Concept: Packaging Financial Aid

A packaging period is a collection of 1 or more academic periods that Workday assesses together in the same financial aid packaging job. Workday uses a student’s Student Aid Index (SAI) once per packaging period. You can configure more than 1 packaging period per award year. Examples:

You configure 2 packaging periods in the award year: 1 for fall and spring, and 1 for summer. Workday will use the student's SAI once in full for the fall and spring packaging period, and again in full for the summer only packaging period.
For the 2024-2025 award year, a BBAY 1 student has 2 packaging periods: 1 for summer and fall 2024 and 1 for spring and summer 2025.

You can identify which academic periods a packaging period contains by accessing the

Period Details

tab of a student’s attendance plan. An academic period with a

Start of Packaging Period

value of

Yes

is the first academic period of the packaging period. Workday treats the periods from that period until the next period with a

Yes

value as 1 packaging period.

You can also use the

Academic Periods of Packaging Period

report field to return the academic periods that make up the packaging period containing a given financial aid period record (FAPR).

You can update the

Start of Packaging Period

value for academic periods beginning with the 2024-2025 award year by selecting:

Change Start of Packaging Period
from the related actions menu of a FAPR.
Change Start of Packaging Periods
on the
Run Student Financial Aid Processes by Period
report.

Workday populates a

Start of Packaging Period

value of

Yes

for the first academic period of a new academic year sequence or grade level group. You can't override this value. You also can't change the

Start of Packaging Period

value for student applicants.

When processing awards in a financial aid package, Workday considers details such as the SAI, unmet need, and unmet cost of attendance (COA) of the student. Workday accounts for the student's financial aid need as well as:

Any manual changes that you make to an award. Example: You lock the award on the
Total Financial Assistance
report.
The award type. Example: The award is an external award or a payment source that impacts financial aid need.
The need method of the award item. Example: You configure an award item with a need method of
EFC/SAI Replacement
.
The award packaging strategy. Example: You don’t include the award on a packaging strategy, or place it last in your strategy.

Workday processes awards in this order, reducing the student's unmet need and COA with:

Manually locked awards that aren’t on a packaging strategy, including PLUS and alternative loan awards.
External awards that aren’t on a packaging strategy.
Payment sources with financial aid need impact, such as sponsor contracts, waivers, and private scholarships
Awards on a packaging strategy, including any locked awards. Workday processes these awards in the order that you specify.
PLUS loan awards that aren’t on a packaging strategy.
Alternative loan awards that aren't on a packaging strategy.

When you package financial aid, Workday:

Identifies:
Students who meet your selection criteria.
The award packaging strategy for each student based on their academic unit and level, or program of study.
Any holds that prevent packaging.
Determines:
The academic periods to package based on:
Projected enrollment or actual enrollment according to the
Actual Enrollment Usage Start
date.
Financial aid attendance plan.
The financial aid award year and academic period types for which you're running the packaging process.
The awards to process, including external awards.
Evaluates a student’s eligibility for each award, including whether they:
Have a COA, for need packaging and merit-based awards that require COA.
Have an active ISIR with a grade level that matches the student's FAPR, for need packaging only.
Meet the eligibility criteria for the award.
Transition from an undergraduate to a graduate program during the award year.
Calculates:
The student award amount, observing waivers, limits, and the packaging configuration.
Anticipated disbursement amounts and dates, according to the disbursement schedule and schedule rules.
Sets the award status to the initial award status configured on the award item.
Displays anticipated disbursements on students' accounts, based on your anticipated payment display rules.

A student award represents an awarding of a student award item for a single academic period. Example: An athletic scholarship award of $1000 for a student in the Spring 2026 academic period.

A financial aid award consists of all of the student awards of the same award item that Workday assesses together in the same packaging job run using a single SAI value. In contrast to a student award, which represents a per-period award, a financial aid award reflects the combined total of the student awards a student is eligible for in a packaging period. A financial aid award often spans the same academic periods as its packaging period, however, it may span a smaller subset of those periods.

Example: A packaging period comprises 3 academic periods: Fall, Spring, and Summer. A student is eligible for a State Grant award for only the Fall and Spring periods. The State Grant financial aid award represents award information from both the State Grant student award from the Fall period and the State Grant student award from the Spring period.

You can run the packaging process as often as you need to. However, Workday recommends that you don’t run packaging for large volumes of students outside of the Student Nightly Job Orchestration. You can’t manually adjust a student’s financial aid package while a packaging job that includes the student is in progress.

Workday automatically:

Re-evaluates the student's existing financial aid package every time you run the packaging process for the student.
Adjusts disbursement amounts when an award amount changes and reflects adjustments in the student account. Workday also adjusts COD origination and disbursement data.
Flags students for manual review or repackaging when there's a change in data based on your packaging reaction policies. Workday also flags students for repackaging when their need or merit hold is removed.

Workday recommends that you rerun the packaging process to:

Repackage all of a student's academic periods when they get a new ISIR or their weeks of instruction (WOI) changes. Changes to a student's ISIR or WOI might affect their financial aid eligibility.
Uptake Workday-delivered compliance updates.
Use the most up-to-date maximum and minimum Pell Grant amounts. See Maintain Pell Grant Limits for Student Awards.
Ensure the accuracy of your data after making changes to your packaging configuration.

You can use the

Find Financial Aid Job Runs

report to view a detailed description of packaging job runs from the last 30 days. The report displays information such as award amounts, students not processed, and packaging failure reasons.