About scholarship/ other aid packaging rules

You may offer your students financial aid that doesn’t come from the federal government.

You can tell Campus Cafe how to include these awards in your student financial aid packages.

Through basic rules, you can add non-Pell/Direct Loan aid to students you return in the student finder. This is helpful if you have an award for a group of students with some similarity such as all students with a GPA above 3.5. But you need to tweak the recipient population each semester to limit it to 10 students. Because of this, you want to review the students before awarding and select specific students. You use the student finder to return all students above 3.5 and then decide which students to award.

Alternatively, or in addition to, you can create advanced SQL rules to award aid through the financial aid auto packaging process. Campus Cafe then applies this award automatically to students who meet the criteria when you launch the packaging process. This is helpful when you have a cut-and-dry rule without exceptions. For example, if you want Campus Cafe to award a special scholarship automatically to every student from Rhode Island.

Prerequisites

• Create an award code for the scholarship, grant, etc. The code must have Packaging Award Type of Internal.

• Configure disbursement rule behavior. For example, if disbursement rules depend on a student’s major.

Required permissions

Create scholarship disbursement schedules on term rules

You need to tell Campus Cafe how the award will be disbursed. You may disburse the award all at once or in multiple installments over time. Follow the directions below and for more information visit Term Disbursement Rules.

1. Go to Financials > F/A Disbursement Term Rules.

2. Click Add.

3. In Packaging Award Type select Internal and in Award Year select the financial aid year you’ll award the scholarship.

4. Depending on how your institution has configured financial aid disbursement rules, you may need to select additional information such as a major.

5. Click Add.

6. In Award Code select the scholarship.

7. Tell Campus Cafe how to disburse the scholarship.

   • Percentage Disbursed: The amount of the total award to apply to the student.

   • Schedule Semester: The semester in which the disbursement will apply.

   • Scheduled Date: The date the award is anticipated to be applied.

   • Award Period Begin Date: Set the Award Period begin date on the first disbursement for the award. Setting the date in subsequent disbursements will override the Award Period date for the specific disbursement.

   • Award Period End Date: Set the Award Period End date on the first disbursement for the award. Setting the date in subsequent disbursements will override the Award Period date for the specific disbursement.

   • Payment Period Start Date: Set the date for the payment period starting date for this disbursement.

   • Payment Period End Date: Set the date for the payment period ending date for this disbursement.

   • Academic Year: Enter 1 to indicate the disbursement falls within the current academic year (default). Enter 2 to indicate the disbursement falls outside of the first academic year but draws from the award year shown. This is academic year within the same federal financial aid award year.
     Entering 1 is for the current and only year for most term-based institutions Entering 2 for a second academic year/period within the same federal award year as used by borrower-based programs. Entering 3, 4, and so on can be used where applicable.

   • Acad. Year Begin Date: Set the Academic Year Begin date on the first disbursement for the award. Setting the date in Subsequent disbursements will override the Academic Period date for the specific disbursement. This generally isn’t required for term-based institutions. Borrower-based institutions should enter this.

   • Acad. Year End Date: Set the Academic Year End date on the first disbursement for the award. Setting the date in Subsequent disbursements will override the Academic Period date for the specific disbursement. This generally isn’t required for term-based institutions. Borrower-based institutions should enter this.

8. Click Save.

9. Go to Admin > Refresh Data Cache.

Create basic scholarship/other packaging rule

Once you’ve told Campus Cafe how to disburse the award, you can create a basic rule. Once created, you can apply this rule to a batch of students you return on the student finder. This gives you flexibility to return a group of students based on unique criteria or uploaded from a spreadsheet.

These rules also serve as the basis of a SQL packaging rule.

1. Go to Financials > F/A Other Packaging Rules.

2. Click Add.

3. In Display Name enter a name for the rule. This is what you’ll see when assigning the rule to students.

4. Select the Award Code associated with this rule.

5. In Year select the federal financial aid year.

6. In Amount enter the monetary value of the scholarship for the payment period. If you’ve set up a disbursement rule that divides the scholarship into multiple payments, enter the amount of the individual installment. For example, if you created an award that will be split evenly in two payments, enter 50% of the total award. So if the award was $1,000, you’d enter $500.

7. In Award select the award term rule schedule. The award schedule will appear.

8. Select Enabled to allow this rule to be used for either student finder or auto packaging. We recommend you don’t select (check) this if writing a SQL rule until you’ve written and tested the statement.
   
   

   Open

   

   An example scholarship rule for the 2022 federal aid year disbursed in two parts.

9. Click Save.

Create advanced SQL packaging rule

If you want Campus Cafe to automatically assign an award to a student when running packaging, you can create an advanced rule using structured query language (SQL.) These rules aren’t available from the student finder. Instead, they automatically process and assign awards to students who meet the criteria when you launch the Financial aid auto packaging.

1. Follow the directions in Create basic scholarship/other packaging rule to create a rule.

2. Once the rule has been created click the Caret to reveal SQL Query test window.

   Open

   

3. Write a SQL statement. The query must be in the format “Select ID_NUMBER from [Table]". The SQL query must be written to select only the ID_NUMBER from the table queried, otherwise you won’t return any students. Commonly used tables are provided in the database schema documentation.
   
   

4. Click Test to show the results of the query and verify the correct students are returned.

5. Click Save to convert this rule to an advanced rule.

6. Select Enabled to allow this rule to be used for auto packaging. We recommend you don’t select (check) this if writing a SQL rule until you’ve written and tested the statement.

7. Click Save.

Use student finder to assign rules

You can apply a rule to a batch of students you return on the student finder. This gives you flexibility to return a group of students based on unique criteria or uploaded from a spreadsheet.

1. Go to Filters > Students.

2. Use the filters to select the students you want to assign the rule.

3. Select the students to assign the rule and click To Other Packaging > For All.

4. The group of students from the student finder appears at the top of the packaging rules page to review.

5. Under All Active Rules select the rule to assign the students and click Package Selected.

Use advanced rule packaging process to assign rules

When you create and enable an advanced packaging rule, Campus Cafe then includes the rule when you launch the auto packaging process. For example, if you create an advanced packaging rule to award students from Rhode Island a special scholarship, Campus Cafe automatically awards the scholarship to Rhode Island students. You don’t need to go find Rhode Islanders individually or through the student finder and manually apply the award.

Importantly, if a student has awards that have already been disbursed in the same financial aid award year, Campus Cafe won’t package the student. This prevents the student from receiving duplicate awards.

If you ever want to pause auto packaging for a specific rule, you can clear (uncheck) Enabled on the rule. This won’t revert any already awarded awards but will prevent the award from being automatically packaged in the future.