Verifications

About Verifications and CRM Functionality

The federal government may require institutions are required to verify certain information about specific students applying for federal financial aid. These verifications may include items such as confirming US Citizenship or providing additional information about the 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 CRM workflows/activities and the student document portal to alert and email students of their need to collect and submit the documents for verification processing.

When using the Campus Café Packaging system, once an ISIR selected for Government Verification is received, the packaging record is placed in a "Hold" status, where the student cannot be processed until they are marked as being "verified" under the Packaging Detail page. 

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

Campus Café CRM Templates for Verification and ISIR Comment Code Activity

Upon request through the support contact, Campus Café offers activities/workflows/trigger templates for the regularly required Financial Aid Verification Documents and ISIR Comment Codes. The imported verification and comment codes then automatically email students or notify counselors of needed action; these can be installed a no cost to the institution (cost might be incurred if additional training is needed).

Activity Tracking Member

If the institution wishes to leverage the student document portal to track documents and for students to upload them, Campus Cafe recommends using the F - Financial Aid member. Ensure the Webdefault (student) permission group has access to this member (directions) and do not use the member to also track internal notes that should not be visible to students.

Establish Workflow

• Create a workflow (see workflow documentation)
• To send an email to the student, set the workflow type as "Email Sent On Add" and complete the email subject line and body. (The mail-merge fields can be used in these as well.)
• When using the Editor Format "Simple" you can copy and paste HTML code from a free online HTML editor or you can use a Saved Email Template from the builder within Campus Cafe.
• To allow the student to upload the required document in the document portal, under attachment, check "Tracked Person Can Add Attachment." (The student must have access to the activity tracking member associated with the workflow.)
• To allow administrators to upload the required document in the document portal, under attachment, check "Admin Can Add Attachment." (The administrator must have access to the activity tracking member associated with the workflow.) 
• Under Category for the document to show up under the student's Financial Aid Document portal, it must be assigned to "M - Missing Information".
• Under Options, check the "Required FA Doc" if this document is necessary for completing verification.
• Set any other settings (see workflow documentation) that are applicable to the workflow and click save.

Establish Activity

Create an activity and associate it with the workflow created in the previous step (see activity directions).

Constraints can be used apply the activity only to students with certain verification codes or comment codes. Below is an example setup for a Dependent V1 worksheet Activity.

1. In the Constraint 1 left box select "FA_PACKAGING:VERIFICATION_TRACKING_FLAG"
2. In the Constraint 1 middle box select "%LIKE% - Contains"
3. In the Constraint 1 far right box enter the verification code, case sensitive. For example, for a student selected for a dependent verification, enter "V1"
4. In the Constraint 2 select FA_PACKAGING.ISIR_DEPENDECY_STATUS
5. In the Constraint 2 middle box select "= - EQUALS"
6. In the Constraint 2 far right box enter "D" for dependent ("I" for Independent)

To prevent the student from receiving the verification notification more than once per semester

1. In the Prohibit Work Flow Repeat select Prohibit Repeat For Semester.
2. Activities automatically triggered and added by the financial aid triggers will 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 the Financial Aid Control Page.

Example Activity with more than one comment code:

Database Triggers

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

For the V1 Dependent Worksheet Activity that is shown above to trigger and be applied to a student automatically when an ISIR comes in, the database trigger is set up in the following way:

• Trigger Group: Set any group name that is desired
• Description: Set any description that is desired
• Table Name: FA_PACKAGING suggested
• Field Name: PACKAGE_STATUS suggested (REVISION could possibly be used as well)
• From Operator:  = EQUALS
• From Value:  * which means that any value
• To Operator:  = EQUALS
• To Value:  * which means that any value (ISIR Packaging status) that is created by the ISIR will trigger the template.
• Trigger On Event: Set to "Both"  - Setting to both will work as a "catch-all" to make sure that the verification activity gets added
• Template: click in the box to then link the Tracking Activity Template to be added for this trigger