Overview
In M-Pathways, a variety of financial aid data can be returned with online, predefined reports using the Report Manager reporting tool. These financial aid reports enable staff to review accurate and timely information in order to monitor the award entry process performed by Schools and Colleges.
Since different people may need or prefer a variety of report data and formats, some of the reports combine the same or related data with different sorting options. In order to use these reports efficiently, it is important to understand Report Manager, the purpose of each report, and the end-to-end reporting process.
The actual report titles of some financial aid reports do not exactly match the M-Pathways menu names. This document identifies financial aid reports by their M-Pathways menu names, followed by the actual report title if different. Additionally:
- The abbreviation FAIT (Financial Aid Item Type) describes the “Item Type” prompts/report values.
- A Glossary of Common Financial Aid Report Terms is provided in this document.
Depending on your role(s), there are at least 14 predefined reports available from a single financial aid menu in M Pathways. This document specifically covers reports available to people with either the FA AWARD ENTRY USER or FA AWARD VIEW USER roles.
Refer to Run a Report to the Report Manager in M-Pathways for more information on using Report Manager.
Important Information
For a financial aid report to return data, a valid value typically is required in each of the prompt fields. Although you may be able to run a report without completing the prompts, it will not return the desired data:
- An exception is the Authorization Failure Rpt, for which the Fin Aid Type and Source prompts should be left blank by most departments. They are only used by offices that administer need-based awards.
- When a valid value is unknown (e.g., 4-digit term code), click Lookup next to the field to find one.
Contents
- Financial Aid Reports Inventory
- Reporting Process for School/College Awards
- Glossary of Common Financial Aid Report Terms
- Related Documentation
Financial Aid Reports Inventory
Authorization Failure Rpt Navigation
NavBar > Navigator > Financial Aid > Disbursement > Authorization Failure Report
Navigation for all other reports
NavBar > Navigator > Financial Aid > UM FA Merit Aid > Select Appropriate Report
- Authorization Failure Rpt – Authorization Failure Report for UMICH
- UM Award Data By Item Type – Award and Disbursement Data (similar to E.)
- UM Award Activity by Item Type
- UM Award Activity by OperID
- UM Award Data by Student – Award and Disbursement Data by Student (similar to B.)
- UM Cancel Admit w/Aid-by Stdnt – Canceled Admit Merit Aid by Student (similar to G.)
- UM Cancel Admit w/Aid-by FAIT – Canceled Admit Merit Aid by Item Type (similar to F.)
- UM Disbursements by Item Type – Disbursement Data from Batch Run
- UM Item Type Setup Reports – three different reports
- UM Statement of Actvty-PRJ/GRT – Aid Disbursement Detail Report (similar to K. and L.)
- UM Stmt of Activity-FD/DPT/PG – Aid Disbursement Detail Report (similar to J. and L.)
- UM Statemnt of Activty-DEPT/MGR – Aid Disbursement Detail Report (similar to J. and K.)
- UM Student FA Package Reports – three different reports
A. Authorization Failure Rpt – Authorization Failure Report for UMICH
Content/Purpose: This report identifies students who did not pass the authorization step of the most recent disbursement process, which typically runs each Wednesday night:
- These students will not have the specified FAIT(s) disbursed in batch that week because they did not meet the requirements of the FAIT’s Disbursement Rule. Additionally:
- These students are rechecked automatically by the next week’s disbursement process, unless their awards are cancelled or disbursed online before then.
- When students then meet the requirements and pass authorization during a later disbursement process, they are not included in new a run of this report.
- Impact of Spring/Summer Disbursement Rules: When the disbursement process runs for the Spring/Summer (non-standard) award period, it uses reduced enrollment requirements to authorize awards for disbursement. It is important to run this report before the start of the Spring term to identify students with failed Fall/Winter awards that should be cancelled. Otherwise, the first disbursement process for Spring term could disburse previously failed Fall/Winter awards for students enrolled in fewer than the required units.
Procedural Details: When completing the report prompts, the Fin Aid Type and Source prompts should be left blank by most departments. They are intended for use by offices that administer need-based awards.
| Letter | Field | Description |
|---|---|---|
| A | Message | Displays the reason the student did not pass disbursement authorization. |
| B | Run Date | Identifies the date of the weekly disbursement process for which the report returned data. |
B. Award Data By Item Type – Award and Disbursement Data (similar to E.)
Content/Purpose: This report enables staff to track the overall award entry and disbursement progress for a range of FAITs in an Aid Year. It details the offered, accepted, authorized, and disbursed amounts for each award returned in the report. A row displays for each scheduled disbursement, and summary amounts display by student and FAIT.
Procedural Details: The only difference between the following reports is the sort sequence:
- B. FA801 Award Data by Item Type – sorted by FAIT number, ID, and term
- E. UM Award Data by Student – sorted by student name, FAIT number, and term
C. UM Award Activity by Item Type
Content/Purpose: This report enables staff to review detailed information about the award entry and disbursement activity for a specified range of FAITs. It returns all the activity that occurred during a specified range of dates, including activity performed by different users and batch processes.
Procedural Details:
- The Date From and Date To prompts specify the range of Action Dates included in the report. See the Action Date description in the table below for more details.
- Two versions of this report may be selected on the Process Scheduler Request page; one is sorted by Item Type and the other by EmplID (shown below).
- Although this report may seem similar to “D. UM Award Activity by OperID,” a key difference is that this report includes all the activity that occurred for the awards, not just the activity performed by a single user.
| Letter | Field | Description |
|---|---|---|
| A | ACTION DATE | Action Date reflects when the following award entry actions are saved in M-Pathways:
Note: When the Charge Priority value is changed for an existing award, the Action Date does not change. However, the updated Charge Priority value is included in this report. |
| B | OPRID | Displays the operator ID of the disbursement batch process that automatically processed the award or of the person who saved the award entry action. |
D. UM Award Activity by Oper ID
Content/Purpose: This report enables staff to review detailed information about the award activity that a single user saved for a specified range of FAITs. It returns only the award entry actions saved by the user during a specified range of dates, so this report excludes disbursement actions performed by batch processes or by staff in the Office of Financial Aid.
Procedural Details:
- Although this report may seem similar to “C. UM Award Activity by Item Type,” a key difference is that this report only includes the award activity performed by a single user.
- When completing the report prompts:
- The Date From and Date To prompts specify the range of Action Dates included in the report. See the Action Date description in the table below for more details.
- The Check if only last activity row to appear checkbox is optional, and the report only returns the most recent activity for the specified OperID when it is checked.
| Letter | Field | Description |
|---|---|---|
| A | ACTION DATE | Action Date reflects when the following award entry actions are saved in M-Pathways:
Note: When the Charge Priority value is changed for an existing award, the Action Date does not change. However, the updated Charge Priority value is included in this report. |
| B | OPRID | Displays the operator ID of the disbursement batch process that automatically processed the award or of the person who saved the award entry action. |
E. UM Award Data by Student – Award and Disbursement Data by Student (similar to B.)
Content/Purpose: This report enables staff to track the overall award entry and disbursement progress of awards for an Aid Year. It details the offered, accepted, authorized, and disbursed amounts for each award returned in the report. A row displays for each scheduled disbursement, and summary amounts display by student and FAIT.
Procedural Details: The only difference between the following reports is the sort sequence:
- B. FA801 Award Data by Item Type – sorted by FAIT number, ID, and term
- E. UM Award Data by Student – sorted by student name, FAIT number, and term
F. UM Cancel Admit w/Aid-by Stdnt – Canceled Admit Merit Aid by Student (similar to G.)
Content/Purpose: This report identifies students whose admissions were canceled after they were awarded specific FAITs. The purpose of this report is to enable staff to cancel awards if necessary.
Procedural Details: This report is similar to “G. UM Cancel Admit w/Aid-by FAIT.” The difference is that this report requires additional prompts that limit the report to return only students who are in the same Academic Group and who were admitted during a range of Admit Terms.
| Letter | Field | Description |
|---|---|---|
| A | Award Status | Displays the current status of the award. |
| B | Amt to Cancel | If the award was not cancelled or declined, displays the amount that may need to be canceled. |
| C | Amt Cancelled | If the award was already cancelled or declined, displays the amount that was canceled. |
G. UM Cancel Admit w/Aid-by FAIT – Canceled Admit Merit Aid by Item Type (similar to F.)
Content/Purpose: This report identifies students whose admissions were canceled after they were awarded specified FAITs. The purpose of this report is to enable staff to cancel awards if necessary.
Procedural Details: This report is similar to “F. UM Cancel Admit w/Aid-by Stdnt.” The difference is that this report looks for students in all Academic Groups and who were admitted in any term.
| Letter | Field | Description |
|---|---|---|
| A | Award Status | Displays the current status of the award. |
| B | Amt to Cancel | If the award was not cancelled or declined, displays the amount that may need to be canceled. |
| C | Amt Cancelled | If the award was already cancelled or declined, displays the amount that was canceled. |
H. UM Disbursements by Item Type – Disbursement Data from Batch Run
Content/Purpose: This report enables staff to review the disbursement activity that occurred during the most recent weekly batch disbursement process for a specified range of FAITs.
Procedural Details:
- This is not a cumulative report because it only returns data from the most recent disbursement process, which typically occurs on Wednesday nights. Since there are exceptions to the disbursement schedule, it is important to refer to the Disbursement Calendar on the ITS website for the actual dates.
- To review disbursement activity older than one week, view the student’s award online using the UM FA Administrators Summary page.
Navigation: NavBar > Navigator > Financial Aid > UM FA Merit Aid > UM FA Administrators Summary
| Letter | Field | Description |
|---|---|---|
| A | Disb ID | Displays the two-digit Disbursement ID, which identifies each scheduled disbursement for an award. |
| B | Date | Displays the date of the associated disbursement process. |
I. UM Item Type Setup Reports – Disbursement Info, Attributes, and GL Interface Info
Content/Purpose: These three reports return the setup data for all the FAITs administered by a department. They identify the FAIT’s disbursement values, award attributes, and General Ledger (GL) interface values. The purpose of these reports is for staff to review their departments’ FAITs to determine if they need to be revised or inactivated.
Procedural Details:
- When completing the prompts, click Add Row
to enter more than one Department ID. - Each of the three categories of FAIT data is returned in separate reports, which may be selected on the Process Scheduler Request page.
FAIT Disbursement Info
| Letter | Field | Description |
|---|---|---|
| A | Disb Plan | Displays the two-digit Disbursement Plan code that identifies whether the FAIT funds are disbursed per term or per month. Valid values are 01 (term), 02 (standard monthly), and 03 (special monthly). |
| B | Split Code | Displays the two-digit Split Code that determines the percentage of funds processed with each Disbursement Plan. |
| C | Budgeted | Displays the maximum amount designated as the limit to how much funds can be offered and accepted for the FAIT per year. The default value for FAITs without a specified fiscal limit is 99,999,999.00. |
| D | Disb Rule | Displays the Disbursement Rule value that sets the minimum enrollment requirement a student must meet for the FAIT to disburse. |
FAIT Attributes
| Letter | Field | Description |
|---|---|---|
| A | Refund Ind | Displays the Refundable Indicator value that determines if the award can be refunded to a student. Valid values are Y (yes) for refundable and N (no) for non-refundable. |
| B | Charge Lst | Displays the Charge Priority value that determines which charges are covered on a student’s account. |
| C | Minimum | Displays the minimum FAIT amount that can be awarded to a student per term. |
| D | Maximum | Displays the maximum FAIT amount that can be awarded to a student per term. |
FAIT GL Interface Info
| Letter | Field | Description |
|---|---|---|
| A | Account | The ChartField value that records and summarizes financial transactions, such as assets, liabilities, fund balances, revenues, expenses, statistics, or budget accounts. |
| B | Fund | The ChartField value that identifies the source of the funds and intended use of the funds. |
| C | DeptID | The ChartField Department ID value that identifies the administrative department of the funds. |
| D | Program | The ChartField value that groups related financial activities. |
| E | Sub-Cls | The ChartField Class value that groups related activities directed towards the accomplishment of a set of common objectives or purposes. |
| F | Proj/Grt | The ChartField Project/Grant value that accumulates financial information on a set of activities. |
| G | ShortCode | The value that represents the ChartField combination associated with the FAIT. |
J. UM Statement of Activity by Project/Grant – Aid Disbursement Detail Report
Content/Purpose: This report details the aid disbursement transactions posted to the General Ledger for a specified Project/Grant code and month.
Procedural Details: The Period prompt requires a value from 1 – 12 to specify the fiscal month (i.e., July = 1, August = 2, September = 3, etc.).
| Letter | Field | Description |
|---|---|---|
| A | Posted Date | Displays the date on which the transaction was posted to the General Ledger. |
K. UM Statement of Activity by Fund/Department/Program – Aid Disbursement Detail Report
Content/Purpose: This report details the aid disbursement transactions posted to the General Ledger for a specified Department ID, Fund code, Program code, and fiscal month.
Procedural Details: The Period prompt requires a value from 1 – 12 to specify the fiscal month (i.e., July = 1, August = 2, September = 3, etc.).
| Letter | Field | Description |
|---|---|---|
| A | Posted Date | Displays the date on which the transaction was posted to the General Ledger. |
L. UM Statement of Activity-by Dept/Dept Mgr – Aid Disbursement Detail Report
Content/Purpose: This report details the aid disbursement transactions posted to the General Ledger for a specified month and either a Department ID or the EmplID of a Department Manager.
Procedural Details:
- When completing the report prompts:
- The Period prompt requires a value from 1 – 12 to specify the fiscal month (i.e., July = 1, August = 2, September = 3, etc.).
- To run the report by Department Manager, select the Department Manager option in the Run By box, and then enter the ID of the manager in the Manager ID field.
- To run the report by Department, select the Department option in the Run By box, and then enter the Department ID in the Department field.
| Letter | Field | Description |
|---|---|---|
| A | Posted Date | Displays the date on which the transaction was posted to the General Ledger. |
M. UM Student FA Package Reports – Student FA Package by Item Type, Student FA Package by Term, and Student FA Package Summary
Content/Purpose: These three financial aid summary reports enable staff to review summary information related to students’ financial aid for one or more aid years.
Procedural Details:
- Three versions of this report may be selected on the Process Scheduler Request page, which are Student FA Package: by Item Type, by Term, and Summary.
- To quickly identify who is included in the report, you may select the report’s Trace File from the Report Log/Viewer page for a list of the students with their IDs. This may be useful after running the report by Academic Program code(s).
To complete the report prompts:
- Enter or Lookup the range of aid years in the First Aid Year and Last Aid Year fields.
- Click the applicable Select radio button.
- Enter or Lookup either IDs or Academic Programs based on the selected radio button.
- If necessary, click Add Row for each additional value and repeat step 3.
- If necessary, click the applicable Show students in report radio button:
- Only Admitted and Active Students: This limits the reports to only return students who are admitted and/or active in the current term.
- Include other students: This enables the reports to also return students who received aid in prior aid years, but who are not currently active (e.g., completed, withdrawn).
- If applicable, enter or Lookup a Student Group value to restrict the reports to only return students in that group.
- Click Save to display each name associated with the IDs or Academic Program values for verification before running the report.
Report Structure:
Each report has two main sections - data about the student in the top portion, and the report data in the bottom portion. The top sections of each report are nearly identical across the three reports. The top sections include the following information:
- Student's name, uniqname and ID
- Current address
- Permanent address
- Current phone number
- Admit term
- Academic career, program, plan and sub-plan
- Program status
- Academic level
- Cumulative GPA
The Student FA Package by Item Type and Student FA Package by Term reports also include the student's sex, ethnic group, visa type, citizenship, residency, and student group(s).
Examples of the bottom sections of each report are shown below.
Student FA Package by Item Type
Student FA Package by Term
Student FA Package Summary
Reporting Process for School/College Awards
This section provides a proposed framework for utilizing specific reports to review the financial aid awarding process administered by Schools and Colleges. Depending on each department’s business needs, some reports may be used for different purposes or not at all.
As-Needed Reporting
At least once each aid year, departments should review their FAITs to verify they are setup correctly. This enables departments to identify FAITs that should be updated/inactivated and to maintain comprehensive information about the department’s awards for new staff.
Regular Reporting
Each aid year, departments should review their awards periodically to ensure they were entered and disbursed correctly. This overall review should occur on a “per term” or “per award period” basis. The review process can be broken down into four phases based on the type(s) of data returned in the reports:
Award DataWhen reviewing award data, the following reports should be run at least once per award period to verify the awards were entered correctly:
- D. UM Award Activity by OperID – This report only returns award entry activity because it is based on an individual’s Operator ID. It is useful for ensuring a specific person entered, updated, and/or cancelled a department’s awards correctly.
- F. Cancel Admit w/Aid-by Stdnt or G. Cancel Admit w/Aid-by FAIT – Either of these reports may be used to ensure that students with canceled admissions have their awards canceled.
The following reports include information both about award entry and disbursement activity. Typically, departments would only need to review one of these reports per term to monitor the progress of their awards:
- A. FA801 Award Data by Item Type or E. UM Award Data by Student – Either of these reports may be used to monitor the progress of awards over the course of an Aid Year.
- C. UM Award Activity by Item Type – This report may be used to monitor award activity that occurred during a specific time frame.
The following reports only return data based on the weekly disbursement process that typically runs on Wednesday nights. These reports should be reviewed as frequently as a department’s awards are scheduled to be disbursed:
- A. Authorization Failure Report – This report may be used to identify students who did not pass the authorization step of the most recent batch disbursement process.
- H. UM Disbursements by Item Type – This report may be used to review the disbursement activity that occurred during the most recent batch disbursement process for a specified range of FAITs.
The reconciliation process requires departments to regularly reconcile their accounts by transactional detail. Two SOA reports options are by Project/Grant or Fund/Department/Program, as indicated at the end of the report name:
Glossary of Common Financial Aid Report Terms
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Academic Career | Grouping of Academic Programs. Academic Career is associated with a School or College and consists of only one program level (undergraduate or graduate).
Note: All undergraduate student careers are identified as UUGD for purposes of financial aid processing. |
| Academic Group | Schools and Colleges (with additions of Extension and ROTC). |
| Academic Program | Area within U-M to which a student is admitted and from which ultimately graduates. Equivalent to:
|
| Aid Year | In M-Pathways, an Aid Year is activated so that only students in FA-eligible academic programs can receive financial aid. For example, Academic Year 2005-2006 = Aid Year 2006. |
| Award Disbursement Action | Identifies the activity saved in M-Pathways for an award on a specific date. |
| Charge Priority | This value tells M-Pathways which charges on the student’s account should be paid by the FAIT and in what order. If the FAIT is not refundable, funds will remain on the student’s account as “unapplied aid” pending the posting of additional target charges. |
| ChartField combination | A combination of values that designate categories for recording financial transactions on the General Ledger, which is the record of all financial transactions at U-M. |
| Disbursement | Disbursement is a batch process that applies a student’s financial aid as a payment credit to cover charges on the student’s account. The disbursement process uses specific rules to determine the amount and categories of charges covered by the financial aid, which is on a per term or monthly basis. |
| Disbursement Plan | A two-digit code that identifies whether the FAIT funds are disbursed per term or per month. Valid values are: 01 – TERM, 02 – STANDARD MONTHLY, and 03 – SPECIAL MONTHLY. |
| Disbursement Rule | A three-character code setup for an FAIT that identifies specific rules a student must meet for the FAIT to be disbursed. |
| Financial Aid Item Type (FAIT) | A 12-digit number that uniquely identifies any form of financial aid by associating it with department identification, ChartField combination (funding source), type of financial aid, and awarding/disbursement rules. |
| General Ledger | The official record of all financial transactions at U-M. |
| Split Code | A two-digit code that determines the percentage of funds processed with each disbursement plan. It does this by specifying the term(s) or months in which the funds are disbursed, and then the percentages of funds typically are distributed equally across each disbursement. |
| Statement of Activity (SOA) | A snapshot of a department’s financial transactions. |
Related Documentation
- To capture additional information about Graduate Student Assistants (GSAs), run the UM GSA Reports package. The report package includes Benefits, Bio/Demo, classes taught, Financial Aid/Student Financials, Job, and Student Records data. Refer to GSA Reports for more information.
- The UM NSF Survey report was created to support the “Survey of Graduate Students & Postdoctorals in Science & Engineering.” It makes the survey process easier by providing summary grids of the data required to complete the survey, and non-NSF departments have found it useful for other reporting purposes. Refer to NSF Survey Report for more information.