SDR in SELMA

To extract an SDR, go to Reporting -> SDR -> Select the correct SDR date and download it. In some SELMA instances, the files are sent by email as they are too big to be downloaded and processed in a browser session. In these systems, the only option is to send the files via email.

Do not temper with SDR files after extraction from SELMA and before submission to TEC (STEO). Every issue can be resolved in the SELMA system, there is no justification to making manual changes in the flat/csv files before submitting them to TEC. Reach out to SELMA support if you are unable to make the changes you need.

Whilst generating the files is simple, there are important things to remember, below are tips, common mistakes, and considerations when using SELMA to generate SDR files:

General

Fees – The fees reported in the SDR are not the fees and fee lines you may use in SELMA. Programme and course fee lines are deliberately a separate system allowing some providers to not use the fees and invoicing functions in SELMA but still be able to generate SDR’s. The fees need to be set in the curriculum, in the SDR relevant courses, and on the NZ Compliance tab. The three fields available for the fees are Tuition Fee, Foreign Fee, and Compulsory Course Costs. These three fees are copied forward to intakes and enrolments when creating new intakes or enrolments and these are the fees that are reported in the SDR. If a student has an abnormal fee, you can overwrite the total fee for the student in the enrolment on the main tab.

Foreign Fees in STUD File – In SELMA, the Foreign Fee is returned in the Student File not the Course Register File. If the foreign fee is missing altogether, you might experience error 362 and/or 363. If you have foreign students, check an enrolment of an international student and make sure that there is a foreign fee set on the SDR relevant components in the enrolment.

SDR Committed Date – SELMA calculates when an enrolment is committed for the SDR. This date can be found on an individual component within the enrolments and is non editable. The date is either 10% of the duration after the course start date or 30 days after the course start date whichever is earlier. This date has relevance when extracting the SDR, e.g. an enrolment with an SDR committed date in May will not be included in the April SDR. See indicative SDR and August SDR for more details.

Include or exclude enrolments in the SDR – It is important to understand that quite a few criteria’s need to be met for courses and enrolments to be reported (included) in the SDR, below is a list to check you have setup and enrolled all students correct for the SDR:

• In the curriculum, the programmes are set to return type “SDR” (NZ Compliance tab)
• In the curriculum, the components (course) are set to return type “SDR”, and has more than 0 EFTS (NZ Compliance tab)
• The enrolment is set to return type “SDR” on the main enrolment tab
• The components in the enrolment have a valid funding source (e.g. 37), have more than 0 EFTS, and a valid completion code (0 to 8)
• The start or end date is falling into the period you are extraction the SDR for or the start date is before the period and the end date after
• The component is not cross credited.

ITR Enrolments in the SDR – Components in an ITR enrolment that are set to return type “SDR”, have more than 0 EFTS, and are meeting the above criteria will also be included in the SDR. This is sometimes necessary for components that are delivered provider based. If you do not use the ITR in SELMA, this is irrelevant.

Auto Extension (Code 0) – When an SDR is extracted in SELMA, and the end date of a component enrolment is before the SDR extraction date, and the completion code is 1, SELMA will automatically set the component to “Valid Extension” code 0.

Do not change the end date of courses – When a component enrolment is reported in a December SDR, the start and end date of the component (course) enrolment should not be changed anymore as it will result in error xx or xx in the next SDR submission. This error can only be solved by changing the start and end dates to what they were and if you do not know the dates, it will take the SELMA team a lot of work to review the logs and find the original dates. The reason the dates cannot be changed is because it could cause more EFTS to be reported for year crossing enrolments of a course than the course is approved for. If you need to extend a student’s component enrolment past the end date, use the extension date field in SELMA and set the completion code to “Valid Extension”.

You can change the enrolment end date for extensions – Whilst the component enrolment end dates should not be changed during an extension, the enrolment end date itself can be changed. Make sure to use the option “Enrolment Only” when changing the end date and do not change the end dates of the components at the same time.

Cross credits are not reported – It is a common mistake that the completion code X (cross credited) is used for partial recognition of prior learning. Cross credited components are excluded from the SDR. To process an RPL, reduce the EFTS by the assessed amount and report the enrolment component like every other SDR relevant component.

Keep a copy of your submitted SDR files – We recommend keeping a copy of the SDR files that you have submitted for your reference. SELMA does not know which extraction you have ultimately submitted to TEC, if any issues arise later, your submitted files may help us to resolve issues.

Use the SDR EPI report – It is important to check your performance in the SDR EPI report at the time of submission. Please note that this report always looks at your data like it is the December SDR. There might be situations when this report shows more EFTS than you just submitted due to enrolments that have a future SDR committed date. Please also note that the SELMA SDR EPI report is live and shows your current data. You may not be able to check your performance for previous SDR periods if you have meanwhile changed SDR relevant information in SELMA.

Indicative SDR (March)

There are few key items to be considered when submitting the “Indicative” SDR:

• Indicative for MoE – The indicative SDR is submitted on the same platform like all other SDR’s but the data goes to MoE and not TEC. The date is used to evaluate how many enrolments MoE can expect for all of NZ in the given year.
• Three files only – The indicative SDR only contains 3 files not 5, the filenames are also slightly different. Make sure to select the right date when extracting the SDR. Submitting the wrong files for the indicative SDR will result in an instant error.
• Fewer errors expected – The Indicative SDR has fewer validations on submission than the other SDR’s and you can expect fewer or no error and warnings when submitting it. This however does not mean that your April SDR (submitted shortly after) will be error free as there will be a lot more validations on the April SDR submission.
• Ignores the committed date – The SDR committed date is ignored in the indicative SDR and all enrolments processed for the given year, including future enrolments will be reported.

April SDR

There are few key items to be considered when submitting the “April” SDR:

• Course Completions for extension students – This is the final opportunity to report course completions for students with extensions from the previous year, make sure the completion date is the true date when the student completed a course. If the completion date is backdated to the previous year (a common mistake), the SELMA SDR will not include it.
• Lost Completions – Completions reported after the April SDR for students on extension from the previous year will be lost.
• SDR EPI Report – Check your EPI report at the time of submission for the previous year to get a picture of how TEC will see your performance of the previous year.
• Qual Completion – Set the enrolment completion date to the true date when the student completed it. Do not backdate it into a previous year. The Qual completion will be counted in the year of the enrolment completion date.

August SDR

Typically, the August SDR submission give TEC an indication whether your organization will consume the funding allocation in the given year and TEC may halt your funding payments if they think you won’t. It is therefore important that every enrolment is reported in the August SDR. If you have an intake later in the year (e.g. October) or you have further rolling enrolments, make sure you extract a December SDR file from SELMA and submit it as the August SDR file. Reason for this is, that SELMA does not include enrolments with an SDR committed date after August when extracting the August SDR but it will include them if you extra December SDR files.

December SDR

There are few key items to be considered when submitting the “December” SDR:

• Locking in end dates of courses – You will not be able to change the dates of course enrolments once they are submitted through the December SDR. Make sure that if you really need to change e.g. end dates into the next year that you do so before extracting the December SDR.
• Early Withdrawals – You cannot early withdraw students once they featured in the December SDR. Make sure you process all withdrawals before submitting it
• Check the EPI SDR Report for possible extensions – If your SDR EPI report shows a course completion rate lower than the possible course completion rate, you are having students that are on extension. They will have to complete before the April SDR in the new year.
• Check your EFTS Consumption – In the EPI SDR report, check that your EFTS consumption is as expected, and the count of enrolments and students is correct. Sense checking the data is extremely helpful.
• Check the SDR Raw Data – Either through the Grid reports or the SDR EPI report, download the raw data into Excel and check that all students are included, all completions are processed, and all extensions are justified.