Florida State Scholarship Programs

The state of Florida administers several state grant and scholarship programs through the Florida Office of Student Financial Assistance (OFSA). To award OSFA scholarships at a Regent school, the school must configure one or more Funds in Fund Setup, corresponding to each scholarship/grant program offered at the school. The Bright Futures funds need additional configuration, including Document Setup. Florida Bright Futures funds use the Master Eligibility List (MEL), a state-issued roster of eligible students. For more information about the specific Funds that Regent supports, see Florida State Funds - Bright Futures and FSAG.

Versions

Florida is supported for Regent Award, Regent Enterprise Management (REM) Release 6.8.0.0 and later.  To view version information, open a Web browser and access the main StudentX URL for the environment, with /version added onto the end. For example: 

https://YourUniversityStudentXURLHere.YourUniversity.edu/version

Smart Form

Bright Futures automation relies on centralized roster data. Data from the Florida Master Eligibility List (“MEL”) is imported on a Regent Smart Form. Regent Award needs the ‘Florida Smart Form Master Eligibility List’ deployed and active for each FAY for MEL data records. For example, if the school is importing an MEL file containing 2023-2024 and 2024-2025 data, the school needs to configure two, separate, active Smart Forms, one each for 2023-2024 and 2024-2025.

• 2023-2024 Florida Master Eligibility List

• 2024-2025 Florida Master Eligibility List

Script to Create Smart Forms: Smart Forms are created with a deployment script. The SQL script (ending in “.sql”) needs to be deployed using the UTF-8 option, against the SNAP database. Use the following text for the Regent Cloud Operations (IT Ops) request ticket: "Please run the attached scripts against the SNAP database for {Customer Instance} using the UTF-8 option. When the script is finished executing please RDP into the SNAP VM and recycle SNAP API application pool in IIS (brief outage) to refresh the SNAP cache."

Note: Students will stay logged in during the Smart Form script deployment. Cycling the SNAP API application pool will not remove students from the Student Experience portal. The Portal does not need to be in maintenance mode to deploy the Smart Form scripts.

When the Smart Form questionnaire is deployed, the Smart Form will be visible under the Questionnaires sections of the Versions page, such as the following:

Azure Data Factory

Regent technical staff will generally prepare the Azure Data Factory configuration on behalf of the school. For schools using Florida funds, some Florida fund-specific and document-specific items need to be configured. The Data Factory Pipeline will import data from the MEL, then store the MEL data on a configured Smart Form Student Document Requirement for each supported Fund. More information about Regent’s Data Factory Pipeline is at: Data Pipeline Import/Export Processes

    "applicationId": "REM_UNIQUE_ENVIRONMENT_SPECIFIC_INFO",   /* Set by Regent */
    "institutionId": 1,      /* Set by Regent */
    "institutionExternalId": "00123400",      /* External Institution ID from Institution Setup */
    "stateFunds": {
		"florida": {
			"doeInstitutionCode": "012",  /* 3-digit Florida State Dept. of Ed. Institution Code, Post-Secondary Institution ID; first 3 chars on MEL */
			"masterEligiblityListLoad": {
				"documentStatus": "SATISFIED",
				"programCodeDocExternalIdMap": [
					{ "programCode": "BFATS", "documentExternalId": "FLMELBFATS" },
					{ "programCode": "BFFAS", "documentExternalId": "FLMELBFFAS" },  /* Automated - Bright Futures FL Academic Scholars */
					{ "programCode": "BFFMS", "documentExternalId": "FLMELBFFMS" },  /* Automated - Bright Futures FL Medallion Scholars */ 
					{ "programCode": "BFGSC", "documentExternalId": "FLMELBFGSC" },  /* Automated - Bright Futures Gold Seal CAPE Scholars */
					{ "programCode": "BFGSV", "documentExternalId": "FLMELBFGSV" },  /* Automated - Bright Futures Gold Seal CAPE Vocational Scholars */
					{ "programCode": "CDDV", "documentExternalId":"FLMELCDDV" },
					{ "programCode": "FFMT", "documentExternalId": "FLMELFFMT" },
					{ "programCode": "FFSS", "documentExternalId": "FLMELFFSS" },    
					{ "programCode": "FGMG", "documentExternalId": "FLMELFGMG" },  
					{ "programCode": "FIS", "documentExternalId": "FLMELFIS" },  
					{ "programCode": "FRAG", "documentExternalId": "FLMELFRAG" },  
					{ "programCode": "FSAGCE", "documentExternalId": "FLMELFSAGCE" },  
					{ "programCode": "FWEP", "documentExternalId": "FLMELFWEP" },  
					{ "programCode": "HDGAP", "documentExternalId": "FLMELHDGAP" },  
					{ "programCode": "JM", "documentExternalId": "FLMELJM" },  
					{ "programCode": "LEASP", "documentExternalId": "FLMELLEASP" },  
					{ "programCode": "MMB", "documentExternalId": "FLMELMMB" },  
					{ "programCode": "OCOE", "documentExternalId": "FLMELOCOE" }, 
					{ "programCode": "BAAMS", "documentExternalId": "FLMELBAAMS" }, 
					{ "programCode": "RFS", "documentExternalId": "FLMELRFS" }    
				]
			}
		},

Configuring Regent Award

As always, please work closely with your Regent Account Manager and/or Delivery Services implementation team to coordinate any configuration changes to environments.

Fund Setup

Each Florida scholarship program needs one or more associated Funds configured in Fund Setup. Schools must configure the Florida fund before awarding from that fund in Regent. If a fund is not properly configured, Regent cannot process that fund in the Florida export reports.

To meet specific awarding needs, a school can configure multiple Fund Setup configurations for the same Florida fund. The ‘Agency Program ID’ for each configured Fund must match the Florida scholarship program/type code.

• For example, a school might award different students with different amounts for the Bright Futures Florida Medallion Scholarship (BFFMS), depending on whether the student is an Associate of Arts program or a Bachelor’s program. The school would configure separate Funds in Fund Setup, each with the same ‘Agency Program ID’ value of BFFMS. Then, each Fund would be configured with specific selected programs on the ‘Programs’ sub-tab under Fund Setup.

  • Reminder: Whenever a school has multiple Funds configured, each Fund needs to be linked to a Disbursement Schedule, and each instance of a Fund needs individually prioritized in the Packaging Philosophy. To prevent double awarding, schools are reminded to carefully configure the selected programs or sites to not overlap with another fund.

Fund Setup is found at: Institution → Campus Setup → Fund Setup. For additional information, see main CZ KB article: Fund Setup Data Elements

Agency Program ID

Regent primarily identifies Florida funds using the ‘Agency Program ID’ field in Fund Setup. Regent can process the following Florida scholarship/grant program type codes: BFATS, BFFAS, BFFMS, BFGSC, BFGSV, CDDV, FFMT, FFSS, FGMG, FIS, FRAG, FSAG, FSAGCE, FWEP, HDGAP, JM, LEASP, MMB, OCOE, RFS. Fund types in bold (BFFAS, BFFMS, BFGSC, BFGSV, and FSAG) are supported for automated packaging in Regent. Other Florida funds have limited support, to allow processing funds in Florida exports. For a full list of funds, see Florida State Funds - Bright Futures and FSAG.

The school must configure the fund’s ‘Agency Program ID’ value to match the value of the scholarship/grant’s Florida program code. For example, the ‘Florida Bright Futures - Academic Scholars’ scholarship has a Florida program code of “BFFAS.” The corresponding Regent fund needs a value of ‘BFFAS’ configured in the fund’s ‘Agency Program ID’ in Fund Setup. If the state determines a student is eligible for the Florida Academic Scholars, the student will appear as a row on the Master Eligibility List roster with “BFFAS” for the Florida program code.

Amount Per Payment Period

Bright Futures

Bright Futures funds use a per-unit amount. Amounts can be FAY-specific, school-specific, and potentially program-specific. For the automated Florida Bright Futures funds, schools must configure the ‘Amount Per Payment Period’ for each FAY to award the correct amount per unit in each term, per the OSFA policy for their school. Automated Bright Futures funds are BFFAS, BFFMS, BFGSC, BFGSV.

In the following example for BFFAS, a school is configured with a hypothetical amount per unit of $121.33 and a minimum Half Time enrollment. When configuring the Amount per Payment Period, a school should not configure any values in the other ‘Amount Per Payment Period’ settings. Leave the other fields in that row blank. The automated Florida rules will disregard those other settings.

Example ‘Amount Per Payment Period’ configuration for “Bright Futures - Florida Academic Scholars fund (BFFAS)” fund:

FSAG

FSAG uses a flat amount per payment period. Amounts can be FAY-specific, school-specific, and potentially program-specific. Each term’s FSAG amount depends on the term’s enrollment level.

The FSAG amounts need to be configured according to the school’s agreement with OSFA. Some Public Florida universities can award for Half-Time (6 units), Three Quarter Time (9 units), and Full Time (12+ units). Other FSAG-eligible institutions may award FSAG for a Full Time enrollment level (12 units).

Example ‘Amount Per Payment Period’ configuration for Florida Student Assistance Grant (FSAG), for a public Florida two-year college:

Other Fund Setup Settings

Other Fund Setup settings may affect awarding. These settings need to be changed for all Florida funds, including FSAG, Bright Futures, and other non-automated Florida funds.

• Fund Scope and Budget Scope: Federal Award Year.

• Alternative FAY Schedule: Jul 01 - Jun 30.

• Prorate Distribution Amounts: No/unchecked (allows awarding in Summer terms)

• Exclude Header and Trailers: Unselected/unchecked (allows awarding in Summer terms)

• Non-Need-Based Fund Used to Replace SAI:

  • For the automated Bright Futures funds, set to selected/checked because the automated Bright Futures scholarships are not need-based.

  • For FSAG, set to unselected/unchecked, because FSAG is a need-based award.

Optional Settings

• ‘Allow Auto-Adjustment of Paid Disbursements:' Set to either Yes or No depending on the school’s policy.

  • If students can generally keep paid overawards, then set to Yes. If a paid amount should be reduce, set to No.

• Begin and Cease Auto-Packaging Settings: Set to enable or disable auto-packaging from a specific FAY for a date range.

  • For example, a school might want to disable auto-packaging of new awards when the school is submitting the final reports to the state for that FAY.

Overview

This page gives an introduction to configuring Regent Award to use Florida state funds for the first time. These instructions assume the reader is already familiar with changing configuration settings in Regent Award, and has full administrator permissions.

Florida State Funds are funded through the state of Florida, Office of Student Financial Assistance. Centralized funds, such as the Bright Futures scholarships, have eligibility determined by the state. Florida sends a Master Eligibility List or "roster" listing students and their eligible scholarship(s). Separately, the Florida Student Assistance Grant (FSAG) is a decentralized fund. For FSAG, the school determines eligible students, and the state reimburses eligible students.

As of the 6.8.0.0 release (Summer 2024), Regent Award can support selected popular Florida funds, for Scheduled Academic Year (SAY) calendars only. BBAY and nonterm / clock-hour programs are not supported.

Getting Started

Schools are strongly urged to do extensive testing and ensure their configuration will work as desired. The ideal testing would use actual roster data and actual student data in a test environment with the same configuration settings as production.

Schools will need to:

1. Have access to test environments

   1. For ease of testing, Regent suggests using a "time machine" environment that can change the server date.

2. Deploy or upgrade to Regent Award 6.8.0.0 Release or a subsequent Release

3. Ensure the administrator (user account) has a Role with applicable Permissions to change Campus Setup configuration settings

4. Configure Smart Forms

5. Configure Regent Award for:

   1. Fund Setup

   2. Document Setup

   3. Packaging Philosophy

   4. Task Setup

   5. Disbursement Schedule Setup

   6. User-Defined Fields, aka Institutionally Defined Data (optional)

6. Provide SIS-provided information sent on SBL

   1. Ethnicity

   2. UDF

   3. SAP records

7. Configure Data Pipelines and settings for Florida data values

8. Test functionality

9. Copy configuration settings to the new environment

   1. Reconfigure Data Factory

Table of Contents

Florida State Scholarship Programs

The state of Florida administers several state grant and scholarship programs through the Florida Office of Student Financial Assistance (OFSA). To award OSFA scholarships at a Regent school, the school must configure a Fund for each scholarship/grant program. A Regent school may configure one or more Florida funds in Regent under Campus Setup, in Fund Setup. Each Fund corresponds to a specific Florida state scholarship/grant program type. For much more information about the specific Funds that Regent supports, see Florida State Funds - Bright Futures and FSAG.

Versions

Florida is supported for Regent Enterprise Management (REM) Release 6.8.0.0 or later.  To view version information, open a Web browser and access the main StudentX URL, with /version added onto the end. For example: 
https://frederickcollegestudentxlocal.frederickcollege.edu/version

Smart Form

Data from the Florida Master Eligibility List (“MEL”) is imported via a Regent Smart Form. Regent Award needs the ‘Florida Smart Form Master Eligibility List’ deployed and active for the FAY. 

• 2023-2024 Florida Master Eligibility List

• 2024-2025 Florida Master Eligibility List

Is this an accurate description of “deploying the Smart Form”? I adapted it from the VWS and Regent Access Deployment wikis.

The SQL script (ending in “.sql”) needs to be deployed using the UTF-8 option, against the SNAP database. Use the following text for the Ops Request ticket: "Please run the attached scripts against the SNAP database for {Customer Instance} using the UTF-8 option. When the script is finished executing please RDP into the SNAP VM and recycle SNAP API application pool in IIS (brief outage) to refresh the SNAP cache."

Note: Recycling SNAP API application pool will not remove students from the Student Experience portal. The Portal does not need to be in maintenance mode to deploy the Smart Form.

When the Smart Form questionnaire is deployed, the Smart Form will be visible under the Questionnaires, such as the following:

Configuring Regent Award

As always, please work closely with your Regent Account Manager and/or Delivery Services implementation team to coordinate any configuration changes to environments.

Fund Setup

Each Florida scholarship program needs one or more associated Funds configured in Fund Setup. Schools must configure the Florida fund before awarding from that fund in Regent. If a fund is not properly configured, Regent cannot process that fund in the Florida export reports.

Fund Setup is found at: Institution → Campus Setup → Fund Setup. For additional information, see main CZ KB article: Fund Setup Data Elements

Agency Program ID

Regent primarily identifies Florida funds using the fund’s ‘Agency Program ID’ field in Fund Setup. The Florida scholarship/grant state program codes include: BFATS, BFFAS, BFFMS, BFGSC, BFGSV, CDDV, FFMT, FFSS, FGMG, FIS, FRAG, FSAG, FSAGCE, FWEP, HDGAP, JM, LEASP, MMB, OCOE, RFS. Fund types in bold are supported for automated packaging in Regent. Not all schools use all Florida fund types. If a school does not award a specific Florida scholarship program, the school does not need to configure a separate fund for that Florida program/type code. For a full list of known Florida funds, see Florida State Funds - Bright Futures and FSAG.

To support Florida awarding, a school must configure a separate fund in Regent for each Florida scholarship/grant program type in use. Each Fund’s ‘Agency Program ID’ value must match the value of its corresponding Florida state scholarship/grant’s program code. For example, the ‘Florida Bright Futures - Academic Scholars’ scholarship has a Florida program code of ‘BFFAS.’ The corresponding Fund in Regent needs to have a configured ‘Agency Program ID’ value of ‘BFFAS’ to match. A student who is eligible for the Academic Scholars award would be imported on the Master Eligibility List roster with “BFFAS” for the Florida program code.

Bright Futures: Amount Per Payment Period Configuration

For automated Florida Bright Futures funds, schools must configure the ‘Amount Per Payment Period’ settings for each FAY to award the correct amount per unit per the OSFA guidance for their school. Regent has full automation support for four Florida Bright Futures funds: BFFAS, BFFMS, BFGSC, and BFGSV. In the following example for BFFAS, a school is configured with a hypothetical amount per unit of $101.77 and a minimum Half Time enrollment. Note: When configuring the Amount per Payment Period, do not configure any values in the other settings for ‘Enrollment Units Max,’ ‘Payment Period Start Date From,’ ‘Payment Period Start Date To,’ ‘Effective Start Date,’ or ‘Effective End Date.’ The automated Florida rules will disregard those other settings. Leave those other ‘Amount Per Payment Period’ settings configured as blank for the automated funds.

FSAG-Specific Settings

For Florida Student Assistance Grant (FSAG), the Fund Setup settings will affect awarding. Regent has designed the FSAG fund rules to use the fund configuration.

General Sub-Tab

• Agency Program ID: FSAG

• Fund Scope: Federal Award Year

• Budget Scope: Federal Award Year

• Award Minimum/Maximums: Configured for the FAY

  • Min: Blank

  • Max: FAY maximum amount (set per OSFA guidance)

• Amount Per Payment Period:
  Need to configure a separate row for each FAY

  • Federal Award Year: FAY, e.g. 2024-2025

  • Flat Amount Per Payment Period: $50

  • Enrollment Status Min: HalfTime

  • Enrollment Status Max: FullTime

  • All other ‘Amount Per Payment Period’ settings, leave blank/empty

• Require At Least Half-Time Enrollment Level in All Paid Terms: In most cases, schools can leave this setting configured as No. However, a school can optionally set to Yes for some funds, such as FSAG, that mandate a half-time enrollment level. For example, a school might have a policy to not reduce paid disbursements (“Allow Auto-Adjustment of Paid Disbursements” = False), but the school still wants to deny future awards in later FAYs if a student has a term with a paid FSAG award, and the student drops to below half-time enrollment for that paid term. If a student would be otherwise eligible for FSAG in a future FAY, but the student has a previous FAY with a past paid term with below HT enrollment, the student would not be awarded for that future FAY.

  • For additional information on ‘Allow Auto-Adjustment of Paid Disbursements’ and the Campus Setup setting, ‘Attempt to Keep Paid Disbursements Unchanged'

Budgets Sub-Tab

The FSAG fund needs to be configured with a Regent “Budget” for the school’s allocation amount. FSAG is awarded by the school and then reimbursed from the state. FSAG funding is limited, so the

Document Setup

Florida funds need two sets of Documents configured in Document Setup: A Smart Form to hold the MEL information, and a Blocking Document for each Fund to prevent accidentally paying students before receiving clearance from the state of Florida.

Florida Master Eligibility List (MEL) Document Configuration

Schools must configure individual fund-specific Florida MEL documents in Document Setup, before importing the Florida Master Eligibility List (MEL). During the MEL import, Regent stores the MEL data using a Smart Form for each Florida fund and each FAY. Data is FAY-specific, and each line on the MEL roster corresponds to a different Florida fund. If a student has a Document for a Florida fund for a specific FAY, and the school imports a new MEL roster, Regent replaces the student’s Smart Form data with the updated MEL information.

Do we need to have ‘Enforce Scope Uniqueness’ selected?? Also, need to confirm the Florida Program Code is not needed in the External Document ID or Name.

Schools must create a separate Document Setup configuration for each Florida fund and each FAY. The ‘External Document ID’ must be unique for each Document and each FAY.

Document Setup must be configured with the following values:

• Smart Form Type: Use Smart Form Code

• Smart Form Code: FLMasterEligibilityList

Screenshot:

Blocking Documents

Schools may want to prevent accidentally paying a student before the state approves a payment. Schools may configure additional, fund-specific “Blocking Documents” in Document Setup. A Blocking Document is a way to apply restrictions to a student and/or fund using a Student Document Requirement. When a student has a Blocking Document assigned, and that Document Requirement is in “Needed” status, the Document can prevent certain actions from occurring. Schools may configure the Document as ’Office Use Only' to prevent students from seeing the Document on the Student Experience Portal.

For example, a school might configure a Blocking Document to Restrict Disbursements for the Bright Futures - Florida Academic Scholars award (BFFAS). When a student has that BFFAS award, but the student has the Blocking Document, the BFFAS award would still appear in their package, but Regent would prevent the fund from disbursing on the Regent “Export Student Transactions” (EST) process. If the school submitted the student to the state of Florida (e.g. in the Disbursement Eligibility Report for the term), and Florida had an “edit code” that needed to adjust the award amount, the school could manually adjust the award using the Modify Award Wizard (MAW). The school can then set the document to a “Satisfied” status, which would allow the payment to disburse.

Once a Document is configured in Document Setup, schools can assign Documents to specific students using the Document Assignment Tool. Documents may also be assigned via script, or a script can change the document status on existing documents. Please work with your Regent Account Manager or Delivery Services Team.

Packaging Philosophy Setup

Automated Florida funds must be configured in the Packaging Philosophy with ‘Auto Package’ as enabled/selected. Other Florida funds should be configured with ‘Auto-Package’ unselected. The Bright Futures - Academic Scholars should be ranked above the Bright Futures - Medallion Scholars, i.e., BFFAS should have a lower value than BFFMS in the numeric Priority field.

An example Packaging Philosophy priority list is in the following screenshot:

Task Setup

Tasks are Regent’s way of alerting schools that a student or award may need review. In most cases, schools will already have a Task enabled.

Schools are encouraged to enable the Task for “Review Eligibility Change.” For example, if a student has a Manual award from an automated fund, but the MEL loads some new data that indicates the student is not eligible, then a Regent user should confirm whether the student should still be eligible for the award.

Disbursement Schedule Setup

Each fund must be linked to a Regent Disbursement Schedule. Florida funds do not need any special configuration for Disbursement Schedules. See main article: Disbursement Schedule Setup Data Elements

User Defined Fields

Under Institution Setup, an institution may optionally configure a “User Defined Field” (UDF) to track the student’s Highest Education completed.

• UDF Field Name: Highest_Education

• Code: HIGHEST_EDUCATION

• UDF Value Field Type: Text

UDF values are sent in the “Institutionally Defined Data” on the Student Batch Load (SBL). If a student has a Highest_Education UDF with a value of either “MASTERS” or “DOCTORATE” then that student will not be awarded from Bright Futures on the SBL. All other values for that UDF will have no effect on awarding. The Highest_Education UDF name and values are not case sensitive.

Student Batch Load (SBL)

In addition to UDFs, Regent uses some specific information from the Student Information System (SIS). SIS information is provided by the Student Batch Load (SBL) process. Additional details about the Regent SBL are at Student Batch Load (SBL) and Attributes Document (SBL Data Dictionary)

Ethnicity and Race

Florida requires schools to report the Race and Ethnicity of Florida award recipients. For MEL-based awards, Regent uses the reported ethnicity from the imported MEL data. For FSAG, a decentralized award, Regent infers the student’s race and ethnicity using the SBL data.

Schools should send SBL data for ethnicity and race. See Attributes Document (SBL Data Dictionary). The Regent SBL values are mapped to the Florida values for export.

Satisfactory Academic Progress (SAP)

Schools must report annual GPA information for a Satisfactory Academic Progress (SAP) records, prior to exporting the Grade & Hours report.

Data Factory Environment

The environment must be configured with Azure and Data Factory. Additional details about configuring Data Factory are at (page TBD - Link to Heather's Data Factory stuff)

Configure the ETL - Extract, Transform, Load

Florida environment needs to be configured with the relevant Florida grant and scholarship program codes.

1. Enrollment Level Setup

Main CZ articles: Enrollment Level Setup and Enrollment Level Setup Data Elements

Schools may re-use preexisting Enrollment Level Setup configurations, and/or add all-new Enrollment Level Setup configurations for Subscription Periods. There are no new SP-specific settings for Enrollment Level Setup.

The school determines the minimum units required to establish each enrollment level. For Subscription Period terms, Regent Award will use the configured minimum number of units to set the 'Target' units to complete in each term.

• For example: A program is configured with a 'Full Time' SP Enrollment Level. The Enrollment Level Setup defines FT as 12 units per term. If a student has completed two terms in that program, then the student's Target Cumulative Completed Units would be 24 units (12+12).

Updated setting: EST Release Units

This preexisting setting has been adapted to use Subscription Period units for some of the EST Release Unit options relating to attendance or Census units. Subscription Periods do not use Census units. Also, Subscription Periods might have courses that have attendance prior to a term's start; however, Title IV funds that require attendance should only be released when there is attendance during the term dates. 

For Subscription Period programs only, Regent Award's EST Release Unit Types have been adjusted to use a different Course Enrollment (CE) field: the Total Attempted Subscription Period Units During Term Dates. Those Attendance and Census-related Release Unit Types will use the new unit tracker, CE field totalAttemptedSubscriptionPeriodUnitsDuringTermDates.  The preexisting behavior is unchanged for other program types. 

The following Release Unit types will now use the new CE bucket, totalAttemptedSubscriptionPeriodUnitsDuringTermDates, for Subscription Period terms only: 

1. PA Attempted

2. PA Attended

3. PA Census

4. All Attempted

5. All Attended 

6. All Census

Using the updated EST Release Units: The new functionality automatically applies to all Subscription Period terms, regardless of other Disbursement Schedule settings. However, because SP students might enroll in a lower number of units than normal, schools might configure the 'Release Units' to have a lower value that matches the minimum units for one course. 

5. Fund Setup

Main article: Fund Setup Data Elements

Schools may re-use preexisting configured Funds in Fund Setup, and/or add new instances of Funds.

No new Fund Setup settings cover Subscription Periods. However, schools will need to select the Programs and link any new Disbursement Schedules.

6. Cost Setup

Main article: Cost Setup Data Elements

Schools may re-use preexisting Cost Setup and Cost Items, and/or add new Costs for Subscription Periods.

Schools might wish to add a new set of Costs for Subscription Period programs. For example, a per-term cost might have a Cost Frequency of 'Enrollment' and a Cost Per 'Flat Rate.' 

Any unit-based Costs that apply to a student are still applied. For example, if a program has a Lab Fee with a Cost Per Unit, Regent will calculate the cost based on the student's registered units in the term.

Additional Configuration Settings

These settings are optional but they might help integrate Subscription Periods with other Regent Award features.

Document Setup

Main article: Document Setup Data Elements

Optional. Schools might add a new Document Requirement to block Positive Disbursements for Subscription Period students. 

Federal rules require all Subscription Period students to commit to an Academic Plan of at least Half-Time enrollment in each Academic Year. Disbursements must be blocked for the Academic Year until the student fulfills the requirement. 

Schools might configure a blocking document and assign the document manually. Alternatively, schools could track the ALHT commitment outside of Regent Award.

Institution Setup - Program Groups

Main article: Institution Setup Data Elements#_Toc447867226ProgramGroupsTab

Optional, but strongly recommended for schools using Program Change automation. If a school has enabled the Institution Setup settings in 'Automated Program Change Settings,' the school needs to group related programs together in Program Groups. Any Program Change involving two programs that are not in the same Program Group would be considered as Not Substantially Equal (NSE) by default. Program Groups should be configured before students have any Program Changes sent on SBL data. Starting with Regent Award version 5.6.0.0, Program Changes are not reprocessed retroactively as SE or NSE if the Program Change has already occured.

A school might create a Program Group to store Substantially Equal programs. For example, if a school has an Accounting program with Subscription Period Enrollment Levels of Half-Time and Full-Time, each version is a separate configured Program in Regent Award's Program Setup. For ease of processing, the school could put both programs in the same Program Group to assist with Program Change automation. 

Institution Setup - R2T4 Automation

Main article: Institution Setup Data Elements#R2T4Tab

The 'Cease Attendance Date' is required if a school is using R2T4 Automation for Subscription Periods or nonterm programs. The setting is Optional otherwise.

If a school is already using the 'Cease Attendance Date' for nonterm programs, the setting will remain unchanged and will also apply to Subscription Period programs.

SAP Setup

Main article: SAP Setup Data Elements

Schools might add a new configured SAP Policy in 'SAP Setup' for tracking Satisfactory Academic Progress in Subscription Period programs.

SAP Status Source - A school might use a SIS-provided SAP, Manual SAP, or use a new 'Assume Satisfactory' option.

New option:

• Assume Satisfactory - Regent Award applies a 'Satisfactory' SAP status to all SAP review periods. The school does not separately provide SBL SAP data. Schools should only choose the Assume Satisfactory option when all students covered by the policy will always be considered to be meeting or exceeding the school’s SAP standards, as determined by the school outside of Regent Award.

Population Selection - If multiple, different SAP policies are configured and have overlapping Effective Dates, the school must ensure each SAP policy has a different Population Selection. For example, the school would unselect the checkbox for 'Apply this SAP policy to all available programs of the Program Type(s).'

Note: Calculated SAP has not been tested for the initial release of Subscription Periods. Federal Rules do not require a 'Pace' calculation for Subscription Periods.

Task Setup

Main article: Regent Award Task Triggers

Schools with term-based programs may continue using the same term-based Tasks for Subscription Periods.

The following R2T4-related Tasks have been tested for Subscription Periods:

• Review R2T4

• Review Return from LOA or CORE

• Review Late DL Disbursement - Student LTHT

• Review Late Disbursement - Term Ended

Regent Award's Approach to Subscription Periods

Subscription Periods are self-paced programs using term-based awarding. A student may enroll in as many or as few units as desired for a term. Disbursement is based on the student's cumulative earned units.

SP Program: A Subscription Period (SP) program is designated by a Program Setup configuration, 'Subscription Period Enrollment Level' with a value other than 'None.' Regent Award packages all enrolled terms in that program using that same, configured SP enrollment level, regardless of each student's actual registered units in the term. 

• For example, an SP program might be configured with a Three Quarter Time (TQT) enrollment level of 9 units. All students in the program are packaged at TQT. If one student registers for 2 units, and another registers for 22 units, then both students are still packaged at the same 9-unit TQT enrollment level.

Subscription Period Course Data

SP course dates are more flexible than traditional term-based courses. Unlike normal term-based programs, Subscription Period courses can start before a term's start date and/or end after the term's end date. The course must still have at least one day within the course dates for the system to count the course as having attendance in the term. The school is responsible for sending the correct value for the 'externalTermId' value in the course's SBL data. See Attributes Document (SBL Data Dictionary).

Academic Plan Screen Display

The Academic Plan screen has been updated to display new unit information for Subscription Period programs.

At the top of the Academic Plan screen, Regent Award displays student-level totals for the Cumulative Units for All Subscription Periods.

• The Total Cumulative Units for All Subscription Periods is the sum of all Subscription Period units earned across all Subscription Period programs. This number does not include Transfer units.

• The Target Cumulative Units for All Subscription Periods is the sum of the target Subscription Period units for all terms with an end date in the past, for all Subscription Period programs.

For each Term in a Subscription Period program, a new "SP" marker next to the Enrollment Level indicates the term is using the program's configured Subscription Period Enrollment Level.

Regent Award also displays the detailed Subscription Period information.

• Registered SP Units in Term: Registered Subscription Period Progression Program Applicable Units for the term.

• Attempted SP Units During Term Dates: Total attempted subscription period units during the term dates. This number includes Program Applicable Units in all courses assigned to the term that have any attendance during the term, including withdrawn courses.

• Earned SP Units in Term: Total Progression Program Applicable units for the term. Includes all units in Subscription Period courses assigned to the term that were successfully completed.

• Target SP Units in Term: Expected number of minimum units to be successfully completed during the term based on the program’s configured Subscription Period Enrollment Level.

• Target Cum SP Units at Term Start: Total Target SP Units in Term for all attended Subscription Period terms prior to this term.

• Cum Earned SP Units at Term Start: Actual cumulative Subscription Period Units successfully completed for progression in all previous subscription periods before the start of the term.

• Minimum Cum SP Units for Disbursement: Number of successfully completed Subscription Period units required before disbursements can be released for the term. This is the Target Cum SP Units at Term Start less the Target SP Units in Term for the most recently attended previous term. Cum Earned SP Units at Term Start can be combined with SP units earned in the current or future terms to meet this minimum requirement and clear the disbursements.

Subscription Period Configuration

This section outlines adding a new Subscription Period program and important supporting configuration items.

General Notes

As always, please work closely with your Regent Account Manager and/or Delivery Services implementation team to coordinate any changes to environments.

1. Enrollment Level Setup

Main CZ articles: Enrollment Level Setup and Enrollment Level Setup Data Elements

Schools may re-use preexisting Enrollment Level Setup configurations, and/or add all-new Enrollment Level Setup configurations for Subscription Periods. There are no new SP-specific settings for Enrollment Level Setup.

The school determines the minimum units required to establish each enrollment level. For Subscription Period terms, Regent Award will use the configured minimum number of units to set the 'Target' units to complete in each term.

• For example: A program is configured with a 'Full Time' SP Enrollment Level. The Enrollment Level Setup defines FT as 12 units per term. If a student has completed two terms in that program, then the student's Target Cumulative Completed Units would be 24 units (12+12).

2. Program Setup

Main article: Program Setup Data Elements

A Subscription Period program is defined by a value other than 'None' for the Subscription Period Enrollment Level, the new Program Setup field added in 5.7.0.0.

If a program will be offered at two different enrollment levels (example: a HT version and a FT version), schools must configure separate Programs in Regent Award for each different enrollment level. For example, a school might have HT and FT versions of the same Accounting program. The school would configure two separate Programs in Regent Award: one for HT and one for FT.

Settings specific to a Subscription Period program:

1. First, configure the 'Default Enrollment Level Setup' to the selected Enrollment Level Setup

2. Next, configure the 'Subscription Period Enrollment Level' with a value other than "None."

Note: Subscription Periods cannot be used with the 'Enable Enrollment Anticipation' settings. If a Subscription Period Enrollment Level is configured with a value other than "None," Regent will ignore the 'Anticipated Enrollment Level' setting.

3. Term Setup

Main article: Term Setup Data Elements. See also Anchoring a BBAY .

Schools may re-use preexisting configured Terms, and/or add new Terms for Subscription Periods. 

Updated setting for Subscription Period programs:

• Pell Recalculation Date:  Schools may configure a date (such as the term's end date or later) when all courses would have attendance posted for a term.

  • Note: If the same term is also shared with traditional term-based programs, the Pell Recalculation Date should be set to a value after the Census Date and before the term's end date.

Regent Award will honor other, preexisting Term Setup settings such as 'BBAY Anchor Determination Date,' 'Begin Actual Date,' and 'Accelerate Begin Actual for Registered Units.'

In the 'Programs' sub-tab, select the Associated Programs and their Enrollment Level type.

4. Disbursement Schedule Setup

Main article: Disbursement Schedule Setup Data Elements

Schools may re-use preexisting configured Disbursement Schedules, and/or add new Disbursement Schedules for Subscription Periods. The settings are designed so different types of programs may share the same disbursement schedule if needed.

Schools might wish to optionally create a new set of Disbursement Schedules for Subscription Period programs. For example, a school might need to maintain other, non-Subscription-Period program types with higher values for EST Release Units and EST Release Weeks.

Disbursement Schedules have one new and one updated setting for Subscription Period programs.

New setting: Restrict Disbursements for Subscription Period Programs

• Yes/No Checkbox

  • Default value is Yes/selected to apply Subscription Period logic to a term with a Subscription Period. 

  • This setting only affects Subscription Period programs. It is ignored (has no effect) for programs that are not in Subscription Period terms.

Using the new setting:

• When 'Restrict Disbursements for Subscription Period Programs' is selected/Yes, Regent Award will not release disbursements for a term until a student has met the term's minimum number of cumulative total Subscription Period Units for disbursement. If the term has started, the student must also post attendance during the Subscription Period term dates.

• The new setting should be set to Yes for all Title IV funds.

• Schools might configure as Yes or No for other funds. For example, if a school has non-Title-IV funds such as institutional scholarships/waivers or non-disbursable funds, the school might configure those disbursements with 'Restrict Disbursements for Subscription Period Programs' to No.

• The new setting works independently of other Disbursement Schedule settings, such as EST Release Units and the preexisting settings for confirming attendance.

Updated setting: EST Release Units

This preexisting setting has been adapted to use Subscription Period units for some of the EST Release Unit options relating to attendance or Census units. Subscription Periods do not use Census units. Also, Subscription Periods might have courses that have attendance prior to a term's start; however, Title IV funds that require attendance should only be released when there is attendance during the term dates. 

For Subscription Period programs only, Regent Award's EST Release Unit Types have been adjusted to use a different Course Enrollment (CE) field: the Total Attempted Subscription Period Units During Term Dates. Those Attendance and Census-related Release Unit Types will use the new unit tracker, CE field totalAttemptedSubscriptionPeriodUnitsDuringTermDates.  The preexisting behavior is unchanged for other program types. 

The following Release Unit types will now use the new CE bucket, totalAttemptedSubscriptionPeriodUnitsDuringTermDates, for Subscription Period terms only: 

1. PA Attempted

2. PA Attended

3. PA Census

4. All Attempted

5. All Attended 

6. All Census

Using the updated EST Release Units: The new functionality automatically applies to all Subscription Period terms, regardless of other Disbursement Schedule settings. However, because SP students might enroll in a lower number of units than normal, schools might configure the 'Release Units' to have a lower value that matches the minimum units for one course. 

5. Fund Setup

Main article: Fund Setup Data Elements

Schools may re-use preexisting configured Funds in Fund Setup, and/or add new instances of Funds.

No new Fund Setup settings cover Subscription Periods. However, schools will need to select the Programs and link any new Disbursement Schedules.

6. Cost Setup

Main article: Cost Setup Data Elements

Schools may re-use preexisting Cost Setup and Cost Items, and/or add new Costs for Subscription Periods.

Schools might wish to add a new set of Costs for Subscription Period programs. For example, a per-term cost might have a Cost Frequency of 'Enrollment' and a Cost Per 'Flat Rate.' 

Any unit-based Costs that apply to a student are still applied. For example, if a program has a Lab Fee with a Cost Per Unit, Regent will calculate the cost based on the student's registered units in the term.

Additional Configuration Settings

These settings are optional but they might help integrate Subscription Periods with other Regent Award features.

Document Setup

Main article: Document Setup Data Elements

Optional. Schools might add a new Document Requirement to block Positive Disbursements for Subscription Period students. 

Federal rules require all Subscription Period students to commit to an Academic Plan of at least Half-Time enrollment in each Academic Year. Disbursements must be blocked for the Academic Year until the student fulfills the requirement. 

Schools might configure a blocking document and assign the document manually. Alternatively, schools could track the ALHT commitment outside of Regent Award.

Institution Setup - Program Groups

Main article: Institution Setup Data Elements#_Toc447867226ProgramGroupsTab

Optional, but strongly recommended for schools using Program Change automation. If a school has enabled the Institution Setup settings in 'Automated Program Change Settings,' the school needs to group related programs together in Program Groups. Any Program Change involving two programs that are not in the same Program Group would be considered as Not Substantially Equal (NSE) by default. Program Groups should be configured before students have any Program Changes sent on SBL data. Starting with Regent Award version 5.6.0.0, Program Changes are not reprocessed retroactively as SE or NSE if the Program Change has already occured.

A school might create a Program Group to store Substantially Equal programs. For example, if a school has an Accounting program with Subscription Period Enrollment Levels of Half-Time and Full-Time, each version is a separate configured Program in Regent Award's Program Setup. For ease of processing, the school could put both programs in the same Program Group to assist with Program Change automation. 

Institution Setup - R2T4 Automation

Main article: Institution Setup Data Elements#R2T4Tab

The 'Cease Attendance Date' is required if a school is using R2T4 Automation for Subscription Periods or nonterm programs. The setting is Optional otherwise.

If a school is already using the 'Cease Attendance Date' for nonterm programs, the setting will remain unchanged and will also apply to Subscription Period programs.

SAP Setup

Main article: SAP Setup Data Elements

Schools might add a new configured SAP Policy in 'SAP Setup' for tracking Satisfactory Academic Progress in Subscription Period programs.

SAP Status Source - A school might use a SIS-provided SAP, Manual SAP, or use a new 'Assume Satisfactory' option.

New option:

• Assume Satisfactory - Regent Award applies a 'Satisfactory' SAP status to all SAP review periods. The school does not separately provide SBL SAP data. Schools should only choose the Assume Satisfactory option when all students covered by the policy will always be considered to be meeting or exceeding the school’s SAP standards, as determined by the school outside of Regent Award.

Population Selection - If multiple, different SAP policies are configured and have overlapping Effective Dates, the school must ensure each SAP policy has a different Population Selection. For example, the school would unselect the checkbox for 'Apply this SAP policy to all available programs of the Program Type(s).'

Note: Calculated SAP has not been tested for the initial release of Subscription Periods. Federal Rules do not require a 'Pace' calculation for Subscription Periods.

Task Setup

Main article: Regent Award Task Triggers

Schools with term-based programs may continue using the same term-based Tasks for Subscription Periods.

The following R2T4-related Tasks have been tested for Subscription Periods:

• Review R2T4

• Review Return from LOA or CORE

• Review Late DL Disbursement - Student LTHT

• Review Late Disbursement - Term Ended