TCSI Student Concordance Factsheet

There are two ways to submit a concordance record to TCSI. They are via the:

1. Concordance API from your Student Management system. 
2. TCSI concordance file upload via the TCSI data entry portal

How you submit a concordance request will depend on your determination at Step 1:

I. Concordance API: Please speak to your software vendor about how to use this.
      OR

II.TCSI Data Entry Portal: Prepare a file upload to submit the two Student identification codes (E313) in TCSI Data Entry

The Concordance file upload template can be found on:

• Higher education file templates
• VET Student Loans file templates
   
• Below is a snapshot of a Student Concordance file that is ready for upload to the TCSI Data Entry portal:

A collection of RTVs will highlight data inconsistencies relating to proposed student concordance to the provider. Resolution of these inconsistencies is a prerequisite to student concordance occurring.

 RTVs will ensure that the master and concording student records:

• are not already concorded, deleted, or currently the subject of an identity conflict
• are compatible on identifying data such as name, date of birth, gender, ATSI, Country of Birth, Arrival in Australia Year, Language Spoken at home, Year left school, Highest Education parent 1, Highest Education Parent 2, Level left school, Residential address postcode, Residential address line 1, Residential Address Suburb, Residential address state, Residential address country, Term residence country
• do not have inconsistent citizenships
• do not have duplicate course admissions, scholarships, aggregate awards, exit awards, or unit enrolments sharing a unit of study code and census date
• both exist at the provider requesting student concordance
• do not breach any other existing RTVs in TCSI.

Details of these RTVs can be found here TCSI Real Time Validations 

The RTVs applied to the Concordance API can be identified by filtering the ‘Packet’ column of the master validation spreadsheet by ‘Students (Concordance)’.

If you are unable to see RTVs in your Student Management system, please speak to your vendor.

To see RTVs in the TCSI Data Entry portal, you will need to download the response file available in the History tab.

Please note, if any providers trigger the following RTVs, please reach out to tcsisupport@education.gov.au and provide the Master E313 and Concording E313, ensuring you indicate which is which. The TCSI Support Team will need to resolve these issues with IT before the records can be concorded successfully.

You can check if the student has been successfully concorded by checking the outcome in the response file (or as designed by your software vendor).

It is then recommended that you check that all the details attached to the master student record are correct. This can be done via the records screen in the TCSI Data Entry portal, using API GET calls if available in your software product, or by requesting a TCSI data extract.

Further work may be required to make sure your system is aligned with TCSI.

• For providers using B2G API through student management system; There is a risk that if your system doesn’t know these records have been moved across to a different student record in your system, it might take actions that are not intended. Your student management software may delete, update, or re-create records in an unpredictable way if it isn’t aligned with the concordance outcome. Please speak to your vendor about how to align your system with the changes made in TCSI.
• For providers using TCSI data entry, future file uploads might not work properly if you don’t include the concorded information. Paying special attention to the Student Identification code (E313), citizenship and disability information. 

If Citizen resident codes (E358) are inconsistent across the two student records, a validation error will trigger to prevent concordance. For example, the system will prevent concordance where one student record is reported as an international student for the same period the other student record is reported as an Australian citizen.

If the two student records have the same Citizen resident code and have overlapping, but different, effective dates (E609/E610), TCSI will simplify the citizen resident code history so there is a single citizenship row for the period. The system will reflect the earliest Citizenship Effective From Date (E609) and the most recent Citizenship Effective To Date (E610) (including where E610 is “NULL”).

The end state of the citizen resident information is likely to be different to the information held in your source system for either student. Check steps ‘4’ and ‘5’ in this guide for more on how to see the concordance outcome, and to consider alignment tasks that may be required.

If there are multiple Disability codes (E615) across the two student records, TCSI will bring all the different codes across as separate rows of information against the resulting student record. For example, the concording student record has a physical disability row that overlaps the intellectual disability row on the master student record. The resulting student record will have both Disability codes recorded with their respective effective dates (E609/E610).

If the two student records have the same Disability code and have overlapping, but different, effective dates (E609/E610), TCSI will simplify the Disability code history so there is a single disability row for that Disability Code, for that period. The system will reflect the earliest Disability Effective From Date (E609) and the most recent Disability Effective To Date (E610) (including where E610 is “NULL”).

The end state of the disability information is likely to be different to the information held in your source system for either student. Check steps ‘4’ and ‘5’ in this guide for more on how to see the concordance outcome, and to consider alignment tasks that may be required.