When Morningstar announced it would sunset its Office platform, many advisors wondered what would become of their long-established workflows, research tools, and client reporting systems. For practices built around Morningstar Office, the concern wasn’t just about finding a new tech stack—it was about avoiding disruptions to daily operations and preserving the tools that defined how they served clients.
SS&C’s Black Diamond Wealth Platform
As part of a strategic alliance, Black Diamond has partnered with Morningstar to ensure a seamless transition to the Direct Advisory Suite, offering continuity for advisors leaving Office and a meaningful step forward in platform capability and operational efficiency.
In an interview with The Wealth Advisor’s Scott Martin, Kyle Fleming, Director of Product Strategy at SS&C Black Diamond, discussed the newly launched integration of the platform’s portfolio management, reporting, and client engagement tools with Morningstar’s data and analytics—and why it’s proving to be a game-changer for advisors in transition.
A Strategic Alliance Designed for Continuity
The Morningstar and Black Diamond collaboration centers on one key objective: minimizing advisor disruption while laying the groundwork for long-term success. “Our strategic alliance focuses on the stability and future for advisors using Morningstar Office today,” Fleming notes. “It is about the longevity success, and what I would call minimal interruption of these advisors’ business.”
Rather than forcing advisors into an abrupt change, the partnership is engineered to create a path that requires little effort on the advisor’s part. “Together, Black Diamond and Morningstar do the heavy lifting and create this nice path forward for advisors using Office,” says Fleming.
The results are already tangible. “The fact that we were able to design this seamless implementation and data conversion process, I think, has been the number one thing that advisors are raving about as they’ve already signed with Black Diamond,” he says. By collaborating, removing friction from the conversion process, and delivering ready-to-use systems from day one, the alliance makes it easy for advisors to move forward with minimal hassle and maximum support.
Preserving Core Functionality with the Direct Advisory Suite
One of the most significant wins for advisors making the move is preserving the core tools they’ve come to rely on through Morningstar’s Direct Advisory Suite. Rather than abandoning existing workflows, the integration ensures those capabilities remain fully accessible.
“Morningstar’s Direct Advisory Suite is the evolution of their advisor workstation, which was integrated heavily into Office,” Fleming explains. “Access to reports, research, and watch lists has been preserved and kept within the Direct Advisory Suite.”
The integration between the companies is not superficial. Black Diamond product teams have worked closely with their Morningstar counterparts to build a single sign-on environment and embedded workflows. “Clients can run their favorite Stock Intersection or X-Ray reports from Black Diamond. Those were important to keep because that’s how advisors have worked within Office,” says Fleming. “To the point of being minimally disruptive, we wanted to ensure that we kept their experiences in sync.”
Maintaining familiarity reduces the friction often associated with changing platforms, allowing advisors to move forward with greater confidence and fewer headaches.
A Transition Timeline That Respects the Advisor’s Time
Platform migrations are often stressful and time-consuming—but the Black Diamond–Morningstar alliance flips that narrative by offering a structured, streamlined path forward.
Fleming notes that advisors receive an eight-week onboarding plan that walks them through setup, reporting, billing, and using the Direct Advisory Suite, all tailored to accelerate time to value.
This process is unique because advisors don’t have to wait for access or manually port their data. When onboarding begins, advisors can use Black Diamond immediately, without a lengthy parallel-run period or manual setup process.
In addition to no implementation or full-historical data conversion fees, “When an Office advisor gets access to Black Diamond, their data is there so they can get started immediately,” Fleming says. He also highlights a major win: “No double pay.” For up to four months, advisors can continue to use Office while fully onboarding to Black Diamond, without paying for both systems. That operational and financial cushion removes everyday transition stressors and underscores the collaboration’s advisor-first approach.
Unmatched Data Conversion and Support
Data migration is often one of the most painful aspects of any technology shift. Black Diamond’s solution is efficient, free of charge for Office users, and remarkably thorough.
“We’re working to convert all of a firm’s historical data,” says Fleming. “This process that the Black Diamond and Office teams designed is a historical conversion for all transactions in all positions, something unique.”
That level of completeness results from extensive behind-the-scenes coordination and back-end efforts. Black Diamond has mobilized resources across sales, marketing, onboarding, and engineering to deliver a high-touch, high-quality conversion experience.
“Black Diamond was such a great choice because there is trust and confidence that this team can do it and deliver results. Our track record has been incredible over the years,” he adds. “This was a major challenge, but from my vantage point, we’re making great progress, and the results are starting to speak for themselves.”
A Culture of Iteration and Advisor-Led Innovation
What makes the Black Diamond integration approach stand out isn’t just its technical success—it’s its openness to evolution. Fleming is clear that the Direct Advisory Suite integration launch is just the beginning of an iterative process.
“While we have an idea of what phase one of the integration with Morningstar Direct Advisory Suite looks like, we have a lot of ideas where we think the integration can go, we would also want to hear feedback and hear validation to make sure that we’re making the right decisions,” he says.
Ideas already under consideration include deeper integration between report outputs and Black Diamond’s core functionality. “What if you ran a Black Diamond report with more information from the Direct Advisory Suite integrated? That’s one of the ideas we’re kicking around,” says Fleming.
The willingness to listen and iterate with advisors as co-creators of the experience reflects Black Diamond’s broader culture. That responsiveness is key for advisors seeking a technology partner who will meet expectations today and evolve alongside their practice needs in the future.
A Meaningful Upgrade in Operational Efficiency
Beyond the continuity and integration enhancements, many Morningstar Office advisors have already seen significant improvements in day-to-day operations after transitioning to Black Diamond.
“One of the differences with Morningstar Office is that there was a desktop component,” Fleming says. “Black Diamond started in the cloud and has been a software-as-a-service, web-based platform since its inception.”
That cloud-native approach aims to deliver fewer IT headaches, faster updates, and a more agile overall experience. Fleming also highlights improvements in reconciliation. “Black Diamond is fully outsourced reconciliation,” he says. “We generally have every account done by midday, for the most part, but generally by 8 or 9 am, as the advisor walks into the office to figure out what to do, their accounts are updated and ready for the day.”
Advisors also gain access to powerful tools out of the box—including rebalancing, trading, and billing—as well as advanced business intelligence features that go beyond what Office offers.
These operational enhancements are built to allow advisors to work more efficiently, gain clearer insights into their practice, and improve service quality for their clients. “So, the ability to go in and do custom extracts, things that focus on the operational side, is a step up from Office as these advisors are stepping into Black Diamond,” Fleming says.”
The full-service functionality is meant to help advisors save time, improve accuracy, and enhance client service while laying a foundation for growth.
A Long-Term Partnership with a Vision for Scale
The strategic alliance between Morningstar and Black Diamond is more than a transition plan; it’s a reimagined platform for long-term success. Fleming calls it an evolution. “Gaining access to all that SS&C does is another huge part of that,” he says. “Taking advantage of the ecosystem that Black Diamond sits in as part of SS&C, but as part of the broader wealth management industry, is also key.”
The result is a tech stack that combines Morningstar’s robust research and proposal generation with Black Diamond’s operational precision and client engagement tools. “Pair the portfolio reporting and the client experience and the vast data network of Black Diamond with the industry-leading and top-tier research capabilities, proposal generation capabilities, and prospecting capabilities in Direct Advisory Suite—that’s the best of both worlds,” Fleming says.
Advisors moving from Morningstar Office aren’t just switching systems—they are stepping into a better-equipped, future-ready practice environment.
And that, as Fleming makes clear, is by design.
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