Back to School for DFA Adoption: Time to Move from Learning to Doing

August brings a familiar shift: back to school, back to planning, and back to focusing on the work ahead.

For Digital First for Annuities (DFA), the lesson is clear. Standards can reduce friction, improve data exchange, and make annuity workflows easier. Now the focus needs to be adoption.

As firms continue 2027 planning, this is the time to decide which DFA capabilities should be prioritized, funded, and placed on implementation roadmaps.

That matters because standards only create full value when both sides are ready. If one firm is Production Ready and able to send standardized data, but the receiving firm, platform, or solution provider is not ready to use it, progress slows.

The Distributor Priority Dashboard can help guide those decisions by showing where distributor advocacy is building. IRI encourages members to review the dashboard, visit the Library of Standards, and use this planning window to move DFA from discussion to action.

The homework is clear: prioritize, plan, and prepare to implement.
Available Standards
Available Best Practices

 

Resources Available on IRI’s Website
IRI is modernizing access to DFA resources to make it easier for members to find the tools, information, and standards they need.
The website structure provides clearer paths to key DFA materials, including the Digital First explainer, implementation dashboard, Library of Standards, technical specifications, and Journey Map.
Members can now use the updated links to quickly answer the most common DFA questions:
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Who is implementing the standards? Visit the Dashboard(opens in new tab).
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What standards are available and what is coming? Visit the Library of Standards(opens in new tab).
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Where are the Data Dictionary, YAML, and Messages? Visit the DFA Specs site(opens in new tab).
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What problems are we solving? Visit the Journey Map(opens in new tab).

 

Dashboard Update: Contact Drill-Down Now Available

IRI has added a new contact drill-down feature to the DFA Dashboard. This update makes it easier to move from adoption insights to direct member engagement.

Members can now right-click a firm in the dashboard table and select Drill through → Contacts to identify contacts at member firms with experience on specific standard. 

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New Way of Working

DFA is evolving how we develop standards, putting business champions at the center of the process. Business Champions identify the industry need, submit the business case, define success, and develop a plan for bringing the standard to market. They bring the right industry voices together to shape the solution, while technical, legal, regulatory, and compliance perspectives help ensure the final standard is practical and ready for implementation.

The process still includes review and final approval through the Governance Subcommittee and Strategy Implementation Committee, ensuring each standard meets the appropriate technical and governance requirements before it moves forward.

We’re also adding a new opportunity to learn about standards once they go live. These sessions will be open to anyone interested in understanding what the new standard does, how it can be used, and what comes next.

The goal of this new approach is simple: start with a real business need, build with the industry, and create standards that are ready to put into action.

 

 

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Standard Spotlight:
Book of Business Summary

The Book of Business Working Group is creating a standard to help firms give distribution partners an easier way to see the active in-force business they have on their books. The standard will work alongside Policy Inquiry, allowing firms to move from a broad view of their book of business to the details of an individual policy when needed.

The goal is to make it easier for partners to access the information they need, reduce manual reporting requests, and support more efficient day-to-day operations.

Call to ActionInterested in helping shape this standard? To be part of the conversation please reach out to hpikus@irionline.org and mhendrickson@irionline.org. 

 

Operations & Technology Important Dates

Digital First Steering Committee
September 9 | 4 p.m. ET

Strategy Implementation Committee
September 11 | 10 a.m. ET

Operations and Technology Committee
October 21 | 4 p.m. ET

Governance Subcommittee
Mondays | 11:30 a.m. ET

Ceding Policy Data Working Group
Tuesdays | 10 a.m. ET

Book of Business Working Group
Tuesdays | 3 p.m. ET