The basic Manager user account has access to all clients’ accounts and their orders, plus can create new Manager users and edit all Manager account settings. 


Content Includes: 


Basic Usage and Layout

Use the action links along the left-hand side of your account to perform specific actions in Appraisal Firewall: view all your existing Orders list, manage your client and appraiser Relationships, view Messages between all users, work with older orders in Archives, view new users under Signups, and use Reporting to review order stats and help with billing.


The Manager Settings (gear icon) at the upper left of your account allows you to view and edit your company account in Appraisal Firewall.



Click the Profile icon to modify your login or customer service contact information.



Click the Help Center icon to access training material for you and your clients.



The Orders section contains all your appraisal orders. You can use the Pipeline and Post Delivery management tools to filter your search to specific order types. Click on an order within any list to open it and review the order information. When complete, you can access the appraisal PDF report from within an order.



The Pipeline Orders List is the default view whenever you log into your Appraisal Firewall account. You can choose to view any order type you wish by selecting it in either the Pipeline or Post Delivery management tools. The Orders list below will populate the list associated with the order type you have selected.


Manager Settings

With Manager Settings you can modify your fees, enable Additional Order Types (PDCs, Standalone Scorecard, Verisite, and AVMs/PCRs), enable Appraisal Order Add-Ons, enable security restrictions for users in your office, add credit card processing information, and add your private- label website address. The pricing entered under Manager Settings is the default pricing for your account. You can also set pricing on a per client basis in the Relationships window.



Profile

Accessible by clicking the person icon at the upper left-hand side of your account, you can use the My Profile option to view and edit your company information, including contact numbers, login credentials, and company address.



Orders

The Orders tab at top left is your main view into all orders that have been placed by your clients in Appraisal Firewall. Use the Search box to locate a specific order. You can choose to view any order type you wish by selecting it in either the Pipeline or Post Delivery management tools. The Orders list below will populate the list associated with the order type you have selected (i.e. if you select Revisions Requested in the pie chart, the list will filter down to display only orders in a Revisions Requested status).



You can sort by any of the columns within any orders list by clicking the column header (i.e. view all overdue orders by clicking the clock icon column header).


Expand the arrow icon to the right of the Export All button above any order list to modify the columns displayed to you. Minimize clutter and view the information that is most relevant to you by choosing to display the columns with the information that impacts you most.


Pinned Orders

To the right of the Orders tab is the Pinned tab where you can view all orders you have ‘pinned’ for closer monitoring. Any order that you have pinned in an order list will automatically show in your pinned orders for easier order management.



Working in an Order

From the Order List, click on an order entry to view details about it, and work within it.



The basic order layout includes tab menus along the top and feature options along the right. You have quick and easy access to the features that will impact the order most depending on the status of the order and tab you are viewing. Some features are only available if they are currently relevant to the order (i.e. you can only access the Dispute feature after a report has been delivered).


Communications – displays all messages and all activities that occurred on the order. This is your main compliance tool in Appraisal Firewall. You can send messages and review past ones from this screen.


Property Information – this tab contains all details about the subject property such as address, the report type ordered, and loan information.


Billing Details – displays all accounting activity related to the order (service fees, price changes, receipts, etc.).


Documents – view, download, and forward all files (purchase contract, credit card authorization, invoice, etc.) associated with the order. Hardcopies of the communication log can be printed for compliance purposes to prove no undue appraiser influence occurred.


Manage Parties – allows you to view, add, or remove users associated with the order and view the appraiser assigned to the order.


Notes – add an order-specific note to the order. You can view the notes users under your organization have created.


Order Features

The action menu along the right allows you to work more efficiently on your orders. The action buttons that are highlighted in green are specific to the particular tab you are viewing. Some buttons may not be available depending on the status of the order.


Here are the actions that you can take from the menu at right:

  • Accept – you may accept orders on behalf of your appraisers if they are out of the office or unable to access the website.
  • Decline – you may decline orders on behalf of your appraisers so there is no delay in order reassignment.
  • Edit Details – users can modify order details such as address, due date, loan number, and appraisal type. Appraisers are notified by email when a change is made to the order.
  • Print – view and print the details of the order.
  • Archive Order (managers only) – manually send an order to archives to remove it from the view of all system users.
  • Send Message – allows the user to send a message to the appraiser.
  • Deliver Report – upload a report to the system on behalf of your appraisers.
  • Hold Order/Resume Order – place the order on hold and limit functionality of all users working on it. Users can still send messages, but the report cannot be uploaded. Using this feature generates an email to the appropriate parties letting them know the status of the order.
  • Request Revisions – only available on completed orders. If the report requires some adjustments (change lender name, adding another comp, etc.) and the value is not being disputed, use this feature to communicate to the appraiser what revisions the report needs.
  • Revision Response – respond on behalf of your appraisers to a revisions request made by a lender.
  • ROV/Dispute – This feature allows you to add additional comparable sales you would like the appraiser to consider and incorporates borrower-initiated Reconsideration of Value (ROV) requests. NOTE: borrower-initiated ROVs will never automatically go to the appraiser. The lender is expected to review the request to determine if corrections are warranted by the appraiser.  
  • Send Status – provide an order update to a lender on behalf of your appraisers.
  • Print Communications Log – view and download the details of the Communications log.
  • Order 2nd Appraisal – enables you to order a second appraisal on this property that will automatically be routed to a new appraiser. Use this feature when two appraisals are required for one property – such as an FHA flip. When selected, a New Order screen will appear, with property information automatically populated.
  • Order Reinspection – request for an appraiser’s reinspection of the property. This feature generates a new order that will be routed to the same appraiser assigned to the original order. When selected, a New Order screen will appear with property information automatically populated.
  • Run Scorecard – submit completed reports to a third-party automated review that helps verify and rate appraisal quality (additional fees will apply).
  • ROV/Dispute Response – This feature allows Managers and/or Appraisers to respond to an ROV Request initiated by the lender. The content of the response is a direct copy of the Revision Response screen, where commentary can be sent to the lender to use the existing appraisal report up upload a revised report. 
  • Send to UCDP – available only on completed orders after UCDP credentials have been entered at the division level for the lender. Choose this option to manually submit the uploaded appraisal report to UCDP.
  • Send to FHA EAD – available only on completed orders after EAD credentials have been entered at the division level for the lender. Choose this option to manually submit the uploaded appraisal report to the EAD portal.
  • Cancel Order – this cancels the appraisal order. Cancellation/Trip fees may apply.
  • Cancellation Fee – set a cancellation fee on behalf of your appraisers. Appraisers can set a fee within 24 hours of an order cancellation. Manager users are not limited to the 24-hour window.
  • Change Price – available only after an appraiser requests a price change, select this feature to increase the price of an order, respond to an appraiser’s price change request, or request a price decrease from the appraiser.
  • Update Credit Card – change the credit card information that was previously used to place a credit card order.
  • Invoice – displays all costs involved in this appraisal order and to whom they should be remitted. This includes an itemized list of applicable technology transaction fees, appraisal fees, and billing service fees.
  • Generate Independence Certificate (managers only)– manually provide an AIR cert for your lenders to include in their loan file.
  • Assign Appraiser – you can assign this appraisal order to an appraiser of your choice. Select Assign Appraiser to display a list of eligible appraisers for this property. You can assign the order to an appraiser within your panel or select one from the All Appraisers list. Select the Backup AMC radio button to route this order to an AMC. Assign Appraiser is available if the order is not currently assigned to an appraiser.
  • Assign Reviewer – assign/view the user acting as a manual reviewer (only available if manual review feature is enabled).


Relationships

The Relationships window is your guide into all your clients’ accounts. This window lets you enable settings and review company information on a per-client basis. You can access and manage your lenders, appraisers, AMCs, and other manager users in your office. In addition, you can view a summary of a selected client and any orders they have.


Use the Email button to send a message to several users at once. Send emails to users across all lenders or specify a user type under a specific lender.



Lenders Tab

The Lenders tab in the Relationships window displays all your lender clients and their settings and allows you to manage and work within their orders. Select or search for a particular client to view their information, settings, or orders.


You can also tag your lenders to be able to sort to filter to find clients and orders that you monitor closely. Create a tag using the tag icon within a client’s profile. Then, use the tag drop down menu to find all lenders that you have tagged with the same filter.



For instance, if you tag several lenders as ‘manager bill,’ you can then sort to view all your clients where you bill the lender and then pay the appraiser on behalf of the lender at one time.



To edit an individual client’s settings or work within their account, use the drop-down arrow next to the lender.



  • Edit Lender – View and edit a lender’s company and contact information.
  • Edit Lender Settings – Enable security settings, manual review, and automated appraisal reviews for the lender.
  • Open Dashboard – View the client’s orders and work within them.
  • Manage Divisions – View, create, and modify all divisions under the selected company and view orders on a per division basis.
  • Manage Users – View and edit the list of users under this lender. You can change user types and assign users to different divisions.


Manage Divisions

The Manage Divisions tool is where you can access a division’s settings, manage the appraiser panel, and any reviewers associated with the account. For companies that operate with multiple divisions, Appraisal Firewall provides the ability to set up multi-divisional appraisal management.



To add a new division to a lender’s account, click Create Division. Each division has its own panel of appraisers, settings, reviewers, and AMCs that a manager or administrative user can view and edit.



Edit Division

Edit the name, contact information, and account status using the Edit Division feature.



Edit Settings

Use the Edit Settings menu to designate what kinds of appraisals the lender can order under this division, enter UCDP/EAD credentials for submission to the portal, edit/view transaction fees, and select more company-specific options.



The General tab allows you to manage order requirements and appraisal routing settings for your clients’ residential appraisal orders.



The Commercial tab allows you to manage order requirements and appraisal routing settings for your clients’ commercial appraisal orders.



The Manager section allows you to modify features that cannot be edited by the lender. You can adjust division settings to modify how you manage your client.



The Products tab allows you to control the types of appraisal products your clients’ users are allowed to order.


By checking Include All Products, users will have a list of all of the system’s products to choose from when placing an order. If you would like to limit users to specific appraisal types, unselect Include All Products and select the products in the list below that you would like to have available to the client’s users.



You can also add custom products that are unique to the lender. To add a product to the Product List, locate the Add Product field above the list of standard products. Enter the name of the custom product, then click Add. When using the Custom Products feature, you will need to manually select all other products that should be available to users (the Include All Products feature will no longer be available once Custom Products are enabled).


Property Classifications

Use the Property Classifications section to modify the classifications that are available to you and your users when placing orders. By default, all classifications are available to all users.


To modify the property classifications that appear on the New Order screen, un-select the Include All Products checkbox and then select the classifications you would like. Only the selected classifications will appear on the New Order screen. You can even add property classifications that are unique to your company by entering your classification in the Add Product field and clicking Add. Your new property classification will appear at the bottom of the product list, however once saved, the property classifications will be listed alphabetically.



Pricing

Appraisal Firewall allows appraisers to set their own appraisal fee prices. With GFE requirements and specific variances that need to be met between the GFE and the HUD-1, many lenders are looking to reduce the variance on their appraisal costs and fix them. The Pricing screen allows you and your lenders to do this – to override appraisers’ prices, and to pay these exact amounts only on the 'Fixed' setting or up to a certain amount on a 'Maximum' setting.



You can keep the default setting of All, All so that across all counties and all states, users pay the price per appraisal product that you enter in under the Amount column. You can also enter specific fixed prices per county and state (and even down to Zip Code) and keep the All, All for any orders placed outside the specific county/zip/state.


Hint: To fix pricing for a specific county, but default back to appraisers’ pricing for everywhere else, you can remove the All, All entry and enter in a specific county via the Coverage button. This allows you to fix prices in certain counties, but to keep appraisers’ pricing for appraisals ordered outside this specific area.


Manage Users

The Manage Users section within a specific division contains tools to help users in your client’s office who have access to the system. You can modify a user’s profile, create notes about the user, and view orders on a per-user basis.



Users listed in the system are displayed next to different colored profile icons that represent the user type. Green profile icons represent Administrator users, blue icons represent Supervisor users, and orange icons represent Originators.


Administrator users have access to managing appraiser panels, assigning appraisers to orders, and managing account settings and orders. Supervisor users have access to view and work on all orders under their assigned division and cannot see appraiser information. Originator users can only access and work on orders that they have created or have been assigned to and cannot see appraiser information.


Click the Create User button to add a new user to the account. Click the arrow next to a user to view and edit their specific account information. You can change their profile information, adjust a user’s rights, and access all their orders. You can even modify a user’s settings to be read only or limit them to performing certain actions in an order.



Manage Appraisers

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


The expanded view of the Manage Appraisers feature 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.



When you first access the Manage Appraisers feature to manage an appraiser panel, you are presented with the national view of your areas of coverage. States and territories highlighted in green indicate locations where appraisers offer coverage.


You can zoom in to a state, county, and even zip code level to view all areas of coverage and what appraisers are associated with that area.


Manage Reviewers

Your lenders can have users that manually review all orders uploaded under the selected division. You or an administrator can create a single reviewer or add multiple reviewers that will be part of a panel of reviewers.



Reviewers on the panel are responsible to manually review and approve every report uploaded under this division. Supervisors and Originators will not have access to reports until the report has been approved by a reviewer.


You and your lender administrators can invite an existing user to also function as a reviewer. If the reviewer you invite currently exists in the system, they will automatically be added to the reviewer panel. If the reviewer you invite does not exist in the system, you will be prompted to create them as an appraiser or originator. Once the user creates an account, they will appear on the reviewer panel.


Note: Adding reviewers to a panel does not enable the reviewer feature. For orders to be assigned to a reviewer, the manual reviewer feature within the Settings window of the division must be enabled.


Manage AMCs

Your lender can utilize AMCs to provide out of area coverage when no appraisers are available on their appraiser panel. You or an administrator can also provide an AMC panel for users to choose from when placing orders. The AMC panel is helpful for fulfilling specific secondary marketing requirements of using a particular AMC for processing appraisals.


You or the lender can even use a backup AMC simply for automatic routing on out of area orders.



You can search for new AMCs using the All radio button and add them to the panel by clicking the plus icon. AMCs that are currently on your panel can be viewed under the My Panel section. You can modify AMCs' coverage areas and view their company info by clicking the arrow next to the AMC company name.


Users Tab

Add other users in your office who should have access to your clients’ accounts and their orders. Because each user is tracked in the Communications Log of an order, providing unique login credentials to others in your office lets you track who performed work on an order. You can also view orders that others have pinned for closer monitoring, so you know how to follow up in case of someone’s absence.



You can also reset users’ passwords, change their status, and restrict their access to the Relationships screen.


Appraisers Tab

The Appraisers tab lets you view current appraisers that are on your clients’ panels and enables you to put their accounts into an ‘On Hold’ status. You can also view the appraiser’s profile and create notes about the appraiser that are viewable to only you.



View and work in any order the appraiser is associated with by clicking Open Dashboard button under any appraisers’ account info. You can also send an email to all your appraisers or appraisers under a specific lender.


AMCs Tab

Use the AMCs tab to provide out of area coverage and to provide an AMC panel for your clients to choose from when placing orders. The AMC panel is helpful for fulfilling specific secondary marketing requirements of using a particular AMC for processing appraisals. You can also create backup AMCs for automatic routing on out of area orders.



Messages

This gives you a quick view of messages that may require your attention, including status updates and billing activities. Search parameters can be filtered by date, new to old messages, and lender tags. 

Under the Unread tab you can view all unread messages you have received within the specified timeframe. Double-click on any message to open that specific order and mark the message as read.



Use the Monitor tab to quickly view messages between users and appraisers under your company to assist with appraisal independence compliance concerns and intervene to help troubleshoot user issues. Double click on any message to open that specific order. You can even view messages by a specified date range.


Under the Property Description tab, you can view orders where the Property Description box has been filled out on the New Order screen.


Under the Activities tab you can view all system activities for orders under your scope including price changes, all messages, UCDP/EAD submissions, and edits to orders.


Use the Non-Order tab to view mass messages you have sent via the Relationship’s screen Email button and to whom the emails were sent.


Archives

With Archives, you can search for and restore archived orders. This allows your main order list to stay uncluttered, while also giving you access to old orders.



Note: Appraisal Firewall automatically archives completed appraisal orders after a year of inactivity that you can access in your Archives list. As a manager you can manually archive any order by opening an order and selecting the Archive button.


Signups

With Signups, you can monitor new lenders and appraisers who have signed up under your private label link or have been created by administrators under your account. Viewing new signups helps in tracking responses to marketing and makes you aware of new users who have joined the system.



Reporting

View Billing Activity, Open Order, Closed Order, Lender Users and Custom Reports that pertain to all clients under your company. Select the drop-down menu next to a report you want to run report to view and click Run Report. Please Note: Use the Reporting tool within a lender/division to run Appraiser Performance and Appraiser Coverage Area reports or reports that pertain to a specific lender.