How to Find an Applicant Report
If you want to quickly find the status or pull a report for any applicant, whether in progress or completed, you can do it easily through your client portal. There are three basic ways to find an applicant:
Quick Find
Advanced Search
Browse by Status
You can use the Quick Find, located at the top of almost every page in your portal, to locate an applicant by first or last name. Just start typing the first few letters of the first or last name, and the system will suggest a list of matching applicants.
Notice that, in the example above, both first names (Johnny) and last names (Johnston and Jones) are matched. This means you can search by either first or last name from the same field. (If you need to search by first and last name at the same time, see Advanced Search.)
When you find the applicant you want, click his/her
name, then click the
icon to the right to bring up the applicant's detail window (see "Managing
Applicants").
If you need to search for applicants by date of birth, social security number, date ordered, or any combination of factors, you can use the Advanced Search, which is linked at the top of most pages (next to the Quick Find) as shown below.
The Advanced Search page allows you to search by one or more fields as shown below.
Just fill in the field or fields you wish to search by. If you fill in more than one field, only applicants that match all fields will be found.
If you have permission to view reports ordered by other users at your company, or you are branch manager, you'll also be able to search by user or by branch as shown below. You can also search for items with a specific client reference code (as explained in the Enter Applicant Information section of the Ordering a report instructions) as shown.
The results you get will be a list of matching applicants, similar to the lists shown in the next section.
When you're on the home page or any report management page, you'll see a listing of statuses along with how many applicants are in each status.
Just click the appropriate icon, and you'll get a list of all the applicants in that status. Here's a brief explanation of each status.
In Progress: The applicant still has one or more searches that have not been completed. This way, you can keep track of an applicant in real time, even if there are a few searches still pending.
Completed: The applicant's background check is completely finished. You can leave an applicant in this status as long as you like; eventually, you should move completed applicants to the Archived category as explained next.
Archived: You can move Completed applicants to the Archived category once you no longer need to actively monitor their background check. By doing this, you can use the Completed category more effectively to monitor recently completed applicants.
Needs Attn: This category conveniently shows only applicants that have either 1) an unread status update, or 2) missing information that you need to supply. We recommend that you use this category frequently, as it allows you to more efficiently monitor applicants.
Discrepancy: This category shows you all candidates that have a criminal record, unverified school or employment record, or positive drug test. In other words, you can quickly access applicants that may require adverse action using this category.
When you click a category, you get a list of candidates similar to this:
From here, you can see the names of all applicants in the category, along with some helpful icons as explained below.
- The blue dot icon indicates that you have not yet looked at this applicant.
Once you click and view the applicant, the dot will disappear.
- The blue speech bubble means that there is an unread status update. Applicants
with this icon will show up in the Needs Attention category. Once you view the
applicant and read the status update, the icon will disappear.
- The yellow alert icon tells you that you need to submit additional information
before this applicant can be fully processed. For example, there may be a
missing release form or maiden name. You can supply the missing info directly
through the system as explained in
Managing
applicants. Any applicants with this icon will
show up in the Needs Attention category.
- The red hand icon indicates that there is a discrepancy in the applicant's
record, such as a criminal record, unverified school or employment record, or
positive drug test. Any applicants with this icon will show up in the
Discrepancy category. You can review the specific discrepancy by clicking the
icon or the applicant name; see
Managing
applicants for more information.
Next to each applicant, you'll also see a status bar, which shows you how many searches are completed for that applicant's background check. The status bar is updated in real time, so you can check online any time you wish. If an applicant has a complete background check, their status bar will be green as shown below.
You can click anywhere within the row containing an applicant's name to get to the applicant detail window, which is described in Managing applicants.
Each column heading in the list of applicants can be clicked once to sort by that column, or clicked twice to reverse sort by that column. By default, the list is sorted by applicant name, but you can sort by which applicants are unread, which applicants have discrepancies, and so on by simply clicking the appropriate heading.
In the example below, we have sorted by the Discrepancy column simply by clicking the icon at the top, which shows us all discrepancies first.
By default, only 8 applicants are shown per page to keep you from having to scroll too much. If you have more than 8 applicants, you can navigate to the first, next, previous, or last page of applicants using the links in the bottom right.
If you would rather view all applicants on screen at one time, you can click the View All link in the lower left to show all applicants on the screen at once. Then, to go back to paging through applicants, you can click the View 8 at a time link in the lower left.
You can archive individual applicants whose background checks are complete, as explained in Archiving an applicant under Managing applicants. However, you may find it more convenient to archive several, or all, completed applicants at once.
If you bring up all completed applicants, for example, you'll see checkboxes along the left allowing you to quickly archive one or more applicants. (These checkboxes will only show next to completed applicants, since you can't archive an applicant still in progress.)
Just check off the applicants you wish to archive,
and then click the
button at the bottom.
If you wish to archive all completed applicants at once, click the Archive all link next to the Completed category as shown below.
Note: You CANNOT undo the Archive All action, as there is no way to mass-unarchive, so use this technique carefully!