Florida State Scholarship Programs

The state of Florida administers several state grant and scholarship programs through the Florida Office of Student Financial Assistance (OFSA). To award OSFA scholarships at a Regent school, the school must configure one or more Funds in Fund Setup, corresponding to each scholarship/grant program offered at the school. The Bright Futures funds need additional configuration, including Document Setup. Florida Bright Futures funds use the Master Eligibility List (MEL), a state-issued roster of eligible students. For more information about the specific Funds that Regent supports, see Florida State Funds - Bright Futures and FSAG.

Versions

Florida funds are supported for Regent Award, Regent Enterprise Management (REM) Release 6.8.0.0 and later.  To view version information, open a Web browser and access the main StudentX URL for the environment, with /version added onto the end. For example: 

https://YourUniversityStudentXURLHere.YourUniversity.edu/version

Smart Form

Bright Futures automation relies on centralized roster data sent from the state of Florida. The roster data is the Florida Master Eligibility List (“MEL”.) Regent stores MEL logic on a Regent Smart Form for each Florida fund type and each FAY. Regent Award needs the FAY’s ‘Florida Smart Form Master Eligibility List’ deployed and active for each FAY receiving MEL data records. For example, if the school is importing MEL data files containing 2023-2024 and 2024-2025 data, the school needs to configure two, separate, active Smart Forms, one each for 2023-2024 and 2024-2025.

Scripts to Create Smart Forms: Smart Forms are created using deployment scripts. The SQL script (ending in “.sql”) needs to be deployed using the UTF-8 option, against the SNAP database. Use the following text for the Regent Cloud Operations (IT Ops) request ticket: "Please run the attached scripts against the SNAP database for {Customer Instance} using the UTF-8 option. When the script is finished executing please RDP into the SNAP VM and recycle SNAP API application pool in IIS (brief outage) to refresh the SNAP cache." See the /wiki/spaces/REM/pages/2140176389 for the latest versions.

Note: The Student Portal does not need to be in maintenance mode to deploy the Smart Form scripts. Students will stay logged in during the Smart Form script deployment. Cycling the SNAP API application pool will not remove students from the Student Experience portal.

When the Smart Form questionnaire is deployed, the Smart Form will be visible under the Questionnaires sections of the Versions page, such as the following:

Azure Data Factory

Regent technical staff will prepare the Azure Data Factory configuration on behalf of the school. For Regent Award schools using Florida funds, some Data Factory settings will need to match specific Regent Award configuration for Florida fund-specific and document-specific items.

Regent’s Data Factory integration uses the Data Factory Pipeline. The Data Factory Pipeline will import data from the Master Eligibility List (MEL). MEL data is stored on a configured Smart Form Student Document Requirement for each supported Fund. Some additional technical details for Florida funds are at the bottom of this page. Additional general information about Regent’s Data Factory Pipeline is at: Data Pipeline Import/Export Processes.

Configuring Regent Award

As always, please work closely with your Regent Account Manager and/or Delivery Services implementation team to coordinate any configuration changes to environments.

Regent Award - Fund Setup

Each Florida scholarship program needs one or more associated Funds configured in Fund Setup. Schools must configure the Florida fund before awarding from that fund in Regent. If a fund is not properly configured, Regent cannot process that fund in the Florida export reports.

To meet specific awarding needs, a school can configure multiple Fund Setup configurations for the same Florida scholarship type. The value of the ‘Agency Program ID’ for each configured Fund must match the Florida scholarship program/type code.

• For example, a school might award different amounts per unit for the Bright Futures Florida Medallion Scholarship (BFFMS), depending on whether the student is an Associate of Arts program or a Bachelor’s program. The school would configure separate Funds in Fund Setup, each with the same ‘Agency Program ID’ value of BFFMS. Each instance of the Fund would be configured separately in Fund Setup, with specific selected programs on the ‘Programs’ sub-tab.

Whenever a school has multiple Funds configured in Regent, each Fund needs to be linked to a configured Disbursement Schedule for the fund. Each Fund also needs to be individually prioritized in the Packaging Philosophy.

• To prevent double awarding, schools should carefully configure each Fund with the selected programs and selected sites, to not overlap with another configured Fund or another disbursement schedule.

• Multiple configured Funds in Regent can still all use the same shared Student Document Requirement if the funds are for the same Florida scholarship/type code. See details below for Document Setup.

Agency Program ID

Regent primarily identifies Florida funds using the ‘Agency Program ID’ field in Fund Setup. Regent can process the following Florida scholarship/grant program type codes: BFATS, BFFAS, BFFMS, BFGSC, BFGSV, CDDV, FFMT, FFRS, FFSS, FGMG, FIS, FRAG, FSAG, FSAGCE, FWEP, HDGAP, JM, LEASP, MMB, OCOE, RFS. The Fund types in bold (BFFAS, BFFMS, BFGSC, BFGSV, and FSAG) are supported for automated packaging in Regent. Other Florida funds have limited support, to allow processing funds in Florida exports. For a full list of supported Florida funds, see Florida State Funds - Bright Futures and FSAG.

The school must configure the Fund Setup ‘Agency Program ID’ field to match the value of the scholarship/grant’s Florida program code. For example, the ‘Florida Bright Futures - Academic Scholars’ scholarship has a Florida program code of “BFFAS.” The corresponding Regent fund needs a value of ‘BFFAS’ configured in the fund’s ‘Agency Program ID’ in Fund Setup. If the state of Florida determines a student is eligible for the Florida Academic Scholars scholarship, the state will notify the school of the student’s eligibility. The student will be listed on the Master Eligibility List roster with “BFFAS” for the Florida program code.

Amount Per Payment Period

Bright Futures Amount Per Unit

The automated Bright Futures funds use a per-unit amount. Amounts can be FAY-specific, school-specific, and potentially program-specific. For the automated Florida Bright Futures funds, schools must configure the ‘Amount Per Payment Period’ for each FAY to award the correct amount per unit in each term, per the OSFA policy for their school. Automated Bright Futures funds are BFFAS, BFFMS, BFGSC, BFGSV.

In the following example for BFFAS, a school is configured with a hypothetical amount per unit of $121.33 for the FAY of 2024-2025. All selected programs for the fund will use that per-unit amount. When configuring the Amount per Payment Period, a school should not configure any values in the other ‘Amount Per Payment Period’ settings. Leave the other fields in that row blank. The automated Florida rules will disregard the other settings on that row.

Example ‘Amount Per Payment Period’ configuration for a Bright Futures - Florida Medallion Scholars fund (BFFMS):

FSAG Flat Amount Per PP

FSAG uses a flat amount per payment period. Amounts can be FAY-specific, school-specific, and potentially program-specific. Each term’s FSAG amount depends on the term’s enrollment level.

FSAG amounts need to be configured according to the school’s agreement with OSFA. Some Public Florida universities can award for Half-Time (6 units), Three Quarter Time (9 units), and Full Time (12+ units). Other FSAG-eligible institutions may award FSAG for a Full Time enrollment level (12 units).

Example ‘Amount Per Payment Period’ configuration for Florida Student Assistance Grant (FSAG), for a public Florida two-year college:

Other Fund Setup Settings

Other Fund Setup settings may affect awarding. Schools should carefully review these settings for all Florida funds, including non-automated Florida funds as well as FSAG and Bright Futures.

Fund Detail

• Fund Source: State

• Fund Scope and Budget Scope: Federal Award Year

• Alternative FAY Schedule: Jul 01 - Jun 30

• Allow Multiple FAY-Scoped Awards per Period: No

• Allow Awards from More Than One Available FAY per Crossover Period: No

Fund Eligibility

• For Bright Futures automated funds only (BFFAS, BFFMS, BFGSC, BFGSV):

  • For automated roster-based funds, configure all settings in the Fund Eligibility settings section as No, to allow Regent to apply eligibility tests using the MEL roster.

  • ISIR Required? Unselected. Bright Futures does not require an ISIR.

• For FSAG only:

  • If no ISIR, allow awarding from Estimated SAI when available: Unselected

  • ISIR Required? Selected/checked

  • SAP Required? Selected/checked

  • Pell Eligibility Required: Unselected

  • SAI Minimum/Maximum: Configure minimum and maximum values for each FAY, per your school’s policies.

    • Example possible values for 2024-2025: Min -$1500 Max $9984

    • Note, some schools may choose different ranges.

  • Require At Least Half-Time Enrollment Level in All Paid Terms: Set to either Yes or No, per your school’s policies.

    • In most cases, schools can leave this setting configured as No. However, a school can optionally set to Yes for some funds, such as FSAG, that mandate a half-time enrollment level. For example, a school might have a policy to not reduce paid disbursements (“Allow Auto-Adjustment of Paid Disbursements” = False), but the school still wants to deny future awards in later FAYs if a student has a term with a paid FSAG award, and the student drops to below half-time enrollment for that paid term. If a student would be otherwise eligible for FSAG in a future FAY, but the student has a previous FAY with a past paid term with below HT enrollment, the student would not be awarded for that future FAY.

• Other Florida funds: Configured per your school’s policy and OSFA guidance.

Awarding Rules

The fund automation has been designed to work with the following Fund Setup configuration settings.

• Initial status: Accepted

• Rounding: Cent

• Adjustments Allowed: Both

• Adjust After Census Date: Selected/checked

• ‘Allow Auto-Adjustment of Paid Disbursements:' Set to either Yes or No depending on the school’s policy.

  • Yes: If the school prefers students to keep paid amounts (including overawards).

  • No: If the school wants a paid amount to be reduced when a student has a change, e.g. when a student drops courses resulting in fewer units or a lower enrollment level.

  • For more information about that setting, see CZ KB: Fund Setup

• Freeze amounts: Past Payment Periods, to prevent changing amounts in past terms

• Award Distribution Options: Distribute Using Payment Period Amounts

• Prorate Distribution Amounts: No/unchecked

• Exclude Header and Trailers:

  • Unselected for BFFAS and BFFMS, to enable Summer awarding for those funds if the student’s MEL Conditional Codes allow it

  • Unselected for FSAG, to enable Summer awarding

  • Selected/checked for BFGSC and BFGSV, because those funds do not award for Summer.

• Non-Need-Based Fund Used to Replace SAI:

  • For automated Bright Futures funds (BFFAS, BFFMS, BFGSC, BFGSV), set to Selected/checked because the automated Bright Futures scholarships are not need-based.

  • For FSAG, set to Unselected/unchecked, because FSAG is a need-based award.

Optional Settings

• Begin and Cease Auto-Packaging Settings: Optional, to enable or disable auto-packaging from a specific FAY for a date range.

  • For example, a school might want to disable auto-packaging of new Florida awards when the school is submitting the final reports to the state for that FAY.

• Award Minimum/Maximums: Optional; allows a school to limit awards to require a minimum amount or maximum amount per FAY.

For much more information on other Fund Setup settings, see main CZ KB article: Fund Setup Data Elements

Budgets Sub-Tab (FSAG Only)

FSAG is a decentralized fund, awarded by the school and then reimbursed from the state. FSAG funding is limited, so the FSAG fund allocation needs to be configured in Fund Setup. The Regent “Budget” holds the school’s allocation amount for a FAY.

• Budget Amount: Set to the school’s annual allocation.

• Period Filter: Set to Payment Period, July 1 to June 30 of the FAY.

For more information on configuring annual allocations with Regent Award Budgets, see Regent Award Fund Budgets

Institution Setup

FSAG allows half-time or greater awarding for public Florida institutions. For those institutions, Regent Award needs to be configured in Institution Setup with a Mailing Address, state of “Florida” and the Program Participation Agreement (PPA) configured with Institution Type of “Public.” Other postsecondary institutions, such as some private institutions, may also award FSAG for full-time students per the school’s agreement with OSFA.

Document Setup

Florida funds are designed to use two sets of Documents configured in Document Setup:

• Master Eligibility List (MEL) Smart Form to hold the MEL information;

• Blocking Document for each Fund to prevent accidentally paying students before receiving clearance from the state of Florida.

Florida Master Eligibility List (MEL) Document Configuration

Schools must configure individual fund-specific Florida MEL documents in Document Setup, before importing the Florida Master Eligibility List (MEL) data. During the MEL import, Data Factory stores the MEL data using a Student Document with a Regent Smart Form, for each Florida scholarship type. Data is FAY-specific, and each line on the MEL roster corresponds to a different Florida fund. If a student has a Document for a Florida fund for a specific FAY, and the school imports a new MEL roster, Regent replaces the student’s Smart Form data with the updated MEL information.

Schools must create a separate Document Setup configuration for each Florida scholarship type that the school plans to use for awarding. Different configured Funds in Regent Award will share the same Document Requirement. For example, if a school has different BFFMS Funds in Fund Setup, having different per-unit amounts for different types of Florida Medallion Scholars, then the school would still only configure one Document Setup configuration to hold all BFFMS Master Eligibility List.

When a Document Requirement is configured in Document Setup, Regent will automatically apply the MEL data. .

External Document ID

The External Document ID may be different depending on an institution’s needs. Please work closely with Regent staff to configure that value, especially to coordinate any changes. Regent’s Data Factory import relies on the External Document ID value to link the incoming MEL data to the correct Student Document Requirement. Schools do not need to configure documents for Florida scholarships that the school does not award. For example, if an institution does not participate in the Benacquisto Scholarship Program (Florida code “FIS”), the school does not need to configure a Document Setup to hold FIS eligibility data. However, Regent staff may still need to configure Data Factory with a placeholder value to allow importing the rest of the MEL file. More technical details are at the end of this page.

Other Document Setup Settings

In Regent Award, MEL Document Setup must be configured with the following settings:

• Enforce Scope Uniqueness: Selected/checked

• Office Use Only: Selected/checked

• Smart Form Type: Use Smart Form Code

• Smart Form Code: FLMasterEligibilityList

• Always apply document to all Federal Award Years: Selected/checked

Screenshot:

Blocking Documents

Schools may configure additional, fund-specific “Blocking Documents” in Document Setup. A Blocking Document is a way to apply restrictions to a student and/or fund using a Student Document Requirement. When a student has a Blocking Document assigned, and that Document Requirement is in “Needed” status, the Document can prevent certain actions from occurring. Schools may also configure the Document as ’Office Use Only' to prevent students from seeing the Document on the Student Experience Portal.

For example, a school might configure a Blocking Document to Restrict Disbursements for the Bright Futures - Florida Academic Scholars award (BFFAS). When a student has that BFFAS award, but the student has the Blocking Document, the BFFAS award would still appear in their package, but Regent would prevent the fund from disbursing on the Regent “Export Student Transactions” (EST) process. If the school submitted the student to the state of Florida (e.g. in the Disbursement Eligibility Report for the term), and Florida had an “edit code” that needed to adjust the award amount, the school could manually adjust the award using the Modify Award Wizard (MAW). The school can then set the document to a “Satisfied” status, which would allow the payment to disburse.

Another reason for applying a Blocking Document is if the school needs to evaluate whether a student meets the school’s policy for residency. Schools might automatically assign a Blocking Document for non-residents. Documents may also be assigned via script, or a script can change the document status on existing documents. Please work with your Regent Account Manager or Delivery Services Team.

Packaging Philosophy Setup

Automated Florida funds must be configured in the Packaging Philosophy with ‘Auto Package’ as enabled/selected for BFFAS, BFFMS, BFGSC, BFGSV, and FSAG. If a school has configured multiple instances of a fund type, each fund must be configured to auto-package.

The Bright Futures - Academic Scholars should be ranked above the Bright Futures - Medallion Scholars, i.e., BFFAS should have a lower value than BFFMS in the numeric Priority field.

Bright Futures automated funds should be configured to package to % of COA. FSAG should be configured to package to % of Remaining Need.

Other Florida funds should be configured with ‘Auto-Package’ unselected. The school configures those funds according to their policies and any applicable guidance from OSFA.

An example Packaging Philosophy priority list is in the following screenshot:

Task Setup

Tasks are Regent’s way of alerting a Regent user that a student or award may need review. In most cases, schools will already have a Task enabled.

Schools are encouraged to enable the Task for “Review Eligibility Change.” For example, if a student has a Manual award from an automated fund, but the MEL loads some new data that indicates the student is not eligible, then a Regent user should confirm whether the student should still be eligible for the award.

For more information about configuring Tasks, see Task and Task Queue Setup.

Disbursement Schedule Setup

Each fund must be linked to a Regent Disbursement Schedule. Florida funds do not need any special configuration for Disbursement Schedules. See main article: Disbursement Schedule Setup Data Elements

User Defined Fields

Under Institution Setup, an institution may optionally configure a “User Defined Field” (UDF) to track the student’s Highest Education completed.

• UDF Field Name: Highest_Education

• Code: HIGHEST_EDUCATION

• UDF Value Field Type: Text

UDF values are sent in the “Institutionally Defined Data” on the Student Batch Load (SBL). If a student has a Highest_Education UDF with a value of either “MS” or “PHD” then that student will not be awarded from Bright Futures. All other values for that UDF will have no effect on awarding. The Highest_Education UDF name and values are not case sensitive.

Student Batch Load (SBL)

In addition to UDFs, Regent uses some specific information from the Student Information System (SIS). SIS information is provided by the Student Batch Load (SBL) process. Additional details about the Regent SBL are at Student Batch Load (SBL) and Attributes Document (SBL Data Dictionary)

Ethnicity and Race

Florida requires schools to report the Race and Ethnicity of Florida award recipients. For MEL-based awards, Regent uses the reported ethnicity from the imported MEL data. For FSAG, a decentralized award, Regent infers the student’s race and ethnicity using the SBL data.

Schools should send SBL data for ethnicity and race. See Attributes Document (SBL Data Dictionary). The Regent SBL values are mapped to the Florida values for export.

Satisfactory Academic Progress (SAP)

Schools must provide annual cumulative GPA information for Satisfactory Academic Progress (SAP) records, prior to exporting the Grade & Hours report. See Satisfactory Academic Progress (SAP)

Technical Information for Regent Staff

Data Factory JSON Configuration

    "applicationId": "REM_UNIQUE_ENVIRONMENT_SPECIFIC_INFO",   /* Set by Regent */
    "institutionId": 1,      /* Set by Regent */
    "institutionExternalId": "00123400",      /* External Institution ID from Institution Setup */
    "stateFunds": {
		"florida": {
			"doeInstitutionCode": "012",  /* 3-digit Florida State Dept. of Ed. Institution Code, Post-Secondary Institution ID; first 3 chars on MEL */
			"masterEligiblityListLoad": {
				"documentStatus": "SATISFIED",
				"programCodeDocExternalIdMap": [
					{ "programCode": "BFATS", "documentExternalId": "FLMELBFATS" },
					{ "programCode": "BFFAS", "documentExternalId": "FLMELBFFAS" },  /* Automated - Bright Futures FL Academic Scholars */
					{ "programCode": "BFFMS", "documentExternalId": "FLMELBFFMS" },  /* Automated - Bright Futures FL Medallion Scholars */ 
					{ "programCode": "BFGSC", "documentExternalId": "FLMELBFGSC" },  /* Automated - Bright Futures Gold Seal CAPE Scholars */
					{ "programCode": "BFGSV", "documentExternalId": "FLMELBFGSV" },  /* Automated - Bright Futures Gold Seal CAPE Vocational Scholars */
					{ "programCode": "CDDV", "documentExternalId":"FLMELCDDV" },
					{ "programCode": "FFMT", "documentExternalId": "FLMELFFMT" },
					{ "programCode": "FFSS", "documentExternalId": "FLMELFFSS" },    
					{ "programCode": "FGMG", "documentExternalId": "FLMELFGMG" },  
					{ "programCode": "FIS", "documentExternalId": "FLMELFIS" },  
					{ "programCode": "FRAG", "documentExternalId": "FLMELFRAG" },  
					{ "programCode": "FSAGCE", "documentExternalId": "FLMELFSAGCE" },  
					{ "programCode": "FWEP", "documentExternalId": "FLMELFWEP" },  
					{ "programCode": "HDGAP", "documentExternalId": "FLMELHDGAP" },  
					{ "programCode": "JM", "documentExternalId": "FLMELJM" },  
					{ "programCode": "LEASP", "documentExternalId": "FLMELLEASP" },  
					{ "programCode": "MMB", "documentExternalId": "FLMELMMB" },  
					{ "programCode": "OCOE", "documentExternalId": "FLMELOCOE" }, 
					{ "programCode": "BAAMS", "documentExternalId": "FLMELBAAMS" }, 
					{ "programCode": "RFS", "documentExternalId": "FLMELRFS" }    
				]
			}
		},

Change Log