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Professional Judgement Assistance
Tools You Need, Mobile and Accessible for your Students
MyFi-APPEAL is a self-service mobile application designed to assist both you and your students through the professional judgement process. The application is highly customizable, allowing you to tailor your requirements for each student and gives you the tools to track and process the request for efficient professional judgement. The beautifully-designed mobile application enables the student to respond with ease, in a familiar format. E-signed statements, secure document upload and easy to use interviews help your students put together an appeal with ease, so that you are presented with the best information on the first try.
Hugh T. Ferguson...Of the institutions surveyed, 47% saw an increase this year in the total number of PJ requests as compared to the same period between March 1, 2019 and May 26, 2019 — with 21% reporting an increase of 50% or more... Going forward, 90% of those surveyed anticipate experiencing an increase in PJ requests...”
NASFAA Staff Reporter
Excerpted from: NASFAA Survey Results Highlight COVID-19 Impact on Professional Judgment Requests
Professional Judgement Following Your Process
MyFi-APPEAL allows Students to Work on their PJ Appeals from their phone...
...or any other network device. Your student can make their initial appeal directly in the application, or be invited to fill out an appeal request originating from the financial aid office. In most cases, the student can complete the application without the need for an office visit, helping to to maintain social distancing, while providing the best service possible to them.. A robust and mobile-friendly administrative interface allows you to track submissions and review, waive, and add requirements to help the student build their case. MyFi-APPEAL gives you the tools you need to review and collaborate on their application.
Faster yet...
MyFi-Appeal can use the ISIR data you already have to streamline your PJ process.
With fewer systems to consult there can be fewer errors and an easier workflow for your administrators. Knowing upfront that the student has a zero or very low EFC, or that a student is independent can help you and the student quickly assess potential avenues and dead ends. With integrated, real-time EFC recalcuations, IPA breakdowns and the ability to send corrections back to ED directly, many appeals can be concluded without even opening your main financial aid system! And you can rest assured that ISIR data is encrypted both in transit and at rest with military-grade encryption. And ISIR data is only used to help assist you with your PJ decisions. Not quite ready to upload ISIRs? No problem. The system works just fine without them, just without some of the aforementioned functiontions. If you decide in the future you are ready to leverage the full power of the system, you can change your mind at any time.
Your institution, your branding
Designed to adopt your institution's look & feel
Your institution's image and reputation are embodied in a identity, a logo, a color scheme, and a brand. MyFi-APPEAL adopts to your brand so you can make it your own.
Your application, your philosophy
Professional Judgement allows you to respond to the needs of your students.
These needs can be very specific to your student body, and your applications are a part of your communication with your students. MyFi-APPEAL allows you to customize many of the explanations given to students, as well as the types of documentation and types of appeal that you will accept. Your application will look and feel and sound like your office.
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Reduce the waiting. Reduce the frustration. Reduce the melt.
MyFi-APPEAL gives students and administrators a virtual meeting place to assemble the required documents needed for a professional judgement determination. The administrator can assign documentary and written requirements, assign interviews, and customize informational screens to assist the student in creating their case.
Due to the complexities of professional judgement, many schools have been reluctant to widely publicize their professional judgement protocols. However, many schools are seeing a rise in student-initiated professional judgement appeals that use online form generators which give a student a little understanding of the process, and provide little to no benefit to the FAO. In addition, the next few years will see many more cases where a student’s FAFSA data will be outdated due to both COVID-19 and the use of prior-prior year data. This means that applications for professional judgement will greatly increase, and an expanded understanding of professional judgement processes and efficient tools will be needed.
MyFi-APPEAL assists students by providing a clear framework as to what they have to do in order to get their PJ Appeal approved.. MyFi-APPEAL helps financial aid professionals by providing a highly-audited trail of interactions, clear and concise document storage and retrieval, and a suite of tools to help you make and apply your judgements to the student’s case.
Product Features
Lightweight Mobile User Interface
A light, mobile-optimized presentation allows students to create and track their request using the device they use the most — their phone. Almost every student on campus owns a smartphone. They use them, all day long, for just about any and every transaction you can imagine. MyFi-APPEAL is designed to work and look great on smartphones, tablets, laptops, and desktop computers.
Task Focused
MyFi-APPEAL allows students to submit their reasoning for their appeal through a clean, intuitive, secure and mobile-friendly user interface. The system can guide a student to the type of appeal they are trying to create, and guide them to providing the correct types of documentation for that type of appeal. Administrators are able to tailor the appeal to the specific needs of the student, requesting certain documentary requirements while waiving others. Intuitive notifications and timeline views help the student to see what they need to do and keep track of what they have already done.
A Brand New Experience Built on an Established System
MyFi-APPEAL gives a clean, modern application process, saves time, and provides clear instructions to the student as to what is needed.
Designed to adopt your institution's look & feel
Your institution's image and reputation are embodied in an identity, a logo, a color scheme, and a brand. MyFi-APPEAL is designed to adopt your brand so you can make it your own. On screen messaging, types of appeals, documentary requirements, emails and notifications can be customized directly in the application so your process doesn’t just look like it’s yours, it sounds like it’s yours.
The Functionality Your Students Need
“These unprecedented times” may be a trite phrase, but that doesn’t make it any less true, and we all know how hard these times have been for higher education. An incredible number of changes have had to be made in all areas of the institution. Many students, are likely to have been affected by income losses and major situational changes in their family life due to the virus. Compounded by the use of prior-prior year, a prodigious number of students will be considering returning to campus with an outdated FAFSA that reflects income and family situations that simply don’t reflect their current reality any more.
Professional Judgement is the tool that ED provides to schools as a way to correct these often uncommon anomalies. MyFi-APPEAL gives your students a more streamlined process to make their case to you for review. And for the financial aid officer, it provides a simple way to track and audit the information you are receiving from the student.MyFi-APPEAL delivers many tools to make both the recording and the review of the situation easier, including ‘what-if’ modelling, automated workflows to guide your students to collect and assemble their case, and direct integration with ED to make changes to the FAFSA data.
The functionality you need
MyFi-APPEAL makes it easy for students to request an award review and know what is happening throughout the process.
What was approved?
What is the status of my request?
With whom can I communicate?
What documents should you provide?
Did you get my… ?
What do I have to do to get help?
If I need help for next year, what do I do?
Built to withstand the peaks
Cloud-based technology allows us to increase capacity when the system gets busy for those inevitable peaks in activity on the system.
Secure
MyFi-APPEAL has been designed with security in mind since day one. More imperative than any feature
in our product, our foremost priority is to keep information secure through every aspect of the
application.
Continuous Improvement
Web technologies do not age well. What was a great application design ten years ago on a desktop
monitor probably doesn’t look so great on the range of screen sizes that are more common today.
The MyFi suite of financial products are designed to be continuously updated to ensure it remains
usable and relevant.
Take a look for yourself
The fastest way to help students through the process...
Pricing
The MyFi-APPEAL pricing model is based on a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) annual
subscription.
With this model, your institution pays an annual license fee, which includes all maintenance, support, and
upgrades. No ‘hidden’ or unexpected fees.
In addition, there are one-time fees for the configuration and deployment of MyFi-APPEAL, including training
of your MyFi-APPEAL system administrator.
Frequently Asked Questions
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How difficult is it to get started with
MyFi-APPEAL?
MyFi-APPEAL is a turnkey solution that is designed to provide an easy and intuitive way to allow your students to securely request and follow the PJ process. The process is cloud-based and needs only light configuration to get started.
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How do my students access the system?
You can configure the application to allow students to sign themselves up by providing a link on your website or by email, or you can allow your administrators to send an invitation to students when they ask about the program. Either way, the student will be directed to a web app with your branding to start the process.
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What are the benefits of using a solution like
MyFi-APPEAL over writing my own application, or using a forms-based approach?
MyFi-APPEAL allows you to use our configurable software out-of-the-box to handle the immediate needs of your students. It is ready to go right now, no waiting. Your students will love it because it is already mobile-first designed, enabling them to use it from wherever they are. As it is a turn-key cloud-based application we handle most of the IT work, freeing your IT team to concentrate on the more pressing issues. By taking care of the student interaction, document storage, and approval workflow, you can concentrate on enabling fast processing to your students when they need it most.
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Is the system accessible?
Yes, accessibility was a forethought of the design. As the application evolves it is regularly scanned for compliance with Section 508 and Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).
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Is MyFi-APPEAL available as a downloadable (native)
application for iOS or Android?
MyFi-APPEAL is presently a web application. We are considering a downloadable (App Store / Play Store) application in the future.
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The simplicity and user experience your students expect.
im+m, inc.
im+m brings together information technologists and subject-matter experts to develop exceptional higher education IT projects. As a part of every project, we assemble a unique team consisting of our specialists, contributors from colleges and universities, and subject matter experts from industry. Project development follows the successful “open research and development” model, which combines talent and shares resources in a transparent, open-information environment.