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Contents


  • Common Acronyms
  • Executive Summary
  • Enhancements
  • Bugs


Common Acronyms

Academic Year (AY)

Accounts Receivable (AR)

Alternate Expected Family Contribution (Alt-EFC)

Borrow Based Academic Year (BBAY)

Client Configuration Management (CCM)

Comma Separated Values (CSV)

Common Origination and Disbursement (COD)

Cost of Attendance (COA)

Confirm of Return (CORE)

Department of Education (DOE)

Expected Family Contribution (EFC)

Export Student Transaction (EST)

Extensible Markup Language (XML)

Federal Academic Year (FAY)

Financial Aid Administrator (FAA)

Financial Aid History (FAH)

Identifier (ID)

Import Awards and Disbursements (IAD)

Inadvertent Overpayment (IOP)

Institutional Student Information Records (ISIRs)

Last Date of Attendance (LDA)

Leave of Absence (LOA)

Loan Period (LP)

National Student Loan Data System (NSLDS)

Not Substantially Equal (NSE)

Payment Period (PP)

Personal Identification Numbers (PIN)

Portable Document Format (PDF)

Post Withdrawal Disbursement (PWD)

Program Management Wizard (PMW)

Return Title IV Funds (R2T4)

Regent Enterprise 8 Financial Aid Management System (R8)

Satisfactory Academic Progress (SAP)

Student Batch Load (SBL)

Student Borrow Based Academic Year Modification (SBM)

Student Borrow Based Academic Year Modification Loan Period (SBMLP)

Student Borrow Based Academic Year Modification Term (SBMT)

Student Information System (SIS)

Substantially Equal (SE)

Tag Image File Format (TIFF)

Transfer Student Monitoring (TSM)

User Interface (UI)

Year Round Pell (YRP)

Executive Summary

Regent Education is pleased to announce Release 4.3.0.0 of the Regent Award Enterprise Financial Aid Management System.

This release addresses product defects as listed in the “Bugs” section below, and also enhancements and regulatory updates including:

  • Annual COD processing updates to support 2018-19 originations and disbursements,
  • Improved Document Log tracking for document updates made during import of COD files,
  • The 2018-19 Pell schedules published by Federal Student Aid on January 31, 2018,
  • Permission configuration controls for packaging override functionality, and
  • Four enhanced data views for import award and rebuild award data.



Enhancements

The following enhancements are included in this release:



KeyFunctional AreaRelease Note
RS-186Activity Log

Title: Update to COD Import Process to create a Document Audit Log Entry
Ticket: RS-186;

Description:
Regent 8 (R8) was enhanced by creating a Document Audit Log entry for documents assigned via the COD Import process.

RS-12376Awarding

Title: Enhancements to Wisconsin State Grant Awarding (WG-PNP)
Tickets: RS-12376; RS-12383; RS-12384; RS-12386; RS-12387; RS-12389; RS-12437; RS-12438; RS-12362;

Description:
Regent 8 (R8) implemented several enhancements to the Wisconsin Grant (WG-PNP) awarding.

Enhancement 1

Downward adjustments are not made if the disbursement is paid AND the term is closed AND the student is moving from a 3-semester award to a 2-semester award OR a 2-semester award to a 3-semester award but will impact subsequent term eligibility.

In the event of a decrease in the calculated amount of a paid disbursement for a closed term for a student moving from a 3-semester award to a 2-semester award OR a 2-semester award to a 3-semester award, the calculated eligibility would not result in a downward adjustment but rather would impact the calculated awards for subsequent term(s) (see Initial 2-Semester Award Amounts and 3-Semester Award and Disbursement Amounts examples below). Each term’s award amount is recalculated based on the new eligibility. Remaining eligibility for subsequent term award amounts is reduced by the amount of the previously paid disbursement for the closed term. Subsequent terms will only be eligible to receive up to the remaining calculated eligibility that was not yet paid (the remaining non-spent eligibility).

If an award amount for a closed term has not yet been disbursed, the award amount must be recalculated based on current eligibility upwards or downwards before invoicing the state for disbursement.

Example 1: 2-semester award to a 3-semester award scenario
Based on the 2-semester Tuition Code 7, the student is eligible for an annual award of $3,150. A student is initially awarded and paid $1,575 for the full-time Fall and Spring terms. During the Spring semester, the student becomes eligible at 7 credits for the Summer after the Fall term has closed:

  • The FT Fall term award will remain as $1,575 because the term is closed.
  • The FT Spring term award would be updated from $1,575 to $1,050 because the Spring term is still open.
  • The 7 credit Summer term would be eligible for the remaining eligibility of $394 (up to $3,019; $1,050 + $1,050 + $919) based on the 3-semester Tuition Code 1.

Example 2: 3-semester award to a 2-semester award scenario
If a student is initially awarded and paid based on the 3-semester tuition amount $1,050 for the full-time Fall term, $1,050 for the full-time Spring term and $919 for the 7 credit Summer term and the student drops to Less Than Half Time for the Summer after the Fall term has closed:

  • The FT Fall term award would be updated from $1,050 to $1,575 regardless of term being open or closed since upward adjustments are required
  • The FT Spring term award would be updated from $1,050 to $1,575. The Summer term award would be canceled (updated to zero).

Note:  In a scenario where the first term (Fall) is in a historic (AY0) Academic Year and the student is moving from a 3-semester award to a 2-semester award OR a 2-semester award to a 3-semester award, a student may be incorrectly awarded during the FAY.  The Task, "Review WG-PNP award eligibility in AY0", will be triggered.  The user may adjust WI Grant manually via Modify Award Wizard (MAW) if necessary. A manual award adjustment will mark this award as "Manual" (not managed by R8 for the remainder of FAY).

Enhancement 2

Neither upward or downward adjustments are made to disbursements after the student is fully withdrawn or graduated from school, except as a result of an R2T4. If the student returns into a new program after withdrawing or graduating from a prior program, neither upward or downward adjustments are made to the prior program, unless a reversal of the R2T4 is performed for a withdraw (returning into the same term as withdrawal).

A withdrawn course(s) will update the enrollment level for the term, regardless of whether or not the course was attended, and is required to be recalculated for open and future terms. Courses are withdrawn via the SBL if the course is no longer in attendance or if the course has been unregistered. A full withdraw from school for the current term requires an R2T4 to be performed using the calculated award amount with the enrollment level at the time of withdrawal. The R2T4 may result in a refund to disbursed Wisconsin State Grant award amounts for the term. If the award has not yet been disbursed at the time of withdrawal, the student may be eligible for a post-withdrawal disbursement of Wisconsin State Grant funds.

A full withdrawal in a given term freezes the WI state grant award in R8. A full withdrawal is identified as follows:

  • Student withdrew from all active (start date in the past and end date in the future) courses within the term (but may or may not have completed courses in the payment period)
  • Any non-reversed R2T4 keeps the WI award frozen for the term

The WI state grant ruleset considers the term eligible for the purposes of awarding WI state grant if:

  • All current and future courses are withdrawn for the current term AND
  • There is not a non-reversed R2T4 present
  • AND the WI Grant > $0

Otherwise, the term is considered ineligible for the purposes of awarding WI state grant.

Note: When a full withdrawal occurs, it is possible for the previously closed term to be adjusted upward. For example,

  • Fall 2017 - $1,050 (paid)
  • Spring 2018 - $1,050 (unpaid)
  • Summer 2018 - $1,050 (unpaid)

Student withdraws from the Spring and Summer terms during the Spring term timeframe.

  • Fall 2017 - $1,050 (paid) is adjusted to $1,575 ↑
  • Spring 2018 - $1,050 (unpaid) - remains unchanged due to full withdrawal
  • Summer 2018 - $1,050 (unpaid) - adjusted to $0 (loss of eligibility due to withdrawal prior to the term's start date)

Since a full withdrawal would require a R2T4, this award will need to be reviewed for the entire FAY and possibly adjusted manually.

Enhancement 3

When mapping students to the school specified tuition code, the Anticipated Program Start Date instead of Program Start Date is used.

Enhancement 4

R8 freezes payment periods for WG-PNP award imported into historic (AY0) Academic Years. The AY0 payment periods are assumed to be eligible, while the amounts are locked down to prevent the award from changing. R8 also triggers a task when the following criteria are met:

  • WG-PNP award is in AY0
  • Award is not manual
  • There is a 2- to 3- or 3- to 2- semester change for the Federal Award Year (FAY)

The task should be configured to block future disbursements for the award. Satisfying the task should remove the block. Modifying the award through the Modify Award Wizard (MAW) makes this award manual (not managed by R8 for the rest of the FAY).

Enhancement 5

The logic to match the students on the Wisconsin HEAB Roster to the students in R8 is modified to match on SSN only. The students are no longer matched on First Name + Last Name if the SSN is not found.

Enhancement 6

When a disbursement amount for the Wisconsin State Grant is recalculated for a term, an Activity Log Entry is created in R8.

RS-8807COD

Title: COD 2018-2019 Annual Updates
Tickets: RS-8807; RS-12109; RS-12110; RS-12427; RS-12428; RS-12429;

Description:

Regent 8 (R8) has been updated to support the processing of 2018-2019 awards with COD. This includes support for the COD export process for origination and disbursement of COD-based awards, as well as the import of the unsolicited, system-generated files that are a part of normal COD processing and rebuild/year-to-date files that are used for data conversion.

RS-12501Configuration/Setup

Title: New Fund Setup Option to Award to the Default Award Period Only
Tickets: RS-12335; RS-12426; RS-12501;

Description:
Regent 8 (R8) Fund Setup has been enhanced with a new option that allows a school to configure whether or not to award the fund to the default award period ONLY, or to any "loan period" within the Award Period. The setting is called "Award to "Default" Award Period Only" and is set to a default value of "No."

When this field is set to "Yes" and the fund is being auto-packaged, R8 will attempt to award the fund on the "default" award period only. The fund may be added to other award periods manually. In the example below, the student has a default loan period that spans the entire Academic Year, as well as a loan period that spans only the length of the Spring 2018 term. When "Award to "Default" Award Period Only" is set to "Yes," R8 will attempt to award only to the default loan period when auto-packaging the fund. A user can manually package the fund on the single term loan period using the Add Award Wizard.

RS-11658Configuration/Setup

Title: New Permission for accessing "Packaging Overrides" 
Tickets: RS-11658;

Description:
Regent 8 (R8) has been enhanced with a new permission, available from Role Setup, that controls a user's ability to access the "Packaging Overrides" button and screen on the Academic Plan tab.

The permission has been added under a new heading under Student Permissions --> Academic Plan Tab, called "Packaging Overrides." The new permission for accessing the "Packaging Overrides" screen is called "Access "Packaging Overrides." The permission is disabled by default.

RS-12027Data Views

Title: New Data Views for Import Award and Rebuild Award Data

Tickets: RS-12027;

Description:
Four new data views have been added for import award and rebuild award data which will replace the existing dataExtract_ImportAwardDisbursement_View and dataExtract_RebuildAwardDisbursement_View views. These new views resolve several issues with the previous versions including:

  • Import award and disbursement records which did not match a student were excluded.
  • Import awards without disbursements were excluded.
  • Views were not optimized for incremental export.

The new views are:

  1. dataExtract_ImportAward_View_v001
  2. dataExtract_ImportAwardDisbursement_View_v001
  3. dataExtract_RebuildAward_View_v001
  4. dataExtract_RebuildDisbursement_View_v001

Going forward the student externalId1 columns will be removed from student-based data views. The student externalId1-4 columns can be obtained by joining to the dataExtract_Student_View on studentId.

RS-2205Packaging

Title: 2018-2019 Pell Schedule Update
Tickets: RS-2205;

Description:
To accommodate the Annual Regulatory Updates for processing Pell Grants, Regent 8 (R8) has been updated with the 2018-2019 Pell Grant Schedule.




Bugs

The following bugs are resolved in this release:



KeyFunctional AreaRelease Note
RS-12556Activity Log

Problem: 
The R8 Activity Log displayed Document received from the student portal as a status of "Needed" instead of a status of "Received."

Cause:
R8 logged the event on Document creation or update but inadvertently updated the Document Scope instead of the Document Status.

Fix: 
When R8 receives the create/update command from SNAP, it will now update the Document Status and then proceed with creating the Activity Log Entry.

Testing: 
Upload a Document via SNAP. View the R8 Activity Log for the student. Verify that the Activity Log Entry for the action contains the correct Document Status.

RS-12595Awarding

Problem: 
At a school using a student-level census date, some students had incorrect Pell Grant amounts. The amounts were unexpectedly based on the attempted units at the term's census date, instead of the units on the student-level census date.

Cause: 
When a student was first packaged with an ISIR after the term ended, in a non-crossover term, the student-level census date was correctly set to the end of the term. However, the Pell Grant calculation was using the wrong set of units to determine the Pell amounts.

Fix:
The code was changed to use the correct set of attempted units for setting the Pell Grant enrollment level and amounts.

Testing: 
At a school using student-level census, repackage an affected student with a 2018 Pell Grant. Examine the Pell amount. The amount should match the enrollment level for the attempted program-applicable units as of the term's end date.

RS-12572Awarding

Problem: 
At a school using student-level census dates, a student had a Pell award unexpectedly awarded for full-time instead of half-time in a crossover term. The student had a student-level census date of the end of the term.

Cause:
The term was a crossover and had both the former and latter year ISIRs available for awarding, but unexpectedly used the wrong ISIR to set the student-level census date. The former-year ISIR was received before the term, and the latter-year ISIR was received after the term ended. R8 did not accommodate the dates for both ISIRs, and miscalculated the student-level census date. When the student's Pell award was packaged, the system used the incorrect census units counts.

Fix: 
For students with a student-level census date, the logic was fixed to correctly calculate the date in crossover terms when the latter-year FAY has its ISIR received after the term's end date. The system also calculates census units for both the former and latter-year in crossover terms, which allows the school to change which FAY is used for awarding in that term, and still ensure that census units are calculated properly per FAY.

Testing: 
Repackage an affected student who has a Pell Grant in a crossover term. Examine the Pell award amount and the census units displayed on the Academic Plan. The Pell amount should be based on the correct census units, and the Pell amount should correspond to the enrollment level for those units. For example, if a student dropped courses to half-time status before their student-level census date, that student should only receive a half-time Pell award amount.

RS-12335Awarding

Problem: 
A term school awarded institutional funds using a Satisfied document. R8 unexpectedly did not create the awards on a term that had Less Than Half Time (LTHT) enrollment.

Cause: 
The institutional funds were Academic Year (AY) scoped funds. R8 unexpectedly applied the logic for Federal Direct Loans to the AY scoped institutional funds, and incorrectly determined the LTHT term was ineligible for the AY-based award.

Fix:
The packaging logic was corrected for awarding non-Title-IV, AY scoped funds. Payment periods can receive those institutional funds, and do not need to be eligible for Title IV Direct Loans.

Testing:
Configure an AY scoped fund to be awarded by a Satisfied Document. Navigate to a Term student who has LTHT enrollment in one term in the AY, and Half-Time or greater enrollment in another term. Assign the Satisfied document, and package the student. R8 should create the awards on the LTHT term as well as the HT term.

RS-12391Configuration/Setup

Problem: 
A school added a new program to Program Setup. When an administrator tried to add the program to a term in Term Setup, the system gave an unexpected technical error: Error:rem_ProgramTerm_Insert / Cannot insert the value NULL into column 'termTypeCode' table

Cause: 
At the time a configuration script ran, the school did not yet have any records for the database values linking programs and terms ("program terms"). As a result, the configuration script could not make a needed change to the Type on the program terms. The script would have allowed the program term Type to be empty when the Type did not apply. For example, for non-SAY program terms, the program terms should not need to indicate a SAY Header type. Eventually, when the Term Setup screen accessed the list of program terms, the screen could not set the Type value to an empty (null) value. The screen threw the error when it could not mark the program terms with an empty Type.

Fix: 
The configuration script was run again when the program terms had been set up in the database.

Testing: 
Confirm the database contains programs, terms, and program terms. Run the configuration script that nulls the program term - term type code. In Term Setup, edit the programs and add a term-based program to the term. The system should successfully link the program to the term without any errors.

RS-12373Configuration/Setup

Problem: 
When "For Term based programs, always include Attended Program Applicable Withdrawn Courses for Cost Items using units" is set to "Yes", the student's tuition was reduced for the attended program applicable withdrawn courses.

Cause:
When the enrollment had not reached the Census Date and was not closed, R8 was not returning the maximum of the registered units or the attempted Census Program Applicable units.

Fix:
When "For Term based programs, always include Attended Program Applicable Withdrawn Courses for Cost Items using units" is set to "Yes", R8 will use the maximum of the determined units vs the attempted Census Program Applicable units.

Testing:
When "For Term based programs, always include Attended Program Applicable Withdrawn Courses for Cost Items using units" is set to "Yes", manually update attendance and withdrawal dates in R8 or submit an SBL updating attendance and withdrawal dates in R8 and make sure the tuition costs are not reduced for the attended program applicable withdrawn courses.

RS-12562ISIR Processing/Verification

Problem: 
When R8 shows the "Student's Adjusted Gross Income from IRS form" field, via the "ISIR Verification/Correction Wizard," the value displayed as simple text. The field should display in currency format.

Cause: 
R8 uses lookup tables to collect all the required data for displaying, grouping and validating the ISIR fields. During a previous code update, the field formatting was changed from currency format to simple text.

Fix: 
The issue was resolved by adjusting the "rendering type" for the "Student’s Gross Adjusted Income from IRS form" field in the "ISIR Verification/Correction Wizard."

Testing: 
Open the "ISIR Verification/Correction Wizard." Navigate to the "Student's adjusted gross income from IRS form" field to observe that it displays in currency format.

RS-11384ISIR Processing/Verification

Problem:
When processing Independent students through the ISIR Verification Wizard, R8 users were unexpectedly being presented with parent-related questions on Step 2 of the wizard.

Cause:
The code was initially designed to show parent-related questions for both Dependent and Independent students.

Fix:
The code was changed to separate Dependent and Independent Student questions. Now, when processing a Dependent student through the ISIR Verification Wizard, the FA user will see both student and parent-related questions. When processing an Independent student through the ISIR Verification Wizard, the FA user will see only student-related questions.

Testing:
Find an Independent student and start the ISIR Verification Wizard for an ISIR needing Verification. Ensure that parent-related questions are not presented on Step 2 of the wizard. Follow the same steps for a Dependent student and ensure that both student and parent-related questions are shown on Step 2 of the wizard.

RS-12625Packaging

Problem: 
For a school using the Institution Setup option, under the COA Settings section, “For Term based programs, always include attended Program Applicable Withdrawn Courses for Cost Items using units,” a student's costs were incorrectly being increased when awards were modified using the Modify Award Wizard (MAW).

Cause: 
R8 tracks unit balances when packaging. R8 was incorrectly not resetting the unit balance that tracked the Attended Program Applicable Withdrawn Courses units when MAW was used, inflating these units counts, and incorrectly increasing costs for the student.

Fix:
R8 was corrected to reset the Attended Program Applicable Withdrawn Courses unit balances when using MAW.

Testing: 
Modify a student's awards using MAW. Costs for the student should remain the same before and after packaging.

RS-12603Packaging

Problem: 
There were two issues present for the student reported in this ticket:

  1. A fund was awarded to a student using the “Award Eligibility using Satisfied Documents” feature on Fund Setup. The fund was paid. The student later became ineligible for the fund so the document used to award the fund is no longer in a “Satisfied” status. When R8 re-packages the student, it ignores this paid award, as if it does not exist, and adds additional funds from another award, equal to the amount of the paid award, to the student's academic plan.
  2. A $10 Unsubsidized Loan fee was unexpectedly being incurred and added to the student's costs.

Cause:

  1. The award is expected to be canceled due to ineligibility but has been paid so the award cannot actually be put into the Canceled status and is reduced to the amount of the paid award. This award amount was not being applied to the remaining cost balances, so other funds were awarded in excess.
  2. For funds packaged to "net," during the ruleset awarding, fees are calculated based on the student's full eligibility. The student’s Grade Level Progression awards were unable to be created due to the student having a single term loan period that was blocked by rebuild awards. As a result, the net loan helper was not being called to remove anticipated fees for the Grade Level Progression awards from R8's cost trackers.

Fix:

  1. R8 was updated to apply the award amounts prior to continuing on to the next package queue item.
  2. R8 was updated to call the net loan amount helper for package queue items prior to going on to the next item.

Testing: 
Re-package the student with and without the satisfied document to make sure the awarding is correct for all awards on the student's academic plan.

RS-12513Packaging

Problem: 
In Batch Packaging, some students returned an unexpected technical error, Sequence contains no matching element.

Cause: 
The code was trying to find the first item in a list of amounts. However, the list had no amounts to return. The list was empty.

Fix: 
The code was improved to check for an empty list first, before trying to find the first amount. If the list is empty, the amount is set to zero.

Testing:
Batch Package the affected students. The students should package successfully without the "Sequence contains no matching element" error message.

RS-415Packaging

Problem: 
When deleted Terms exist in setup, they could be used to set an anticipated Manual Academic Year (AY) Term.

Cause: 
Terms were deleted from setup.

Fix: 
Update the process that creates the anticipated Manual AY Term records to exclude deleted Terms.

Testing:
For a student where Awarding is not managed by R8 yet (i.e. pre-conversion):

  1. Ensure the student's active program is Term-related and has more than one Term related to it
  2. Import a term-based course
  3. Import COD Rebuild Award or Import Award data for a Loan where the start/end dates include the Term from the term-related course
    • This will automatically create a Manual AY record based on the Loans start/end dates
  4. The process that creates the Manual AY will also attempt to anticipate subsequent Terms on the same Track as the term-related course that are related to the same Program and are not backed by courses (or Import Awards)
    • Deleted Term(s) should now be excluded from this logic that adds anticipated Manual AY Terms
RS-11681SAP

Problem: 
At a school with a payment period (PP) based SAP policy, some disbursements were unexpectedly blocked with error EST-0057, SAP status prevents release. The affected students had a Satisfactory SAP in the immediate previous payment period, but had non-Satisfactory SAP records for older terms.

Cause: 
R8 was checking for a SAP record on every payment period following a Probation status, including payment periods with no enrollment.

Fix: 
When checking EST on PP-based SAP policies, RNA now only looks for the most recent past payment period that would have had a SAP status applied. For example, if a past payment period has no registration it would not be considered for SAP checks.

Testing:
Export Student Transactions for an affected student in the current term, who has a payable SAP status for the immediate previous term. The disbursements should successfully pay without causing EST error EST-0057.

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