[ctcLinkfinaidsupport] FA Support Spring FAC follow up

[Ana Ybarra]

Good morning -

I'm attaching messaging that went out from Paul Francis, that most of you have likely already seen - but just in case. . .

Below is a high level summary of what I shared during Spring FAC.

We were waiting on Oracle to send additional work arounds and a jar file with several crucial bug fixes; they did not send a jar file. There are several bugs that impact NAC, SAI, and enrollment intensity to name a few. I've attached the bug tracker that HEUG put together and has been updating as colleges in the nation begin their preliminary testing.

What does that mean?

The team will be knee deep in testing what Oracle has delivered to date, hopefully starting next week. However, we know now that what we're releasing to production on the weekend of the 8th will still contain significant bugs (see above) and therefore, we highly recommend NOT waiting for that June 8th weekend and initiate awarding now.

How does an FAA initiate awarding when we don't have ISIR's loaded with an SAI?

First, FAA's will need to file review; ED has stayed true to their messaging, we're seeing hardly any verification flags, we're hoping that stays true. Once FAA's have completed file review we recommend printing the FSS  (formerly SAR) to PDF - all the field labels will be there, no risk of mis-mapping. FAA's don't have to search through all of the ISIR files to see which one is the most recent transaction on file with the Department of Education, the FSS will already contain the information needed to initiate awarding. I then briefly shared - super high level - how to initiate awarding in PeopleSoft:

  *   Aid Year Activation
  *   Build FA Term
  *   Build a Student Budget
  *   Assign Awards to a Student - Need Global Consensus from FAC
     *   Utilizing the 2024-2025 SAI Guide: Pell Formulas and Enrollment (Formula 1, for most colleges)
     *   In Formula 1, the Annual Pell Award is simply divided by the number of terms in the fall through spring at a school with a traditional academic calendar. * COA: $10,000 * SAI: $300 * Scheduled Award: $7,000 - $300 = $6,700
  *   Later, once ED and Oracle have made the necessary fixes, colleges can recalculate the students' awards based on accurate data from ISIR's
  *   Financial aid administrators will inevitably have to intervene multiple times with student files, understanding that there will be over-awards and under-awards.
  *   We shared at FAC, the FA community will need to get global agreement on how all colleges will move forward with awarding 24-25 federal and state aid for new and returning students in the most efficient way possible

What about the award letter?

When a college is ready to initiate awarding, you should be able to send an award letter. CAVEAT - we would need to adjust the template to allow Comment field to print within the letter to leverage entering the SAI with an explanation "Subject to change", SAI pulled from FSS.

Will my college have to "float money"?

Questions about how to report to COD, or IF FAA's should report to COD or do inbound/outbound while awarding came up in the room. We shared at the time, do not run DL or Pell inbound/outbound and DO NOT manually report disbursements to COD. Typically an FAA at this time would not report to COD as we await the new COD schema, which has historically been released to Production early/mid-June. Therefore, a college would not be in a situation where they'd be "floating" funds as disbursements wouldn't be made until late June.



What's this mean for the June 10th through 21st open webex sessions?

We will still hold open webex sessions during these two weeks in June to assist with the timing of loading ISIRs, and walking colleges through the IOVD (Information overview document) of all the changes, look and feel of what Oracle has delivered up to date for the 2024/2025 Aid Year. We are still finalizing the specific details of what the 1st few days will involve - stay tuned.

 I'll reiterate here what was shared in the room; the FA Support team have experience working in Financial Aid offices, in positions that you all are currently in - and we completely understand the heavy toll and taxing amount of work this involves. We're here to help with questions that will come up as the FA community walks through this discussion.

 In partnership with you all -

 Peace be with you,


[Title: SBCTC logo - Description: Compass]Ana Ybarra, MA
Associate Director Campus Solutions - Financial Aid
Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges
* o: 360-704-1024

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