Connect PharmacyID
PharmacyID (PRM Group) is an accredited provider that lodges and obtains nationally coordinated police checks. It's the alternative to National Crime Check — set up whichever your organisation has an account with, or both.
Setting PharmacyID up is shorter than NCC, because there's no sign-in to authorise: Oho submits through a service account the platform manages. What you supply is the pair of values PRM uses to recognise your tenant.
A connected PharmacyID verification source you can pick on any police check request, and a PID Ref returned against each check you submit.
Before you start
- Your PRM Office Code and Client Email, both issued by your PRM account manager during onboarding
- Admin access in Oho — verification sources sit under Admin. If you don't see the menu item, ask your Oho administrator
You do not need a PharmacyID username or password. If someone asks you for one, they're thinking of a different integration.
Step 1: Add the verification source
- In Oho, go to Admin → Verification Sources → Add Source and choose PharmacyID Police Check.
- On Configure Connection, set the Environment:
- TEST — PharmacyID's sandbox. Nothing is submitted to ACIC and nothing is billed. The Office Code is fixed to the sandbox value and the field is hidden.
- PRODUCTION — live and billed.
Keep it on TEST until you've watched a check run end to end.
Expected outcome: the Connection panel is showing, set to the environment you want.
Step 2: Enter your Office Code and Client Email
On PRODUCTION, fill in:
- Office Code (required) — your PRM-issued identifier, for example
OHO1234. PRM attributes every check to it for billing and reporting. - Client Email — the address PRM pairs with the Office Code.
Both have to match what PRM holds for you, character for character.
PRM has no endpoint for checking an Office Code, so Test Connection in the next step won't catch a wrong one — it's validated when you submit your first check. Confirm it against your onboarding email rather than typing it from memory.
Expected outcome: both fields filled, with no empty-field warning on the step.
Step 3: Test the connection
Click Test Connection. Oho requests a token from PharmacyID for the environment you chose, which confirms the platform's credentials are wired up for it.
A status pill above the button shows the result. A failure message is PRM's or Oho's own wording and says what went wrong — pass it to support as-is if it isn't obvious.
Expected outcome: the step shows as connected, and Next is available.
Step 4: Set the check defaults
Still on the same step, under Settings:
-
Industry / Purpose (required) — passed to PRM on every application and drives their reporting categories.
-
Default Reason Type — used when a check is submitted without an explicit one, for example from a capture flow. The request form can override it per check.
-
Applicant journey — how the person gets their link:
- PharmacyID portal (the default) — PharmacyID emails them directly.
- Oho-managed link — PharmacyID doesn't email; Oho surfaces the link through its own capture flow for you to share.
Oho doesn't send applicant emails for this yet, so pick PharmacyID portal if you need them emailed automatically.
Under Decision Rules you can also set whether a clear result is marked suitable automatically, how long a check stays valid, and whether this source is your tenant's default police-check source.
Expected outcome: the required fields are filled and Next moves you on.
Step 5: Set the schedule and finish
Choose how often Oho polls PharmacyID for progress on checks that are still open, then finish the wizard.
PharmacyID is poll-only — there's no callback from PRM — so this schedule is what moves a check from submitted to a result.
Expected outcome: the PharmacyID source appears in your Verification Sources list.
How to confirm it worked
Request a police check against the new source from Worker Police Checks → Request new: pick it under the PharmacyID (PID) group in the source list. Once PharmacyID accepts the check, the queue card shows a PID Ref tag and the Submitted step ticks on its timeline.
If it stays on Requested with no PID Ref, see Common questions.
PharmacyID or NCC?
Both do the same job — a nationally coordinated police check, submitted and obtained for you, completed by the person on the provider's own pages. They differ in how you set them up and what you'll see afterwards:
| PharmacyID (PID) | National Crime Check (NCC) | |
|---|---|---|
| Signing in | None — Oho uses a platform-managed service account | A one-time Connect that authorises Oho against your own NCC account |
| Identifying your org | Office Code + Client Email, issued by PRM | Invoice Site ID from your NCC co-branded site |
| Organisations | Not scoped — one Office Code covers the tenant | The source names the organisations it covers, and they share one NCC account |
| Reference on a check | PID Ref | NCC ID, matching the one in your NCC portal |
| Emailing the person | PharmacyID emails them, or Oho surfaces the link — your choice | NCC emails them |
| Progress updates | Polled on the schedule you set | Polled on the schedule you set |
The identifiers are the part worth remembering: a check carries a PID Ref or an NCC ID, never both, so being asked for the wrong one is a sign the conversation is about the wrong provider.
What's next
- Run a police check — the full request flow, reading results, and chasing a slow one
- Set up notifications so you're told when a check changes status