The Home Counseling Provider List tool automatically populates the Encompass® Home Counseling Provider List using data from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). It pulls provider data directly using the Encompass® and HUD APIs, returning HUD-approved housing counseling agencies near the borrower’s current address. This helps organizations satisfy the requirement to provide borrowers with a list of local housing counseling agencies—automatically and consistently.

Benefits

  • Fast, reliable population of the Home Counseling Provider List
  • Runs automatically in the background—no user interaction required
  • Consistent, compliant provider lists based on the borrower’s address
  • Admin-friendly configuration

Activation

To turn this tool on:

  1. Download and save the installation package (empkg) — "site".
  2. Open Input Form Builder › Manage Customizations › Import Package Wizard.
  3. Browse to the downloaded package and click Import.
Important: Importing the package will install the required custom fields. However, the lookups will not function until the API Client ID is created and an API user is added to the Encompass® instance (see Admin Setup – API User below).
Important: The API version and the legacy SDK (desktop plugin) version of this tool cannot be active at the same time. If you are currently running the SDK version, turn it off and uninstall it before enabling the API version. Existing trigger rules can be re-used—the triggering field does not change between versions.

How to Use the Tool

Automated (Background) Operation

The API version runs automatically in the background—there is no manual form to open and no user interaction. When the borrower or coborrower’s current address is entered or changed, a custom field trigger rule fires the lookup. The tool is preconfigured to search standard provider types within 500 miles of the borrower’s address, expanding the radius until 10 agencies are found, and writes the results to the Home Counseling Provider List.

Important Note: The loan must be saved and closed for the lookup to begin. The current version of the Encompass® API can only update data fields while the loan is closed. There may be a short delay (1–2 minutes) after closing the loan while the API gains exclusive access and completes the update. This requirement is expected to be removed in a future Encompass® API update.

Results

The tool returns HUD-approved housing counseling agencies near the borrower’s address and populates the Encompass® Home Counseling Provider List, including the agency name, address, phone, website, services offered, and languages supported (as provided by HUD).

Admin Setup – API User

Please note that the API versions of our PowerTools™ require an API user to be created in each instance where the PowerTools™ are installed. Lender Toolkit can submit a request to ICE to generate the Client ID and secret key pair. If credentials have not yet been obtained, use the link below to request credentials.

Request API Credentials for PowerTools and Automations

Installed Components

Component
Detail
Custom Form
None (background integration)
Codebase Assemblies
None
Custom Data Objects
None
Plugins
None (API/ISV integration)

Custom Fields Created

The custom fields below are used by the Home Counseling Provider List tool.


 CX.HC.TRIGGER.API
 HC API Trigger Field
Can be used in a trigger rule to run additional agency updates based on milestone completions, etc.
If used, any change to the field will trigger the lookup. It is recommended that the field be set to NOW().
 CX.HC.IMPORT.DATE
Housing Counselor Import Date
Can be used in business rules and reporting.
 CX.HC.IMPORT.STATUS
Housing Counselor Import Status
Can be used in business rules and reporting.