SPARK 8.1.2 Release Notes

The SPARK 8.1.2 release is planned for Saturday, October 26th. This update includes a new version of the SPARK API and some quality-of-life improvements. The maintenance window will occur from 11:00 PM CT on Saturday, October 26th through 9:00 AM CT on Sunday, October 27th.

We will not host a webinar for this release; however, we encourage SPARK API Developers to attend a deep dive webinar hosted by our Product Development team. View a recording of the webinar here.

What's New

Lender Filter on Dashboards, Package Lists, and Task Lists

A new Lender filter is now available on all dashboards (Personal, Manager, Executive, and Leads). In addition, package lists and task lists can also be filtered by Lender. By default, all Active Lenders will be included.  

Introducing the SPARK v3 API

Standardized Filtering and Querying

We are excited to announce that our v3 API now includes robust support for full filtering and querying capabilities. Users can leverage standard OData comparison operators, including:

• eq: Equals

• ne: Not equals

• gt: Greater than

• lt: Less than

• ge: Greater than or equal to

• le: Less than or equal to

• contains: Checks if a string contains a value

In addition to filtering, the API now supports sorting by any property, allowing users to retrieve data in their desired order.

Standardized Paging

The API now supports standardized paging on all lists, which enhances data retrieval efficiency. Each paged response includes a paging object with the following details:

• Current Page: Indicates the current page of results.

• Total Number of Pages: Displays the total number of available pages.

• Total Number of Items: Shows the total count of items across all pages.

• Page Size: Indicates the number of items per page.

New Endpoints for Package-Level Information

We’ve added more endpoints to access package-level information, including:

• Collateral

• Commentary / Narrative

• Stage History

• Project Addresses

• Team Members

• Businesses

• Individuals

• Documents

• Tasks

• Sources, Uses, and Allocations

• Notes

• Fees, Invoices, and Deposits

• Decision Requests

• Conditions and Covenants

• Assistance

Create, Update, and Delete Endpoints

API developers can now modify (i.e., create, update, and delete) the following entities:

• Collateral

• Commentary / Narrative

• Team Members (Assign / Reassign)

• Businesses

• Individuals

• Documents

• Tasks

• Sources, Uses, and Allocations

• Notes

• Accounts

• Contacts

• Referral Partners

• Referral Partner Companies

Package-Level Actions

We have introduced new package-level actions that allow users to efficiently manage the status of their packages. These actions include:

• Withdrawal: Remove a package from consideration.

• Decline: Mark a package as declined.

• Restoring Withdrawn / Declined Packages: Reinstating packages that have been previously withdrawn or declined.

• Changing the Stage: Update the stage of a package as it progresses through the workflow.

Configuration Data

We've made our configuration data more accessible by exposing the following information:

• Document Types

• Collateral Types and Sub Types

• Fee Types

• Source Types

• Use Types

• Task Types

• Products and Product-specific settings

• Lenders

• Legal Structures and Valid Titles

• Franchises

• NAICS Codes

• Reasons for Decline / Withdrawal

Continued Support for v2

While v2 of our API will continue to be available, we strongly recommend using v3 for all new development and integration initiatives. The v3 API offers enhanced features, greater flexibility, and improved performance to better support your business needs.

What's Changed

Referral Partners Support Multiple Products

Customers using SPARK's referral partner portal can now set up referral partners to refer more than one product. When a referral partner can refer more than one product, a new product drop-down is included in the first step of the referral workflow.

Preferred Name Visible on Individual Listing

The preferred name has been added back to the individual listing.

Updated Decision Tracking Stage Validator

The standard Decision Tracking stage validator has been updated to enhance flexibility around committee approvals. Now, it will only validate the presence of committee approval documentation when a committee has approved the package.

Additionally, SPARK will now use the lender-configured name for the "committee meeting minutes" document placeholder instead of a hard-coded name. This ensures that lenders can apply their preferred terminology and document labels within their workflow.

Refinance Table in Credit Memos

Before this release, SPARK automatically excluded all refinances where the question, "Is the debt a demand note, credit card obligation used for business-related purposes, revolving line of credit (short-term or long-term), or does it involve a balloon payment?" was answered "Yes."

With this update, all refinances, regardless of how this question is answered, will be included in the refinance section used in credit memos, providing a more comprehensive view of refinancing details.

SBA Eligibility - Refinance Analysis and Unreasonable Terms

The question "Is the debt currently on unreasonable terms" has been removed from loan packages associated with SOP version 50 10 7.1, as it is no longer applicable. In previous SOP versions, answering "No" to this question would have resulted in a fail status.

Marital Status / Spouse Changes and Joint Personal Financial Statements

SPARK now automatically clears references to joint personal financial statements when there is a change in marital status. This includes situations where an individual changes from "married" to any other status that removes the spouse, or when the spouse is changed from one individual to another.

In such cases, SPARK will retain the personal financial statement for the "most important" individual in the transaction, based on the following priority order:

1. Borrowers

2. Guarantors

3. Owners of Borrowers

E-Tran Schema Updated to 8.1

SPARK now supports E-Tran's 8.1 schema. This is a prerequisite for the upcoming "secondary principal" change that E-Tran will require in early December.

NAICS Codes and E-Tran

SPARK has been updated to send the NAICS code for all business entities sent to E-Tran. This includes business borrowers, business principals (aka "entity owners"), corporate guarantors, and operating company guarantors in EPC/OC transactions.

Username Included in Webhook Event Message

SPARK now includes the username of the user who made the change that triggered a webhook event. This may be useful for customers attempting to do bidirectional synchronization of SPARK and another system.

What's Been Fixed

• Document Analyses failing to complete when an existing tax return document placeholder exists - We deployed a hotfix to address an issue that would occur when a legal entity had an existing tax return placeholder and an unclassified tax return placeholder that was analyzed. SPARK was failing to copy the unclassified tax return to the correct tax return placeholder for the legal entity.

• NLS Exports and legal structure mapping - Customers with custom NLS mapping for legal structures were experiencing errors when generating the NLS export due to the legal structure change made in SPARK 8.1.1. The custom NLS mapping was updated to resolve this issue.

• Industry Analysis showing "shared" icon - An industry analysis on a non-companion package was showing as shared. This was addressed in a hotfix.

• Errors generating 1919 in certain scenarios - An error would occur during 1919 creation when the business wasn't configured to have a primary contact and the package primary contact was an owner of multiple borrowers on the package. This was addressed in a hotfix.

• Document uploaded notifications on referred packages - Customers using the referral partner portal noticed document uploaded notifications were getting sent when the referral partner was uploading documents. SPARK will no longer send document upload notifications until the package has been referred to the lender. This was changed in a hotfix.

• Creating credits for completed disbursements - A hotfix was deployed to fix an issue with creating credits for completed disbursements.

• Inactive committee members included in decision tracking - A hotfix was deployed to exclude inactive committee members in decision tracking.

• Personal cash flow not considering partial periods - Debt schedule payments on a personal cash flow were not properly using the number of months in the period for partial periods.

Find Out More

Stay tuned for the latest features and subscribe to your favorite categories. You can view our product roadmap at any time here.

If you have any feedback or questions, please reach out to your Customer Success Manager or submit a ticket to the SPARK Support Team. Your feedback will help us make SPARK the best loan origination software in the market!