PTS: Safari Project

Safari Project - Financial Aid Team Module Charter - January 2003

Table of Contents

1. Student Administration System - A Critical Need
2. Financial Aid Module Background
3. Project Scope
4. Objectives
   • Overall SA Project Objectives
   • Financial Aid Module Objectives
5. Project Timeline
6. Organization and Staffing
   • FA Project Module Lead
   • Subject Matter Experts
   • Functional Application Specialists
   • Module Consultant
7. Key Risks
   • Risks: ?

Student Administration System - A Critical Need

Implementation of the Student Administration system is a critical need required to support the University Strategic Plan and to replace out-dated technology. Specifically, the new Student Administration system helps CWU accomplish the following:

• Supports the goal of providing, "quality, integrated academic advising and career development support to all students from pre-admission to graduation," and, "easy access to accurate information," critical to this effort;
• Supports the goal of providing, "for an outstanding academic and student life at the university centers," by improving student record access regardless of physical location;
• Supports expanding, "Central Washington University's student base through recruiting and retention," by providing state-of-the art, Web-based application, registration, financial aid, and university account access; and
• Supports the goal to, "Expand sources of revenue to support university initiatives," through easier student registration, financial aid, and bill paying statewide and elsewhere.
• Completes the conversion of the three, separate legacy administrative systems to a single platform with the same programming language and database;
• Efficiently leverages the existing technical staff knowledge of the PeopleSoft system;
• Maintains critical compliance with federal regulations, particularly Title IV requirements that (if not met), has potential to restrict our ability to disburse millions of dollars in aid; and,
• Expands ease of access to Central's application, enrollment, financial aid, and financial information processes, critical to attracting and retaining our students.
• Provides effective solutions for State reporting requirements relative to student accounts
• Provides the required audit controls for managing student and other accounts

Financial Aid Module Background

The Financial Aid Department of CWU is facing challenges associated with servicing students in the information age. Outdated legacy systems are no longer able to submit or receive data from the U.S. Department of Education in the format required. The Financial Aid Department currently uses two additional shadow databases in combination with the legacy system to process data and report back to the Federal and State agencies. PC based software packages are used to assist in the reconciliation of the three databases to ensure fiscal integrity. Creating, editing, monitoring, and performing required federal and state mandated processes are all handled manually.

The current legacy database has no remaining room for new data required by the Federal and State governments. These additional data fields are being stored in the shadow databases. The use of shadow databases limits the accessibility of data and reporting capabilities. The Student Employment and Scholarship staff are also using shadow databases to store, monitor and report on student data that cannot be stored in the current legacy system. The data is entered and maintained with very little automation. The technical and functional labor necessary to maintain and meet institutional and governmental requirements is hampering the services available to students.

Projcet Scope

Load ISIRs & Perform Needed Analysis

• Provide U.S. Dept of Ed compliant electronic data exchange of FAFSA applications, corrections and duplicates.
• Automate the management of FAFSA suspense files.
• Automate the assignment of budgets based on institutional rules and policies.
• Provide U.S. Dept. of Ed compliant need analysis capabilities.
• Automate the selection of students for verification based on income, other FAFSA elements, and institutional rules.
• Provide automated need analysis for "no need" applicants.
• Automate the determination of State Need Grant eligibility.
• Improve the ability to provide communications which assist aid applicants in efficiently completing their application/eligibility process.
• Provide an audit trail of transactions and changes by student, operator and date.

Award Aid

• Create auto-packaging rules which optimize available funds, are easily updated from year to year, and meet all institutional awarding policies.
• Automate the awarding of state grant programs.
• Provide auto-awarding based on intended enrollment through Add/Drop of fall term and actual enrollment thereafter.
• Provide automated aid packaging & repackaging that is U.S. Dept. of Ed compliant.
• Create scholarship selection reports that are easily updated from year to year and can be run prior to the first award notices.
• Eliminate shadow database of on-campus scholarship eligibility criteria.
• Eliminate shadow database of scholarship donors.
• Incorporate Chapter 30 non-state aid eligibility requirements into auto-packaging rules.
• Automate the summer aid awarding process.
• Provide for the creation and management of all aid funds through descriptions, restrictions, disbursement controls, messages and sources.
• Provide the ability to calculate or exclude aid types from "Need" based on federal, state, and institutional regulation and policy.

Manage Loans and Pell Grants

• Provide U.S. Dept of Ed compliance in using National Student Loan Data System (NSLDS) data in awarding and disbursing controls at the student level.
• Provide U.S. Dept of Ed compliance in all Federal Direct Loan requirements; origination, correction, disbursement, promissory notes, and reconciliation.
• Provide U.S. Dept of Ed compliance in all Federal Pell Grant requirements; origination, disbursement, and reconciliation.
• Automate the certification and disbursement of non-federal educational loans.

Administer Work-Study

• Implement process/functionality to assist departments against overpaying federal and state work-study students.
• Provide U.S. Dept of Ed and State compliant tracking of student earnings for both on and off-campus work-study.
• Eliminate shadow databases for tracking eligibility forms and off-campus employers.
• Automate the feed of student employee data information to HRMS panels

Satisfactory Academic Progress (SAP)

• Automate U.S. Dept of Ed compliant SAP rules that are flexible and easily updated.
• Automate State compliant SAP rules that are flexible and easily updated.
• Automate scholarship donor compliant SAP rules that are flexible and easily updated.

Disburse Aid

• Provide U.S. Dept of Ed compliant disbursement controls
• Provide the ability to communicate anticipated aid to students and other university departments.
• Automate internal controls to ensure continued federal and state funding eligibility.
• Automate management of scholarship donors and funds.
• Provide U.S. Dept of Ed compliant processing of Return of Title IV funds.

Regulatory Reports

• Provide U.S. Dept of Ed compliant reporting for the FISAP.
• Provide State compliant reporting; Unit Record, SNG Interim Reports, SNG Reconciliation, State Work-Study Reconciliation

Other Critical Reports

• Automate the feed of financial aid award information to NCAA software.
• Create report of Average debt of graduating seniors.
• Create reports of Average "Need" and "Un-met Need" of annual applicants.
• Create effective reporting solutions to support CWU management of Aid funds.
• Create effective reporting solutions to support CWU tracking of aid provided.
• Create effective reporting solutions to track work load and productivity.

Manage Communications, Checklists, and Comments

• Continue web-access for students to monitor their progress through the FA processes.
• Provide an audit trail of comments made to the student file by operator and date.
• Provide checklists for tracking documents sent and received to/from students by date.
• Provide tracking of communications sent to students via a variety of methods (letter, phone, e-mail).

Manage U.S. Dept of Ed Quality Assurance Program

• Provide the ability to track the first ISIR received, by student, and the final ISIR used to disburse aid.
• Provide the ability to track changes made to ISIR data.

Not Included in this scope are the following activities and/or work processes.

• Student Employment Process

Objectives

These objectives specify what the Module Team will accomplish in this project.

Overall SA Project Objectives:

The following objectives were set out for the entire SA Implementation Project but that are particularly meaningful to the Module Teams.

• Adopt best practices where possible during the implementation process in order to minimize customizations.
• Provide ready access to current, accurate, and complete administrative information and the means to use it in an efficient manner.
• Develop cross module integration issue identification and definitions to guide overall implementation efforts...

Financial Aid Module Objectives:

Load ISIRs & Perform Need Analysis

• Provide U.S. Dept of Ed compliant electronic data exchange of FAFSA applications, corrections and duplicates.
• Automate the management of FAFSA suspense files.
• Automate the assignment of budgets based on institutional rules and policies.
• Provide U.S. Dept. of Ed compliant need analysis capabilities.
• Automate the selection of students for verification based on income, other FAFSA elements, and institutional rules.
• Provide automated need analysis for "no need" applicants.
• Automate the determination of State Need Grant eligibility.
• Improve the ability to provide communications that assist aid applicants in efficiently completing their application/eligibility process.
• Provide an audit trail of transactions and changes by student, operator and date
• Implement process and/or technology to identify and record accurate academic histories for aid applicants.

Award Aid

• Create auto-packaging rules that optimize available funds, are easily updated from year to year, and meet all institutional awarding policies.
• Automate the awarding of state grant programs.
• Provide auto-awarding based on intended enrollment through Add/Drop of fall term and actual enrollment thereafter.
• Provide automated aid packaging & repackaging that is U.S. Dept. of Ed compliant.
• Create scholarship selection reports that are easily updated from year to year and can be run prior to the first award notices.
• Incorporate Chapter 30 non-state aid eligibility requirements into auto-packaging rules.
• Automate the summer aid awarding process.
• Provide for the creation and management of all aid funds through descriptions, restrictions, disbursement controls, messages and sources.
• Provide the ability to calculate or exclude aid types from "Need" based on federal, state, and institutional regulation and policy.
• Eliminate shadow database of off-campus scholarship donors.
• Eliminate shadow database of on-campus scholarship eligibility criteria.

Manage Loans and Pell Grants

• Provide U.S. Dept of Ed compliance in using National Student Loan Data System (NSLDS) data in awarding and disbursing controls at the student level.
• Provide U.S. Dept of Ed compliance in all Federal Direct Loan requirements; origination, correction, disbursement, promissory notes, and reconciliation.
• Provide U.S. Dept of Ed compliance in all Federal Pell Grant requirements; origination, disbursement, and reconciliation.
• Automate the certification and disbursement of non-federal educational loans.

Administer Work-Study

• Implement process/functionality to assist departments against overpaying federal and state work-study students.
• Provide U.S. Dept of Ed and State compliant tracking of student earnings for both on and off-campus work-study.
• Eliminate shadow databases for tracking eligibility forms and off-campus employers.
• Automate the feed of student employee data information to HRMS panels

Satisfactory Academic Progress (SAP)

• Automate U.S. Dept of Ed compliant SAP rules such that they are effective and easily maintained.
• Automate State compliant SAP rules such that they are effective and easily maintained.
• Automate scholarship donor compliant SAP rules such that they are effective and easily maintained.

Disburse Aid

• Provide U.S. Dept of Ed compliant disbursement controls.
• Provide the ability to communicate anticipated aid to students and other university departments.
• Automate internal controls to ensure continued federal and state funding eligibility.
• Automate management of scholarship donors and funds.
• Provide U.S. Dept of Ed compliant processing of Return of Title IV funds.

Regulatory Reports

• Provide U.S. Dept of Ed compliant reporting for the FISAP.
• Provide State compliant reporting; Unit Record, SNG Interim Reports, SNG Reconciliation, State Work-Study Reconciliation.
• Implement process and technology to support efficient tracking and reporting of the use of funds.

Other Critical Reports

• Automate the feed of financial aid award information to NCAA software.
• Create report of Average debt of graduating seniors.
• Create reports of Average "Need" and "Un-met Need" of annual applicants.
• Create effective reporting solutions to support CWU management of Aid funds.
• Create effective reporting solutions to support CWU tracking of aid provided.
• Create effective reporting solutions to track work load and productivity of the Financial Aid Department.

Manage Communications, Checklists, and Comments

• Continue web-access for students to monitor their progress through the FA processes.
• Provide storage of (or minimally an audit trail of) comments made to the student file by operator and date.
• Provide checklists for tracking documents sent and received to/from students by date.
• Provide tracking of communications sent to student via a variety of methods (letter, phone, e-mail).

Manage U.S. Dept of Ed Quality Assurance Program

• Provide the ability to track the first ISIR received, by student, and the final ISIR used to disburse aid.
• Provide the ability to track changes made to ISIR data.
• Enhance communication processes which report aid provided by other programs and/or Deparments to the Financial Aid Office.

Project Timeline

The table on the following page was extracted from the SAFARI Project plan and it shows only tasks which are involved in implementing the Recruiting and Admissions portions of the software. Please note that this project plan is subject to change through out the project. For current plan information please contact the project office.

Organization and Staffing

The Module Team will consist of a Module Lead, one or more Subject Matter Experts, a Module Consultant, and assistance from one or more Functional Analysis Specialists. The roles of these team members are described in this section.

FA Project Module Lead

Summary
The Student Administration System Module Lead (SAS) works to design and implement technology solutions to support CWU staff and departments, specifically for one of the SA modules. This is primarily accomplished through documentation and analysis of business process and reporting requirements and design and set up of the PeopleSoft Student Administration system and peripheral products.

Typical Work Activities
Assist developing, coordinating, and monitoring multiple aspects of a task or project plan. Is the principal resource for fit/gap analysis. Develop and review prototypes for respective module to determine current business processes and to test and demonstrate new business processes. Determine best practices for business processes for module. Coordinate definition, analysis and proposed resolution of issues. Identify and communicate to others tasks that have cross-system and/or module impacts. Coordinate closely with individuals responsible for other PeopleSoft systems and/or modules to maintain necessary integration and data quality. Participate in outreach activities to the campus community including written communications, meetings, and presentations as necessary. Coordinate subject matter work groups within and/or between campus units. Develop documentation and assist with training efforts. Primary contact to regular work unit to report progress, seek assistance and communicate project activities and impacts

Subject Matter Experts

Summary
The Subject Matter Experts will provide detailed descriptions of the services, work tasks, reporting, and other information requirements of the Financial Aid Department and assist the full-time Module Team members in configuring and testing the Student Administration System in a way that provides optimal support for CWU.

Typical Work Activities
Business process documentation; population of system set-up tables; fit/gap analysis; assist with performance of software testing; advise on end-user training requirements; communicate objectively with other Financial Aid Department staff about the pros and cons of PeopleSoft Student Administration system.

Functional Application Specialists

Summary
The Functional Application Specialist (FAS) works to design and implement technology solutions to support CWU staff and departments. This is primarily accomplished through documentation and analysis of business process and reporting requirements and design and set up of the PeopleSoft Student Administration system and peripheral products.

Typical Work Activities
Business process documentation; population of system set-up tables; fit/gap analysis; functional specifications for modifications, interfaces, reports, and security; assist with design and performance of software testing; assist in developing end-user training materials; advise the project team on general technical matters; applying approved project methods and processes

Module Consultant

Summary
The Module Consultant provides in-depth knowledge about the functions and capabilities of the PeopleSoft Module and advises the Module Team on optimal application of this software to support CWU processes and information users.

Typical Work Activities
Provide training, information, and mentoring necessary to support the Module Leads in becoming PeopleSoft experts, facilitate the team through implementation workshops and tasks; troubleshoot the software when it is not operating properly, research and find solutions to CWU-specific requirements for system set-up and/or modifications, and assist team members with the various activities of implementing the system (business process documentation; population of system set-up tables; fit/gap analysis; writing of functional specifications; design and performance of software testing; developing end-user training materials)

Key Risks

Any project of this scale will encounter problems along the way. Good project management includes periodic attempts to identify the potential problems, which are most likely to happen, and are the most potentially damaging to the project timeline or deliverables. Financial Aid Department Directors and Managers are encouraged to bring any such risks to the attention of the Module Lead so mitigation/contingency planning can be done, thereby protecting the project's success.

Risk: ?

Student Employment
The management of Student Employment on the CWU Ellensburg Campus is not within the scope of this project. Student Employment is currently managed by the Student Employment Staff of the Financial Aid Office. The Student Employment Staff incurs a considerable work load to enter all of the student employee information into the HRMS database and has no official training or authority to monitor labor laws.

COD Full Participation
If we do not meet the go-live date of 2004-2005 we may not have XTML capability for the Federal Direct Loan Program and the Federal Pell Grant.

Mitigation/Contingency Plan
?