Orion announced in early May that it has launched a redesigned client portal that uses open-source code so other providers can build their own pages to integrate into the site.
"We've had a client portal since we started our business years ago. As web technology evolved, we felt like, 'Hey, depending on the size of the tablet or the device that somebody is looking at this on, we need to make the design and menu systems responsive," Eric Clarke, president and founder of Orion, told ThinkAdvisor on Wednesday.
"All those things are nice, but we have a lot of other systems that we interact with here at Orion to help our advisors be efficient. What we thought would be really neat would be to open up the code for the portal to outside integration partners to add additional pages and contribute back to the project."
Clarke said Orion has reached out to providers like InStream, MoneyGuidePro and Finance Logix to contribute code for the project. So far, more than 40 firms have been set up to access GitHub, where the portal code is stored, to build integrated pages for the portal.
"GitHub allows us to share that code and information, share the project with our vendor partners and allow them to come back in and contribute their own pages," Clark said. "The development effort really has become more of a community effort. We're really excited in the coming months to see the integration pages that our partners provide."
The portal integrates account aggregation from Intuit, which allows clients to add data on accounts not managed by their advisor.
"They enter their user name and password and hit enter, and those accounts will be added to the list of accounts," Clarke said.
