Generating a National Student Clearinghouse (NSC) Report

Purpose: Use this document as a reference for how to create and download a National Student Clearinghouse (NSC) report in ctcLink.

Audience: Student Records.

You must have both of these local college managed security roles:

  • ZD_DS_QUERY_VIEWER (to run optional queries related to the NSC Report process)
  • ZZ SR NSC Reporting (to access pages related to the NSC Report process)

If you need assistance with the above security roles, please contact your local college supervisor or IT Admin to request role access.

Reducing Errors Before Generating the NSC Report

Navigation: Reporting Tools > Query > Query Viewer

The following queries can be used to identify data that may cause NSC reporting errors. Review these queries prior to generating an NSC report and, if necessary, correct data errors. Regularly reviewing QARS Reports and correcting QARS errors will also reduce NSC reporting errors.

Query Name Description
QCS_SR_NSC_PROG_PLAN_CHANGES

Identifies Student Program/Plan changes that are effective for the prompted term and have been effective-dated after the term begin date. These errors can be resolved by using Correct History on the Student Program/Plan page to move the effective date of the change to before the start of the term or after the end of the term.

QCS_SR_NSC_COMPL_EFFDT_ISSUES

IIdentifies Student Program/Plan stacks that have been Completed with an effective date before the term end date. These errors can be resolved by using Correct History on the Student Program/ Plan page to move the effective date of the Completion to the last day of the term.

QCS_SR_NSC_DISCONTINUED_STACKS

Identifies Student Program/Plan stacks that have been Discontinued an effective date prior to the term end date. These errors can be resolved by using Correct History on the Student Program/ Plan page to move the effective date to before the start of or after the end of the reported term.

QCS_SR_NSC_EXP_GRAD_TERM

Identifies students who have an expected graduation term that does not match the value previously consolidated for the NSC report. The results returned on this query may not be errors; this query is informational only and can be used for reviewing changes related to a student's graduation term.

QCS_SR_EXPCT_GRAD_TERM_UPD

Identifies students who have an expected graduation term that is in the past. Students returned by this query have usually applied for graduation but did not receive a degree, though results may also include students who have a program/ plan stack that was completed in a prior term and are now enrolled without an active plan stack. Review the student's record and determine if their graduation term or degree checkout status should be updated. If necessary, graduation terms can be updated on the Student's Program/ Plan page.

QCS_SR_MULTIPLE_PLANS_IN_STACK

Identifies students with multiple Academic Plans in a single Career Number/ plan stack. Review the Student Program/ Plan page for the students returned on this query and determine if their plan stack has been set up correctly. There should be no more than one active plan per plan stack at a time. Corrections can be made by using Correct History to remove additional plan codes. If the student needs to be active in more than one plan at a time, create a new Career Number for each additional plan code.

QCS_CC_ADDRESS_CHAR_BLANK_ERR
Identifies students with commas, asterisks, colons, or semi-colons in their address and students with an address with blank Address 1, City, State (if USA), Country, or Postal Code fields. The query returns results for students associated with the prompted institution. Not all listed students are enrolled. Prioritize cleanup for most recently updated addresses as well as for USA-based addresses containing commas or blank fields.

In addition to reviewing results from the queries listed above, consider running the Term Withdrawal process before beginning the NSC reporting process. This is to ensure that students who have withdrawn from all classes are correctly reported to NSC and do not “disappear” from the NSC report.

Finally, be sure that the Waitlist Purge process has been run before the Census Date! The waitlist must be purged every term after the waitlist process finishes running and before the Census date. Failure to purge the waitlist will increase the reported enrollment load for waitlisted students.

Define Statistics Period

Navigation: Records and Enrollment > Enrollment Reporting > Consolidated Statistics > Define Statistics Period

The academic statistics period is used to tell the Consolidated Academic Statistics what time period to consolidate and how the data should be consolidated.

  1. The Define Statistics Period search page displays.
  2. Using Find Existing Value or Add a New Value, enter the Academic Institution and Academic Statistics Period. New statistics periods must be defined for each NSC report and should not be reused for multiple NSC reports.  It is recommended to use a naming convention that is term specific, for example:
    • 2163_1 (Early Enrollment)
    • 2163_2 (10th Day of the Term/ First of Term report)
    • 2163_3 (Mid Quarter/ Subsequent of Term report)
    • 2163_4 (End of Term Subsequent of Term report)
Academic Statistics Period page
  1. For each new Academic Statistics Period, enter the following information, then Save.
    • Description: Use a detailed description to easily tell the difference between different academic statistics periods.
    • Statistics Period Type: NS (NSC Reporting Type).
    • Academic Load Rule: Term Load Rule Applies.
    • Consolidation Trigger: Consolidation Date.
    • As of Date: Records that are effective as of the As of Date will be included in the NSC report calculations. Generally, the As of Date is the date that the report is being generated ("today's date").
    • Aid Year: This is the Financial Aid Year that the reported term takes place in.
    • Academic Career: UGRD.
    • Term: The current term.
    • Snapshot Date: The snapshot date looks at the student's status on that date during the reported term. The snapshot date should be before or equal to the As of Date and cannot be before the term start date or after the term end date. For most reports, the snapshot date will be the date the report is being generated (generally, "today's date"). When generating an End of Term report, the snapshot date should be set to the last day of the term.

Process Consolidate Statistics

Navigation: Records and Enrollment > Enrollment Reporting > Consolidated Statistics > Process Consolidate Statistics

The Consolidate Academic Statistics process combines all of a student's valid academic statics into one consolidated record. The data consolidated by this process is stored in a holding table and is used to generate the NSC Report.

  1. The Consolidate Statistics run control ID search page displays.
  2. Select the Add a New Value tab.
  3. Enter Run Control ID. It is advised to use a new run control ID for each Academic Statistics Period. Consider using a descriptive naming convention that references the Academic Statistics Period to make it easier to review the number of run control IDs that will be created over time.
  4. Select Add.
  5. The Consolidated Statistics page displays.
Process Consolidate Statistics page
  1. At the top of the page, enter the following information:
    • Academic Institution
    • Academic Statistics Period: Enter the current Academic Statistics Period defined in the previous steps.
    • Prev Stats NSC: For the first report of the term, leave this field blank. For subsequent reports, enter the previously reported Academic Statistics Period.
    • Consolidation Mode: For the first report of the term, use a Consolidation Mode of "Insert." For subsequent reports, use "Overwrite."
    • Commit Frequency: Set this value to 300 for faster processing. If left as 1, the process will take several hours to run to completion.
  2. In the NSC Options section, enter the following information according to your institution's local business process:
    • Enrollment Status Date Options: There are two Enrollment Status Date Options:
      • Use Term Begin Date or Academic Load Change Date (Legacy): This is the default selection and the selection that will be in Production for each college when Image 29 is installed. As long as this is selected, there will be no changes to the way that the enrollment status date is calculated. (Note: "Legacy" does not refer to the pre-ctcLink Legacy HP-UX system. In this case, "Legacy" refers to the NSC processing logic used by PeopleSoft prior to Image 29.)
      • Use the Date the Enrollment Status was Determined: This selection activates the new NSC processing logic. When selected, the Terms with Missing Enrollment Status Data table becomes available. Term categories listed in this table are ignored by the Consolidate Academic Statistics process when there is no enrollment status. For example, listing "Summer" term categories will cause the NSC reporting process to ignore all terms with a Term Category value of "Summer Term," allowing for students who do not enroll in summer terms to be reported without a break in enrollment.
        • Term Categories are configured on the Term/ Session Table (Set Up SACR > Foundation Tables > Term Setup > Term Session Table). Starting with Summer 2245, Summer terms have a Term Category value of "Summer Term."
    • Student with Multiple Plans on Same CIP Code Keys: If the Consolidate by NSC Five-Point Match Criteria checkbox is selected, all program/ plan stacks that share the same Five Point Match criteria (CIP Code, credential level, program length, program length unit, program weeks in Title IV academic year) will be reported as one program. This box should generally be left unchecked.
    • Leave of Absence Option: Options in this section control how the Program Start Date is reported for students who return from a leave of absence (have a program/ plan stack with an "RLOA" row). Select the value that complies with your institution's Leave of Absence policy.
      • Use Return from LOA Date: The student's RLOA date will be used as the program start date. This is the default selection and matches the pre-Image 29 report logic.
      • Use Active Program Start Date: The program start date will match the start date of the program/ plan stack.
      • If Return Within % Days: This field is required when Use Active Program Start Date is selected. If the student returns from a leave of absence within the number of days specified in this field, the process will report the student's current active program/plan stack start date as the program start date. "9999" can be entered into this field if the start date of the program/ plan stack should always be reported as the program start date.
  3. In the Student Career Term Snapshot Input Parameters section, enter the following information:
    • Academic Career: UGRD.
    • Term: The term being reported.
    • Overwrite: If checked, the Take Term, Statistics Snapshot process will delete and replace all data rows from the temporary holding table for students that have data for the academic career, term, and snapshot date combination. Check this box if the Take Term Statistics Snapshot process needs to be rerun; otherwise, leave this box blank.
  4. There are two Consolidated Statistics processes that need to be run.
    • First, run the Take Term Statistics Snapshot (SRPCCONA) process. Click Run, select the Take Term Statistics Snapshot (SRPCCONA) checkbox, then click OK. Click the Process Monitor button to return to the Process Monitor. Use the Refresh button to refresh the Process Monitor and see the status of the Take Term Statistics Snapshot process. Wait until the Take Term Statistics Snapshot process runs to completion (Success, Posted) before moving to the next step.
    • After the Take Term Statistics Snapshot process has run to completion, run the Consolidate Acad Statistics (SRPCCONP) process. Click Run, select the checkbox next to Consolidate Acad Statistics (SRPCCONP), then click OK. Click the Process Monitor button to return to the Process Monitor and use the Refresh button to refresh the Process Monitor and see the status of the Consolidate Acad Statistics process. Wait until the Consolidate Acad Statistics process runs to completion (Success, Posted) before moving to the next step.

Optional: Viewing and Updating an Individual Student's Consolidated Stats

Navigation: Records and Enrollment > Enrollment Reporting > Consolidated Statistics > Student Consolidated Stats

When the Consolidated Academic Statistics process is run, a row gets created on the Student Consolidated Stats page that shows the data that exists in the holding table that will be pulled for the individual student on the NSC report. The Student Consolidated Stats page can be used to view and update the data in the holding table for individual students to report different information than what was calculated during the Consolidate Academic Statistics process.

Look up the current Academic Statistics Period using the Find tool or the arrows at the top of the page. On the Basic Data tab, select the arrow next to "Calculated Values and Overrides" to review and adjust college-level data. Program-level data fields can be viewed and manually overwritten on the NSC Data Elements tab.

Changes made on the Student Consolidated Stats page are relatively rare and are generally made as a part of a college consortium agreement. All manual adjustments made on the Student Consolidated Stats page should be made prior to running the NSC report.

Running the NSC Report

Navigation: Records and Enrollment > Enrollment Reporting > NSC Report

The NSC Report page is used to generate the official report using the data that exists in the holding table. The report will include all students who are enrolled at the college during the academic statistics period as well as students who have been officially Term Withdrawn.

  1. The NSC Report run control ID search page displays.
  2. Select the Add a New Value tab.
  3. Enter Run Control ID.
  4. Select Add.
  5. The NSC Report page displays.
NSC Report page
  1. Enter the following information:
    • Academic Institution
    • Academic Statistics Period
    • Brand Code: 00
    • Report Type: Use “Standard Report” for Fall, Winter, and Spring terms. Use “Non-Standard Report” for Summer terms. Use “Graduates Only” to generate a file containing only graduated students.
    • Address Usage: S_POSTAL
    • FICE Code: College FICE codes autopopulate from the FICE code listed on the Academic Institution page. This value can be overwritten if needed.
    • Output File: Output files begin with /CSTRANSFER/WAXXX/NSC/, with “XXX” replaced by an institution code (i.e., WA220, WA180). Use a descriptive file name ending in .csv (i.e.,/CSTRANSFER/WA130/NSC/2237_2.csv).
  2. Click Run, make sure that the NSC (SRNSLCEX) checkbox is selected, then click OK. Return to the Process Monitor and refresh the page until the process runs to Success/ Posted.

Downloading the NSC Report

Navigation: PeopleTools > CTC Custom > Extensions > Upload/Download Files

Please follow the NSC recommendation for encrypting files before uploading NSC files. The reason for this is that the files contain personally identifiable information (PII).

You must have at least one of these local college managed security roles:

  • ZZ Upload Doc ADM
  • ZZ Upload Doc ADV
  • ZZ Upload Doc SR

If you need assistance with the above security roles, please contact your local college supervisor or IT Admin to request role access.

The NSC Report is downloaded from the File Upload/Download page as a .csv file. This file can then be submitted to the National Student Clearinghouse through their FTP site.

  1. The File Upload/Download search page displays.
  2. Enter your Academic Institution. Scroll down and select the “National Student Clearinghouse” business process.
  3. The Upload Files tab displays.
  4. Select the Download Files tab.
Download Files page
  1. In the File Name field, enter the file name used on the NSC Report page. File names are case sensitive; be sure to enter the file name exactly as it appears in the NSC Report run control ID.
  2. Select Download File. The .csv file will be downloaded to your browser. Open and save the file.
  3. Process complete.

FAQs and Troubleshooting

My NSC Report is blank! What went wrong?

Generally, a blank NSC file is the result of selecting the wrong Statistics Period Type on the Define Statistics Period page. Review your Statistics Period set up and your process run control IDs and update any incorrect values, if needed. Re-run the Consolidate Academic Statistics processes and re-generate the NSC Report.

I receive an error message when I try to download my NSC report (“Download File Failed: File Name Does Not Exist (25000,295)). What do I do?

Make sure that the NSC Report process has run to completion. In addition, review the File Name. File names are case sensitive and must exactly match the file name entered on the NSC Report page. Make sure that there are no spaces entered before or after the file name in the File Name field.

How do I upload an NSC file?

NSC files are uploaded through a secure FTP portal. Visit the National Student Clearinghouse website and log in to your institution’s FTP portal page. If you need assistance, contact your institution’s NSC representative.

We’re receiving errors for Level 99/ Non-Credential Programs. How do we correctly report these programs to NSC?

Level 99/ Non-Credential Programs require a special setup that differs from other programs. Review the Reporting Academic Plan as a COD Level 99 (Non-Credential) Program QRG for more information on how to correctly report these programs.

How to I create a Degree Verify (DV) file?

Review the Running the NSC Degree Verify File QRG for more information.

Why are withdrawn students missing from my NSC report?

If a withdrawn student is missing from the NSC Report, it likely means that the Term Withdrawal process has not been run. The Term Withdrawal process should be run regularly throughout the term for both Financial Aid purposes and to ensure that withdrawn students are promptly reported to NSC. Consider running the Term Withdrawal process shortly before starting the process of creating each NSC report.

A student’s enrollment load is greater than their actual enrollment. What’s going on?

Assuming that no changes have been made to the student’s Student Consolidated Stats page, it’s likely that the Waitlist Purge process has not been run. The waitlist must be purged every term after the waitlist process finishes running and before the Census date. Failure to purge the waitlist will increase the reported enrollment load for waitlisted students.

I have questions about NSC reporting or error correction. What should I do?

SBCTC does not oversee the NSC reporting process, does not provide instruction or guidance on how to report to NSC, and does not assist in resolving NSC or NSLDS errors. Refer to the help documents listed on the National Student Clearinghouse website, visit NSC’s Compliance Central, or contact your institution’s NSC representative.

You may also review the NSLDS Reporting Guide for official reporting requirements or take a look at the NSC Enrollment Reporting Guide for more information about what kinds of data must be reported to the NSC. Finally, check out Oracle’s “Understanding Consolidate Academic Statistics Process Calculations” document for more in-depth information about where the NSC Report gets its data.

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2 Comments

Suzanne

Cannot generate PDF. I get an error message - Page not found.

Tanjagay Martin

Hello Suzanne,
Thank you for your comment. In the Last Updated section located on the left side of your screen, you'll notice a PDF icon and a "Download Article PDF" link. However, there are a few common issues when viewing a PDF.
For example, it could be that you need to update your PDF reader. You can also try viewing a different PDF on a website or a PDF saved to your hard drive. If the PDF opens, there is a chance that the website was experiencing problems. Thus, I would recommend contacting your IT HelpDesk; they can help troubleshoot why you are receiving the error message. Thank you for your time, Suzanne. ~Tanjagay Martin | CS Core Trainer

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