Title: Term Setup: Updated SAP Fields

Tickets: RS-20710; RS-21012; RS-21013;

Description:

The Term Setup screen has been updated in Regent Award. The old ‘SAP’ column has been removed and the Help Text has been updated on the new fields, ‘SAP Evaluation Start Date’ and ‘SAP Evaluation End Date.’

See the Customer Zone Knowledge Base topic: Term Setup Data Elements

Title: Allow User to Accept an Amount of $0 during the My Borrowing Plan Acceptance in Student Experience

Tickets: RS-20972; RS-20994; RS-20995;

Description: My Borrowing in Student Experience has been updated to allow users to accept an amount of $0 for Subsidized, Unsubsidized, and Graduate PLUS awards when accepting a borrowing plan. A student must still accept the full Direct Subsidized Loan eligibility prior to accepting any amount of Direct Unsubsidized Loan, and any loan amount greater than $0 entered must be a minimum of $1 per term (e.g. A 3-Term Loan Period would require a minimum of $3 to be entered).

See the Customer Zone Knowledge Base topic My Borrowing.

Title: Update Validation Logic of Completed Smart Form Pages in Student Experience

Ticket: RS-20902;

Description:

Updates have been made within Student Experience to ensure that if the user makes any change to a previously saved Smart Form page, then attempts to navigate away from the page using the page arrows, section link in the menu, or Student Experience navigation menu rather than the Next page button, a message will display for the user to confirm and save the changes.

Title: Make Regent Plan Site/Program-level Configs Independent of Institution-level Config Setting

Tickets: RS-20832; RS-20849;

Description:

When Regent Plan is configured for an Enterprise with multiple institutions, the Plan configuration takes place only in one ‘master institution’ and the other institutions use that configuration. In 5.3.1, functionality was introduced to allow schools to display/not display Regent Plan in Student Experience based on site and program-level configurations. Testers determined that if ‘Regent Plan’ was enabled and then disabled, all underlying programs and sites had the ‘Enable Additional Regent Plan Components’ option disabled as well and there was no way to re-enable the functionality. The following changes were made in Regent 5.4.0:

1. ‘Enable Additional Regent Plan Components’ field at Site and Program levels will always default to ‘true’ (checked) when a new program or site is added if Regent Plan is enabled for the ‘master institution’.
2. If ‘Regent Plan’ becomes disabled (unchecked), the underlying ‘Enable Additional Regent Plan Components’ at Site and Program levels will remain enabled (checked) if that is their current state, but they will not be functional.
3. If ‘Regent Plan’ is again enabled at the “master institution”, then the ‘Enable Additional Regent Plan Components’ functionality will return to any programs/sites with that option still enabled (checked).

Title: VWS: Text Update- Child Support Clarification

Tickets: RS-20793; RS-20907;

Description:

Text has been updated in the ‘Children and Other Dependents Information' section of the Verification Worksheet. The following sentence has been added to the existing text: “Do not include children for whom you pay child support if the amount you pay does not provide more than half of the overall support for those children.”

Title: VWS: Text Update to 'IRS Tax Transcript/Tax Return' Field

Tickets: RS-20778; RS-20884;

Description:

The top section of informational text for the ‘IRS Tax Transcript/Tax Return' field of the Verification Worksheet has been revised to advise that signed copies of a prior year’s tax returns are acceptable for verification. Example Text: “In order to complete the verification process, you will need to provide a copy of your completed and signed 2019 1040 form or a 2019 Tax Transcript for both you and your spouse from the Internal Revenue Service for the Financial Aid Office to review. A 2019 IRS Tax Return Transcript may be obtained using any of the following options:”

Title: New Document Setup Configuration: ‘EFC’, ‘State of Residency,' and ‘First Bachelor’s Degree by MM/DD/YYYY'

Tickets: RS-20647; RS-20713; RS-20711;

Description: New configuration options have been implemented in Document Setup<ISIR Assignment in Regent Award to allow schools to assign documents based on the ‘State of Residency’, ‘EFC’, and ‘First Bachelor's Degree by MM/DD/YYYY’ data from the ISIR.

See Customer Zone Knowledge Base topic Document Setup Data Elements.

Title: Change to Time Stamp Logic/Format on SmartForm PDFs

Tickets: RS-20621; RS-20886; RS-20893;

Description:

When the user electronically signs a form in Student Experience, the e-signature time stamp displayed on the document output (.pdf) has been updated to reflect the student’s local time, based on the student’s web browser, at the time the e-signature was actually completed. The time stamp format now includes the student’s time zone abbreviation. Example: 1/20/2021 4:58 AM CST. The time of document receipt within Regent Award will match the time in the time stamp on the document (without the time zone abbreviation.)

Title: ISIR Reprocess Process: Match Future-Year FAYs

Tickets: RS-20567;

Description:

The ‘ISIR Reprocess’ process has been updated to include ISIRs for the current year and all future-year FAYs. For example, if the current date is in the calendar year 2020, the system will reprocess available ISIRs for 2019-2020, 2020-2021, 2021-2022, and later.

See Customer Zone Knowledge Base topic Reprocessing Unprocessed ISIRs.

Title: Regent Plan: Subsidized Loan Usage

Tickets: RS-20535; RS-20735; RS-20657; RS-20658;

Description:

Regent Plan has been enhanced to optionally display a student’s Subsidized Loan Usage. Schools may enable the new feature in Institution Setup>Regent Plan>General Sub-Tab>Display Subsidized Loan Usage. The new feature applies to students who have Subsidized Usage Limits Apply (SULA) restrictions. If a student’s SULA flag has a value of 'Y' (Yes), the student’s My Plan displays a bar graph showing the student’s current Subsidized Loan Usage percentage for their program, relative to the 150% maximum. The SULA information is displayed just below the Lifetime Aggregate Borrowing Limits. If the student’s SULA flag is ‘N,’ or the system is configured with Display Subsidized Loan Usage disabled, then the system will not display the new SULA graph.

See the Customer Zone topics Regent Plan Landing Page and Regent Plan Setup.

Title: Package Term-Based Subsidized Loans with Subsidized Usage Limit Applies (SULA) Restrictions

Tickets: RS-20504; RS-20495; RS-20507; RS-20508; RS-20509; RS-20511; RS-20513; RS-20514; RS-20515; RS-20521; RS-20522; RS-20524; RS-20530; RS-20533; RS-20534; RS-20543; RS-20551; RS-20519;

Description:

Regent Award has improved auto-packaging of Subsidized loans for term-based students when the Subsidized Usage Limit Applies (SULA). The system calculates the students' SULA usage and, when configured, the system will prevent packaging of current and future Subsidized loans that would exceed the students' Subsidized Usage Period (SUP) limits. Regent uses the most recent SULA information from COD, NSLDS FAH, or ISIR data. First, Regent starts with the student’s Total Actual SUP value, in years. Next, Regent subtracts any COD-calculated loan actual SUP values for current and future award periods. Then, Regent repackages and re-awards the Subsidized loans for current and future years. During packaging, Regent automatically tracks each loan’s SUP, as adjusted for term enrollment levels or maximum eligibility. Regent adds the loan’s SUP to the student’s total cumulative SUP calculated by Regent. When a student’s program is configured to apply SULA calculations to awarding, the system will stop awarding Subsidized loans when the student’s total SUP reaches 150% of the Published Program Length in years. The system also marks the final subsidized loan as being the last eligible Subsidized loan due to SULA restrictions.

Regent Award calculates SULA data for all students with the SULA flag = Y in the official data source. Schools can configure whether the SULA calculations will affect Subsidized loan awarding. The configuration setting is ‘Apply SULA Calculations' in Institution Setup, inheritable to Campus Setup and Program Setup. Regent will still always do the student-level SULA calculations for students with SULA=Y, even when the program is ineligible for Subsidized loans (such as Graduate programs) or the program is configured with ‘Apply SULA Calculations’ set to 'No.'

Title: Student History Tab, SULA Sub-tab: Student Subsidized Usage, Subsidized Loan Usage, and Loan Subsidized Usage by Payment Period

Tickets: RS-20645; RS-20761; RS-20760; RS-20762; RS-20763; RS-16793; RS-20764; RS-20502; RS-20765; RS-20749; RS-20488; RS-20498; RS-20500; RS-20499; RS-20489; RS-20492; RS-20766;

Description:
The Student History tab, SULA sub-tab has been enhanced to provide additional information to support Subsidized Usage Limit Applies (SULA) restrictions. The tab displays an updated Student Subsidized Usage table containing SULA-related student-level data values from the ISIR, NSLDS Financial Aid History (FAH), and COD. A separate, new, award-level table displays the Subsidized Usage by Loan for the student's Federal Direct Subsidized loans in Regent Award. The new award-level table also provides a link to display additional SULA details for each loan, with the Loan Subsidized Usage by Payment Period. If the student's program is configured with Apply SULA to Awarding set to a value of 'No,' the SULA sub-tab will also display an alert message to the user.

See Customer Zone topics Subsidized Usage Limit Applies (SULA), History Tab, and Program Setup Data Elements.

Title: MHEC Drug Free Pledge Form

Tickets: RS-20368; RS-20601; RS-20608; RS-20603; RS-20604;

Description:

A new Smart Form, MHEC Pledge to Remain Drug Free Form, has been created that will streamline the applicant experience and increase the level of applicant self-service in the completion of MHEC processing. Regent provides the ability to track the completion of the MHEC Pledge to Remain Drug Free Form for both Centralized and Decentralized Awards.  Student demographic information is pre-populated and the student is able to electronically sign the form.

See the Customer Zone Knowledge Base topic MHEC Pledge to Remain Drug Free Smart Form.

Title: MHEC - Centralized Awards

Tickets: RS-20807; RS-20808; RS-20815; RS-20810; RS-20811; RS-20809; RS-20816; RS-20822; RS-20825; RS-20826; RS-20827; RS-20828; RS-20852; RS-20853; RS-20854; RS-20845; RS-20851; RS-20855; RS-20856; RS-20857; RS-20858; RS-20859; RS-20881; RS-20874; RS-20875; RS-20876;

Description:

New functionality was added to support the MHEC Centralized awarding process. This functionality includes MHEC export files that will provide updated data pertinent to determining eligibility for an award through a series of MHEC Roster imports. It also includes the consumption of the MHEC Award Roster, which will insert MHEC award amounts onto the student’s Academic Plan and cancel existing ineligible awards according to configuration settings.

See the Customer Zone Knowledge Base Topics Maryland Higher Education Commission (MHEC) Centralized Awards, Term Setup Data Elements, Institution Setup Data Elements, State Grants,
Fund Setup Data Elements, and Enrollment Level Setup Data Elements.

Title: Improved SBL Validation to Prevent Partial Changes to Student Data

Tickets: RS-20441;

Description:

The Student Batch Load (SBL) import process has been enhanced with stricter validation for SBL data. If a student has incorrect data in any section of the SBL data, the system will not process any changes in that SBL data file for that student. For example, if a student has invalid course data on the SBL, and the student also has other changes to their student-level information, then the system will not process any of the SBL changes for that student. Schools may review any errors in the Error Log and SBL Validation Errors Report.

Title: Increase Field Lengths for ‘Document Reasons’ in Regent Award

Tickets: RS-20307; RS-20392; RS-20451; RS-20452; RS-20453; RS-20783;

Description:

The following field lengths have been increased to allow up to 1000 characters in Regent Award and Regent Review:

• Institution Setup > Document Reasons tab > 'Reason' field
• Student > Documents tab > General tab > 'Reason' field
• Student > Documents tab > General tab > 'Notes' field

Title: New Parent PLUS Borrower Communication Fields

Tickets: RS-18884; RS-20281; RS-20297; RS-20298; RS-20312; RS-20311; RS-20357; RS-20358;

Description:
Regent has added new Communications fields to support communications to Parent PLUS Borrowers. Communications templates can access the data visible on the student's Loans sub-tab, PLUS Borrower Information. In this release, the Borrower's email address and Phone Number were added to the sub-tab. Regent Award was also enhanced with the ability to send email communications to PLUS borrowers when the borrowers are not listed on the student's Parent/Spouse/Reference Information. Currently, users must enter the PLUS borrower information manually on the sub-tab prior to COD acceptance of the PLUS loan.

Title: New Disability Status Field in the Demographic Information Section on the Student Details Tab in Regent Award

Tickets: RS-20253; RS-20695; RS-20956;

Description: A new Disability Status field will display in Regent Award on the Student Details Tab within the Demographic Information Section. When the disabilityStatus attribute is provided in the SBL, the value will be displayed in the new Disability Status field in Regent Award.

Title: Update Rounding Logic for Wisconsin State Grant

Ticket: RS-20170; RS-20904;

Description:

The Wisconsin State Grant rules for calculating award amounts in the first term of the FAY when the first term award amount results in a disbursement that is not a whole dollar amount, have been updated in the ruleset.

Title: New Regent Plan Disclosure Information Screen in Student Experience

Tickets: RS-20768; RS-20769; RS-20770; RS-20771; RS-20772; RS-20773; RS-20774; RS-20775; RS-20776;

Description: A new Disclosure Information screen is available in Student Experience. The Disclosure Information screen is a sub-page of Regent Plan and is available to schools with a Regent Plan license. The Disclosure Information screen is accessible via a Page Link Token that can be added to configurable text areas within Student Experience (e.g. Footer configuration). The information displayed on the Disclosure Information sub-page is configurable via a text box in the Loan Disclosure Settings section of the Regent Plan Configuration/General tab in Institution Setup, in Regent.

Tokens can be inserted into configurable messaging areas on the Disclosure Page within Student Experience to direct a user to specific Student Experience pages or to surface calculated amounts (e.g. Total Subsidized Loan Amount) within configurable text.

See See the Customer Zone topics Regent Plan Setup, Regent Plan Disclosure Information Page, and Student Experience Tokens.

Title: Updates to Student Experience Communications

Tickets: RS-19544; RS-20794; RS-20795; RS-20796; RS-20797; RS-20798; RS-20799; RS-20800; RS-21078; RS-21083;

Description: The Student Experience ‘Messages’ component name has been updated to ‘Communications’. The component has been separated into two tabs. The Messages tab will continue to display portal messages if configured. A new Notifications tab is now available and displays emails and letters that have been generated and are configured to display in Regent. The Communications component, with both the Messages and Notification tabs, only displays when the component is configured to display.

See the Customer Zone Knowledge Base Topics Communications Component, College Financing Plan (CFP), Permissions List, and Communications Setup.

Title: VWS: Remove default for 'Confirm Your Current Marital Status'

Tickets: RS-19467; RS-20883;

Description:

‘Confirm Your Current Marital Status' field on the Verification Worksheet has been updated to not have a default value of 'No’. Student will be required to select the appropriate value. Help text has been moved above the radio button options.

Problem:

When students were packaged from the Student Experience Portal, sometimes an unexpected message occurred: “Please check back later.”

Cause:

When a student was packaged in multiple, parallel processes, the system occasionally returned a “null reference” exception.

Fix:

The logic was corrected to prevent sending an empty reference when the same student is packaged from multiple processes from the Student Experience Portal.

Testing:

In a test environment, create a test account and authenticate to the Student Experience Portal. Take several actions on the test student, such as selecting a plan in My Borrowing and then accessing the Financial Aid component. Confirm the system does not display the message, “Please check back later.”

Problem:

Several Student Batch Load (SBL) files could not load. The processes had technical errors such as “Violation of Primary Key.”

Cause:

The SBL files contained incorrect, duplicated data. The data tried to update an existing student record and create a new, different student record for the same physical person in the same data file.

Fix:

Regent added a new validation check to identify duplicated student records, which catches the problem and prevents the full SBL process from failing.

Testing:

Load a problematic SBL data file into a test environment, adjusting timestamps if needed. Confirm the file loads successfully. Confirm the system displays a validation error for the affected records.

Problem:

After a school upgraded to 5.3.2.0, the school’s Export Student Documents output could not be consumed by the school’s external system.

Cause:

An enhancement inadvertently made a minor change to the Export Student Documents schema. The new XML output capitalized the word ‘Student’ and ‘Students’ in the XML output file.

Fix:

The XML output process was corrected to use lowercase values of ‘students’ and ‘student.’

Testing:

Update a Document Requirement on a student. In Processes, run the Export Student Documents process. Download and view the output file (decrypting the file if needed). Confirm the file contents have the nodes for ‘students’ and ‘student’ in all lowercase letters.

Problem:

Students could not download some documents from the Student Experience Portal.

Cause:

The documents had file names that contained special characters, such as dashes and curly apostrophes. A bug in the My Documents page prevented the documents from downloading when the filenames contained those special characters.

Fix:

The My Documents page successfully processes files that have special characters in the filenames. In addition, a script was developed as a workaround. The script substitutes hyphens for dashes, and quote marks for apostrophes.

Testing:

In Windows, edit a file name so it has a long dash and a curly apostrophe, e.g. 2021-2022 Bachelor's Degree Certification.pdf. In Document Setup configuration, create or edit a Document with Attachments Allowed = Yes. For the Attachment, select the file and click Upload. Save the Document Setup. Refresh and confirm the Attachment name displays the name with the special characters. Navigate to a student and add the new Document in Needed status. Create a test account for the Student Experience Portal for the student. Log into the Student Portal. Navigate to the My Documents section. Download the file. Confirm the file is successfully downloaded.

Problem:

The Student Batch Load (SBL) process failed with an error, Cannot insert the value NULL….column does not allow nulls. INSERT fails.

Cause:

A rare sequence of changes to course data values led to the system trying to write an empty (null) data value within a student’s Activity Log Entry (ALE). The system was expecting a non-blank value for the field.

Fix:

As a short-term fix, the problematic data was removed and the file was reloaded. For a more permanent fix, the SBL process was updated to handle null (empty) data values when writing to student Activity Log Entries. Any null values will be replaced with the word ‘BLANK’ in the ALE text.

Testing:

In a test environment with the affected student, load an SBL file with the malformed data. Confirm the SBL process loads successfully. View the affected student’s activity log. Confirm the message text displays the word ‘BLANK.’

Problem:
Regent Award was unexpectedly canceling and creating new loans in the same term, during packaging for students starting in later terms in the Academic Year.

Cause:
Regent Award was incorrectly recreating loans if a student's program had the calendar type Scheduled Academic Year with a manual Academic Year 1, and the student started learning in the Winter or Spring terms.

Fix:
Regent Award was updated to ensure loans are not canceled and recreated after Packaging. The correct loan period is assigned with eligible non-historic terms and loan period dates.

Testing:
In Regent Award, find a student that is currently in the first Academic Year on Scheduled Academic Year Program who is starting in Winter or Spring, who has any amount of Direct Loans accepted. In the Program Management Wizard, adjust Academic Year 1 so it becomes Manual. Package the student and make sure existing loans are not canceled and no new loans are created.

Problem:

The date value in the Student History tab, General sub-tab, displayed an incorrect date in the NSLDS column.

Cause:

The screen displayed the file’s import date instead of the NSLDS Alert or FAH Date from the data file.

Fix:

The screen was updated to display the NSLDS Alert or FAH Date value from the NSLDS data file.

Testing:

Edit an NSLDS Financial Award History (FAH) data file. Set the Alert or FAH Date in the NSLDS Header data to be after the date that is currently shown. Load the file into Regent. Navigate to the student. View the student’s History tab, General sub-tab. Refresh. Confirm the ‘Date Updated’ value in the NSLDS column matches the value from the NSLDS FAH data file Header, not the date when the import was made.

Problem:

The new section header titled, ‘FERPA Authorization Settings' under Institution Setup>Portal Smart Form is missing.

Cause:

The addition of the section header was missed during the implementation of the new ‘FERPA Authorization Settings’.

Fix:

The new section header titled, ‘FERPA Authorization Settings' under Institution Setup>Portal Smart Form was added.

Testing:

Navigate to the Institution Setup>Portal Smart Form tab in Regent Award. Scroll to the ‘FERPA Authorization Settings’. Confirm the section title displays above the new FERPA configurations.

Problem:
Regent Award was unexpectedly awarding students over or under their lifetime Direct Loan Aggregate Limits after loading NSLDS Financial Aid History (FAH) information.

Cause:
Regent Award was incorrectly processing the aggregate loan limits when the NSLDS file that was loaded had an 'NSLDS Alert or FAH Date' value that was inside the previous Academic Year.

Fix:
Regent Award was updated to ensure that regardless of the NSLDS date value, the NSLDS information is correctly included in the Aggregate Calculations.

Testing:
In Regent Award, find a student who is close to exhausting their Aggregate Loan Limits and who has disbursements that were paid in a Previous Academic Year, after the most recent NSLDS data was loaded. Import an updated NSLDS FAH data file that has a date that is still within the previous Academic Year. Package the student. Confirm the system awards the correct loan amounts, up to but not exceeding the lifetime Aggregate Loan Limits.

Problem:
In Batch Packaging, some students had an error for “Duplicated Award Periods.” The problem caused an EST-0005 error and blocked the Export Student Transactions (EST) process for the disbursements.

Cause:
A logic error in the student load procedure led to Regent Award trying to assign a Null (empty) value to a non-nullable field in the database.

Fix:
To prevent the issue going forward, the relevant database procedure logic was updated to avoid assigning empty values to the field that cannot be empty. In addition, an on-demand cleanup script was created to clean up data for previously affected students.

Testing:
Run the Batch Packaging process. Confirm no new ‘duplicate award period' errors occur in the process log. Run the EST-for-DRI process. Confirm the EST-005 error code does not occur with the 'duplicate award period’ error. If the error is still present for previously affected students, contact the Regent Account Manager and request the cleanup script RS-21074; repeat these testing steps to confirm those existing students are resolved.

Problem:
A student was able to reduce/decline an award in Accepted status in the Student Experience Portal. The Fund was configured with ‘Allow Students to Accept Lower Amounts or Decline Awards from the Student Portal’ set to ‘No.’

Cause:
Regent Award was incorrectly setting the initial award status to a default of ‘Offered’ when adding an award through Add Award Wizard, and the status was not being reevaluated.

Fix:
Regent Award was updated to ensure that when an award is a newly created award in Add Award Wizard, the system will evaluate and set the initial award status for the award.

Testing:
Use a fund that has ‘Allow Students to Accept Lower Amounts or Decline Awards from the Student Portal’ set to No. Use Add Award Wizard to add a new award from that fund in Accepted status. In the Student Experience Portal, attempt to Decline the award or Edit the award amount. Confirm the award cannot be Declined and the award amount cannot be reduced.

Problem:
When an award was paid, the Fund Budget screen’s Total Paid Amount displayed a change that was twice the amount of the actual payment.

Cause:
The Fund Budgets applied incorrect logic when an award contained null (empty) values for some award amount and/or disbursement amount fields, and those fields were combined with non-empty values.

Fix:
The Fund Budgets logic was corrected to substitute a default value of $0 when the affected fields have null values.

Testing:
Either run the Fund Budget Update scripts, or test shortly after upgrading to the 5.4.0.0 release. Find an unpaid award that uses a budgeted fund. View the fund’s Fund Budgets screen and note the value in the ‘Total Paid Amount.’ Pay the award through the Export Student Transactions process. Confirm the EST process fully completed. Refresh the Fund Budgets screen. Confirm the ‘Total Paid Amount’ value was updated for the paid amount.

Problem:
Regent Award was setting incorrect "SAP Review Period End Date" in the calculated SAP record when packaging was run.

Cause:
Regent Award assigned "SAP Review Period End Date" using the latest SAP record imported from SBL.

Fix:
The code change was applied to allow Regent Award to assign "SAP Review Period End Date" based on the Term's End Date setting.

Testing:
Find the affected student. Run packaging. Review SAP record. Confirm the “SAP Review Period End" matches the Term's End Date.

Problem:

An error was received when trying to generate a parent portal invite when SSO was configured.

Cause:

An issue existed in the validation that ensures a user does not supply a parent's email that is the same as their registered username/email.

Fix:

The validation logic was updated to ignore the registered username/email when SSO is configured for Student Experience.

Testing:

Identify an affected student. Invite a parent to sign the application. Ensure that no error message is received during the process and that the parent receives the email and is successfully able to electronically sign the application.

Problem:
A school enabled the Fund Setup option, ‘Allow Awards From More Than One Available FAY per Crossover Period’ for the Federal Work Study fund. A student first had a Federal Work Study award for 2019-2020 FAY. When the school added a second Federal Work Study award from another FAY, the first award was zeroed.

Cause:
Regent Award canceled the disbursement(s) on the manual award in the former FAY if there appeared a new manual award in the latter FAY with a positive amount from the same fund in the same crossover payment period.

Fix:
Regent Award was updated to ensure that a disbursement(s) in a manual award will not be canceled while awarding another award from the same fund and a different FAY in the same crossover period, when the Fund is configured to allow awards from more than one available FAY.

Testing:
Configure the Federal Work Study fund with ‘Allow Awards from More Than One Available FAY per Crossover Period’ with a value of ‘Yes.’ In Regent Award, use Add Award Wizard to add a Federal Work Study award for 2019-2020, and again for 2020-2021, with positive award amounts in the same crossover term. Confirm the disbursements are not canceled or zeroed out.

Problem:
For some nonterm students who were in a short program (less than one Academic Year in length), the system used an Alternative EFC for six months instead of the expected nine months in the program.

Cause:
The system calculated the Alt-EFC for short programs based on the program’s Academic Year configuration settings instead of taking into account the Program Completion weeks.

Fix:
The system will calculate EFC for short programs based on the Program Completion settings.

Testing:
Navigate to an affected student in the nine-month nonterm program. Check the Primary EFC amount in the ISIR tab. Package the student. In the Awards tab, select an Academic Year. In the FM Contribution Details, confirm the FM EFC has the same value as the ISIR Primary EFC value.

Problem:
Regent Award unexpectedly zeroed out a Pell Grant after a Not Substantially Equal (NSE) program change for a nonterm student.

Cause:
Regent Award incorrectly processed the Payment Period amounts when the previous program had a Finalized R2T4 before the NSE program change.

Fix:
Regent Award was updated to ensure the new program's payment periods are not automatically canceled if there was a finalized R2T4 in the old program and in the same FAY during a NSE Program Change.

Testing:
In Regent Award, find a Pell-eligible nonterm student who has a finalized R2T4. Load a Program Change SBL. Perform the Program Change as Not Substantially Equal. Package the student. Confirm the student has Pell awarded in the new program.

Problem:
In the Export Student Transactions (EST) process, some paid disbursements of 2019-2020 Pell received negative transactions for unknown reasons.

Cause:
The Pell Grant was awarded twice in the same FAY when two program changes took place during this period. The double awarding resulted in the cancelation of existing paid Pell disbursements.

Fix:
Validation checks were added to avoid double awarding during the same FAY when two subsequent program changes occur.

Testing:
Find a student who has Pell. Load an SBL with a program change. Process the first program change. Package the student. Pay the Pell disbursements. Load a second SBL with a second program change. Complete the program change process. Package the student. Pay the additional Pell disbursements. Review the Academic Plan. Confirm no duplicate Pell awards are showing. Confirm no existing disbursements were canceled after the EST for AR process was completed after the second program change.

Problem:

When students were packaged from the Student Experience Portal, sometimes an unexpected message occurred: “Please check back later.”

Cause:

When the students were packaged, sometimes the system failed to process due to an internal error that the collection was modified and the enumeration operation could not execute.

Fix:

The logic was corrected to correctly count the items being changed.

Testing:

In a test environment, create a test account and authenticate to the Student Experience Portal. Take several actions on the test student, such as selecting a plan in My Borrowing and then accessing the Financial Aid component. Confirm the system does not display the message, “Please check back later.”

Problem:
In Modify Award Wizard (MAW), Regent Award was unexpectedly canceling a Direct Loan for an ongoing Academic Year when a user was modifying an award in a previous Academic Year.

Cause:
Regent Award was incorrectly processing the lifetime Direct Loan Aggregate Loan Limits when a user was updating an award in the previous Academic Year, and the student had NSLDS information available for the current Academic Year.

Fix:
Regent Award was updated to ensure that Aggregate Limits would be applied correctly when a user is modifying awards in a previous Academic Year.

Testing:
In Regent Award, find a student who is close to exhausting their Aggregate Loan Limits, and who has a Direct Loan disbursement paid and NSLDS information loaded in the current Academic Year. Modify a Direct Loan award in the previous Academic Year. Confirm awards in the current Academic Year are packaged correctly.

Problem:
Regent Award packaged Pell over the calculated Post-Withdrawal Disbursement (PWD) amount.

Cause:
The system incorrectly calculated the resulting Pell amount after finalizing an R2T4 with a PWD when the nonterm payment period had two or more disbursements.

Fix:
Regent Award handles the Pell calculation properly and only includes the disbursement amounts in the PWD worksheet.

Testing:
Find an affected student with two or more Pell disbursements in the payment period, who does not have an R2T4 for the payment period. Add a new R2T4 resulting in a PWD. Finalize the R2T4. Package the student. Review the Pell disbursement amounts on the Academic Plan. Confirm the Academic Plan’s Pell disbursement amounts are the same as the PWD Pell disbursement amounts.

Problem:
Regent Award was unexpectedly not recalculating Cost of Attendance (COA) for Autowithdrawn terms.

Cause:
Regent Award was incorrectly recalculating COA using Program Applicable Census units for Autowithdrawn enrollment.

Fix:
Regent Award was updated to ensure that Autowithdrawn terms' COA is zeroed out during packaging on or after the Autowithdrawn Date.

Testing:
Find a student who is enrolled in the ongoing term with actual registration. Do not withdraw student from courses or set withdrawal date after Autowithdrawn Date for the term. Package the student on or after the Autowithdrawn Date. Make sure COA is zeroed out

Problem:

The 'Review Overaward with Unpaid Disbursements' Task was repeatedly triggered when the Overaward amount did not change.

Cause:

The system triggered the Task whenever the COA and/or EFC changed, regardless of the Overaward amount.

Fix:

The Task Triggers were changed to remove the change tracking for EFC and COA changes, while still detecting changes to Overward amounts.

Testing:

Find a student who has the ‘Review Overaward with Unpaid Disbursements’ Task. Change the Task Status to ‘Completed.’ Update the student so the COA and/or EFC are changed for the Overawarded loan period, but the net Overaward amount does not change. Package the student. Confirm the system does not retrigger the Task. Update the student again so that the Overaward amount is changed. Package the student. Confirm the Task is re-triggered.

Purpose of Script:

This on-demand data-cleanup script resolves a specific data scenario that can cause EST-0005 errors. The list-only version of the script identifies students who have duplicated award periods, i.e., have multiple award periods of the same type with the same dates. The update script consolidates each student’s awards into a single award period, then removes the extra award periods.

Data Changed by the Script:

The update version of the script will try to move the awards into a single award period, and then remove the extra, duplicated award periods for the targeted students. The script also records an Activity Log Entry. If a student’s data cannot be fixed, the script will return a note in the script results.

How to Access the Script:

Regent Review and Regent Award schools may open a CZ ticket and work with their Account Manager to run the script on demand. The root cause was fixed in 5.4.0.0, so repackaging students in the updated code may resolve some students without requiring the script to be run.

How to Test the Script:

In a test environment, run the list-only version of the script to identify any affected students. If any students are found, try to run the Export Student Transactions (EST) process for those students to see if they still result in an EST-0005 error. Run the update script for the targeted students. View the script output results. View a student that was successfully resolved. Package the student. Confirm the student is successfully packaged. Confirm the student has a record of the script in the Activity Log. Try to run the EST process. Confirm the EST-0005 error for Duplicated Award Periods does not occur.

Purpose of Script: Update effective date of new COD Import Schema to 3/21/21 due to scheduling change by COD.

Data Changed by the Script: effectiveStartDate' value in CODschema table

How to Access the Script: Included in Regent Award 5.3.3.1, 5.3.4.1, and 5.4.0.0.

How to Test the Script: After upgrading to 5.3.3.1, 5.3.4.1, or 5.4.0.0, run the following SQL query: SELECT * FROM dbo.CODSchema WITH (NOLOCK) WHERE code = '4.0e'. Confirm that the effectiveStartDate value in dbo.CODSchema is 03/21/21.

Purpose of Script:
The build script populates the COD data values in the Subsidized Usage by Loan award-level data table. The data are used when Regent Award packages students with Subsidized Usage Limit Applies (SULA) restrictions.

Data Changed by the Script:
The script copies specific COD data values from Federal Direct Subsidized Loans into a new data table, Subsidized Usage by Loan.

How to Access the Script:
The script is included automatically in the deployment of the 5.4.0.0 release. Each customer will receive this script update automatically when they upgrade to the 5.4.0.0 release.

How to Test the Script:
After the upgrade, navigate to a student who has Subsidized Usage Limit Applies (SULA flag = Y), and who has at least one Subsidized loan that was Accepted at COD. View the student's Subsidized Loan data on the COD tab. Package the student. Access the student's History tab, SULA sub-tab. View the new Subsidized Usage by Loan table. Confirm the loan's COD data matches the COD information.

Purpose of Script:
The build script populates the student-level data values for the Student Subsidized Usage data table. The SULA values are aggregated from several ED data sources. Regent Award uses the table when packaging students with Subsidized Usage Limit Applies (SULA) restrictions.

Data Changed by the Script:
The script copies specific SULA-related data values from COD, NSLDS FAH, and ISIR data into a new data table for Student Subsidized Usage.

How to Access the Script:
The script is included automatically in the deployment of the 5.4.0.0 release. Each customer will receive this script update automatically when they upgrade to the 5.4.0.0 release.

How to Test the Script:
After the upgrade, navigate to a student who has an ISIR; has NSLDS Financial Award History (FAH) data; and who has at least one Subsidized loan that was Accepted at COD. Package the student. Access the student's History tab, SULA sub-tab. View the updated Student Subsidized Usage information. Confirm the displayed data values match the ED data sources.

Purpose of Script:

This build script ensures Regent Award is using updated course data for all students upon upgrade. In some cases, resource conflicts at the database level might have caused deadlocks and stopped the Course Enrollment Rollup (CE Rollup) process from completing. Some students might have had pending data changes, such as new course information from the Student Batch Load (SBL) process. For the affected students, the system could not update information such as total unit values.

Data Changed by the Script:

The script identifies any students that have course data changes or other SIS-provided data that was loaded but was not yet fully processed. The script then runs the Course Enrollment Rollup (CE Rollup) process for those students. The CE Rollup process updates the unit totals and other information.

How to Access the Script:

The script is included in the deployment of the 5.4.0.0 release. Each customer will receive this script update automatically when they upgrade to the 5.4.0.0 release.

How to Test the Script:

Before upgrading, find an affected student who had SBL data loaded in a failed CE Rollup process, where the student’s current course data do not match the unit totals on the Academic Plan screen. Package the student using the Modify Academic Plan wizard (MAP). Perform the upgrade. Refresh the Process Log. Confirm the Process CE Rollup process is Complete. View the affected student. Repackage the student using MAP. Refresh the Academic Plan screen. Confirm the total units match the course data.

Purpose of Script:
The build script pre-populates the new configuration setting, Published Program Length. The purpose is to minimize impact and preserve existing functionality for schools who have currently configured the preexisting setting, Program Completion Weeks. Schools may change the configuration after the upgrade.

Data Changed by the Script:
The script copies the current value of the preexisting configuration setting, Program Completion Weeks, into the new field, Published Program Length: Weeks. The script also selects the ‘Weeks’ option for Published Program Length.

How to Access the Script:
The script is included in the deployment of the 5.4.0.0 release. Each customer will receive this script update automatically when they upgrade to the 5.4.0.0 release.

How to Test the Script:
After the upgrade, log in and navigate to Program Setup. Confirm the new setting, Published Program Length has the same value as the preexisting setting, Program Completion Weeks.

Title: Expanded Data Extract Data Views for Institution, Campus/Location, and Site Information

Tickets: RS-21047;

Description:

215 Data Extract Data Views have been updated or created. The updated Data Views have been augmented with additional details for Institution, Campus/Location, and Site external IDs. The added fields allow improved filtering for those entities.

The Regent Award Data View Data Dictionary has been updated to reflect the new and updated data views.

Title: New Data Views for ISIR, Course Enrollment, and Communications

Tickets: RS-20720;

Description:

New data views have been created for the following tables:

• dataExtract_ISIRRecordData_Config_View_v001
• dataExtract_CourseEnrollmentProgram_View_v001
• dataExtract_CourseEnrollment_View_v003
• dataExtract_CourseData_View_v004
• dataExtract_CommunicationProcessStudent_View_v002

The Regent Award Data View Data Dictionary has been updated to reflect the added views.

Title: Updated Data View Data Extracts - Removed modifiedOn and deletedOn Columns

Tickets: RS-20705;

Description:

26 Data Extract Data Views have had modifiedOn and/or deletedOn columns removed. The removed fields were linked to reference tables for lists of look-up values, which do not need incremental change tracking. The lastModifiedOn_AllTables Data View was also updated to no longer use the removed columns.

The Regent Award Data View Data Dictionary has been updated to reflect the new Data Views.

Title: New Student Detail Data View Version

Ticket(s): RS-20696;

Description: 

A new data view, dataExtract_StudentDetail_View_v003 has been created.

The difference between the v002 and v003 versions of the view is as follows: Added disabilityStatus column.

The Regent Award Data View Data Dictionary has been updated to reflect the new view version.