Background for Application Data Import

Application data (usually obtained through the FAFSA) is used by Financial Aid modules in Anthology Student to determine potential financial aid resources for students. Institutional Student Information Record (ISIR) records are created as a result of FAFSA processing at the Central Processing System (CPS). Before most forms of student financial aid (Title IV) can be processed, your institution must have an ISIR on file for the student who is receiving aid. For your institution to receive an ISIR, the student must designate on his or her FAFSA that your institution may receive it.

When the CPS edits the FAFSAs, it either accepts or rejects the data based on its editing criteria. When the FAFSAs pass the edit checks, an Expected Family Contribution (EFC)/Student Aid Index (SAI) is calculated and an ISIR record is created. CPS will send matching batches of ISIRs back to your institution. The file transmission is done using the EDconnect software (see EDE Paths and EDconnect). The ISIRs are imported into Anthology Student using the Application Data Import process.

The Application Data Import process checks the following values to determine if an ISIR qualifies to be imported:

  • Federal School Code (Students may specify up to 10 school codes in the FAFSA. Multiple campuses can have the same school code.)

  • A Federal School Code is always six characters: 0 (zero), G, B, or E, and a 5-digit number. Anthology Student supports only numeric school codes. If the Federal School Code for your institution contains the letter G, B, or E, replace the letter with a 0 (zero).

  • Pell Id

Regulatory uses the Current Social Security Number (SSN), Name, and School Code in the ISIR file to match the data to records in the database.

  • If a match is found with the Current SSN, the first two letters of the last name, and the 2-digit Transaction ID, Regulatory skips the record and reports that the record already exists.

  • Regulatory displays the message "No ISIRs found to match" if the Current SSN, Name, and School Code do not match.

    Example:

    If a student is enrolled at a campus that has a different School Code than what is on the ISIR, Regulatory will assign the import record to the student's ISIR folder, but the record will remain unmatched until the School Code for the enrollment campus is added to the ISIR.

The Application Data Import process also handles Error Report Files. These files are returned by the CPS if ISIR corrections (see Correct ISIRs) are not accepted by the CPS.

When ISIRs are imported, Anthology Student can be configured to:

Comment Codes

ISIR files sent to the institution contain 3-digit comment codes to provide information to the student and financial aid staff. Comment codes are also printed on the ISIR and SAR Acknowledgments and some are provided on regular SARs.

Comment codes are award year-specific. The current ISIR Guide and SAR Comment Codes and text are posted on the U.S. Department of Education’s Federal Student Aid website: https://fsapartners.ed.gov/knowledge-center/library/handbooks-manuals-or-guides/2020-07-20/2021-2022-sar-comment-codes-and-text-guide

Reject Codes

If some of the FAFSAs do not pass the edit checks, the corresponding ISIR records will contain reject codes. Reject reason codes can be alpha or numeric codes. Alpha codes indicate verifiable reject reasons, that is, the student can verify the questionable data by re-entering the same value, or can correct it to a different value. Numeric codes are not verifiable; the questioned data must be changed or provided. In all reject situations, the questioned information is highlighted on the SAR, and an EFC/SAI is not calculated. The rejected data must be corrected and resubmitted to the CPS (see Correct ISIRs).

ISIR Lead Flag Setting

Anthology Student can be set up to create new lead records for students whose FAFSAs are not already in the database. Some institutions use this option to follow up on new leads.

ISIR Matching

Regulatory verifies that the origination ID on the COD origination record matches the transaction ID on the ISIR. This prevents issues where name changes result in the origination ID being different from the ISIR transaction ID due to the timing of the ISIR being sent, the name being changed in the database, and the Pell record being scheduled.

ISIR matching takes place automatically when ISIRs are imported. When necessary, manual matching of ISIR records to student records can be done using the ISIR Matching process.

Once an ISIR Transaction ID is assigned to a student by the issuing of an ISIR from ED, the student must be identified by this ID for the rest of the year. Therefore, the origination ID must match the ISIR transaction ID in cases where spelling errors, typos, or name changes are relevant. Additionally, users still need to make corrections to an ISIR through the ISIR corrections option (see Correct ISIRs).

Document Scheduling Triggered by Importing ISIRs

Document schedules based on "Pre-Enrollment" or "Enrollment" are evaluated when ISIRs are imported with the "Auto Document Scheduler" feature. If the student's data matches the specified criteria for a document schedule, where the criteria include at least one of the ISIR data items (Comment Codes, SAR C flag, or Dependency Status), all documents attached to the document schedule that are not already scheduled will be scheduled for the student.

SULA Flag and Document Triggers

On July 6, 2012, Public Law 112-141 was enacted. This law contains a provision that eliminates the subsidy on Direct Subsidized Stafford Loans when a “first-time borrower” enrollment exceeds 150% of the published program length.

For award years 2014-2015 and higher, the Subsidized Usage Limit Applies (SULA) flag (where the valid values are Y or N) has been added to the COD System. Upon receipt of a Direct Loan actual disbursement with a first disbursement date on or after July 1, 2013, COD determines if the borrower meets the definition of a "first-time borrower" to confirm that the 150% subsidy limit applies to the borrower.

When the SULA flag is set to Y, a SAR comment code 267 will appear if a first-time borrower student is subject to the subsidized loan limitation. The message directs users to the https://studentaid.gov site. This flag is viewed for all academic years but is only populated for the current award year. When the ISIR is received and the SULA flag is associated with a comment code, document triggers associated with the comment code are activated. The SULA flag is also displayed in the Financial Aid Packaging form.

Process Pell Cents

If the "Round all Disbursements to whole dollars" check box on the Fund Sourcesconfiguration form is cleared and the registry key to allow Pell Cents is enabled, the exact amount of cents is displayed and saved for the Pell origination amount. The Pell origination amount is processed and saved with the properly calculated amount of cents regarding the Year-Round Pell Additional Eligibility Indicator. This configuration also ensures that origination amounts properly display the amount of cents when both COD Import and COD Export are run.

Note that the "Add’l Eligibility Indicator" check box needs to be selected for Year-Round Pell to be considered for a student. For more details, see Year-Round Pell Grants for Award Years 2017-18 and Later.

ISIR Record Skipped During Import Process

During the Import ISIR process, if you receive a message indicating a record was skipped during the import process because the TransactionId already existed, it means that one of the ISIRs in the file has already been imported into another file. Anthology Student will not reimport that file.

In this case, you can run the ISIR Summary report for that day, open the ISIR File, and determine which student is not on the report for that day. See ISIR Summary Report.