Knowledge Base

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
  

Prerequisites

Please note that before this tool can be activated, clients must be able to access the Toolshed Portal and have obtained API credentials.

Toolshed Portal

If the primary Encompass® Administrator does not have access to the Toolshed Portal, please email support@lendertoolkit.com with the administrator's name, email address, phone number and the Encompass® Client ID.  Our support team will be happy to assist with setting up access.

API User and Persona

Please note that the API versions of our PowerTools™ and automations 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

Activation

Home Counselor - API is activated through the Toolshed Portal.   

1. Sign in to Toolshed Portal with an administrator account. Select the correct Encompass® instance.
   
2. Open Settings -> Enabled Products.
   
3. Locate Home Counselor - API. Click Activate.
   
4. Download and save the Home Counselor API Installation Package.
   
5. Open Input Form Builder › Manage Customizations › Import Package Wizard.
   
6. Browse to the downloaded package and click Import.
   

Important: The API version and the legacy SDK (desktop plugin) version of this tool cannot be active at the same time. Companies currently running the SDK version, must turn it off and uninstall it before enabling the API version.

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.

Manual (Optional)

Trigger rules can also be created to fire the Home Counseling API lookup based on a field change or milestone completion. A system administer would create a trigger rule that fires the Home Counseling API when the triggering field [CX. HC.TRIGGER.API] is changed.

Note: any change to the field will fire the API. We recommend setting the field to “NOW()” in your trigger rule.

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).

Installed Components

• Custom Form: None
  
• Codebase Assemblies: None
  
• Custom Data Objects: None
  
• Plugins: None
  

 Custom Fields Created: