Overview
You can configure Vendor Selection Settings within the Commercial Appraisal workflow to automate appraiser selection through the Intelligent Selection System (ISS), manage competitive bidding, and establish order timelines. These settings ensure orders are assigned to the most qualified vendors—based on priority rank, proximity, experience, and licensing—while increasing efficiency through standardized automation.
How to Configure Commercial Appraisers
Navigate to the top navigation bar and select Preferences.
Select Vendor Selection Settings
From the Commercial Appraisal tab, select your Commercial Appraisal selection.
Allow Order Bidding — When enabled, this option will allow orders for commercial products to be issued as bid opportunities. During vendor selection, a set of vendors can be manually selected or automatically selected for you based on additional settings.
Check Hide lender details from the vendor until a bid is awarded so the lender's information will not be shown on the vendor's notifications or order before the bid is awarded.
Note: Lenders, this option will hide your identity during the bidding process. However, requiring the appraiser to sign a vendor agreement before bidding may reveal your identity, depending on the contents of the agreement.
Automatic Vendor Selection — Enabling this option allows your configured Intelligent Selection Settings (ISS) to automatically select the most qualified appraisers for a commercial order.
When bidding is used, the ISS will select a set of appraisers between the 'at least' and 'at most' values entered.
Specify the pool from which you want Mercury to recommend or select vendors.
Mark Mercury Network directory to use Mercury's entire nationwide vendor directory.
To use your own custom directory of vendors, mark Custom fee panel and then indicate whether you want to use the full nationwide Mercury directory as a backup.
Tip: Click Save in the top-left corner to save your selections before navigating to other Vendor Selection Settings.
How to Configure Ordering Options
Configure the expiration window for commercial orders awarded to an appraiser. By default, appraisers have 24 hours to accept an awarded bid before it expires.
To modify this, enter the desired number of hours in the Set Default Order Expiration Time field.
Orders that are issued for bid have a time period during which the appraiser must respond. The default bid due time is 24 hours. To modify this default, check the Set Default Bid Due Time box and enter the number of hours you wish to use as your default. You can override this default for any order on an as-needed basis.
By default, the grace period (during which orders will not expire) is 11PM - 9AM based on the time zone where the subject address is located. To set your own custom grace period, check Set grace period then use the dropdown boxes to choose your start and end times. The grace period automatically includes weekends and federal holidays. There are some considerations for orders which expire during the grace period, and you can learn more here.
You may elect to pay all the Mercury Network Transaction Fees on behalf of your vendor. Check the Pay All Transaction Fees box to enable this option.
How to Configure Intelligent Selection System (ISS)
The Intelligent Selection System (ISS) helps Mercury Network® select qualified vendors for your orders based on criteria you define, such as proximity, experience, and availability. You can prioritize certain criteria by moving them higher in the ISS weighting list.
Require valid license - Only select from vendors who have verified their active state license.
Require local vendor - Define acceptable distance from subject property. Note: Rural vendors could be affected.
Require Years of Experience - Mark this option if you want to define the minimum years of experience a vendor must have to be considered for an order.
Require staff vendor - Mark this to require a vendor whose profile has been marked as Staff/salaried. Select Require to only consider staff/salaried vendors, or select Prefer to consider other vendors when a staff vendor is unavailable.
Exclude past due vendors - Mark this option to avoid assigning orders to vendors who have a past due order with you.
Use supervisor - Mark this option to prefer or require appraisers who have added trainees to their profile. When an order is assigned to a supervisor, a Trainee field will appear in Order Details if the appraiser adds a trainee to an order.
Require Errors and Omissions - Mark this option to limit the list of suggested vendors to those with an E&O policy listed in their profiles and enter the minimum amount of E&O insurance you require in the provided box.
Require Vendor Rating - Mark this option to define a minimum acceptable star rating for a vendor to be eligible for orders when new orders are placed. Check the Consider new vendors box to allow vendors new to the system to receive orders from you.
Limit vendor capacity - Mark this option to limit the number of orders which can be assigned to a vendor concurrently.
Enforce vendor priority - Mark this option to restrict order assignment to vendors who have a priority rank. Mark Consider unranked vendors to open up assignment to unranked vendors if a ranked vendor isn't available.
Reviewed Documents - When enabled, you can prefer or require approved documents from your vendors when assigning orders. New documents are given a 30-day grace period for you and your vendor to correct any issues before the vendor is removed from consideration during assignments; this 30-day period includes documents which were marked for review and updated by the vendor. This item will only appear if you've enabled document review in your Fee Panel Options.
How to Set a Vendors Priority Rank & Configure Weighting Factors
To prioritize Mercury's vendor suggestions by other factors, check the box beside any of the Selection Weighting factors you want Mercury to consider when suggesting vendors.
Click and drag the row for that item up or down the list to prioritize it. Dragging it up the list increases its priority rank in Mercury's suggestions. Dragging it down the list decreases its priority rank.
Weighting Factors
Turn time | Number of days between the time an order was accepted by a vendor and when it was delivered. |
Acceptance percentage | The percentage of orders that vendor has accepted out of the total number of orders that have been placed with them. Higher percentages are returned higher in the list. |
On Time percentage | The percentage of orders that vendor has accepted out of the total number of orders that have been placed with them. Higher percentages are returned higher in the list. |
Expiration percentage | The number of orders vendor has received that they neither accepted nor declined. This number can be an indication of responsiveness. Lower numbers are returned higher in the list. |
Proximity to subject | Vendors located closest to the subject property are returned higher in the list than those located farther away. |
Quality rating | A compiled rating that is applied based on your experience with the quality of the reports delivered by the vendor. |
Professionalism rating | A compiled rating that is applied based on your experience with the professionalism of the vendor. |
Rework percentage | The number of assignments where the vendor has to make changes to the report after delivery. |
Revision turn time | Number of hours between the time a revision was requested and it was redelivered by the vendor. |
Outcome
After completing these steps, you can now configure the Commercial Appraiser settings to automate the appraiser workflow through the Intelligent Selection System.