Publication Date: April 15, 2002
Author: General Manager: SFA School Channel
Summary: Common Origination and Disbursement (COD) Schools Testing for Full Participants and Phase-In Participants -- April 2002
Posted on April 15, 2002
TO: Full Participants and Phase-In Participants in Common Origination and Disbursement in Award Year 2002 - 2003
FROM: U.S. Department of Education
RE: Common Origination and Disbursement (COD) Schools Testing for Full Participants and Phase-In Participants - April 2002
UPdated on April 23, 2002
The Common Origination and Disbursement system (COD) replaces the Recipient Financial Management System (RFMS) and the Direct Loan Origination System (DLOS) beginning in Award Year 2002-2003. This message explains how all schools, both Full Participants and Phase-In Participants, can participate in COD School Testing.
I. COD School Testing Phases for Full Participants and Phase-In Participants
COD School Testing provides schools, third-party servicers and software vendors an opportunity to test business processes and system software with the COD System, prior to the transmission and processing of actual production data. COD Full Participants and Phase-In Participants are not required to test with COD, but are able to participate in the following testing phases, if desired:
Phase III - Structured Application Testing (Full Participants and Phase-In Participants)
This testing phase has been expanded since our last IFAP posting. Two testing windows have been established for Phase III Structured Application Testing. During Phase III School Testing, COD works with schools using structured test cases to ensure that the systems are functioning as expected and assists schools in the identification of potential updates to their system before beginning actual processing for 2002-2003.
Phase IV - Application Testing (Full Participants and Phase-In Participants)
This testing phase has also been expanded since our last IFAP posting. Two testing windows have been established for Phase IV Application Testing. During this phase, COD works with schools using structured test cases to ensure that the systems are functioning as expected. In addition, Full Participant schools can request an additional 13 students to test with in which schools can create their own test cases and expected results as well as test COD web functionality. EDExpress users may test in this phase using the new version of EDExpress that will be released in the beginning of April 2002.
School testing will unavailable one week before, and one week after the implementation date of each COD release. The following diagram illustrates the different phases of COD school testing that are available to Full Participants and Phase-In Participants:
II. Participating in School Testing
All participants who wish to participate in school testing must sign up through the Customer Service Call Center at (800) 433-7327 prior to testing. Phase-In Schools should refer to the Phase-In School Test Case Guide for more information. Full Participants should refer to the Full Participant Test Case Guide for more information. These guides contain descriptions of the test data sent to and from the schools to COD, with test execution guidelines and structured test cases with multiple testing cycles. The Phase-In School Test Case Guide and The Full Participant Test Case Guide are available within the COD Technical Reference Version 3.3 at (http://ifap.ed.gov/cod/CODTechRefVer3pt3.html).
If you have questions regarding school testing through April 29, 2002, you can contact the Customer Service Call Center at (800) 433-7327, or send your questions via the Schools Portal. Staff is available Monday through Friday, 9-5 Eastern Time.
After April 29, 2002, schools should call the COD School Relations numbers:
- 1-800-474-7268 for Pell Grant assistance
- 1-800-848-0978 for Direct Loan assistance
Attachments/Enclosures: