TCSI March Newsletter 2024

Updates to Batch processing of higher education loans to the ATO.

The Department of Education, in line with advice from the Australian Government Solicitor, is seeking to progress amendments to the Higher Education Support Act 2003 (HESA) to strengthen the arrangements regarding computer enabled decision making processes. The amendments are being designed to apply a consistent legal framework to the assessment of student eligibility for Commonwealth assistance under HESA. While legislative processes are underway, an interim solution has been designed, requiring a departmental delegate to approve certain decisions. 

As a result, a batch process to transfer higher education student loans is being designed and will require delegate approval. What this means for your organisation and students, is that higher education loan data could take up to a month before they are visible on a student’s ATO statement. Higher education loans that were due to transfer to the ATO after 2 February 2024 will instead be placed on hold until the list is reviewed and approved for release by the program delegate. More information, including loan release windows, will be shared when this process is established.

Providers monitoring loan statuses will notice affected loans retain the ‘ACCEPTED’ loan status. If all other requirements are met, then there is no further action required from providers to release these loans (i.e. the Tax File Number (TFN) is verified in TCSI and scheduled validations have been resolved). When the release is processed the loans will display the ‘COMMITTED’ loan status. Loan reversals and remissions will not require the approval of the delegate and will continue to be processed to the ATO according to the current system design.

Please note that processing of VET Student Loans to the ATO is not affected.

Reminder: Share your valuable insights and experiences with TCSI through our provider survey.

The Department of Education (the department) is committed to listening and learning from our valued partners in the education community to optimise our services. 

The TCSI Renewal project will revitalise TCSI to improve efficiency in higher education data collection, data quality, analytics, and loans processing. Your feedback is invaluable in this process. Be a part of this journey by sharing your insights through our survey.

The survey should take no more than 20 minutes of your time to complete. It is important to note that any feedback provided will be used for theming and quantitative analysis only and any verbatim comments will not be attributed to their author. However, if you would like to remain anonymous while providing feedback through the survey these options are available to select within the survey. 

At the end of the survey there is an opportunity to express your interest in becoming a Design Contributor to participate in further project activities such as design focus groups and interviews that will be conducted throughout March 2024. If you would like to express your interest, please submit your survey response prior to Friday 15th March 2024. 

You can access the TCSI Renewal Provider Survey here.

Thank you for completing the survey. Your contribution is greatly appreciated.

To ensure that CHESSNs are allocated more efficiently in TCSI, changes have been made to the CHESSN allocation process.

To support these changes, the baseline data requirements for CHESSN allocation have been updated.  To trigger the allocation of a CHESSN, the student record will now require either a verified tax file number or a verified USI. Identifying the student upfront, using either the TFN or the USI, will help to ensure that HELP entitlements are calculated correctly.

  

If the system is unable to identify the student, no HELP entitlements can be allocated, and both the provider and student will not be able to view available balances in the myHELPbalance portal.

As the system populates the CHESSN field, providers do not need to report, update or remove (NULL) CHESSN details in TCSI. As advised in the TCSI Data Validations spreadsheet, a new warning RTV 11055 will be built in the future. When returned, this validation will advise providers attempting to amend or report a CHESSN (E488), that the CHESSN data has not been saved.

If you require further information on the CHESSN allocation process please refer to CHESSN management in TCSI webpage on TCSI Support.

A new file has been added to the  TCSI Data Extracts!

NEW TCSI Data Extract file

The TCSI Data Extract request will now include a new file 'UndeterminedStudentRecords' to the suite of files contained in the all Student data request. Previously, TCSI Data extracts were only able to retrieve student data where the student had been identified as a VET or Higher education student. Students are not identified as a HEP or VET student in TCSI until course admission or loan data has been reported. Therefore, student records that were reported to TCSI, without any associated records, were previously unable to be included in a TCSI Data Extracts under HEP or VET Student files.

The 'UndeterminedStudentRecords' allows providers to view all student records reported to TCSI where only the student packet has been reported.

Update to Unit enrolment and AOU Data Extract files

The Unit enrolment and AOU Data Extract files now contain the UID21 field for each loan record linked to the unit enrolment. The UID21 was included to assist providers in identifying loan records where there are more than one linked to the unit enrolment record. 

 

Providers can request a TCSI Data Extract by completing the following form.

A new version of the TCSI B2G API Specifications Release one is now available on GovTEAMS.

This latest version has been updated to include the PATCH API endpoints for the TEQSA PIR provider type. The PIR PATCH changes were released to production on 22 September 2023 and this update aligns B2G documentation with current system behaviour. 

Additional information for Developers:

• When developing test cases for students that require a CHESSN/HELP balance, ensure the TFN or USI has verified. Students without a verified TFN or USI will not be allocated a CHESSN. Please see our TCSI – Testing for providers page for more information regarding generating a mock TFN and USI. 
• The developer portal is being updated to incorporate Services Australia branding. No change is being made to the functionality or content in the portal as part of the update.   

If you are new to TCSI and are interested in becoming a TCSI Developer, please see Developing TCSI compatible software for more information.

If you are an existing developer, the files can be found on GovTEAMS.