Secure File Exchange

Secure File Exchange allows PensionPro users and contacts to send and receive files between PensionPro and PlanSponsorLink. Users can customize notifications and reminders, as well as set default Expiration Days and Reminder Frequencies. In addition, so that the user has an on-going record of the Secure File Exchange, an interaction is created in the system.

Secure File Exchange can be accessed from the Navigation Panel by clicking Communications > Secure File Exchange.

Tier Availability:  Track, Team, Business

Article Contents

• Customizing Emails and Notifications Preferences
• Sending and Receiving Secure File Exchanges
• Sending a Secure File Exchange
• Secure File Notifications and Reminders
• Delete a Secure File Exchange 
• Download a File
• Using the Toolbar
• Interactions
• Secure File Exchange on PlanSponsorLink
• Frequently Asked Questions

Customizing Emails and Notifications Preferences

Users can customize the Secure File Exchange Preferences in PensionPro. These preferences allow the user to set defaults, globally for the entire firm, such items as the Default Expiration Days, Read Notifications, and Reminder Frequency.

To access the Preferences, from the Navigation Panel, select Maintenance > Preferences > PensionPro. From the menu on the left, choose Secure File Exchange. To learn more about these preferences, refer to our Creating and Maintaining PensionPro Preferences article.

Sending and Receiving Secure File Exchanges

Supported Browsers

PensionPro supports the latest versions of Chrome, Edge, Firefox, and Safari as browsers. Once in the browser, there will be two different tabs on the left: Inbox and Sent. Once in the browser, users have a session timeout limit of 24 hours to ensure they can navigate Secure Files throughout their workday.

View Other Secure File Exchanges

Only the current user's files will be displayed. If the user has the View Other Secure File Exchanges security right, then other files can be accessed by clicking the person's name in the dropdown box or all files can be accessed by clicking All in the dropdown. Employees must have the Show On PSL field set to 'Yes' in the General Employee Information screen to appear in the View Other Secure File Exchanges dropdown menu.

Files Not Accessed Count

The Inbox and Sent tabs will display a number on the tab. This number represents the total number of exchanges that have not been accessed. If a file is accessed then the system will consider the exchange accessed and the number on the tab will be updated. The file must be accessed by the recipient from their Inbox to be considered accessed. Opening a file from the Sent folder will not mark the file as accessed.

Viewing the Access Log

So that users can see when a file was accessed and by whom, an access log is available by clicking on the red "i" next to file. When the "i" is clicked, an Access Log pop-up will appear containing the file name, who accessed the file, and when it was accessed. 

Sending a Secure File Exchange 

Users and contacts will be able to send most file types via the Secure File Exchange. Files types that cannot be sent are  *.exe, *.msi, *.bat, *.cmd.

The maximum file size is one gigabyte and five files can be sent from both a user and a contact. A PensionPro user can send files to any number of contacts, while a Contact can send to one PensionPro user.

To Send a Secure File Exchange: 

1. Click the Add icon to the right of the grid. A New Secure File Exchange pop-up will appear. Required items will have a red asterisk next to them. 
2. Click the Select files button and select the File(s) to send. Up to five files can be sent at once.
3. In the To field, begin typing a contact's name and click the appropriate record when the available name(s) appear. A maximum of five contacts can be selected. A contact must have an email address or a message will appear indicating that Secure File Exchanges cannot be sent to contacts without an email address.
4. Enter a message for the exchange. There is a maximum character count of 1000 characters and the number of remaining characters is displayed at the bottom of the message box.
5. In the Plan field, begin typing the name of the plan and click the appropriate record when the plan name appears.
6. Select an Expiration Date, File Open Notification, and/or Recipient Reminder Frequency, if applicable. Note: If a file reaches its expiration date and the file has not been downloaded, the file will be deleted from PlanSponsorLink.
   • The Expiration date cannot exceed 90 days past the date the Secure File Exchange is sent.
7. Click Send. 
   • When sending a Secure File Exchange and the Cancel button is clicked, the user will now receive a warning message requiring confirmation they would like to cancel.

Files that have not been accessed at all will appear in bold font on the Secure File Exchange Sent tab. As recipients access the file, the file will no longer appear in bold font and the file will not be included in the file count for files not accessed on the Sent tab.

Secure File Notifications and Reminders

Once a Secure File Exchange is sent from a PensionPro user then a New Exchange Email will be sent to the contact(s) on the exchange. Notification emails to contacts are sent from admin@plansponsorlink.com. Users may want to have their clients contact their IT department's to whitelist emails from that address to ensure they receive them. Should an Employee receive a notification or reminder email, the email will be sent from No-Reply@PensionPro.com.

If a Read Notification was set on the Secure File Exchange then, depending on whether the user chooses Do not notify me, Notify me the first time, or Notify me everytime, a notification will be sent to the user that file was downloaded if applicable. "Do not notify me" will result in a Read Notification not being sent. "Notify me the first time" will result in a Read Notification being emailed to the sender the first time the file is downloaded only. "Notify me everytime" will result in a Read Notification being sent every time the file is downloaded by a recipient.

If a Recipient Reminder for seven days was set on the Secure File Exchange then, if the file has not been downloaded, a reminder email will be sent to the recipient of the exchange that has not downloaded the file until the recipient accesses the file from their inbox. If multiple recipients were included on the Secure File Exchange, all recipients will stop receiving reminders after one of the recipients on the exchange accesses the file. Manually setting up a Reminder for a Secure File Exchange overrides the Reminder Frequency Preference.

The wording for each of these can be customized in Preferences.  To learn more about this please refer to our Creating and Maintaining PensionPro Preferences article.

Users can stop reminders being sent for a Secure File Exchange by one of the options below:

1. Delete the File Exchange
2. Deleting the File from PlanSponsorLink
3. The recipient accessing the File
   • If the file was sent to multiple recipients and only one recipient accesses the file, reminders will no longer send for each of the recipients.
4. The File reaches its expiration date

To Delete a Secure File Exchange 

Security Rights Required: Delete Secure File Exchanges 

A user can delete a Secure File Exchange record. To do so the user will need the Delete Secure File Exchange security right. 

1. Highlight the file by clicking on it once. 
2. Click the Delete icon and click Ok to confirm the deletion. 

To Download a File

Users can click on a file to download it.

For messages containing multiple files, click Download All Files to receive a .zip of all files. Multiple messages can be selected in the grid; then choose More > Download All Selected to receive a .zip of all files. Please note that PensionPro can only process a combined 100 MB per .zip file.

Using the Toolbar 

To help users search for files in their Inbox or Sent folders various tools have been provided.

• Sorting: By clicking on a column heading the user will be able to sort the column.
• Filter: Users can toggle filtering by clicking the Filter icon and an icon will appear next to the column heading. Clicking on this icon will open a pop-up that will allow the user to search on a specific word or words. 
• Clear Sort: Clicking this icon will clear any sorting the user has made. 
• Refresh: This icon refreshes the screen to account for any recent updates to file exchanges. 
• Delete: This icon deletes a Secure File Exchange. To delete a file a user must have the Delete Secure File Exchange security rights. Highlight the file and click the Delete icon. Please note, if an exchange was sent to multiple contacts and one contact deletes the file on PlanSponsorLink, then the file is deleted for all other contacts.
• Edit: This icon allows the user to make changes to a Secure File Exchange. Please note that a Secure File Exchange record must be highlighted (clicked once) before the Edit icon is made active. 
• New Secure File Exchange: Clicking this icon opens a New File Exchange pop-up to send a new file. 

Interactions

So that the user has a record of the Secure File Exchange even after it has been deleted, an Interaction record is created, displaying the file name. Because an Interaction record is created, users can control the Interaction Type that is used when a Secure File Exchange is sent. For more information on the Interaction Type, refer to our Creating and Maintaining PensionPro Preferences article.

To locate an Interaction record for a Secure File Exchange: 

1. Search for the contact who sent or received the Secure File Exchange. Alternatively, users can search for the plan if a plan name was linked to the Secure File Exchange. 
2. Click the Plan or Contact's Name from the search results. 
3. Select the Interactions menu. 
4. The interaction record will appear in the Interaction Grid.

Secure File Exchange on PlanSponsorLink

Contacts can send PensionPro users Secure File Exchanges through PlanSponsorLink. PensionPro supports the latest versions of Chrome, Edge, Firefox, and Safari as browsers for PlanSponsorLink access. After the contact logs into PSL, they will click on the Secure File Exchange tab.

Here they will see two tabs: Inbox and Sent. The Inbox will display the number of files that have not been downloaded yet and the grid will contain any Secure File Exchange that involved the contact.

• Sending a New Exchange from PSL
  • To send a New Exchange the contact should do the following:
    1. Click the New Exchange icon.
    2. Click on the Select Files icon and select the files to be sent.
    3. In the To field, select from the drop down the user that the files should be sent to.
    4. Enter a message in the message box. Please note that the character count is 1000 characters and the number of remaining characters will be shown below the message box.
    5. Select a Plan from the Plan dropdown (if applicable to link the Secure File Exchange to a Plan record).
    6. Click Send.
  • Once the contact sends the Secure File Exchange an email from No-Reply@PensionPro.com will be sent to the user indicating that a file or files have been uploaded for that user to access.  The wording for this can be customized. To learn more about this please refer to our Creating and Maintaining PensionPro Preferences article.

Note: For a PensionPro user to appear in the To dropdown when sending a New Secure File Exchange, that user must have Show on PSL marked as 'Yes' on the General Employee Information Screen. Users with the Add/Edit Employee Security right can edit this field by clicking the Edit icon in the upper right corner of the General Employee Information grid, toggling the Show On PSL field and clicking Save.

• Deleting an Exchange on PSL

Note: If the contact deletes the file, it will be deleted on PlanSponsorLink for all contacts that were involved in that Secure File Exchange.

• • To delete a Secure File Exchange from PSL, the contact should do the following:
    1. Click the Delete icon located on the right of the grid.
    2. A pop-up message will appear that asks "Are you sure you want to delete this from your inbox? Yes or No"

• Downloading a File on PSL
  • Clicking the file will allow the contact to download the file and will add an accessed date and time to the record. If a File Open Notification was set up for the Secure File Exchange, then once the contact downloads the file the notification will be sent.
  • If a message contains multiple files, clicking Download All Files will download all files as a .zip.
  • Files not yet accessed will appear in bold font on the contact's Secure File Exchange inbox grid.
    • If a file was sent to multiple recipients, and only one recipient accessed the file, the file will still appear in bold font in the inbox for the contacts who have not yet accessed the file.

Frequently Asked Questions

• After selecting Communications > Secure File Exchange, the browser opens to a blank page. Is there something I need to fix?
  You will need to clear your browser's cache. The link to the following website walks you through the process for the common browsers currently available. Also, make sure to be using the latest version of Chrome, Edge, Firefox, or Safari as the default browser. http://www.refreshyourcache.com/en/home/
• I sent a Secure File and it was linked to the incorrect plan. How can I fix this?
  Users can delete the Secure File Exchange and send a new Secure File with the correct plan link.
  
  
• How can I find if a file was set up to include a reminder?
  Click the Sent Folder and locate the file exchange. Scroll to the left of the screen to the Reminders column. The Reminders column will display the reminder period if one was selected for the file.
• My client keeps getting reminder emails for a Secure File Exchange. How can I stop these from sending?
  The recipient of the exchange can access the file from their Secure File Inbox on PlanSponsorLink to end the reminder emails. Alternatively, users can stop reminders being sent for a Secure File Exchange by deleting the File Exchange or deleting the file from PlanSponsorLink.
  
  
• If I send a Secure File Exchange to multiple recipients at once and only one person accesses the file, do the other's receive reminder emails?
  No, once a recipient accesses the file, all other recipients for that Secure File Exchange will no longer receive reminders.
  
  
• Secure Files keep ending up in a contact's junk folder. How can I stop this from happening?
  Contacts can have their IT department whitelist emails from admin@plansponsorlink.com to ensure Secure File Exchange notifications reach the recipient's email address. If the notifications are going to a PensionPro user's junk folder, they should whitelist emails from No-Reply@PensionPro.com after checking their spam and deleted email folders.
  
  
• Is there a button to resend a previously sent Secure File Exchange?
  Currently, users will need to add a new Secure File Exchange and include the original files they may have sent previously. There is not a way to resend a Secure File Exchange with the original file attachment.