TCSI Newsletter June 2021

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Hot topics FAQs

TCSI Support mailbox and website

As part of TCSI’s ongoing commitment to improve services, we continue to refine our processes to make improvements and welcome any feedback.

The TCSI support team has processed over 6,300 email enquiries and requests since the start of this year to support providers during the transition period.

We are also doing a thorough review of our TCSI Support website to make changes that will improve the website design and make information easier to find. If you have any feedback on the website, please email TCSIsupport@dese.gov.au.

Unique Student Identifier (USI) verification in TCSI

The integration of the Unique Student Identifier (USI) into the higher education sector is well underway. At the end of this month, the USI verification process is due to go-live in TCSI.

What this means is, from the end of June, any USI reported by a provider to the department in TCSI will be passed through USI verification with the USI Office.

USIs will be verified as long as a student’s full name and date of birth reported in TCSI exactly matches the student’s details provided to the USI Office.

Providers will receive notifications if the USI does not pass verification.

For more information on USI, please see USI in higher education. Further information on creating, searching, or verifying a USI is available at www.usi.gov.au.

If you have any questions or need help with USI verification, please contact the USI Office.

Reports available in TCSI Analytics

TFN Verification and Provider Notifications reports are now available in TCSI Analytics.

The TFN Verification report provides a list of students whose TFN could not be verified by the ATO.

The Provider Notifications report includes information about:

outstanding data issues (scheduled validations)
loans that may not be serviceable or change status
students approaching their HELP limit.

To learn how to access and use these reports in TCSI Analytics, refer to TCSI Analytics User Guide.

2020 higher education data verification

As you are aware, TCSI Analytics is not yet fully available. We appreciate your patience and would like to assure you that our team is working tirelessly to make TCSI Analytics available to everyone in the quickest time possible.

We will continue to provide additional support and implement short-term solutions to assist you with verifying your data until TCSI Analytics becomes fully available.

Updates on 2020 higher education data verification

The Verification of 2020 higher education data fact sheet has been updated and now includes information on how to make changes to your 2020 data and how to confirm your verification snapshot with TCSI.

The 31 May verification snapshot for your institution has been uploaded to the department's secure Web Transfer Client (FTP server) so it is available to you via the FTP server.

If you prefer to use 30 June snapshot as your verified 2020 data set and have confirmed this with TCSI, the 30 June snapshot for your institution will be made available to you via the FTP server. Please note, an email notification is not sent out when files are uploaded to the FTP server.

If you need to obtain access for additional staff, please email TCSIsupport@dese.gov.au and provide emails of your additional staff who need access to the snapshot. Please note, your staff must have an existing HEIMS access to be able to access the FTP server.

As always, we will keep you informed and provide updates when more information becomes available. Please email any questions or concerns to TCSIsupport@dese.gov.au.

Exiting safe mode - Higher Education

Your organisation was automatically set to a safe mode when onboarding to TCSI. This was to ensure students continued to receive a clean and up-to-date loan statement from Australian Taxation Office during the transition period.

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

With the End of Financial Year approaching, we recommend your organisation exits safe mode as soon as practicable. This will ensure students loan data is updated with the ATO prior to tax time.

Please advise TCSI when your organisation is ready to exit the safe mode at TCSIsupport@dese.gov.au.

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

Reporting FEE-HELP loan fees in higher education

The legislation extending the FEE HELP loan fee exemption to 31 December 2021 is still before Parliament. We will inform you if the legislation passes through Parliament.

The status of the Higher Education Support Amendment (Extending the Student Loan Fee Exemption) Bill 2021 can be checked on the Australian Parliament House website.

TCSI will accept zero-dollar loan fees for relevant units soon after successful passage of legislation. Until then, please report loan fees as null or blank if there is uncertainty when calculating loan fees for a record.

If you have reported data that does not align with the legislation, TCSI Support will engage with your primary and secondary TCSI contacts. We will work with providers to identify impacted records for revisions.

If you are unsure about your primary and secondary TCSI contacts, please consult within your organisation and advise TCSIsupport@dese.gov.au of the best two contacts for data reporting in TCSI.