Planning your first submission to TCSI

Start small and check as you go

Providers with API compatible student management systems have the potential to automate some reporting activities in TCSI. TCSI Data Entry users will also be able to submit large volumes of data in a single file upload.

Reducing the volume of data reported in your first submission can reduce data integrity risks. Starting small will allow you to verify your solution in production before sending all records. If this risk is not managed, providers may generate many data issues which will then need to be resolved using your TCSI solution (APIs or TCSI Data Entry).

Options for reducing the volume of data include:

starting with a single information type/packet (e.g. updating courses, then reporting campuses, etc.)
reporting a sample of your records (e.g. sending five student records, then 100, then the remaining students)
starting with a category of records (e.g. starting with new students, then attempting continuing students)
for dual providers, start with one collection (HE or VSL).

You may take a combination of the above options or come up with options from your own system.

Migrated data that must be revised

Records impacting student entitlements (HE Unit enrolments, VET Unit enrolments, OS-HELP, SA-HELP)

Providers must adhere to policy and legislation surrounding HELP and VET Student Loans which includes:

reporting all loans that a student has accessed
remitting any loans where permitted by legislation
revising loan and loan fee amounts which were incorrectly reported
deleting loans which were incorrectly reported.

Please be aware that you will need to update loan information even if many years have passed.

Records that are updated for continuing students

The reporting requirements for each packet set out which elements should be kept updated. This is detailed under the "Revising and adding data" heading on each packet. Check out the higher education and VSL reporting requirements to see which elements will need to be updated or added for continuing students.

The example below shows elements that are only to be corrected if they were reported incorrectly and those that should be accurate as at a particular date (i.e. information required at the Course of Study Commencement Date). The elements with "update to current value" should be updated for continuing students, for example when the student completes or withdraws from their course.

Update to current value example

Low value revisions to migrated data

The data migrated from HEPCAT/HEIMS to TCSI has already been verified and used for payments, program administration, publications, and policy development. Revisions to historical data should be restricted to those changes noted in the section above.

Some migrated data will not look like the data in your student management software. This is a result of the data collected in HEIMS and the way it was migrated to TCSI. For more on migration rules check out "Prepopulating the TCSI Database (Migration)" on the Transitioning to TCSI page.

Validations have also been re-written in TCSI to reflect the near real-time submission of data required from 2021. These validations may cause unpredictable errors or duplicates when historical records are revised. Elements with greatest potential to cause errors are:

Course of Study Commencement Date (E534) migrated as the first day of the month reported in HEPCAT (01-mm-yyyy)
Citizenship Effective From Date (E609) migrated as equal to the census date when citizenship was first reported/changed
Course Effective From Date (E609) migrates as 1 January in the year the course was first reported (01-01-yyyy)
Disability Effective From Date (E609) migrated as the beginning of the period when the most recent disability status was reported (01-01-yyyy or 01-07-yyyy).

For more on low value revisions to data please consult the following:

November 2020 TCSI webinar slides available from the webinars page
November 2019 Roadshow slides
August 2019 Transition to TCSI presentation at 53:00 (note transition dates were delayed due to COVID-19)

Report data

Planning your first submission to TCSI