Importing Financial Aid Data to Colleague
An import process exists to write finance aid data into Colleague's data structure so Financial Assistance does not have to manually enter the data. There is an automated process with a run time every 8 hours (6:33, 14:33, 20:33) to select award records from the Financial Aid application that are not on Colleague. After the process creates 2 files it will move them to Colleague's FA.RECEIVE.DIR folder at 6:45, 14:45, 20:45 using the naming convention:
- NON_DL_<date>T<run time>.CSV
- DL_<date>T<run time>.CSV
where:
- <date> is in the format YYYYMMDD (example is 20110501)
- <time> is in military format with no colon between hours and minutes (example is 1433)
Example of full file name would be: DL_20110501T1433.CSV
In Colleague, go to the XPFI screen and fill in the prompts as follows:
- Incoming File = whichever file name above you want to import
- Exclude Award Categories = WS (so we don't import Work Study)
Save/Update out of the screen and then choose how you want the error report to be produced on the next screen:
- Output Device = H will have the error report display to the screen when the import finishes (or P to send to a printer)
Save/Update out of the screen and then on the final screen enter the following:
- Execute in Background Mode? = N (so that it runs immediately)
Save/Update out of the screen and then the import process will begin.
If an Error Report appears, you'll need to review it to see if there are any data issues that need to be corrected in the Financial Aid application before the next import.
After reviewing it on the screen you can choose to close out the window (click on the white X in the red box in the left side of the tool bar), send (print) to a local printer, or save (export) to a file. Click on the icon in the tool bar shown below to send to printer or save to file.
If you choose EXPORT TO FILE, a SAVE REPORT AS window will pop up and you can pick which network folder you save the report in as well as the file name.
If you choose SEND TO LOCAL PRINTER, a PRINTER SETUP window will pop up and indicate what your default printer is. You can send the report to there or pick another printer. Click OK after making your choices and the report will print.
When it finishes saving the report to file or printing it for you, you will be brought back to the REPORT BROWSER window. Click on the white X in the red box in the left side of the tool bar to close out the window.
Note 1: Make sure you run the process a second time for the second file to be processed using the above steps again.
Note 2: There will be no file on the Colleague server waiting for import if the awards data in Colleague is in sync with the PowerFAIDS data. If you know of a specific person whose data is different between PowerFAIDS and Colleague and it is not a timing issue (meaning it didn't miss the interface run time), then contact your Level 2 support person to look into this.
Note for IT: When Colleague is finished with the file it will move a copy of the file to the S03.PROCESSED.PFAID folder on the Colleague app server.