Help - Award Processing Form
Before you begin - Notes and Other Information Resources
Aid Year
Term Span
Aid Fund
Aid Fund Properties
Column Headings and Terminology
Default Disbursement Schedule
Export Awards to Excel
McGill IDs
Preview Awards
Viewing awards on Minerva (students)
Use of * in some columns
Submitting the same award twice (for awards processed by GPS only)
Before you begin - Notes and Other Information Resources
Use this form to create awards in Banner for the students indicated. The awards will then be approved and/or processed by the Scholarships and Student Aid Office or by Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies.
- Fellowships paid from GPS funds:
- Must be submitted by March 31.
- Will not be disbursed until the students have entered their Direct Deposit Banking information in Minerva.
- If an award is to be paid by cheque, you will be required to provide further details. After submitting the award, click on the symbol beside the award record to enter the required information.
- For definitions of terminology, error and warning codes, see the headings in this help file.
- See also Frequently Asked Questions on using the Award Processing form, and explanations of error messages.
- For step-by-step instructions on filling in the Award Processing form, see:
- For more assistance with the form, call ext.1001 for Undergraduate Awards or ext.09353 for Graduate Awards.
Aid Year
When selecting an Aid Year, you should choose the year that you want the award to be processed for the student. For monetary awards, it is the year when the funds are to be disbursed to the student. For non-monetary awards, i.e. designations, choose the year when the award is to be attributed to the student.
Term Span
When choosing the term span for the award, pick the term(s) that the student should be registered in order to be eligible for the award.
Tips:
- Entrance awards and In-Course awards generally tend to be submitted prior to the start of an Aid Year and are for the Fall and Winter semesters of the upcoming year. There are cases of Entrance awards being submitted for Winter semester only.
- Convocation awards generally tend to be submitted at the end of an Aid Year and are for the Fall and Winter semesters of the current Aid Year when you are submitting the award.
Aid Fund
When selecting an Aid Fund, you will see the Aid Fund Properties appear to the right. These properties are key to ensuring that you have chosen the correct Aid Fund. This is especially true if you have a Finance Fund which you use to issue both in-course and graduation awards.
Aid Fund Properties
Properties or characteristics that have been associated with the aid fund that help to classify it, assist with Aid Fund selection, and facilitate reporting of institutional data.
Aid Fund Property values
| Disbursable, Renewable, Transcript | Values of or indicate whether or not an award is , or . |
| Spendable Amount | The lesser of:
|
| Aid Type | Describes the type of award (e.g. Scholarship, Fellowship, Medal). |
| * Access | Unit authorized to award. |
| Fund Group | Who is responsible for administering the award (e.g. University, Faculty, Non-Academic Department Award). |
| Program Stage | Stage in the student's studies for which the award is intended (e.g. Entrance, In-Course, Convocation). |
| Processor | Unit that will complete the processing of the awards (Scholarship and Student Aid Office or Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies). |
| Recipient Pool | Students in this faculty may qualify for this award. |
Column Headings and Terminology
Accounts Payable:
The award disbursement will be processed through accounts payable. Students will get paid by cheque or by
direct deposit to their bank account if they have provided student bank account information.
Accounts Receivable:
The award disbursement will be processed through accounts receivable. Students will have the
award disbursement amount deposited directly into their student fee account.
Start/End Term:
The range of semester(s) in which the student should be registered.
Aid Fund: identity of the award in BSAC.
D.Sch.: Disbursement Schedule.
This column provides information about the Disbursement Schedule for a student award. Possible values in this column are:
| CUST | Customized | A customized disbursement schedule has been created for this award. |
| DFLT | Default | An existing default disbursement schedule is being used for disbursement of this award. |
| ERR | Error | There is an error in the existing disbursement schedule. |
| N/A | Not Applicable | Not Applicable. This award does not require a disbursement schedule. |
| REQD | Required | A disbursement schedule is required but has not been entered. |
Status: the current status of the award in Banner.
All awards submitted via the Award Processing formwill be saved initially with a status of . Changes to an award status resulting from actions initiated by the central offices or by students will be reflected here (e.g. Assigned, Cancelled, Declined, etc.).
A value of or indicates whether the award has been processed by a central office (Y)es or (N)o. If the value
is Y, no further changes may be made by the awarding office.
Clicking on the + symbol opens a dialogue box where you can view, modify or create disbursement schedules
and add comments. If you need to modify a portion of the default disbursement schedule, you will be required to
re-enter the complete schedule. For GPS awards, it is strongly recommended that you do not modify the default schedule.
Special circumstances or instructions relating to a student’s award should be entered in the comment field. Changes can be made until the award has been processed.
Default Disbursement Schedule
If the selected Aid Fund has a default disbursement schedule, it will be displayed under the list of .
Export Awards to Excel
Click on this button to export your list of awards (including student ID, disbursement schedule, award status etc.) to an Excel spreadsheet. This spreadsheet will include additional information.
Note: This spreadsheet may be saved to your hard drive (C: drive). Once saved, move the spreadsheet to a secure network drive to safeguard confidential information.
McGill IDs
Enter the McGill ID number and a dollar value for monetary awards. For non-monetary awards, enter only the McGill ID number in the McGill ID’s box.
Preview Awards
This allows you to verify that the award(s) you have entered are correct and accurate before submitting them for processing.
Viewing awards on Minerva (students)
Students will be able to see awards created via the Award Processing form after approximately 3 working days. The delay may be shorter or longer as required. The exact number of days may vary – especially for awards processed by GPS where more verification is required.
Use of * in some columns
Where an asterisk appears in a column (e.g. ERR), place the cursor over that field and hover (keep your cursor there) to see additional information.
Submitting same award twice (for awards processed by GPS only)
If an awarding unit needs to top up an existing award for one or more Graduate students, they can use the same steps as submitting the initial award.
This process generates a WRN * (warning) code beside each Student ID affected, which means "You have already submitted the same award for the selected term".
Verify that the awards/student IDs are the correct ones. If so, press again to continue; otherwise, you can correct the error by removing the appropriate McGill IDs and amount, and press again.