Understanding Federal Financial Aid Application Processing

To coordinate incoming and outgoing data files with the U.S. Department of Education's Central Processing System (CPS), you transmit data using the Department of Education's Student Aid Internet Gateway (SAIG) communications software, vendor supplied software, or software developed by your own institution.

CPS sends the student's FAFSA information contained in the ISIR data record and you load the data into the Financial Aid system. You can then override assumptions and rejects, add your institution to a student's ISIR, make ISIR corrections, exchange data with the CPS, validate and manage corrections, view EFC status, and review comments.

Financial Aid application processing consists of inbound and outbound processing. Inbound processing refers to ISIR records sent to your institution from the CPS. Outbound processing refers to ISIR correction records and requests to add your institution to the student's ISIR.

To load financial aid application information from the ISIR, use inbound processes:

1. When you receive a download from the CPS, run the FA Inbound process to deposit the entire batch into ISIR staging tables.

   NSLDS and some Direct Loan files are loaded using this process.

2. Run the ISIR Load process (FAPSAR00) to load the files from the ISIR staging tables into the database.

   The ISIR Load process uses your ISIR data load parameters and process demographic settings. ISIR records that are not loaded are marked as suspended for manual review or are automatically discarded based on your institution's data load parameter settings.

To send out ISIR corrections or add institution requests to the CPS, use outbound processes:

1. Run the ISIR Correction Outbound (FAPCOR00) process to gather all the data files marked to send.

   This process selects corrected ISIR records, requests to add the institution, and ISIR signatures records and copies them into the outbound staging tables.

2. Run the inbound ISIR Correction Errors process (FASAREXX) to evaluate record level error files that have been received from the CPS (message classes CORE0XOP, EAPR0XOP, SIGA0XOP). If the file contains history correction errors, the process updates the matching Correction Management page records.

3. Run the FA Outbound process to select records in the outbound staging tables and generate ISIR correction and FAFSA Signature files for transmission to CPS.