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Summary: Overlapping Service Outages Planned for December 12-17, 2007

Publication Date: December 12, 2007

Author: William Leith, Acting General Manager, Application, Operations and Delivery Services, Federal Student Aid

Summary: Overlapping Service Outages Planned for December 12-17, 2007

Posted on 12-12-2007

During the period December 12-17, 2007, several system implementation and maintenance activities will occur. This announcement consolidates the information about the affected systems and Web sites into one communication. We present this information in the following order:

  • Implementation of G5 Phase I – December 12-17, 2007
  • Unavailability of Direct Loan Electronic Master Promissory Note Web Site – December 14-17, 2007
  • Unavailability of COD Processing and COD Web Site – December 16, 2007
  • Unavailability of SAIG Enrollment Web Site and FAA Access to CPS Online – December 16, 2007

Please review all of the information and evaluate impact to your school or organization during the periods when the affected systems and Web sites will be unavailable. We appreciate your patience and understanding as we complete the required activities during the upcoming periods.

Implementation of G5 Phase I – December 12-17, 2007

In June 2007, the Department of Education (the Department) announced the development of G5—a state-of-the-industry electronic system for grants management and payments. G5 will replace the current Grant Administration and Payment System (GAPS), including the e-Payments functionality used by schools to draw down Campus-Based, Academic Competitiveness Grant (ACG), National Science and Mathematics Access to Retain Talent Grant (National SMART Grant), Federal Pell Grant (Pell Grant), and William D. Ford Federal Direct Loan (Direct Loan) funds. G5 will provide a number of performance, processing, and customer enhancements.

As explained most recently in a November 7, 2007 Electronic Announcement posted on the IFAP Web site, the Department will implement G5 in three phases over several years. Phase I of G5 will address e-Payments and provide improved drawdown functionality. Full implementation of Phase I is planned for December 17, 2007.

The service outage associated with the December 17, 2007 G5 Phase 1 implementation will impact how the Common Origination and Disbursement (COD) System will process financial data and when schools can obtain funds for the Federal student aid programs as follows:

  • Wednesday, December 12, 2007 through Sunday, December 16, 2007 – The COD System will accept ACG, National SMART Grant, Pell Grant, and Direct Loan disbursements, but Current Funding Level (CFL) changes and funding will not be processed by G5 until Monday, December 17, 2007.

    All actual disbursements with a disbursement date from December 12, 2007 through December 17, 2007 were to have been received and accepted by the COD System no later than 10:00 P.M. (ET) on Tuesday, December 11, 2007, in order for them to be included in the drawdown prior to the shutdown. Disbursements submitted after this time and disbursements with a disbursement date after December 17, 2007 will be funded after G5 is implemented on December 17, 2007.


  • 7:00 P.M. (ET) on Wednesday, December 12, 2007 through 6:00 A.M. (ET) on Monday, December 17, 2007 – Neither the GAPS e-Payments Web site nor the new G5 Web site will be available. Schools will not be able to draw down Campus-Based, ACG, National SMART Grant, Pell Grant, or Direct Loan funds during this period.

Note: The new G5 Web site will be available after 6:00 A.M. (ET) on Monday, December 17, 2007. The Department expects financial processing to be caught up by Thursday, December 20, 2007.

Unavailability of Direct Loan Electronic Master Promissory Note Web Site – December 14-17, 2007

The Direct Loan Electronic Master Promissory Note (MPN) Web site will undergo extended maintenance from 5:00 P.M. (ET) on Friday, December 14, 2007 until 8:00 A.M. (ET) on Monday, December 17, 2007.

Individuals starting the process by 4:00 P.M. (ET) on Friday, December 14, 2007 will be able to complete their MPNs before the Web site becomes unavailable. Individuals attempting to access the Web site after the cutoff time will see a Web site maintenance message and will not be able to start the process or retrieve an existing MPN.

Unavailability of COD Processing and COD Web Site – December 16, 2007

The COD System will undergo routine maintenance on Sunday, December 16, 2007 from 1:30 A.M. until 9:00 A.M. (ET). In addition, the Student Aid Internet Gateway (SAIG) will be unavailable from 3:00 A.M. until 11:00 A.M. (ET) due to its regular Sunday morning maintenance. The impact of these overlapping outages is as follows:

  • Users will not be able to submit or retrieve data via the COD Web site between 1:30 A.M. and 9:00 A.M. (ET).

  • Batches submitted by schools via the SAIG between 1:30 A.M. and 3:00 A.M. (ET) will be held and not acknowledged back to schools until after the SAIG comes back up at 11:00 A.M. (ET).
  • Schools attempting to transmit batches via the SAIG between 3:00 A.M. and 11:00 A.M. (ET) will receive an error message informing them that the SAIG is unavailable and that the data must be transmitted at a later time.

Unavailability of SAIG Enrollment Web Site and FAA Access to CPS Online – December 16, 2007

The SAIG Enrollment Web site and FAA Access to CPS Online will be unavailable on Sunday, December 16, 2007 from 7:00 A.M. until 7:00 P.M. (CT) so we can implement annual system updates. For complete information about the addition of a new 2008-2009 option for those services that are based on the academic year and other enhancements, refer to the December 6, 2007 Electronic Announcement posted on the IFAP Web site.