Sterling — a leading provider of background and identity services—offers a foundation of trust and safety that spans across industries, professions, and borders. Our technology-powered services help organizations create great environments for their workers, partners, and customers. With office locations around the world, Sterling conducts more than 100 million searches annually and is trusted by over 30,000 clients globally.
Fountain also offers a Sterling Dynamic Consent integration. This process includes the background check as well as consent and data collection without ever leaving the FOuntain applicant portal. To learn about Fountain’s basic Sterling integration, review this Help Center article.
Get Sterling Account
In order to enable our Sterling integration, you'll need to create an account by reaching out to Sterling team here. Already have a Sterling account? Please skip to the next section.
Set up Sterling Integration
Reach out to your CSM or [email protected] to enable this feature on your account. Once Sterling has been enabled for your account move to step 2.
Contact the Sterling team to request the relevant API Key and Account ID.
Copy it for use in Fountain.
Go to the Fountain page. Hover over your username on the top right, and click Integrations.
Click on Screening tab to left side. Click Connect to the right of Sterling.
Enter your Sterling API Key and Account ID.
Click Save Changes, and you're done!
Add Sterling Stage to Workflow
Choose Sterling Partner Stage to add the stage to your Opening's workflow. Check out article on how to add stage here.
When an applicant lands on Sterling Partner Stage in the application workflow, they will be automatically redirected to Sterling's web portal.
Once the relevant information is completed on Sterling portal, the applicant will automatically be redirected back to the Fountain's applicant portal.
Sterling Partner Stage Rules
You can create partner stage rules on applicants in the Sterling stage in the workflow editor. There are two keys: Partner Status and Partner Score. There are few statuses you can take action on. The Keys, Status titles, and their descriptions are:
Keys | Status Title | Description |
Partner Status | Pending Applicant | Order is initiated or created on Sterling side. Waiting candidate to fill the form. |
Pending Vendor | Candidate submitted all required data to Sterling |
|
Archive, Complete, Adverse Action, Review | Action to be taken on the order |
|
Validation Error | Invalid data submitted when order was getting initiated. For example, invalid account credentials. |
|
System Error | Error occurred on Sterling side |
|
Partner Detail has Key with Value | Clear, Consider, Passed, Review, Level1, Level2, Level3 | Order score |
Important Note:
The use of Partner Scores has been deprecated and replaced with Partner Detail had Key with Value.
CMA Levels and Scores Per Key
Key | CMA Level | Score Title |
Order Result | Level 1 | Clear/Consider |
Order Result | Level 2 | Passed/Review |
Order Result | Level 3 | Level 1, Level 2, Level 3 (defined by client during Sterling configuration) |
A user can create rules to move the applicant through the Fountain funnel. Below are examples of a rules in the Sterling partner stage:
Best Practice:
It is recommended to have a custom stage with rules to be setup after the Sterling stage. Since a background screening may take a day or two to complete, the custom stage with rules can hold the applicant until the final result has come back.