Editing the Required Documents

The Financial Aid module is delivered with a standard set of documents that will be checked off as required application materials when new records are created in Applicants. These documents are also checked for the re-application process when you roll your database forward. These documents correspond with the current tax year. You may upon occasion need to require additional documents for individuals. This involves a simple process of checking off the additional required document on the Documents tab. On other occasions, however, you may wish to add a required document or documents for all families that apply for financial aid.

Adding other documents involves editing the script that sets up required documents. Your first step is to ensure that you have logged in with an account that will allow you to edit a script. You can access this script by going to the Scripts menu in Filemaker and selecting ScriptMaker. The script is located in the section labeled, Letters/Forms and is called “FORMS – set default required items [P1;P2].

This script contains several Set Field script steps. In order to add a required document, you can simply copy one of the script steps and link this to the correct field. There are two things to note:

1. Ensure that you set this up as a required item for Family 1 and Family 2 (if needed).
2. Ensure that you choose the correct table instance such as FAY0 or FAY1.

Editing the Missing Items Textcalc

If you need to add additional years to the Missing Items textcalc, there are three items that must be changed:

1. The table references of the field, textcalc_missingitems, found in the Forms table
2. The table reference of the Documents screen textcalc
3. The table reference of the Letters textcalc

For further information on this topic, you may want to view the following Quicktime movie. Please click on the link listed below to view this tutorial:

FA Years and the Relational Component

Previous years data for financial aid documents can be accessed utilizing relationships created from the Forms table. The table instance that includes FAY0 references the current year while FAY1 references the previous tax year. See the relationship graph in the Financial Aid module for further information.