A standard Source Format called "Financial Aid Letter PDF Batch" is available in the Source Format Library. You can use this Source Format to upload a single PDF file with financial aid letters for multiple applicants.

To parse out the individual letters and assign them to the appropriate record, include the 9-digit Slate ID (the person scoped reference ID) of the record in the letter's header. If there are multiple pages within one financial aid letter, the Slate ID only needs to be on the first page of the letter set as Slate will break apart the document into individual letters every time it encounters the Slate ID. If you do not want the applicant to see this number, it can be included as white text. Slate is able to use this "invisible" Slate ID to match onto the rank 1 application for that record. The Source Format inserts the financial aid decision with the PDF assigned as the letter. Your financial aid decision should have the code "FA" configured in the Decision Codes section of the Database.  Any "FA" decision code prerequisite must be satisfied on the record for the import to add the code and letter.

If you are using a unique field other than the automatically generated 9-digit Slate ID to identify your applicants in your external system, Technolutions staff can update the Source Format to use that unique field instead. If your institution accepts multiple applications for a single applicant during the same application period, we recommend using an application-scoped unique field or the automatically generated 9-digit application ref ID rather than a person-scoped unique field.

If you will not be using the automatically generated 9-digit Slate ID to match the letter to the specific application record, then the SQL script for the Source Format must be customized for your instance. If this is the case, submit a request with the category "Data Import" to indicate the exact field that you will be using. If the field can be alphanumeric, we recommend including a qualifier (which can also be in white text), such as "Unique ID: " in front of the unique ID value, and let us know that you will do this. Also, be sure to include the length of the unique field values in the request. If the length of the field can vary, let us know the minimum length and the maximum length to expect for that field.

When processing the Financial Aid Award Letters, the process must read every PDF, find the ID and parse the document. This can be a very time-consuming process. As a result, we recommend that you load these letters well in advance of a Decision release. We also recommend uploading and testing in your test environment, not your production environment. This will prevent applicants from potentially seeing their financial aid letter before testing is completed.