SPARK 7.5.1 Release Notes

What's New

These features were released May 29, 2021. Here are some new features we included in this release.

Project Agents

In April, the SBA announced changes to the SBA Form 159 workflow. We’ve added support to make it easier to manage agents directly in SPARK, and we also updated our integration with E-Tran to support the submission of signed 159 forms along with supporting documentation.

Here are some of the highlights:

• View and manage Project Agents from our new Project Agents feature.

• The Project Agents feature automatically aggregates Referral Sources, SBA Loan Packagers, Independent Loan Packagers, and other default agent information based on existing details in a package.

• Add new and existing individual and business Project Agents to a package.

• Add and edit agent service information and fees.

• Upload supporting documentation for any fees in excess of $2,500.

• Generate, upload, and submit SBA Form 159 to E-Tran.

Contact Listing / Contact Summary

A contact listing and summary have been introduced to improve visibility of all customer contacts (owners, guarantors, spouses, etc.) that have been associated to packages in SPARK.

API Users and Roles

SPARK administrators can now create specific API users and control what API endpoints can be accessed.

API Clients

API developers can now create API clients to connect to SPARK’s API. An API client consists of a client ID and secret which can be used to obtain an OAuth token.

OAuth Authentication and the SPARK API

We will be deprecating our existing API key authentication in favor of OAuth 2.0 – an industry standard protocol for authorization. Starting on July 31st, all integrations with SPARK must be updated to use the new authentication strategy.

Security Log

A new security log has been added to SPARK administration to make it easier to see the following events:

1. New User Created

2. Existing User Updated

3. User Activated

4. User Deactivated

5. New Role Created

6. Existing Role Updated

What's Changed

We've made a few changes to the platform that will be live with this new release.

Partner Users / Lender Contact Users

Partner users can now be given access to add, update, or delete businesses, individuals, business history forms, and personal history forms.In addition to managing businesses and individuals, partner users can now access reporting. All reports will be automatically filtered to the location the partner user is assigned.If you have existing partner users that require these additional permissions, their roles will need to be updated to include the new permissions.

New Permissions for Accessing the Account Listing

We’ve introduced a new permission for accessing the account listing. All existing users that have the “create package” permissions have been updated to have access to view all accounts.

E-Tran API Updated to 6.4

Our E-Tran integration has been updated to the latest and greatest to support the agent changes introduced by the SBA.

Referral Source Improvements

We’ve made minor improvements to the referral source management screens in SPARK including displaying the package amount and the referral fee amount.

Merge Accounts

The merge account screen has been updated to provide more details regarding what information is being merged.

Merge Contacts

The merge contact screen has been updated to provide more details regarding what information is being merged.

Lease Maturity Date

A new field for capturing the lease maturity date has been added for lease products.

API Rate Limits

Any "read" action (i.e. any action where you don't change any data) has a rate limit of 120 requests per minute. Any "write" action (i.e. any action where you are creating, updating, or deleting information) has a rate limit of 60 requests per minute. The rate limits are applied per action, meaning you can read 120 packages and 120 contacts in the same minute without receiving any errors. If you exceed the limit, you will receive a response with Http Code 429 until enough time has elapsed for the rate limit to reset.

Multiple Disbursements Indicator

We’ve added the multiple disbursements indicator to our standard reporting dataset.

What's Been Fixed

Here are some things we fixed that will be live in the next update.

Document Verification

We fixed a bug related to the document verification status not resetting when a new document was uploaded to a placeholder that was previously verified.

1920 and Lines of Credit

We fixed a bug related to LOCs and SBA Form 1920. The interest-only period was not pulling from the correct field.

Decision Date Format

The decision date format has been changed to a simple date instead of a UTC date. This was causing historical approval dates to be off by 1 day.

Size Standards and Borrower Marked as a Seller

An error would occur on the SBA Eligibility Size Standards page when a borrower was also marked as a seller.

Withdrawn / Declined Packages and External Users (Applicants)

We’ve removed the ability for an external user to access a package that has been withdrawn or declined.

Find Out More

If you're interested in learning more, please check out these helpful links:

• SPARK 7.5.1 release notes

• SPARK 7.5.1 webinar

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