Welcome to Checkr!

This guide will walk you through the entire Checkr process, including how to set up your Checkr account on the Rippling platform, how to use the Checkr dashboard, and how to review background check reports.

The Checkr Help Center is a great resource for any questions that may not be covered in this user guide. If you have any questions not covered in this guide that are specific to Rippling, please email support@rippling.com for additional assistance.

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Table of Contents

• Prerequisites
• Add Checkr to Rippling
• Enable Checkr setup
• Create a Checkr account
• Connect Checkr and Rippling
• Order Background Checks
• Manual Ordering
• Automate Your Ordering
• International Background Checks
• Checkr Background Check Statuses
• Use the Checkr Dashboard

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Getting started with Checkr on Rippling

This guide describes how to set up Checkr to use within Rippling, such that Rippling users can initiate, view, and process Checkr background checks from within the Rippling interface. Using the Checkr integration, companies can automate the ordering of background checks based on Supergroups, so that candidates always receive the appropriate background checks either before or after they're hired as defined by your company's policies.

Prerequisites

The only prerequisite to integrate Checkr into your Rippling account is that you have a Rippling account, and are logged in as an Admin.

Add Checkr to Rippling

First, enable Checkr from within Rippling. You must have admin access to both Checkr and Rippling to complete this process.

Enable Checkr setup

To Install Checkr, sign in to your Rippling Dashboard and navigate to the Rippling App Shop and either scroll down or search for Checkr. You can also jump right to the Checkr integration in the App Store here.

Choose Checkr. Clicking Connect will open a window that prompts you to either create a Checkr account or sign in to an existing account. 

• If you are already a Checkr customer, select Sign in to connect your current Checkr account to Rippling.
• If you are not a current Checkr customer and would like to create a Checkr account, select Set up a Checkr account. Then add your credentialing information.

Create a Checkr account

If you’re new to Checkr, you’ll create a Checkr account in a couple of easy steps after selecting SIGN UP from within the Checkr app in the Rippling Store. Fill in all required details to create a new Checkr account, Checkr verifies your company details and activates your account upon verification. See below for step-by-step instructions:

     1. Click Create New Account when prompted.

     2. Make sure your company's Administrator signs up for Checkr. If you are not the Admin, please invite the Admin by selecting the option as pictured below.

     3. Complete Checkr’s 2-Step Credentialing process. This information is required by law to ensure that only legitimate companies, with legitimate business needs, can run background checks.

     4. Click Continue to confirm your information for Checkr to review.

     5. Click Submit Account

Once the credentialing process is complete, Checkr will notify both Rippling and you, and you may begin ordering background checks through the Rippling platform.

Credentialing typically takes 1-2 business days. If Checkr needs additional information, they will reach out to you directly by email.

Connect Checkr and Rippling

After signing into your Checkr account, the below screen will populate signifying the connection of your Checkr and Rippling accounts.

Order background checks

Rippling allows you to either Manually Order background checks or set up rules to Automate background checks from within Rippling.

Manual Ordering

You can initiate a new background check from the Checkr integration overview tab. By selecting 'Run a New Background Check' in the top right of the page, you will be prompted to enter additional details of the background check order. This information includes whether the employee is a prospective employee or an existing employee, their name, work location, and the type of background check that you would like ordered.

If you are running the background check on a prospective employee, you'll be prompted to enter the employee's email, first and last name, and location as well.

Selecting Ok after entering the candidate info and selecting the package type will submit the order and invite the candidate to complete the Background Check. Candidates will receive an email to complete the background check, and Checkr will notify candidates each day for a week until the background check invitation is completed. The status of the check will be displayed within your Rippling dashboard.

Once the background check has been ordered, the status of the report will be listed in the Rippling candidate’s profile (pending or completed).

Most background checks will be completed within 24 hours, but the time to complete can range from a few minutes to a few weeks, depending on the type of check ordered, the geographic location of the candidate, and/or county courthouse operations.

* If the candidate's invitation has expired you are able to resend the invitation via the Rippling Dashboard shown in the image below:

Automated Ordering

Rippling Supergroups can define policies that state which employee types should receive which background check packages. In order to automate background checks using policies, select 'Policies' from your Checkr integration.

Upon clicking 'Policies' you'll be able to see any existing policies that have been established for your organization. These policies can be edited or deleted as needed.

Clicking 'Create' will define a new policy for your new hires. Policies will automatically cause your new hires to approve background checks once they've accepted their offer.

Running background checks on prospective employees with a remote work location

If you set up a policy that automatically applies to prospective employees, you will not be prompted to select a location for the background check run during the hiring process. This may be an issue if you are hiring an employee with a remote work location but you need to run a background check on them in a different location. 

To address this, you can exclude the prospective employee from the policy and then manually run the background check, where you'll enter the location for the check. To set up the ability to override a policy for prospective employees, there are four steps:

Step 1: Set up a custom field that will be collected during the hiring process. Follow the instructions in this article for details.

Watch the gif below to see a walkthrough of the first step in setting up the custom field.

You'll also want to set up the custom field so that employees and admins can see it. Watch the gif below for a sample walkthrough of the second step of setting up this custom field.

Step 2: Add the custom field as an exclusion to the background check policy.

Step 3: When going through the hiring process for a prospective employee to whom you want to apply this process, enable the custom field to the prospective employee. They will automatically be excluded from the background check policy.

Step 4: Return to the Checkr app and manually run the check following the instructions above.

Complete Now

Rippling supports Checkr's new Complete Now feature which allows you to complete a Pending or Suspended report on demand. This feature is accessible for Rippling users directly through the Checkr Dashboard. Triggering this feature will immediately advance the report to a completed state, and mark all pending or suspended screenings "canceled".

Any screenings canceled as a result of this function will display the cancellation reason and the reason’s description within the report in the Checkr Dashboard, and return the reason and description through the Checkr APIs. The PDF copy of the report will not include any canceled screenings. You can read more about the Complete Now feature in the Checkr Help Center.

Customizing Your Checkr Packages

The Rippling integration supports custom packages. When you create a new Checkr account through the Rippling application, or when you sign in with your existing Checkr account, your account will be provisioned with default background check packages from Rippling.

While these default packages consist of our most comprehensive checks run by the majority of customers, there are many instances where you might wish to create new packages as part of your hiring process. To get started, reach out to Checkr directly through this form to let Checkr know which package(s) you’d like to add to your account.

Learn more about customizing packages here!

Running international background checks with Checkr

You can use Checkr to run background checks on international hires (i.e., employees or contractors living outside of the U.S.) as long as you set up your Account Hierarchy within Checkr. With Account Hierarchy, Checkr packages become account-level objects and can have any number of nodes assigned to them. Refer to Checkr's documentation on Account Hierarchy and nodes for more details.

When setting up a background check policy within Rippling, you'll see the ability to specify a Checkr node. If you don't have any nodes configured in your Checkr account, then you'll see all of the packages that are currently in use by your account.

To use Checkr international background checks through Rippling, simply select a Checkr package that has International in the name when setting up your policy.

If you don’t see any International Packages in your account, reach out to Checkr directly through this form and we’ll configure your account to support international checks!

When you hire an employee that meets the Supergroup associated with that policy in Rippling, then that employee will automatically have their information, including location, shared with Checkr for the background check.

How does Checkr determine an employee's location?

Rippling shares your employee's work location with Checkr if one is present. In the case of an employee whose work location is marked as remote, Rippling will share your employee's home location for the background check.  

When hiring a prospective remote employee, either domestically or internationally, you may want to run a background check for the prospect in a different location than their home jurisdiction. For example, suppose you are hiring an employee who lives in London but whose work location will be considered the New York office. 

In this case, you may want to screen the employee for infractions or criminal history in London, New York, or in both locations. To do so, you can run a manual background check for the prospective employee and override their default location. For instructions on running a manual background check in a different location, see the instructions above.

Checkr background check statuses

On the Overview tab of the Checkr app, you'll see a list of candidates and a status, along with some additional details. The table below provides a description of each of the statuses. For more information, click the View in Checkr button next to each candidate's name, or review Checkr's Help Center.

Use the Checkr Dashboard

The Rippling integration allows you to order background checks and view their status, through the integration or through the Checkr dashboard, the following features are available only from within Checkr:

• Background check invitation links
• Full background check report results
• Adverse Action initiation and processing tools
• Checkr settings
• New and existing user management
• Billing information
• Email notification preferences

For a quick overview of the Checkr Dashboard, please see Getting started with Checkr.