ECM Connection
About ECM connection
Educational Compliance Management (ECM) is a third-party financial aid servicer. Campus Cafe provides a mechanism to produce the company's input sheet and then import to Campus Cafe the returned ECM file. The process assumes that the institution is importing ISIRs into Campus Cafe and packaging in Campus Cafe.
The ECM process supports only Pell, Direct Loans and FSEOG awards.
Prerequisites
Contract with Educational Compliance Management (ECM).
Package student financial aid in Campus Cafe.
Required permissions
Module | Number | Description |
|---|---|---|
Student Financials | 1162 | Set Servicer to ECM |
Student Financials | 109 | Set origination fee percentages |
System Admin | 293 | Set origination fee percentages |
Student | 984 | Produce ECM input sheet |
Student Financials | 1161 | Import ECM funds transfer report |
Set Servicer to ECM
Go to Financials > F/A Control.
Next to the site that will use ECM as the servicer, click the pencil.
In Export-Import Provider select ECM Service Provider.
Click Save.
Set origination fee percentages
Origination fees are charged by the federal government when a loan is issued. You can tell Campus Cafe these fees so students are properly packaged.
Go to Financials > F/A Links.
Click New Record.
In Fund Token enter anything.
In Award Code select the type of award. For example Subsidized Loan.
Enter the Award Year. This is the financial aid year. For example 2025 would be the 2024-2025 academic year at most semester-based institutions.
In Active Code select Active.
In Process Percent and Process Percent 2 enter the origination fee as a decimal. For example for 0.4228% you would enter 0.04228.
In Process Percent 2 Cutover enter a cutover date.
Select (check) Is Direct Lending Loan.
Repeat for each loan type.
Now tell Campus Cafe to round up. Go to Admin > Custom Control.
In Search enter STMT_RNDUP.
In Parameter Value 1 enter Y.
Click Save.
Produce ECM input sheet
This sheet should be produced after students have been packaged in Campus Cafe. The file is sent to ECM.
Go to Financials > F/A Disbursement Roster.
Use the filters to select a group of students to send to ECM.
Click Export to ECM Service Provider.
Save the file to your computer and send to ECM.
Award/Academic Year Dates
The when Exporting disbursements to the ECM file format, the Award and Academic Year dates are pulled from the student's degree start and end date by default.
ECM Export can use the Term Rule dates for Award/Loan and Academic Year dates through using the custom controls FA_ECMDATE 1-1 and 1-2
1-1 = Y will use Award Dates from the Award itself for Loan period dates instead of of degree begin/end dates.
1-2 = Y will use Academic Year Dates from the disbursement itself for the Academic Year field instead of degree begin/end dates.
Import ECM funds transfer report
ECM IS CURRENTLY NOT PROVIDING A NEW IMPORT FILE TO INSTITUTIONS FOR THE 2025 AND 2026 AWARD YEARS
After drawing down funds from COD, ECM returns a Funds Transfer Report to the institution with disbursement information. This file can be imported to Campus Cafe.
Go to Financials > F/A Funds Import.
Click Browse and select the file from ECM.
Click Import.
A list of data to import appears below. Click Transfer Batch Selected to move the data to bill batch for posting to student ledgers.
Error resolution
Upload uploading a file, certain disbursements may be flagged for Error in the Error Column with a "Y". Error Exception descriptions can be viewed by scrolling to the right to view the "Exception" column.
Once the error(s) have been corrected, the user should click the "X Clear Batch" button, and re-import the file to review all disbursements for any additional errors.
Scheduled amount can not be less than net amount: This exception code means that ECM is disbursing the award at a greater amount than what is currently scheduled in Cafe. The user will need to update the scheduled gross amount to match the gross amount listed in the ECM import file.
No Scheduled disbursement matched: This exception code means that the disbursement is not found in Campus Cafe and would possibly need to be created.
Semester Column shows a "0": If the Semester column shows a "0" semester, this possibly means that the student is missing a current listed program from their degree page, and should have one added.
