Author: Josh

So, You Use DropBox As Your Secure Data Room Or LP Portal?

Posted on April 26, 2021 by - Investor Relations & LP Experience

We have interesting conversations with clients and prospects regularly about our ShareSecure virtual data room and secure data rooms in general.

In those discussions, we’ve found that there are some common misconceptions that people in the financial industry have about data room security. And, unfortunately, these “myths” represent a real risk. In some cases, people who believe them end up paying for more security than they’re getting in return or paying for features they don’t need.

But there’s an even worse potential outcome. Some of the people we talk with are using protective measures that are easily circumvented or no protective measures at all. This leaves them vulnerable to a security breach that can have both immediate and lasting consequences.

In the short term, there is the time, effort, and money expended to investigate and remedy the breach. And over the long term, the damage to a firm’s reputation for having failed to protect stakeholder data can be disastrous.

Below are the three misconceptions we encounter most often.

Myth #1 – More Security Features Equals Greater Data Room Security

Frankly, this statement depends on how you define security. If you’re just referring to the number of “security features,” then certainly some secure data room providers can tout a long list of features they’ve built into their systems.

In building our secure data room, we carefully considered the feature set and have intentionally not included a number of features because we feel that much of the functionality that expensive legacy secure data rooms offer isn’t relevant to the market they serve. Consequently, it drives up the cost of the product unnecessarily. That’s great for the provider, but not for the consumer.

One of these features, for example, is limiting a user’s ability to print or take screenshots of documents. When this feature was first introduced by those providers long ago, no one had camera phones, so preventing someone from printing hard copies of reports or taking a screenshot actually meant that, to a large extent, you could keep them from illicitly sharing information.

Today, everyone has a camera in their pocket and a continuous internet connection. Nevertheless, some people still consider printing/screenshot restrictions (and other outdated functionality) to be important and will continue to pay for it. But the truth is that if information is accessible online and people have bad intentions, there will always be ways to share it. As a result, forcing customers who need a secure data room to pay for this outdated and unnecessary feature is unreasonable.

Myth #2 – Well-Known Data Rooms Are More Secure

In the Private Equity industry, we’ve found that many people consider Dropbox to be the gold standard for sharing documents with LPs. However, you may have read this article on Dropbox security explaining that  a number of sensitive documents that were shared on the platform ended up freely accessible on the internet. 

That’s a call nobody wants to have with an investor or other stakeholder!

The same security flaw was present on the Box file sharing platform at the time. In each case, the security breach resulted from a design choice to make sharing links easier. Both platforms have been updated since this issue was discovered, of course, but the incidents underscore an important point: The big data room providers are no less susceptible to security flaws. And, you could argue that being a well-known platform makes them more of a target for hackers.

These breaches also highlight some of the drawbacks of financial institutions relying on a data-sharing service that was designed for general consumer use rather than specifically for a firm’s needs.

Myth #3 – Complete Data Room Security is Achievable

As noted above, if information can be displayed on an electronic device, it can be copied, shared, and sent around the world in seconds. There’s simply no way around that. That’s a troubling reality to wrestle with, but it’s important to keep in mind that your documents and data are safer online today than they are in a filing cabinet in your office.

The objective with developing and maintaining online secure data rooms isn’t to create something that is immune to cyberattacks at all cost. Rather, the goal is to build virtual data rooms that are affordable and highly secure while still facilitating the efficient and effective exchange of information. You’ve got to protect your data, but you also have to close deals.

In other words, it’s about balance. You want a secure data room like ShareSecure that gives you the best of both worlds.

Click here to learn more about our data room, ShareSecure.

How Can I Target Investors with Private Equity Fundraising Software?

Posted on April 23, 2021 by - Fundraising Strategy

When it comes to private equity fundraising software, potential clients often start the conversation by inquiring, “How can I better target investors for my private equity fundraising?” That’s a common question but one that doesn’t have an easy answer. 

It’s no surprise that GP-LP communications have quickly risen to the top of the priority list as far as fundraising goes. That shift in priorities has occurred primarily because these days, when fund managers have to reach a broader audience while prospecting, efficient and effective communication is a must. And improved targeting is the key. 

But to appreciate today’s advanced targeting techniques, you have to understand private equity’s history in this area.

How Firms Operated Before Private Equity Fundraising Software

In the past, fund managers relied on highly manual processes to get their work done. Often, they used Excel spreadsheets or similar tools in conjunction with an email program of some kind to do a passable job of capturing contact information, tracking prospects’ activity, and communicating with them during fundraising. 

Notice the use of “in conjunction with” rather than “integrated with.” That lack of connectivity was one of many significant failings of this approach. 

This method wasn’t ideal, and it definitely wasn’t scalable. It allowed fund managers to get by at the time, but with today’s increased “need for speed” in an increasingly competitive industry, they are realizing that there has to be a better way. 

There is, of course. Technology has improved dramatically over what was available just 5-10 years ago. Tools like our advanced CRM patform for private equity, are helping progressive firms operate more efficiently and scale their operations effortlessly.

Tools To Target Investors

As for prospect targeting specifically, Altvia Correspond Market Edition solves this major fundraising challenge. Market Edition is an email communication tool that is fully integrated with our platform.

Using the solution, fund managers can leverage their entire network and easily identify which prospects to target for their next fundraising cycle. No patchwork outreach. No “swivel chair automation.” Everything they need is in one system that serves as what we call a single source of truth.

For instance, let’s say your firm wants to announce their latest fundraise. Market Edition allows you to easily create contact “smart lists” directly from your records based on virtually any criteria of your choosing, including contact type or role, and contact location. 

You can also use filters to do things like find fundraising prospects that passed on the previous fund but requested that you follow up with them during the next fundraise.

In short, you can easily identify the right prospects for your fundraising and quickly send an email blast that arrives to each recipient fully personalized. 

It’s a great way to start this type of engagement, or any interaction, including things like planning a roadshow.

Targeting and Timing Are Everything

At the end of the day, fundraising is about connecting with the right people at the right time. Private equity fundraising software empowers you to do exactly that. 
Plus, being highly targeted in your outreach means that you don’t bother people who wouldn’t be interested in a particular offering. That leaves them much more receptive to communications about funds that do interest them.

Altvia – The Customizable Fund Manager Software on Salesforce

Posted on April 22, 2021 by - CRM & Data Management

Altvia is a customizable fund manager software on Salesforce. It allows for easy management of fundraising, portfolio tracking, and reporting while also allowing users to customize their experience with third-party add-ons that provide advanced features to power firm workflows.

Altvia can be accessed anywhere through the internet or mobile devices, which makes it an ideal solution for those constantly on the go.

Altvia vs. Salesforce

Altvia is the go-to platform for Alternative Asset Managers, who love Salesforce but find that it doesn’t provide features specific to the industry. One example of this is Salesforce Private Equity/Venture Capital template. While it is a well-built product it is not a scalable solution, making it an investment without long-term potential.

Altvia’s proprietary “Interactions” functionality dynamically and automatically links data and contact information to ensure your CRM is up-to-date and accurate. Files, meeting notes, and contacts stay aligned for a 360-degree view of your firm’s activities.

Salesforce’s native activities functionality allows you to track meeting notes but limits the number of companies, deals, or fundraising opportunities to one. Comprehensive interaction tracking would require duplicative data entry, which would still result in a fragmented set of answers to a simple question: what you talked about with whom. We’ve invested thousands of hours enhancing Interactions’ flexibility, and trying to reproduce them would prove frustrating and expensive.

Build vs. Buy Your Fund Manager Software

Altvia’s CRM comes out of the box with industry-specific reports built based on best practices and feedback from clients within the industry. The system allows users to create print-ready reports with the click of a button.

Consultants will likely need to start from scratch when building reports designed for Private Capital Markets. The construction of these reports will be based entirely on the feedback of the firm and likely will not be based on the industry experience the consultant has. Ultimately, more time and money will be required to design and build insightful reports.

Salesforce is a platform selected for its flexibility and user-friendliness. You don’t need to have the technical expertise to build databases within the platform.

If time and resources can be dedicated to a custom database, an extremely viable fund management CRM software can be developed on the Salesforce platform.

Keeping the necessary questions in mind before deciding whether to build or buy is important.

Generally, these questions include:

  • Who will support the system?
  • Who will maintain the system?
  • How will the solution continue to grow and evolve?
  • What happens if the employee who supports and maintains the system leaves the organization?

Why Fund Managers Choose Altvia

Designed for alternative investments, Altvia is a solution built on the Salesforce platform,  trusted by hundreds of fund managers since 2006. When you work with Altvia, you are partnered with an experienced team of Private Capital Markets project managers and data experts who understand how our product solves top industry issues and best practices.

Implementation includes personalized sessions with a designated project manager to identify your unique day-to-day functions and make a customized platform that reflects existing processes. We ensure the platform is effective for you from day one. We also offer 24/5 support from our internal support team. We’re here to answer your questions and offer guidance throughout your journey on our platform.

Altvia has grown to be the leading fund manager software through industry-specific technology experts and years of experience.

Increasing Transparency for Private Equity Fund Administration

Posted on April 21, 2021 by - Fundraising Strategy

According to a recent study by SEI News, after several years of underwhelming performance and lack of liquidity, many private equity fund administration teams are trying to increase transparency to attract and retain skeptical investors. 

After all, confidence is—as it should be—a critical element when it comes to making a commitment. 

A great way to provide the transparency that stakeholders crave, both in fundraising and investing, is to implement a purpose-built and intuitive fund management software platform. 

Not only does this type of system simplify private equity fund administration for the primary users, it makes it fast and efficient to provide information and insight to anyone outside the firm who needs it. 

What Is “Transparency” in Private Equity?

From a fundraising perspective, transparency starts by knowing where you are in the process. You have to have an accurate understanding of your progress in order to communicate information clearly and concisely to investors. 

For example, if you have a first close and are planning on a second close at a specific future date, having clarity on where you are in your overall fundraising process at any given time enables a GP or manager to be transparent regarding their fundraising activities.  

The right private equity fund administration system can also provide important information should any issues arise with the fundraise. Specifically, a system that helps track detailed data on your contacts could prove invaluable in a case involving alleged malfeasance by consultants or other intermediaries. 

Documenting the connections between your fundraising prospects and your fundraising activities can be critical to understanding and explaining your level of involvement. Without that type of easily accessed “audit trail,” you could find yourself having to do much more work to outline what has happened. 

A private equity fund administration system can be useful on the investing side, as well. In particular, the fact that it provides a central database of all the contacts at each of your investors is very helpful. 

Ensuring that everyone is using the same contract records and has easy access to them is critical.  

Tools To Assist With Transparency and Private Equity Fund Administration

Another critical facet of transparency is understanding who is expecting to hear from you and how often they want to receive communications from you. 

There is such a thing as providing too much information to busy stakeholders, who may feel compelled to look at everything you send so as not to miss something particularly important. 

Consequently, it is important to have a way to track interaction preferences. 

Our data management platform has features that enable users to record these types of characteristics.

Pair it with a means of streamlining and tracking communications with investors, such as our ShareSecure LP Portal, and you have the capabilities you need to quickly and easily share information with all relevant parties—and only relevant parties.

If you’re putting together monthly or quarterly updates, a virtual data room and GP-LP engagement platform like ShareSecure empowers your team to share those documents in a secure fashion. And as you do, you also have visibility into how often your investors are accessing the information.

Private Equity Fund Administration Requires Effective Data Management

Full transparency in private equity fund administration requires tracking the data you want to share, and that requires having a defined process in place for collecting information—financial or otherwise—on the performance of portfolio companies. If you don’t have that data, you can’t produce the content that you would turn around and share with your LPs.

And, of course, if that information isn’t well organized and accessible, you may as well not have it at all. A private equity fund administration solution enables you to turn disparate information into valuable data and actionable insights.

Adding Executive Sponsors to Software Implementation is a Must

Posted on April 14, 2021 by - Private Equity Technology

A Good Executive Sponsor is Essential

Software implementation of any type requires planning, technical setup, training, and change management. These actions are particularly important for fund administration software implementations. 

However, none of them can be done effectively without proper buy-in from all levels of the organization. 

Unfortunately, many companies assign software implementations to employees who don’t have the knowledge or expertise to properly understand the full scope of the project. 

These people also may not have the authority within the organization to secure the necessary resources to get the job done. 

Consequently, having a good executive sponsor is critical to a successful fund administration software implementation.

What is an Executive Sponsorship in a Software Implementation?

Executive sponsorship is a term commonly used in project management that refers to a situation where a senior-level executive is responsible for the business success of a project.

In software sales, typically a small number of stakeholders are involved in making the decision whether or not to purchase a product. In most cases, this decision will impact a much larger portion of the company. 

In the case of a customer relationship management (CRM) tool, for example, the selection impacts almost everyone in the organization. A CRM software implementation can be a daunting task that not only requires things like technical expertise and user training but change management as well.

Having an executive sponsor on the software implementation team significantly increases a project’s likelihood of success. For one thing, it helps ensure that the software is being set up in a way that will support business needs at a higher level of the organization. 

This oversight also promotes the adoption of the new product at whatever scale is appropriate.

Why is a Sponsorship Important?

At Altvia, we work with people in a variety of roles during the sales process, depending on the firm—CEOs, managing partners, data analysts, heads of investor relations, and others. Most often, an engagement is initiated by associates or analysts who realize there is a better, more efficient way to address tedious, manual data entry. 

They conduct extensive research into which tool is the best fit for their firm, thoroughly vetting the company they choose before the software implementation begins. 

(Note: If you are currently in this process, our free Buyers Guide to Private Equity Technology can be extremely valuable to you.)

However, after the purchase decision is made, all too often the responsibility for integrating the product into the company’s operations is carelessly tossed to lower-level employees. This can occur for a number of reasons. In some cases, these team members are perceived to have more time available. They may also be assigned the task as a form of “paying their dues” or, more positively, to help with their professional development and add to their understanding of the organization’s operations. 

Whatever the reason, a few things usually happen at this point. The firm must assess its data quality in order to extract old information from its original source and seamlessly transfer it into the new system. 

Often, it is during this process that people have some realizations about the quality of their data. There may be contacts that are duplicated several times, they may not have had all the right information in the right fields, or they need to define additional fields in order to create accurate and clean reports. 

Then, frustration sets in. Team members who also have day-to-day tasks on their plate start to feel overwhelmed with the amount of work necessary to ensure the software implementation is successful. 

Generally, the reality is that the task isn’t as daunting as it seems. But nevertheless, this perspective affects their opinion of the new system. 

As a result, they struggle to see the new system’s potential and may be less likely to begin using it and less interested in taking the time to learn how to use it effectively.

An executive sponsor understands these types of software implementation roadblocks and knows how to lead team members, and the organization as a whole, around them. 

How to Engage an Executive Sponsor in a Software Implementation

So, who needs to be involved in a fund administration software implementation? From our work on countless projects, we recommend having:

  • A senior-level champion to guide the process and lend support. They should be engaged as needed to keep the project moving forward, but not weighed down by small details. So, as described below, providing them with clear, concise information, and queuing up any challenges the software implementation team faces in a way that the sponsor can address them effectively is essential.  
  • A mid-level employee who is more hands-on with the firm’s technology and applications. This person still should be senior enough to understand all of the firm’s “moving parts” and how business processes work independently and within overall operations. They must know what data needs to be tracked and also have enough authority within the organization to effectively engage other senior executives for feedback.

Keep in mind that effective communication is key for every employee affected by a software implementation. That includes interacting with the executive sponsor as needed. 

Here are some tips for engaging your executive sponsor during a software implementation from the Guide to Project Management:

  1. Be trustworthy: Trust is built over time, but it’s very valuable. Executives will be more inclined to engage with you and the project if they trust what you are doing. You can earn their confidence by delivering on your promises, completing tasks, and showing that you know what it takes to get things done.
  2. Be structured: Being organized in the way you plan, communicate, and execute helps set expectations (and also helps build trust!). It’s easier for an executive to engage with someone they know isn’t going to waste their time by being disorganized.
  3. Be clear: Ditch the jargon and technical terms in your communications with executives. They don’t have time and probably won’t have the patience to try to figure out what you’re talking about. Keep it simple, clear, and concise.
  4. Be transparent: Hiding problems is a bad strategy at any time, and working with an executive sponsor on a software implementation is certainly no exception. Be transparent about problems the project is facing so the sponsor can determine how to help you. Plus, an executive would much rather know about a problem upfront than be blindsided by it down the road.
  5. Be flexible: Every person—like every software implementation—is different. So, be adaptable in your communication type and style. Some sponsors are more formal than others. Some prefer somewhat more detail while others will only listen to an overview. Make sure you’re tailoring your communications and expectations to the project and the sponsor.

It is difficult to understate the significance of executive sponsorship in a fund administration software implementation project. Identifying the right sponsor is an important part of the planning phase. It is a decision that you should not take lightly. 

Without the right people backing your decisions and driving the implementation in the right direction, even the ideal software solution can fall flat and wind up being rarely or ineffectively used in a year. Or worse, it can be discarded altogether, resulting in a significant waste of time and money.

Looking for more information on how to transition your data from Excel or your legacy software? 

Succession Planning Is Critical for Private Equity Firms

Posted on April 7, 2021 by - Investor Relations & LP Experience

Succession Planning for Private Equity Firms is Essential to Long-Term Financial Success

Succession planning is important for any type of business that would like to see the legacy continue after the founding members are gone. Often, private equity firms put a great deal of thought and effort into the succession planning of their operating companies, yet fail to practice what they preach when it comes to their own firm.

Succession planning refers to the process of ensuring that an organization’s operations continue uninterrupted and that its performance doesn’t suffer in the event that one or more leaders depart. A principal’s exit can be planned or unplanned, but either way, the departure can cause tremendous upheaval in the organization. Just as importantly, without proper succession planning, a change of leadership can be a cause of concern for investors and portfolio companies.

Private equity firms suffer the same consequences of poor succession planning as other types of companies. It can lead to a loss of customers, talent turnover, and reduced company performance. 

But the unique nature of private equity relationships introduces additional threats to the company when succession planning isn’t done right or doesn’t happen at all. International leadership development strategist Jenn DeWall shares, “For private equity, this can mean loss of investor trust, leading to fewer investments, instability in relationship management, and gaps in asset management.”

Why is Proper Succession Planning Important for Private Equity Firms?

It’s important for private equity leaders to understand that experienced LPs recognize that poor succession planning can be bad for their returns. Many will want to know about the firm’s succession plan during due diligence. Those private equity firms that can’t provide clear answers that reflect the careful preparation they’ve done are considered riskier investments.

This is because private equity leadership is unique. Your firm needs leaders who understand the intricacies of navigating relationships with a variety of stakeholders, including partners, investors, and leadership teams of portfolio companies, not to mention their own firm’s internal team. 

They also must be able to understand how to continue to maintain a strategic focus on value creation in current investments, while simultaneously developing new opportunities. There are not many people in the industry who have the skill and experience to understand and effectively address these factors, particularly through a period of transition.

When a leadership exit occurs in a private equity firm, there is a significant risk that the transition period will be chaotic. It can often result in key partners and/or employees leaving the organization, as well. It can also create changes in the firm’s strategic focus. These and other negative potential outcomes can impact investors’ returns, even as they are stuck in a long-term contract. 

If the ship isn’t righted quickly, investors begin to feel the burn and will react accordingly. And they should be expected to. Nobody enjoys suffering losses, in particular those that could have been avoided with better succession planning. Not only will the firm find it difficult to retain investors, it will also have a tough time bringing in new ones.

5 Private Equity Succession Planning Best Practices

Simply having a succession plan shouldn’t be any firm’s objective. There is a right way and a wrong way (really, many wrong ways) to do succession planning. In our experience, the five best practices below are essential. 

  1. Start early.

It is never too early to begin succession planning. A great example of this is the story of Blue Point Capital. This mid-sized firm had a succession plan almost from the very beginning, and was able to exercise that plan by their third round of funding.

The earlier you begin your firm’s succession planning, the easier it is to put the rest of these best practices into place. It also gives you ample time to groom your next generation of leaders, helps your firm react to an unplanned exit easily, and improves transparency and communication among investors and the internal team. When you plan for succession early on, it becomes an organic transition rather than a knee-jerk reaction.

  1. Remember that firm culture rules.

A positive firm culture is critical to effective succession planning for several reasons. First, if you’ve developed a sense of ownership and fairness in economic outcomes among your team members, they’re much less likely to react negatively to a leadership transition.

Developing a culture of open, honest communication and full transparency also helps with the transition. It means that you’ve been communicating with staff, partners, and investors openly about your succession plan so that there are no major surprises when it happens.

Further, when your firm has a culture that is focused on the professional development of employees, it becomes much easier to promote from within. This way, you’ll know that the next generation of leaders intimately understands the business, the culture, and the firm’s shared values. Developing your next generation of leaders should include a mix of leadership development training and mentorship programs.

When the time is right and you’ve identified the right people, promoting co-leaders in order to give them hands-on experience and training is very beneficial. As the founding leadership team of many top private equity firms are entering their twilight years, this approach to transitioning to the next generation of leaders is proving quite valuable. Bain Capital and KKR & Co. are two examples of top firms incorporating new co-leadership positions into their succession plans.

  1. Keep a “portfolio” of leadership contenders.

Many private equity firms create a “portfolio” of potential CEO contenders for the companies in which they invest. But this is also a good practice for your firm’s own succession planning. Some firms simply don’t have the resources or the talent pool to be able to promote from within. In that case, you will need to do an outside search for leadership talent.

Maintaining a list of potential next-gen firm leaders helps your leadership team keep an eye on their professional development and achievements over time in order to determine how well a person fits into the firm’s vision of the future. It also helps make the transition less time consuming and costly if there is an unplanned leadership exit.

  1. Develop fair incentive programs.

Including incentive programs for your firm’s next generation of leaders is a must in your succession planning. Too often, new leaders become frustrated and disenfranchised when they take on greater work and responsibilities in the firm without increased compensation, while the founder sits back and continues to take the lion’s share of economic benefit. This often leads to the successors leaving the firm prematurely to start their own firms.

Make sure your next generation of leaders are well compensated and cared for if you want to ensure your firm’s ongoing success. They need to feel a real sense of ownership in the organization, even if they weren’t the original founding members.

  1. Ensure leaders get comfortable with the idea of letting go.

Perhaps the most difficult thing for a founder to do is just let go. It’s risky to hand the reins over to young and less-experienced team members. Founders worry that they’ll watch everything that they’ve worked so hard to build crumble. It’s a legitimate concern, but one that must be pushed aside if you want your succession plan to be a success.

New leaders will likely do some things in a different way and make different decisions than a founder might. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It’s vital that current leaders not let their egos stop their firms from continuing on without them.

Succession planning is inherently difficult in any type of organization. For private equity firms, it’s even more so. 

The transition that takes place when a key leader exits a firm can cause a significant amount of stress and financial pain—for the private equity firm as well as investors. But putting a transparent and fair succession plan into action early on, and ensuring it’s one that focuses on the development of your internal team, can smooth the transition and make sure your operations get back on track as quickly as possible.

Here’s How to Migrate Data to Content In Salesforce

Posted on April 1, 2021 by - Private Equity Technology

Altvia’s advanced platform solution built on top of Salesforce utilizes Force.com’s Account/Company and Contact features. Altvia takes the functionality further with proprietary integrations and interactions to migrate data. This includes connections with products like email marketing, an LP portal, and our data visualization tool. 

The result is a solution that enables firms to raise and deploy capital effectively, maintain compliance, and deliver a secure, reliable, and transparent experience to stakeholders and investors.  

First, however, you have to migrate data into the system. 

In order to make that process easier, our team of experts compiled their knowledge of Salesforce (SF) into clear, concise instructions.  

Use this guide to migrate data, including documents and attachments, to the Content section of Salesforce.com and you can be operational and productive in no time.

Note: there is a per-day limit of 5,000 files for Content submissions as you migrate data.

Covert the org to use content

  • Enable Content and add all users as Content users.
  • Replace Attachments-related lists throughout the system and add related lists for Content (done by adding a lookup to the objects as custom fields on Content-Type layouts).
  • No new attachments can be added during the migration. You might have to do this after-hours to limit disruption.
 

Exports you will need to Migrate data

Attachments & Document Files: Start by doing a full Export including all files from within SF. This will get you all the attachments, documents, etc. named by their record ID in SF.

  • Setup->Data Management->Data Export->Export Now.
  • Be sure to check “Include in Export” at top and “Include all Data” at bottom.
  • Note: If an export has been done in the last 48 hours, you will not have the option to “Export Now”. You will have to wait.
  • The Export will complete in 5 minutes to 2 hours depending on its size and SF system availability, and an email will be sent to the app-xprod email address. Alternatively, you can periodically refresh the page.
  • One or more .zip files should be on the Data Export screen after it has completed.
  • Download all of them…they will only be available for 48 hours.
  • Place the .zip files somewhere on your local machine.
  • Extract all of them within a folder:

  1. Will result in multiple .csv files of the data. These can be deleted or filed elsewhere.
  2. Will result in an Attachments folder with all attachments. You will need these. Make sure they are all in the same folder.
  3. Will result in a Documents folder with all documents. If migrating these, you will also need these.

Attachments Data.csv: Export all current attachments in Data Loader. Exclude the column “Body” from the export.

  • Keep the original Attachments export .csv in a safe place. You’ll probably need to refer to it.
  • Verify the number of Attachments in this export matches the number you have in the Attachments folder from the Export. Ditto if you are also migrating Documents. 

ContentVersion.csv: Export the current CONTENT (Content Version) table in Data Loader. Exclude the column “VERSIONDATA” from the Export.

  • Keep the original file as you’ll probably need it later. 
 

Build your import file

Build your Content Version .csv by first exporting a test record from the Content Version table in data loader. Exclude the “VERSIONDATA” column from the export. Include the following columns or delete the rest after export.

  • ID: Unique ID of Current version of Document that is displayed when you click on a document. Will be blank in the import file.
  • CONTENTDOCUMENTID: Unique ID of a Content Document. Different than above. Will be blank in the import file.
  • TITLE: This is what the document will be called. Title of the document from the Attachments table or other sources.
  • VERSIONDATA: Full file path to the document being inserted without file type extension (i.e. C:ClientsAttachments0PA000002gpI3Mai). See Helpful Hints below. Must be populated and without file extension.
  • PATHONCLIENT: Full file path to the document being inserted with file type extension (i.e. C:ClientsAttachments0PA000002gpI3Mai.pdf). This tells Content what the file type is so that the document can be previewed in SF. If the extension is not assigned correctly, the import is pretty much worthless. See Helpful Hints below; Must be populated and with the file extension.
  • OWNERID: In the case of attachments related to other records, this is the owner id (18 char) of the other record, not the attachment (depending on how attachments were loaded, you may be able to simply take the owner of the attachment). This is because some attachments have the owner as the Admin if they were loaded via an API call. You want the actual Owner, as any security in the org is driven off of that (Requires additional vLookup to the export of the related records tables); must be populated.
  • FIRSTPUBLISHLOCATIONID: This is the workspace ID (18 char) that you are inserting each document into. Must be populated.
  • RECORDTYPEID: This is the ContentType ID (18 char) of the Content-type you want to assign to this document. Must be populated if more than one Content-Type defined in the org. Otherwise, it defaults to General and you don’t need the column.
  • ALL APPROPRIATE LOOKUPS to other objects (i.e. Contact__C, Account__C). Optional.
  • ALL APPROPRIATE FILTERS (i.e. Document_Type__C, Year__C. Needs to be populated manually if you want to filter information. Optional.
  • ALL APPROPRIATE LEGACY IDS: We like to add the id of the document from where it came from (may be internal or external IDs). Optional, but highly recommended.
 

Helpful hints before you migrate data

  • Build your VERSION DATA: Add the static path in one cell in your .csv (i.e. G2 has “C:ClientsAttachments” in it). Add the appropriate attachment ID for this document (i.e. H2 has “00PA000002gpI3Mai” in it). Build the file path by using concatenate function below; G2&H2. Should result in C:ClientsAttachments0PA000002gpI3Mai.
  • Determine File Type: Use formula below to extract the characters after the period at the end of the title of the document to grab the file extension. A2 is the cell reference containing the Title of the document that has an extension (i.e. Sample.pdf); =RIGHT(A2,LEN(A2)-FIND(“^^”,SUBSTITUTE(A2,”.”,”^^”,LEN(A2)-LEN(SUBSTITUTE(A2,”.”,””))))); Result should be “pdf”. Eyeball all the results for sort by the results as many times you get “.pd” or “.xl”. Fix the title of these documents so you get a legit file extension.
  • Build your PATHONCLIENT: Concatenate the contents of VERSIONDATA that you already built (C:ClientsAttachments0PA000002gpI3Mai) with the result of the file type you have determined (i.e. “.pdf”). Use concatenate function to give you the following result (i.e. =G2&”.”&H2…note the addition of period in quotes); C:ClientsAttachments0PA000002gpI3Mai.pdf.
  • Data Loader 21.0 does not report on “File not Found” Errors. It gives you no error or success file record for this situation. Suggest using Data Loader 20.0 for loading of Content Version table.
  • CSV’s are finicky. You cannot have more than 1 worksheet in a given .csv. Well, you can, but when you save, it will delete all but the first.
  • VLOOKUP: Excellent function. You will need to use it.
  • FIXID: If you happen to have 15 char ids, you can use Excel function =FIXID(A2) where A2 contains the 15 char id.

Following the instructions above will help you migrate data more efficiently and give you positive forward momentum in implementation and product adoption.

Fund Management Software: Managing Documents in the Cloud

Posted on March 31, 2021 by - Private Equity Technology

There are two facts that define today’s alternative investment industry. One, the data contained in documents is its lifeblood, and being able to access those documents whenever and from wherever you need to is critical in an increasingly competitive business. Two, firms that keep these facts in mind and take steps to address them by implementing the right fund management software give themselves a distinct advantage. Those that don’t inevitably fall behind.

Better Accessibility and Organization With Advanced Fund Management Software

If you work in alternative investments, you know that firms today generate and receive huge numbers of documents as part of their fundraising and due diligence processes. This massive “library” is essential to decision-making and a key to your success.

But simply having these documents isn’t enough. In order for them to be valuable, they have to be easily accessed and organized in a logical manner. Take too much time to locate important documents and you risk losing a deal. 

The days of storing documents on a local shared network drive are long gone. Or at least they should be. Issues ranging from confusing naming conventions to lack of remote access have historically led to terrible inefficiencies. 

Cloud storage gives you access to documents anytime, anywhere — a true game-changer.

Leading-Edge: Efficiency as a Foundation for Success

There are a number of factors that contribute to success in the financial industry. Experience and insight, for example, are crucial. But an often-overlooked attribute of successful firms is technology efficiency. 

Firms that improve the efficiency of their tech stack and processes tend to see a corresponding improvement in the bottom line. The two naturally go hand-in-hand.

Consequently, implementing leading-edge, cloud-based fund management software and the enhanced document management capabilities it offers is one of the best moves your firm can make.  

The linking of documents and other files to contact records, along with powerful search capability, makes it simple to find the information you need and get it to interested parties quickly. 

And, of course, there is no set “business hours” today. So, being able to find and share documents whenever stakeholders request them, and from anywhere, is vital.

Learn more about our full suite of solutions for alternative investment firms.

Automate Investor Relations With a Private Equity Platform

Posted on March 26, 2021 by - Investor Relations & LP Experience

With the COVID-19 pandemic creating physical distance between investors and fund managers, frequent communication with a private equity platform is even more paramount. 

Firms historically struggle to create a consistent and clear flow of information with their LPs, causing Investor Relations teams to feel stuck in a reactive state with limited tools to improve communication and visibility.

PEI asked 120 Fund Managers about their communications with investors and 61% stated LPs request more frequent reporting about portfolio company revenues in light of COVID-19. 

In this guide, we’re sharing how funds can keep in step with frequent reporting requests. 

For IR teams to drive key relationships and continue everyday engagements they need to:

Automate common workflows 

A maxim of productivity is to automate anything that is done more than twice. In IR departments several activities fall within this category and can be automated with a private equity platform. 

PPMs

A well-crafted PPM is an asset to investor relationship management. A PPM with modern design and thorough information can bolster confidence. Automate the process of creating your private placement memorandums so your investors see your consistency, attention to detail, and reliability. 

Cap Calls

Capital calls must be executed flawlessly to ensure the growth of your fund. Create a cap call template that includes your key information like the percentage of unfunded capital called for, due date, list of total commitments, name of the fund, and payment details. Once this template is in place, it should be added to your private equity platform so you can automatically deploy it when your firm finds its next promising deal. 

Distribution Notices

Managing distribution notices with an email service can become an administrative nightmare. Automating the distribution notices saves hours and ensures the communication schedule is reliable which cultivates LP trust.

Review communication coverage of investors and stakeholders with your private equity platform

Use interaction data provided by your communication platform to create a proactive plan for engagement. Develop a habit of reviewing tearsheets that summarize interactions with LPs. 

Measure engagement to inform follow up activities, and talking points

From your interaction reports and tearsheet review, you will see details of each interaction. Those details should be used to schedule further, meaningful connections with investors. 

Perhaps you need to schedule a brief touch base to inform an LP on the progress of a recent cap call. Perhaps you see a group of LPs is waiting on a report. Develop a practice of reviewing your LP interactions weekly and creating your task list from that. 

Provide self-serve analytics in a secure portal

Self-serve analytics is the norm for today’s tech-literate consumers. Provide investors access to as much data as possible while still maintaining a high level of communication. 

Most LPs appreciate the ability to dig into data and review it for their own purposes. Your private equity platform should have several options to display and deliver self-serve reports for investors. 

Proactive outreach earns trust

The state of investor communications has been indelibly changed. Proactive outreach to LPs is a new requirement. 

Use automation to optimize administrative tasks, follow-up based on previous interactions, accountability across the team, and share rich reports with LPs through a secure portal.

Through technology, communication can be automated without sacrificing the investor experience. Reduce time spent on one-off requests and take advantage of your data, interactions, and industry knowledge to build stronger investor relationships.

Deal Flow and Deal Management Technology

Posted on March 24, 2021 by - Deal & Pipeline Management

Perhaps more so than in any other industry, decision-making is critical to success in private equity and venture capital. Make the right deal flow decisions and you can achieve outstanding results. Make the wrong ones and the losses can be just as significant.

But how do you arrive at “right” and avoid “wrong”?

When it comes to deal flow and deal management, it is critical that you have the infrastructure and resources in place to make well-informed decisions.

Deal Management: Addressing the Key Components

Effective deal management requires that you have certain key elements to guide your strategy. First, you need to have current and accurate data. Without it, you are essentially operating blindfolded.

And while the data you uncover through your own efforts is very valuable, it is vital that you also have a way to obtain supplemental data and bring it into your deliberations. Tools like Pitchbook, DataFox, and SourceScrub can be extremely useful in this regard.

You also need to have firm-wide visibility into your pipeline. If everyone in your organization is simply assuming that deals are progressing as expected, with no easy way to confirm or challenge that assumption, that is a recipe for failure.

In addition, pipeline visibility is crucial when it comes to the timeliness of task completion. If a particularly important action isn’t taken when it should be because the right people did not “have eyes on” the flow, that failure can hurt your chances of closing a deal or, even if you do close the deal, keep you from maximizing the value of it.

Deal Flow and the Tech Stack: The Majority of Firms Are Looking to Improve

Blue Future Partners conducted a survey of early-stage venture capital funds about deal management technology and got insightful—if not entirely unexpected—results. They found that nearly 60% of respondents are motivated to update their technology stack in order to find more deals and improve their execution as they pursue those opportunities.

There are multiple reasons that this number is not surprising. For one thing, competition in the industry has gotten increasingly fierce as more firms come into an already crowded space.

This has forced firms to find new ways to differentiate themselves and their services.

How can they do that?

First and foremost, firms strive to increase their “intellectual capital” by hiring the industry’s best and brightest. But, of course, with new firms entering the market every day, the availability of top-notch talent has become much more limited.

Fortunately, second in importance only to industry expertise is advanced technology designed specifically to support deal management and related activities. Any firm can implement solutions like Altvia’s platform and other systems to dramatically improve its operations. And those systems are both intuitive and economical, especially in light of what they deliver.

The Capabilities Firms Are Looking for to Support Deal Management

Firms looking to gain or maintain a competitive advantage are typically seeking four important capabilities in the technology they implement:

  • Real-time, secure access to a centralized database. When data is maintained in an outdated computer system—or worse yet, in spreadsheets stored somewhere on a network—accessing it can be anywhere from difficult to impossible. And that scenario greatly increases the chances that deal management decisions will be made either without looking at key pieces of information or only after too much effort has to be expended and, in some cases, a competitor with better technology has beat the firm to the punch.
  • Prioritization of deal sources based on returns. Every firm has limited resources, and successful ones know that focusing those resources in certain areas pays the biggest dividends. But which deal sources are those? The right technology can help firms identify them and prioritize the time spent on them.
  • Visibility into networking and communication efforts. Providing all the stakeholders in a firm with the ability to check on deal progress is very important. In addition to the reasons noted above, enhanced visibility enables firms to better leverage the insights of the people who can now check on deal flows. How many deals are lost in part because a firm’s full experience and expertise are not brought to bear on its challenges and opportunities?
  • Supplemental data. There was a time when firms managed deals using only what they knew internally. That time is long gone. Firms today need to leverage every relevant scrap of data they can get their hands on to improve their odds of success. But, of course, simply opening the data floodgates is not useful. You need the data streams but also the deal management technology that enables you to ingest that information in an orderly manner and make sense of it.

With these components in place, your firm can be competitive in any situation.

Deal Management: It’s About Both Accelerating and Controlling Deal Flow

In the end, effective deal management is all about accelerating effective deals while still controlling the process.

At Altvia, we understand the role balance plays in achieving better returns. Consequently, we continually update and enhance our systems based on conversations with users and the insights they provide on how technology helps their firm perform better.

We also provide enlightening demonstrations of our systems so that firms understand how our product suite:

  • Functions as a hub for internal and external stakeholders
  • Enables better management of complex relationships
  • Offers many integration opportunities that make connected systems more effective
  • Incorporates insights from our team of industry veterans

In less than 30 minutes of talking with our experts, demo participants see the value of having the right deal management technology.