Import Multiple Clients to Timeline via Connection

Add Multiple Clients

You can import your client data to Timeline using our connections with the following providers:

Provider	Status	Client data	Account data
Intelliflo	Available	First, middle, and last name National insurance number Date of birth Gender Country of residence Current address Email Mobile	Not available
Transact	Coming soon	First and last name National insurance number	Account balance Holdings Fund ISIN Fund value
Other investment platforms	Coming soon	First and last name National insurance number	Account balance Holdings Fund ISIN Fund value

You can access the importer by navigating to the client list, clicking ‘Add client’ in the top-right, and then selecting ‘Add multiple clients’.

Client matching

Timeline wants to make sure that you never have more than one version of the same client in our system (duplicates), ensuring a single consolidated view of all your client data - wherever it came from.

For this reason, we try to match imported clients with your firm’s full client list:

If you have no clients already in Timeline, we will create a new client for each of your imports.
If your Timeline client has previously been imported from the provider, or they share a national insurance number, then we make sure they stay linked.
Next, we check for clients with similar names and match them together, but you can override these name-based matches if they’re not actually the same person.
Finally, if no matches are found, then you can import the client as a new client, or select from your firm’s client list to find the correct match.

API Import behaviour

Client data

If you matched the client you want to import to a client already in Timeline, then we need to be careful not to override data in Timeline that you want to keep. For this reason, the importer will only import data for client fields that are currently empty in Timeline; ‘gap-filling’ rather than overriding.

If you want to override your Timeline client data with imported data, then you can use the Pull from backoffice feature article here.

Account data

We always use the unique account id provided to prevent duplication of investment accounts.

If the investment account doesn’t already exist in Timeline, then we will import it and create a portfolio using the holdings from the import. You can then tweak the portfolio allocations from the model portfolio centre, or choose to link the account to a different model portfolio you have in the portfolio centre.

If the investment account does exist in Timeline then we will update the balance and holdings of the account during the import. Any linked portfolios will not be updated.

Once imported, we’ll set up automatic updates to ensure your investment accounts remain in sync with the provider, also importing any new accounts that appear for the imported clients.

Note that Timeline MPS accounts are the exception to the rule above, because their data is managed entirely by the Timeline Investment Management team, paying extra care and attention to always ensuring you have the right balances with the right portfolio attached.

Sign in

If you haven’t imported from Intelliflo before or your details have expired, then selecting Intelliflo will open a sign in page. After entering your correct credentials, you will be asked what data you want to grant us access to:

Please note that you must grant us all permissions here for us to import your clients’ data.

Select clients

For backoffice providers, you can select the clients you want to import using the checkboxes on each client.

For investment platforms, we will ensure that all clients are imported.

Adviser selection

Once you’ve selected the clients to be imported, we need to ensure they are assigned to the correct adviser in Timeline.

Clients already in Timeline will not have their assigned adviser changed. For all clients that are created as new clients, the adviser selection page lets you select a dedicated Timeline adviser to receive all clients from each adviser in the provider system.

Conflicts

As mentioned in the client matching section above, we are committed at Timeline to preventing a single person from existing as more than one client in our system. If we find more than one client in the provider system that shares the same unique identifier (e.g. national insurance number), then we can’t be sure which version of the person we should import, so we block import for both versions. Similarly, if two different clients in the provider system both share a unique identifier with the same client in Timeline, we also cannot be sure which one to match, so we prevent the import of those clients.

We will feed back these conflicts to you in a CSV, so you can resolve the issues in the provider system. You’ll then be able to return to the import journey and import those clients again.