SPARK 8.1.3 Release Notes & Webinar

The SPARK 8.1.3 release is planned for Saturday, December 7th. This update includes Messaging in SPARK and E-Tran beneficial ownership changes. The maintenance window will occur from 11:00 PM CT on Saturday, December 7th through 9:00 AM CT on Sunday, December 8th.

Please join us for a release webinar on Thursday, December 5th at 11:00 AM CST, where you can see a demonstration and ask questions about the content of this release. Sign up for the release webinar using this link.

What's New

Messaging in SPARK

We’re thrilled to introduce Messaging, a powerful new feature in SPARK designed to centralize communication and enhance collaboration between Internal and Applicant Portal Users. With this feature, your teams and applicants can connect more efficiently, creating a seamless user experience. 

To enable Messaging, contact your Customer Success Manager.

Internal Users: Opting In to Messaging

Once Messaging is enabled for your SPARK instance, internal users can opt in by agreeing to Terms & Conditions, which can be customized to align with your institution’s policies. 

After opting in, internal users gain access to Settings to manage: 

• Email notification preferences: Set frequency to daily, immediate, or other intervals. 

• Out of Office status: Ensure message recipients are informed of your availability. 

Applicant Portal Users: Opting In to Messaging

Applicants can opt in to messaging once the feature is enabled and at least one package team member visible to them has opted in.

1:1 Conversations

• Internal users can start 1:1 conversations with applicants, but not with other internal users. 

• Applicants must opt in to Messaging to respond. Once a message is read by an applicant, internal users will see a read receipt. 

• Applicants can also initiate conversations with internal users who are visible to them in the package team. 

Group Conversations

• Group conversations can be initiated by internal users and applicants, with a limit of one applicant per group and no restriction on the number of internal users.

• New internal users added to a conversation gain access to the full conversation history. 

• Removed internal users lose access to the conversation. 

Email Notifications

• Internal Users: Default frequency is a daily digest summarizing unread messages. Other frequency options include immediate, hourly, every 4 or 8 hours, or off. 

• Applicants: Defaults to immediate notifications, with the option to turn them off. 

Conversation Visibility in Package Activity

All package-related conversations are logged immediately in package activity, keeping team members and managers informed in real time.

Additional Functionality

• Search Conversations: Internal Users and Applicants can search conversations by participant names and message content, making it easy to find important details quickly.

• Mark as Unread: Messages can be marked as unread by both Internal Users and Applicants to serve as a reminder to follow up later.

• Archive Conversations: Internal Users can manage their list of active conversations by archiving conversations individually or using the bulk archive feature to clean up multiple conversations at once.

• Expand/Collapse Messaging Window: Internal Users and Applicants can expand or collapse the Messaging window for better screen management and ease of use.

• Internal Users can initiate or continue 1:1 conversations with Applicants directly from the Authorized Users section, e.g., “Message Christina.”

• Applicants can start or continue conversations with Internal Users through the Contacts section, e.g., “Message Alia.”

• Opting Out: Internal Users have the flexibility to opt out of Messaging if they decide not to use the feature further.

Delete Multiple Document Placeholders

A "Delete Multiple Placeholders" option is now available in the "More ..." menu on the document listing above "View Deleted Placeholders." This feature was introduced based on user feedback to streamline the deletion of multiple Document Placeholders in a single action.

Disbursements in API V3 

The option to get and list disbursements for a package has been added to SPARK API V3. 

What's Changed

Type of Guarantee shown on Individuals & Businesses Listing

The transaction role value for Guarantors on the businesses and individuals listing has been updated to include the Type of Guarantee, e.g. Guarantor – Full Secured. 

Beneficial Ownership View

A new Beneficial Ownership view is now available for businesses and displays the full ownership structure and the calculated beneficial ownership.

Associate Badge Updates

We've revised the logic for labeling a business or individual as an Associate to match the following rules:

• Any individual who has a beneficial ownership of 20% or more in an applicant business where an applicant business is defined as a borrower, lessee, or operating company guarantor in an EPC/OC transaction.

• Any individual who is designated as a key employee for the package.

• Any business that has a beneficial ownership of 20% or more in an applicant business where an applicant business is defined as a borrower, lessee, or operating company guarantor in an EPC/OC transaction.

• Any business that is controlled by an applicant where control is defined as 51% ownership or more and an applicant is defined as a borrower, lessee, or operating company guarantors in an EPC/OC transaction.

• Any business that is beneficially owned 20% or more by an individual who is an Associate.

Personal History and Entity History Forms Availability

With the introduction of the new beneficial ownership requirements in E-Tran, personal history forms are now available for all individuals, and entity history forms are available for all businesses.

Required Guarantors Eligibility Check

The "General Eligibility" section's Required Guarantors check has been updated to ensure that all entities and individuals with 20% or more beneficial ownership provide a guaranty for the loan. This change applies only to new SBA loan packages created after the release.

SBA Ownership Validator Updates

The SBA Ownership Validator originally released in SPARK 8.1.1 has been updated to ensure that entity owners of applicant businesses and operating company guarantors in EPC/OC transactions have at least 51% ownership documented.

E-Tran Submission and Beneficial Ownership

E-Tran now requires that at least 51% ownership be documented for all entity owners of applicant businesses. These entities are classified as "Secondary Principals" in E-Tran and are subject to the same data requirements as standard Principals. Additionally, operating company guarantors in EPC/OC transactions must also have at least 51% ownership documented.

As a result of these changes, Step 2 of the E-Tran submission workflow has been updated with the following:

• All entity owners of an applicant business must include at least 51% ownership.

• All operating company guarantors in an EPC/OC transaction must include at least 51% ownership.

E-Tran Submission and Validation

The validation that occurs before E-Tran submission has been updated to require personal history and entity owner history for "Secondary Principals" and Principals of operating company guarantors in EPC/OC transactions.

Principal Validator Updates

The standard "Principal Validator" which validates current address, telephone number, date of birth, and place of birth will no longer fail when a date of birth or place of birth hasn't been entered for a principal.

SBA Form 1086

The existing Form 1086 (expiration date 12/31/2023) in SPARK has been retired. SPARK will now use the latest version of this form. 

What's Been Fixed

• Legacy Business Acquisition Page - A hotfix was deployed to address an issue with the Legacy Business Acquisition page.

• Deleting Collateral Associated to Fees - A hotfix was deployed to resolve an issue that prevented the deletion of collateral associated with fees.

• Multiple Primary Financing Prepayment Penalties in PDF Forms - A hotfix was deployed to support custom PDF forms that display prepayment penalties for loan packages with multiple primary financing sources.

• Personal Cash Flow and Overriding Calculated Sub Accounts - A hotfix was deployed to address an issue where overriding certain SPARK-calculated sub account values (e.g., Mortgage/Rent payments) would clear all calculated values for the entire sub account row.

• Package Amount Changed Notification and Referrals - We disabled the "package amount changed" notification that would send when a referral partner changes the amount during the referral process.

• Applicant Portal and Inactive Lender Contacts - Lender contacts that have been deactivated are no longer be visible in the applicant portal.

• Document View Configuration Changes and Performance Improvements - We have updated the product document view configuration page to enhance the performance of view changes.

• E-Tran and "Other" Race - Lenders have encountered E-Tran submission issues when an applicant selected "Other" as their race, as "Other" is not a valid option in E-Tran. Moving forward, this selection will no longer be sent to E-Tran and will default to "Unanswered" if no other races are chosen. We are also considering removing "Other" as an option in a future release.

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!