TCSI Newsletter August 2021

Post date

Monday, August 9, 2021 - 11:49

The TCSI Newsletter helps to keep our Higher Education and VET Student Loans providers up to date with the TCSI environment and transition.

Click on the headings below to find out more.

Scheduled Validations

Technical issues are currently preventing certain scheduled validations from running in the test and production environments. This issue is being investigated.

As a result, these scheduled validations have been temporarily removed from the production and test environments. This issue affects scheduled validations SV0001 – SV0095.

The following scheduled validations have not been affected by this issue:

HECS-HELP loan discounts (HE only)
Data quality checks across Academic Organisation Units (AOUs) (HE only)
Course Assurance Indicator (E619) consistency check (VET only)
Unique Student Identifier (E584) checks for 2021 unit enrolments (HE and VET)

As schedule validations become available, they will be updated on the Release notes section of TCSI Support. A scheduled validations fact sheet is also available on the Notifications page.

TCSI Hot Topics

TCSI has compiled the ‘Hot Topics’ based on issues recently raised by providers and vendors.

HEIMS webservice switch off

As advised in the provider webinar on 21 July 2021, the CHESSN webservice was scheduled to be switched off on 2 August 2021. Based on feedback from providers regarding the impact of switching the webservice off, the date has now been extended.

The HEIMS webservice will now be switched off on 30 September 2021. There will be no extensions beyond this date.

Drop down menus in TCSI Data Entry

Information is available to support providers in understanding their reporting requirements. There is a hyperlink next to each element in the TCSI Data Entry ‘Records’ section so providers can review the data element specifications and ensure they understand which code to report. Attempting to report the wrong code can impact your data quality and can lead to validation errors being triggered.

Some elements located in the ‘Records’ section of TCSI Data Entry are equipped with a drop down menu to assist providers with reporting. TCSI Data Entry will not check the record a provider is updating to verify which codes are allowable. The drop down will display all codes that have been valid for the element over time. Providers may not be able to select all of the codes found in the drop-down menus.

Locating loan statuses in your data extract

The TCSI support team have added a new field to the Unit Enrolment data extract file to assist providers with determining the status of a student’s loan. The loan status can be viewed in the A130 – Loan Status column.

With the addition of the A130 field to the Unit Enrolment file, providers will be able to see when loans are deleted or reversed. The data extract may return multiple loan statuses for a single unit enrolment record. This will occur where the unit enrolment record is revised in a way that results in a loan record being created after a loan has already received the status of:

DELETED
REVERSEREC
REVERSETRANS
REVERSED.

Look for the status that is not deleted or reversed to identify the current loan status for a unit enrolment record with multiple rows.

The list of loan statuses and information on loan processing is available from Loan processing for HECS HELP, FEE HELP and VSL loans. To request a data extract please use our TCSI Data Extract form.

TCSI Support website updates

We are currently finalising the testing phase of our TCSI Support website changes.

These changes include:

Improved navigation
- New menus and site structure.
Improved search
- Search returns more relevant results.
Data element dictionary
- A more integrated view of data elements, such as validations and historical element information.
News Centre
- A dedicated news centre for news and media.

We anticipate these changes will be released in the coming weeks.

We thank those who have provided feedback on our TCS Support website. If you have any feedback, please complete our website feedback form.

Staff Verification sign off for Table A & B providers

Staff Verification sign off is due 15 August 2021 for Table A & B providers.

Thank you to everyone currently reviewing your staff reports in HEIMS Online, your efforts are appreciated. If you haven't yet commenced the process, we suggest that you start now. The earlier you commence verifying your reports the more time you will have to make corrections.

This is your final opportunity to ensure your staff numbers are accurately represented in publications. Remember that there is NO opportunity to revise these reports further after finalisation.

Need help to verify your reports?

The Checking and verifying your data toolkit on the HEIMSHELP website explains everything you need to know to complete the staff verification process. If you are having issues with this process please contact us at TCSIsupport@dese.gov.au for assistance.

Reporting Requirements for the Higher Education Data Collections

Image of a person giving an announcement

Vice Chancellors and CEOs of higher education providers will soon be advised of the release of 2022 reporting requirements through the Ministerial Notice. The contents of the official notification will be forwarded to data reporting staff and shortly be available on the Reporting requirements page on TCSI Support.

The 2022 Ministerial Notice

The 2022 Notice will be updated to include the submission of the University Applications and Offers data collection and the higher education Staff data collection in TCSI. These collections were deferred from the original deployment of TCSI to enable the project to be released to production in December 2020. There are also some minor clarifications and corrections to the existing reporting requirements, which have been identified by stakeholders.

The TCSI Support team is continuing to work with our policy partners on changes to the collection. Updates to the notice will be issued once changes are confirmed with stakeholders.

All documents related to the 2022 Notice, including the updated reporting schedule, will be available on the department’s website at https://www.tcsisupport.gov.au/.

Changes to the 2022 Reporting requirements may include:

Tuition Protection Service (TPS)

The Government Tuition Protection Service (TPS) for international students has been expanded to include full fee paying domestic students at private higher education providers. This expansion will require providers to report additional data for domestic fee-paying students such as name and address details (currently only reported for students accessing a loan). For details of this program, contact operations@tps.gov.au.

The Research Training Program (RTP)

RTP is being refocused to reward universities for research PhD students that graduate having undertaken a three-month industry internship. For details of the program, visit the Research Training Program website or contact rbgrants@dese.gov.au.

Tertiary Access Payment (TAP)

TAP is administered by Services Australia to students undertaking further tertiary studies at non-university higher education and VET providers.  Anticipated system changes include modifications to two existing Commonwealth scholarship elements. For more information, please contact the department at regional@dese.gov.au.

Requirements that are not confirmed in time may be released as an update to the Ministerial Notice.

TCSI Support will be hosting two webinars during August 2021. All providers are invited to attend, and we encourage you to register your attendance using the links below.

These sessions are an excellent opportunity to get up-to-date information on TCSI and to ask any questions you might have about TCSI.

Webinar	Time	Date	Registration link
Essential training for TCSI Data Entry: File Upload users webinar	2 -3 pm [AEST]	Tuesday, 17 August 2021	Register here.
August TCSI Provider webinar	2 -3 pm [AEST]	Wednesday, 25 August 2021	Register here.

Webinar recordings

If you wish to view a recording of any webinar, please use the same webinar link you use to attend the webinar. You will be directed to enter your details and then the recording will begin playing.

Exiting safe mode – Higher Education

Higher education providers were set to safe mode when onboarding to TCSI to ensure students received a clean and up-to-date loan statement during the period of transition to TCSI.

If you have not advised TCSI Support that your organisation is ready to exit safe mode, your organisation is most likely still operating in safe mode.

We recommend your organisation exits safe mode as soon as practicable. This will ensure students’ loan data is updated at the Australian Tax Office.

Any staff member at your organisation can advise TCSI to switch off safe mode by emailing TCSIsupport@dese.gov.au.

For more information, see Understanding ‘safe mode’ in TCSI.

Higher Education reporting survey – Higher Education

For providers that have been deemed compliant based on a comparison of this year’s EFTSL numbers with last year’s, the department will be seeking confirmation from your organisation's authorised delegate that you have completed reporting for all higher education students through TCSI.

Your provider’s primary contact will be receiving this survey via Qualtrics from the week commencing 9 August 2021.

Please note that the survey will be sent from noreply@qemailserver.com. You may wish to update your email filter settings to receive correspondence from this email address.

If you need to update the primary contacts for your provider, please contact TCSIsupport@dese.gov.au.

Considerations when revising VET student loans – VET FEE-HELP

Providers are no longer able to create or update historical VET FEE-HELP loans.

As of 1 July 2021, new Real Time Validations (RTVs) have been introduced to prevent providers establishing or increasing the value of VET FEE-HELP loans with a census date before 1 January 2017. These RTVs can be found in the Validations spreadsheet.

This is as a direct result of Legislative changes to the VET Student Payment Arrangements (Miscellaneous Amendments) Act 2021.

Deleting historical loans could cause the permanent loss of loan data and result in VET providers having to repay these loans. Providers should check data thoroughly before making changes to historical data.

We recommend you speak to your software vendor to identify what actions within your student management system could trigger any changes to historical VET FEE-HELP loans.