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Appraisal Firewall Enhancements Scheduled for
Wednesday Morning, June 9th, 2021
VA Appraisal Connection Now Available!  Release Information for Lenders 

Starting Wednesday morning, June 9th, 2021, a new version of Appraisal Firewall will be available for you. This release includes our full end-to-end VA portal ordering connection and includes Assign Reviewer functionality to standalone Appraisal Scorecards. Read on for complete information. 

Place VA Orders Directly Through Appraisal Firewall
We are thrilled to release the ability for you to order VA appraisal orders directly through Appraisal Firewall, Ellie Mae^® Encompass^®, and our other LOS interfaces! Through this brand-new feature, you can receive appraisal status updates, messages, and relevant documents directly in Appraisal Firewall without logging into the VA portal directly. Completed VA appraisal reports are retrieved promptly back into Appraisal Firewall. You can also link your existing VA appraisal orders to Appraisal Firewall. Now you can maintain all your appraisal orders – including VA appraisals--in a single platform!

Getting started is fast and easy.  You can enter your VA portal credentials into the new VA Appraisal Settings section.  Then, we can aid in setting up your VA ID.me credentials within your lender settings to ensure the connection is successfully created.

If you are interested in getting started or would like additional information, contact Danielle Walker at Danielle@AppraisalFirewall.com or 800-452-1174 ext. 1260.

Access the Complete User Training Guide Here Summary information can be found below.

Placing a New VA Appraisal Order: Once you have setup your VA Appraisal Settings, you and your managed users can place your VA appraisal orders by selecting the New Order menu, then choosing Residential from your available products. You will see VA as an available choice with our existing loan types within the Loan section. Select the radio button for VA. All fields with an asterisk (*) notate a required field. You will know all required fields have been fulfilled when a green checkmark is displayed on the right side of every section. Once each section contains a visible green checkmark, you will be able to select Order at the bottom of the New Order form. Upon order placement, the VA Case Number will be returned along with the 1805 document. During this time, the appraiser will be assigned within the VA portal. The VA will continue to send you order completed email notifications. This will indicate your VA appraisal order is ready for retrieval in Appraisal Firewall. Open the appropriate order in Appraisal Firewall and select Retrieve VA Updates. We will reach out to the VA portal to return the full appraisal report, statuses, messages, and relevant documents. Importing an Existing VA Appraisal Order from the VA Portal: Importing an existing VA appraisal order to Appraisal Firewall can be accomplished by following the VA ordering process described above, with a minor change. If you already have the VA Case Number, enter the assigned case number in the VA Case Number field on the new Residential order screen. Once you complete all your required fields within the Loan and Property sections, you can select the Order button. Appraisal Firewall will reach out to the VA portal upon placement. During this time, Appraisal Firewall will retrieve any messages and documents the VA has for the ordered VA Case Number. Any returned messages and documents will be posted to the Communication Log.

Assign Reviewers for Standalone Scorecards Standalone Scorecards are an eligible product that can be reviewed by your Manual Review panel. If you use our Standalone Scorecard auto-review tool, occasionally you may need to reassign Reviewers, and for this purpose we have included the Assign Reviewer feature within the Parties tab. Assigning Reviewers for Scorecard functions exactly as it does on other eligible products you currently have setup to go through your review panel.   How to Use this Feature: To assign a reviewer to your Scorecard order, open the Parties tab (person icon). Locate the Assign Reviewer button to the right. Once you click on Assign Reviewer, all eligible reviewers on your review panel will have the Assign option available. Once you assign your reviewer, the email notification is sent to the reviewer, and the action is noted on the Communication Log. Your reviewer can approve or reject the Standalone Scorecard.