Executive Summary
Regent Education is pleased to announce Regent 6.9.0.0, the latest release of the Regent Enterprise Financial Aid Management System.
The release includes enhancements listed in the 'Enhancements' section below and further defined in the Product Brief. This release also addresses product defects as listed in the 'Bugs' section below.
New/Updated Configuration Options
Admin and User Guide Updates
Enhancements
The following enhancements are included in this release:
Key | Product Selection | Functional Area | Release Note |
---|---|---|---|
Regent Award | Awarding | Title: Update EST Processes to Remove Course Enrollment Recalculation Step Tickets: RS-27214; RS-28649; Description: To allow disbursements to be made during EST without running an additional Batch Packaging process, ‘Expected EST’, ‘EST - DRI=True’, and ‘EST - Actual’ processes have been updated to remove the course enrollment recalculation step. This will eliminate invalid EST-0059 errors. | |
Regent Access | Workflow/Questionnaire | Title: Access: Updated the Spanish Translation for Questions Pertaining to Mailing Address in the 2024-2025 Regent Access Master Smart Form Tickets: RS-28536; RS-27214; RS-28539; RS-28371; RS-28506; Description: | |
Regent Award | Account Management | Title: Update Standard Disbursement Notification Communications Tickets: RS-27214; RS-28476; Description: See Customer Zone Knowledge Base topic: Standard Communication Body Templates and Filters | |
Regent Award | Awarding | Title: Update Census Date and Census Unit Determination Logic in Regent Tickets: RS-27214; RS-28455; RS-28521; RS-28532; RS-28549; RS-28550; RS-28554; RS-28555; RS-28559; RS-28574; RS-28575; RS-28576; RS-28577; RS-28580; RS-28581; RS-28582; RS-28604; RS-28605; RS-28606; RS-28609; RS-28626; RS-28628; RS-28653; RS-28658; RS-28659; RS-28660; RS-28661; RS-28745; RS-28781; RS-28807; Description: Regent has updated the way Census Dates and Census Units are determined for calculating the Pell Grant Enrollment Intensity Percentage (EIP). The updated Census functionality allows improved Pell Grant awarding for schools with modular courses. It also allows schools to not use a census date. For students with modular courses that do not match the term start and end dates, Regent has updated the census date determination. Regent detects when a student’s Pell would use a later configured census date and applies those census units from that later census date. For example, if the student’s first course in a term does not start until after Census Date 2, but the course starts before the term’s Census Date 3, Regent would set the term’s census date to Census Date 3 and would award Pell using the Census Units for Census Date 3. If a term is using an earlier configured Multiple Census Date, but the student later adds modular courses that would be counted toward a later census date, then Regent still requires attendance in those later courses in order to change the term’s census date to use the later configured Multiple Census Date. For current and past terms, any modular course that ends before the term’s census date must also have attendance in order to count toward the census units. For scenarios when a student’s ISIR is first packaged in a term after a configured census date, that initial ISIR packaging date becomes the student’s census date for the term. For students who have their census date set using the ISIR Packaging Date, the previous terms in the same FAY are set to use census units as of the Term End Date. The former “Determine Student Census” or “Student-Level Census” behavior now automatically applies for that term. For schools using Multiple Census Dates, if the student starts attending a later course that would move the term’s census date to a later configured census date, Regent will then update the term’s census date to use that later configured census date. Regent has updated the Academic Plan and Awards tab to display the correct Census Date and Census Units. Those screens were also updated to display correct unit and week counts. Regent has added and updated configuration settings to support the new functionality. A build script will populate the new settings upon upgrade. In Term Setup, a ‘Full Term Census Date’ field has been added, and the current Census Date 1, Census Date 2, Census Date 3, and Census Date 4 fields have been grouped under the subheader of ‘Multiple Census Dates.’ The term Census Dates will now be used based on the configured selection for a new ‘Census Date Option’ field in Institution Setup/Campus Setup. The new Institution/Campus Setup options are:
Schools are strongly encouraged to carefully review their Term Setup configurations with their Regent Account Managers. The term’s configured Pell Recalculation Date must be on or after the term end date, to allow for any adjustments for non-attended courses if students are packaged after census using the ISIR Packaging Date. Also, if a school with Modules is currently configured with only a single census date later in the term (after some earlier modular courses will be finished), those earlier module courses will not count for census units until they have attendance posted. Regent has also updated logic for determining the number of units as of the Census Date. Once the Census Date to use for Pell Awarding is determined, the Census Units used in determining enrollment status will be the sum of registered units as of the Census Date where:
See Customer Zone Knowledge Base topics: Awarding And Packaging , Institution Setup Data Elements, Campus Setup Data Elements, Term Setup - Admin Guide, Term Setup Data Elements | |
Regent Award | Awarding | Title: Updates to the Florida Bright Futures and Florida Student Assistance Grant Rulesets Tickets: RS-28369; RS-28370; RS-28372; RS-28378; RS-28379; RS-28380; RS-28456; RS-28473; RS-27726; Description: The Florida Bright Futures Pre-Processing script has been renamed to “PreProcessing-Florida.” The script now checks for Florida residency for the Florida Bright Futures (FBF) and Florida Student Assistance Grant (FSAG) funds when determining eligibility. Additionally, the script includes a new parameter that gives clients two options for the types of units Regent looks at when calculating eligibility and awards: program applicable units only for both FBF and FSAG, OR all registered, non-remedial units for FBF and all registered units for FSAG. | |
Regent Award/Review | ISIR Processing/Verification | Title: ISIR Verification/Correction Wizard: Update Edit/Reject Code Logic for 2024-2025 Regulatory Changes Tickets: RS-27214; RS-27816; RS-28182; RS-28253; RS-28297; Description: | |
Regent Award | Not Applicable | Title: New REST APIs Created to Facilitate File Imports and Exports Tickets: RS-26687; RS-28496; RS-28497; RS-28498; Description: See Customer Zone Knowledge Base topic: Regent REST APIs | |
Regent Review | Workflow/Questionnaire | Title: New Questions Added to the 2024-2025 Verification Worksheet to Verify That a Contributor Filed Taxes When There Is No Successful IRS Match Tickets: RS-28240; RS-28509; RS-28510; RS-28526; RS-28529; Description: 2024-2025 FAFSA processing has resulted in unanticipated situations when the contributor reports they filed a US tax return but the IRS reports ‘No Return on File’ (IRS Response Code not equal to 200) or blank. The Verification Worksheet (VWS) has been updated to identify this scenario and display a new question to ask the contributor ‘You reported that you filed taxes, is this correct?’. Upon confirmation that taxes were filed, the VWS will move the applicant to a tax filer VWS flow. If the applicant does not confirm taxes were filed, they will remain in the non-tax filer VWS flow. A script was created for clients to identify impacted students. Clients should reach out to their Project Manager or Account Manager to request the execution of this script. It is recommended that this script not be executed until after the client has upgraded to the 6.9 Release. Clients should review ISIRs for identified students and request students update the data as needed or clients update the FAFSA Partner Portal (FPP) as appropriate. | |
Regent Award | Awarding | Title: Ignore Pell Eligible Flag for Estimated Pell for Provisional Independents Only Tickets: RS-27214; RS-28194; RS-28450; RS-28451; RS-28452; Description: See Customer Zone Knowledge Base topic: Federal Pell Grant | |
Regent Award | Awarding | Title: Fund Setup Configuration Screen Improvements Tickets: RS-27752; RS-28189; RS-28330; RS-28331; ; RS-28332; RS-28333; RS-28334; RS-28335; Description: | |
Regent Fund | Awarding | Title: Florida State Grants - New FSAG Otherwise Eligible Data Export Tickets: RS-28272; RS-28099; RS-8485; RS-28486; Description: See CustomerZone topics: Florida State Funds - Bright Futures and FSAG and Florida State Funds - Getting Started | |
Regent Award | Communications | Title: Update the SAP Warning and SAP Suspended Communication Filters to Use the Most Recent SAP Record and Support Text Messaging Tickets: RS-28339; RS-28340; RS-28046; RS-28035; Description: See Customer Zone Knowledge Base topic: Standard Communication Body Templates and Filters | |
Regent Access | Workflow/Questionnaire | Title: Updates to the 2024-2025 Master Regent Access Smart Form Adjusted Gross Income Questions To Allow Negative Values Tickets: RS-27979; RS-28288; RS-28289; Description: The 2024-2025 Master Regent Access Smart Form has been updated so that the Adjusted Gross Income question response fields allow contributors to enter negative values. The response field accepts values that range from -999999999 to 999999999 (commas and decimals are not allowed). | |
Regent Award/Review | ISIR Processing/Verification | Title: ISIR Schema Updated for 2024-2025 FAFSA Specifications Guide Changes Tickets: RS-27214; RS-27818; RS-28285; Description: | |
Regent Award/Review/Access | Awarding | Title: Updated Student Aid Index (SAI) Calculations for 2025-2026 Tickets: RS-28467; RS-27786; RS-28265; RS-28267; RS-28275; RS-28277; RS-28280; RS-28281; RS-28282; RS-28284; RS-28286; RS-28287; RS-28343; RS-28344; RS-28389; RS-28403; RS-28404; RS-28405; RS-28406; RS-28412; RS-28425; RS-28427; RS-28432; RS-28434; RS-28435; RS-28438; RS-28439; Description: | |
Regent Award | Funds (SEOG / Work Study / State) | Title: Wisconsin State Grant Updates FAY 2024-2025 Tickets: RS-27612; RS-28482; RS-28664; RS-28665; RS-28666; RS-28667; Description: See Customer Zone Knowledge Base topics: Reports: Import Wisconsin State Grant Process Results , Wisconsin Grant - Private Non-Profit (WG-PNP) | |
Regent Award/Review | ISIR Processing/Verification | Title: Display Federal UUIDs within Regent Tickets: RS-28392; RS-27551; RS-28314; RS-28317; RS-28318; Description: See Customer Zone Knowledge Base topics: Permissions List , ISIR Tab | |
Regent Access | Student Experience | Title: Updated the 2024-2025 Master Regent Access Smart Form ‘Parent Killed in the Line of Duty’ Question to Have No Default Response Tickets: RS-27068; RS-28289; Description: The 2024-2025 Master Regent Access Smart Form ‘Parent Killed in the Line of Duty’ question no longer has a default response in new applications and previous responses only persist across applications within the same Federal Award Year. | |
Regent Access | Configuration/Setup | Title: New Configuration Option to Display a Custom Message on the Dashboard Page of the Staff UI Tickets: RS-26687; RS-28415; RS-26688; Description: | |
Regent Award/Review | ISIR Processing/Verification | Title: Cease ISIR Matching for Inactive Students Tickets: RS-27752; RS-25202; RS-28501; RS-28502; RS-28503; Description: Note: If Inactive students are included in batch packaging runs, ‘Cease ISIR Matching for Inactive Students’ should be kept at “No” to avoid packaging with outdated information. See Customer Zone Knowledge Base topics: ISIR Document Management Business Process Analysis (BPA) , ISIR Matching Logic , Institution Setup Data Elements , Campus Setup Data Elements |
Bugs
The following bugs are resolved in this release:
Key | Product Selection | Functional Area | Release Note |
---|---|---|---|
Regent Award | Configuration/Setup | Problem: Cause: Fix: Testing: | |
Regent Award | EST/Disbursements | Problem: EST-0059 validation messages for the EST process contained no detail for why the student needed to be packaged. Cause: The logged date related to resetting the student to ‘need to be packaged’ was saved in US Eastern Time vs the expected UTC time. Fix: Overrode the date(s) that Regent specifies with the current UTC time from SQL. Testing: Find affected student and MAP student. Run EST to verify no EST-0059 error. Make a change to the student that will require repackaging. Run EST process. Confirm descriptive EST-0059 error message. | |
Regent Award | Packaging | Problem: Cause: Fix: Testing: | |
Regent Fund | Packaging | Problem: Cause: Fix: Testing: | |
Regent Award | EST/Disbursements | Problem: Florida Disbursement Eligibility Report for Florida State Grants had certain incorrect field positions and field lengths. Cause: Report was developed with errors in the file layout. Fix: File layout of report was updated to match specification. Testing: Select Export Processes and choose ‘Export Data Pipeline’. Select the Data Pipeline ‘StateGrantFL_Export_DisbursementEligibilityReport_Pipeline’ and other applicable parameters. Click Execute. Verify output. | |
Regent Award | Awarding | Problem: Cause: Fix: Testing: | |
Regent Award | SAP | Problem: Regent Award did not process the received SAP information properly resulting in SAP Wizard Records being not consistent and up-to-date with the information sent. Cause: The Prior Year Result SAP Status was empty which caused the UI to throw an error and stop rendering data in the SAP Grid. Fix: Adjusted the UI to support when the Prior Year Result SAP Status is empty. Testing: Find the affected student. Add manual SAP. Run SAP process. Refresh the wizard. The new record is visible. The old records are not removed. | |
Regent Award | R2T4 | Problem: The system did not take Total Attended Withdrawn Before Census Units for Pell recalculation in accordance to the Institution Setup, that is Pell Recalculation Option: Include withdrawn attempted units prior to census. Return to Title Four (R2T4) did not include Pell in Amount that Could Have been Disbursed. Cause: The system did not use Total Attended Withdrawn Before Census Units in R2T4 calculation. Fix: A code fix was applied so that Total Attended Withdrawn Before Census Units will be included in R2T4 calculation. Testing: Navigate to an affected student and create R2T4, where the Date of School’s Determination is equal to Wihdrawal Date and goes prior Census Date 1. Make sure that Pell is included in the Amount that Could Have Been Disbursed. | |
Regent Award | Packaging | Problem: Cause: Fix: Testing: | |
Regent Fund | Awarding | Problem: “Thank you Note 24/25“ document was not generated for a fund when an award was packaged. Cause: The system did not check the award identification (ID) and smart form type code parameters to check whether the document existed. Fix: A code fix was applied so the system will check both the award ID and smart form type code. Testing: Make sure that the smart form is configured for more than one fund. Package student that has awards for more than one fund configured to assign a “Thank You Note” document. Confirm “Thank you Note 24/25“ generates for each award. | |
Regent Award | Packaging | Problem: SAP error prevented the student from packaging via MAP, AAW, and MAW, although the student did not have any visible SAP record. Cause: The error was caused by manual SAP records for students where the ReviewPeriod no longer existed. These manual records were not visible to users and could not be deleted. Fix: A script was created to automatically delete any manual SAP records associated with a ReviewPeriod that no longer exists. After the fix, students should be able to package without encountering this error. Testing: Find the affected student. Run packaging via MAP, MAW or add award via AAW. No error should occur. | |
Regent Award | Awarding | Problem: The ‘Total Awards’ amount, without present manual awards, exceeded the ‘Total COA’ causing over-awarding. In some cases, ‘Total COA’ excluded loan fees that also caused over-awarding. Cause: A flaw in the packaging engine calculation caused an adjustment fee to be included in the disbursement. This allowed the overall loan period awards to exceed the COA plus loan fees. Fix: The issue has been resolved by adding a check to ensure the adjustment fee is not included in the disbursement calculation when it would lead to an over-award scenario. Testing: Find the affected student. Run packaging. Review the Total COA and Total Awards. The over-award should not happen. | |
Regent Award | Packaging | Problem: Cause: Fix: Testing: | |
Student Experience | Student Experience | Problem: Cause: Fix: Testing: | |
Regent Award | Awarding | Problem: Regent Award incorrectly calculated and awarded financial aid for the Fall 2024-2025 term, which should be treated as a historic term with no enrollment, instead of starting the awards in the Spring 2024-2025 term when the student was expected to begin actual enrollment. Fall 2024-2025 also does not have a visual 'Historic' flag. Cause: Regent Award did not mark Fall term as historic if it started before a student program and had no courses. Fix: The logic was improved so that the system will mark the term as historic in this case. Testing: Find the affected student. Load SBL with historic course data. Run packaging. The term is showing 'Historic' flag. | |
Regent Award | Activity Log | Problem: Manually created OAYs disappear after packaging. Cause: Regent Award incorrectly inactivated a manual OAY when it could not find overlapping academic year from a plan. Fix: The matching logic was improved to avoid the inactivation step for a manual OAY. Testing: Find the affected student. Add manual OAY. Run packaging. The OAY should be visible both on AP and OAY tab. | |
Regent Award | Activity Log | Problem: Cause: Fix: Testing: | |
Regent Award | Awarding | Problem: Regent Award underpackaged Pell at the last term of 23-24 FAY. Cause: The system was using incorrect rounding logic for Pell awards during the final term of the 2023-2024 financial aid year. Specifically, the RNA Pell-Award-2023-2013 ruleset was applying dollar rounding for R2T4 disbursements, instead of using the required Pell Decimal Places rounding. As a result, the system was removing $0.33 or $0.34 instead of properly rounding to $0.0033 or $0.0034, leading to under-packaging of Pell amounts. Fix: The ruleset has been updated to ensure that the correct rounding logic is used for Pell disbursements. Testing: Find the affected student with the standard term quarter. Run packaging. Review Regular Pell amounts. No under-awarding should happen. | |
Regent Award | Awarding | Problem: Student was not packaged with the expected Kentucky Tuition Grant fund amount as per the configured ‘Amount Per Payment Period’ at Fund Setup. Cause: The system was incorrectly calculating the Kentucky Tuition Grant fund amounts. Instead of applying the configured "Flat Amount Per Payment Period," the system was evenly dividing the total grant across payment periods, which resulted in incorrect fund distribution for students. Fix: A new calculation method has been implemented to ensure the system applies the correct "Flat Amount Per Payment Period" configuration. This fix ensures that students receive the expected grant amounts in each payment period according to the setup. Testing: Find the affected student. Run the packaging. Review ‘Kentucky Tuition Grant' award amount and confirm it corresponds to the configured 'Flat Amount Per Payment Period’ amount. | |
Regent Award | Packaging | Problem: Cause: Fix: Testing: | |
Regent Award | Packaging | Problem: Cause: Fix: Testing: | |
Regent Award | Student Experience | Problem: Regent Award unexpectedly did not show additional Sub Loans on Student Portal when grade level increased. Cause: In certain scenarios where multiple awards are processed on a loan period, the eligible amount for subsequent awards (e.g., 2nd or 3rd) was calculated incorrectly. This issue caused discrepancies in balance totals, preventing the system from properly awarding the additional Subsidized Loans. Fix: The calculation logic has been updated to correctly track and use the remaining eligible amount for each award. Testing: Find the affected student. The student goes to GL2. Review award amounts at REM and Student Portal. The GL increase should be awarded with corresponding loan amount. | |
Regent Award | R2T4 | Problem: Cause: Fix: Testing: | |
Regent Award | Packaging | Problem: Regent Award packaged $1 over direct cost for students at the default packaging philosophy. Cause: The issue was caused by a rounding error in the calculation of disbursement fees, which led to incorrect totals being applied during the packaging process. Fix: The calculation logic for disbursement fees has been updated to ensure rounding errors no longer occur. This ensures that the total award amounts align with the direct cost, adhering to the packaging philosophy. Testing: Find the affected student. Run packaging. Review the Total COA and Total Awards. The over-award should not happen. | |
Regent Award | Packaging | Problem: Anticipation of units and enrollment took place for terms having ‘Anticipate 0 Units for Term’ enabled Cause: The system was not properly checking the "Anticipate 0 Units for Term" setting when processing student units, which led to this incorrect anticipation of units. Fix: The system has been updated to include a check for the "Anticipate 0 Units for Term" setting. This ensures that no units are anticipated for terms when this option is enabled. Testing: Find the affected student. ‘Anticipate 0 Units for Term’ is enabled. Run packaging. Review future terms. No units should be anticipated. |
Scripts
The following scripts relate to this release:
Key | Functional Area | Release Note |
---|---|---|
Scripts | Purpose of Script: Data Changed by the Script: How to Access the Script: How to Test the Script: |
Data Views
The following data views relate to this release:
Key | Functional Area | Release Note |
---|---|---|
Data Views | Title: Data View Updates per 6.9.0.0 Release Tickets: RS-28565; Description: The following Data Views were created per changes to existing tables:
The following Data View was created per creation of a new table:
See the Customer Zone Knowledge Base topic Regent Award Data View Data Dictionary |