Much of what an advisory firm does for a client is a process with many steps.
Onboarding a new household means disclosures, paperwork, signatures, account opening, funding, and investing, often across several people and several weeks.
When that process lives in someone's head or in a shared checklist, the same questions keep coming up:
Where does this client stand?
Who has the next step?
What are we waiting on?
Did anything get missed?
Workflows are Vega's answer to those questions.
You define a process once, as a series of stages and tasks. Each time you start it for a client, Vega creates the right tasks at the right time, assigns them to the right people, and moves the workflow forward as the work gets done.
Workflows in Vega
There are two things to know about:
Workflow template: a process your firm runs the same way for every client
Workflow: one run of a template for one client
For example:
a template = New client onboarding
a workflow = New client onboarding: Everson, Tom and Debbie
A template is made of three building blocks:
Stages: the phases of the process, in order (for example, Paperwork, Signatures, and Funding)
Tasks: the work each stage creates, with a name, a description, a priority, and a due date
Roles: who does the work (for example, Advisor, Service, and Operations)
Tasks are assigned to roles. Each workflow fills its roles with people when it starts, so the same template works for every advisor and service team at your firm.
Tasks vs workflows
A task is one thing to do, such as calling a client back. A workflow is for work your firm repeats, with several steps that need to happen in order.
How a workflow moves forward
A workflow moves forward on its own as tasks get done:
When a stage starts, Vega creates its tasks and assigns them to the people in their roles. The tasks of a stage run side by side.
Your team works through those tasks. They are regular Vega tasks, so they appear in each person's task list.
Once none of the stage's tasks is open, the next stage starts on its own. A task stops being open when it is Completed or Cancelled. A task that is Waiting or Blocked is still open.
When the last stage is done, the workflow is marked Completed.
Because a stage's tasks are only created when it starts, your task list only shows work that can be done now.
How due dates work
A task's due date is set when its stage starts, for example 3 business days later. Business days run Monday to Friday, and holidays are not skipped.
Set up your workflow templates
A workflow always starts from a template, so this is the first step for your firm.
Who can set up workflow templates?
Only users with admin permissions can create, edit, and delete templates. Other users can open the templates shared with them to read them.
Start from a starter template
Vega comes with three starter templates you can adapt to your firm:
Starter template | What it covers | Stages |
New client onboarding | From signed agreement to funded and invested accounts | Kickoff, Paperwork, Signatures, Account opening, Funding, Invest, Wrap-up |
Money movement | Distributions, journals, and transfers out, from the client's request to confirming it's done | Prepare, Signature, Submit, Confirm to client |
Prospect pipeline | One workflow per prospect, from the intro meeting to a decision | Intro meeting, Discovery, Proposal, Decision |
To add one:
Go to the Workflow templates page (click Templates on the Workflows page).
If your firm already has templates, click Add template.
Click Use this template on the starter you want.
Vega adds the template to your firm and opens it so you can adapt it. Every role starts with you as its default person, so update them before your team starts using the template.
To build a process from the beginning, click Start from scratch instead.
Edit a template
Open a template to change any part of it:
Name and description: what the process covers, and when to start it
Roles: click Add role, name it, and choose its default person
Stages: click Add stage, and drag stages to put them in order
Tasks: click Add task inside a stage, and drag a task to reorder it or move it to another stage
Each task has:
Task name
Role
Number of business days after the stage starts when it is due (0 means the day the stage starts)
Priority (Low, Medium, High)
Description, which can hold instructions or a checklist of steps
Click Save when you are done.
Choose who can use a template
New templates are visible to your whole firm. To narrow that, open the template's Access tab and use:
Visible to users: specific people at your firm
Visible to teams: one or more teams
Visible to everyone in the firm: your whole firm
Access decides who sees the template, who can start workflows from it, and who has it suggested after meetings. Users with admin permissions can edit every template, but a template must also be shared with them for them to start a workflow from it.
Changing a template later
Every workflow runs on its own copy of the template, made when it starts. Editing or deleting a template only affects workflows started afterwards.
The one thing to watch for: if you delete a stage that active workflows are in, they stay in it. They appear in an extra column on the board until someone moves them to another stage.
How to start a workflow
There are several ways to start a workflow, depending on where the need comes up.
Manually
You can start a workflow from:
the Start workflow button on the Workflows page
the (+) button at the top right of the Vega web platform, by selecting Workflow
the Workflows tab of a contact or household page
the search shortcut (Cmd + K on Mac, Ctrl + K on Windows), by selecting Start workflow
If you are on a page linked to a client, Vega fills that client in for you.
In the Start workflow window:
Choose the Template.
Choose the contacts or households the workflow is for.
Review the Name. Vega suggests one from the template and the client.
Under Roles, review the person for each role. They start with the template's default people.
Under Access, choose who else can see the workflow. It starts from your default access, and it is always visible to you and the people in its roles.
Under Tasks, uncheck anything this client does not need.
Click Start workflow.
For example, if a new client has no rollovers or annuities, you can uncheck "Request non-ACAT transfers" in the onboarding template. If you uncheck every task in a stage, that stage is skipped.
Once you start the workflow, its first stage begins. The other people in its roles receive an email saying the workflow started, and each task assignee receives the usual task assignment notification. Each person can turn these off in the Preferences tab in their Vega settings (Workflow start notifications and Task assignment notifications).
Post-meeting suggestions
After a meeting, Vega can suggest starting a workflow as part of its post-meeting suggestions, listed ahead of your other suggestions.
For example:
Start workflow "New client onboarding" for the Everson household
To decide, Vega reads each template's description and the names of its stages and tasks, so clear names lead to better suggestions.
Before anything starts, you can review the template, the name, the clients, the person for each role, the tasks to skip, and who can see the workflow.
Vega may also suggest individual tasks next to the workflow. If the workflow already covers them, discard those task suggestions so the work is not duplicated.
Chat threads & Push-to-Talk (PTT)
You can also ask for a workflow directly from a Vega chat thread, by typing or dictating (press and hold the space bar on your keyboard):
"Start the money movement workflow for Ben Lewis."
Vega prepares it as a suggestion, and the workflow starts once you have reviewed and submitted it.
Using a CRM?
If you have Salesforce, HubSpot, Wealthbox, Redtail, or Microsoft Dynamics 365 connected, Vega's suggestions create records in your CRM. It suggests a Vega workflow when the client exists only in Vega.
You can always start a Vega workflow manually. Vega workflows and their tasks live only in Vega.
Tracking your workflows
The Workflows page gives you two views: a board and a list.
Board view
The board has one tab per template, one column per stage, and one card per active workflow. The workflows that have been in a stage the longest appear first.
Each card shows:
the client
how long the workflow has been in the stage, in business days
how many of the stage's tasks are done
Waiting if every open task in the stage has the status Waiting
Overdue if an open task in the stage is past its due date
This is useful when you want to see every client in a process at a glance, and spot what is stuck.
List view
The list shows workflows across all your templates. You can search by name and filter by:
Template
Status (Active, Completed, Cancelled)
Contacts and households
Tags
It shows active workflows by default. To find finished ones, change the Status filter.
On a contact or household page
The Workflows tab of a contact or household page lists that client's workflows, under Active and Closed. Workflow tasks also keep the workflow's clients, so they appear with the client's other tasks.
In your tasks
Workflow tasks show up on the Tasks page with the name of their workflow. Hover over the name to see the stage, or click it to open the workflow. You can also use the Workflow filter on the Tasks page to see the tasks of a specific template.
You can update these tasks from anywhere, like any other task, and the workflow moves forward on its own. The one difference is that workflow tasks cannot repeat.
In the Vega chat
You can also ask Vega where things stand.
For example:
"Where does the Everson onboarding stand?"
"Which clients are in the Signatures stage?"
"Which onboarding workflows are still active?"
Inside a workflow
When you open a workflow, the top of the page shows its progress bar, its current stage, its template, and its clients. Click the Created / Updated line to see its history.
Stages tab
This is where the work is. Each stage shows where it stands:
the current stage shows its tasks, and you can edit their status, priority, and due date directly from the list
upcoming stages show their planned tasks, with who will get them and when they will be due
past stages keep their tasks, so a task closed by mistake can be reopened
Click Add task in the current stage when a client needs something the template does not cover. The task gets the workflow's clients and access, and the next stage waits for it like any other task.
Next to the stages, you can add tags and leave comments for your team. Comments stay available after the workflow is completed or cancelled.
Access tab
This is where you choose who can see the workflow. People and teams you add also get its tasks, including the ones it creates later. Removing someone leaves them with the tasks they already have, and the people in its roles always keep access.
Edit a workflow
Anyone with access to an active workflow can click Edit to change:
Name
Clients: every task of the workflow is relinked to the new clients
Roles: the change applies to stages that have not started, and existing tasks keep their assignee
If the person in a role leaves your firm, new tasks for that role go to the workflow's owner, who is usually the person who started it, until you choose someone else.
Move a workflow to another stage
Client work sometimes goes off plan. To move a workflow yourself, either drag its card on the board, or click Edit, then Move to stage. The Move to stage window tells you what will happen before you confirm.
A few things to know:
Open tasks stay open: the stage you leave keeps its open tasks and is marked Unfinished. Closing them later leaves the workflow where it is.
Jumped stages are skipped: if you move past a stage that has not started, its tasks are not created.
Tasks are only created once: a stage that already has tasks keeps them when you move back to it.
A workflow you move back stays there: it only moves on when a task in that stage changes status, even if all of them are already closed. To work on the stage again, reopen a task or add one.
Reopening a task from a past stage leaves the workflow where it is.
Cancel or delete a workflow
Both options are in the Edit window. Neither can be undone.
| The workflow | Its tasks |
Cancel workflow | Stays as a record with the status Cancelled. No other stage starts, and it cannot be restarted. | Open tasks are cancelled. Completed tasks stay as they are. |
Delete | Is removed from Vega. | Stay as ordinary tasks, without a workflow. |
Use Cancel workflow when a process stops, such as a prospect who decides not to move forward, and you want to keep the record. Use Delete when a workflow should not have existed, such as one started for the wrong client.
A practical way to think about it
A template is how your firm does something.
A workflow is that process for one client.
Tasks are what each person needs to do next.
Users with admin permissions define the process once. From then on, your team focuses on the task in front of them, and Vega keeps track of what comes after it.