Objective

This page outlines all important matters related to 2020 reporting requirements about Transforming the Collection of Student Information (TCSI).

Complexity: expert

Page Contents

2020 Reporting Requirements

• Data Element specifications for Higher Education and VET Student Loans Collections (24 September 2019)

• Higher education requirements (24 September 2019)

• VET Student Loans requirements (15 November 2019)

Key terms and concepts

TCSI (pronounced 'taxi') is a joint project to transform how student information is collected.

Background Development Of Paradigm TCSI Implementation

In implementing the new TCSI requirements Silverband analysed the two methods on sending data to the government. These two main methods include TCSI Data Upload (known as Portal method) and B2G real-time solution (known as real-time solution). In the initial specification we considered the TCSI Data Upload method as this match closely with the existing HEIMS reporting in different file formats. However the government required that updates be sent weekly at a minimum which Silverband thought was to erroneous of work effort to place on providers. Furthermore, the government suggested that TCSI Data Upload method was only suitable for very small providers (approx. 20 students) where the data does not change frequently.

According to the government the TCSI web interfaces are meant to be responsive near in real-time. This allowed the implementation of our solution that is known as single touch. The single touch solution allows data to be sent to the government as it saved in Paradigm and return to the interface the response from the web interfaces for the submitted piece of data.

See TCSI Migration Summary for further notes on the development and how data packets are created.

Implications

Changing fields can cause bulk operation

In Paradigm we push individual records one at a time. Due to a change made by the government back in August, 2020, changing any of the following fields will cause a bulk operation which may take a while in the system. Another impact of this change is that you can no longer have flexible unit enrolments that have a variable start and end dates, and census dates that do not match the scheduled unit.

In this bulk operation the following actions will be taken:

• All the unit enrolments will be deleted from TCSI one at a time.

• The minimum required fields will be send to TCSI to create the unit enrolment.

• An update will be sent to TCSI to completed the record as it stands in Paradigm.

The critical fields could cause the bulk operation to occur as follows:

TCSI Moved Fields

The introduction of TCSI has presented us with an opportunity to move around some fields in a way that closer reflects the intent of the element from the perspective of the government.

The following elements have been moved from the course enrolment screen to the student screen:

• E572 (Year left school)

• E573 (Highest educational attainment parent 1)

• E574 (Highest educational attainment parent 2)

TCSI Remapped Fields

The introduction of TCSI has presented us with an opportunity to remap some internal fields to TCSI fields as the TCSI implementation has duplicated the meaning of a field into a single field.

• E319 - Previously this field had a dual value being either a post code or a country code. In HEPCAT context, It was a separate field. In TCSI context, this element purely represents the Term Address postcode. Whereas element E661 has been added to capture the Term Address country code. These address fields have been mapped to the Residential/Semester Address fields for the student. So it has been removed from the application.

• E320 - Previously this field had a dual value either a post code or country and hence a separate field in Paradigm. In TCSI this element purely represents the Term Address Postal Code. Element E658 has been added to capture the Residential Address country code. These addresses have been mapped to the Billing Address fields for the student. So it has been removed from the application.

• E330 - This field has been mapped to the Full/Part Time field in Paradigm. It used to be a calculated based on the EFTSL being submitted in the LL file. No action is required to make this work.

• E329 - This field used to be located on the course enrolment screen. It has now been remapped to the scheduled unit screen as the field Mode of Delivery. This field relies that the code items for this field have the new HEIMS value filled in. Please see video below.

• E355 - This field used to be on the unit enrolment and sent to HEIMS depending on the enrolment status of the unit enrolment directly coded in the application. This field has now been mapped to the enrolment status list found in the Status Edit screen and is configurable per software instance by the provider.

Please see this video to map values for the status items.

TCSI Mapped Fields

In the development of TCSI we have mapped some of the internal fields in Paradigm with fields in the TCSI specification. These fields include:

• E599 - This field is located on the course enrolment screen and has been mapped to the course enrolment status field. The enrolment status field needs a HEIMS value mapped to it in the status edit screen. Paradigm will only send values to TCSI where there a status mapped to the field. This means you can still have your own internal enrolment status values and only when you set a status where the value is mapped with to send a change to TCSI.

Please see the video below to map values for the status items.

• E661 - This field has been mapped to the student country code for their Semester Address. Paradigm has configured a mapping of internal country code to TCSI country codes. No provider intervention is required for this update.

• E658 - This field has been mapped to the student country code for their Billing Address. Paradigm has configured a mapping of internal country code to TCSI country codes. No provider intervention is required for this update.

Additional Provider Set up

In the development of TCSI you need set up a primary provider record where the abbreviation of the provider record matches the abbreviation of we map in Nexus for your PRODA authentication record. This means that if you are a dual sector provider then you will need two primary provider records: one for Higher Education and one for VET Provider.

The primary provider record for both the higher education and primary VET provider must have the role: HEIMS Higher Education Provider.

In addition to the the above role being assigned providers are also required to set a new field: Parent Reporting Provider. Even though this is the primary record this field must be set to itself. Apart of submitting records to TCSI Paradigm will only submit records where the primary provider is directly or indirectly associated with the primary provider.

Due to the statement above all records associated with the primary provider must also be have a relationship assigned back to the primary provider. If your institution has numerous unit and program providers submitting data on behalf of the primary provider they also must have the Parent Reporting Provider field set. Only records that are associated to the primary provider will be submitted to TCSI. Knowing this additional provider records can be created that do not have a relationship to the primary provider for internal use.

Screens Modified Due To TCSI Data Packets

The following tables outline the data packets from TCSI and changes made to implement the TCSI data packet.

Course Of Study Packet

Paradigm has implemented the Course of Study Packet and the Courses Group packet on the same screen. This makes the screen a complex to use as data editing must be completed in the correct order.

Courses Group Packet

Paradigm has implemented the Course of Study Packet and the Courses Group packet on the same screen. This makes the screen a complex to use as data editing must be completed in the correct order. You must ensure the fields to get a Dest UID 3 are filled in before you can get a Dest UID5. This means you are required to complete the fields of the Course of Study Packet first. It is important to note without a UID for this record you cannot submit a course enrolment.

Campus Packet

This packet needs be filled out for every provider in the system that delivers a course or schedueld unit. It is important that the field Parent Reporting Provider is enetred otherwise we cannot match the record being submitted to the PRODA account which returns token to submit the data to the correct API record.

Courses On Campus Record

Common TCSI Editing Rules For TCSI Data Packets

Overview

It is important in Paradigm that data packets are now completed in the correct in order for the system to push data packets to TCSI. This is important because we will not attempt to push packets where a required id is not completed. This means if a dependent UID is later required all the dependent records will need to saved independently so they get pushed to the TCSI system.eg

If you do not have a UID5 on the Courses Group packet then no course enrolments will be submitted to TCSI and therefore no unit enrolments. So this means all these records will need to be save individually this also means that if these packets have sub packets they will also need to saved to they are pushed as well. Therefore it is vitally important for saving time that data packets are entered in the correct order.

One of the advantages of TCSI reporting over HEPCAT is you only report sub packets if you have data for that sub packet. eg If your student does not have a disability you do not enter that sub packet.

There are some new sub records which can have one or more records, be time dependent and both have one or values and be time dependent.

The table below outline those dependencies

Course Of Study Packet

The table below outlines the editing rules you need to follow when using the screens to get a TCSI data packet to completed successfully.

Common Data Errors

Some HEIMS TCSI response as examples listed below:

Workflow

Related Pages

https://www.tcsisupport.gov.au/elements