Frequently Asked Questions document is not all-encompassing but provides some very basic information to questions that are projected from the client community. For additional information, please submit a ticket through the CZ Portal.
| Release | Release 4.7.0.0 |
|---|---|
| Release Date | |
| Document Updated | 04/01/2019 DRAFT |
Can anyone take Release 4.7.0.0?
All Regent Award clients are expected to take Release 4.7.0.0. for UAT and ultimately production upgrade. Production Upgrades are coordinated with Account Managers. Regent Access and Regent Review clients may also take the 4.7 Release.
What is included in Release 4.7.0.0?
This release addresses product defects as listed in the "Bugs" section in the release notes, and enhancements including:
- Support for 2019-2020 Processing
- 2019-2020 Pell Schedules
- COD Support
- Phase 1 of R2T4 Automation
- New Nonterm R2T4 Payment Period Length Calculation Option
- Disbursement Option to Confirm Current Attendance
What regulatory updates are included in this Release 4.7.0.0?
Release 4.7.0.0 contains the standard Spring updates including updates to support the processing of 2019-2020 awards with COD and the 2019-2020 Award Year Federal Pell Grant Program Schedules. The COD updates include 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. In addition, the Student Aid Internet Gateway (SAIG) Mailbox Integration feature has been updated to support the 2019-2020 SAIG Message Classes. There was no new schema for COD this year.
What is the status of Student Experience?
The enhanced portal, financial plan, call center support and other aspects included in the Regent Student Experience roadmap are still on track for inclusion in the 5.x release series.
How will users be able to control which aspects of R2T4 automation are implemented in their systems?
Clients are able to determine how much or how little automation they will use. With Release 4.7.0.0, we have added configuration options for clients to determine whether they want Regent Award to automatically determine whether or not a student requires an R2T4, to set the number of days after the Date of Determination when that evaluation will occur, and also to set the number of days after the Date of Determination when any R2T4 auto-finalization will occur. With this initial roll-out, clients can elect whether or not R2T4s should be auto-finalized for students who attended past 60% of the payment period and for whom all disbursements have paid. When support is in place in a future release to auto-finalize R2T4s resulting in post-withdrawal disbursements and refunds, clients will be able to select whether either or both of these categories will auto-finalize as well. If clients choose not to have some or any of these types of R2T4 finalize, users will be alerted via a task when the R2T4 is ready for review. Please note that all R2T4 configuration options have been moved to a new subtab labeled “R2T4” under Institution Setup, Campus Setup and Program Setup.
When any automated action is taken by Regent on an R2T4, the student's Activity Log will be updated and the results will also be reflected in summary and in detail in post-processing log reporting. Standard R2T4 reports also contain an indication of whether or not the R2T4 was auto-finalized.
What additional enhancements are planned for R2T4 automation?
As mentioned above, this first roll out supports auto-finalization of R2T4s for students who have earned all their Title IV for the period and for whom that Title IV has been fully disbursed. Underway for the next release is support for the provision of institutional costs in the SBL and so, full automation of R2T4s resulting in refunds. Also underway is full automation of R2T4s resulting in post-withdrawal disbursements (PWDs) including enhancements to the PWD offer process with auto-cancellation of offered loan disbursements that are not accepted by borrowers. Regent is also automating the "do not offer" checks when earned loan amounts are not offered in cases such as when they represent second or subsequent disbursements of loans or are for first year, first-time students with 30-day holds who were not in attendance for at least 30 days.
What are the benefits of implementing the new Nonterm R2T4 Denominator Length option?
Institutions may implement any means of extrapolating payment period length for nonterm withdrawals in R2T4 as long as it is defensible and applied consistently. To date, while Regent provides payment period extension options for nonterm Academic Plans and those carry over to R2T4s, most users manually adjust the nonterm R2T4 denominators to align with their applicable school policies.
This new option automates an R2T4 denominator extrapolation method described on page 5-83 of the 2018-2019 Federal Student Aid Handbook. Use of this option is easily defended by referencing the handbook citation and with Regent automation, will be applied consistently. When using this option, the student's pace when completing units in the payment period is applied to the number of units remaining to meet the definition of a payment period in the student's program (half of the units in the academic year). For cases when the student has not completed any units in the payment period, the handbook suggests using the longest period of time it has taken a previous student to actually complete the coursework. Clients will provide the number of days to be used in such cases in a new program configuration field.
Why should we consider implementing the new Attendance Confirmation option for Disbursing?
This option will reduce the incidence of inadvertent overpayments. By confirming the disbursement will occur during a non-withdrawn course for which attendance has been confirmed, it is less likely a student withdrawal will be dated before the disbursement date. Also, while Regent's standard disbursement validation double checks eligibility at the time of disbursement, this option adds an additional level of confirmation to that validation. When this new option is selected, current disbursement validation will still take place and this additional check will confirm that the disbursement is scheduled to occur during a course for which the student has begun attendance. Users will have the ability to use Disbursement Overrides to push through disbursements (such as eligible late disbursements) that are blocked by this validation. This check will not apply to R2T4 Post Withdrawal Disbursements.
Does Release 4.7.0.0 contain any Data View Updates?
Regent is providing a new data view for document configuration requirements dataExtract_DocumentRequirementSBLUDF_Config_View_v001. Also, updates have been made to data views for tasks, task activities, multiple document attachments, ISIR records and ISIR correction records. Please use the resources on Regent Award Data Views in the Customer Zone Knowledge Base to utilize Regent's data view offerings.