Appraisal Scope Release Notes
March 28, 2024
This update contains new functionality for Staff Users, issue resolutions, and enhancements to the platform. Additionally, Staff Users who manage payouts with the ACHWorks integration will notice improvements to the workflow within Appraisal Scope.
INTEGRATION ENHANCEMENTS
ACHWorks
We introduced new methods within Appraisal Scope's user interface that enable staff users to manually intervene in ACH payments in cases where the payment was never processed, or if there was a connection issue with ACHWorks, our ACH processing partner.
A new Staff Permission setting was added to the Permissions group to ensure that changes to pending ACH payments are made by qualified staff users. To enable staff users with this Accounting permission option, the Mark orders as appraiser unpaid must be checked for the appropriate staff user.
In the Accounting tab, we added functionality within the Pending ACH queue that replicates the Change Status column functionality from the Appraiser Paid queue. This update allows staff users with permission to self-service pending ACH records that were never processed back into unpaid status, so the payment can be reattempted again either via ACHWorks or using a manual payment method (e.g. check).
The option to change the status will display as N/A until at least six days after the initial submission to ensure the payment request runs its cycle. We added a tooltip icon to the new Change Status column header that provides more information about this process.
We added a new dialogue box that requires staff users to confirm modifications to the status change when marking a Pending ACH payment as unpaid. Additionally, changes made to the paid status of an order will be recorded in the Notification Log and the Appraiser Payment History.
If an order is marked as unpaid and removed from the Pending ACH tab, the order will be displayed in the Unpaid tab for both staff and appraisers.
USER EXPERIENCE
New users who register via the client sign-up page are placed into a pending status before approval by a staff user. During the approval process, the staff user can associate the new client user with an existing client company. We resolved an issue that prevented approved client user profiles associated with an existing client company from automatically being granted pre-set permissions and removed from the Pending Users queue.
Additionally, staff users creating new appraisal orders will only see approved clients in the list of available client companies. Clients pending approval will not be displayed in the list until they’ve been approved by a staff user.
The Client Company settings for Order Completion can control whether the appraisal review process will be automated or bypassed when an order meets the specified criteria. We updated the logic to ensure that email addresses entered in the Notify other user (Email) order form field will receive completed notifications (if permissions are configured). This change will remove the reliance on Email notifications to cc all notified users on an order Company setting. The Email notifications to cc all notified users on an order setting will continue to work with the expected logic that either carbon copies all users or sends a separate email to each user.