As we wrap up another year of learning, it’s the perfect time to pause and look ahead. With 2026 on the horizon and schools already thinking about next year’s goals, we’re doing the same here at FACTS. This roadmap brings together highlights from Q3 and exciting advancements coming in Q4 and beyond, showing how your feedback continues to shape the future of our platform. From more secure access to smarter scheduling, we’re focused on helping you finish the year strong…and start the next one even stronger.
Product Updates:
Family Dashboard Beta Program (Cross-Product)
What’s Near with Family Dashboard Beta Program
Beginning in January, we will begin the beta program for Family Dashboard. This dashboard is a mobile-first intuitive hub where families can easily view and complete all required steps for admission and financial aid.
What’s Next with Family Dashboard Beta Program
Family Dashboard Pt. 2:
The Family Dashboard will keep growing, with billing, payment plans, notifications, academics, and additional features on the way.
Single Entry Point:
By the end, the dashboard will evolve into a unified experience for all FACTS users. Whether staff, families, or both, it becomes one universal gateway that brings every task, tool, and access point across the FACTS platform into a single experience.
Student Information System
What’s New with Student Information System
Unified Login:
Unified logins for all FACTS platforms, complete with multi-factor authentication, are being launched incrementally. Beta users are already active!
What’s Near with Student Information System
Dashboard Builder:
The new Dashboard Builder uses PowerBI to deliver clear, customizable dashboards that put your school’s data at your fingertips.
District Management Tool Phase 1:
Phase 1 of our District Management Tool delivers a more unified platform experience for district and diocesan leaders by centralizing SIS security access, district-wide communications, and NCEA reporting into one streamlined workflow. This brings greater visibility, consistency, and efficiency across the entire diocese or district.
Report Manager Enhancements:
We are enhancing SIS Report Manager to make generating and sharing reports faster, easier, and more intuitive than ever.
Scheduling Phase 2 Updates:
Phase 2 of Scheduling launches on December 8th, bringing Course Requests enhancements to Family Portal configuration, the student and parent experience, Student Requests, Grade Level Requests, and the new Teacher Recommendation workflow in Classroom and Scheduling.
What’s Next with Student Information System
District Management Tool Phase 2:
Phase 2 of the District Management Tool will empower district and diocesan leaders with aggregated, diocese-wide reporting, providing clear insights into attendance, student enrollment, and other key metrics to support data-driven decision-making.
Scheduling Phase 3 Updates:
Phase 3 of Scheduling will deliver an updated Courses & Classes experience, offering smoother management, improved usability, and more flexible scheduling settings across the board.
Scheduled Email Sends in Communications:
Enhanced communication tools are coming soon for the SIS, including the ability to schedule emails, making it easier to plan, automate, and streamline your outreach.
Application & Enrollment
What’s New with Application & Enrollment
Inquiry Series in Email Series Manager:
As the newest feature of Email Series Manager, Inquiry Series enables schools to create automated email campaigns that are sent to parents who submit an inquiry form. This feature makes it easier than ever to stay in touch with prospective families!
What’s Next with Application & Enrollment
Parent Experience Redesign:
We are modernizing the entire admissions journey by delivering a refreshed look, full mobile optimization, and a completely reimagined family experience that makes every step smoother and more intuitive. Modernization began with the Inquiry Series in Email Series Manager, and in 2026 we’ll begin development on brand new Application and Enrollment screens.
Financial Aid Management
What’s New with Financial Aid Management
IRS Integration:
- Most Recent Year Tax Return: We have added the ability to retrieve the most recent tax year transcripts from the IRS.
- W2s: We added the ability for applicants and co-applicants to get their W2s directly from the IRS in addition to their tax returns. This will include both the prior year and most recent year W2s as they become available through the IRS.
Turn Off W2 Wage Adjustment & New Year Document Override:
- Currently, our system automatically adjusts a family’s income based on the most recent W2 when paired with a prior year tax return and will use the most recent tax return when submitted by a family.
- Some of our schools and scholarship organizations have requested the ability to turn off this automatic adjustment, allowing them to receive more recent years’ W2 without it affecting the family’s assessment, or still request and use the prior year tax return in the assessment even when the most recent year has been received. This will be an optional setting.
Action Panel Preference Institution List in Alphabetical Order:
- We have ordered the preference institution list alphabetically when navigating from the action panel to assist with reviewing students.
New Fund Page and Application Report Pages:
- As part of our ongoing modernization, we’ve updated the Fund Detail Awarding and Application Report pages with a refreshed design, full-screen viewing, faster reporting, and improved user experience! You may now toggle between the new view and classic views.
What’s Near with Financial Aid Management
Annual Tax Return Changes:
- In Q4 every year, we update Financial Aid Management to account for IRS changes to tax documents.
Institution Defined Fields:
- We are adding the ability to assign attributes to schools titled “Institution Defined Fields” under a group so that reporting can be filtered by those attributes.
Address Validation:
- Using the USPS address validator, we can suggest an accurate address to the applicant via the application process. This will help prevent typos on the application.
What’s Next with Financial Aid Management
Prefill Custom Questions for Returning Users:
To continue to make the applicant process easier for returning families, we are adding the ability to select if the responses to a custom question should be pre-filled based on last year’s responses. This can be chosen per custom question, and applicants will still have the ability to update the response if something has changed from last year.
Address Verification:
We’ll be introducing an address verification process into the application process to verify the address provided by the applicant is their address.
Returning Scholar & Returning New to Aid:
We will implement a way to identify returning scholars from returning students that are new to financial aid so that institutions have more options on how they award aid and can more easily identify specific demographic groups.
Providing Adjusted Mean Income (AMI) in System:
We are investigating ways to bring the Education Choice for Children Act (ECCA) definition of income of Adjusted Mean Income (AMI) into Financial Aid Management.
Payment Plans & Billing
What’s New with Payment Plans & Billing
Adjustment Detail by Date Range report:
The Adjustment Detail by Date Range (no balances) report within FACTS Payment Plans provides charge, credit, and payment amounts for Institution Accounts, organized by Adjustment Reason, within a user-specified date range. This new report is derived from the existing Balances with Adjustment Detail report but focuses solely on date-specific details and excludes balance information.
What’s Near with Payment Plans & Billing
Parent Invoices for School Choice Programs:
To meet state requirements, we aim to provide parents with compliant documentation that supports state-level funding processes. This ensures regulatory adherence while simplifying the experience for families.
Payment Plan Modernization:
Modernizing the payment plan enrollment experience enables parents to sign up for a payment plan from any device, streamlining and simplifying the enrollment steps, and enhancing existing processes. The updated experience will include compliant disclosures and leverage a design system to ensure a modern, accessible, and user-friendly interface.
What’s Next with Payment Plans & Billing
Auto-Replenish Prepay Accounts:
We will be working on adding the ability for families to have their Prepay Account automatically refreshed from a saved account when the balance reaches a certain threshold.
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Mass Transfer of Funds & Credits:
We are excited to announce that we will soon be adding the 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.
As we move through the school year, our team remains focused on ensuring our solutions simplify your daily work and enhance the experience for your families. From scheduling improvements to financial aid enhancements, every update is designed with your feedback in mind. We can’t wait to share even more in the months ahead, so stay tuned and don’t forget to join the conversation in FACTS^SPACE!
FACTS
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