Educational Services & Training

Charles River’s Educational Services group offers courses that help enable clients to develop in-house expertise, reduce technical support calls, increase operating efficiencies, and achieve a high ROI from their Charles River IMS investment.

Training is offered regularly at Charles River’s headquarters and regional facilities worldwide, utilizing state-of-the-art training rooms and technology. Customized training is also available at clients’ sites. Suggested learning paths assist clients in selecting appropriate programs of study based on staff role:

  • Risk and Compliance staff
  • Portfolio managers
  • Traders
  • Operations and trading support staff
  • IT and technical support staff

Instructor-led activities provide extensive hands-on experience and facilitate certification in core component areas of Charles River IMS.

Ultramarine IconOnline Training

Clients may choose the online Charles River Investment Management Solution training option. The virtual classroom allows for self-paced learning, minimizes time away from the office, and eliminates travel expenses.

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Ultramarine IconClient Site Training

Charles River offers educational services at the client’s office with a remote attendee option for professionals in other locations. A client-specific topic selection provides hands-on Charles River Investment Management Solution training in a classroom environment. Course manuals and a Level 1 certification are included.

Offered Courses at Client Site

Introduction to Charles River Investment Management System

Students will learn basic navigation through the Charles River IMS; entering transactions using New Manager Workbench and the Blotter as well as basic concepts of Compliance test writing and managing alerts & warnings. Basic system components including System Administration, the Workflow Monitor, and nightly processing are also discussed.

Duration: 1 Day
Prerequisites:  None

Manager Workbench

Students will learn basic and advanced Manager Workbench skills, including methods of order generation and targeting, creation of asset allocation and security selection models. They will learn to customize the workspace using profiles and views. Extensive hands-on exercises are used to strengthen the individual lessons. Advanced topics include modeling with replacement securities and carve outs, working with Cash Management tools.

You will have time to practice what you are learning through hands-on exercises and at the end of the course you will have the opportunity to certify in this topic by taking a one-hour exam.

Duration:  2 Days
Certification: Level 1
Prerequisites: Introduction to the Charles River IMS or Client Boot Camp

Using & Configuring the Blotter

Students will learn typical trading workflows with special attention to order entry and execution. They will learn about configuring views, layouts and profiles, layout designer, navigating and searching the Blotter and basic blotter functions such as order entry and allocation. Students will learn to work with FIX and the new Broker bar and will be introduced to advanced blotter actions including contingent orders, merging or splitting orders; targeting, FX trading, Swaps, and Crossing.

You will have time to practice what you are learning through hands-on exercises and at the end of the course you will have the opportunity to certify in this topic by taking a one-hour exam.

Duration: 3 days
Certification: Level 1
Prerequisites: Introduction to the Charles River IMS or Client Boot Camp

Client Boot Camp (An Accelerated Overview of the Charles Riven IMS)

This course provides accelerated training in the major components of the Charles River Investment Management Solution, introducing you to core aspects of the system using an interactive case-study approach.

The course introduces basic concepts, and then builds on these to introduce basic transaction skills followed by increasingly more complex transactions. In addition to the basic core components of New Manager Workbench, Blotter and Compliance, this course includes an introduction to FIX and Charles River Anywhere. At the end of the course, you will have the opportunity to certify in Charles River IMS basics.

Duration: 4 days
Certification: Level 1 certification available

Client Boot Camp for Wealth Management

This course provides accelerated training in the major components of the Charles River Investment Management Solution, introducing you to core aspects of the system using an interactive case-study approach.

The course introduces basic concepts, and then builds on these to introduce basic transaction skills followed by increasingly more complex transactions. In addition to the basic core components of New Manager Workbench and Blotter, this course will also introduce you to Wealth Management functions in Charles River IMS including Central Workbench, model management and Charles River Anywhere. At the end of the course, you will have the opportunity to certify in Charles River IMS wealth basics.

Duration: 4 days
Certification: Level 1

Wealth Management for the Charles River IMS

During this course you will be introduced to the basics of Wealth Management in the Charles River IMS. Charles River’s wealth management platform allows firms to support a variety of wealth products on a single platform ranging from basic advisory to the sophisticated needs of ultra-high net worth clients. An integral part of the Charles River Investment Management Solution, the offering combines wealth-specific capabilities with portfolio management components that meet wealth managers’ growing need to for institutional-class capabilities. Topics include Central Workbench, building SMA and UMA models, and special Compliance considerations for Wealth Management.

You will have time to practice what you are learning through hands-on exercises and at the end of the course you will have the opportunity to certify in this topic by taking a one-hour exam.

Duration: 2 days
Certification: Level 1
Prerequisite: Introduction to the Charles River IMS or Client Boot Camp for Wealth

Charles River Compliance Part 1

Students will have extensive practice in writing the major types of compliance tests and validating test results. Students will also learn how to manage alerts and warnings including the principals of reopen and auto-close logic, how the four methods of running Charles River Compliance affect the database, how to assign privileges to close alerts and warnings and to maintain compliance tests. Topics also include the more complex test writing concepts of dynamic denominators, list-based tests, ratings tests, and benchmark tests.

You will have time to practice what you are learning through hands-on exercises and at the end of the course you will have the opportunity to certify in this topic by taking a one-hour exam.

Duration: 3 Days
Certification: Level 1
Prerequisites: Introduction to the Charles River IMS or Client Boot Camp

Charles River Compliance Part 2

Students will learn additional topics in Charles River Compliance including using user-defined fields and security classifications in compliance tests, combination tests, cash tests, unit trust look-through /INBASKET, substantial shareholder disclosure testing and reporting, and using the Compliance Calculation Builder and Workflow Monitor. Derivative topics will include security attribute lists, and new compliance parameters to support writing compliance tests.

There are extensive hands-on exercises in writing the compliance tests in the Charles River IMS.  At the end of the course you will have the opportunity to certify in this topic by taking a one-hour exam.

Duration: 2 Days
Certification: Level 1
Prerequisites: Charles River Compliance Part 1

Investment Book of Record (IBOR) in the Charles River IMS

Charles River IBOR maintains current and historical positions based on intraday trades as well as external transactions, cash flows, corporate actions, and security life cycle events. It provides Charles River IMS users ready access to intraday real-time and historical positions on the same platform and supports a self-sufficient beginning-of-day (BOD) workflow without requiring a daily feed from an accounting system. One can reconcile positions and tax lots as required with an external system to ensure their accuracy and consistency.

You will have time to practice what you are learning through hands-on exercises and at the end of the course you will have the opportunity to certify in this topic by taking a one-hour exam.

Duration: 1 Day
Certification: Level 1
Prerequisites:  A working knowledge of navigation and functions in Charles River will be beneficial.

Performance Measurement and Attribution Overview

Charles River Performance Measurement and Attribution (PMA) supplies performance measurement attribution, analysis, and reporting requirements for investment managers. Charles River PMA is a comprehensive system that addresses multiple asset class performance and attribution results in any currency and frequency.

During this session, participants will gain experience running and analyzing reports generated by the PMA function as well as updating data.

Duration: 1 day
Prerequisites:  A working knowledge of navigation and functions in Charles River will be beneficial.

Charles River Compliance – Fundamentals

This one-day course provides a quick overview of Charles River Compliance. Topics include basic writing of compliance tests; running compliance; viewing and interpreting compliance reports; managing alerts, warnings and data exceptions.

Duration: 1 Day
Prerequisites: None

Introduction to System Administration

In this course students will learn administration of Charles River through discussions and exercises focusing on workflow design and common implementation setup and decisions. Topics include user group and user privileges, workflow design, system parameters, stored queries, Layout Designer, and Blotter setup.

There are extensive hands-on exercises throughout and at the end of the course you will have the opportunity to certify in this topic by taking a one-hour exam.

Duration: 3 Days
Certification: Level 1
Prerequisites:  Introduction to the Charles River IMS or Client Boot Camp

Email Training if you have additional questions.

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CFA and CIPM Designation Holders

CFA Institute allows its members the ability to self-determine and self-report professional learning (PL) credits earned from external sources. CFA Institute members are encouraged to self-document such credits in their online PL tracker.

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