Software integration is the Holy Grail for companies that serve financial planners these days. Advisor Products, which provides technology and marketing services for advisors, and Redtail Technology, creator of a widely used customer relationship management (CRM) product, have joined the march. Yesterday, the companies announced a collaboration to help advisors improve communications with their clients.

This partnership involves Advisor Products’ personalized client Web pages, called Personal Client Portals. The integrated system features a blog, RSS feeds, market news, financial calculators and a virtual document vault on the clients’ side.  The linkup with Redtail’s CRM allows an advisory firm to assign and manage tasks for their clients, and lets the client see how the advisor is managing their finances, said Brien Shanahan, corporate communications manager for Advisor Products, Inc. “When an advisor asks a client to send in tax forms, meet to discuss estate planning, and deal with other important financial planning tasks, the client’s progress is tracked,” he said. In a few weeks, Redtail will include a calendar feature that will let advisors book client appointments and automatically note the appointment on the calendar feature in the client’s personal page, Shanahan said.

Based in Westbury, N.Y., Advisor Products chose to team up with Retail Technology, of Gold River, Calif., because the latter provides CRM software to more than 4,000 firms, allowing for broad distribution. For its part, Advisor Products works with 2,000 independent financial advisory firms, Shanahan said.