Release 5.5 Product Brief

Product Release Summary

This Product Brief includes a summary of Regent 5.5 and preceding minor releases 5.4.1 and 5.4.3, information on key enhancements, and direction to additional documentation and information.

Product Release Description

Regent 5.5:

The 5.5.0.0 release addresses product defects as listed in the “Bugs” section of the Release Notes, and also enhancements and new features including:

• Configurable College Financing Plans
  
• Outbound Text Messaging (requires client Twilio account)
  
• 2022-2023 Access Questionnaires
• Salesforce Application for Regent Award Enhancements
• Support for Loan Origination Changes after R2T4 Withdrawal Date
• COD Tab Display Improvements

• e-Signature Changes in Student Experience

Further details on enhancements/new features and a complete list of bug fixes can be found in the Release Notes. 

The Release Notes also contain information on new configuration options, and a list of updates to the Admin Guide and User Guide.

Recent Minor Regent Releases: 

The following minor releases containing enhancements have also been certified since the most recent major release:

5.4.1:

• R2T4 Regulatory Updates
• R2T4 Step 1 and Step 2 Overrides
• Document Due/Expiration Dates
• Multiple Configured Census Dates
• My Borrowing Data Availability
• Packaging Philosophy Functionality Update
• ‘What If I Change My Course Enrollment’ Changes
• Pell and Direct Loan Reconciliation      

       Key Feature descriptions are below.  Additional detail on 5.4.1 enhancements and information on bugs included in this release are available at 5.4.1.0 Release: Regent Award.

5.4.3:

• Support for change to 2021-2022 Verification Requirements

      Implementation information published in 5.4.3.0 Release: Regent Award and is also provided below.

Other Documentation

In addition to the Product Brief, the following documentation is also available:

System Requirements

Any client currently using Regent Award may take Regent 5.5 for UAT and ultimately production upgrade.

Any client currently using Regent Review may take Regent 5.5 for UAT and ultimately production upgrade.

Any client currently using Regent Access must take Regent 5.5 for UAT and ultimately production upgrade to utilize the 2022-2023 Access questionnaires.

Any client currently using Regent Award may take the Regent 5.5 version of Student Experience for UAT and ultimately production upgrade.

Any client currently using Regent Review may take the Regent 5.5 version of Student Experience for UAT and ultimately production upgrade.

Any client currently using Regent Access may take the Regent 5.5 version of Student Experience for UAT and ultimately production upgrade. Note: All customer-specific functionality may not be available in the new Student Experience portal at this time.

New Feature Overview for Regent 5.5 and Recent Minor Releases (5.4.1 and 5.4.3)

Regent 5.5

• Configurable College Financing Plans

The 2021-2022 CFP College Financing Plan (CFP) templates have been created with additional support for client flexibility and control.  Setting options for CFP configurable fields are now available within Communication Setup in Regent.

This year, as required by the Department of Education, there are separate .pdf templates for Undergraduate and Graduate students.  Each will need to have a communication configured with the appropriate .pdf template, a client-specific e-mail template and client-specific filter requirements.  The student-specific CFP will be attached to the specified email template upon generation of CFP communications.

Guidance on how to configure CFP templates is available in the Customer Zone Knowledge Base as follows:

Configure a Communication: Step-by-step instructions to configure a Regent communication

College Financing Plan (CFP): Standard UG and GR 2021-2022 templates, logic for Regent-calculated CFP fields, and information on CFP fields requiring client configuration

Communication Setup: Steps to set up communication, add/test template, and add filter

Regent Award Communication Templates: Technical guide to develop templates

Communication Template Data Elements: Template data field requirements

• Outbound Text Messaging   (Updated 9/22/2021 to include CZ ticket information)
  

In addition to the existing ‘e-mail’ and ‘letter’ communication types, Release 5.5 includes a new outbound ‘text’ communication type using Twilio.  Clients will use their existing Twilio accounts, or will obtain their own Twilio accounts for use in messaging from Regent.  Visit https://www.twilio.com/ for more information.  Clients manage their own Twilio subscriptions, and messaging invoices should be sent directly from Twilio to clients.

Outbound texts will be sent to the phone number designated as ‘mobile’ in the Regent student record.  Opt in/opt out selects are managed by Twilio and communicated to Regent via SBL or with manual update.

Text message generation is managed the same as are the existing communication types.  A single communication filter may be used for multiple communication types for bulk messaging, and single text messages can be sent from the Communications tab on the Regent student record.

In addition to viewing text messaging on their phones, students can view Regent-generated text messages in the Student Experience portal when the Communications component and related Notifications tabs are activated and the text communication type is configured to display in the portal.

A Customer Zone ticket is required for Regent Cloud Operations to set up text messaging for the Twilio account in the client’s Regent instance.  Please include the following information in the ticket:

1 - Non-Production Mobile Number Override: This is the number where all SMS text messages to will go to for a non production environment, so that we do not send SMS numbers to real students from a QA instance. We will assume the country code is ‘1’ for US, so advise if another country code should be used.

2 - Twilio ‘From Number’:  This is the number where all SMS text messages will originate for the SMS account.  Provide this number based on our Twilio configuration, and provide with based on their Twilio configuration. Include the country code, area code, and phone number. 

3 - Twilio Account SID: Provide this based on your Twilio configuration.

4 - Institutions: List either ‘all’ if all institutions in the instance will use this account, or list specific institutions if only one or some institutions in the instance will use this account.

5 - Work with your Account Manager to transmit your Twilio Authentication Token in a secure manner. 

Sample Request

This is a sample request to configure the customerremqa3 instance with dedicated SMS account for Frederick College and City College institutions, and have a Shared SMS account that will be used for all other institutions.

Please configure SMS as follows

REM instance https://customerremqa3.regenteducation.net
toMobileNumberOverride: +15555555555

1. Shared SMS Account

fromNumber: +15555555555
accountId: ACdd23e76bc868604690113386349a6837
Institutions: Shared

2. Frederick College and City College SMS Account

fromNumber: +15555555555
accountId: ACdd23e76bc868604690113386349a6837
Institutions: 1 (Frederick College),4 (City College)

• 2022-2023 Access Questionnaires

Regent Access questionnaires have been updated for the new year with year-over-year incremental updates as related to the FAFSA as well as required updates to the EFC tables.

Regent Access functionality is now available in the Student Experience Portal. This includes the import and export of ISIR files and the ISIR correction wizard functionality. Account Registration is now configurable, along with the current configurable customer logo and branding available in the Student Experience Portal. Regent Access customers will have multiple configurable areas available in the Student Experience Portal, on the Dashboard and Document components, that will allow for more tailored messaging in the Student Experience portal that can be updated as needed.

Access clients will work with Account Managers to discuss timing for migrating to Student Experience.

• Salesforce Application for Regent Award Enhancements

Regent Award for Salesforce (RAFSF) has been enhanced to display both blocking and non-blocking tasks and documents, rather than limiting inclusion to those blocking items requiring action.  Examples of blocking items are documents with statuses of Needed, Incomplete, or Unsatisfied.

New RAFSF configuration options for tasks, and separately for documents, include choices at the institution and user role levels as to whether Salesforce will display only blocking items or all items for the students.  This means that if an institution is configured to display all items and a user role is configured to view only blocking items, a user in that role will view only the blocking items.

• Support for Loan Origination Changes after R2T4 Withdrawal Date

Two new R2T4 configuration settings at the institution, campus, and program levels allow clients to determine treatment of loans with origination changes after the R2T4 Date of Withdrawal. Clients will indicate separately the desired outcome when the COD-accepted amount is lower on the day the R2T4 is processed than it was on the R2T4 Date of Withdrawal and when the processing day amount is higher than the amount was when the student withdrew.

The ‘Originated Loan Amount to Use If Amount on R2T4 Processing Date is Lower Than Amount on R2T4 Date of Withdrawal' setting has options to use either the amount as of R2T4 Date of Withdrawal or the amount as of the R2T4 Processing Date. 

The ‘Originated Loan Amount to Use If Amount on R2T4 Processing Date is Higher Than Amount on R2T4 Date of Withdrawal’ setting has options to use either the  amount on the R2T4 Date of Withdrawal or the lesser of the highest amount originated while the student was enrolled and the amount as of the R2T4 processing date.   

If the originated Loan Amount as of R2T4 Processing Date is higher than the Originated Loan Amount as of R2T4 Date of Withdrawal, based on COD Accepted data, the net amounts for loans in Step 1 of R2T4 will be either the Amounts (on or before) R2T4 Date of Withdrawal OR the lower of: 1) The highest Amount originated (on or before) to R2T4 Date of Withdrawal; 2) The amount on the R2T4 processing date, based on the option selected

These settings will apply to both manual and automated R2T4s for payment periods with end dates no more than 120 days in the past.  An Activity Log Entry will record when the Regent R2T4 process acted on loan amounts that differed between the Date of Withdrawal and the R2T4 processing date.

• COD Tab Display Improvements

Column headings and help text improvements to the COD tab will help users understand the information provided in that space.  For ease of use in the Summary section, the most recent awards now display first in the top grid and the ‘has rejects’ column is populated with the most recent information from COD.  The loan period start and end dates show those most recently received from COD for the award – if no exported record for the award has been accepted and returned from COD, the dates exported from Regent Award will display.  The award detail view also now displays the most recent activity at the top to eliminate the need to scroll down for current information.

• e-Signature Changes in Student Experience

Clients using Smart Forms in the Student Experience portal can now elect to provide a mail-in option in addition to e-Sign and paper document upload for the forms.  The main driver for this was to align the Access experience with that provided to users of the online FAFSA application, but the functionality is extended to any Smart Form document with e-signature in Student Experience.

The updated Institution Setup>General, Campus Setup>General and Document Setup>Signature (changed from ‘Electronic Signature’) has a new ‘Paper Document Process Settings’ section for this enhancement.  Users electing to provide a non-electronic signature option for a document may elect to display the upload option, the mail-in option, or both.  A text configuration field is provided for the user to enter specific directions for the mail-in option.

When using the mail-in option. The completed (unsigned) document will move to ‘Satisfied’ status and a secondary document requirement will be triggered in ‘Needed’ status.  Configure a document with the same scope as the original document and the following naming convention: (Document Name) Signature Page.

Document functionality has also been enhanced with an option to have a new task trigger when a user elects to upload a signed document. The new task type is ‘Review Uploaded Document’.

Regent 5.4.1

• R2T4 Regulatory Updates

In compliance with the September 2020 Final Rule, various aspects of R2T4 processing have been updated to apply to all credit-hour R2T4s with a Date of Withdrawal on or after July 1, 2021.

New Field: A new R2T4 node field ‘Last Date of Academic Related Activity’ will allow Regent to identify whether the new rules apply to a student for whom the ‘50% option’ is applied.  This date can also be entered manually into the R2T4 template when using the ‘50% option’ for R2T4s.  Additionally, the ‘Last Date of Academic Related Activity’ is an option for determining the new nonterm ‘Cease Attendance Date’. 

 New Configuration Options:

Clients with nonterm programming will configure a new ‘Cease Attendance Date’ option for how the date a student ‘ceased attendance’ should be identified for the purpose of determining whether a nonterm student will/has returned in time to avoid being considered a withdrawal when using Regent R2T4 automation.  The ‘Cease Attendance Date’ configuration will default to the R2T4 node Date of Withdrawal, but other options include either the Date of Determination or the Last Date of Academically Related Activity from the R2T4 node or the most recent Last Date of Attendance for the R2T4 period.

In cases where a client using Regent automation for R2T4 has terms with modules and there are institutionally-structured breaks between modules, an institutional break between modules of fewer than 5 days should be configured and the ‘gap’ checkbox should be checked to ensure those days are treated as break days for the ‘49% calculation’ described below.

New ‘R2T4 Not Required’ Tests: When using Regent R2T4 automation, a potential R2T4 will not be required if the student completed all the hours in the program during the R2T4 period.  For students in programs offered in terms with modules, the R2T4 will be assessed as ‘not required’ if, during the R2T4 period, the student successfully completed either at least half-time credits or courses that make up at least 49% of the instructional days in the full term. Institutional breaks of at least 5 consecutive days are treated as break days and not institutional days for the 49% calculation, as are scheduled breaks between available modules of any length.  If the program (not an individual student’s registration) has a standard break between modules, that break should be configured as an institutional break and identified as a scheduled gap by checking the new checkbox added for that purpose. Please remember that this ‘49% calculation’ is a completely separate calculation than the one used to determine the ‘earned’ percentage in Box H. 

Updates to Existing ‘R2T4 Not Required’ Tests: Existing automated ‘R2T4 Not Required’ tests were updated for R2T4s with the Date of Withdrawal on or after July 1, 2021 – a term-based student must now commit to return within the term and within 45 days after the end of the course from which the student withdrew, while a nonterm student must return within 60 days after the student ‘ceased attendance’ (per the new ‘Cease Attendance Date’ configuration).

Change to Regular R2T4 Denominator for Terms with Modules:  Keep in mind that this is completely separate from the ‘49%’ determination discussed in the New ‘R2T4 Not Required Tests’ section. Effective for R2T4s with Date of Withdrawal on/after July 1, 2021, identification of the numerator and denominator used to calculate the percentage in Box H uses ‘courses used to determine Title IV eligibility’ and is as follow:

If Pell is the only fund included in the R2T4 and the R2T4 Date of Withdrawal is after the Census Date, the denominator will include all program applicable courses with attendance.  If the R2T4 date of withdrawal is before or on the Census Date, the denominator will include all program applicable courses with attendance unless the Course Withdrawal Date is less than the R2T4 Date of Withdrawal (meaning that the student withdrew from the course prior to withdrawing from the institution).

If a Title IV fund other than Pell is included in the R2T4, all program applicable courses with attendance are included in the denominator as are any program applicable courses without attendance as long as they were enrolled before the R2T4 Withdrawal Date and, if a Direct Loan has been disbursed and the course is withdrawn, the Course Withdrawal Date is after the earliest paid Direct Loan Disbursement Date in the term.  Had the unattended course with withdrawn prior to the disbursement, it would not have been included when determining the enrollment status eligibility for the disbursement.

The order or refunds and the fund names displayed in the template were updated to align with the new regulations. There are no changes to the treatment of institutional or student-level breaks of five or more consecutive days.

• R2T4 Step 1 and Step 2 Overrides

Users may now override net funds in Step 1. and the number of Break days in Step 2 in an unfinalized R2T4 .  WHen Pell is include for term-based programming and an amount is entered into the ‘Paid Pell’ field, then the user must also enter amounts in the three Pell fields below (disbursed, inadvertent overpayment, and could have disbursed). A value of zero is allowed, but do not enter negative values. Once entries are complete, click ‘calculate’ and the Recalculated Pell amount will populate.  Once confirmed, the override values will replace the original values on the R2T4 template and the changes will be identified with the ‘M’ (manual) icon. Changes will also be recorded with Activity Log Entries.

In Step 2, the number of Break days can be overridden and dates in entered in Step 2 can be outside of configured term dates and the R2T4 calculations will respect them. 

• Document Due/Expiration Dates 

A new Documents Setup configuration section ‘Document Due Date and Expiration’ provides options for all documents including Smart Forms.  Even if not configured for a document, a due date or expiration date can be entered or updated by the user in an individual student’s document requirement. 

Users can elect to enter a static date – either MM/DD/YYYY for a student-scoped document, or MM/DD for a FAY-scoped document and a selection of whether the MM/DD is for the year prior to the FAY year, the FAY year, or the year following the FAY year. Instead of a static date, a document can be configured with due date and/or expiration date offsets.  This option can be applied to documents with any scope.  The number of offset days can b applied to the start of the scope period (FAY, AY, PP) or to the individual document requirement’s creation date.  Do not use a negative offset for the creation date option.  When configuring an expiration date, the user will also configure which document statuses should be expired when the date comes (such as Needed and Incomplete) and what status the document should be switched to upon expiration (such as Waived or Unsatisfied).  The Batch Packaging and Modify Academic Plan (MAP) processes will activate the expiration of a document.  Note that new configurations will not affect existing document requirements that are already assigned to students, but the RS-21834 script in 5.4.3 can be used to retroactively apply those configurations to existing document requirements.

• Multiple Configured Census Dates

This is a new option for terms with modules (meaning at least one course doesn’t extend from the first day of the term through to the last day of the term).  Regent now supports up to four (4) Census Dates per term.  There is no other configuration required – if more than one census date is configured for a term with modules, the multiple census date functionality will apply.

The Term Setup screen was updated to rename the old ‘Census Date 2’ as ‘Alternative Census Date’.  The ‘Alternative Census Date’ supports some client-specific functionality that will not be affected by this change.  Other clients wishing to use multiple census dates will configure CensusDate1, CensusDate2, and so forth for up to four dates per term. The census dates must be configured sequentially (for example, Census Date 2 must fall after Census Date 1). 

A student has one applicable census date at any given point in time.  When a new potential census date is reached, the student’s census date for Pell will update to that new date if 1) the student started attendance in a new course after the most recent prior potential census date and if the student is still enrolled (at least one course end date for the term is in the future).  Pell enrollment status will recalculate with the new census date if it becomes applicable.  Pell recalculation functionality for withdrawal prior to or on the first census date, for R2T4, and at the end of the term has not changed.  A new Census subtab on the History tab tracks student census dates.  A new entry is made to the Census subtab each time a new census date is assigned to the student or when the number of units calculated for an existing census date changes.  A ‘census date type’ is assigned to each new census date from among the following:  Census Date 1, Census Date 2, Census Date 3, Census Date 4, Alternative Census Date (single client use), or Student Level (upon first packaging with valid ISIR). Upon upgrade, a script will run to update the census date types for any census dates on or after January 1, 2021.   

Example: In additional to multiple configured census dates, this example also has the pre-existing ‘Determine Student Census’ functionality enabled. This is the Institutional setting to set a student-specific census date in cases where the student is first packaged with a valid ISIR after the current census date.

• 1/31/2021 – Student packaged for first time – Census Date is 1/31/2021
  • 12 Census Units                                               
• 2/4/21 – Student withdrew from unattended Course B
• 2/15/2021 – potential new census date - student has not attended any new courses
  • Census Date is still 1/31/2021 with 12 Census Units                                         
• 3/15/2021 – potential new census date – student has started attending Course C
  • Census Date is now 3/15/2021 with 9 Census Units

• My Borrowing Data Availability

A set of new dataviews support analysis of student usage of the My Borrowing tools.  The data set includes elements for both the selected and the non-selected plans that were offered to the student at the time a plan option was selected.  A key data element is the student’s remaining loan eligibility the student elected not to borrow.  See the Data View Data Dictionary in the Customer Zone Knowledge Base for more information.

• Packaging Philosophy Functionality Update

New Configuration:  There is a new ‘Packaging Philosophy Settings’ section above the ‘Change My Borrowing Amount’ section on the Regent Plan/My Borrowing Tab.  When enabled, the student’s Borrowing Plan selection will be applied to all future academic years that do not have a selected borrowing plan.  The default in unchecked/not enabled, which means the Borrowing Plan selection will only be applied to the current academic year.

New MAP Functionality: When using Step 1 of the Modify Academic Plan (MAP) wizard, there is a new Packaging Philosophy Override option.  ‘Plan level’ (the default) will apply a selection to the full Academic Plan except for the current academic year to avoid overriding a student selection.  If the user will use the ‘Academic Year’ level option if wishing to change the selection for the current academic year or the selection for any future Academic Year.  The dynamic display shows the current packaging option for each academic year, any selections made by the student in My Borrowing, and provides an option for user override for current and future academic years.

Packaging Philosophy Option Display/Documentation: The applicable Packaging Philosophy has been added to the Awards Tab grid by payment period and to the Academic Plan’s Academic Year headers.  The Change History in Plan has been updated to include the Academic Year Number of the change and the name of the person making the change (student or staff member), and Activity Log entries have been updated to document Packaging Philosphiy overrides.

• ‘What If I Change My Course Enrollment’ Changes

Improvements have been made to this Regent Plan functionality to dynamically expand or contract the number of terms needed for a student’s program based on potential enrollment levels selected by the student. The resulting estimate financial plan is provided as well.  Clients will configure an ‘Exceeds Configured Terms’ validation message on the Course Enrollment Estimator subtab on the Regent Plan tab to display in the case where a student’s hypothetical enrollment level choices would extend beyond the scope of terms that have been configured for the program,

• Pell and Direct Loan Reconciliation Support       

File Types: A new process identifies discrepancies between Regent and COD data for Pell and Direct Loans.  The client will request the Pell Reconciliation file directly from COD (PGRCXXOP), and will ensure they are set up to receive the YTD option with student names to include the loan disbursement detail section of the Monthly DLSAS report.  The latter must be with the fixed length flat file option (DSDFXXOP), not COD.  Ensure these message classes are marked ‘Active’ in Regent.  Also, the Pell file name must have the message class at the beginning of the file name – this happens automatically if the files are downloaded from the SAIG mailbox, but must be confirmed by files provided by a user.

Exceptions:  Discrepancies are identified for paid Pell at the award level and for paid Direct Loans at the disbursement level.  The Pell and Direct Loan reconciliation processes are available under ‘Import Processes’ and the process output includes summary data on the number of COD records vs the number of Regent records, the number of exceptions, total dollars paid, etc.  The process detail includes the results for each record and lists the specific exception if one was identified.

Tasks: The first time an exception is identified for a record, a ‘Review Pell Reconciliation Exception’ or ‘Review Direct Loan Reconciliation’ task will alert the user and an Activity Log entry will have the related exception detail.  If the same exception is identified and the original task is still open, only a new Activity Log Entry will be made.   An Activity Log Entry will also document when the COD and Regent records were matched with no exception.

Regent 5.4.3 

Known Issues for Regent 5.5