() Summary: Special Notes About New Edits for Incomplete Address

Posted on 03-18-2005

As explained in the Electronic Announcement, COD System Implementation for 2005-2006 Award Year (http://www.ifap.ed.gov/eannouncements/0310CODSystemImplementationfor0506AwardYear.html), following implementation, there will be new edits that your school will receive if an award is submitted with an incomplete address. In addition to your review of that announcement and the 2005-2006 COD Technical Reference for more information about these new edits, we want to bring a few special notes to your attention.

First, as a reminder, a complete address is defined as follows:

• If Foreign Indicator = False, at least one occurrence of each of the following must be present: AddressLine, AddressCity; AddressStateProvinceCode, and AddressPostalCode.

• If Foreign Indicator = True, at least one occurrence of each of the following must be present: AddressLine, AddressCity, and AddressCountryCode.

In both cases, a blank may not be submitted in any of the listed tags.

Special Notes for all Direct Loan Common Records--Any Award Year

o If a school submits an award with no address or an incomplete address for the student, but a student's complete address is in the COD database or in the CPS data file in the COD System, it will receive COD Warning Edit 120 (Incomplete address; complete address exists on the COD System. For Direct Loan PLUS only, student address is incomplete).

The award will be accepted; however, the partial address elements submitted in the record will not be saved in the COD System. Instead, COD will use the pre-existing address. This means that the school's system may have a different address for the student than the COD System.

o If a school submits a change record to update part of an address, it must submit the whole address, even if parts of the address are not changing. Otherwise, the school will receive this warning edit and the changes to the address will not take place. For example, if the school has a student whose street address has changed, but no other elements have changed, it must submit the entire address for the change to be made to the COD System.

Special Notes for all Direct Loan "Legacy" Origination Records (Fixed-Length, Flat-File Format)- 2003-2004 or 2004-2005 Award Year Only

o If a school submits an award with no address or an incomplete address, but there is no complete address in the COD database or in the CPS data file in the COD System, the award will be rejected and will not be built in the COD System. The school will receive COD Edit 21 (on the COD Web site), which will be translated to Direct Loan Legacy Edit 02 in the acknowledgment file.

o If a school submits an award with no address or an incomplete address, but a complete address is in the COD database or in the CPS data file in the COD System, the school will receive COD Warning Edit 120 on the COD Web site. The award will be accepted; however, the partial address elements will not be saved in the COD System. Instead, COD will use the pre-existing address. In addition, this warning edit will not be translated to a corresponding "legacy" edit code and will not be returned to the school in the acknowledgment file. As a result, the school's system may have a different address for the student than the address in the COD System.

Special Note for Direct Loan "Legacy" Origination Change Records (Fixed-Length, Flat-File Format)-2003-2004 or 2004-2005 Award Year Only

o If a school submits a change to an address on an existing award, but the change does not contain a complete address, the address change will be ignored regardless of whether or not the address in the COD database or in the CPS data file in the COD System is complete. The school will be able to view COD Warning Edit 120 on the COD Web site, but no corresponding "legacy" edit code will be returned to the school in the acknowledgment file.

In all cases, using a complete address when sending a new award or an address change to an existing award will mitigate any errors or discrepant data between a school's system and the COD System.

We apologize for any inconvenience these COD System changes may cause to your school's current business process. Thank you for your ongoing partnership in the Direct Loan Program.

Sincerely,

Bill Leith
General Manager, Program Operations Channel