Introduction

The Enterprise Overview Business Process Analysis (BPA) document provides an overview of Regent Award features and functions to be addressed in detail within a series of BPAs to be provided to schools.  Each BPA section is aligned to core financial aid processes the software supports and will be delivered to schools throughout the implementation timeline to aid in business process definition or process reengineering, as necessary, to align with software functionality. 

Features and functions of Regent Award to support system setup and financial aid processes will be described in detail within the following BPA sections:

• Enterprise Overview

• Document Management

• Student Creation & Management

• ISIR Management

• Student Experience 

• Conversion

• Academic Structure

• Funds

• Awarding

• Cost of Attendance (COA)

• SAP

• Disbursements

• R2T4

• Regent Plan

This document lays the foundation for the following core features of Regent Award: 

• Enterprise Setup

• User roles

• Data requirements

• Documents

• Tasks

• Communications

Best practice configuration settings are defined or referenced within this BPA to serve as a baseline for implementation of each of these features. 

Enterprise Setup

Within Regent Award, entities are managed within a hierarchical relationship.  Information related to these entities is required to prepare the software for use. Levels within the hierarchy are defined as:

• Enterprise

• Institution

• Campus

• Site

Enterprise Setup in Regent Award contains the configuration options and data to create these hierarchical entities and to define system function, award calculation and fund disbursements across the Enterprise.    

Default Setting

Regent Award is preconfigured to support one Enterprise, one Institution, one Campus and one Site by default.  Additional entities in the hierarchy may be configured as required.  Attributes may be inherited from a higher level in the hierarchy.  These attributes and setup options are available in the school's Enterprise Setup Template.

User Roles

A user's access to the system is governed by an assigned role. Each role is configured with a unique set of permissions that define the specific functions accessible to the user assigned to that role within Regent Award.  Schools will assign users to roles and each user should only be assigned one role.

If a user is granted multiple global (Enterprise) user roles where permission sets conflict, Regent Award will open access to honor the least restrictive permission.  For example, a user has been assigned both an FA Counselor Role and an FA Administrator Role. Upon login, the user will have the highest level of access enabled in those roles.

Unless otherwise specified, access to a feature or function within Regent Award is controlled by User Role permissions, as defined in the User Roles Setup Template.  If this document, or another BPA, references a user or role accessing a specific function, it is assumed that user or role must have the permission enabled. 

Default Settings

Regent Award is preconfigured with seven (7) standard roles and permission sets.  The following descriptions summarize the permissions for each of these roles.   Greater detail is available within the User Roles Setup Template:  

View Only - This role allows the user to view the student's account in Regent Award.  It is typically used by employees who assist students at the front desk or answer phones. They have the ability to share with the student the status of his/her Financial Aid without making updates or changes to the student's record.  This role is also typically used by other departments within the institution.

FA Counselor - This role allows the user to view the student's account while advising the student on what they need to do to receive Financial Aid.  This role is typically used by employees who work with students one on one, for example to assist a student in resolving outstanding documents related to the ISIR (i.e. verification, comment code etc.).  This role will also be able to perform ISIR corrections for Professional Judgement. The person with this role will be able to manually add awards and review R2T4 calculations.

FA Processor - This role allows the user to work with batch processes.  This role is typically designated for employees who perform back office functions and minimal contact with students, such as verification and ISIR corrections, resolving COD Rejects, and processing R2T4s and program changes. 

Senior FA Processor – This role allows the user to function as a FA Counselor, FA Processor and Technician.  This role is typically used by financial aid offices where users may have the need to access multi-functional processes and work all aspects of the financial aid.

FA Admin - This role allows the user to perform system configuration updates.  This role is typically used by an employee who will be responsible for yearly configuration updates such as adding new FAY documents, updating fund budgets and Cost of Attendance. The same user would add new programs, funds, or documents if needed outside of a new FAY update.  Further, this role is able to modify Task Queues and Task Assignments in addition to administering users and roles.  The user with this role will be able to run Standard Reports.

FA Technician - This role allows the user to run batch processes in Regent Award.  This role is typically used by an employee who will be responsible for any process that is not scheduled.  This user would also have the responsibility to run scheduled processes on an ad hoc basis.  This user would have the ability to import and export files such as ISIR, COD and SBL files, and would also be responsible to run the EST process according to the schedule on the Runbook. The user with this role will be able to run Standard Reports.

FA Director - This role allows the user to work in all aspects of the Financial Aid process. This role is typically used by an employee who has a managerial function in the school. In addition to all that can be done via the other roles, the person with this role will also be able to override processes and make course adjustments and/or modify course data within Regent Award. 

Role Management and Hierarchy

User roles and permissions can be configured at the Enterprise, Institution, Campus and Sites levels.  If a user role is granted permissions for a specific Institution, Campus and/or Site, additional user roles must be configured in Regent Award.  This is a deviation from the standard default settings.

While not recommended, when a user is assigned multiple roles at two or more levels in the hierarchy with conflicting permissions, the system honors the permission at the most granular level in the hierarchy.   

Open

Data Requirements and Integration

Regent Award is a data driven Financial Aid system that combines data from multiple sources to provide a simple way to manage ISIR and document processing and to create a comprehensive financial package for students.  Some of the data sources are directly from the U.S. Department of Education, such as ISIR files and Pell YTD files.  Other data is generated by the school to provide the necessary information for processing in Regent Award. 

These files include a Student Batch Load (SBL) file that contains biographic, demographic, and course information exported from the school’s Student Information System (SIS).  Often a Import Student Documents (ISD) export file, containing pertinent document metadata, is generated from the SIS as well and is used to provide a current status of student documents.  In some scenarios, when conversion of students historical financial packages is required, an Import Award and Disbursements (IAD) export, containing historical awarding, from the SIS will also be required.  The accuracy of all of these data requirements are important for Regent Award to properly award students. 

Additional information regarding Regent Award integration can be found on Regent's Integration landing page.

Documents

Regent Award document configuration provides the ability to create document requirement tasks for purposes of packaging, disbursement, and other system processes and/or eligibility requirements. The documents are assigned to students, as needed/required, either automatically when system processes are run, or manually by the user with appropriate permissions.  The Document Management BPA addresses the administrative functions to maintain documents in support of various processes in Regent Award in greater detail. 

Default Settings

A set of documents that is most commonly configured for Regent’s customers and used to satisfy Department of Education requirements has been defined in order to support each of the verification groups and comment codes requiring resolution.  Each document may include a message to Students (visible on the Student Portal) and include one or more related codes; this configuration is available in the Document Setup Template.  Schools will review and confirm all business critical and compliance requirements are addressed by the default configuration, and may elect to modify Document Name for those documents not related to the ISIR verification process. 

Tasks & Task Queues

Regent Award provides the ability to automatically create tasks based on triggering events, such as a document loaded via the Student Portal or by a User Defined Field (UDF) received in the SBL.  Tasks are created to inform Regent Award users that information in the student's record requires review and to support financial aid office workflow. 

Task queues separate document review tasks by document use type or process.  User roles are assigned to work specific task queues.  Tasks may be automatically assigned to users and escalated based on a policy related to priority to be defined by the school.

Default Settings

Regent Award is preconfigured with tasks, queues and role-assignments to support best practices.  Triggering events and relationship to software workflow is available in the Task Setup Template.  These configurations will be reviewed in greater detail throughout implementation. Schools may elect to deactivate tasks based on applicability and business process.     

Communications & Filters

Regent Award enables schools to communicate with students regarding important reminders and changes to financial aid eligibility.  Communications may prompt students to take action to continue with the financial aid process.  Communications are generally sent via email, although authorized users may print communications generated in the software. 

 Regent Award supports both batch and individually generated communications.  Batch communications can be run on an ad hoc or scheduled basis by authorized user(s).  

 Default filters are configured in Regent Award to identify student populations selected to receive mass email communications when generated.

Default Settings

Regent Award provides nine (9) communications by default.  Criteria and frequency detail are available in the Communication Setup Template.

1. Missing Information

2. FAFSA Reminder

3. Initial Award Notification

   1. College Financing Plan (CFP)

4. Update Award Notification

5. PWD

6. R2T4 Finalized

7. Exit Counseling

8. SAP Warning

9. SAP Failure

Regent will provide schools with sample language based upon customer usage; however, the school is responsible to confirm compliance and to ensure language is effective to support processes. 

Text Messaging

Regent Award Communications can be created and configured to be sent via text, email, or letter. Schools are required to obtain a Twilio Account and work with Regent Cloud Operations to set up the Regent Award instance to support Text Messaging. Twilio subscriptions will be managed by schools and all messaging invoices will be sent directly from Twilio to the schools.

Text messages will be generated in a similar manner to email or letter communication types. A communication filter may be shared across multiple communication types (e.g. Email, Text, or Letter) for bulk messaging. Single text messages can be sent from the Communications tab on the student record in Regent Award.

Students will be able to view Text Messages that have been sent in the Student Experience Portal if the Communications component in the portal is turned on, the Notifications tab is turned on, and one or more Communication Type of Text is configured to display in the portal.

College Financing Plan

Regent provides College Financing Plans to both Graduate and Undergraduate students.  The estimated figures on the College Financing Plan (CFP) are meant to help students easily compare financial aid amounts offered by different institutions and make an informed decision on the investment in their education. Regent Award Academic Plan information is used to populate fields and calculate amounts.  The standard Graduate and Undergraduate College Financing Plan pdf templates are used and attached to an email template upon communication generation.  College Financing Plan communications require school-specific information for the pdf templates, school-specific email template, and school-specific filter requirements.

Configuration Templates

Refer to the Enterprise Setup Template for the hierarchy entities and attributes defined by the school.

Data Requirements

There are no SBL (Student Batch Load) data requirements related to this BPA Section.

Communications Template

Refer to the Communication Setup Template for full detail and configuration decisions.  

User Roles Template

Refer to the User Roles Setup Template for full detail and configuration decisions.

Documents Template

Refer to the Document Setup Template for full detail and configuration decisions.

Tasks Template

Refer to the Task Setup Template for configuration decisions.