Publication Date: March 1, 2006 Author: G. Kay Jacks, General Manager, FSA Application, School Eligibility and Delivery Services Summary: COD System Implementation for 2006-2007 Award Year Posted on 03-01-2006 During the period March 10-11, 2006, we plan to implement additional Common Origination and Disbursement (COD) System functionality that supports the processing of Pell Grants and Direct Loans for the 2006-2007 Award Year. We appreciate your patience and understanding as we complete this important activity. In this announcement, we provide the following important information related to the implementation: - Important Reminders
- 2006-2007 Pell Grant Authorizations and Disbursement Processing
- COD Batch Processing Suspension & COD and Electronic MPN Web Site Outages
- COD System Processing Function Enhancements and Modifications for 2006-2007
- Contact Information
Note: This implementation does not include functionality needed to implement the provisions of the recently enacted Higher Education Reconciliation Act of 2005 (P.L. 109-171). We will communicate with schools about the implementation of these new provisions as soon as possible. Important Reminders - All schools must send and receive 2006-2007 origination and disbursement data for the Pell Grant and Direct Loan programs to the COD System using the Extensible Markup Language (XML) Common Record.
- For the 2006-2007 Award Year, we will continue to use Version 2.0d of the Common Record XML Schema. There have been no changes made to the schema.
- All Pell Grant and Direct Loan reports, including data requests, will continue to be sent in the formats currently available and not in XML format.
- Prior to submitting 2006-2007 records to the COD System, ensure that your school software/system is ready to process 2006-2007 records using the XML Common Record.
- All schools new to the Direct Loan and/or Pell Grant programs must complete school testing with COD before sending data into production. The only exception to this is new schools using software from software providers or third-party servicers.
- While other schools are not required to test with COD, all schools, software providers, and third-party servicers may participate in testing. We encourage schools that use a solution developed in house (mainframe system, server, software, or other) to send and receive the XML Common Record to test with COD.
- For more information about testing, refer to the "COD School Testing for the 2006-2007 Award Year" announcement.
- If your school uses a third party software provider, check with your provider for the availability of the provider's 2006-2007 software release.
Note: For EDExpress users, the 2006-2007 EDExpress for Windows Release 2.0 will be available in late March 2006. - Beginning with the implementation of the COD System for the 2006-2007 Award Year-
- All 2006-2007 Award Year specific message classes will include "07" as the award year indicator. All message classes are listed in Volume II, Section 2 of the 2006-2007 COD Technical Reference.
- The Master Promissory Note (MPN) ID will include "07" as the award year indicator.
- The default award year will be 2006-2007 on all COD Web site screens except the Request Post Deadline Processing screen. (The Request Post Deadline Processing screen defaults to the award year for which processing has most recently ended.)
2006-2007 Pell Grant Authorizations and Disbursement Processing - Initial Pell Grant Authorizations for the 2006-2007 Award Year for schools receiving Pell Grant funds under the advanced funding method will be determined in May 2006. Initial Current Funding Levels (CFLs) will be established in the COD System at that time, and an Electronic Statement of Account (ESOA) containing this information will be sent to each school's SAIG mailbox.
- As an Advanced Funded school submits actual disbursements, the total accepted and posted amount for each disbursement is applied to the amount of the school's Initial CFL. Only after the Initial CFL amount has been reached will the school's CFL be increased to cover additional accepted and posted disbursements. A new ESOA is sent to the school each time its CFL amount changes.
- Schools that participate in the Just in Time pilot and schools on Reimbursement, Heightened Cash Monitoring 1 (HCM1), or Heightened Cash Monitoring 2 (HCM2) will not receive an Initial CFL. These schools are eligible for a CFL once actual disbursements have been accepted and posted. A new ESOA is sent to a school each time its CFL amount changes.
- The earliest date on which a school may disburse a Pell Grant for the 2006-2007 Award Year, either with Federal funds or its own funds, is July 1, 2006. July 1st also is the date on which 2006-2007 Pell Grant funds will be available for draw in the Grant Administration and Payment System (GAPS).
- Beginning with implementation of the COD System for the 2006-2007 Award Year, schools may submit common records that contain anticipated disbursement information for 2006-2007 Pell Grant awards. The Disbursement Release Indicator (DRI) value in these records must be equal to "False" in order to be accepted by the COD System.
- The COD System will accept actual disbursements for 2006-2007 Pell Grant awards beginning June 21, 2006. As noted above, the disbursement date must be July 1, 2006 or later.
- Prior to June 21st, the COD System will reject actual disbursements (DRI value equal to "True") and send Edit 996 (Invalid Value) to schools.
- After June 21st, Advanced Funded schools may submit actual disbursements for 2006-2007 Pell Grant awards up to 30 days before the disbursement date. However, the disbursements will not be posted and funded in the GAPS until 7 days before the disbursement date.
COD Batch Processing Suspension and Web Site Outage Information In order to install the system changes that will allow the COD System to receive and process 2006-2007 records- - We will suspend COD batch processing beginning at 8:00 P.M. (ET) on Friday, March 10, 2006. Records submitted after 8:00 P.M. (ET) will be held and processed after 7:00 P.M. (ET) on Saturday, March 11, 2006.
- The COD Web site will be unavailable from 8:00 P.M. (ET) on Friday, March 10, 2006 until 7:00 P.M. (ET) on Saturday, March 11, 2006.
The processing suspension and COD Web site outage will have no impact on the regular processing of schools' funding requests. Additionally, for Direct Loan participants- Note: Periodically throughout this outage, the Direct Loan Electronic MPN Web site will be available for testing purposes. Individuals who begin an activity during one of these periods may not be able to complete the activity before the Web site becomes unavailable again. For this reason, we urge individuals not to access the Web site until after the outage ends at 7:00 P.M. (ET) on March 11th. - The Direct Loan Electronic MPN Web site is unavailable every Sunday morning from 5:00 A.M. until 11:00 A.M. (ET) while routine maintenance is performed. As such, the Direct Loan Electronic MPN Web site will again be unavailable from 5:00 A.M. until 11:00 A.M. (ET) on Sunday, March 12, 2006. As previously noted, individuals will not be able to complete or retrieve MPNs during this period.
COD System Processing Function Enhancements and Modifications for 2006-2007 - A new field and drop down menu, Award Year, will be added to the Batch Search screen (SSN search section). This field will allow users to perform Batch searches by SSN for a specific award year or for all award years.
- Previously, the error message "3000 Disb Found--More Disb Exist--Pls Narrow Search" displayed when a user's search criteria on the COD Web site's Action Queue Search screen returned 3,000 or more disbursements. This search will be enhanced to allow users to perform searches on the Action Queue Search screen that return 3,000 or more disbursements. Accordingly, the error message will no longer be displayed.
Contact Information If you have any questions about this announcement or the COD System, contact the COD School Relations Center at 800/4PGRANT for Pell Grant or 800/848-0978 for Direct Loan. You may also e-mail CODSupport@acs-inc.com. |