# Presentation: 325187

## What’s New for Pell Processing in 2004-2005

***Session 21***

## In this session...

- Operations Update
- Processing Changes for 2004-2005
- Customer Service Update
- Processing Updates

## Operations Update

## Pell ProcessingYTD Totals – as of October 21, 2003

|  | 2002-2003 | 2003-2004 |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Originations (#) | 5.4 million | 3.5 million |
| Originations ($) | $15.9 billion | $11 billion |
| Actual Disbursements (#) | 11.8 million | 3.2 million |
| Actual Disbursements ($) | $11.6 billion | $3.9 billion |
| % Substantiated | 99.84% | 90.31% |

- Totals

## RFMS Data Conversion

- As of August 18th, RFMS 99-00, 00-01, 01-02 award year data is available in the COD System and viewable on the COD web site.

| Successful RFMS Conversion to COD! |  |
| --- | --- |
| # of Students | 8.2 million |
| # of Batches | 2.6 million |
| # of Grant Originations | 13.6 million |
| # of Grant Disbursements | 29.8 million |

## RFMS Data Conversion

- Schools processing these award years are still able to use the appropriate RFMS message classes.
- The COD web site and batch data request functionality can be used to request the following reports:
- Year-to-Date
- Reconciliation File
- ESOA
- MRR
- The Pell Grant (RFMS) GAPS number is displayed on the COD web site in the Entity ID field.

## Deobligation due to Verification ‘W’

*The current Verification ‘W’ process is a success!!*
- Simplified Verification ‘W’ process
- Increased outreach measures from COD School Relations

|  | 01-02 | 02-03 |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Affected Schools | 1203 | 168 |
| Deobligated Funds | $11.1 million | $2.3 million |

## POP ProcessStudents in POP*

|  | 2001-2002 | 2002-2003 |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Blocked At One Time | 88,890 | 22,820 |
| Resolved | 48,020 | 21,923 |
| Still in Conflict | 25,645 | 897 |

- POP

- * As of October 2003

**100.00%**

**100.00%**

**200.00%**

**$2,000.00**

**$2,000.00**

**Y**

**Y**

**11/14/2005**

**11/14/2005**

- 			POP Process			POP on the Web: Before Adjustments

## POP ProcessTools for Resolving POP

- Edit codes returned on disbursement records
- Full Participant:
- 068 – “Potential Overaward Project – Notice Sent Separately”
- 069 – “Potential Concurrent Enrollment – Notice Sent Separately”
- Phase-In Participant:
- 411 – “Potential Overaward Project – Multiple Reporting Sent Separately”
- 410 – “Potential Concurrent Enrollment – Multiple Reporting Sent Separately”

## POP ProcessTools for Resolving POP

- Multiple Reporting Record
- MRR is produced for conflicting disbursements
- Contains information on all schools involved and their contact information
- Imported via SAIG mailbox
- MRR will contain those students in a POP situation from the converted RFMS years; however, the current POP logic will ***not*** be applied to students from these award years.

## POP ProcessTools for Resolving POP

- Report of students in POP will be available to schools in 2004-2005.
- Department is monitoring edit 55 - “Disbursement Information Received 30 Days or more after Date of Disbursement”.
- For the 2003-2004 award year, edit 55 has been hit **656,044** times on Pell records in the last three months.

## POP ProcessAfter 30 days if neither school adjusts...

- System generated negative disbursement
- Full Participant: Common Record Doc Type ‘ND’
- Phase-In Participant: Batch Type ‘#G’
- Customer Service Outreach
- Phone Call
- Email

**0.000%**

**0.000%**

**0.000%**

**$2,000.00**

**$2,000.00**

- 			POP Process			POP on the Web: After De-obligation

**N**

**N**

**10/14/2005**

**10/14/2005**

**11/15/2005**

**11/15/2005**

## Processing Changes for 2004-2005

## Reports

- The Pell POP Report will list those students for whom COD has accepted an actual disbursement and who are:
- In a POP situation
- No longer in a POP situation
- Report will list other Attended Schools that have reported disbursements for the student for the award year.
- Report will be pushed to schools weekly via their COD web site Newsbox.
- The report will also be available via Pell data request functionality.

## Pell POP Report Mock-up

**Pell POP Report Mock-up**

## Reports

- Schools will be able to define sort options, delivery options, and format options on the web site for the following reports:
- Pell POP Report
- Pending Disbursement Listing
- SSN/Name/Date of Birth Change Report
- Specific options will vary based on report.
- More information on specific report options is available in the Technical Reference Appendices published in November 2003.

## Verification Initiatives

- Two new informational tags will be returned in the Full Participant Award Response block when an actual disbursement is accepted:
- CPS Verification Indicator
- Indicates the student was selected for verification  by CPS on any CPS Transaction Number and the school has not reported to COD a ‘V’ or ‘S’.
- Highest CPS Transaction Number
- Indicates the highest CPS transaction number for the student during this award year.

## Verification Initiatives

- The Pell Verification Status Report will list those students who:
- Have an actual disbursement on COD
- Were selected for verification by CPS
- AND
- For whom the school has ***not*** reported a verification status of ‘V’ or ‘S’
- Report will be pushed monthly to schools via their SAIG mailbox as a preformatted text file.
- Report is also available on the COD web site.
- QA schools are excluded from receiving this report.

## Pell Verification Status Report Mock-up

**Pell Verification Status Report Mock-up**

## Message Class Options

- Full Participants will be able to choose the message class in which they send and receive documents to and from the COD System.
- Message class options will include the following:
- Non-program specific and non-award year specific
- Non-program specific and award year specific
- Program specific and non-award year specific
- Program specific and award year specific
- Message class options apply to the 2004-2005 award year only.

## Message Class Options

|  | Inbound
to COD | Outbound
from COD | Receipts |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Non-program Specific and Non-award Year Specific | COMRECIN | COMRECOP | COMRECOP |
| Award Year Specific | CRAA05IN | CRAA05OP | CRRC05OP |
| Program Specific | CRPGMYIN | CRPGMYOP | COMRECOP |
| Program and Award Year Specific | CRPG05IN | CRPG05OP | CRRC05OP |

## Message Class Options

- The outgoing message class for the COD batch response will correspond to the incoming message class the school used to send the batch to COD.
- The COD System will ***not ***validate the document content with the incoming message class used for submission.
- Each System Generated document type will be assigned its own message class for Full Participants.
- The 2004-2005 COD Technical Reference published in November contains more information.

## SAIG Transmission Header

- SAIG has increased the variable BAT= field on the SAIG Transmission Header (N*05/N*95) from 26 to 50 characters.
- Beginning in March 2004, COD will reserve the first 20 characters of this field for school use and populate the last 30 characters with the Batch/Document ID on response/acknowledgements for ***all*** award years.
- If a school uses the last 30 characters for other data on the incoming record, COD will overwrite this data with the Document ID or the Batch ID.
- EDConnect users must upgrade to EDConnect version 5.3 or higher in order for their records not to reject.

## Student Identifier Edit

- Warning edit 116 indicates that a student identifier has not been updated on the COD System.
- Edit 116 is returned when,
- A school submits a change to a student identifier
- 		*AND*
- The award year submitted on the change record is lower than the highest award year data on COD for the student
**	****	***OR*
- The CPS transaction number on the change record is lower than the highest transaction number on COD for that award year for that student
- Applies to Full Participants and Pell Phase-In Participants only.

## Record Layout

- The following data elements will not be required for processing a Pell Grant for the 2004-2005 award year and forward:
- Academic Calendar Code
- Payment Methodology Code
- Weeks of instructional time used to calculate payment
- Weeks of instructional time in program’s definition of award year
- Credit/Clock hours used to calculate payment
- Credit/Clock hours in this student’s program of study’s academic year

## Record Layout

- For Full Participants:
- These tags are not applicable on the Common Record Layout for 2004-2005.
- If a Full Participant school submits data in these tags, the COD system will not edit or store this data and will not return these tags on a Full Response.
- For Phase-In Participants:
- These fields continue to be included on the Origination Record Layout, but are now optional.
- If a Phase-In Participant submits data in these fields, COD system will not edit this data, but it will return it on the Origination Acknowledgement.
- EDExpress will continue to use these fields to calculate a Pell Grant, but will not transmit this data to COD.

## Campus-Based for 2004-2005

- COD will accept and process Full Participant Campus-Based award and disbursement data for the 03-04 and 04-05 award years and forward.
- Federal Work Study
- Perkins Loans
- FSEOG
- Full Participants can submit student level Campus-Based data to COD via the COD web site and the Common Record.
- Campus-Based award and disbursement data will be viewable on the COD web site.
- COD will ***not*** generate reports for Campus-Based data.
- COD will ***not*** populate the FISAP with Campus-Based data.

## Extended Full Participant Deadline for 2004-2005

- COD will accept Phase-In Participant records in 2004-2005.
- All schools must be Full Participants using the XML Common Record in 2005-2006.
- 	***Reminder****: If you would like to be a Full Participant for the 2004-2005 award year and were not a Full Participant for a prior award year, you ****must**** register with COD School Relations prior to submitting records.*

## COD Web Site

- New web page will display student data from CPS applicant system.
- User will have the ability to search applicant data by SSN, or SSN and award year.

## Applicant Search

**Search**

## Applicant Detail

## Applicant Detail

## COD Web Site

- An Award Year drop down box will be added to the Person Pell Information page enabling user to filter by Award Year
- Award Amount Disbursed and Award Amount Approved will be added to Person Pell Information page

## Pell Award

## COD Timeline

- 2004 – 2005 Development Schedule:
- Requirements Complete		June 2003
- Design Complete			August 2003
- Development Complete 		November 2003
- Testing Complete			February 2004
- School/Vendor Testing Phase 1	January 2004
- School/Vendor Testing Phase 2 	March 2004
- System Start Up			March 2004

## Customer Service Update

## COD Customer Service StatisticsAs of October 21, 2003

- Since the COD School Relations Center opened in April 2002....

| Inbound Calls to COD School Relations | 150,211 |
| --- | --- |
| Inbound Calls to Applicant Services
(Since March 2003) | 63,288 |
| Outreach Calls to Schools | 14,888 |
| Inbound Emails | 57,741 |
| Number of COD Web Site Users | 4,588 |

## COD Customer Service

- Beginning in July 2003, call volume exceeded the COD School Relations Center’s projections
- This resulted in increased hold times and a higher call abandon rate
- Increased call volume represented a 94% increase of total calls in the COD School Relations Center from last year to this year

## COD Customer Service 

- How has COD School Relations adjusted to the increased call volume?:
- Assistance from FSA staff with answering Direct Loan Applicant Services calls from August 25th through September 19th.
- Pulled in 10 additional resources (Team Leads, Support Specialists) to answer COD School Relations calls.
- Overtime worked by CSRs.
- Hired 16 new CSRs.
- Released Direct Loan Bulletin 03-36 and IFAP announcement providing guidance on when schools should direct students to call Direct Loan Applicant Services.
- New Direct Loan Applicant Services IVR.
- Direct Loan Applicant Services calls from the PLUS Borrowers and eMPN web site IVR options are answered before calls from other inquiries option.

## How do I contact the COD School Relations Center?

- Email  _CODSupport@acs-inc.com_
- Call the COD School Relations Center
- 1-800-4-PGRANT for Pell Grants
- 1-800-848-0978 for Direct Loans
- COD Web Site (www.cod.ed.gov)

## Where Can I Get More Information?

- IFAP Web Site (www.IFAP.ed.gov)
- Common Origination and Disbursement page
- Electronic Announcements, FAQs, COD Technical Reference
- COD Web Site (www.cod.ed.gov)
- Daily COD Processing Updates
- School Funding and Processing Information
- Contact COD School Relations

## Processing Updates

## Current COD Issues

**Stuck Batches and Missing Acknowledgements**
- Description:
- Batches not being processed/responded to within 48 hours of submission.
- Stuck batches and missing acknowledgements impact schools’ ability to disburse funds to students.
- Stuck batches are caused when the processing of the batch is halted in COD by a code or data issue that the system cannot handle.
- Missing acknowledgements are typically caused in transmission from COD to the school.
- Status:
- COD operations continuously monitors the COD system for stuck batches. A dedicated team has been established to work these issues until they have been resolved.
- COD School Relations emails the school with the Batch ID when a batch has not been processed/responded to within 48 hours.
- During peak processing, COD processes an average of 9,000 records a week with 200 stuck/missing acknowledgement batches. During normal processing, COD processes an average of 6,500 records a week with 40-60 stuck/missing acknowledgements batches.

## Current COD Issues

**Edit 58 – Duplicate Records Edit Incorrectly Being Hit **
- Description:
- COD has experienced a high volume of edit 58 rejects.
- In some instances, COD incorrectly sends this edit on a record within a stuck batch that has just recently been unstuck/processed by COD, despite the fact that the school only submitted the record once.
- Edit 58 is also returned when a school resubmits a record which was previously submitted in a stuck or missing batch.
- Additionally, EDExpress Software was resubmitting records rejected with edit 58.
- Status:
- COD is incorrectly identifying the records as a duplicate in the process of releasing a stuck batch. Software development for this issue is underway.
- Schools resubmit records previously submitted in a stuck or missing batch.
- EDExpress is releasing a patch in November that will treat a record rejected with edit 58 instead of a rejected record.

## Resolved COD Issues

**Edit 12 – Name/DOB/SSN Verification Edit**
- Description:
- COD incorrectly sent edit 12 when a school submitted an origination for a student that has existing award on COD, where the student identifier information on the origination differed from that on the existing award. COD incorrectly recognized the new origination as an identifier change and used the existing award identifier information when attempting to match CPS. COD rejected the identifier change for no CPS match.
- Status:
- Software updated in September.
- Schools are now able to resubmit records.

## Resolved COD Issues

**02/03 Funding and Payment Issues**** **
- Description:
- Software issues for the 02/03 Award Year caused funding and payment levels to be incorrect.
- Schools noticed a different Current Funding Level (CFL) in COD than their Obligation Level in GAPs.
- For some schools, ACA Payments are being included in the “Net Accepted and Posted Disbursement” field on the web site.  This impacts the Substantiation calculations.
- Status:
- Code has been corrected.
- Majority of financial data for the 02/03 Award Year has been corrected.
- Clean up for COD CFL and GAPS Obligation is in progress.
- Clean up for ACA Payments is being scheduled.

## Resolved COD Issues

**Verification Status**
- Description:
- 02-03 awards were being accepted with a verification status of ‘S’. ‘S’ is a valid value for 03-04 Award Year and forward.
- When schools were lowering the disbursement amount or updating the verification status to ‘W’, COD was rejecting the adjustment for all award years.
- Schools were unable to update verification status from ‘W’ to ‘blank’.
- Status:
- Software updates have been implemented for all verification issues.
- Schools are now able to submit disbursement adjustments and updates to the verification status code.

## Resolved COD Issues

**Pell Year-to-Date and Reconciliation Reports**
- Description:
- The Pell Year-to-Date Report and the Pell Reconciliation Report were not available via batch data requests or web data requests.
- Status:
- As of July, both reports are now available via batch data requests and web data requests for Phase-In Participants.
- The Pell Year-to-Date for Full Participants will be available in November.
- EDExpress is releasing a patch in November to allow users to import the Pell Year-to-Date for Full Participants.

## Other COD Sessions

**Session 17**: COD 101 - The Big Picture
**Session 18**: COD Open Forum
**Session 19**: Navigating the COD Web Site
**Session 20**: COD - What’s New for Direct Loan Processing in 2004-2005
*COD School Relations Staff is available in the PC Lab!!*