Business Process Documentation - Apprenticeship Programs

Table of Contents

Background

Guided by the legislature (E2SSB5764 Section 2 and Section 4) to remove barriers for students enrolled in an apprenticeship having access to financial aid and to establish a policy for granting as many credits as possible and appropriate for related supplemental instruction, an Apprenticeship Coding Redesign workgroup was established to identify processes and develop guidance for college implementation needs.

In order to provide the structure needed to award funding, the apprenticeship coding redesign included transitioning the Academic Plans for apprenticeship programs from the NOAWS (Non-Award Seeking) to the PRFTC (Professional Technical) Academic Program.  

Please refer to the Policy Brief - Apprenticeship Code and the ctcLink Apprenticeship Coding 2023 handbook for information on the prior work performed in 2023 and 2024.

NOTE: FAAs should be aware that previously apprenticeship programs were coded as NOAWS, therefore, students who were in apprenticeship programs were not in an eligible program plan stack for Title IV funds. However, with changes to WG - A, students are now in a financial aid eligible program plan stack (PRFTC). If their academic plan is coded as f inancial aid eligible (short descriptions begins with 9), FA term will build. Subsequently, the student will be selected for SAP.  

Plan Code Request for New Registered Apprenticeship Programs:

  1. Any newly registered apprenticeship program will be requested by your program/plan inventory manager using the registration form listed on the SBCTC website.
  2. The request is reviewed by SBCTC staff.  If no questions or further action is needed, SBCTC staff will submit a ticket to the SolarWinds ticketing system.
  3. Once submitted, the person who oversees plan codes at your campus is assigned to that ticket and all communication for the new plan creation is then completed in the ticketing system.
  4. The person assigned to the ticket will review and provide confirmation that the data is accurate.
  5. Once everything is confirmed in the ticket, and the request detail is met, resolution of the ticket serves as the official approval of the new plan code in your inventory.
  6. Once plan code is made active in inventory, college will notify Student Financials via a ticket in the SolarWinds ticketing system of the new plan code.  

Business Process for Apprenticeship Programs:

Expand or collapse content Admissions Application Process

A general apprenticeship plan has been created for your college for a student's admissions application. If utilizing the general apprenticeship plan, all other apprenticeship plans should be hidden from selection in the Online Admissions Application Portal (OAAP). After the official employment and apprenticeship program is verified, colleges will matriculate the apprentice into the applicable apprenticeship-specific plan code. The SAPR student group is mass assigned nightly based on the student being term activated in an apprenticeship plan code and enrolled. The SAPR student group is also used by your Student Financials staff for waivers.

For colleges that prefer to display this general apprenticeship plan in OAAP, SBCTC has added Academic Plan UNDECLAPR to each college's Academic Plan Table. Academic Plan UNDECLAPR will remain in an inactive status and will not be visible to potential applicants (it has been excluded from OAAP) until your college is ready to transition. When your college is ready to use UNDECLAPR, submit a ticket to SBCTC requesting that UNDECLAPR be set to active. The CS Core Support Team will coordinate timing with you. The college will 1) remove UNDECLAPR and 2) add all of the college's specific apprenticeship plans to the OAAP Academic Plan Exclusions page. SBCTC will set UNDECLAPR to active.

If your college decides to display the real apprenticeship plans in OAAP instead of the general apprenticeship plan, your college is responsible for managing your admissions process and ensuring applicants are not matriculated into the real plan until they have been validated with the sponsor/employer to confirm the student’s correct apprenticeship and correct admit term. Failure to do this will result in financial and reporting issues.

Ensure your college has hidden the applicable apprenticeship plan(s) you do not want displayed for applicants to choose from in OAAP. It is important to coordinate with Admissions staff to ensure this configuration is updated and maintained. QRG Resource: Update OAAP Academic Plan Exclusions Configuration

Expand or collapse content Submission of Admissions Application (OAAP)

Your college determines which terms to display to applicants when applying via the Online Admissions Application Portal (OAAP). It is important to coordinate with Admissions staff to understand when the current term will no longer be available for applicants to choose. QRG Resource: OAAP Terms Setup. If an applicant applies to the wrong term, staff can update this to the correct term. QRG Resource: Maintaining Applications: Program/Plan & Admit Term Updates Before Matriculation

Apprentices submit their student applications via the Online Admissions Application Portal (OAAP) to the college of their choice who sponsors their apprenticeship.

  • If your college is utilizing the general apprenticeship plan in OAAP, the apprentice should select the following values:
    • Program: Select “Professional Technical”
    • Plan: Select “Apprenticeship Program”
  • QRG Resources for Submitting Applications: Online Admissions Portal - Student
  • OAAP will send an automated email to the students confirming their application has been received. This email is sent to the email address the student used to create their OAAP Account.
  • If the application was not suspended in ctcLink, the applicant can view their ctcLink ID in the OAAP automated email, and by reviewing their submitted application in OAAP,
  • If their application was suspended in ctcLink, the applicant will see XXXXXXXXX rather than a numerical ID number. The college will need to complete Suspense Management in ctcLink. QRG Resource: OAAP Suspense Management
  • If the applicant already existed in ctcLink before they submitted their apprenticeship application, some bio/demographic information may not have been updated by the system (i.e. email). Run the OAAP Application Report to view what information the student provided on their application. QRG Resource: OAAP Application Report
Expand or collapse content Admissions Application Review and Program Validation

Admissions applications that are in the “general” plan should be validated with the sponsor/employer to confirm the student’s correct apprenticeship and correct admit term.

To find submitted applications, colleges should run the admissions query and can filter by the “general” apprenticeship plan code. QRG Resource: Running Admissions Query

After the apprenticeship is validated, staff will matriculate the applicant into a student and update the “general” plan to the applicable apprenticeship-specific plan. Students should be matriculated to a date on or before the start date of their first term (a.k.a. Admit Term).

Expand or collapse content Residency

A student’s residency status determines the amount they are charged for tuition and fees. A residency status is automatically determined based on how they respond to the residency questions in OAAP but may need to be updated by college staff. The three residency statuses are (1) In-State, (2), Out of State, and (3) Undetermined. QRG Resource: Entering Residency

Expand or collapse content Required Coding Elements
  • The SAPR student group is used to track apprenticeship students for reporting and for inclusion in the SBCTC Data Warehouse.
  • The SAPR student group is mass assigned nightly based on the student being term activated in an apprenticeship plan code and enrolled. Colleges do not need to manually activate the SAPR student group unless the enrollment occurs after the college’s term end date.
    • If the apprenticeship enrollment occurs after the college’s term end date, the college will need to manually assign and backdate the SAPR student to a date within the college’s term.
  • If the student is no longer in an apprenticeship and is:
(Internal Use Only) System and Process Requirements:

Process - All students need to be admitted via OAAP - SBCTC Apprenticeship Protocols - Key Requirements  

System - Email Acceptance Notification to the student  

Process - Student Program Validation and placement of student into correct program plan code in ctcLink

Expand or collapse content Class & Grading Setup
Expand or collapse content Class Setup
  • Instructor must be added to the class.
    • See Instructor Information section below.
  • Class must generate FA Progress Units.
  • No specific Apprenticeship coding is required for classes.
  • QRG Resources:
Expand or collapse content Instructor Information

The Instructor/Faculty EMPLID is required for all Apprenticeship classes including those taught by external instructors who are not college faculty. To meet reporting needs, and if Apprenticeship instructors are not college faculty, use the PeopleSoft Person of Interest (POI) functionality.  This approach requires only minimal information to be configured in ctcLink, as the external instructors are not on the college payroll or on campus.

An External Instructor is defined as:
External Instructors are not employees of a Washington state Community and Technical College and are engaged to perform instruction for programs such as “Registered Apprenticeship” related supplemental instruction where instruction is provided by the apprenticeship program. For Faculty coding information see SBCTC Student & Course Coding Manual under Apprenticeships. (SCTC Policy Manual Chapter 2.35 Classification of Employees)

Beginning Fall 2025, follow the below steps to add an external instructor to a class if the instructor is not employed or paid by your college.

  1. Establish the external instructor as a Person of Interest (POI) in Human Capital Management (HCM) assigned to the global External Instructor Job Code “999999”.
  2. Add the instructor to the Instructor/Advisor Table in Campus Solutions (CS).
  3. Assign the instructor to the relevant class in CS.
Resources
Expand or collapse content Grading
  • Apprenticeship classes must be graded.
  • Grade Scheme: ACA Grade Scheme (Credit Grading Scheme): pending updates
  • Grade Basis:
    • “Audit Grade Basis" must be unchecked
    • “Print On Transcript” must be checked
  • Grade Input: You must use a Grade Input that signifies if the student was successful or not successful in the class.
Expand or collapse content Enrollment Processing (Class Registration)

Before enrolling in classes, students must first be term activated to the apprenticeship-specific plan. Students should not enroll in the general placeholder plan.

QRG Resources:

Expand or collapse content Apprentice Self-Enrollment Process
  • Apprentices will log into ctcLink and enroll for apprenticeship (RSI) classes.
  • Enrollment is required for funding (WG-A)
  • Colleges can give the course numbers to the apprentice to enroll
Expand or collapse content College Staff Enrollment Process for Apprentices

College staff can utilize the list of OAAP applications and/or the list of apprentices from the sponsor to enroll the apprentices. If the class already began, backdating enrollments may be required. For students to generate FTES, they must be enrolled in the class as of the census date of the class. SBCTC Policy Manual Chapter 5.40 Enrollment Census Data

(Internal Use Only) System and Process Requirements

Process - Apprenticeship Coordinators:
Ensures students are enrolled in classes - SBCTC Apprenticeship Protocols - Enrollment in RSI

  • Classes are added in timely manner
  • Rosters provided in timely manner
Expand or collapse content Course/Class Fee Waiver Process

Waiver Process

State Board will manage a job recurrence that will find apprenticeship students then apply or remove an apprenticeship program specific equation variable flag on the accounts driving the waiver.

First the job recurrence will determine the population of students who are newly added (or removed) from Apprenticeship academic plans, then update that population by adding or removing an equation variable (via population update) that corresponds to specific apprenticeship program. The value placed on the equation variables page will drive the tuition group the student is placed in and the units eligible to be waived by the W91 waiver.

  • Equation Variable: Utilizing a student financials page called “Equation Variables” and presents 10 boxes for character inputs, 10 boxes for numeric inputs, and 10 yes/no checkboxes all able to be populated by term.
  • The configuration aims to have colleges select unique values for each individual apprenticeship program at their college and have the system run a nightly mass assign process to populate the Var Char5 box with a unique identifier for students who are active in each apprenticeship program.
  • Mass Assign/Mass Delete: The process that will maintain the assignment and removal of the equation variable will be scheduled and maintained by the State Board SF team. The mass assignment/removal will utilize the “population update” process in PeopleSoft.
    • Each of the apprenticeship programs at the colleges will have their own mass assign and mass delete run control for each term. The queries used will identify eligibility in a specific apprenticeship program based on students’ academic plans and will be altered versions of the SAPR assignment/removal queries (no longer looking at SAPR student group information).
    • Each apprenticeship contract/program will receive a mass assign, and a mass delete query. There will be a total of eight queries for each program, an assignment and removal query for each term.
      • The queries will need their hard-coded prompts to be updated yearly by the State Board SF team during the yearly tuition rate update meetings.
    • These queries will be put into an apprenticeship job that will be run nightly (M-F) prior to tuition calculation job so that any changes in a student’s enrollment or academic plan that may impact waiver eligibility will be taken into consideration before the nightly tuition calculation is run.
  • Tuition Groups, Term Fees, & Course Lists: Once assigned an equation variable, the system will add tuition groups for each apprenticeship program. Each tuition group will house two sets of tuition term fees (Operating, Building, S&A); waivable and non-waivable.
    • These term fees will feed off a course list created for each of the colleges’ apprenticeship programs that will hold eligible courses for a given program/contract.
    • The course list being accurate will be important as it determines which units an apprenticeship student takes are waiver eligible, and which are not waiver eligible.
    • Any course included in this course list will be calculated in the “waivable” term fees with the 50% waiver attached, any courses a student might be enrolled in outside of the program’s course list will not have the 50% waiver attached and will charge the full tuition rate for those units.
  • By breaking out each program into its own tuition group having its own waivable & non-waivable term fees, each using an equation to look at the program’s associated course list means that the waiver will only apply to courses contributing to the program’s required curriculum.
  • With this configuration, the system will automatically each evening;
    • Assign the equation variable for the apprenticeship program, their plan indicates their eligibility for using our mass assign job
    • Mark the student as needing tuition calculation ran
    • During tuition calculation, assign them to the appropriate tuition group o Calculate waivable/non-waivable units and assess tuition based on enrollment o Assign the waiver for “waivable” courses at 50% of standard tuition and charge the full amount of tuition for non-waiver eligible courses
  • Introduction of new courses: If new courses are added to an existing apprenticeship program, the course list for that program will need to be updated to include the newly created course(s). New rows will need to be added to the associated tuition group. This piece can be done by the college staff.
  • Introduction of new Apprenticeship Programs: If there is a completely new apprenticeship program being added to the institution, a ticket will need to be submitted.
    • The initial ticket needs to be submitted to CS Core team for the creation of the Program Plan Stack
    • The second ticket needs to be submitted to the SF Support team containing the following information.
      1. New Program/Contract name Academic
      2. Plans associated with the new program
      3. Program curriculum (course IDs or subject codes if all subject codes are eligible)

(Internal Use Only) System and Process Requirements

System - Waiver groups created (work with Student Financials)

Process - Apply waiver groups to classes - SBCTC Apprenticeship Protocols - Fee Waivers for APR Students

Expand or collapse content Funding Application Process
  • Apprenticeship Coordinator to run the Apprenticeship Hours report that provides L & I data to determine if the student’s eligible hours allow for a Full Award or Prorated Award.
    • The Apprenticeship report is available from within QARS.
      • QARS Information: Data Warehouse Documentation
      • Access Request Form: QARS Access Request Form
      • Report Data Dictionary: TBD ●
  • Apprenticeship Coordinator enters a comment on the Financial Aid Review (E179) Checklist in ctcLink to indicate a Full or Prorated Award based on the student’s eligible hours.
    • Student is eligible for Full Award per L&I Hours
    • Student is eligible for Prorated award at 78% per L&I Hours
      • The Greater Prorated OJT/RSI Percent in the Report contains the value for the prorated award, if applicable.
  • Financial Aid Administrator enters the Prorated award percentage in the Financial Aid Student Term Enrollment Intensity to calculate the aid using the prorated percentage.
  • Financial Aid Requirements to determine eligibility: (the source of the data is listed below the requirement)
    • WG-A Funding Application
      • ctcLink
      • Apprenticeship Hours Report
    • Active/Current ctcLink Apprenticeship Plan matches the L&I Program
      • ctcLink
      • Apprenticeship Hours Report
    • L&I Program Occupation matches the WG-A Approved Program Occupation
      • Apprenticeship Hours Report
    • OJT and RSI Eligible Hours to determine Full Award vs. Prorated Award
      • Apprenticeship Hours Report
    • Apprenticeship Review Checklist (E179) to communicate eligibility from the Apprenticeship Coordinator to the Financial Aid Administrator
      • ctcLink
      • Apprenticeship Hours Report
    • Enrollment in Course(s)
      • ctcLink
    • Apprenticeship SPP Checklist (E183) to communicate the Student Program Progress of completed L&I Program Hours at the end of the Aid Year from the Apprenticeship Coordinator to the Financial Aid Administrator
      • ctcLink
      • Apprenticeship Hours Report
  • Disbursement
    • Once annually for the full amount of WG-A
      • Aid is calculated and disbursed at the first enrollment of RSI in the academic year after WG-A funding application submission.
        • If Fall Term is the first enrollment of RSI and the term aid is disbursed
          • 2000 OJT or 144 RSI required for Full Award
        • If Winter Term is the first enrollment of RSI and the term aid is disbursed
          • 1500 OJT or 108 RSI required for Full Award
        • If Spring Term is the first enrollment of RSI and the term aid is disbursed
          • 1000 OJT or 72 RSI required for Full Award
        • If Summer Term is the first enrollment of RSI and the term aid is disbursed
          • 500 OJT or 36 RSI required for Full Award
Expand or collapse content Student Program Progress (SPP)
Expand or collapse content Grading
  • Enter Grades in ctcLink
    • QRG Resources: Grade Rosters and Grading
    • Active apprentice status is verified at L&I and will be reflected in the Student Total Hours we receive from the L&I Hours file.  If the student were to not pass or withdraw, the L&I Hours would reflect this due to employment changes for apprentice. We will rely on the L&I Hours for SPP due to this data flow rather than reviewing the grading in ctcLink.
Expand or collapse content SPP Completion of Hours
  • Apprenticeship Coordinator verifies the SPP Completion Hour Percentage and enters a comment on the Financial Aid SPP (E1##) Checklist in ctcLink to indicate standing based on the Actual SPP Percent Completion of Hours fields in the Apprenticeship Hours report.
    • Good Standing  = If either the OJT or RSI Hours Completion is 67% or greater
      • Student is in Good Standing - OJT 80% and RSI 71% per L&I Hours
        • Always include both percentages for audit purposes
    • Not Good Standing  = If both the OJT and RSI Hours Completion are 66% or less
      • Student is NOT in Good Standing - OJT 66% and RSI 65% per L&I Hours
        • Always include both percentages for audit purposes
  • Sponsors are required to inform the institution within 30 days of an apprentice’s suspension, whether voluntary or disciplinary.
  • See WSAC’s Satisfactory Program Process (SPP) guidance: WG-A SBCTC FAA Business Process  
Expand or collapse content Possible Next Steps

(Internal Use Only) System and Process Requirements

Process - Issuance of Certificate/Diploma

Certificate generation system

Documentation of completed coursework  - E2SSB5764 Legislative Text (Section 4)

Resources

Expand or collapse content Resources
  • ctcLink Queries
    • QCS_SR_SAPR_PLAN_CLASSES
      • Lists apprenticeship students (i.e., active in Student Group SAPR) in plan codes with their names and classes in which they are enrolled in the selected term.
    • QCS_SR_SAPR_HC_FTE
      • Provides the headcount and FTE for apprenticeship students (i.e., active in Student Group SAPR) during the selected term.
      • The number of records returned by the query represent the student headcount.
      • The headcount and FTE returned by the query represent the data that will be added to the SBCTC Data Warehouse at the end of each term.
    • QCS_SR_APR_WAIVER_FTE
      • Provides the headcount and FTE for apprenticeship students who received an apprenticeship waiver during the selected term.
      • The number of records returned by the query represent the student headcount.      
  • Policy Brief - Apprenticeship Code
  • External Instructor Policy Brief
  • ctcLink Apprenticeship Coding Handbook
  • WG-A SBCTC FAA Business Process 05162025
  • WCG-A Apprenticeship Hours Report Description

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