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Electronic Commonwealth Assistance Form

Topics include:

• Overview
• Making a Declaration
• Create a Default Commonwealth Assistance Form
• Screen Navigation
• Remitting Debt
• Reporting to the ATO
• Transaction Management
• Data Recorded in Callista
• Procedures

Overview

The Electronic Commonwealth Assistance Form (eCAF) is web based functionality. It enables students to complete the appropriate Commonwealth Assistance Form using an on-line student self-service facility. As part of the choices given when submitting a request, this facility also includes the ability to record the student’s Tax File Number (TFN) and indication of how the student intends to pay for the contribution.

Note: A student electing to make a payment is not committing to make the payment but is indicating their desire to be considered for payment remittance.

Requesting Commonwealth Assistance

On entry to the web connect application a student must first pass through the Connect security system. At this authentication layer, they must enter their personal identification details.

Access to the Commonwealth Assistance Forms functionality is available to students who are eligible for HELP (Higher Education Loan Programme), as part of the online enrolment process or for an individual application from the menu. When selected from the menu, a check is made whether the person has two or more courses with the status as ENROLLED, INACTIVE or INTERMIT. If so, it displays the course list for the person to select a particular course and then continue with the rest of the processing.

Using the Commonwealth Assistance Form, a student can inquire on their existing student status and/or create a new one. Access to the forms will be pre-determined based on a variety of student criteria specific to each Loan Scheme Type. A student may meet the criteria for more than one Loan Scheme. The current Loan Schemes available are:

• Request Commonwealth support and HECS-HELP - pre 2005
• Request Commonwealth support and HECS-HELP
• Request FEE-HELP assistance

The system determines the correct student status for the student, based on their responses to questions in the eCAF, and records this in Callista.
As part of this process, the system also derives a value for the Elect Payment indicator and records this against the student’s student status. The Elect Payment indicator value is set according to the value of the ‘Default Elect Payment’ value recorded for the relevant Student Status in form ENRF0162.
Note: If the loan schem for the student is HECS-HELP - pre 2005 or otherwise, and they have full or partial upfront payment selected and a government Student Status of 112, then the Default Elect Payment value will be Y no matter what is set in ENRF0162.

Create a Default Commonwealth Assistance Form

A default Commonwealth Assistance Form will be determined using existing Fee Category functionality to define whether or not a student is enrolled in a Commonwealth Supported Place. It will allow for the creation of relationships between Fee Categories and Loan Schemes. A Fee Category would normally only be associated with a single Loan Scheme. A default Commonwealth Assistance Form automatically applies across all active Fee Calendars with associated Fee Category Loan Schemes. (Ref: STUDENT_COURSE_HECS_OPTION).

Screen Navigation

Authentication

The functionality for changing a student status falls within the Self Enrolment set or directly accessed through Connect.

The student is required to authenticate their access to eCAF or Self Enrolment functionality prior to proceeding. This authentication is managed by Connect's security mechanism and constitutes capture of an electronic signature.

Self Enrolment

The student uses the Commonwealth Assistance Form step on the Self Enrolment page to access their Commonwealth Assistance Form/s.

Access to this step is pre-determined by the institution (a student identified as being eligible to apply for HELP, as part of the online enrolment process or as an individual application from the menu)..

Instructions

On entry to the Commonwealth Assistance Form step, instructions are presented on the Commonwealth Assistance Form.

Existing Declarations

The Commonwealth Assistance Form shows a declaration history on prior forms submitted.

If a TFN is not submitted with the initial form, another form, complete with all declarations must be re-submitted.

Tax file numbers submitted within an existing form will have the TFN recorded in the student_eCAF_completion table and also the student_course_hecs_option table.

The system allows a student to complete a eCAF, electing to defer the student contribution without recording their TFN. The student is able to submit their TFN at another time, but must do so prior to the applicable Census Date for the Enrolment Period, or Enrolment will be cancelled.

Once a valid TFN is entered and saved in the system, it cannot be accessed again using Connect functionality. An administrator, using standard administrator functionality available in the Callista Enrolment application can access a saved TFN.

Entering a Default Declaration

A student must enter declarations in chronological order. They cannot retrospectively create a declaration.

The Start Date defaults to today unless the latest un-ended (the End Date is not set) default declaration starts in the future. If this is so, the default will be set to the Start Date of that declaration. If the latest declaration is ended (the End Date is set) the default will be set to the End Date of that declaration.

A student can only change the defaulted Start Date by moving it further into the future.

Checking the Make Full or Part Payment check box signifies that the student wants to be considered for debt collection by the university. Payment matching is according to age of debt and the defined payment hierarchy rules.

A student wishing to limit the value of a matched payment will need to create an Override Declaration.

The Payment Option field is a system field and is automatically set based on the Make Full or Part Payment check box selection. If the check box is selected (up-front payment), the Payment Option value is set to 11. If the check box is not selected (defer to taxation) the Payment Option is set to 10. See ENRF0161 - Maintain Government Student Status for a description of the Payment Option numbers.

The SUBMIT button displayed at the bottom of the form is used to accept the new declaration.

Clicking on the SUBMIT button results in the new declaration being saved in the system and returning to Existing Declarations with the new declaration displayed.

At the time a new declaration is being saved, the system automatically logically deletes a prior override declaration for the same Fee Calendar Period, should it exist.

The date that the declaration was made and accepted is also recorded as a Self Enrolment Completion Date. This date is set by the system.

Entering a Period Override Declaration

There is no facility to enable a student to enter a eCAF for a Fee Calendar Period. This needs to be performed by administration staff in ENRF3110.

Remitting Debt

Whenever the effective student status is up front, COFI will initiate debt collection and matching. The effective student status is either the default declaration or an applicable Override Declaration.

Payments received from the finance system will be matched to the Commonwealth Supported Student's debt by COFI. If an override student status is defined for the fee calendar period and the maximum payment limit is set, the total of payments to a Commonwealth Supported Student's debt are constrained to this limit.

The discounts applied to part and full payment of Commonwealth Supported Students' debts are managed by COFI.

Reporting to the ATO

At an appropriate time, the Process Student Loan Scheme routine is run to derive the Student Status Snapshot value for a Student Unit Attempt based on a student's payment activity as at the Census Date for a unit. The value is recorded against a Fee Assessment Period. (ref: STUDENT_UNIT_STUDENT_STATUS_SNAPSHOT).

It is possible to run the Process Student Loan Scheme routine multiple times. At the time of creating a new Student Status Snapshot record the system will logically delete an existing record in the same Fee Assessment Period.

The Student Status Snapshot routine can be run to report on students that are missing a Tax File Number or a CHESSN as at the Unit Census Date.

Transaction Management

To log eCAF transactions, set the Applications Log Transaction check box in the form - Maintain Self Serve Applications (SSFF1100).

To display a receipt within the eCAF application, set the Issue Receipt check box in SSFF1100.

To issue an email, set the Issue Email check box in SSFF1100.

After the email and receipt are successfully issued, then the transaction log will be updated to include that an email and or receipt was issued and the email address that it was issued to.

The fields to log and the sequence that they are logged in (Prompt, Old and New values), are displayed next in the 'Logging Sequence' table:

* Denotes fields that need to be retrieved from the database prior to logging.

** Denotes that these values are logged with identical old and new values as there is no historic values to record

*** Tax File Number. The TFN is not recorded. It does not have the students actual TFN. Only that it has been noted.

Some of the values logged are static and are not altered by the eCAF. These static values are:

Note: There are other fields that cannot be altered by the user, but do not change as part of the processing. This means they have distinct old and new values and are not included in the table above.

eCAF Transaction details are logged into the Self Serve Transaction Detail table for static values, the old value and new value columns will always contain the same value. This data is included in the log as contextual reference for Administrators reviewing the log.

The complete list of parameters that are logged and the order in which they are logged can be reviewed in the table above called 'Logging Sequence'.

Data Recorded in Callista

Existing Tables

STUDENT_COURSE_HECS_OPTION
Describes the Student Status which a student has chosen for a particular Student Course Attempt (SCA)

New Tables

STUDENT_UNIT_STUDENT STATUS
The initial value of the Student Unit Student Status is derived from the relevant Student Course Attempt Student Status.

STUDENT_UNIT_STUDENT_STATUS_SNAPSHOT
Describes the Student Status 'snapshot' for a unit at key intervals, for example just before Fee Assessment.

It is a DEST requirement that a Student Status is in accordance with a student's debt position and payment activity for a unit as at the Unit Census Date.

The Snapshot applies to all Loan Scheme Student Status codes.

Procedures

Note: This function separates Loan Schemes via the System Transaction Type rather than the Loan Scheme Name. In the get routine, the function refers to specific Loan Schemes to determine which form to display to the student. This returned form is based on the System Transaction Type of the Loan Scheme. If the System Transaction Type is HCSHLPLOAN, then the user is shown the HECS-HELP form (dependent on all other requirements of the form). If the System Transaction Type is FEEHLPLOAN, then the user is shown the FEE-HELP form (dependent on all other requirements of the form).

Last Modified on 29 November, 2007 2:29 PM

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