ISIR Matching Logic

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Last updated: Oct 29, 2024 by Heather SmithVersion comment
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ISIR Matching

When an ISIR is imported into Regent Award (previously R8), there are several "levels" of matching that occur in order to match that ISIR with a student.  First, the ISIR is matched to an Institution within the Regent Award Enterprise, and assigned an Institution ID.  Next, the ISIR is matched and linked to the student based on the Federal School Code (FSC) data on the ISIR, also using the options available on Institution Setup.  The sections below outline these processes in greater detail.

Institution Matching

DEX first matches an ISIR to an Institution within the Regent Award instance.  The Import ISIR process detects the FSC on an ISIR record and uses that to associate the ISIR to a distinct Institution within the Regent Award instance.  The only exception to this rule is when the Regent Award instance contains only one Institution, all loaded ISIR records receive that Institution's Id.  Note that the ISIR Reprocess Process does not attempt to re-match ISIRs that could not be initially matched to an Institution in the Regent Award instance.  Therefore, if these ISIR records are not initially matched to an Institution upon ISIR import, Regent Award will never attempt to re-match those ISIR files.  The assumption behind this design is that 1) Federal School Codes in Regent Award configuration are correct and 2) that they will never be changed.  

When students are to be created from the ISIR file, the Institution and Campus for the student are required to be provided.  Students will only be created for that Campus, under its default Site, where an ISIR maps to the same related Institution.  For example, if the student is to be created for Institution A based on the Campus/Site selection, but the ISIR maps to Institution D, that student would not be created.

Federal School Code (FSC) Matching

Within Regent Award, the FSC can be provided at both the Campus and Site level.  By default, the Site level FSC will inherit the value entered at the Campus level, but a school can change the Site level FSC to be different than the Campus level.  The FSC from the Site level always takes precedence over any FSC provided at the Campus level.  If the Site level FSC is different than the FSC at the Campus level, Regent Award will use the Site level FSC to determine if the ISIR can be matched to the student. This is the way all inherited values work in Regent Award - the lowest level the value is defined at always takes precedence.

A single student record can exist within an Institution.  No more than one distinct student record per institution is allowed.  Regent Award offers two ISIR Federal School Code Matching Options:

Option 1:  Match ISIR to Student's Site level FSC = No

When the student's ISIR is matched to the student record, Regent Award looks at distinct FSC on all Sites within that student's Institution.  If a matching Federal School Code from the student's ISIR is found at any Site within the student's Institution, the ISIR is matched to the student (even if the student is not attending the specific Site with the ISIR's FSC).  For example, if a Campus where the FSC is "A" has only one Site where the FSC is "B", then the FSC of "A" is never used for matching since it's overridden by the Site's FSC. Alternately, if this Site does not have a FSC specified, then the default value of the FSC for that Site would be the value inherited from its Campus.  The Campus FSC of "A" would be used for matching. To summarize, each student in Regent Award is associated with only one FSC per the Student to Site association. 

Here are some examples that illustrate this option:

Example 1:

Using the data below, Student "John Smith" is attending the Brownsville Site.  However, his ISIR contains the FSC for Charlestown (987654).  Notice that both the Brownsville and Charlestown Sites inherit the Campus level FSC.  Because the Charlestown Site is within the same Institution that the student is attending, "KHEG," the ISIR is matched to John Smith's student record in Regent Award.

  • University System (Enterprise)

    • University System (Institution)

      • Brownsville (Campus) - FSC = 012345

        • Brownsville (Site) - FSC = 012345

      • Charlestown (Campus) - FSC = 987654

        • Charlestown (Site) - FSC = 987654

Example 2:

Using the data below, Student "Susan Brown" is attending the Medical Assistant School Site.  Her ISIR contains the FSC for the Medical Assistant School Campus (B98765).  Because the Medical Assistant School Site has a FSC of 0210031, which is not on Susan's ISIR, the ISIR will not be matched to Susan Brown's student record in Regent Award.  

  • Community College (Enterprise)

    • National Seminary (Institution)

      • National Seminary (Campus) - FSC = A12345

        • National Seminary (Site) - FSC = A12345

    • Medical Assistant School (Institution)

      • Medical Assistant School (Campus) - FSC = B98765

        • Medical Assistant School (Site) - FSC = 0210031

Option 2:  Match ISIR to Student's Site level FSC = Yes

When this option is in use, ISIRs will be matched to a student only if the student's ISIR contains the FSC of the Site the student is currently attending in Regent Award.  The examples above have been modified to illustrate how the matching functionality will work when "Match ISIR to Student's Site level FSC" is set to "Yes:"

Example 1:

Using the data below, Student "John Smith" is attending the Brownsville Site.  However, his ISIR contains the FSC for Charlestown (987654).  John's ISIR must contain the Brownsville Site FSC in order to be matched so in this case, the ISIR will NOT be matched to John Smith's student record in Regent Award.  

  • University System (Enterprise)

    • University System (Institution)

      • Brownsville (Campus) - FSC = 012345

        • Brownsville (Site) - FSC = 012345

      • Charlestown (Campus) - FSC = 987654

        • Charlestown (Site) - FSC = 987654

Example 2:

Using the data below, Student "Susan Brown" is attending the Medical Assistant School Site.  Her ISIR contains the FSC for the Medical Assistant School Campus (B98765).  Because the Medical Assistant School Site has a FSC of B45678, which is not on Susan's ISIR, the ISIR will not be matched to Susan Brown's student record in Regent Award.  

  • Community College (Enterprise)

    • National Seminary (Institution)

      • National Seminary (Campus) - FSC = A12345

        • National Seminary (Site) - FSC = A12345

    • Medical Assistant School (Institution)

      • Medical Assistant School (Campus) - FSC = B98765

        • Medical Assistant School (Site) - FSC = B45678

Note that when a student's site is changed via the SBL, ISIR matching will then use the new Site for Federal School Code matching as soon as the data is imported into Regent Award via the SBL.

When the Campus Federal School Code is Not Used

There is a case when the Campus FSC may never be used to match an ISIR to an Institution or to a Student in Regent Award.  Because the lowest level, the Site level, FSC is used to determine whether or not an ISIR can be matched to a student or an Institution, if a Campus has no Site that inherits its FSC, any ISIRs containing that Campus' FSC will never be matched to a Institution or Student in Regent Award.  

In this first example, the Campus has a Site, Site3, that inherits its FSC, so ISIRs imported with the FSC "11111" will be matched to the Institution, and to the student depending on the configuration option "Match ISIR to Student's Site level FSC".

In the next example, the Campus has NO Sites that inherit its FSC.  ISIRs imported with the FSC "11111" will NOT be matched to the Institution, and therefore, will never be matched to a student.  

Student Matching

Regent Award performs validation checks to determine if an ISIR can be assigned to an existing student record. There are three configurable options on Institution Setup screen (under the "ISIR Settings" section) which specify the Regent Award logic used in ISIR matching:

  1. Social Security Number (SSN) first, then Date of Birth (DOB) + First Name / Last Name

  2. SSN + DOB + Last Name

  3. SSN + DOB

All options require the FSC to match the student’s Site Setup, based on the "Match ISIR to Student's Site level FSC" option chosen.

Option 1: SSN first, then DOB + First Name / Last Name

  1. The Import ISIR Process first attempts to match the FSC to the student’s Institution, Campus, or Site Setup.  If the FSC does not match, the ISIR is “unmatched.”

  2. If the FSC does match, Regent Award then attempts to associate the ISIR to the student using the student’s SSN and FSC.  Note:  Regent Award utilizes the "Current SSN" field on the ISIR for matching.

  3. If the FSC matches, but the SSN does not, Regent Award then attempts to associate the ISIR to a student by matching the DOB, First Name, and Last Name. All three must match.

Matches on names sans spaces, dashes, commas and quotes. Special characters are ignored.  For example:

  • “Dan Jones, III” matches to “Dan Jones III”

  • “Ann Smith-Jones” matches to “Ann Smith Jones”

  • “Erin O'Brien” matches to “Erin O Brien” or “Erin Obrien”

Option 2: SSN + DOB + Last Name

  1. The FSC must also match the student’s Institution, Campus, or Site Setup. If the FSC does not match, the ISIR is “unmatched.”

  2. If the FSC does match, the Import ISIR Process attempts to match the ISIR to a student if the SSN,  DOB, and Last Name all match.

Option 3: SSN + DOB

  1. The FSC must also match the student’s Institution, Campus, or Site Setup. If the FSC does not match, the ISIR is “unmatched.”

  2. If the FSC does match, the Import ISIR Process attempts to match the ISIR to a student if the SSN and DOB each match.

Creating Students through ISIR Process

During the Import ISIR process, users have the option to select, “Create student if s/he doesn’t exist.”

If the process executes with this option enabled (selected), Regent Award creates the student record if the imported ISIR record does not match to an already existing student record. If the option is not selected, unmatched ISIRs are put into a staging queue to be matched to a student at a later time. The ISIR must also contain the FSC of the Institution the student is being created in.

  • The feature will only create students that did not match to the imported ISIRs.

  • The feature creates a student record even if it cannot match the ISIR, but the student record is always created at the “Default” Site for the Campus chosen when the ISIR file is imported.

  • The Federal School Code Matching Option at the Site level Only ("Match ISIR to Student's Site level FSC" is set to "Yes") does not apply to the "Create Student from ISIR" feature.