Release	Release 4.3.1.0
Release Date
Document Updated	27 Apr 2018 COMPLETE

Executive Summary

Regent Education is pleased to announce Release 4.3.1.0 of the Regent Award Enterprise Financial Aid Management System.

This release addresses product defects as listed in the “Bugs” section below, and also enhancements including:

Display of Loan Period IDs in several key Regent Award screens,
ISIR match option for clients wanting the Federal School Code match to be at the Site level,
Improved updates of ISIR transaction numbers at COD, and
Enhanced Student Awards Portal usability items.

Enhancements

The following enhancements are included in this release:

Key	Functional Area	Release Note
RS-12726	Awarding	Title: Add Regent Award Internal Loan Period ID to Program Management Wizard, Awards, Loans, and Disbursement Details Screens Tickets: RS-12726; RS-12776; RS-12777; RS-12778; RS-12779; Description: When a student has multiple loan periods with the same start and end dates, the user is unable to easily determine which loan period applies to which award. In order to assist the user in identifying the correct loan period associated with each award, the Regent Award internal loan period ID is being added to several screens: Awards Screen: New "Loan Period ID" added to the right of the Loan Period Start and End Date value in the "Analyze Loan Period" drop-down field. Loans Screen: New "Loan Period ID" added as a column to the left of the Loan Period Start and End date column in the Loans grid. Program Management Wizard (PMW): New "Loan Period ID" added to the left of the Loan Period Begin Date and Loan Period End Date columns in the Loan Period grid within the Add/Modify Student Academic Year pop-up, accessible through the PMW. The "Loan Period ID" was also added to the header of the Loan Period Advanced Edit screen. Disbursement Details Screen: New "Loan Period ID" added to the right of the Loan Period Start and End date in the Disbursement Details Screen header.
RS-12641	ISIR Processing/Verification	Title: ISIR Match to Campus Federal School Code Tickets: RS-12235; RS-12641; RS-12660; RS-12661; Description: Regent Award has been enhanced to add an additional ISIR Federal School Code matching option. The new option will ensure that the Federal School Code on the student's ISIR is a match to the Site-level federal school code associated to the Regent Award Site that the student is attending. For more details, please see the Regent Award User Guide topic ISIR Matching Logic. The new option is "Match ISIR to Student's Site level FSC" and is available on Institution Setup under "ISIR Settings." This field has a default value of "No" so as to not impact existing customer ISIR import functionality.
RS-13124	Packaging	Title: Updated 2018-2019 Pell Schedules Tickets: RS-13124; Description: To accommodate the Annual Regulatory Updates for processing Pell Grants, Regent Award has been updated with the 2018-2019 Pell Grant Schedule as issued in the April 10, 2018 Dear Colleague Letter "GEN-18-04: REVISED 2018-2019 Federal Pell Grant Payment and Disbursement Schedules."
RS-12692	Packaging	Title: Updating a COD Award's ISIR Transaction Number Tickets: RS-3735; RS-12692; RS-12709; Description In release 4.2.2.0, Regent Award was enhanced to ensure appropriate updates are made to a COD award's ISIR (CPS) Transaction Number when required. The ISIR Transaction Number is listed in the COD export file as “CPS Transaction Number” which is an Award level element. The enhancement affected Pell, TEACH, and Direct Loans (Sub, Unsub, Parent PLUS, GradPLUS). An internal review found a gap in the previously implemented feature. Regent Award would not update the CPS Transaction number on a fully paid Pell award that was subsequently reduced. That gap has been addressed in the 4.3.1.0 release. The following criteria determine if a COD reported award’s (Pell, TEACH, Sub, Unsub, Grad PLUS, and PLUS) ISIR Transaction # is updated to the current Active ISIR: Award does not have an ISIR Transaction # at all. When a new ISIR transaction is made Active, update COD with the new transaction number for all affected awards if the award is not fully paid, regardless of whether or not the award amount changed or any transactions are being processed at the time. If a Direct Loan or TEACH award has been partially paid and is then reduced, do not update the ISIR transaction number. Once an award has been fully paid, do not update the ISIR transaction number at COD unless one of the following conditions occur: A Direct Loan or TEACH award that was fully paid, but has since had an additional positive transaction. A Pell award that was fully paid, but has since had an additional positive transaction. A Pell award that was fully paid, but has since had a negative transaction. Note that Regent awards 0 EFC Pell for Pell-eligible IASG-eligible students. If the IASG-eligible student is not Pell eligible, the FA User must use the Add Award Wizard (AAW) to make the IASG award and, per COD guidance, subsequently originate and pay the IASG award at COD on the Web. See the Regent Award User Guide topic Updating the ISIR Transaction Number of an Award .
RS-12631	Packaging	Title: Wisconsin Grant Ruleset Update for Eligibility Requirements Ticket: RS-12631; Description: The Wisconsin Grant rule set has been updated to remove the "Clean ISIR" requirement from the eligibility conditions in order to prevent the Wisconsin Grant awards that have been previously awarded from being canceled and refunded erroneously. Upon awarding, Regent Award checks for a valid Active ISIR (non-blank EFC) and open documents and/or tasks configured to block packaging for the Wisconsin State Grant. If the student does not have a valid (non-blank EFC) Active ISIR or has open documents and/or tasks configured to block packaging for Wisconsin State Grant, the Wisconsin Grant will be blocked from packaging. For more information on Wisconsin State Grant, see the User Guide topic Wisconsin Grant - Private Non-Profit (WG-PNP)
RS-12020	Packaging	Title: Regent Award will not Cancel and Recreate Paid Loans Tickets: RS-12020; RS-12675; RS-12679; RS-12680; RS-12690; Description: Some Term-based loans were unexpectedly canceled when their enrollments were removed. The system unexpectedly moved the loans to a new Federal Award Year. The issue occurred in an older version of Regent Award after course data was inadvertently removed from terms with paid loan disbursements. When Regent Award moved the loans to a different loan period, the system detected a non-matching Federal Award Year on the loan period and canceled the paid loans. New logic, implemented in this release, will no longer cancel-and-recreate a loan if the loan is already paid. In addition, some related changes were made to Regent Award wizards. In Modify Award Wizard (MAW), the user can now edit any nonzero disbursement. Disbursements can be edited even if they are currently outside the BBAY or Loan Period dates. Another change was made in the Program Management Wizard (PMW). If a school needs to preserve the original Academic Year (AY) dates for a disbursement on a non-enrolled term, a school can create a Manual AY in the PMW. Staff can add the additional terms to the Manual AY and mark them with the "Overlap" flag to maintain the correct BBAY length for the AY. Regent Award will not create any awards in the overlapping terms. Regent Award displays the overlapping terms as "Historic" on the Academic Plan.
RS-12471	SAP	Title: Inherit SAP Status for terms marked as Autowithdrawn or Actual-None Tickets: RS-11909; RS-12471; RS-12485; RS-12486; RS-12487; RS-12488; RS-12505; Description: Regent Award has been enhanced with a configurable option for term and non-standard term programs, that will allow for a prior term’s SAP status to be inherited to a term that would not otherwise have SAP calculated. The new configurable option, “Inherit SAP for Unattempted Periods,” has been added to the SAP Setup screen, and is available for payment period based SAP policies only. When this option is enabled, Regent Award will inherit the SAP status from a prior term if the current term meets the following criteria: The term has not received a SAP status (Manually, SIS Provided, or Calculated) AND A SAP node containing a Cumulative GPA has NOT been provided via the SBL, for the term. The term has no attempted units AND The term is marked with an enrollment status of "Autowithdrawn" or "Actual - None" It is not recommended that a school set both "Perpetuate PP-level SAP Status" and "Inherit SAP for Unattempted Periods" to a value of "Yes," but instead, should set only one of these two settings to a value of "Yes." For more information about this new feature, see SAP Setup - Admin Guide 4.1.0.0.
RS-12968	Student Portal (SNAP)	Title: Improved Student Portal Loan Acceptance Messaging Tickets: RS-12968; Description: To provide clarity on the requirement that the students must accept all offered Subsidized loans prior to accepting any Unsubsidized loans, Regent has improved the verbiage on the Award page of the Student Portal for Unsubsidized loans under the Actions column. The previous message "You must accept your full amount available Subsidized loan amount before accepting Unsubsidized loans." has been updated to "Before you accept any Unsubsidized loan funds, make sure you have accepted all available Subsidized loan amounts."
RS-12720	Student Portal (SNAP)	Title: Student Portal - Update Award Details Design Ticket: RS-12720; Description: The Regent Student Portal has been enhanced to improve usability as follows: The “Back” button in the top right corner of the screen has been relabeled to "Home" on all portlets. This update more accurately reflects the actual action associated with the button, which is to return to the Student Portal Home Page. The green message banner has been removed and replaced with plain text on the Award Details page. A system message “Your award changes are currently being processed and should be available shortly. Click this message to refresh the page or return later.” was updated to “Your award changes are currently being processed and should be available shortly. Click the Refresh button below to refresh the page or click Home to return later.” A “Refresh” button has been added to the “My Awards” page below the above-mentioned message that will reload the Award Details page.
RS-12349	Student Portal (SNAP)	Title: New Configuration Option to Limit Student Updates to Parent PLUS Loans Tickets: RS-12349; Description: By default, Regent will now prevent students from accepting or updating Parent PLUS loans in the Student Portal. This configuration option can be overridden by submitting a request to Regent.
RS-12152	Student Portal (SNAP)	Title: Improved Student Portal Error Messaging Tickets: RS-12152; Description: Regent has improved messaging to students in the Student Portal to help the workflow of issue reporting and allow better visibility into issues from both the school and Regent perspective. The previous message "An application error has occurred and has been reported to technical support. No further action is required on your part, please allow some time for the issue to be resolved." has been replaced with "An application error has occurred - please contact your financial aid office for assistance."
RS-12678	Tasks	Title: New Task: Review Paid Disbursement on Unenrolled Payment Period Tickets: RS-12678; Description: Regent Award has been enhanced with a new Task: "Review Paid Disbursement on Unenrolled Payment Period." The Task is triggered during packaging if all of the following apply: Payment Period enrollment status is "Autowithdrawn" Payment Period has a paid, non-zero disbursement Payment period has no course data The Task can be useful for finding potentially incorrect course data or awards needing adjustment. For example, if a term-based student accidentally has all their term's courses incorrectly changed to Transfer courses, then the Task would identify that term for potential data corrections or cleanup. A school could also use the Task to find any payment periods where a student has retroactively withdrawn and might no longer be eligible for the paid awards. For example, a fund might be configured to not auto-adjust paid disbursements. If a student was incorrectly paid for a payment period, and their course data was later updated with withdrawal dates before the PP start date, then the Task would help a school find those incorrect disbursements. The Task triggers for any funds with a paid disbursement, including non-COD funds. The Task triggers only once per payment period. If a Task already exists for a payment period, in any state, then the Task does not retrigger for the same payment period. The Task also does not trigger for any AY0 awards.
RS-12606	Technical Design	Title: Personally Identifiable Information removed from some Activity Log and Process Log Entries Tickets: RS-12606; Description: Personally identifiable information (PII) is any data that could potentially identify a specific individual (e.g. student name, Social Security Number or partial SSN). Going forward, Regent Award will not record PII data in messages for new entries logged by the following processes. Student Activity Log Entries ISIR Import Student created/updated ISIR manually made active COD Rebuild Import/Processing Duplicate student matches RNA Persistence Created/updated/packaged/repackaged academic plan Validation errors COD Import CS response files NSLDS Import Imported data NSLDS Export Exported NSLDS Inform file SBL Student created/updated Repeat/Remedial course imports SSN matches another student with a different externalId1, previously matched via SSN Ready to Package (Export) Student exported Import Award Imported award and disbursement data Process Log Messages ISIR Import Duplicate ISIR loaded COD Rebuild Import No matching student found RNA Persistence Data not valid for persistence SBL Import Provided SSN matches another student with a different External ID, matched via SSN Student PII data was replaced by the student's externalId1. In rare cases if the student's externalId1 does not exist, the system substitutes the Regent Award internal studentId.

Bugs

The following bugs are resolved in this release:

Key	Functional Area	Release Note
RS-12857	Awarding	Problem: A school had a policy to only award Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant (SEOG) to students with a zero Estimated Family Contributions (EFC). A couple students had non-zero EFC values. When those students were packaged, Regent Award unexpectedly created SEOG awards for the non-zero EFC students. Cause: The packaging engine has a "what-if" check to consider potential zero-EFC Pell Grant awards in latter-Federal Award Year (FAY) crossover terms. The code unexpectedly failed to reset the EFC to the ISIR's EFC value after the what-if check. Fix: The logic was corrected to reapply the ISIR EFC value when packaging each payment period. Testing: Package a student who has a Pell Grant and who has a non-zero EFC value on the ISIR. Regent Award should not create any SEOG awards for the student. Package another student who has a zero EFC and is eligible for SEOG. Regent Award should award the student with a Federal Supplemental Grant.
RS-12676	Awarding	Problem: Some term-based students had their Year-Round Pell (YRP) awards unexpectedly reduced or canceled. The students had dropped courses after the term census date. Cause: The Year-Round Pell calculation was unexpectedly using a current enrollment level, instead of the census enrollment level. Fix: The Year-Round Pell awarding logic was corrected to use the census enrollment level. Testing: Navigate to an affected student who had dropped courses after the term census date. Repackage the student. Regent Award should restore the correct Year-Round Pell amount based on the enrollment level at census.
RS-12369	Awarding	Problem: Some term Graduate students had unexpectedly low TEACH awards for their enrollment levels. Cause: Regent Award unexpectedly awarded TEACH for graduate students using a hard-coded system Pell enrollment level, instead of the configured Graduate enrollment levels in Enrollment Level Setup. Fix: The logic for TEACH was adjusted to use the configured enrollment levels from Enrollment Level Setup and each Program's configured Terms/Enrollment levels. Testing: Use a school that awards TEACH grants. Test with a student in a TEACH-eligible graduate program. Using Add Award Wizard, add TEACH for a student with a term matching the graduate full-time enrollment level, and a term enrolled at the graduate three-quarter-time enrollment level. Regent Award should award the correct TEACH amounts for the actual enrollment levels.
RS-11438	COD	Problem: Students were getting an unexpectedly high number of disbursements which caused COD Reject Code 996. This issue occurred for students in a specific data scenario when the current or next occurring terms on the academic plan were anticipated (not backed by course data) and terms future of those anticipated terms were actual (backed by course data). Cause: Each time the student was packaged, Regent Award added and removed anticipated terms to/from the academic plan. Each time this occurred, new disbursement records were created, and then moved to another term on the academic plan when the term they were originally created on was removed. This was causing an excessive number of disbursements. Fix: The code was updated to ensure that Regent Award can properly account for future actual terms and reconcile the student's academic plan correctly without the constant creation and removal of terms or the creation of extra disbursements. Testing: Package the affected students. Anticipated terms will remain on the academic plan and no new disbursements will be created.
RS-12561	Communications	Problem: Duplicated communication Process IDs were unexpectedly displayed in the Process Log after running the Generate Communications Process. Cause: Communication processes take some time to complete. During this time, some browsers (Internet Explorer / FireFox / Chrome) could send repeat post/submit events to the server. This caused duplicated processes to be executed. Fix: To prevent duplicate processes from executing, the Regent Award client and server sides were updated. On the client side, the browser prevents sending duplicate "submit" events to the server. On the server side, a given Process ID will run until it is finished, and other "submit" requests from same client session will be ignored. Testing: Generate a communication from the Processes menu (e.g. ACTC - Missing Information Letter). Only one process will be performed per communication generated.
RS-12397	Enrollment	Problem: At a SAY school, configured for the Summer term to be a Trailer, some term students had multiple overlapping Academic Years (AY) in the same Federal Award Year (FAY). The Academic Year dates for their Summer loans were also incorrect when reported to COD. Cause: Regent Award had previously created historic terms for some non-enrolled terms in SAY Academic Years. When the students later added courses in those terms, the system accidentally created duplicate terms and could not link the correct, non-historic term to a loan period. Fix: When Regent Award sets the first term in a partial-AY loan period, the system uses the first term that has a positive loan disbursement. If the Academic Plan already contained a Historic term, but the student now has course data for that term, the system removes the duplicated, Historic term and links the awards to the non-Historic version of the term. For non-standard term BBAY programs, Regent Award will not exceed the number of non-standard terms in the BBAY Academic Year. Testing: Package an affected SAY student. Review the student's Academic Years on the Academic Plan screen. The dates should not overlap. Each FAY should have only one SAY Academic Year. Check the Loans tab. The Academic Year Begin and End dates should always include the standard terms in the SAY at a minimum, and should also include the Summer terms if the loan has a non-zero Summer disbursement.
RS-349	Enrollment	Problem: The Census Date field on the Awards Tab was not populated with any data. The school is not using the student-level Census feature. However, whether a school is using the student-level census feature or not, the "Census Date" field on the Awards Tab should populate with the correct census date for the student (which would be the census date configured on Term Setup for schools not using the student-level census feature). Cause: The calculated census date (which is ultimately the census date for the student whether it be the term-level census date or a student-level census date) was not always being set properly, and therefore, the field was not always populated. Fix: Explicitly set the calculated census date when applying course enrollments. Testing: Navigate to an affected student. Package the student. Confirm that the Census Date field on the Awards Tab is now populated for the student.
RS-12913	EST/Disbursements	Problem: A term-based school was configured as "Allow Packaging to Move Paid Disbursements" equal to "No." Regent Award blocked packaging for students and provided the following packaging error, Error validating plan - the payment period on paid disbursement...was moved from the original pp (Removed Payment Period Id[])... Cause: When Regent Award checked to see which terms should be included in the Academic Plan, some terms were removed. The disbursements referenced in the error message were linked to those removed terms. Fix: The code was updated to allow Regent Award to restore a term to the Academic Plan if the term has a paid disbursement. Testing: Test with a school configured to not allow Regent Award to move paid disbursements: on Institution Setup ("Allow Packaging to Move Paid Disbursements" must be set to "No"). Repackage the affected students who previously had the Batch Packaging error above. The students should now package without error. The paid disbursements should stay on their original terms.
RS-12604	ISIR Processing/Verification	Problem: The ISIR screen was unexpectedly showing currency fields in plain text format. Cause: The lookup tables containing ISIR column formatting information did not contain currency formats for the 2017-2018 ISIR field layout. Fix: The lookup tables were updated to include currency format for the appropriate ISIR columns for the 2017-2018 ISIR field layout. Testing: Open the ISIR screen and verify that the appropriate fields are displayed using a currency format. For example, $234.32 instead of "0023432."
RS-12824	Packaging	Problem: Upon initial award creation, Year-Round Pell awards are being calculated incorrectly for students. Cause: The non-Year Round Pell (YRP) portion of the award is not being taken into account causing Year Round Pell to be added to the student's academic plan in excess of their actual eligibility. Fix: Regent Award is now properly accounting for the already awarded non-Year Round Pell amounts. Testing: Package a student that does not have a 2018-2019 ISIR in Regent Award and confirm that the student's 2018-2019 Pell award is correct.
RS-12749	Packaging	Problem: The Wisconsin State Grant (WG-PNP) recalculation was incorrect upon a change in the student's enrollment level. In addition, $1 was being shifted from unpaid to paid disbursements during each subsequent packaging run. Cause: The ruleset for the WG-PNP award was not rounding the result of Step 6 of the formula to the nearest dollar. Please refer to WG-PNP formula. Moreover, the incorrectly calculated amount was then being applied to disbursements incorrectly. Fix: Updated the WG-PNP Rule Set to round the result of Step 6 of the formula from cents to dollars. Corrected the custom rounding methodology to account for already rounded (and paid) disbursements and prevent the incorrect reduction of subsequent disbursements. Testing: After WG-PNP has been awarded and paid, change the student's enrollment level to ensure correct awarding. Repackage the student multiple times to ensure the awarding does not change.
RS-12704	Packaging	Problem: Regent Award tracks disbursements from the first 100% of the Pell award, separate from disbursements of the additional 50% Pell award granted by the new Year-Round Pell (YRP) regulation. YRP disbursements are scheduled using the Pell Disbursement Schedule Setup and are flagged with a “YRP” icon on the Disbursement Details screen. This separate tracking allows the school to clearly see the portion of Pell that is being awarded for the additional 50% portion, as well as allows Regent Award to track the separate eligibility requirement that the student must be enrolled at least half-time in the payment periods in which YRP is being awarded. In this issue, paid rebuild Pell disbursements were being canceled and recreated as Year-Round Pell disbursements. Cause: Regent Award could not reconcile the rebuild Pell disbursements that exceeded 100% of the student's Pell award, as YRP. During packaging, Regent Award correctly determined that the student is not eligible for the standard Pell amounts provided on the rebuild award; however, it was unable to flag the existing disbursements as YRP. Therefore, the system canceled the original disbursements and created brand new YRP disbursements that it is able to maintain. Fix: The system was updated to add the capability to evaluate the rebuild Pell disbursements as YRP, and flag the disbursements as such if appropriate, without canceling and recreating the disbursements. Testing: Import a student with a paid rebuild Pell disbursement that is entirely awarded from the additional 50% Pell eligibility allowed with Year-Round Pell. Package the student and confirm that the disbursement is left in place and the "YRP" designation is added to the disbursement (seen on the Disbursement Details screen).
RS-12681	Packaging	Problem: When packaging a student, the student was receiving a packaging error message for Gen-13-13 for a non-Title IV award. Cause: The specific Gen-13-13 blocking message was being returned for all types of awards, including non-Title IV. Fix: Filtered Gen-13-13 blocking messages for non-Title IV loans. Testing: Repackage any students who were receiving Gent 13-13 blocking messages and confirm that they are no longer receiving those message.
RS-3619	Program Change	Problem: At a school configured to automatically award grade-level progression, a BBAY term student had unexpected loan amounts. The amounts were unevenly distributed across the terms in the Academic Year (AY). The student was auto withdrawn in the first term of a 3-term AY, and had a grade-level increase in the final term in the AY. Cause: The school was configured to anchor the BBAY until reaching the term's Auto Withdraw Date. Regent Award unexpectedly assigned the non-enrolled, anchoring term to a loan period. The anchoring term had reached its Begin Actual Date but was before the term's Auto Withdraw Date. When Regent Award checked the loan eligibility for each term in the loan period, the system miscounted the number of eligible terms. The system also unexpectedly did not include the correct eligible term in a single-term loan's Grade Level increase. Fix: Corrected the logic for counting the number of terms in a loan period when the anchoring term in a BBAY is unenrolled and ineligible for loans. Additionally, Regent Award has improved logic for counting terms and checking loan eligibility in partial-AY loan periods for grade-level progression loans. Testing: Navigate to an affected student. Make sure the loans are non-manual and cover a current or future loan period. Package the student. View the amounts on the loans. For loans unrelated to grade level, the loan amounts should be distributed evenly across the terms in the loan period. Any grade-level related loan amounts should be evenly distributed across only the terms with the higher grade level. Check the Financial Award dates on the Loans tab. Each loan's Financial Award dates should only include terms having non-zero loan disbursements.
RS-12874	R2T4	Problem: A student had an R2T4 with a partial Pell amount refunded. When the student was packaged, Regent Award unexpectedly created an additional Year Round Pell (YRP) disbursement. The new YRP disbursement equaled the refunded Pell amount. Cause: Regent Award was not considering the R2T4-adjusted Pell amounts when packaging Year Round Pell. Fix: Regent Award checks for a finalized R2T4 in a payment period. If a finalized R2T4 exists, any Year Round Pell amount totals are set based on the resultant R2T4 calculations. Testing: Package a student who has an R2T4 resulting in a refunded Pell amount. Regent Award should keep the Pell amount at the same R2T4 recalculated amount. Regent Award should not create any extra Year Round Pell disbursements. Any preexisting, erroneous YRP disbursements should be canceled for that payment period.
RS-8762	SAP	Problem: Several hundred term students had disbursements unexpectedly blocked by error EST-0057, SAP status prevents release. The students had a Satisfactory or otherwise payable SAP status for their previous terms. Cause: Some students had inconsistent or incorrect SAP records in the system. Fix: The SAP Wizard screen was updated to better handle SAP records when the system can not link a SAP record to a payment period. In addition, a cleanup script was created to fix one student with incorrect payment period data. Testing: Navigate to an affected student. Package the student. Confirm the student has a Satisfactory or otherwise payable SAP status for the previous term. Import a new satisfactory SAP record for the previous SAP review period, with a more recent SAP date. Run SAP in the SAP Wizard and confirm the system correctly processed the new SAP record. Export Student Transactions or run an Expected EST for the current term. In the EST output, the disbursements should successfully export without causing EST error 0057.

Keywords: 4.3.1.0, 4.3.1, R4.3.1.0, R4.3.1, R4.3.1.0 Release Notes

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