The Colorado Housing and Finance Authority (CHFA) has cut the published review time for its loans by 67 percent and new solutions and enhancements are produced 70 percent faster since the agency migrated to a custom solution from Microsoft Gold Certified partner Captaris. The CHFA solution, based on the Captaris Workflow product, is called Stars, and it enables CHFA to handle a 30 percent increase in loan volume without increasing staff. The agency has also seen an increase in the quality of those loans by 300 percent.

“Analysts used to spend about 30 percent of their days at a fax machine sending decision letters to lenders. Stars automated this task, freeing up valuable resources to focus on more crucial tasks,” said Karen Harkin, director of home finance for CHFA.

The agency, which helps make housing more affordable for low income Coloradans by financing home loans throughout the state, had previously relied on a custom software solution based on an IBM “System i” (formerly AS400) system. With that system, lenders who booked loans through the agency would reach a green screen of text over the Internet through which they could submit loan requests and obtain confirmations, but could not view the status of loans as they were being processed.

For loan analysts, even the process of creating a reply letter to a lender was difficult, as it was based on lengthy numeric codes that analysts had to use in order to insert basic portions of the letter. The old system also didn’t have the business intelligence capability for analyzing overall performance.

Stars System includes a real-time Web site – called HomeConnection – for external lenders, plus a smart client and a server-side, workflow-enabled, rules-based system for CHFA analysts and other internal users. External lenders reserve loans online using HomeConnection, which uses a wizard to guide them through a streamlined set of questions. Lenders have visibility into their entire pipeline of CHFA loans and can see the status of a loan as it moves through the process from reservation through loan purchase.

The Stars system also uses workflow technology to automatically send a detailed letter to the lender – using the lender’s preferred communications channel, such as e-mail or fax – informing the lender of CHFA’s decision, including details of missing documents or conditions of the loan.

Managers use Stars to analyze the agency’s overall loan performance, including the time to process loans, loan metrics by lender, and other variables. The business intelligence capability is fueled by Microsoft ProClarity and Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services, part of the Microsoft Application Platform.

“We have more insight into the quality of our loans, and that means we can make better quality loans,” said Harkin.