On May 1, 2022, we plan to implement Common Origination and Disbursement (COD) System functionality that supports the Campus-Based programs and the processing of Federal Pell Grant (Pell Grant), Iraq and Afghanistan Service Grant, Teacher Education Assistance for College and Higher Education (TEACH) Grant, and William D. Ford Federal Direct Loan (Direct Loan) awards for the 2022–23 award year.
We appreciate your patience and understanding as we complete this important activity.
2022–23 COD System Implementation Information
With this release, we will make two significant changes to the COD System, including a new file layout for the Electronic Statement of Account (ESOA) and the implementation of the 2022–23 Federal Pell Grant Payment and Disbursement Schedules as announced in GEN-22-04 on March 24, 2022. In this announcement, we provide guidance about the ESOA change. Information about the COD System update with the Federal Pell Grant schedules will be posted in a separate announcement.
ESOA File Layout Change for All Award Years, 2022–23 and Prior
As a result of the transition to the Unique Entity Identifier (UEI), we added the UEI as a new field to several reports, including the ESOA (for both the Federal Pell Grant and Iraq and Afghanistan Service Grant programs), and on the COD website. The UEI is specific to a school not an award year, so as part of the initial COD System release on March 27, 2022, the field was added to the ESOA layout for all award years; however, most software vendors and schools were only expecting the ESOA layout change to apply to the 2022–23 award year and forward. As a result, schools were not able to import the ESOAs for 2021–22 and prior.
In the short term, on March 31, 2022, we reversed the changes made to the ESOA layout, so that it matched the version for the 2021–22 award year and prior. With the May 1, 2022, COD System implementation, we will implement the original change and send the ESOA using the new file layout; it will be the same for all award years, 2022–23 and prior.
Software vendors and schools will need to determine the award years to update in their systems and software.
-
Option 1 – Implement the new layout across all open award years. In this case, the ESOAs will be imported regardless of the award year of the file. Note: If a software vendor or school plans to update the ESOA layout for any previous award year (2021–22 and prior), you must use the file layout provided in Volume VII of the 2022–23 COD Technical Reference because we will not be updating the ESOA layout in any of the prior year versions of the COD Technical Reference.
-
Option 2 – Implement the new layout for 2022–23 and forward only. In this case, ESOAs for 2021–22 and prior will not be able to be imported after May 1, 2022. However, schools can manually update the ESOA file to be able to import it; see instructions provided on the COD Resources page of the COD website.
Considerations for EDExpress Users
EDExpress for Windows for the 2022–23 award year will include the new report layout when it is released in Release 2.0 (expected by April 29, 2022). We will also update the 2021–22 software (monitor the Knowledge Center for a separate announcement for this update); however, we do not plan on updating any other prior-year versions of EDExpress.
Contact Information
If you have questions about this announcement, contact the COD School Relations Center at 1-800-848-0978. You may also email CODSupport@ed.gov.