Appraisal Scope Updates — January 12, 2022

This release introduces improvements for staff, clients, and appraisers throughout Appraisal Scope.

Performance, Reliability, and Security Improvements

We place a very high priority on constantly improving Appraisal Scope’s performance, reliability, and security. This release continues that work with several upgrades that support this ongoing goal.

• We continued our initiative to modernize Appraisal Scope’s codebase as we refactor areas of the platform. This ongoing project supports our goal of providing an even more reliable and responsive experience for our customers.
• As we pursue our goal of making Appraisal Scope more responsive and reliable, we continued work to support upgrades to database environments that will further improve the performance and speed of the platform.
• We continue to increase security related to access rights of CoreLogic personnel. This ongoing company-wide initiative adds a further layer of security for CoreLogic staff with access to platforms.
• Improvements were made to the SSN encryption and validation messages displayed to a user when improper formats are used or if SSN/EIN data has been omitted.

Integration Improvements

We know that Appraisal Scope’s integrations are a crucial advantage for the platform because they enable you and your clients to stay efficient by avoiding multiple logins, reducing repetitive work, and minimizing human error. In this release, we’ve implemented improvements for several of Appraisal Scope’s integrations.

Keystone Integration

We’ve implemented a change to the Keystone integration workflow to handle transactions where multiple “Primary” Borrowers are present. Now, when there are multiple “Primary” borrowers attached to an order and passed via the integration, Appraisal Scope will map any additional primary borrower(s) to the Additional Comments field.

Authorize.net integration

The Authorize.net integration in Appraisal Scope enables a platform to charge credit cards for their orders. We’ve improved the user experience for this integration by providing information within the platform when Authorize.net is non-responsive. This update will provide Staff users who view the payment status of an order more insight into the integration’s status.

WestVM/ClosingCorp integration

Providing a secure environment to protect all data within Appraisal Scope is a core goal that requires perseverance. With that in mind, the integration with WestVM/ClosingCorp has been improved to deliver added authentication security.

InHouse Integration

The InHouse integration was improved to ensure that duplicate documents are not uploaded and attached to an order. We made a change to compare documents received in Update Status events to documents already included with the order to prevent duplicates.

Client API Support

A new field for the Reference Number is being added to the Client API. The field is optional and will return a value to Appraisal Scope if populated with data.

UWM Change Log

The historical change event logging that relates to the integration with UWM has been fixed. Clicking on the Clipboard icon next to the Client Company UWM Sync feature will now provide the user with a historical change log related to this setting.

Feature Enhancements

Appraisal Scope’s compelling feature set helps you attract new business and keep your and your clients’ teams working efficiently. In this release, we’ve made several features easier to access, more intuitive to use, and corrected some errors you helped us identify.

Interface Improvements

• Staff users with permission to view credentials were unable to see user passwords when more than a single page of users was in view. We fixed an issue that prevented users who were displayed after page 1 from being properly displayed. When the password is requested to be shown, the page will now refresh to show the passwords for the current page being viewed.
• Staff users managing bid requests can filter their Dashboard by the status of the bid. When filtering the Bid Period, a user can determine if the bid window is in an open or a closed state. We corrected an issue that was causing the Bid Period filter to display the selected status.
• We corrected an issue that occurred when a Staff user performed a search within an Appraisal Company’s set of users. The Search button will now omit the password peek functionality when used to search users within an Appraisal Company.
• We improved the user experience when mapping the CMS Loan Purpose fields to the Appraisal Scope Intended Use fields. The user interface prompt will now correctly display Loan Purpose instead of Loan Type contained in the message prompt.

Reporting

The Reports tab within Appraisal Scope allows an administrator to create customized reports, view system-generated statistics, and set report alerts for Staff and Clients. We improved the view that displays when a report was last run by a user. The Last Generated column will now display the appropriate date to show when a user last generated the report as opposed to when the report was last exported.

CU Score Ratings

Appraisal Scope tracks the CU Score for appraisals delivered by each appraiser, then enables you to use each appraiser’s average CU Score over time to make informed assignment decisions. We've improved the workflow for Staff users who use CU risk scores to manage the distribution of orders to appraisers. This update further refines the calculation associated with an appraisers' average CU Score in Appraisal Scope, making the score more relevant and reliable.

Vendor Management

The Years of Experience Client Company setting is used for determining appraisers in the assignment pool based on an appraiser’s experience. We corrected an issue with this Client setting so that, if enabled, only appraisers with an equal to or greater than numerical value for Years of Experience will be returned during the assignment process.

Appraiser User Experience

Appraisal Scope provides appraisers with several options to increase efficiency when managing order milestones.  We've improved the user experience for appraisers when using the option to update both the Inspection Completed and the Estimated Report Completion dates for their individual orders. 

 Click here to read the details of prior updates.