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Administrator Guide
Last Updated: 2025-03-14
Concept: Alternative Loans

Concept: Alternative Loans

Alternative loans are loans that students borrow from a bank or private lender, approved through third-party loan servicers. Workday delivers:
  • Tasks that help you process alternative loan applications.
  • Integrations that support the transmission of alternative loan information to and from your loan servicer.
Together these tasks and integrations enable you to process, certify, change, and disburse alternative loans.

Initial Alternative Loan Processing

This table outlines the general interactions between Workday and your loan servicer after a student applies for an alternative loan directly through a bank or private lender:
Workday Touchpoint
Action
Alternative Loan Application Send Response Inbound
 integration
The loan servicer transmits a file with initial certification requests for alternative loan applications.
Workday matches alternative loan application information from the loan servicer to the student's record based on this order of validations:
  1. Student's Social Security Number (SSN) + date of birth (DOB).
  2. Student's name + SSN.
  3. Student's name + DOB.
When there's a match, Workday creates an alternative loan application for the student.
Certify Alternative Loan Application
 task
You want to certify alternative loan applications.
You can access this task from the related actions menu of a certifiable alternative loan application. Use the
Find Alternative Loan Applications
 report to filter and identify certifiable alternative loan applications.
Alternative Loan Application Send Outbound
 integration
You want to transmit information about certified alternative loan applications to the loan servicer.
Correct Transmitted Loan Application
 task
You want to correct a transmitted alternative loan application.
This action reverts the status of the alternative loan application to
Certified: Ready to Transmit
, which enables you to edit, cancel, decide not to certify, or retransmit the loan application.
Alternative Loan Application Send Response Inbound
 integration
The loan servicer transmits a response file with their decision regarding the certifications.
Based on the information from the response file, Workday updates:
  • Alternative loan applications.
  • Alternative loan awards in students' financial aid packages.
Create Manual Response
 task
The loan servicer hasn't transmitted a response file with their decision regarding your certification of the loan application. You want to continue processing the student's alternative loan application so that they receive financial aid in a timely manner.
You can access this task from the related actions menu of any transmitted alternative loan application.
When Workday receives a response file from the loan servicer, it:
  • Removes the information you manually entered.
  • Automatically updates the alternative loan application with information from the response file.
Alternative Loan Disbursement Roster Inbound
 integration
The loan servicer transmits a disbursement roster file, indicating which students can receive alternative loan disbursements.
Workday only disburses alternative loans to students on the disbursement roster.
To verify if a student is on the disbursement roster, access the
Disbursement
 report on the Financial Aid profile group of the student's profile. You can view disbursement roster information from the related actions menu of the alternative loan anticipated disbursement.

Alternative Loan Change Processing

You can edit an alternative loan application up until it has a status of
Certification: Transmitted
. Once you certify and transmit the alternative loan application, you must initiate changes for any pre- and post-disbursement updates to the alternative loan application.
This table outlines the general interactions between Workday and your loan servicer when making changes to certified alternative loan applications:
Workday Touchpoint
Action
Initiate Change
 task
You want to make changes to an alternative loan application you've already certified.
You can access this task from the related actions menu of alternative loans you can make changes to. Use the
Find Alternative Loan Applications
 report to filter and identify changeable alternative loans.
Alternative Loan Application Change Send Outbound
 integration
You want to transmit information about your changes to the loan servicer.
Workday doesn’t process or reflect changes to alternative loans until the servicer transmits a response to your change.
Alternative Loan Application Send Response Inbound
 integration
The loan servicer transmits a response file with their decision about the changes.
Workday updates packaging and anticipated disbursement information based on the response file from the loan servicer.
When the loan servicer doesn't transmit a response file with their decision about your changes, you can use the
Create Manual Response
 task to continue processing the alternative loan application.
Correct Transmitted Loan Application
 task
If your loan servicer rejects your alternative loan change, you can correct a transmitted loan application. This action reverts the status of the loan application to
Change: Ready to Transmit
, enabling you to initiate changes again and retransmit them to your loan servicer.
You can access this task from the related actions menu of alternative loans for which you've transmitted changes. See: Correct a Transmitted Alternative Loan Application.