Awarding Online

The active career for the student to be used for packaging at this time. If the student has only one career, it is defaulted into the field. Choose from among the current valid careers for the student—defined on the Financial Aid Term record, which you can change on the FA Term page—and careers for which the student has received any financial aid awards.

After you select a career, do not change this field until after you click the Post button or the Reset button. This prevents you from changing awards for more than one career at a time.

Only the packaging plans and disbursement plans associated with the active career are available during this awarding session.

The packaging plan you want to use to package the student. Only packaging plan IDs that match the student's career are available.

Click to run Auto Packaging or Auto Select Packaging. The awards associated with the packaging plan appear in the Award and Status tabs. If a student is not eligible for an award in the packaging plan, the award amount is set to zero, and a Message link displays. If nonzero awards are returned, a disbursement link displays the scheduled disbursements for the award.

Awards that are not locked on the Student Aid Package page are canceled when Auto Packaging is performed, with the exception of already disbursed awards of a financial aid item type that has disbursement protection activated.

This field is known as the Aid Processing Status field on the Packaging Status Summary page select (Financial Aid, then select View Packaging Status Summary). Various financial aid processes automatically update the packaging status. You can manually change the package status after award posting, and you must save your change before exiting the page. You can use the package status to set the packaging status to a value other than Completed after you have posted an award. For example, if a department award is manually awarded and then you want to use Mass Packaging, you would want to set the package status from Completed back to Package.

Applied: The student has applied for financial aid. This value is automatically populated when you load a financial aid application such as an ISIR or a PROFILE application.

No App Rcd (No Electronic Application Received): No electronic application has been received.

Completed (Packaging Completed): The student's award package has been posted. The Posting routine automatically updates the field to this value.

Review (Ready for Counselor Review): The student should be or is currently being reviewed by a financial aid counselor.

Package (Ready for Packaging): The student is ready for packaging.

Repackage: The student is ready for repackaging. Can be set by the External Award Load process.

This field enables you to set the aggregate source to assess a student's lifetime aggregate aid history during the Awarding and Packaging process. You can set the aggregate source at the financial aid installation default level and on the Packaging Status Summary in addition to each of the award page components.

Default: Directs awarding and packaging to use the Aggregate Source value set at the FA Installation level.

NSLDS: Directs the awarding and packaging to use NSLDS aggregate totals that have been loaded and pushed into the aggregate tables.

PS: Directs awarding and packaging to use aggregate undergraduate and graduate totals that have been completely maintained by the institution and Financial Aid packaging process.

Provides the Packaging routine with the intended award period processing mode for the award period that you are currently packaging. The routine uses this information to determine automatically which existing awards are active or passive. The award period you select functions like the packaging plan award period attribute in the determination of passive/active mode for existing awards. When the Packaging routine employs passive/active mode processing, you can treat the awards in one award period (academic) as passive awards while awarding the other award period (nonstandard). The Packaging routine does not modify or repackage passive awards; it preserves them, unlike active awards that are subject to change. However, the Packaging routine still includes the award amounts of passive awards in determining remaining annual aggregate limits or other eligibility requirements and in updating need summary balances.

After you select an award period, the Packaging routine evaluates the disbursement plan/split code pattern for each of the existing posted awards and determines whether the pattern matches or falls within the selected award period mode. The Packaging routine then makes the rows of passive awards unavailable, indicating that these awards cannot be modified by either you or the Packaging routine. All other awards can be modified.

After you select the award period for a student, you must complete your activity for the selected award period. Validate and post the awards or click the Reset button to clear the results before you can select a new award period for that student.

Both: You are currently packaging the student for both award periods. This is the default value. The Packaging routine reevaluates all existing awards, processing all awards as active awards. When you select Both, all awards are available for reevaluation.

Academic: You are currently packaging the student for the academic award period (AAP) only. The Packaging routine reevaluates only existing awards whose disbursement plan/split code patterns indicate that they are for the AAP or for both award periods. The Packaging routine processes all other existing awards as passive awards.

Non-Std (nonstandard): You are currently packaging the student for the nonstandard award period (NSAP) only. The Packaging routine reevaluates only existing awards whose disbursement plan/split code patterns indicate that they are for the NSAP or for both award periods. The Packaging routine processes all other existing awards as passive awards.

Click this button during manual packaging to have the award package checked by the Validation process after you enter each award or after you enter all awards. During validation, all eligibility rules, aggregate limits, minimum and maximum award limits, fiscal fund availability, and financial aid item type rules are checked. To determine the maximum award limit, the Validation process uses the lowest maximum award limit from the maximum limits set at the item type, financial aid item type, aggregate aid limit, fiscal item type, and packaging plan levels. The Validation process uses the lowest minimum award limit from the minimum limits set at the item type, financial aid item type, and packaging plan levels.

The Validation process may cancel an award or lower the award amount to comply with established rules and limits. If validation fails on any award, a Message link appears in the award row. Validation may also reduce an award amount or set an award amount to zero. Any awards that are assigned a zero dollar amount when you run Auto Packaging are removed during posting. When you are manually packaging a student, you can have the Validation process populate the correct award amount based on the student's eligibility and institutional rules by entering a zero amount for the award. An award must be successfully validated before you can post the award.

During manual packaging, the Validation process does not impose restrictions on offering unsubsidized Stafford loans before you award students their full subsidized Stafford eligibility. You are responsible for offering students their full subsidized Stafford eligibility before offering unsubsidized Stafford loans.

Click to save the award information and update the student award tables. If any award fails to post, an error message is displayed and none of the awards are posted. If you do not post the student's awards before leaving the page, the awards are not saved.

This button refreshes the page with any previously posted awards and removes any awards that you attempted to make on the page before posting during the awarding session. Posted awards are not removed. Click this button to validate new awards and see what effect the new awards might have toward the existing package before you post them.

The sequence number is automatically assigned in increments of ten when awards are entered. Click in the field to modify the sequence number and to change the number. You can control the order of new or existing awards by using a sequence number in between two existing sequenced awards. Duplicate sequence numbers are not permitted. The sequencing of awards is always preserved throughout the packaging session of the student.

All awards for the passive careers are sequenced to the top of the packaging sequence. These passive awards are not changed regardless of need or other changes in the student's record.

Select the action being taken on the award. When initially entering a new award, the values are B—Offer/Accept, O—Offer, and X—Discard.

After an award has been posted, the values are A—Accept, B—Offer/Accept, C—Cancel, D—Decline, and O—Offer.

Any change to an award action is logged in the Award Activity Log, which can be viewed on the Award Activity page.

A—Accept: Accepts an award that has been offered to the student. If a student wants to accept less than the new offered amount — for an item type that is not a loan — the student can use the action A.

B—Offer/Accept: Use when you are initially offering an award to a student for which an explicit acceptance from the student is not needed (such as grants, scholarships, and so on). If you select this option and modify the existing award, the system automatically changes the accepted amount to the offered amount of the existing award. If you increase an existing award, the system replaces the accepted amount with the new offered amount. Similarly, the same behavior takes place for reduced awards.

C—Cancel: Cancels the award, but retains the award entry with a zero amount in the list of awards for that student. If you cancel an award, the award amount is reduced to zero, and the need summary and related award and fiscal pages are updated.

D—Decline: Declines the award, but retains the award entry with a zero amount in the list of awards for that student. If you decline an award, the award amount is reduced to zero, and the need summary and related award and fiscal pages are updated.

O—Offer: Offer the award to the student. The accepted amount is zero.

X—Discard: Deletes the award row when validation is performed if the award has not been posted. For example, you would use this status if you entered an award in error or you decided not to award the student a particular financial aid item type.

This field displays the career for which you made the award. This indicates which career is associated with each award.

The financial aid item type ID for the award that you want to award.

Description of the financial aid item type. This field is populated when you move out of Item Type field.

The amount that you want to offer the student for this award. If no amount is entered during manual packaging and the action is O or B, the Validation process assigns an optimal award amount based on the student's eligibility, the student's financial need, the aggregate aid limits, and the financial aid item type limits.

For Pell Grants, leave the offered amount at zero dollars to have the Validation process calculate the Pell Grant amount for the student based on the latest ISIR transaction, Pell COA, Alternate Pell COA, nine-month EFC, and the student's FA Load value for each term. If you enter an amount for a Pell Grant, the Validation process may adjust it depending on the student's eligibility.

This is the amount of the award the student accepts. If the action was Offer/Accept, this amount is automatically entered and matches the offered amount.

Select a disbursement plan for the award. If the financial aid item type has a default disbursement plan defined at either the financial aid item type or the packaging plan level, that value is defaulted in this field.

Select a split code. Only split codes associated with the selected disbursement plan are available. If the financial aid item type has a default split code defined at either the financial aid item type or the packaging plan level, that value is defaulted in this field.

This link appears after you validate an award. Click to access the Award Disbursement Detail page and view the terms, number of disbursement IDs, and amounts per disbursement ID as well as create custom split amounts and customize loan fee amounts.

This link appears if a message is generated by validation or Auto Packaging. Click to access the Packaging Message page and view the reason why a particular financial aid item type failed or was reduced by validation or Auto Packaging.

This check box is selected if an existing award was added or modified using professional judgement. This check box is display only. You can manually modify awards that have this check box selected; if you use Auto Packaging, the award is not modified.

See Using Professional Judgement.

Because professional judgement awards can be manually modified on this page, anyone with access to this page—not just those with access to the Professional Judgement page—can modify professional judgement awards. Members of your staff may not realize an existing award is a professional judgement award unless they check the Status page. For example, when reviewing a student's award package, a staff member sees that the student has an existing 10,000.00 USD award. The initial view of the Student Aid Package page does not indicate whether this award was made using professional judgement. To determine whether the award was made using professional judgement, the staff member should click the Status tab to see if the PJ check box is selected before modifying the award. You may want to address this issue during staff training, and advise your staff members to proceed cautiously.

Set automatically when the External Award Load process successfully posts an external award. EA attribute is also set if an existing award is update from an external award loan transaction. For example, the External Award Load processing updating the disbursed amounts for an existing work-study award. When the EA attribute is checked, the award is prevented from being overwritten by the Auto and Mass Packaging and Repackaging processes.

Select to prevent the award from being overwritten by the Auto Packaging or Mass Packaging process and to override the financial aid item type level award amount limits. Manually locking an award does not allow you to override the fiscal, aggregate, and equity limits, and any federal or legal rules or limits. You can also set a global lock at the financial aid item type level. Doing this always sets the award to locked when performing Manual, Auto, or Mass Packaging. An example of an award you might want to lock is an award from a private source that should not be altered by another Packaging process.

Select to prevent the system from changing the award amount when the student's need changes. The check box is available only for awards associated with the active career. When this check box is selected, only fiscal limits and aggregate rules are applied during validation. When this check box is selected, you do not need to select the Lock or Override check boxes because their functionality is effectively included when you select Need Override.

Select to allow the award amount to exceed the award amount limits defined for this financial aid item type. The override does not allow award amounts to exceed legal limits, available fiscal funds, or aggregate limits.

Select the type of charge you want this award to pay. The list contains the charge priority lists set up at your institution. If your institution has defined a charge priority list for the financial aid item type, it defaults in this field.

See Defining Charge Priority List Rules.

The current status of the award. The award status can be Offered, Accepted, Canceled, or Declined.

If you adjust an award action, this link appears immediately after the Award Status field. Click to access the Award Adjustment page and enter the reason for the adjustment.