How does the Applicant Background Check functionality work

How does the background check functionality work? I assume that the applicant data is passed through to the vendor, who performs the background check, but is this info then pushed back into Oracle iRecruitment on the applicant profile, or does the HR user have to access the vendor portal to retrieve the results?

Is it possible to use different vendors, besides HireRight, I have only found documentation referencing HireRight. We are using MIE (Managed Integrity Evaluation - South Africa)

Thanks for your assistance

Debbie