What’s New and Next at FACTS: Q1 2025 Product Roadmap Update

At FACTS, we believe the best ideas come from listening to our customers. Your feedback has been instrumental in shaping our products, which is why we’re so excited to keep you informed with our new quarterly product roadmap updates. We’re looking forward to giving you a behind-the-scenes look at what’s new, what’s on the way, and what’s coming down the road in 2025 across several of our products, including FACTS Student Information System, Application & Enrollment, Financial Aid Management, and Payment Plans & Billing. Here’s your first update for 2025.

Product Updates:

• FACTS Student Information System
• FACTS Application & Enrollment
• FACTS Financial Aid Management
• FACTS Payment Plans & Billing

What’s New With FACTS Student Information System?

Security Updates in FACTS SIS:
FACTS Student Information System now includes two new staff security permissions which give schools more nuanced data permissions.

• School List All – Allows the user to assign a staff member to any school in the district directly in FACTS SIS.
• School Information – Allows the user access to a staff member’s school information on the staff security screen in FACTS SIS.

New Feature: Maiden Name Field in FACTS SIS:
Schools can now record and view maiden names in Family Individual Demographics and Staff Demographics within FACTS Student Information System. This update improves data accuracy and personalization when managing student and staff records in FACTS SIS.

What’s Near With FACTS Student Information System?

Multifactor Authentication (MFA) Expanding to FACTS SIS Users:
FACTS Student Information System is enhancing account security with Multifactor Authentication (MFA). MFA is currently available for all users accessing FACTS Payment Plans and Financial Aid Management, and we are in the process of rolling it out to FACTS SIS school and parent users. We expect MFA to be available for all FACTS SIS school and parent users by August 2025!

Here’s what to expect when MFA becomes part of the FACTS Student Information System login process:

• MFA will be available as an option for staff and parents; however, students will not be prompted to use MFA.
• Users will have the option to enroll with email or an authenticator app.
• MFA will be optional, meaning users will have the ability to bypass setting it up and log in. We will continue to prompt the user every time they log in until they enroll.

Updated Username/Password Management in FACTS SIS:
Along with the addition of MFA, FACTS Student Information System is simplifying how users create and manage login credentials.

• Schools will no longer create or update usernames or passwords for staff or parents. Users will create and manage their own usernames and passwords.
• Schools will retain the ability to create usernames and passwords for student accounts that access the Family Portal.
• All users with an account will be required to have at least one email address, which must be entered in the “Email #1” field
• Usernames will need to be unique across all of FACTS. Today, usernames are unique to your specific school. If the existing username is not unique, the user will be prompted to update it the next time they login.
• Password requirements will be streamlined across all FACTS products and will no longer have an expiration date.

New Dashboard Builder for FACTS SIS:
The new FACTS Student Information System dashboard builder is currently in beta testing. This tool allows schools to create custom PowerBI dashboards. Schools may also enjoy selecting from various data options to create their own report. Using filter options, schools can drill down their data to get exactly what they need! We plan to have a full release of the FACTS SIS dashboard builder in Q2 2025.

We’re always listening, learning, and improving—and it’s all because of you. Your feedback continues to guide our work, and we’re excited to keep sharing updates as we roll out new features. Stay tuned for more to come!

What’s Next With FACTS Student Information System?

Exciting enhancements are on the horizon for FACTS Student Information System! We’re actively developing new tools and features to make FACTS SIS more powerful, intuitive, and connected for schools. While these updates on our roadmap may take some time, we’re committed to sharing early insights and giving you a glimpse of what’s to come.

Want to share your thoughts or stay in the loop in the meantime? Join the conversation in FACTS^SPACE to connect with other FACTS SIS users and our development team.

Major Scheduling Enhancements Coming to FACTS SIS:
FACTS Student Information System is getting a comprehensive update to scheduling. Over the next year, we’ll roll out an updated interface to make scheduling more intuitive for school staff, added features such as teacher recommendations and the ability to mass update classes, and improvements to reporting to make it easier to manage scheduling conflicts and ensure your school scheduling is complete, along with other enhancements to courses and classes that make up a vital part of the school scheduling process. This will be an ongoing project, but we will release features as they become available!

We plan to roll out updates to scheduling in FACTS Student Information System in three phases:

• Phase 1 – Templates and Patterns Configuration Enhancements
• Phase 2 – Course Requests
• Phase 3 – Courses, Classes, and Rooms

Here is a sneak peek at some of the plans for Templates and Patterns!

New District Management Tool Coming to FACTS SIS:
For our dioceses and districts, we’re creating a new system within FACTS Student Information System to help you better manage all your schools. Our first focus will be migrating the functionality from our current DART system with a few new improvements and will continue to update with more robust functionality over the next couple years. Reporting, security, configuration, district wide IDs, and more are heading your way in FACTS SIS!

Updated Events Labels in FACTS Application & Enrollment:
You asked, we listened! Based on valuable feedback from schools and administrators in FACTS^SPACE, we have changed the default label in events from “Not interested” to “Not at this time.”

What’s Near With FACTS Application & Enrollment?

Inquiry Triggers Coming to the FACTS Email Series Manager:
Soon, we will add Inquiry Triggers into the FACTS Application & Enrollment Email Series Manager, allowing you to automate parent reach-out. This will include the option for parents to opt out of marketing emails, ensuring they have control over the communications they receive.

What’s Next With FACTS Application & Enrollment?

New Inquiry, Application Look, and Experience for FACTS Families:
We are modernizing the Inquiry and Application experience in FACTS Application & Enrollment! Over the next year, we will be transforming the look and feel of our platform to provide a more modern and visually appealing experience. But that’s not all—our focus is also on enhancing the experience for school administrators with improved, intuitive, and streamlined workflows. Expect a smoother, more efficient process that will make your interactions with FACTS Application & Enrollment easier and more enjoyable.

Here is a sneak peek at the design:

What’s New With FACTS Financial Aid Management?

New SIS Enrollment Status & New/Returning Status in Financial Aid Reports:
You can now add the FACTS Application & Enrollment Status and the New/Returning status from FACTS SIS directly into financial aid reports within FACTS Financial Aid Management! Whether you want to see how a family is progressing through their admissions process or quickly identify returning new to aid families, that information is now at your fingertips.

FACTS Financial Aid Now Has IRS Integration:
The new IRS integration feature in FACTS Financial Aid Management allows applicants to securely retrieve their tax transcripts directly from the IRS, eliminating the need to manually scan or upload financial documents. This not only streamlines the application process for families, but also reduces administrative work for schools and enhances data security. For more information, including a video and step by step brochure for families, go to: https://factsmgt.com/financial-aid-irs-integration/

FACTS Financial Aid Now Has Smarter Notices With Internal Tracking Field Tags:
FACTS Financial Aid Management notices, including award and denial letters, now offer expanded customization. You can add student-level internal tracking fields as smart tags, allowing for dynamic, personalized content within each notice.

New Remaining Need Reporting Field in FACTS Financial Aid:
A new remaining need reporting field has been added to FACTS Financial Aid Management custom reports. The remaining need reporting field is determined based on the FACTS calculated need minus any reserved awards for that student. This new field is available in any of the FACTS custom reports.

What’s Near With FACTS Financial Aid Management?

Enhanced Supplemental Document Options in FACTS:
Two exciting enhancements are on the way for the FACTS Financial Aid management supplemental document feature, which allows you to collect extra documents outside of the FACTS collected and reviewed tax documents.

Both enhancements add more options to conditionally request documents so only families needing those documents see them as a requirement. You will be able to conditionally request documents based on:

• Family Not Filing Taxes (DNF Status): Request documents from families not filing taxes, such as an attestation of non-filing.
• Internal Tracking Fields selection: This allows you to tie a document requirement to a checkbox or drop-down option for internal tracking, allowing you to add document requirements after reviewing a family’s submitted application. You will be able to leverage all the tools associated with internal tracking, such as being able to assign the documents in mass within reports.

Option to Turn Off W2 Wage Adjustment in FACTS:
Currently, FACTS Financial Aid Management automatically adjusts a family’s income based on the most recent W2 when paired with a prior year tax return. Some schools and administrators have requested the ability to turn off this automatic adjustment, allowing them to receive a more recent year’s W2 without it affecting the family’s assessment. This will now be an optional setting.

What’s Next With FACTS Financial Aid Management?

More IRS Integration Options in FACTS Financial Aid:
We’re continuing to improve IRS integration in FACTS Financial Aid Management. Soon, users will be able to get the most recent year tax return, W2s, and a co-applicant experience. We’ll release these as they become available. All of these retrieval options will be added to FACTS Financial Aid Management by September 2025.

Ability to Turn Off Tax Return Override in FACTS:
Currently, when FACTS receives the newest tax return from a family, FACTS Financial Aid Management automatically updates the assessment with the new values. However, some schools and organizations have requested the ability to still require the prior year tax return, even if the new return has been received, to keep all family data consistent with the same tax return year. This new feature will allow you to turn off the automatic override and maintain the requirement for the prior year tax return.

Internal Tracking Fields in FACTS Award Notification Reporting:
School administrators will be able to add internal tracking fields to the award and denial notification reporting in FACTS Financial Aid Management. This enhances the ability to sort and filter and assign the appropriate award and denial message for students.

Enhanced Experience for Returning Users in FACTS Financial Aid:
FACTS Financial Aid Management currently streamlines some of the application experience for returning families by prefilling demographic and student information (including automatically increasing the student’s grade), but we are always looking at families’ experiences and thinking of how we can make it even better. This project will be a multi-phase initiative, so we will keep you updated on our plans and progress.

What’s New With FACTS Payment Plans & Billing?

Mass Corrections for FACTS Payment Plan Agreements:
In FACTS Payment Plans & Billing, schools now have the ability to post payment plan corrections for multiple agreements in one mass balance adjustment process rather than entering them all individually. A mass correction can be entered when a user selects agreements and is in open column entry mode. Users will be given two different mass correction options: charge correction or credit correction.

What’s Near With FACTS Payment Plans & Billing?

Record Third-Party Payments at the Institution Level:
FACTS Payment Plans & Billing is getting the ability to record a Payment at Institution from a third party, such as payments from school choice programs. This will give schools better reporting on the money received from school choice programs and ensure the parents’ payment summary is accurate, as it will not include these payments.

What’s Next With Payment Plans & Billing?

Auto-Replenish for Prepay Accounts in FACTS:
FACTS Payment Plans & Billing will get the added ability for families to have their Prepay Account automatically refreshed from a saved account when the balance reaches a certain threshold. Love this idea and want the most up-to-date news? “Like” the idea in FACTS^SPACE and you’ll be among the first to know!

Mass Transfer of Funds & Credits:
We are excited to announce that FACTS Payment Plans & Billing will get the added capability to transfer funds and credits in mass. Previously, we introduced this feature for balances due and received valuable feedback indicating a need for similar functionality for funds and credits.