Auto Packaging

Auto Packaging assigns awards to a student based on the rules of the selected packaging plan so your packaging plans must be established before you can use the Student Aid Package page for Auto Packaging. Auto Packaging can be combined with manual awarding by changing the awards entered by the packaging plan or adding additional awards.

Auto Packaging assigns awards and validates the awards all at once. Validation checks that the student is eligible for the awards given and that no packaging or financial aid item type rules have been violated. Validation includes edits for minimum and maximum award limits, aggregate limits, fiscal fund availability, federal eligibility, and financial aid item type rules. Validation can reduce an award amount or set an award amount to zero to comply with rules and limits. If you make no changes to the awards after Auto Packaging, you can post the awards to the award tables directly. If you make manual changes to any awards after Auto Packaging, you click the Validate button to ensure the student is still eligible for the changed or new awards.

WARNING:

If you repackage locked or disbursed awards using Auto Packaging, post that set of awards (click the Post button) before performing any validation activity (click the Validate button). That is, if you use Auto Packaging to repackage a student who has locked awards, disbursed awards, or both, click the Post button first. Do not click the Validate button immediately after Auto Packaging. If you manually change an Auto-Packaged set of awards, post before validating. If you click the Validate button before posting a set of awards that was returned from Auto Packaging, it can potentially compromise the synchronization between offer and accept amounts as well as produce a different award than anticipated.

Note:

If the student does not have locked or disbursed awards, you can repackage that student using Auto Packaging and then manually change the awards or validate without posting first.