Departmental Aid Toolkit

What is Departmental Aid?

University schools and departments enter financial aid that is awarded from sources over which individual departments have oversight and control. Information regarding these awards is communicated to Student Financial Services (SFS) so that aid may be disbursed to the student. Departmental awards interface with the Grants Accounting module of the Integrated System.

Access

The University seeks to strike a balance between open access to data and data protection by assigning Integrated System (IS) and Student Information System (SIS) responsibilities to employees. The responsibilities allow access to specific categories of data and the assignment process complies with the University of Virginia Administrative Data Access Policy.

To begin the SIS access process, click here.

Training

Responsibility	Typical User	Training Requirement
UV FA User Dept	Users who enter awards at the school or departmental level	Student Records Foundations (online prerequisite) Financial Aid: Departmental Aid Awarding-SIS (required) Contact: uva-sis-trainers@virginia.edu to schedule training
UV SF Viewer Departments	Allows users to view student account information. Request in addition to the UV FA User Dept role.	Student Finance: Viewing Student Accounts (strongly recommended, online)
UV FA Department Reporting and UV SF Departmental Reporting	Departmental awarding users and all others who need access to department financial aid and student finance reporting data.	Financial Aid Reports for Departmental Aid (required) Contact: uva-sis-trainers@virginia.edu to schedule training

Note for viewer responsibilities: Training is not required but is highly recommended.

SIS Training Schedule

To register for training, click here.

Six Month Rule: If you have taken a required class for a specific responsibilities, but have not completed the training nor have had the responsibility activated within six months of taking the class, you will be required to retake the class. Also, if you are assigned a responsibility that you previously had which was deactivated for longer than 6 months, you will be required to retake the course(s) before it is reactivated. If your authorization for a responsibility was prior to January 1, 2010 and training was not completed, a new access form must be submitted.

Documents

The following reference materials are available for your use:

SIS General Training Materials
Departmental Aid Quick Guide
Departmental Aid Reporting Quick Guide
Setting Your User Defaults

Other Helpful Information

Departmental Aid User Group: When you receive the user responsibility you are automatically added to the Departmental Aid listserv. The listserv is used to send important information to you and to announce the time and place of the regularly scheduled Departmental Aid user group meetings. The user group general meets on Wednesday afternoons twice a month for information dissemination, Q&A, and issue resolution.

Student Information System (SIS) home

Getting Started with SIS

SIS Glossary

SIS Frequently Asked Questions

Using online help in the SIS

Contacts

General Help:
Phone: (434) 924-HELP (4357), menu option 3, 3, 1
Email: 4help@virginia.edu

Training Help: For assistance with training registration, please contact the HR Service Center at (434) 982-0123. For questions regarding SIS training, please contact the SIS training team at uva-sis-trainers@virginia.edu.

Access Help: For assistance with access-related questions or for inquiries about the activation of SIS responsibilities after training, please contact sisaccess@virginia.edu.

Departmental Aid Help:

1. Contact your SIS Local Expert. "Local Experts" are located throughout the University schools and departments. They are your first point of contact for departmental aid awarding questions and issues. As needed, they will forward your question or issue to ISDS/SIS or Student Financial Services (SFS). If the answer or resolution is of value to the rest of the users in your school or department, your local expert will disseminate the information.

2. If your Local Expert cannot assist you, contact the help desk by emailing 4help@virginia.edu. Enter "Departmental Aid Question" in the subject line of your email and cc: Sarah Jordan (sbj3w@virginia.edu) and Denise Hubbard (dmh7w@virginia.edu).