Federal Student Aid - IFAP
   

Publication Date: January 31, 2003

Author: General Manager: FSA Schools Channel

Summary: School Portal and IFAP News


Posted on 01-31-2003


TO: FSA School Partners

FROM: FSA Schools Channel

SUBJECT: School Portal and IFAP News

Happy New Year to all!

We wanted to take this opportunity to update you on several recent events....

  • MY FSA and the Schools Portal: Over the past few weeks, the Schools Portal website (<http://fsa4schools.ed.gov/SCHOOLSWebApp/index.jsp>) has been a bit temperamental. Specifically, customers usually could not log into the customized area: MY FSA. Last weekend we performed a restoration of the software that drives the Schools Portal site. This action appears to have re-stabilized the web site. We apologize for the inconvenience caused and appreciate your patience and understanding while we resolved this problem.

  • FSA Links Updated on the Schools Portal: In response to several customer suggestions, we have updated the FSA Links area of the Schools Portal website. In the "FAA Access to Student Data" area, we have clarified which sites to visit for Pell and Direct Loan processing according to the award year(s) you are processing. In the "Participation & Funding" area, we have added a link to the SAIG mailbox web page. Please continue to forward your ideas for enhancements to the Schools Portal and/or IFAP websites. We are pleased to make these services available and useful to you.

  • "Your Picture Here" on the Schools Portal: On September 19, 2002 we posted an electronic announcement to IFAP inviting schools to send us pictures of your campuses. Many of you have forwarded some terrific pictures. We expect to be able to add the first round of pictures to the Schools Portal website in March. We have had to queue this particular project behind others of more immediate urgency. Stay tuned. The pictures will be forthcoming. If you haven’t yet sent your pictures, you may still do so. Please reference the 9/19/02 electronic announcement on IFAP for instructions on where to forward them.

  • IFAP Subscription Email: The scheduled IFAP subscription email for postings for the week of 1/13/03 failed to go out properly to many of our customers. We are advised that many folks received blank email messages. The popularity of this service had outgrown the mail program. We have since broken down the subscribers list to enable the mail program to accurately complete the subscription emails. If you would like to have the "missing" email re-sent to you, please contact the FSA Customer Service Call Center on 1-800-433-7327. Please give your email address to the Customer Service Representative who will ensure that the 1/13/02 email will be regenerated for you. Alternately, you are reminded that the "What’s New" area of IFAP (<http://ifap.ed.gov/IFAPWebApp/whatnewPag.jsp>) provides a listing, by document type, of all documents that were posted to IFAP within the last 30 days. If you don’t currently take advantage of the email subscription service, you may sign up for it under "Member Services" found in the left hand column of IFAP’s homepage.

  • IFAP Searching is Much Improved: Just before FSA’s EAC conferences last year, we made some major improvements to the search capability of the IFAP website. As many of you know, the search capability has been less than satisfactory in the past. We believe we have finally gotten it right. Please revisit the IFAP search tool to see what we mean. One of your colleagues wrote: "Just used the new and improved IFAP search tool and the first result was a winner. This NEVER happened before. Thanks for the improvements. They are working." Don’t take our word for it. Try it out and let us know what you think.

  • Minimum Result Threshold for Searching IFAP: As promised at last year’s EACs, we have updated the "Advanced Search" page in IFAP to set 100% as the default value for the "result threshold". The default value was previously set to only 10%. Having that value set to 100% should ensure that you receive the most relevant return results from your searches. We plan to make the same enhancement to the Schools Portal website in March.

  • IFAP and Direct Loan Publications: The new/current IFAP look didn’t originally offer a link to the Direct Loan publications. Now it does. See the "DL Systems and Operations" link under the "Publications" area on the IFAP homepage. Another example of FSA’s responsiveness to customer suggestions.

Please do not hesitate to forward any comments or suggestions about our websites via email to the following address: fsa.customer.support@ed.gov

   

End of Page