Office of Financial Aid
2004 System Crash
Here is a log of the events from 7/29/04 to the10/15/04. It is possible that a system anomaly occurred as a result of one of the upgrades (but we are not sure at this point why the anomaly occurred) which resulted in the slow corruption of files. The number of corrupted files slowly grew until the system shut down. The back up system worked but had simply backed up corrupted files; we therefore had to recover some data files from July 2, 2004 and others had to be totally rebuilt.
7/29/04
Since the failure of the Datatel system on Thursday night - 7/29/2004, IT has worked endlessly to resolve the myriad of problems stemming from the disaster. Currently, IT representatives and a special team of Datatel support workers continue to address the issue. All LIVE systems continue to be unavailable including Trojan Web Express. Periodically, during this process, IT will call upon various departments to assist with the recovery procedures. Once system integrity is verified and all systems initiated, IT will deliver comprehensive analyses to the user community. Thank you for your continued support during these critical times.
8/4/04
The Datatel system was brought back as a LIVE system. System integrity for financial aid could not be verified with IT representatives. Financial aid is unable to access a number of records. Financial aid limited phone access to the office by all University personnel. The inability to access the system for many days resulted in a large backlog of mail (including faxes) not entered into the system, the inability to receive FAFSA applications, send FAFSA corrections, upload or download loan information or to disburse funds. The financial aid office worked diligently without phones to bring document input to current status, complete verifications, rebuild files, and test electronic processes. Financial Aid and IT representatives continue to work and conference on restoring system integrity.
8/5/04
System integrity for financial aid could not be verified. Document input and verification are brought to current status. Importing of FAFSA applications and sending of corrections is restored. Phone access to Financial Aid Office by all University personnel continues to be limited. Financial Aid and IT representatives continue to work and conference on restoring system integrity. Your continued support and patience is appreciated.
8/6/04
System integrity for financial aid could not be verified. Document input and verification are current. Phone access continues to be limited. Financial Aid, IT representatives and Datatel programmers continue to work to restore system integrity. Your continued support and patience is appreciated.
Prior to the crash the financial aid office was 35% ahead of last year in awards to students for 2004/2005. At the time of the crash some students were attempting to take care of business before graduation or the end of the term for 2003/2004. Everything is being done to bring the system to current status as quickly as possible.
8/10/04
System integrity for financial aid could not be verified. Document input and verification are current. Phone access continues to be limited. Financial Aid, IT representatives and Datatel programmers continue to work to restore system integrity. Your continued support and patience is appreciated.
The financial aid office awarded 58% more students for Fall for 2004/2005 than last year by the first week of August: 15,980 vs. 10,113.
Check Trojan Web Express for your award to print, sign, make changes, and return to us. We should have disbursements and loan uploads and downloads working soon.
8/11/04
Datatel, IT, Financial Aid, and Business Office personnel continue to work to restore the loan status file (to enable uploading and downloading of loan information), ability to transmit to student accounts, and ability to issue refund checks.
8/12/04
Financial Aid award letters run for first time since 7/29/04.
8/13/04 8AM CST
The plan is to begin to upload batches of loan disbursement rosters into the system for the last part of 03/04. The Business Office will then test the ability to disburse to student accounts. We know there will be errors when we load these batches which will be corrected as we go. We plan to begin loading the first 04/05 disbursement batches for T1 by noon. The Business Office could then disburse to student accounts and run vouchers. University Accounting Services would then come in Saturday so that checks could be run over the weekend. We would then be able to mail refund checks on Monday.
8/13/04 11:30 AM CST
We have had problems with the disbursement of 03/04 final year rosters. However, we have moved ahead with the disbursal of the 04/05 T1 roster ahead of schedule. It is currently transmitting to student accounts. The Business Office will then run vouchers. University Accounting Services will then print checks. We hope to have checks in the mail by Saturday.
8/13/04 4:30 PM CST
University College personnel are stuffing refund checks into envelopes which will be mailed to students on Saturday. The University College Business Office will send an e-mail to students on Friday evening regarding the status of refund checks. Refund checks were created with the exception of twenty-eight students for 04/05 (T1) and two students for 03/04 (Summer). We will generate refunds for these thirty students on Monday.
8/13/04 5:45 PM CST
University College personnel are driving the checks to the post office in Montgomery which closes at 7 PM CST so that the checks will be placed in the mail Friday evening. Refund checks were created with the exception of twenty-eight students for 04/05 (T1) and two students for 03/04 (Summer). We will again attempt to generate refunds for these thirty students on Monday.
This has been a combined effort by Troy IT, Business Office, Financial Aid, Accounting Services, and University College personnel. All of us appreciate the patience, support, and leadership provided by these and many other Troy University personnel during this shared endeavor.
8/16/04 12 Noon CST
All but two of the thirty students have aid transferred to their accounts. Refund checks are scheduled to be printed on Tuesday 8/17/04. Loans are now being uploaded and downloaded with KHEAA. Award letters are again being entered into the system so that loans accepted between 7/29/04 and 8/13/04 can be uploaded to KHEAA.
8/19/04
All students who were initially to have aid disbursed have been disbursed. Accepted Award Letters with loan information should be caught up and uploaded to KHEAA by Friday 8/20.
8/20/04
We discovered that for some graduate students the grade level "Junior" was defaulting in ahead of "graduate" (which is what we orginally input) and even though we requested $18,500 from KHEAA, only $10,500 was being disbursed to us. We are manually going back and updating each student one by one.
9/7/04
We still are finding issues involving loans for students that were in process during the crash; we are finding we must re-process the loans to get the students their funds.
10/15/04
When we rebuilt loan files with the help of IT using a process they developed for us, the process converted one semester loans which had two disbursements into Spring/Fall loans. Consequently, one semester two disbursement loans had to be cancelled and resent.
Office of Financial Aid
134 Adams Administration Building
Troy, Alabama 36082
Phone: 1-800-414-5756
Assistance Available 24 Hours A Day/7 Days A Week
