Enter an Award

Overview

This document details the steps for entering both tuition-valued awards and non-tuition-valued awards.

The Aid Disbursement Calendars section of the Financial Aid Forms & Instructions page lists the Disbursement Plans and Split Codes for each Aid Year, including the deadlines of when an award must be entered in order to be disbursed with the first disbursement run for each Split Code.

Important Information

• Prior to posting the award(s), you can click Reset to clear any data entered on the Award Entry/Manual component.

• The only action which saves your data entry is clicking Post to post the award(s). Clicking Save does not save your work, even though "Saved” displays momentarily at the top right of the page.

• There are several key differences between tuition-valued awards and other awards:
  
  • Tuition-valued awards are entered only with non-refundable Financial Aid Item Types (FAITs). Non-refundable FAITs have descriptions beginning with NR.
  • Tuition-valued awards are entered only with Disbursement Plan 01 (Term), and a Split Code of:
    • 01 (Two equal payments – Fall term and Winter term)
    • 02 (Fall term payment)
    • 03 (Winter term payment)
  • With tuition-valued awards, the Calc Flag is used to calculate the award amount based on the budgeted tuition and/or fees for full-time enrollment. Calc Flag values are available for different combinations of tuition, registration fee, and mandatory fees:
    • Calc Flag values beginning with “H” calculate an amount equal to 50% of the budgeted tuition and 100% of the fees (if any), depending on the second character in the Calc Flag value.
    • Other Calc Flag values calculate an amount equal to 100% of the budgeted tuition and/or fees.

Step-by-Step Process

1. Enter the student's ID.
   
   • If the ID is unknown, enter the First Name and Last Name.
2. Enter UMICH in the Academic Institution field, if necessary.
3. Enter the Aid Year, if necessary.
   
   • The Academic Institution and Aid Year fields may default to the proper values if they were set up as User Defaults. See Setting User Defaults for more information.
4. Click Search.
   
   • If applicable, click the individual in the list.
5. Enter or Lookup the Career.
   
   • A student must have active FA Terms to have a valid career. If a career is not available, contact the applicable financial aid office for assistance.
   • All undergraduate careers are identified as UUGD for purposes of financial aid processing.
   • For a Public Health and Rackham student, you must select the Public Health career if the student is registered in Public Health.
   • The Lookup list only displays the careers for which the student has at least one active financial aid term in the aid year.

   View the Manual Student Packaging page

   

Continue to the applicable award entry instructions:

• Enter a Tuition Valued Award
• Enter a Non-Tuition Valued Award

Enter a Tuition Valued Award

6. Select Academic (Fall/Winter terms) from the Award Period drop-down list.
   
   • If a blank row does not already display, click Add Row on any of the existing rows.

View the Manual Student Packaging page



7. Enter B (Offer/Accept) or O (Offer) in the Action field.
8. Enter or Lookup the Financial Aid Item Type (FAIT) for the award, then press Tab.
   
   • View the Item Type and Description values to verify you entered/selected the correct FAIT.
   • If you use the Lookup function, you can search on the following fields:
     
     • Description: Determined by the department that administers the FAIT. It begins with “NR” for non-refundable FAITs.
     • Key Word: The type of award. Valid values for Schools and Colleges staff are FELLOWSHIP and SCHOLARSHIP.
     • Key Word 2: Typically the Department ID of the department that administers the FAIT.
     • Key Word 3: Only used by Student Financial Operations.
     • Item Type From and Item Type To: Only whole FAIT numbers (12 digits) can be entered.
9. Enter or verify the default Disbursement Plan and Split Code for the FAIT.
10. Enter or Lookup the Calc Flag.
11. Verify the appropriate amounts populate the Offered and Accepted fields based on the Calc Flag value and the student’s budget.
    
    • If the Split Code is 01, the award amount is disbursed equally in Fall and Winter.
12. To enter another award for the same student and Award Period, click Add Row and repeat steps 7-11.
13. Click Validate when all awards for the student in the Award Period are entered.
    
14. One of two messages display after validation. Take the appropriate action based on the message:
    
    • "Award Validation completed successfully. Verify that the amounts are correct. Remember to 'Post' the awards once you are satisfied with the results." - Click OK and go to step 22.
    • "Award Validation completed successfully. Please review each award message. The award amount may have been adjusted as a result of the Validation process." - Click OK and continue to step 15.
15. Click Message next to each award row where it displays and review all award messages, even for the awards you are not posting (i.e., awards owned by another department that were posted previously).

View the Message link



16. Review the Message Number to determine whether there is an acceptable adjustment to the aid row:
    
    • The only two messages that identify acceptable adjustments are Messages 9111 and 9165. They are only acceptable when attached to need-based aid rows administered by the Office of Financial Aid (OFA), which have Item Type numbers beginning with 7000000.
    • All other messages are unacceptable and need to be resolved before posting the student’s aid package. For example, some unacceptable messages indicate the award is coded with a professional judgment or the disbursement level does not match the student’s aggregate levels.
    • If you do not know how to resolve an unacceptable message, contact OFA at 763-4303 for assistance. Do not post the student’s aid package until the message has been resolved.
17. Click Return.
18. Review the amounts of each award in case any were changed by the validation process. If necessary, contact OFA to determine why the amount of another award was impacted by the award you entered.
    
    • Do not proceed until you are confident the validated awards were adjusted appropriately.
19. If applicable, correct the award based on the packaging message.
20. Update the Action value:
    
    • B (Offer/Accept)
    OR
    • O (Offer)
21. Click Validate and return to step 14.
22. Click Post when finished successfully validating and reviewing the award(s).
    
    • If the “Award Posting completed successfully” message displays, click OK. If the award posting did not complete successfully, contact OFA for assistance.

Enter a Non-Tuition Valued Award

6. Select the Award Period of the terms in which the aid will be awarded.
   
   • Valid values are:
     
     • Academic – Fall/Winter terms
     • Both – Fall/Winter and Spring - Summer
     • Non Std – Spring - Summer

View Manual Student Packaging page



7. If a blank row does not already display, click Add Row on any of the existing rows.
8. Enter B (Offer/Accept) or O (Offer) in the Action field.
9. Enter or Lookup the Financial Aid Item Type for the award.
   
   • View the Item Type and Description values to verify you entered/selected the correct FAIT.
   • If you use the Lookup function, you can search on the following fields:
     
     • Description: Determined by the department that administers the FAIT. It begins with “NR” for non-refundable FAITs.
     • Key Word: The type of award. Valid values for Schools and Colleges staff are FELLOWSHIP and SCHOLARSHP.
     • Key Word 2: Typically the Department ID of the department that administers the FAIT.
     • Key Word 3: Only used by Student Financial Operations.
     • Item Type From and Item Type To: Only whole FAIT numbers (12 digits) can be entered.
10. Enter the total award amount in the Offered field and press Tab.
    
    • The Offered field is formatted as a currency field. For example, if you type 2222 and press the Tab key, the amount is updated to 2,222.00.
    • If you entered B (Offer/Accept) in the Action field, the Offered amount also populates the Accepted field.
11. Click the Status tab.
12. Enter, Lookup or verify the Charge Priority.
    
    • The All Charge Priority Values document lists Charge Priority values with the Student Account charges they cover (if any).

View Status tab



13. Click the Award tab.
    
    • To enter another award for the same student and Award Period, repeat steps 7-12.
14. Click Validate when all awards for the student in the Award Period are entered.
15. One of two messages display after validation. Take the appropriate action based on the message:
    
    • "Award Validation completed successfully. Verify that the amounts are correct. Remember to 'Post' the awards once you are satisfied with the results." - Click OK and go to step 19.
    • "Award Validation completed successfully. Please review each award message. The award amount may have been adjusted as a result of the Validation process." - Click OK and continue to step 16.
16. Click Message next to each award row where it displays and review all award messages, even for the awards you are not posting (i.e., awards owned by another department that were posted previously).

View Message link



17. Review the Message Number to determine whether there is an acceptable adjustment to the aid row:
    
    • The only two messages that identify acceptable adjustments are Messages 9111 and 9165. They are only acceptable when attached to need-based aid rows administered by the Office of Financial Aid (OFA), which have Item Type numbers beginning with 7000000.
    • All other messages are unacceptable and need to be resolved before posting the student’s aid package. For example, some unacceptable messages indicate the award is coded with a professional judgment or the disbursement level does not match the student’s aggregate levels.
    • If you do not know how to resolve an unacceptable message, contact OFA at 763-4303 for assistance. Do not post the student’s aid package until the message has been resolved.
18. Click Return.
19. Review the amounts of each award in case any were changed by the validation process. If necessary, contact OFA to determine why the amount of another award was impacted by the award you entered.
    
    • Do not proceed until you are confident the validated awards were adjusted appropriately.
20. If applicable, correct the award values based on the packaging message.
21. Update the value in the Action field.
22. Click Validate and return to step 15.
23. If the Split Code needs to be changed to a Custom Split, enter B (Offer/Accept) in the Action field.
    
    • A custom split enable you to manually distribute the disbursement amounts for non-tuition valued awards.

View Manual Student Packaging page



24. Click Disbursement for each award to review the disbursement distribution or to change the Split Code to a Custom Split.
25. Review the disbursement distribution.
    
    • If you need to enter a custom split, continue to step 26. Otherwise go to step 29.

View Award Disbursement page



26. Click the Custom Split box.
27. Update the amounts in the Offered fields.
    
    • The Split Code value changes to XX, which indicates the award has a Custom Split.
    • Custom Split changes can be made only to disbursement amounts in the student’s active FA Terms.
28. Click OK to save any Custom Split changes and return to the Manual Student Packaging page.
29. Click Validate and, if necessary, resolve each packaging message.
30. Click Post when finished successfully validating and reviewing the award(s).
    
    • If the “Award Posting completed successfully” message displays, click OK. If the award posting did not complete successfully, contact OFA for assistance.