About verifications and CRM functionality

The federal government may require institutions to verify information about students applying for federal financial aid. These verifications may include requests like confirming US citizenship or gathering additional information about a student's income. Typically, students must submit documentation that an institution must review prior to disbursing aid. The documents are required to be retained by the institution. 

Institutions may leverage the financial aid module in conjunction with workflows/activities and the student document portal to alert and email students of the need to submit the documents for verification processing.

When using the Campus Cafe packaging process, once an ISIR selected for government verification is received, the packaging record is placed in a hold status, preventing the student from being processed until they are marked as verified on the Packaging Detail page. 

For verification instructions and best practices, please refer to the Federal Student Aid Handbook.

Prerequisites

• Set up a connection to your email provider if sending email notifications.

• Set up document portal if collecting information using Campus Cafe.

Required permissions

Delivered email notifications based on ISIR comment codes

Campus Cafe has developed workflows, activity tracking templates and database triggers related to commonly required financial aid verification documents based on ISIR comment codes. These activities automatically email students or notify financial aid counselors of required actions.

You may request these be installed, typically at no cost. However, a cost may be incurred if training is required. For example, your institution needs training on how to modify a workflow to adjust the wording of its email.

Create notification

You can use a combination of workflows, activities and database triggers to automatically notify a student when they need to provide information to comply with the verification request. You can also configure Campus Cafe to allow students to upload this documentation to Campus Cafe where financial aid cousnelors can review it.

Activity tracking member

Activities in Campus Cafe are grouped by member, which you can think of as a broad category. You can provide access to activities by their member. For financial aid verifications, we recommend you use the F - Financial Aid member and limit the access to applicants, students and the financial aid team. Don’t use this member for activities that track internal notes otherwise students will be able to see them.

Provide students access to the F - Financial Aid member

1. Go to Admin > Tracking Perms.

2. Click New Tracking Group.

3. In Group Id enter the permission group for students. By default, this is Webdefault.

4. In Member select F - Financial Aid.

5. Click Create.

6. Repeat this process for other permission groups that need access, which may include your applicant and financial aid team groups.

Workflow and activity

The workflow and activity contains the content of your notification, lets students upload a document and administrators view it.

Activities automatically triggered and added by the financial aid triggers use the Tracking Year semester for the ISIR (e.g. ISIR 2021 will use '202100', ISIR 2022 will use '202200') and not the current active semester set in Financial Aid Control.

1. Go to All Users > Activity Tracking Templates.

2. In Member select F - Financial Aid.

3. In Template Name enter a short description. For example, Dependent Verification for a notification that a student needs to verify their status as dependent for tax purposes.

4. Click Add. A new page appears.

5. Select Auto-create Workflow.

6. In Description enter text about the notification. For example Dependent Verification.

7. In the leftmost Constraint 1 box select FA_PACKAGING:VERIFICATION_TRACKING_FLAG.

8. In the middle Constraint 1 box select %LIKE% - Contains.

9. In the rightmost Constraint 1 box enter the verification code, case sensitive. For example, for a student selected for a dependent verification, enter V1.

10. Optionally enter additional constraints to further narrow the communication.

11. Click Save.

12. At the bottom of the screen under Added Workflows click the paper and pencil icon. A new screen appears.
    
    

    Open

    

13. In Type select an option that aligns with your business processes. If you’re triggering an email, we recommend you select Email.

14. In Category select Missing Information if you want the request to show in the student's Financial Aid Document portal. Otherwise select a category that aligns with your business processes.

15. If you want students to be able to upload a document, select Tracked Person Can Add Attachment. We also recommend you select Tracked Person Can View Attachment.

16. To allow administrative staff to view the document, select Admin Can View Attachment.

17. In Mode select Email Sent on Add if you want the student to receive an email about the requirement.

18. If sending an email, select Email Tracked Person and whether to email their preferred, non-preferred or both email addresses.

19. If sending an email, complete the Email Default Subject Text and Email Default Body Text. Alternatively you can select a you can select a Saved Email Template from the builder within Campus Cafe.

20. Under Options select Required FA Doc.

21. Click Save.

Limit notification to once per semester

You can tell Campus Cafe to send a notification only once per semester, regardless of how many ISIRs you receive for the student or how many times you package them.

1. Go to All Users > Activity Tracking Templates.

2. In Member select F - Financial Aid and click Submit.

3. Next to the notification to limit, click Edit.

4. In Prohibit Work Flow Repeat select Prohibit Repeat for Semester.
   
   

   Open

   

5. Click Save.

Database trigger

Once you create an activity and workflow you can manually assign them to students. Alternatively, you can have Campus Cafe automatically assign them based on a database trigger.

For the full explanation of database triggers please see the Creating Database Triggers.

1. Go to Admin > Database Triggers.

2. Click New Record.

3. In Trigger Group name the trigger.

4. In Description enter information about the trigger.

5. In Table Name select the table that contains the information that will change and trigger the notification. For example, FA_PACKAGING.

6. In Field Name select the specific data that when changes launches the notification. For example, PACKAGE_STATUS or REVISION.

7. In From Operator select Equals.

8. In From Value enter * which means that value can initially be anything.

9. In To Operator select Equals.

10. In To Value enter the new value that will trigger the notification. If you enter * Campus Cafe evaluates this trigger any time there is a change to this data, regardless of what it is. The constraints you set on the activity tracking template will limit the students who receive the notification.

11. In Trigger On Event select Both. Setting to both will work as a "catch-all" to make sure that the verification activity gets added.

12. In Template select the activity.

13. Click Create.