Overview
This article introduces the key user types and foundational concepts in the Appraisal Scope platform used by AMC teams, clients (lenders), and vendors (appraisers). It explains what each role can do in the system and how settings, functional levels, profiles, and rule profiles work together to support configurable order and appraisal workflows.
AMC Staff Users
Super-Admin User:
Super-admin users create staff admin users in the platform and set permissions that decide the types of communication these users receive and how much control will be available to that user within the platform. Super-admin users have access to all of the platform’s functionality, and they can configure settings to define how product order and appraisal assignment workflows are managed.
Admin User:
The role of the admin user depends, in part, on the permissions set by the super-admin user. With the right permissions, they can perform standard tasks associated with managing clients and vendors in the platform. Throughout this User Guide, AMC staff users are often referred to generically as admin users and AMC admin users. All three of these terms will simply refer to AMC staff members who will be performing any of the tasks detailed in any section of this document.
Related Article: How Manage Staff Profiles in Appraisal Scope®
AMC Clients
New AMC clients can be added to an Appraisal Scope platform-version by an admin user, or they can sign up for a platform-version when invited by an admin user. In the case of signing up by invitation, an admin user will provide the URL for the AMC’s platform-version to the new client, and after accessing the platform, this new client will click the Client Sign Up tab from the Appraisal Scope Sign In page.
If this new client is signing up on behalf of his or her company, meaning that the company with whom the new client is affiliated doesn’t yet have a profile in an AMC’s platform-version, then the details that this new client enters will be used to create both client company and client user profiles within the platform. If, on the other hand, a new client is affiliated with a company that already has a profile in the AMC’s platform-version, the details that this new client enters will be used to create a client user profile that will be merged with the already-existing client company profile.
Regardless of the scenario, when new clients sign themselves up, they will be in a Pending status until they’ve been accepted by an AMC’s admin user. Once a new client is accepted, the details they provided at sign up will be added to the platform and associated with their affiliated client company and client user profiles. For more information regarding the profiles that contain client details and the way profiles function in Appraisal Scope, see the Client company profile section in Chapter 5.
Client Company:
The client company is the lender. When AMC admin users make choices and set options that determine how the orders placed in a platform-version of Appraisal Scope will be initiated, processed, and assigned, these choices will be made based on relationships between the AMC and its client companies.
Client User and Client Admin:
Client users are managed and housed under a client company. Client users can sign themselves up for the platform and be approved by an admin user (see above), they can be registered in the platform by an admin user, or they can be registered in the platform by a designated client admin within the client company they’re associated with.
Client users are further broken down in the platform as Processor, Manager, or Loan Officer, titles that are dictated by the role they play within the client company that they’re affiliated with. Client users are, generally speaking, the users who place the orders in an Appraisal Scope platform-version.
Related Article: How to Manage Client Company Profiles in Appraisal Scope®
Note: Although Appraisal Scope differentiates between Processor, Manager, and Loan Officer user types, for the purposes of this User Guide, these types are collectively referred to as simply client users. Also, client company is a term that may be used in this guide generically to refer to a lender that an AMC has a relationship with. The distinction between client company used in this general sense and client company used in reference to a specific profile on a platform-version should be clear from the context in which it’s used within the User Guide.
AMC Vendors
Vendor Company:
The vendor company is a collection of appraisers organized under the same umbrella in an AMC’s platform-version. AMC admin users can create vendor company profiles in their Appraisal Scope platform-version, and then arrange the appraisers, as well as apprentice appraisers, that they’ve registered in their platform-version under this vendor company.
Vendor User:
The vendor user is an appraiser that is registered on an AMCs Appraisal Scope platform-version. An AMC admin user can add a vendor user to their platform-version by obtaining the vendor user’s license number from the Appraisal Scope Directory or the Appraisal Subcommittee (ASC) database. A vendor user can also be invited to, sign up for, and then be accepted into an AMC’s platform-version.
Vendor users who are asked to sign up will be sent an invitation with the URL for an AMC’s platform-version. The user will click on the URL, and then they’ll click the Appraiser Sign Up tab at the Sign In page and fill in required details. As is the case with client users who sign themselves up, an appraiser will be in a Pending status until approved by an AMC admin user. Once an appraiser has been approved, they can accept work assigned to them by the AMC.
Related Article: How to Manage Vendor Company Profile in Appraisal Scope®
Important Concepts
Functional levels:
Functional levels constitute a foundational concept in Appraisal Scope because they work as a model for understanding how the many elements potentially impacting an AMC’s order-fulfillment workflow fit together in the platform. These elements are a combination of tools, supplementary materials, and settings available for AMCs to use or not, depending on their needs.
It may be that an AMC wants all orders for a certain type of valuation product to be fulfilled in a standardized way. Or alternatively, the AMC might want certain orders placed for this product handled differently from others due to the differences in geographic areas concerned, or maybe due to the particular demands of a specific client. It’s the AMC’s mix of elements and configuration choices that will allow them to enact the scenario they require.
An essential component to Appraisal Scope’s workflow flexibility lies in the use of settings applicable at four different functional levels: global, client company, branch, and client user. Settings can be configured at these levels in combinations that allow for a lot of workflow variation from one valuation product to the next, variation that might stem from client expectations, geographic variation, or shifting regulations, for example.
Beginning with the global level, an AMC can view the elements configured here as constituting the general framework and baseline rules that will dictate how their platform-version behaves. They are called global because they will impact how a platform-version functions in all cases, except those cases where settings configured at the client company, branch, or client user level take precedence and supersede the global level settings. It’s these exceptional cases that are best handled through the other levels.
Settings established at the client company level will allow AMCs to make exceptions for scenarios dictated by their client companies’ needs, but an AMC may find it necessary to be more specific than this when handling exceptions to the general rule. The branch level gives AMCs the power to subdivide a client company into units that can be based on whatever criteria make the most sense. This allows rules to be applied that will make the platform-version behave differently from branch to branch when orders originate within the same client company.
For the AMC that needs even more nuance with rule application, Appraisal Scope offers the option to configure individual client users within a branch. This makes it possible to suit the needs of an individual client user. Settings configured at the client user level allow AMCs to apply settings to orders placed by one client user that are different to settings applied to another client user’s orders—even users within the same branch.
Profiles:
Understanding the way profiles function is valuable for understanding how Appraisal Scope functionality translates to accomplishing business objectives. Profiles can be thought of as individual containers that exist in an AMC’s Appraisal Scope platform-version to hold information. When an AMC adds a new client, for example, the details about where the client is located, who the contacts are for that client, and the way the orders originating with that client will be assigned to appraisers suitable to handle them are all stored in profiles.
Information about individuals or groups of users is associated with a platform-version through the profiles in which they’re stored, and it’s the profiles that allow AMCs to make use of this information to carry out their business. An AMC will establish profiles for both users of its platform-version and for the rule sets that will allow it to manage the users of its system. These profile types and the way each one functions within Appraisal Scope are detailed below.
User Profiles:
Each user and client company that an AMC has on staff, assigns orders to, or does business with will have their own profile within a platform-version of Appraisal Scope. These profiles will be stored in the system, and AMC admin users will interact with profiles to perform many tasks related to managing relationships with clients and appraisers.
Profiles can be created by admin users, client users, client admins (on behalf of fellow client users), and vendor users. When a new user signs up and is subsequently accepted—or when an admin user signs a new user up—for an AMC’s platform-version, that user’s profile is created and becomes a part of the platform-version going forward.
Client company profiles act as containers, housing the profiles of users who place orders on behalf of a client company. These users are referred to as client users in Appraisal Scope, and they can be further organized into groups that are stored under a client company profile as branches. AMC admin users can set configurations at the client company, branch, and client user profile levels, giving an AMC the flexibility to customize the way its platform-version processes orders, client by client.
Vendor company profiles also act as containers, housing the profiles of users who are eligible to perform appraisals. Vendor users who are contained within a vendor company profile can be further organized into vendor company branches. Admin users can select from a few options at the vendor company level that will impact users organized under the vendor company profile. There are also a few options available to admin users to set permissions at the vendor company branch level that will impact individual vendor users.
Vendor users can also operate in a platform-version as single entities, however, meaning that they do not have to be contained under vendor company profiles. When they are contained under vendor company profiles, though, these vendor users can be broken up still further in Appraisal Scope into Manager, Appraiser, and Apprentice Appraiser, defined roles that are stored in a platform-version as part of the vendor company profile.
And finally, AMC staff users will be associated with staff profiles in the AMC’s platform-version. Staff users with administrative responsibilities are able to set configurations at this staff profile level that will dictate which orders are assigned to staff users, the type and number of email communications a staff user receives, and the platform-interface experience that a staff user will have.
Rule Profiles:
Rule profiles are excellent tools for helping staff users to focus on individual aspects of their range of responsibilities. Appraisal Scope offers two types of rule profiles, the Admin Rule Profile and the Reviewer Rule Profile. These profiles can be set up in many different ways, and AMCs have control over how they’ll be configured and how they’ll be used.
The rules in rule profiles are conditions that an AMC staff user will set which will determine what that rule profile is intended to do and how it will interact with an AMC’s platform-version. Ultimately, when rule profiles are being used by an AMC, Appraisal Scope will run orders past the profiles to see if specific order details correspond to the conditions that have been set. When details match up, a rule profile is triggered and instructs Appraisal Scope to do something with the order that triggers it.
Because AMCs can configure as many rule profiles as they want and with as many variations as they see fit, these profiles are of tremendous value for management application. For specific information about how rule profiles work, an expanded look at the ways they are of benefit to AMCs, and procedural details for configuring rule profiles, see the Admin Rule Profiles page and Reviewer Rule Profiles page sections.
Related Article: How to Use the Admin Rule Profiles Page in Appraisal Scope®
Outcome
This overview explains how key Appraisal Scope user roles (AMC staff, client users, and vendor users) are created, managed, and approved within a platform-version. It also explains how functional levels, profiles, and rule profiles work together to shape workflow configuration and order fulfillment.