Understanding TCSI Reporting

Transforming the Collection of Student Information (TCSI) is a new Australian regulatory and legislative feature that replaces the old HEIMS file-based product.

Although the data being reported through TCSI is mostly the same as that reported through HEIMS, the structure of the records and the method of continuously reporting and updating the data required the creation of a new solution. This TCSI solution uses many of the existing setup pages created for HEIMS reporting.

The delivered TCSI processes will identify when a record hasn't been previously reported to TCSI. Using the APIs, the record with the data for each element is then posted to TCSI, and a unique ID (UID) is created for this data in the TCSI system. The TCSI APIs return this UID to Campus Solutions (CS), acting as a link between the data held by TCSI and the data in Campus Solutions.

CS stores the UID along with the details of the data sent to TCSI in a transaction record which is dated. The transaction record can then be compared to the current CS data (as it changes over time) to determine if it needs to be patched. When patching data, the process uses the stored UID to identify the TCSI record being updated and then sends the elements that have changed from those previously reported.

The process may encounter errors from TCSI during the posting or patching of data. CS stores these errors in a table that's linked to the transaction record to allow institutions to troubleshoot any issues.

There are a number of transaction pages that allow you to view current CS data, previous transaction data, and the current TCSI data, along with the error messages and transaction history. Institutions could use PeopleSoft Analytics to manage the error messages and direct them to the appropriate data experts.