Table of Contents
APEX County Administrator Guide
CeRTNA users that have a role of County Administrator will have access to a variety of County Administration functions as shown below:
Overview
APEX manages feature access based on the role that is assigned to the user when their CeRTNA User Profile is intially created. County staff members have the following roles available.
- County User
- County Administrator
Users that are designated with a County Administrator role will see the Administration feature tab and those designated as a County User will not see the Administration feature tab.
If a County Administrator needs to change the role of another staff member, they can send and e-mail to CeRTNA to request the change.
Each of the County Administration features and functions are documented in the following paragraphs.
Authorize Submitters
CeRTNA users that have a role of County Administrator will have access to the Authorize Submitters Module.
Authorize Submitters Overview
The Authorize Submitters module gives County Administrators the ability to Activate or Deactivate CeRTNA submitters. If you are authorized to this module you will see an Administration tab in your Feature panel, as shown in the Overview image below:
In the Overview image shown above you can see that a new Administration feature tab is available. When this tab is clicked, a list of Administration modules will be displayed in the left hand panel of the APEX UI.
To initiate the Authorize Submitters module, click the Manage Submitters item in the Administration/Modules list. This will cause the Manage Submitters tab to be displayed in the Detail Panel on the right side of the APEX UI.
A new Authorize Submitters Management ribbon section is also displayed. The buttons on this ribbon will be disabled until at least one row in the submitter list is selected.
Activating Submitters
To activate one or more submitters, click on the checkbox/checkboxes of the submitters that you would like to activate and then click the Activate Selected Submitters button on the ribbon as shown below:
A pop-up window will be displayed with fields for entering the MOU Version, MOU Date, and an Escrow Account label, which is an optional field entry.
Enter your appropriate values and then click the Activate button. Alternatively, you can click the Cancel button to back out of the operation.
After clicking the Activate button, your submitter(s) will be activated and the Submitter List will reflect the changes as shown below:
Deactivating Submitters
To deactivate one or more submitters, click on the checkbox/checkboxes of the submitters that you would like to deactivate and then click the Dactivate Selected Submitters button on the ribbon as shown below:
A pop-up window will be displayed, giving you the opportunity to Confirm that you want to delete the selected submitter(s). You can click the No button to cancel the request.
After clicking the Yes button to confirm that you want to deactivate the selected submitters, the Submitters list will be updated to reflect the change showing the submitter status is 'Inactive' as shown below:
There may be instances where a County Admininstrator may need to temporarily deactivate a submitter. For that reason, the other settings associated with the submitter record are maintained, as shown above, even though the submitter may be temporarily deactivated.
Multiple submitters can be deactivated at the same time by selecting multiple checkboxes and then clicking the Deactivate Selected Submitters button as shown below:
A pop-up confirmation windows will be displayed and after clicking the Yes button to confirm the request to deactivate the selected submitters, the submitters list will be updated showing the selected submitters as 'Inactive', as shown below:
There are no restrictions on how many times a submitter is activated or deactivated by a County Administrator.
Updating Submitters
The information for an individual submitter can be updated by clicking the Edit icon located to the right of the individual Submitter records. As shown below, clicking the Edit icon will cause a pop-up window to be displayed so that the County Administrator can update the information for that specific Submitter.
After updating the selected submitter, click the Save button and the updates will be reflected in the Submitter list, as shown below:
Manage County Settings
Each county has a group of configuration settings that determine how APEX handles transactions that are associated with their county. To manage these settings, the Manage County Settings page is used. You must be assigned a role of County Administrator in order to access this feature.
To access the County Settings page, click the Administration feature tab and then click the Manage County Settings item in the list of Administration options. After clicking the Manage County Settings item, the following panel will be displayed in the detail area to the right:
The Apply Changes and Discard Changes on the APEX ribbon will activate if an entry in the form is changed.
Although there are several fields on the form, only a handful of them are actually used by APEX and fundamentally, once set, the county settings are rarely changed.
Field Descriptions
Following is a description of each of the fields on the County Settings panel:
County: For County Administrators, this field will have your county name. For CeRTNA System Administrators, this dropdown provides a list of all the counties and the County Settings panel will display the settings for the currently selected county.
Status: The status of the county. It will be either Active or Inactive.
Return Documents: This setting exists from some early ERDS design considerations but it is not actually used. Currently all counties return their recorded documents, so the value will be Yes.
Government Documents Accepted: This is another setting from some early ERDS design considerations and it is not actually used in the ERDS process flow. It is set to No in the ERDS platform and it is set to Yes in the G2G platform, primarily for reference purposes.
ACH Routing Number: Not used.
ACH Account Number: Not used.
Priority One Cutoff Time: This field is used for reference purposes only. It was originally intended to be used in conjunction with the Priority property in the CeRTNA Standard XML to determine if a submitted transaction should be retrieved or held until the next day. It is not enforced at this time.
Priority Two Cutoff Time: This field is used for reference purposes only. At the time of this writing, no CeRTNA ERDS counties are using a secondary cutoff time for electronic recording.
Processing Start Time: This represents the time that a county starts retrieving their electronic recording transactions. APEX, however, does not enforce this field. This field is used by CeRTNA's Submitted Status monitor to determine whether it should send alert e-mails.
Processing End Time: This represents the time when a county 'cuts off' retrieving electronic recording transactions for the current day. Current day transactions that enter submitted status prior to the Processing End Time, will be retrieved by APEX.
Timezone Offset: This field is not used.
DPI: This determines the DPI that TIFF images must have in order to be accepted by the county.
Max Payload Size: APEX enforces a maximum payload size via it's System Settings. A county can use this setting to reduce the maximum payload size by using this setting.
Min Width: This setting specifies the minimum width that a TIFF image must meet in order to be accepted by a county. It is specified in DPI, so it is based on the DPI setting as well. For example at 300 DPI an 8“ minimum width would be specified as 2400. If this field is blank, APEX does not enforce a minimum width.
Max Width: This setting specifies the maximum width that a TIFF image must meet in order to be accepted by a county. It is specified in DPI, so it is based on the DPI setting as well. For example at 300 DPI an 8.5” maximum width would be specified as 2550. If this field is blank, APEX does not enforce a maximum width.
Min Height: This setting specifies the minimum height that a TIFF image must meet in order to be accepted by a county. It is specified in DPI, so it is based on the DPI setting as well. For example at 300 DPI an 10“ minimum height would be specified as 3000. If this field is blank, APEX does not enforce a minimum height.
Max Height: This setting specifies the maximum height that a TIFF image must meet in order to be accepted by a county. It is specified in DPI, so it is based on the DPI setting as well. For example at 300 DPI an 11” maximum height would be specified as 3300. If this field is blank, APEX does not enforce a maximum height.
Indexing Requirements: This field must be set to Minimal Indexing. In the early ERDS design stages, additional indexing fields were considered, however, county feedback indicated that due to the variety of indexing standards, counties would not use indexing data provided by submitters.
Cache Path: This is the base folder that APEX uses to exchange files with the county recorders recording application. See the APEX Folder Structures Guide for more information about this setting.
Comments: Reference field for miscellaneous comments.
Manage County Document Types
CeRTNA maintains a master list of ERDS Standard Document Types and G2G Standard Document Types. The Manage County Document Types feature provides County Administrators with the ability to manage which documents their county will accept for electronic recording. APEX enforces a county's approved document list at the front-end during the submission process.
To access the Manage County Documents page, click the Administration feature tab and then click the Manage County Document Types item in the list of Administration options. After clicking the Manage County Document Types item, the following panel will be displayed in the detail area to the right:
The Activate Selected Document Types and Deactivate Selected Document Types on the APEX ribbon will activate when a checkbox is selected on the form.
Green icons indicate that the Document Type is accepted by the county and red icons indicate that the Document Type is not accepted by the county.
Activating Documents
To activate a Document Type, select one or more checkboxes in the list and then click the Activate Selected Document Types button on the ribbon, as shown below:
After you click the Activate Selected Document Types button, the following confirmation is displayed:
You can confirm your request by clicking Yes or return to the previous panel by clicking No.
Deactivating Documents
To deactivate a Document Type, select one or more checkboxes in the list and then click the Deactivate Selected Document Types button on the ribbon, as shown below:
After you click the Deactivate Selected Document Types button, the following confirmation is displayed:
You can confirm your request by clicking Yes or return to the previous panel by clicking No.
Manage County Holidays
The Manage County Holidays panel provide a easy to use way for County Administrators to add or remove county holiday records.
To access the Manage County Holidays page, click the Administration feature tab and then click the Manage County Holidays item in the list of Administration options. After clicking the Manage County Holidays item, the following panel will be displayed in the detail area to the right:
The Add County Holiday and Remove County Holiday buttons will appear on the APEX ribbon.
Add County Holiday
To add a county holiday record click the Add County Holiday button on the ribbon. A new row will be added to the Holidays grid, as shown below:
Two new buttons, Apply County Holiday Changes and Discard County Holiday Changes will appear on the APEX ribbon.
You can enter the Holiday Date directly into the field or you can click the drop-down arrow to display a calendar control where you can navigate from between months or years and then click the desired holiday date.
Once you have selected a Holiday Date and entered a Holiday Description in the Description field, you can click the Apply County Holiday Changes button to save your new holiday record. Alternatively you can click the Discard County Holiday Changes to discard the new row and return to the previous state of the holidays grid.
Remove County Holiday
To remove one or more county holiday records, select the items in the grid by clicking one or more of the checkboxes and then click the Remove County Holiday button that appears on the ribbon as shown below:
Alternatively, you can simply click the X icon of one specific row. Clicking the X icon or the Remove County Holidays button will cause the following confirmation to be displayed:
Click the Yes button to confirm that you want to remove the County Holiday record(s) or click the No button to cancel the operation and be returned to the previous screen.
Manage County Announcements
The Manage County Announcements panel provide a easy to use way for County Administrators to add or remove county announcements.
To access the Manage County Announcements page, click the Administration feature tab and then click the Manage County Announcements item in the list of Administration options. After clicking the Manage County Announcements item, the following panel will be displayed in the detail area to the right:
The Add Announcement and Remove Announcements buttons will appear on the APEX ribbon.
Add Announcement
To add a county announcement click the Add Announcement button on the ribbon. A new row will be added to the Announcements grid, as shown below:
Two new buttons, Apply Announcement Changes and Discard Announcement Changes will appear on the APEX ribbon.
The County Name field will be automatically populated with your county name. CeRTNA System Administrators will need to select the county name from the dropdown list in order to associate an announcement to a specific county.
Select Yes or No from the Active dropdown. This field can be used to temporarily disable an active announcement, even when the current date is within the date range for the announcement to be displayed.
Select the Start Date and End Date for your announcement. You can enter the dates directly into the fields or you can click the drop-down arrow to display a calendar control where you can navigate from between months or years and then click the desired date.
Enter a short description that will serve as a heading for your announcement. The heading can be up to 255 characters long. For Counties it is recommended that you include your county name in the heading. This makes it easier to distinguish between multiple announcements when they appear on the APEX announcements list.
Enter additional descriptive text that is to appear in the body of your announcement. The heading can be up to 1024 characters long. For Counties it is recommended that you include your county name within the text of the body. As with the heading, this makes it clear which county the text applies too.
Once you have finished entering values into the individual fields, you can click the Apply Announcement Changes button to save your announcement. Alternatively you can click the Discard Announcement Changes to discard the announcement text and return to the previous state of the announcements grid.
Edit Announcement
To edit an announcement, click on the row that you want to update and update the field or text as shown below:
Once you have finished updating values in the individual fields, you can click the Apply Announcement Changes button to save your announcement. Alternatively you can click the Discard Announcement Changes to discard the announcement text and return to the previous state of the announcements grid.
Remove Announcement
To remove one or more announcement records, select the items in the grid by clicking one or more of the checkboxes and then click the Remove Announcments button that appears on the ribbon as shown below:
Alternatively, you can simply click the X icon of one specific row. Clicking the X icon or the Remove Announcements button will cause the following confirmation to be displayed:
Click the Yes button to confirm that you want to remove the announcement or click the No button to cancel the operation and be returned to the previous screen.
If you click the Yes button to confirm the removal of the announcement, the announcement will be removed and you will see the changes reflected in the announcements grid, as shown below:
