In the wee hours of Wednesday, June 8, we released our overhaul of Populi Financial Aid into the wild after months of development, testing, and refinement. The new features (together with the U.S. Department of Ed's proprietary EdExpress software) will let your Financial Aid office handle the entire aid process—everything from importing ISIRs to managing aid applications to batch disbursement of funds. We previewed the new stuff in some recent posts; here's a summary of what we just released:

Navigation overhaul

All of Populi Financial has been moved over to the new tab-based layout, which clarifies the navigation (and works better on mobile devices).

Aid applications

We built out aid applications so your aid office can track FAFSA data for each applicant, attach files to applications, and interact with student applicants from the application or via email. Students can upload files, ask questions, and accept or decline awards.

ISIRs imports

The new ISIRs importer converts the gobbledygook text file into all kinds of useful information for your school. FAFSA data automatically creates aid applications. Updated files plug new data right into existing apps. You can even create new Prospects if you receive an ISIRs file for someone you haven't heard of before.

New workflows and reports

Use Populi Financial Aid to track Federal Work Study awards. Create batch disbursements and aid refunds. Automate your disbursement schedules for the entire aid year. A new academic progress report lets you find students in trouble. Existing reports have been combined and redesigned to give you a wider, more comprehensive look at your school's Financial Aid data.

Other stuff

As usual, we took the opportunity to work in some bugfixes and performance improvements. We've made some architecture changes that will enable us to do a lot of cool things with future development.

And Financial Aid now has its own forum in the Populi help desk.