GRADS (Graduate Reporting And funDing
System) is a powerful and user friendly data base which can
assist First Nations in organizing, storing and then reporting on post
secondary student data. Grads is a unique Microsoft ACCESS
application designed specifically to support the efficient management
and administration of post secondary funding to First Nations students.
FEATURES
With GRADS, you can streamline the process of
administering post secondary education assistance while documenting all
activity related to a student’s financial assistance. Reduced data
entry and built-in automatic features of GRADS allows your
organization and your clients to reap the maximum benefit of staff’s
expertise.
GRADS is designed for stand-alone or network installation.
Security of the data is in your control. Your authorized systems
administrator can add or delete users as well as limit user rights
within GRADS.
In GRADS, you can capture the complete history of all
post secondary application details for each student. This is possible
because, funding information is linked to each approved application for
education assistance and each electronically stored application stays in
the database until you decide to archive it or delete it.
You begin by entering a basic student record which contains essential
information such as registry number, date of birth, name, sex, social
insurance number, residency information, "home" and
"while at school "addresses and phone numbers, emergency
contact person and information. The basic student record can be easily
updated in GRADS. If you have your complete Membership
information in electronic format, you can use this as a base for
verifying basic student eligibility.
You then enter application details specific to the student and the
particular application. Application details include information about
the student that may change from application to application but is
essential for issuing funds such as, marital status, number of
dependents and banking information. Also included in the application
details is information specific to the program of study for this
application such as:
semester(s), year, application status, enrolment status, program
level, academic status, period of study, year of study, level of study,
program, institution, as well as results by application and academic
year (enrolment status as required in INAC reporting).
Much of the application information can be selected from drop down
pick lists that you can modify as required. This feature saves data
entry time and reduces error.
Data entry for a continuing student is further reduced with GRADS’
built in provision to copy information from a previous application with
the click of your mouse.
To enhance efficient access to data, efficient response time to
students and institutions, as well as administration of funding, and
reporting, GRADS also offers the following features. These
features are only a sample of what GRADS has to offer.
- A quick and easy to use internal mail system that you can use to
notify staff of required follow up or for staff to seek
clarification on a particular issue. The HOME screen alerts you to
the number of unread mail messages you have. Once you’ve read a
mail message, GRADS marks it as READ but does not
delete it until you decide to do so.
- A case note journal for each student provides a chronological
record of contacts or activity related to a specific student.
Standard activities with a student file such as funding approvals,
cancellation of sponsorships, issuing a checklist to students for
required documentation or making payment adjustments are
automatically case noted by GRADS. In GRADS,
you can mail a particular case note to a colleague instead of having
to copy or relay the pertinent information in another form. This
saves time and ensures the full and accurate information is passed
along
- GRADS
allows you to set default budget amounts for student
applications. These default amounts can be easily changed to suit your
education assistance policy and budget or other annual changes such as
tuition changes. For example, if a standard book and supplies
allowance is provided to each full time approved student, GRADS
will automatically enter this amount into the proposed student budget
based on the indication of full time study.
- GRADS’
Funding screen allows you to see budget and
payment information by fiscal year for each approved application. If
your organization approves for more than one academic year, then GRADS
simply organizes the funding and payment details into the appropriate
fiscal years.
- GRADS
allows authorized users to quickly check the status
of a student’s application at a glance and automatically updates
that status based on decisions made about the application. Depending
on your internal process for approving post-secondary assistance, you
can customize user rights within GRADS to match your
approval process. When an action is taken with an application, GRADS
updates the application status so that you know where the
application is in the approval process i.e. pending, recommended,
approved, suspended or cancelled.
- GRADS
features a Check List screen which provides a built
in documentation tracking system to supplement your information
management system. On you Check List screen you can log the receipt of
all required documentation. If something is missing, simply check the
item and hit Print. Grads issues a printed checklist to the student
for notification purposes. When you notify a student in this way GRADS
automatically keeps a history of the date the notice was issued.
- GRADS
provides a handy TO DO List that is automatically
generated by activity that takes place within the database. Depending
on each staff function and the assigned user rights, the To Do List
will let you know what needs to be done within Grads. Standard items
on the To Do List include: applications to recommend, applications to
process (approve) supplements to recommend or approve, decommitments
to recommend or approve.
- Sponsorship letters for tuition are automatically generated when
an application is approved in GRADS. The sponsorship
letter will have a unique authorization number assigned by GRADS
which can be used by your organization to verify authorized accounts
payable. The specific details of a sponsorship letter are pulled
from the application information entered at the beginning if the
application process. Just a reminder that much of the details for a
student application were selected from drop down pick lists which
reduce error.
- GRADS
maximizes efficiency in data entry and reduces error
through the use of drop down pick lists. i.e. institutional
information, program information, budget line items, funding source,
etc. Each pick list can be easily modified for your organizational
needs.
- GRADS
cues you to decommit funds if an application is
cancelled. If you have to cancel a students application and issue a
Cancellation of Sponsorship Letter to an institution, GRADS
will issue the letter for you once you set the application status to
cancelled. If you are cancelling an application that has already been
approved GRADS will also ask you if you want to delete
the entire budget for this cancelled application or whether you wish
to keep the tuition portion of the budget in case tuition is owing.
This saves steps in tracking the dollars committed for payment.
- GRADS
automatically tracks your budget commitments for you
by fiscal year and gives you a multi- year summary of your budget
status.
With GRADS you can do custom reports as required. You
can also save these reports and the data will be updated as the
information in the database changes. For example, you can generate
reports based on counsellor caseloads, by school, by program or First
Nation.
- If your organization assigns overpayments to a student as a result
of failures or as a result of becoming ineligible for funds received
then GRADS can keep a running history of overpayments and payments
or credits made to clear an overpayment. You can also do automatic
adjustments to allowance payments as a form of payment. GRADS can
also issue an Overpayment Report form to a student.
- You can issue student and institutional payments directly from GRADS,
which keeps a record of invoice numbers, invoice dates, cheque
numbers and cheque dates. You can also export payment details to
accounting systems such as ACCPAC for general ledger purposes and
overall organizational financial reporting.
