Unfortunately, that isn’t a joke. October 1st has passed and 2017/2018 FAFSAs are already waiting in your SAIG mailbox! How could you possibly start your new year roll when we aren’t even in the new year? Welcome to the post prior-prior year financial aid world! If you’ve set up your 2017/2018 aid year in Banner already, nice job! If you haven’t finished with your New Year Roll (or if you haven’t even started), HEAG can help!
Here are a few tips on how to get started:
1) Make sure that your system is completely up to date with all current Ellucian financial aid releases. If your IT department hasn’t finished installing all current releases, you should test and install the most recent update before attempting to do any other steps in your new year 
setup. Talk to your IT department and make sure that your office has the support (both physical and emotional) to begin setting up the new year processes.
2) Meet with your staff to gather feedback about what was successful and what didn’t work with your 2016/2017 processes. The New Year Roll is your opportunity to improve your operations to save time and make the experience run more smoothly for your students. If you think you may want to add new loan periods, adjust fund awarding and disbursements rules on RORRULE, or just change the way your students
3) Ask your Banner colleagues for tips and tricks on using Banner more efficiently. Somebody that you know probably has a secret that they are keeping from you about one specific process that is taking way too much of your office’s time and energy. Call them up and shake them down! You can also contact HEAG for expert guidance.
4) Download the New Year Roll guide from Ellucian’s Support Center. Each year, Ellucian publishes a guide to help set up your new aid year screens and Banner financial aid options. Without this checklist, setting up 2017/2018 will be like throwing darts in the dark. One mistake could have far reaching consequences long into the future once you begin processing aid for the next year. Always double check your work on the new year set up before packaging students for the next year.
Don’t wait for the last minute to set up your new aid year in Banner! Rushing the new year set up will lead you to put off much needed improvements that will cause the same mistakes year after year. If you don’t have the resources in your office to begin your New Year Roll and manage your current day to day student flow, contact HEAG.
Our Banner experts are available to help ensure your processes are running smoothly so that you can begin loading your 2017/2018 FAFSAs earlier than any year you’ve ever loaded them before!