With this update, we added a new VA Orders folder that’s intended to make your VA workflow in the platform much simpler. We also improved the Make a Payment page, and completed several more steps toward retiring the old XSites in preparation for the end of Adobe Flash. Read on for highlights and see the release notes for more details.
VA workflow enhancements
Anyone who originates VA loans knows that the appraisal workflow for these loan types can be tricky, particularly because vendor assignment must be completed within the VA portal. We know that many of you have developed workarounds so you can manage these orders in Mercury Network alongside other loan types. For instance, some folks place all VA orders on hold until they were complete which was confusing for staff and caused reporting aberrations, so we developed a better solution.
Now, any order with a VA loan type will appear in the new VA Orders folder until it’s completed or cancelled. This gives you an easy, centralized place for managing and reporting on VA orders without assigning an inaccurate status or vendor. Plus, to keep order-status monitoring simple and consistent, the order will also appear in the corresponding status folder. For example, a VA order that's on hold will appear in the On Hold folder in addition to the VA Orders folder. There is one exception: VA orders will never appear in the Requires Reassignment folder because these orders are never assigned to a vendor within Mercury Network.
You’ll find this new folder just beneath the FHA folders in Order Management, and we hope you also find this new folder streamlines and simplifies your VA workflow. We look forward to hearing what you think!
Improved Make a Payment page
Some have called it their favorite Mercury Network feature, and if you’re not using it already, we’d love to help you get started: The Make a Payment page lets the borrower use their credit card to pay for their appraisal securely via any device with a web browser. Even better, the notification email they receive directing them to that page can be sent automatically, as is the receipt email they receive after a successful transaction. This feature reduces manual tasks and streamlines your appraisal-payments workflow.
With this update, the Make a Payment page and related emails have received an important face-lift so they’re ADA compliant. The new color scheme is also more neutral so your logo colors won’t clash with other elements of the page.
Please note that this change only applies to the latest version of the Make a Payment page which was introduced in 2018. The previous version of that page uses Adobe Flash to display several elements, and as you’ve probably heard, Flash will be completely discontinued in December. So, Account Managers are reaching out to the handful of folks who still use the older version to help them switch over to the new, improved version before the next update approximately November 18th.
When it comes to your appraisal payments workflow, there’s a lot more to come in the next few months. In fact, several soon-to-be-announced features might just revolutionize your process for accepting borrower payments and paying your appraisers. Be sure to subscribe to our blog (on this page at the top right) and watch for announcements in the platform about these exciting new tools.
Retiring “XSites”
As mentioned above, Adobe Flash will soon be completely discontinued. All the major web browsers have been working toward this for months, and an upcoming Windows 10 update will disable this aging technology. All this means that Flash won’t be used in any form as of December 2020.
To support this change, we are removing the XSites from the platform. XSites were cutting-edge technology in their heyday more than a decade ago and employed Flash for interactivity and animations, but they’re no longer used by anyone. However, there are still references to “XSite” in several places in Mercury Network, so we’re removing those.
There’s no change to functionality, but you’ll see differences in the interface. For instance, with this update, XSite Client will be replaced with VMP Client and the XSite-related links in configuration settings have been removed. In most cases, these changes make it easier to understand what the link or button does.
The final changes supporting Flash retirement will be completed in our next update on or about November 18th, so we’ll call out those changes when they go into effect.