Migrating from ClickFORMS: Bringing Your MISMO 2.6 Archive into UAD 3.6

If you have used ClickFORMS for years, your report folder is probably the most complete record of your market you own. Migrating from ClickFORMS ahead of UAD 3.6 isn't about the forms. Every program is learning the redesigned URAR this fall. It's about getting a decade of subjects, comps and adjustments out in a form another program can read, and keeping your workfiles intact while you do it. This is the ClickFORMS-specific companion to our main guide on how to switch appraisal software without losing your comps.

Key takeaways

• The file you want is MISMO 2.6 GSE XML, one per report, plus the delivered PDF.
• Find the export in your version's menus or ask ClickFORMS support for the bulk method. Don't guess.
• Back up the original report files and workfiles before anything else.
• Your old reports become comps history and adjustment data, not UAD 3.6 reports.
• Keep ClickFORMS available for UAD 2.6 revisions through spring 2027.

Why ClickFORMS users are looking at UAD 3.6 now

UAD 3.6 is mandatory for new submissions to UCDP starting November 2, 2026. Freddie Mac's UAD and Forms Redesign FAQ ties the mandate to the UCDP submission date, so an assignment you inspect in late October and deliver in November is a UAD 3.6 report. The redesigned URAR is one dynamic report delivered as MISMO 3.6 XML. It replaces the separate forms you've filled in for years. If the change is new to you, start with the UAD 3.6 complete guide.

That puts every appraiser in the same spot. Whether you stay with ClickFORMS or move, you're learning a new report. Some appraisers use the moment to compare options. This post doesn't tell you to leave. It tells you how to protect your archive either way, because a clean MISMO 2.6 export is worth having even if you never switch.

Step 1: Find every ClickFORMS report you have

Start by locating your files. ClickFORMS reports usually live in a reports folder on your computer, but long-time users often have more than one:

• The current reports folder on your main machine.
• Older folders from a previous computer, copied over or left on an external drive.
• Folders on a trainee's or partner's machine.
• A shared network drive or synced cloud folder, if your firm used one.

Make a simple inventory: location, years covered, approximate count. Search your drives for the report file type your version uses and sort by date. You'll compare your exports against this list in Step 5.

Tip: do this on a quiet afternoon, not between inspections. Finding a folder of 2016 reports on an old laptop is a lot better than discovering it's missing in 2029.

Step 2: Back up the originals before you export

Copy the raw ClickFORMS report files and every workfile folder to two places you control: an external drive and a separate cloud storage account in your own name. Do this before exporting, so a failed export can't damage anything.

This matters for more than convenience. USPAP's Record Keeping Rule requires keeping the workfile at least five years after preparation, or at least two years after final disposition of a judicial proceeding in which you testified, whichever is later. You must keep custody of it or have appropriate arrangements for retention, access and retrieval. See the current edition at The Appraisal Foundation and check your state's rules too. The original ClickFORMS files, plus the program to open them or the PDFs you delivered, are part of meeting that obligation. We cover the storage side in desktop vs. cloud appraisal software.

Step 3: Export your reports as MISMO 2.6 GSE XML

Every UAD 2.6 report that went to UCDP was delivered as MISMO 2.6 XML. That's a shared GSE format, which makes it the most portable copy of your report data that exists. Your goal is one XML file per finished report.

How you get there depends on your ClickFORMS version, so we won't invent menu paths. In general:

1. Open a finished report and look for an export option mentioning MISMO, GSE, UAD or XML.
2. Export one report and open the file in a text editor. You should see readable XML tags with your subject address and comps in it.
3. Look for a batch or bulk export option so you aren't exporting thousands of reports by hand.
4. If you can't find one, contact ClickFORMS support and ask: "How do I export all my finished reports as MISMO 2.6 GSE XML in bulk?" Ask for the answer in writing.

Save the exports in folders by year and zip each year. Expect some reports not to export as UAD XML, especially work from before the original UAD and non-GSE assignments. Those survive as PDFs and original files, which is fine.

Step 4: Copy out what doesn't live in the report

The XML holds the report data. It doesn't hold the setup you built around it. Before you change anything, copy these into a document or folder:

• Comment and addendum boilerplate you reuse: scope of work, market conditions, extraordinary assumptions, FHA and VA language.
• Firm name and address, every appraiser's and trainee's license number and expiration.
• E&O carrier, policy number, limits and expiration, plus the declarations page PDF.
• Your signature image file.
• Client and AMC contacts, and any client-specific requirements you've collected.

A lot of old addenda exist to explain things the old forms couldn't hold. UAD 3.6 structures much of that, so expect to drop some boilerplate. The redesigned URAR vs. the 1004 shows what moved where.

Step 5: Check the export against your inventory

Count XML files per year and compare to your inventory. Then open a sample across years and property types: a recent 1004, a condo, a 2–4 unit, something from five or six years ago. Confirm the subject address, sale data and the adjustment grid are there.

Signs of trouble:

• A whole year far below your count. Usually a second folder you missed.
• Tiny files of a few KB. Often an empty or failed export.
• Files that open as garbled text. Possibly a different format, not XML.

Fix gaps now while ClickFORMS is installed and working.

Step 6: Import the archive into your new program

If you're moving to Carat, here's what the import does. You upload your ClickFORMS reports or MISMO 2.6 GSE XML exports, as individual files or as zips (zips are expanded on upload). Carat parses each report into a searchable comps history: every subject you appraised, every comp you used, and every adjustment line. From that it builds median adjustment rates by town and price tier, drawn only from your own work, along with the middle range around each median. Where a specific town and tier doesn't have enough of your reports to say anything, it falls back to the town overall and then the county.

Data that's unclear goes to a review queue, never silently into a report. That matters with old files. A comp's GLA you later corrected, a free-text garage description, a sale date in an odd format: you'll see those, decide, and move on.

Watch out: an imported history is evidence about your past reasoning, not this market today. Use the medians as a check on your adjustments, and support each adjustment with current market evidence. Our post on data-driven adjustments from your past reports goes deeper.

What doesn't happen: your 2021 ClickFORMS 1004 doesn't turn into a UAD 3.6 report. No honest import does that, because the redesigned URAR asks for per-component condition, structured defects, site influences and more that the old form never captured. New assignments start fresh.

Step 7: Set up the new program and do a practice report

Enter your firm profile once: firm details, licenses, E&O, signature. In Carat, new reports start from the firm profile and license and E&O exhibits attach to every report.

Then do a practice UAD 3.6 report on a recent, simple assignment you already delivered:

1. Start the report and see what fills in. Carat fills the subject's address, parcel ID, coordinates and public-record facts from parcel and tax-roll data where it's available.
2. Find comps from your imported history and check the town medians next to your adjustments.
3. Sketch the house. GLA calculates to ANSI Z765 and fills the report.
4. Run the readiness checks. Carat's AI-powered checks run hundreds of the GSE Appendix H-1 compliance rules while you work and link each finding to the field.
5. Build the UCDP-ready zip (MISMO 3.6 XML, URAR PDF and images). You or your lender upload it. Carat never submits or signs for you.

The UAD 3.6 readiness checklist is a good second check on that first report.

Step 8: Keep ClickFORMS for the UAD 2.6 tail

Don't uninstall yet. If a report was submitted to UCDP in UAD 2.6 before November 2, 2026, revisions to that existing Doc File ID stay in UAD 2.6. You need the program that made it to answer a revision request cleanly.

The UAD 2.6 wind-down runs in stages: an exception period through February 28, 2027, reduced functionality from March 1, 2027, Fatal for new submissions from May 20, 2027, and retirement on June 28, 2027. The UAD 3.6 deadline timeline lays it out. A reasonable plan:

Before you finally cancel, confirm one more time that you can open your workfiles without the program: PDFs of every delivered report, original files backed up, XML exported.

A checklist you can print

• All report folders found, including old machines and drives
• Original report files and workfiles backed up in two places
• MISMO 2.6 XML exported for every finished UAD report, zipped by year
• Export counts checked against inventory; samples opened
• Boilerplate, licenses, E&O, signature and contacts copied out
• Archive imported; review queue checked
• Firm profile set up; practice UAD 3.6 report done
• ClickFORMS kept for UAD 2.6 revisions

If you're comparing programs, our buyer's guide to UAD 3.6 appraisal software has the criteria, and if you're leaving a different desktop program too, see the export playbook for ACI, TOTAL and others.

Carat is $99 a month per appraiser, unlimited reports, month to month (see pricing). You can create an account and import your ClickFORMS archive whenever you're ready.