Help Center

From the Relationship screen – Divisions tab – you can use the Manage Appraiser button to view, edit, and manage the appraisal panel for the selected division.

This is one of the most important options in the system: this is where you get the ability to work with your own appraiser panel. Note that each division can have its own appraiser panel so that you know which group of appraisers each division works with. Appraisers can perform work for multiple divisions, or just one.

The Manage Appraisers feature lets you view current appraisers that are on your appraiser panel as well as locate new ones. This tab includes an interactive map that highlights all your appraisers’ areas of coverage and enables you to filter to find ones with your defined specifications. You can also add new appraisers to your panel, view an appraiser’s profile, add notes, and modify an appraiser’s area of coverage.

When you click Manage Appraisers, the appraiser coverage area opens to show you the appraiser panel and where this division has appraiser coverage. Green states are states where this division has at least one active appraiser that can receive an appraisal order; gray states are uncovered states.

The expanded view of the Appraisers tool shows data from the selected division’s appraiser panel and enhances it so that you will be presented with a sharp, interactive map-based display. Beginning at the national level, you can drill down into state, county, and zip codes to view individual appraisers and their qualifications and add new ones to your panel.

Click the green areas of the map to drill down into that state. You can zoom into county and zip code to see coverage areas.

Below the map, you can view a list of the individual appraisers that are on this panel and information about each appraiser, including:

• Whether or not they are active on the panel
• The types of appraisal products they can be assigned (residential, commercial, Verisite mobile property inspections)
• Appraiser name/contact name
• Name of the appraisal company
• How many division panels they are on
• The number of orders they have been assigned

Click the arrow to the right of an appraiser to view detail on an individual appraiser. If any of the arrows at right are red, this means that the appraiser has something that is expired on their profile - more than likely, a license or an E&O policy.

Above the map and along the top right you can switch your appraiser panel views: by default My Panel is selected, which displays just the appraiser panel for this division. The Lender Appraisers option changes the view to display all appraisers on all panels across all divisions for this lender. The All option displays every appraiser in the system.

Using the Lender Appraisers and the All options is very helpful when you want to add appraisers to a division's panel. Instead of using the Invite Appraiser button, you can view a particular state, and a particular county within a particular state (you can also drill down into zip code!), then the appraisers that cover a specific county and then add them to your panel that way to add appraisers.

Inviting Appraisers to Join This Division Panel

Using the Invite Appraiser button is helpful when you want to add an appraiser who may not be in the system to this division’s panel. When you click the Invite Appraiser button, a drop-down menu opens that lets you indicate the product types you want the appraiser to be able to accept, and to enter the email address of the appraiser you want to invite.

• Residential – check this checkbox so that this appraiser can be assigned traditional residential appraisal orders.

• Commercial – check this checkbox so that this appraiser can be assigned commercial appraisal orders.

• Verisite – check this checkbox so that this appraiser can be assigned Verisite mobile property inspection orders. Verisite orders are not traditional appraisals – they are property inspection products that are usually ordered on equity loans, commercial loan progress reports, disaster evaluations, and more.

You can upload a mass list of appraiser invitations to be sent out collectively via the Email Address(es) field. This list should only include the appraiser's email address. Email addresses should be separated by comma, semicolon, or line breaks. 

Once the email addresses have been supplied, select the Invite button to trigger the invitation process.  

When the appraiser signs up, they will automatically be added to this division’s panel. They can be assigned the product types that you selected when they sign up.

The Resend All feature within the Pending Invites section will resend all pending appraiser invitations at once, as opposed to selecting Resend on every individual outstanding invitation. 

The Export All function will generate a spreadsheet of all the appraiser invitations that are still outstanding so you can view which appraisers need a follow up, if necessary.

Exporting Appraiser Lists and Filtering Your Appraiser Panel View

To view and work with your list of division appraisers externally, click the Export button. This prompts you to select where to download the list to in a .CSV format.

Tiered Panels allow you to create priority appraiser panels based on applied Appraiser Tags. 

Every time a new order is placed, the top tier panel will always get priority to accept the order (if they qualify). Should that tier become exhausted (i.e., eligible appraisers get up to three opportunities to accept the order), the system will assign orders to the next tier (if applicable), and then open the assignment to the rest of the overall panel. For more information on Tiered Panels, check out the Creating and Applying Tiered Panels article. 

To further filter the list of appraisers, click the Appraiser Criteria button. This opens a screen that allows you to pare down the appraisers to only specific appraisers that perform certain kinds of work.

Check a corresponding checkbox or checkboxes and then click Save to only view appraisers that do selected work.

Working with and Managing Appraisers in a Division’s Panel

Below the coverage area map is a list of the individual appraisers that make up this division’s panel. This list can be filtered based on areas that are clicked on the interactive map. To view all individual appraisers on this panel, be sure that the map is zoomed all the way out.

The list of appraisers is an interactive list, meaning that you can click certain icons to enable/disable appraisers for certain criteria on this panel. Icons that you can click to toggle appraiser information are shown here.

• Remove/Status – use the red “X” and green check mark options to enable and disable this appraiser to/from accepting orders on this division. Appraiser profiles can be toggled differently between divisions, meaning that you can have the same appraiser enabled for one division and disabled for another, allowing for better panel management.

o Clicking the red “X” will remove this appraiser from this division’s panel, making them inactive. This will not delete appraiser from the system or impact this appraiser’s settings on other division panels. When you click the red “X” you will be prompted to add a note as to why you are making this appraiser inactive.

o Clicking the green check mark activates this appraiser on this division’s panel.

Residential – this is the Residential appraisal product type icon. When the residential icon is green, this means that this appraiser can be assigned and accept traditional residential appraisal orders within the panel rotation. Clicking a green residential icon turns it gray, disabling the appraiser from being able to be assigned and accept residential appraisal orders.

Commercial – this is the Commercial appraisal product type icon. When the commercial icon is green, this means that this appraiser can be assigned and accept commercial appraisal orders. Clicking a green commercial icon turns it gray, disabling the appraiser from being able to be assigned and accept commercial appraisal orders.

Verisite – this is the Verisite mobile property inspection icon. When the Verisite icon is green, this means that this appraiser can be assigned and accept Verisite property inspection orders. Clicking a green Verisite icon turns it gray, disabling the appraiser from being able to be assigned and accept Verisite orders.

If an appraiser does not have an icon shown, this means that the appraiser does not offer this kind of work. The settings that you enable for an appraiser here will only impact the way that this individual appraiser interacts with this division. You can have a single appraiser enabled across multiple divisions with different settings. Changing an appraiser’s settings here will not impact settings on other division panels.

Beyond the interactive settings, you can view basic information at a glance: the name of the appraiser, the name of the appraisal company, how many other panels this appraiser is on, and how many orders they have been assigned.

Click the arrow at right to view and manage an individual appraiser more closely.

On this screen you can view basic information about an appraiser. Click through the rest of the sub-tabs to view appraiser settings, to apply your own coverage and routing criteria to this appraiser per your company's requirements, to view appraiser statistics in detail, and to add any notes that pertain to this appraiser specifically for this division.

Appraiser Settings

The gear tab takes you to the Appraiser Settings information.

Here you can click any of the corresponding arrows at right to view:

• Appraisal Types - the appraisal products the appraiser performs.

• Licenses - the license information the appraiser carries.

• E&O - information on the E&O policy the appraiser carries.

• Resume - you can learn more about the appraiser from a business perspective by viewing their resume.

• W-9 - the tax form for the appraiser that includes all their tax and business information. You can use this when you pay the appraiser to send to the IRS.

• Sample Appraisal(s) – at least one sample report is provided by the appraiser so you can review the quality and thoroughness of their reports.

• Coverage - the areas of the country that the appraiser states they deliver appraisal services in. Note that you can limit or customize an appraiser's coverage areas specifically for your company from the padlock/controlled rotation tab.

The Settings screen gives you quick information at a glance if any of the appraiser's information is outdated or expired: a Red arrow indicates that the appraiser's license or E&O is expired, and that they will not be able to receive orders until they update it. This is a compliance precaution as most regulatory compliance requirements state that lenders may not use an appraisal delivered by an appraiser that has expired information. Here is how an expired license looks on the Settings screen.

Controlled Rotation

The padlock tab takes you to the Controlled Rotation information. When you move to this tab, you can implement routing restrictions, override any of the appraiser's coverage areas, or products that they are eligible to perform.

This option gives you more control over how this division interacts with this appraiser. For example, the appraiser may say that they cover the entire state of Illinois, but you may only need coverage in a specific county in Illinois. Entering a Controlled Rotation lets you personalize the appraiser's offering specifically for your divisions.

• Rotation – you can limit the number of orders an appraiser can have at a given time in their queue, and how far away an appraiser can be from the property for assignment purposes.

o Set capacity to _ active orders – when you enter a number of active orders that an appraiser can have in their queue, the appraiser is then excluded from further assignments should the number exceed the active order amount. For example, if you set the capacity to 10 active orders, on the 11th order, the appraiser would be excluded, and the order would route to the next eligible appraiser on your panel. Active orders are classified as any order that has not gone to done and excludes cancelled orders.

o Assign within _ miles from property – you can enter how many miles away you want an appraiser to be from the property. The system will look at the address associated with the appraiser’s profile and the subject property address to determine IF the order is within the appropriate mileage. Should the appraiser be outside the specified radius, the order will move on to the next eligible appraiser on your panel.

• Coverage – you can restrict the types of property classifications an appraiser is eligible to receive by choosing Qualifications and/or determining which Service Areas an appraiser can receive work. These two sections can function on their own, or they can work in conjunction with one another.

o Qualifications – you can limit the types of classifications an appraiser is eligible to receive. From the drop-down menu, you can choose which qualifications you would like the appraiser to receive. For example, if you have an appraiser that specializes in Rural and Acreage properties, you can enable these classifications so that appraiser will always be eligible to receive these types of orders. Please note that all appraisers will always be eligible to receive Single Family order types.

o Service Areas - you can add the coverage you want for this appraiser, overriding the coverage settings the appraiser has indicated that they offer. You can either import the appraiser's settings then customize them to your liking; or you can start from scratch by indicating which counties and which states you want the appraiser to cover. Then, when an appraisal order is placed, if it is within the coverage you have indicated, the appraiser will be eligible to receive the order; if it is outside of the coverage area indicated, the appraiser will not be eligible to receive the order.

• Products - you can select which products you want the appraiser eligible to receive. By default, the appraiser is eligible to receive all products. You can uncheck the Include All Products option and pick and choose which appraisal products the appraiser can be assigned, and which they cannot. For example, you may want a specific appraiser to be able to receive a standard 1004, but you may want to exclude them from being able to do 2055's.

If you have a Controlled Rotation enabled, this tab will turn green, as shown here. The visual indicator provides you with more information faster.

Appraiser Company Statistics

The graph tab takes you to detailed statistics on this appraiser's performance within the system.

Providing this statistical information can help you choose whether you want to include this appraiser in your workflow within the system based on their performance numbers. Especially helpful from a compliance perspective is whether the company has any expired license or E&O information.

Appraiser Notes

The Notes tab lets you view and enter information about this appraiser.

Enter a note into the Notes field, then click the Add Note button. The information will be tracked and logged in the area below the Notes field where you can view it for quick reference with a date and time stamp as well as which user added the note.

Assignment Rotation Logic