What a check result means

Every register answers in its own words. AHPRA says "With Conditions". NSW says "APPLICATION IN PROGRESS". Victoria says "Replaced / new card". Passed through as they are, your team would have to learn a different vocabulary for every credential type you hold — and the same situation would read differently depending on which state the worker happens to work in.

Oho doesn't pass them through. Every answer, from every register, is translated into one standard vocabulary. A result means the same thing on a Blue Card as it does on an AHPRA registration, so your team learns it once.

A result answers three questions

1. Can we engage this person? The register's verdict.
2. Why? The specific reason behind that verdict.
3. What does it change? Where the worker now sits.

They're separate on purpose. The verdict is enough to act on; the reason is there when someone needs to explain, chase or fix something.

1. Can we engage this person?

Status (as shown in the app)	Colour	What it means	API value (eligibility)
May engage	Green	Valid and current — the person is cleared for the work.	MAY_ENGAGE
May not engage	Red	Not valid — expired, suspended, not found, or a match on a ban register.	MAY_NOT_ENGAGE
Under review	Yellow	No decision yet — someone has to read the result and record one. Not a softer kind of pass: the worker counts as non-compliant until they do.	REVIEW_REQUIRED
In progress	Blue	Still being checked.	IN_PROGRESS
Couldn't verify	Grey	The source couldn't be reached; Oho will try again.	ERROR

"Under review" is the one to watch. It isn't a softer kind of pass — it means no one has decided yet, and until someone does, the worker it belongs to reads as non-compliant. Those results collect in Review & Decide, which is where they get resolved.

2. Why?

Eleven reasons. Ten cover every answer a register can give, and the eleventh, In application, comes from the applicant. This is the layer that tells you what to actually do about a result.

Status (as shown in the app)	Colour	What it means	Worker reads	API value (statusDetail)
Valid	Green	The register confirmed the credential, and it is current.	Compliant	VALID
Expiring soon	Yellow	Still valid, but inside your expiry lead time — 30 days by default, and set per credential type in Settings → Notifications.	At risk	EXPIRING_SOON
Conditions to review	Yellow	Cleared, but the register attached a condition or a notation that someone has to read and decide on.	At risk	CONDITIONS_TO_REVIEW
In progress	Blue	The check hasn't come back yet — either the register is still working, or Oho is.	At risk	IN_PROGRESS
Pending decision	Blue	The issuing authority has an application in front of it and has yet to decide.	At risk	PENDING_DECISION
In application	Blue	The holder has applied and sent proof, but the card hasn't been issued yet. Oho doesn't check it against the register until the card arrives.	At risk	IN_APPLICATION (on status)
Couldn't verify	Grey	The check itself failed — the register was down, timed out, or asked for a captcha. It says nothing about the credential, the last answer still stands, and Oho will try again.	At risk	ERROR
Expired	Red	The expiry date has passed, so the worker is no longer covered.	Non-compliant	EXPIRED
Revoked	Red	The issuing authority withdrew the credential — excluded, suspended or barred.	Non-compliant	REVOKED
Not current	Red	The register says the credential is not current. Some registers distinguish this from a plain expiry, so Oho keeps them apart.	Non-compliant	NOT_CURRENT
Not found	Red	No matching record on the register — usually a mistyped number, sometimes a record that was never there.	Non-compliant	NOT_FOUND

Two are worth knowing about before you meet them:

• "Couldn't verify" is about us, not the worker. A register that's down, slow or asking for a captcha tells you nothing about the person. It's deliberately grey rather than red, the previous answer stands, and Oho keeps trying.
• "In application" isn't a register's answer. The applicant has told you they've applied and is waiting on their card. See When someone has applied but is still waiting below.
• "Not found" doesn't always count against a worker. Some registers intermittently return no match for a card that is perfectly valid. Where Oho has already seen a "May engage" for that credential, it carries that verdict through one re-check rather than flipping the worker to non-compliant on a single bad answer — while still recording "Not found" on the record so the history is honest. When a result holds, and when it doesn't below has the exact conditions.

When a "Not found" result holds

The carry-forward above is narrow on purpose. A worker can move to May not engage and back again without anyone touching their record, so here is exactly where it applies and where it stops.

It applies only when all of these are true:

• The result is "Not found". Expired, Revoked and Not current are never carried. Those are the register's decision about the person, not a failure to find them, and Oho records them the moment they arrive.
• The check ran inside Oho. Results that arrive from an external portal runner — NSW Working With Children Checks are read from the Office of the Children's Guardian employer portal — are recorded exactly as the portal reported them.
• The register isn't one where "Not found" is final. Blue Card (QLD) is the main one. Blue Card Services returns a single negative answer that covers a cancelled card, a suspended card, an expired card and a name that doesn't match alike, so there is nothing to treat as a glitch. It also matters at renewal: a renewed Blue Card gets a new issue number (1234567/2 becomes 1234567/3), and the old number on file will keep coming back as not valid until someone updates it. That is the signal to act on, not noise.
• Oho has seen that credential pass before. The carry needs a "May engage" from a check Oho actually ran. A credential that was imported — from a spreadsheet, a connector, or a migration from another system — arrives with no verification history, so its first register check stands on its own.
• It's the first one. The carry spends a single re-check. If the next check also comes back "Not found", that result is written through and the worker moves to May not engage.

A worker flipped and flipped back

If a worker moved to May not engage and returned to May engage with nothing on their record changed, the register gave Oho a different answer on the two runs. The verdict on the worker now is the one the register gave most recently. Open the credential's Verification tab to see both answers and the date of each — the audit trail keeps every one.

When someone has applied but is still waiting

Applicants often apply for a credential, such as a Working With Children Check, at the same time as they apply for the job. They can't give you a card number yet, but they can show they've applied.

On their upload link, the applicant ticks I've applied for this but don't have it yet. Instead of the card details, Oho asks for the Application reference, the Date applied and Proof of application, such as the confirmation email, a receipt or a screenshot.

The credential then shows as In application. Oho doesn't check it against the register, because there's no card to check yet, and the worker stays at risk until the real card is added.

The checkbox is offered for credentials people apply for and wait on: Working With Children Checks, NDIS Worker Screening, teacher registrations and AHPRA. It isn't offered for police checks, visas, passports, licences or certificates.

This is different from Pending decision. Pending decision is the register telling Oho it has an application in front of it. In application is the applicant telling you, backed by their proof.

When the card arrives, the applicant adds it through the same upload link. Oho replaces the application with the card and checks it against the register as normal.

How often Oho follows up, and when an application counts as overdue, are set in your recruitment check settings.

3. What it changes for the worker

A worker's band is the worst thing on their file. One expired credential makes them non-compliant no matter how much else is current.

Band	Badge on the worker	Colour	What it means
Compliant	May engage	Green	Everything on file is verified and current, with nothing outstanding.
At risk	Under review	Yellow	Engagement is still possible, but something is owed — a renewal coming up, a condition to read, or a check nobody has an answer to yet.
Non-compliant	May not engage	Red	Something on file is expired, withdrawn, missing from the register, or waiting on a reviewer.
No records	No records	Grey	Nothing has been supplied for this worker at all. Kept apart from compliant on purpose — an empty file is not a clearance.

This is the band everything else is built on: the tiles on your compliance dashboards, the filters on the worker list, the exported report, and who gets notified.

Checks that haven't come back yet — in progress, pending a decision, in application, or couldn't be run — hold a worker at at risk. Nobody has failed anything, but "may engage" claims a clearance no register has granted yet, so Oho won't claim it either.

Seeing the register's own words

The standard vocabulary is what you work from day to day. When you need the raw answer — to query a result, or to show what you knew on the day you made a decision — it's kept on the record itself: see where a record came from and the audit trail. Each register's own quirks are written up under Verification Sources.

Next: how monitoring works — when these answers get refreshed, and what happens when one changes.