Release 5.4 FAQ

Can anyone take Regent 5.4?  

All Regent Award and Regent Review clients are expected to take Regent 5.4 for UAT and ultimately production upgrade. 

What is included in Regent 5.4?

This release addresses product defects as listed in the “Bugs” section of the Release Notes, and also enhancements and new features including:

• Subsidized Usage Limit Applies (SULA) Calculations for Regular, Term-based Programs
• Document configuration enhanced to include options for the additional Active ISIR fields
• Several Regent Smart Form Enhancements
• New 'Disclosure' page in Regent Plan and additional Student Indebtedness Tokens for use on the new page
• Inclusion of Regent-generated e-mails in the Communications (formerly 'Messages') component of Student Experience

Do I have to set up COD SAIG processing for the new 2021-2022 year?

Upon upgrade to Regent 5.4, the new 2021-2022 COD message classes should dynamically set as Active for SAIG processing if the related classes for the prior Federal Award Year are currently configured as Active.  However, you should review all of your saved parameter sets and make necessary updates, if any are needed based on your configurations, to include the new processing year.

When can I start processing 2021-2022 COD Files?

Your institution can start processing 2021-2022 COD files as soon as your Production instance is upgraded to Regent Release 5.4 AND COD has upgraded for the new year.  The COD upgrade this year occurred during the weekend of March 21st.

What is the new Program Length configuration for SULA use?

A new 'Published Program Length' field has been added specifically for SULA calculations.  

Users will configure 'Published Program Length' in Program Setup to identify the program length COD should use for SULA calculations for students in each program.  At upgrade, the new 'Published Program Length' in Program Setup will populate with the currently configured 'Program Completion' weeks.  Users may update the 'Published Program Length' configuration as desired using one of the available reporting options of weeks, months, or years.  The existing 'Program Completion' weeks will continue to inform the program length for Academic Plans in Regent Award, while the 'Published Program Length' will be sent to COD for use in SULA calculations.

Note:  If changing the program length to be sent to COD, be aware of potential consequences.  If you elect to report in 'years' and have been reporting academic years that are shorter than a full 12 months, a student's resulting Subsidized Usage Period may increase significantly.  For example, if a bachelor's degree program has been reported as 192 weeks to COD and the Academic Year is 30 weeks long, 192/30 = 6.4 academic years in the program and the 150% limit would be 9.6 academic years.  If switching to report the program as '4 years', the 150% limit will be 6 years.  Any Subsidized loans awarded when SUP was >6 would be in jeopardy.

For which students will Regent calculate SULA?

While SULA calculations will be completed for all students for whom SULA applies, only Subsidized Loans in regular, term-based programs with SULA restrictions enabled will be limited by SULA in Release 5.4.  Schools may enable SULA restrictions for a program by using the setting ‘Apply SULA calculations’ in Program Setup which is inheritable from Institution Setup and Campus Setup. Calculations for special programs and nonterm programs are planned for a later release.

How will I know if a student has expended all Subsidized Direct Loan eligibility?

The History tab's SULA subtab displays detailed information about both COD's and Regent's attribution of each loan for SULA.  A 'Final' column will include a red exclamation point (!) if this is the last Subsidized loan for which the student is eligible. Additionally, Activity Log Entries will provide details about specific SULA calculations that affect individual loans. 

Why did Regent change guidance on the Annual Student Loan Acknowledgement requirement?

At the time of our annual roadmap presentation, the Department of Education had consistently directed that Direct Loan disbursements must be held until students complete the Annual Student Loan Acknowledgement beginning with 2021-2022 year loans.  We advised that document-based support for this requirement has been in place in Regent since the start of the 2020-2021 year and is available to users as soon as the appropriate configuration is in place.

On March 8, 2021, the Department notified the community that, in order to reduce administrative burden on schools during the continued COVID-19 disruptions, 'the requirement that borrowers complete the Annual Student Loan Acknowledgement prior to disbursement will not go into effect for the 2021–22 Award Year'.

While borrowers can still take advantage of the Annual Student Loan Acknowledgement at StudentAid.gov, our clients should ensure that any disbursement-related document restrictions for Annual Student Loan Acknowledgment completion are removed for the 2021-2022 FAY.

What communications will be available in the Student Experience Messages Module?

The existing 'Messages' module in Student Experience has been renamed the 'Communications' module.  One subtab, 'Messages', will contain messaging conducted via the portal.  The current 'Messages' module displays these messages.  With Release 5.4, a second 'Notifications' subtab has been added to display the 50 most recent e-mails/letters generated within Regent Award that have been configured to display in the portal.  Students will not be able to reply to Notifications (e-mails) within the portal, but if configured for two-way communications, students can reply to client-generated messages via the Communications module.

Clients can determine whether a communication will be sent via e-mail, displayed in the Communications module, or both.  This provides an opportunity to present items with sensitive information (such as a College Financing Plan or Award Letter) solely via the portal rather than sending via e-mail.

Do I need to request a script to be run to support the Enhanced Communications Module?

Yes.  Only communications configured as 'communication-related' will display on the Notifications (e-mail) subtab.  Currently, both messages and notifications are noted as 'communication-related' in the Activity Log.  Clients may request that their Account Managers set up a script to update all the Student Experience portal messages in the Activity Log from 'communication-related' to 'message related' so the proper items will display on each subtab.

What is the purpose for the new 'Disclosures' page in Student Experience?

This 'free form' page allows clients to provide their students with loan indebtedness or other information as required by certain states, accreditors, or other entities.  Tokens are available to display total amounts of various loan types, their interest rates, and their estimated monthly payments.  For these to work, clients must populate the 'Standard Repayment Period (in months)' field that has been added to the Fund Fee configuration.  Additionally, if wishing to provide these totals for 'Other Federal Loans' or 'Alternative Loans', only one fund should be set up for each and any legacy totals should be brought into Regent so total borrowing at the specific institution can be provided to each student.