PowerFAIDS Glossary

A

Academic Year

An academic calendar at your institution that meets the federal requirements of a standard term, nonstandard term, or non-term program. May span multiple award years.

For more information see: Academic Years

Award Year

The school year for which financial aid applies, for federal regulations and reporting. This is a federally standard 12-month period that begins on July 1 of one year and ends on June 30 of the following year.

C

Code Lookup

A type of data entry field with a list of defined values for the user to select from.

Previously known as: user string

For more information see: Custom Data

Cost of Attendance

The estimated amount it will cost a student to attend your institution for a given period, either for the full academic year or for a specific term.

Previously known as: budget

For more information see: Cost of Attendance

Custom Data

An institution-specific student data field used to capture information not captured elsewhere in PowerFAIDS.

For more information see: Custom Data

Custom Process

An institution-specific workflow used to analyze or calculate student data.

Previously known as: algorithm

For more information see: Custom Processes

Custom Process Target

Parameters for storing the results of a numerical custom process in a custom data field.

Previously known as: put into target rule, PIT rule

For more information see: Custom Process Targets

F

Field Alias

The unique identifier for each field in the student record.

A field alias is typically the page or section of the student record followed by a period and then the field name, with all spaces removed. For example, the field alias for the Actual Start Date field for a payment period in the Academic Years & Payment Periods page is PaymentPeriod.ActualStartDate.

Previously known as: mnemonic

For more information see: Field Aliases, Selection Sets

Fund

An overall pool of financial aid from a specific source.

For more information see: Funds

L

Lock

A flag set on a student data value protecting it from any user or system-driven updates.

P

Packaging Formula

Institution-defined parameters used to award aid across a student population.

For more information see: Packaging Formulas

Payment Period

Individual terms within an academic year that can be used to divide and spread out financial aid disbursements.

Previously known as: period of enrollment

For more information see: Payment Periods

Private Loan

An education loan provided by a private bank or financial institution, rather than by the federal government.

The file specifications used to share private loan data between schools, third-party management platforms, lenders, and guarantors is called Commonline.

Also known as: alternative loan

For more information see: Private Loans

R

Requirement

An item needed from a student to award a specific fund, or to package or disburse aid.

Previously known as: document

For more information see: Requirements

S

Sandbox Environment

A copy of your production environment that can be used for testing or training purposes.

You can access your sandbox environment by adding “-sandbox” after your school name in your PowerFAIDS production URL. You can view and update settings related to the sandbox environment within your school profile.

Selection Set

A population of students defined by specific criteria.

For more information see: Selection Sets

Shield

A flag set on a student data entity (such as an award) protecting it from any system-driven updates. A shield protects the entire entity from updates; individual fields can also be locked to protect a single data value from being updated.

T

Timeline

A log of all changes to a student record, including details of what was updated, added, or removed, and by which user.

For more information see: Timeline