess up the shared file somehow, I have the "original" for reference. Almost a "track changes" feature. And I can fix/troubleshoot the shared plan.
- If we make many changes to their plan on their file and the original one is now obsolete, they can give me their export file and I can create a new "private" version as a type of back up (and delete the original plan)
So the current situation works for me.
I think the chances of importing the wrong person's data is quite small and/or I would catch it immediately and erase the identifying data. I only ever use first names for client names and account owners, so...easy to delete those and birthdates.
