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PublicationDate: 5/27/99 Summary: Update on the Recipient and Financial Management System (RFMS) Author: Posted on May 27, 1999 To: All Destination Points From: Jerry Russomano, Director Program Systems Service, Office of Student Financial Assistance Subject: Update on the Recipient and Financial Management System (RFMS) RFMS STARTS PRODUCTION We have completed our end to end tests and are very proud and relieved to announce the movement of the first portion of the new Recipient and Financial Management System into production. As of today, May 26, we have sent your 1999-2000 Electronic Statement of Account (ESOA) to your TIVWAN mailbox. These ESOA’s provide initial authorization amounts for institutions’ GAPS accounts. Beginning on July 1, 1999, these initial authorization amounts will be available to view on the GAPS website (http://gapsweb.ed.gov), and will be available for you to draw down from GAPS. Please note that your GAPS award number has changed for the Pell Grant Program for 1999-2000 and future years. The new number will be available on your ESOA. Also beginning today, RFMS has begun accepting origination records. For those that submit origination records during this first week of production, origination acknowledgments will not be received back from RFMS until Tuesday June 1, 1999. We ask for your patience as we begin processing these first batches. STATUS OF BETA TESTING Beta testing has shown excellent results and the transfer of origination records and transmission of acknowledgement records is proceeding well. Let us take this opportunity to say a special thanks to all those schools that have participated in the beta testing. Their efforts have been invaluable in our evaluation of the new RFMS. Those schools are: DeVry Institute Technology of Columbus, OH; Institute of Business and Medical Careers of Fort Collins, CO; Ricks College of Rexburg, ID; Roanoke Bible College of Elizabeth City, NC; St. Petersburg Junior College of St. Petersburg, FL; and West Shore Community College of Scottville, MI. WHAT TO EXPECT Final Record Layouts are available. The record layouts have not changed significantly since they were first published. Most changes are clarifications. You can view the updated record layout at http://www.ifap.ed.gov At present we anticipate completing testing and beginning the implementation of Phase III of RFMS on June 29, 1999. Greater detail on the schedule for Phase III will be provided in upcoming messages. We have worked very hard on RFMS to produce a system that will streamline the Pell Grant process. The testing of RFMS has been extremely thorough, however, as with all new systems, the possibility of unanticipated difficulties exists. During the first weeks of June as we get acclimated to the new system, environment and schedule, we ask for your patience in the event that delays occur. We remain strongly committed to meeting a turnaround time of 24-36 hours for the processing of Pell Grants before peak processing periods, and appreciate your understanding in helping us make that possible. WE WILL CONTINUE TO SEND YOU WEEKLY STATUS REPORTS Look for them in- - Title IV Wide Area Network (TIVWAN) - The Information for Financial Aid Professionals (IFAP) website located at http://www.ifap.ed.gov, and - Listserves: - FINAID-L - FINNET-L - MEDAID-L BURSAR-L SFATECH IF YOU HAVE QUESTIONS - If you have questions, comments, or concerns about RFMS, please call Pell Customer Service at 1-800/474-7268 (select option 2) or send an e-mail to #Pell_Systems@ed.gov. - If you have questions about the 1999-2000 EDExpress Pell software, contact the Central Processing System customer service staff at 1-800/330-5947 or send an e-mail to CPS@NCS.COM. - If you have questions about RFMS message classes or problems connecting to the network, contact the TIVWAN customer service staff at 1-800/615-1189 or send an e-mail to T4WAN@NCS.COM. Reminder: Your TIVWAN EDConnect Desk Reference contains all the information you need about getting help by telephone or on the Internet. |