Download the latest version of FIRN transcript editing program SRTS03 and use it to edit a sample of your Bright Futures transcripts so you can resolve as many edit problems as possible before submitting your transcripts. See section 8.0, below.

If your Bright Futures transmission took more than 2 hours of "clock time" last year, you might want to consider breaking your transmission up into two or more parts to reduce your exposure to data transmission and other errors. See sections 5.0, 6.0, and 7.0, below.

Remove any JOB statement parameters in the JCL you use to post transcripts to the FASTER system that reduce the amount of diagnostic information printed with this job (to speed error resolution if something goes wrong). See section 9.0, below.

Adjust the TIME parameter(s) in the JCL you use to post transcripts to the FASTER system, based on the number of Bright Futures transcripts you are sending. See section 3.0, below.

Adjust the SPACE parameters in the JCL you use to post transcripts to the FASTER system, based on the number of Bright Futures transcripts you are sending. See section 4.0, below.

2.0 Preparing Bright Futures Transcripts

The Bright Futures Transcript Evaluation System (the System) receives student transcripts from Florida public and private high schools and evaluates them to determine if the student is eligible for any of the Bright Futures Scholarship awards offered by the Florida Department of Education. The on line system allows high school representatives, to review and update the students' transcripts as needed. This online system requires the use of a web browser compatible with Netscape 4.0 or better (such as Internet Explorer 4.0).

The system processes student transcripts in two evaluation cycles (Early or Summer) and within each cycle, two modes of operation: Practice and Production.

Summer Evaluations are those performed for students that include all high school coursework. Transcripts are submitted to this cycle after the high school graduation.

The Early Evaluation cycle was added to the System in 1999-2000. Students can now be evaluated at the middle of their senior year (or end of their 7^th semester) in addition to being evaluated at the end of their senior year (or end of their 8^th semester). The Early Evaluation cycle permits students and postsecondary institutions to know the students scholarship eligibility at a much earlier stage in the college admissions process.

The principle difference between Early and Summer Evaluations is that the Early Evaluation makes use of the courses that the student has not yet completed. The same grade point average criteria are used in both evaluations. In the Early Evaluation, up to 1.0 credit in each subject area (English, Mathematics, Social Sciences, etc.) can come from courses in progress. Courses in progress can be annual courses that are still in progress or semester courses that are scheduled for the student's last term in high school. Courses in progress are only used when a student has no available required completed coursework in for determining whether or not the student has sufficient credits to qualify for an award. Courses in progress play no part in the grade point average calculations.

The other major difference between Early and Summer Evaluations is that the Early Evaluation uses test score results from the test taken on or before January 31^st of the student's year of graduation. The Summer Evaluation uses test score results from the tests taken through June 30^th of the student's year of the graduation. Students who improve their test scores between January 31^st and June 30^th may well benefit from a Summer Evaluation of their transcripts.

The Early and Summer Semester Evaluation cycles each has its own Practice and Production Systems.

The Practice System evaluates student transcripts exactly the same way as the Production System; however, no award letters are ever sent to students from the Practice System. The Practice System gives schools the ability to manipulate their student transcripts so that, when the transcripts are entered into the Production System, any errors or inconsistencies are corrected, and the transcripts should be accurate. The Practice System can also be used as an advising tool. Schools can submit transcripts for juniors, sophomores, and even freshmen to the Practice System, retrieve their evaluation results, and share them with the students to ensure they are on track to earn a Bright Futures Scholarship.

The Production System differs from the Practice System only in that its evaluation results become official. Final evaluations from the Production System cause letters to be printed for students informing them of their eligibility for Bright Futures Scholarships. The Production System also informs the student's postsecondary school if the student is eligible for an award.

Transcripts are evaluated the evening of the day they are first submitted to the Production System. They are editable in the Production System for 10 calendar days, giving the districts and high schools the opportunity to review and make additional modifications. At the end of those 10 days, students will be notified by letter, of the evaluation results. Additional changes can be made only after requesting that the record be "unlocked" by Bright Futures staff.

Students can be evaluated in either or both evaluation cycles. A student who is found ineligible in the Early Evaluation can enter the Summer Evaluation and be found eligible for a scholarship. Or, a student found eligible for a lesser reward in the Early Evaluation can improve his standing in the last term and be evaluated again in the Summer Evaluation cycle to qualify for a higher award. The results of the Summer Evaluation can only improve a student's scholarship eligibility. If the student's Summer Evaluation results qualify the student for a lesser award--or no award at all--the student would still retain the scholarship earned in the Early Evaluation.

FASTER Transcript Addresses - District 95 Processing

For both early and summer evaluations, transcripts must be addressed to FASTER address 95. To identify the year and evaluation cycle, use the addressed high school field on the FASTER header record formatted YYSP.

YYSP Bright Futures Practice or Production, Early or Summer Evaluation

YY - two-byte graduation (e.g., 02 = the student graduated during the 2001-2002 academic year)

S - 7 = 7th semester; 8 = 8th semester

P - 0 = Practice; 1 = Production

Directions for using the district 95 addressing scheme can be found at Web site http://www.fldoe.org/faster in the on-line 2000-2001 FASTER User Manual, Appendix H. Select the "Header" entry in the left sidebar, and scroll down to "Addressed Institution."

Note that you can specify a graduation year in the addressed high school field. This allows you to submit early practice transcripts for freshmen, sophomores and juniors and have them evaluated according to the eligibility criteria that will be in effect in the student's year of graduation. This expands the use of the system as an advisement tool.

Both the FASTER Interdistrict Formats (I00 through I08) and the FASTER Secondary-to-Postsecondary Formats (S00 through S08) can be used when preparing student transcripts. As long as all necessary evaluation information is provided, either set of formats can be used (though the two types of formats cannot be intermingled within a single transcript).

FASTER system edits keep transcripts lacking certain basic information from ever being posted to the Bright Futures mailbox. The edit report from program SRTS03 lets school districts know immediately if a transcript submitted to the Bright Futures Scholarship Award System doesn't contain enough information (or contains invalid information). The school district can then complete or correct the transcript and re-submit it via FASTER.

Transcript Submission Rules

Bright Futures Transcript Submission Rules has been modified since last year due to Legislative Session 2007C changes, eliminating evaluation of early admit students who are no longer eligible for Bright Futures awards. (Strikethroughs indicate procedures will no longer be followed.)

In preparing transcripts for submission to the Bright Futures System, please bear in mind the following rules:

The only valid way to indicate that a student is an Early Admission to College student is the field Early Admission Student, item 67 on the I01/S01 Student Information format. If a student is an early admission student, this field will be set to "Y." Valid values for this field are:

Y - the student is an early admission to college student

Z - not applicable
The Subject Area field (item 15 on the I04/S04 Student Course Information format) must contain a valid subject area if the student took the course in grades 9 - 12 or took the course (in grades 8 or below) for high school credit. This is a reject edit.

If the student took a course in grades 9 - 12 or took the course (in grades 8 or below) for high school credit, and the Course Number (item 13 on the I04/S04 Student Course Information format) is numeric, then the course number must be one of the courses on the DOE Course Code Directory. This is a reject edit.

If the student took a course in grades 9 - 12 or took the course (in grades 8 or below)for high school credit, and the Course Number (item 13 on the I04/S04 Student Course Information format) is not numeric, then the course number must be one of the courses on the Postsecondary Course Code Directory. This is a reject edit. Exceptions to this rule are explained in 19 below.

A student's Social Security Number can be sent using either the Primary Student Identifier field, item 2 on the I00/S00 Header Record format, or the Student Number Identifier-Alias, Florida field, item 7 on the I01/S01 Student Information format. If a student chooses his or her identifier, both the old and new identifiers must be used. Include the student's updated identifier as the Primary Student Identifier.

The Bright Futures system retrieves transcripts that have the values "Q01" or "S01" in the Message Type field, item 5 on the I00/S00 Header Record format.

There are certain situations in which the Bright Futures system will retrieve a transcript from the FASTER system, but be unable to load it into the Bright Futures data base. When this happens, the Bright Futures system will use FASTER to send a request record to the district and school that originally posted the transcript. The Message Type field, item 5 on the I00/S00 Header Record format, will contain a code explaining the cause of the problem and how to go about correcting it:

B00 - The record sent to the Bright Futures Office was rejected due to an unexpected system failure. Resend or contact the Bright Futures Office.

B01 - The record sent to the Bright Futures Office was rejected because the student's SSN (or Local Student ID if no SSN was provided) already exists in the Bright Futures Initial Eligibility database under a different year or school. Either correct the data and resend or contact the Bright Futures Office.

B02 - The record sent to the Bright Futures office was rejected because the student's SSN--or Local Student ID if no SSN was provided--does not exist in the Bright Futures Initial Eligibility database but DOES exists in the Bright Futures Disbursement database. Either correct the data and resend or contact the Bright Futures Office.

B03 - The record sent to the Bright Futures Office was rejected because the student already exists in the Bright Futures Production database but this record was addressed to the Practice database. Either correct the data and resend or contact the Bright Futures Office.

B04 - The record sent to the Bright Futures Office was rejected because the student already exists in the Bright Futures Production database and the time limit for updating the student's record has expired. Contact the Bright Futures Office to have the edit capability extended.

B05 - The record sent to the Bright Futures Office was rejected because the student must be at least ten years old. Either correct the data and resend or contact the Bright Futures Office.

B06 - The record sent to the Bright Futures Office was rejected because the public/private school was not a valid school for Bright Futures. Either correct the data and resend or contact the Bright Futures Office.

B07 - The student is already in Bright Futures production, do not also send as Top Twenty.

B08 - The record sent to the Bright Futures Office was rejected because the student has changed his or her SSN. Please update your files and resend.

B09 - The record sent to the Bright Futures Office was rejected because the student was previously submitted under a different ID. For example, you first sent this student in with his(her) local student_number_identifier. You now are sending this student with their SSN without including their student_number_identifier. Contact the Office of Student Financial Assistance.

B10 - Student cannot be posted to production because (s)he has no universal application on file with SSFAD - State Student Financial Aid Database.

B11 - Student has a universal application on file with the State Student Financial Aid Database but is ineligible for consideration for Bright Futures.

Diploma Date, item 45 on the I01/S01 Student Information format, is ignored for 7th Semester evaluation students (since these students have not yet graduated).

In the 8th Semester evaluation, the Bright Futures system will only count, as high school graduates, those students with values of "W06" (Standard High School Diploma), "W10" (GED), "43," (Adult Standard High School Diploma), and "W45," (Adult GED) in the Diploma Type field, item 46 on the I01/S01 Student Information format.

There are only two ways to show that a student has met the 75 hour Bright Futures community service requirement (for the Florida Academic Scholarship). The first is to include one of the community service courses (for example, course number 0500370) among the student's coursework. The second is to show a value of at least 75 hours in the Community Service Hours field, item 57 on the I01/S01 Student Information format.

To indicate that a student has been awarded the International Baccalaureate Diploma, store a value of "Y" in the International Baccalaureate Diploma field, item 63 on the I01/S01 Student Information format.

To indicate that a student has been recognized as a National Merit Finalist or Scholar, store values of "F" and "S", respectively, in the National Merit Scholar field, item 19d on the I01/S01 Student Information format.

To indicate that a student has been recognized as a National Achievement Finalist or Scholar, store values of "F" and "S", respectively, in the National Achievement Scholar field, item 19e on the I01/S01 Student Information format.

If a student took a course in a Grade Level (item 11 on the I04/S04 Student Course Information format) other than 9, 10, 11, 12, or 30 (Adult, non-high school graduate), the Bright Futures load program will not consider the course unless it contains a "9" in one position of its Course Flag field (item 16 of the I04/S04 Student Course Information format).

The Bright Futures load program will ignore any course that has a value of either "W" or "X" in one position of its Course Flag field (item 16 of the I04/S04 Student Course Information format).

The Bright Futures evaluation program will honor valid course substitutions as specified in the Course Flag field, item 16 of the I04/S04 Student Course Information format. To substitute one course for another, put the appropriate course flag into the Course Flag field of every course record that you want to use as a substitute for some other course. For example, to use Electronics 1 (course number 8730010) in place of Pre Algebra (course number 1200300), store a value of "8" in the Course Flag field of every Electronics 1 course record you want to use as a Pre Algebra substitute. See the Department of Education's Course Code Directory for rules concerning course substitutions, and item 16 on the I04/S04 Format for the appropriate codes.

To designate a course as a course in progress, store the value "P" in the course's Course Flag field, item 16 of the I04/S04 Student Course Information format (note that only courses taken in the current school year can be considered courses in progress). Also, be sure to store the amount of credit the student will earn, upon completion of the course, in the Credit Attempted, Course field, item 18 of the I04/S04 Student Course Information format. Then set the Credit Earned, Course field, item 19 of the I04/S04 Student Course Information format to zero. Finally, leave blank the Course Grade field, item 20 of the I04/S04 Student Course Information format. Remember, if you want a course in progress considered in a student's 7th Semester evaluation, you have to submit FASTER records for each such course in progress. Submit these records even if the student has not yet begun to take the course.

It is possible to designate a course as partially complete and partially in progress. For example, if a student has completed one semester of an annual (that is, two semester) course and you want a grade recorded for that first semester, you could submit two records for the course (one for the completed semester and one for the course in progress). You can also accomplish the same result using a single course record. In the above example, you would set the record's Credit Attempted, Course field to 1.00 and set the Credit Earned, Course field to 0.50. Then you would include the value "P" in the Course Flag field, and put the grade the student earned in the first semester in the Course Grade field. The Bright Futures load program would then break the single record into two records for you. One would be a completed course record (with values in both the Credit Earned, Course and Course Grade fields). The other would be a course in progress record (with zero credits earned and no course grade). Either of these two ways of submitting this information is acceptable. Of course, if your district does not permit the awarding of any credit halfway through an annual course, you would have to show the entire course as a course in progress.

Only course numbers from either the Department of Education's Course Code Directory or the Postsecondary Common Course Numbering System can be submitted in the Course Number field (item 13 on the I04/S04 Student Course Information format) for any course for which high school credit is to be awarded. One exception to this rule is the Foreign Language Waiver "course number," 0791920. Another exception is the generic course number that can be used for private or out-of-state postsecondary coursework: "ZZZ9999."

In general, the Bright Futures evaluation program does not make use of the Course, State Subject Area Requirements field, item 15 on the I04/S04 Student Course Information format. However, the evaluation program will honor any academic (that is, non-elective)subject area provided in this field for a student's dual enrollment (postsecondary) coursework. Where a postsecondary course number is given an elective subject area, the evaluation program will use the subject area (if any) specified for that course on the Bright Futures Valid Courses table (which is what it does for all standard secondary school courses).

The Bright Futures evaluation program does not recognize any "honors" course flags for purposes of course weighting. The evaluation program only uses the Bright Futures Valid Courses table to determine whether or not a course will receive any special weighting.

To indicate that a student has been recognized as a National Hispanic Scholar, store the value 's' in the National Hispanic Scholar field, item 19h on the I01/S01 Student Information Format.

3.0 FASTER System Overload Problems

School districts can send the Bright Futures System up to 20,000 transcripts during a single week without overloading the FASTER system. This will not, though, eliminate the possibility that a school district could exhaust its resources if it fails to follow the FASTER system procedures that speed the archival of delivered transcripts.

A transcript is archived from the FASTER system once 30 days have passed since the transcript was delivered (picked up by the addressee). Thus, unless procedures are followed to speed the archival process, no more than 20,000 transcripts can be posted to the Bright Futures system within a single 30-day period.

Transcripts also are archived from the FASTER system every Sunday evening if those transcripts have been both delivered (picked up by the addressee) and acknowledged (by the sender). If a district regularly acknowledges the receipt of its transcripts, that district potentially could send 20,000 transcripts to the Bright Futures system every week.

A district acknowledges the receipt of its transcripts by running the Outgoing Aging Report. Section E of Chapter III of the FASTER User Manual describes this procedure. Section G of Chapters V through IX goes into the particular details of running this procedure for each different type of FASTER system user. If a school district regularly runs the Outgoing Aging Report, it should not experience any resource availability problems. FIRN makes the FASTER User Manual available from a page on the FIRN Web site (its URL is http://www.fldoe.org/faster).

4.0 FASTER Jobs Exceeding Their Time Limits

In the past, some school districts submitted so many records to the Bright Futures System at one time that the program (SRTS03) posting transcripts to the Bright Futures System's FASTER postbox exceeded the time limit those school districts specified in the JCL (Job Control Language) they used to send and post the transcripts. This problem occurs because school districts rarely send more than a handful of transcripts during normal FASTER processing. This problem has occurred, in the past, among large school districts sending bulk transmissions of high school transcripts to colleges and universities at the end of the school year. Since time limit parameters are normally set to handle the transmission of only ten or twenty transcripts, these bulk transmissions result in transmission jobs failing when their time limits are exceeded (unless MIS staff adjusted their time limit parameters prior to job submission). The larger volumes of Bright Futures transmissions only made these problems more common.

To prevent these problems, school district MIS staff must make sure the JCL they use has a sufficiently large TIME parameter to accommodate the number of transcripts they are sending. Program SRTS03 posts transcripts at the rate of about 8 per CPU-second. Therefore, dividing the number of transcripts that are being sent by 8 yields a safe approximation of the TIME needed to post that number of transcripts. For example, if a school district is sending 2,000 transcripts, its transmission job is going to require about 250 CPU-seconds (or 4 minutes and 10 seconds) of processing time. Rounding this up to the nearest minute, the school district would then set the TIME parameter to TIME=(5). Note: this TIME parameter must be adjusted wherever it appears in the JCL stream (it will be found on all JOB statements and may also be found on EXEC statements).

Sometimes, school district MIS staff won't know the exact number of transcripts being sent, but will, instead, know the number of 1,020-byte records in the transmission file. To approximate the number of transcripts in such a file, divide the number of records by 86 (the average number of records in Bright Futures transcripts). For example, a transmission file containing 129,000 records (of 1,020 bytes, each) will contain about 1,500 transcripts. The number of transcripts derived from this calculation can then be used to estimate the transmission job's TIME parameter, as shown above.

Note: the average number of 1,020-byte records per transcript varies considerably from district to district. After rounding a TIME parameter up to the nearest minute, it is a good idea to add another minute to this number, as a safeguard for local fluctuations in the number of records per transcript.

For those school districts using the RJE method of file transmission, MIS staff may only know the number of 80-byte records in the transmission file. To approximate the number of transcripts in this file, divide the number of 80-byte records by 1,100. For example, a transmission file containing 330,000 80-byte records probably contains about 300 transcripts. This number is then used to estimate the transmission job's TIME parameter.

5.0 FASTER Jobs Exceeding Their Disk Space Limits

This is another volume processing problem. Transcript files can become so large that the data files used to receive and (in some cases) sort them run out of room. As with the time limit problem, file space allocations must be recalculated before making Bright Futures transmissions, and JCL must be updated accordingly.

To optimize available space, the first thing that must be checked is the BLKSIZE parameter associated with file FN.DXnn.RESPONSE.ONTO.SYSTEM (where nn is the school district number). This must be set to 27540, the optimum blocking factor for the FIRN disk packs at Northwest Regional Data Center (NWRDC). Using this blocking factor, 54 records (of 1,020 bytes each) can be stored on a single disk TRACK.

If a school district uses the RJE method of data transmission, it must additionally make sure that the file named FN.DXnn.RESPONSE.ONTO.SYSTEM.BYTE80 has its BLKSIZE parameter set to 27920 (the optimum blocking factor for 80-byte records, which allows 698 of these records to be stored on a single disk TRACK).

To calculate the SPACE parameter for file FN.DXnn.RESPONSE.ONTO.SYSTEM, divide the number of 1,020-byte records in the transmission file by 54 (if you only know the number of transcripts in your file, multiply that number by 86 to approximate the number of 1,020-byte records; for RJE users, if you only know the number of 80-byte records in your transmission file, divide that number by 12.75 to get the number of 1,020-byte records). After dividing by 54, the result is the number of TRACKS in the transmission file. Divide this number by 15 and round up to get the number of CYLINDERS needed. Finally, divide the number of CYLINDERS just calculated by 8 and round up to the nearest whole number (add 1 if the number of CYLINDERS was evenly divisible by 8). This gives both the primary and secondary SPACE allocation parameters (nnn). Using this number, set the SPACE parameter for file FN.DXnn.RESPONSE.ONTO.SYSTEM to SPACE=(CYL,(nnn,nnn),RLSE).

There are also four "sort-work" files in the job that posts transcripts to the FASTER system (SORTWK01, SORTWK02, SORTWK03, and SORTKW04). Their SPACE parameters will be the same as for file FN.DXnn.RESPONSE.ONTO.SYSTEM, which you just calculated: SPACE=(CYL,(nnn,nnn),RLSE).

For RJE users only, the SPACE parameter for the file named FN.DXnn.RESPONSE.ONTO.SYSTEM.BYTE80 must also be adjusted. First, divide the number of 80-byte records in the transmission file by 698 (or, if you only know the number of transcripts in your transmission file, multiply that number by 1,100 and then divide the result by 698). This produces the number of TRACKS needed for this file. Divide this number by 15 and round up to get the number of CYLINDERS needed. Finally, divide the number of CYLINDERS just calculated by 8 and round up to the nearest whole number (add 1 if the number of CYLINDERS was evenly divisible by 8). This gives both the primary and secondary SPACE allocation parameters (xx). Using this number, set the SPACE parameter for file FN.DXnn.RESPONSE.ONTO.SYSTEM.BYTE80 to SPACE=(CYL,(xx,xx),RLSE). Note that this parameter will be similar to the SPACE parameter calculated for file FN.DXnn.RESPONSE.ONTO.SYSTEM in the preceding steps; but it doesn't have to be the same.

6.0 Overloading the FIRN Disk Packs

This year, FIRN has forty (40) 3390 tri-packs at NWRDC (about 72 gigabytes of disk space). Disk space should, therefore, not pose a problem this year. To make sure that this remains the case, these guidelines should be followed:

Most importantly, send your transcripts as soon as possible! If you wait until the end of June to transmit your transcripts, the possibility of overloading the FIRN disk packs increases dramatically.

Another way to avoid getting caught by an overload on the FIRN disk packs is to break your transmission up into several parts. Smaller files have a better chance of fitting into remaining space as physical drives fill up (for example, if there are only 500 CYLINDERS left on the FIRN packs, a 600 CYLINDER file will be rejected for lack of space; two 300 CYLINDER files, though, would fit in this space, provided the second was sent after the first finished processing). By dividing the transmission and then sending the parts one after the other (waiting till one job has completed before transmitting the next), your chances of success increase.

7.0 Reducing the Impact of Network Transmission Problems

Some school districts lost a considerable amount of time when a network transmission error of one kind or another caused a lengthy transmission to fail. When an 8-hour transmission fails in the 7th hour, an entire day is lost. This is very significant as the deadline approaches.

While there's not much a school district can do to control random network problems, it is possible to limit their impact. The best way to deal with this issue (as in the disk pack space problem, above) is to reduce the size of the files that are sent by breaking a large transmission up into several, smaller parts. By doing so, a lot less time is lost when a network glitch ruins a transmission. Also, longer transmissions seem to be more problematic than smaller ones (though this may just seem to be the case, since losing a 3-hour job is a lot more memorable than losing a 30-minute job).

Note: It is good practice to maintain a copy of the file or files that you send for a few days after making a transmission. If you keep such a backup and then have to retransmit, you don't have to recreate the file from your source data. This can be a considerable time saver.

8.0 Dealing with Low Transmission Speeds

Some school districts have low network transmission rates, given the configuration of FIRN's network. For such districts, transmitting large volumes of transcripts can take hours and hours. This is most often the case in those school districts using the RJE method of data transfer. Such school districts should consider using the TCP/IP network (FIRN's portion of the Internet) to transmit their data. This can improve transmission rates. Chapter 10 in the 2000-01 FIRN User Manual details how this might be done.

9.0 Problems with Transcript Errors

Your school district's MIS staff can avoid having transcripts rejected by running your transcripts against the school district copy of the FIRN edit program (SRTS03A) before sending these Bright Futures transcripts to the DOE. FIRN has recently added Bright Futures edits to this program, so your MIS staff should download another copy from NWRDC, compile it locally, and then run it against some of the transcripts you are going to submit to the Bright Futures System. In this way, your MIS staff can reduce the number of unpleasant surprises when submitting Bright Futures transcripts with a deadline approaching.

School district MIS staff still, though, must monitor their FASTER processing closely to ensure that their data is arriving as intended. Check your error reports to determine whether any of the records need to be corrected and re-sent. Running the Outgoing Aging Report daily lets you know exactly when your records have been picked up. It also helps the FASTER system archive out old records that have been completely processed (improving system performance and freeing up disk space see section 3.0, above).

10.0 Printing Useful Error Diagnostics

To reduce the volume of paper received from NWRDC in the form of system logs, FASTER users can use a parameter in the JOB statements of the JCL they submit to tell the system not to print any system logs. This is fine for normal operations. When a problem does occur, however, this often leaves the user with no diagnostic information with which to diagnose the problem (this information is in the system logs). In such a case, the transmission has to be rerun (after adjusting the system log printing parameters) to even find out what has gone wrong.

To avoid this problem, when preparing the JCL to submit Bright Futures transcripts, examine each JOB statement in the JCL. If the JOB statement has the following parameter:

MSGLEVEL=(0,0),

on either the line containing the JOB statement, or on the line immediately following the JOB statement, take out this parameter. This will permit the normal printing of system logs and diagnostic information. For example, if the JOB statement looks like:

//FNDX01S JOB (FNDX01),'ALACHUA',MSGLEVEL=(0,0),// REGION=4096K,MSGCLASS=A,TIME=(,40),CLASS=A

you should change it to:

//FNDX01S JOB (FNDX01),'ALACHUA',// REGION=4096K,MSGCLASS=A,TIME=(,40),CLASS=A

so that diagnostic messages can be printed. Or, if the JOB statement looks like:

//FNDX13S JOB (FNDX13),'DADE',TIME=(5,30),MSGLEVEL=(0,0)

you should change it to:

//FNDX13S JOB (FNDX13),'DADE',TIME=(5,30)

to let the diagnostic information print. The purpose of listing the two above examples was to illustrate how a two-line JOB statement, and then a one-line JOB statement would be modified. Remember: the final line of a JOB statement cannot end with a comma.

Once the Bright Futures transmissions are complete, you are free to add the MSGLEVEL parameter back in to your JCL stream. Given the higher likelihood of some form of error during Bright Futures processing (due to the sheer volume of transmissions, systemwide), it is safer to get all your diagnostic information the first time you run a job: if the job works, you only get a few extra sheets of unneeded paper; on the other hand, if the job fails, all the diagnostic information is available for immediate reference. Having this information available helps FIRN staff resolve problems more rapidly if you have to call them. See telephone numbers below.

11.0 Contacting FIRN Applications Staff for FASTER Problem Resolution

Despite your best efforts, problems in submitting the Bright Futures transcripts may occur. The quicker the problem is diagnosed, the quicker it can be corrected, and the transcripts resubmitted to the Bright Futures System. The following discussion lists some of the more common errors FASTER users encounter and provides suggestions on what to do about them. In all cases, you should contact FIRN Applications Programming staff:

Pete Tanzy (850) 245-9775
Laverne McKenzie (850) 245-9763

It is important to contact a FIRN staff member because, while your job may not have run to completion, your actual file transmission may have worked. FIRN staff can help you restart the job without the need to send the file again. Since file transmission will probably be the most time-consuming part of this procedure, you will probably save valuable time by calling FIRN.

12.0 List of Common Error Messages

As with the previous portion of this document, this discussion will begin with a list of the common errors you might encounter, with directions to the sections that describe the problem in detail.

A. ABEND=SB37 see section 14.0, below.

B. ABEND=SD37 see section 14.0, below.

C. ABEND=SE37 see section 14.0, below.

D. ABEND=S322: see section 13.0, below.

E. ABEND SYSTEM=322: see section 13.0, below.

F. ALLOCATION FAILED FOR ALL VOLUMES: see section 15.0, below.

G. COND CODE 0000 (for job step SRTS03): see section 18.0, below.

H. COND CODE 1000 (for job step SRTS03): you had no edit errors.

I. JCL ERROR: see section 12.0, below.

J. SQLCODE = -904: see section 16.0, below.

K. SQLCODE = -911: see section 17.0, below.

L. SQLCODE = -913: see section 17.0, below.

M. SYSTEM COMPLETION CODE=B37: see section 14.0, below.

N. SYSTEM COMPLETION CODE=D37: see section 14.0, below.

O. SYSTEM COMPLETION CODE=E37: see section 14.0, below.

13.0 JCL Errors

If your job fails and you get very cryptic information including the phrase "JCL ERROR," you have a JCL error. These commonly occur when a typing error is made. Review your JCL closely (look for such things as extra commas or commas that have been mistakenly typed in place of periods). The best way to definitively locate a JCL error is to look at a complete system log. In this case, it is especially important that your JOB statement had the "MSGLEVEL=(0,0)" statement removed before it was submitted. See section 9.0, above, for a discussion of how to receive proper error diagnostics.

14.0 Exceeding Time Limit

When the time limit is exceeded, you may get some edit report output, with phrases such as "ABEND=S322" or "ABEND SYSTEM=322" in the diagnostics. This means you ran out of time before the job successfully completed. Check the time limit computations (see section 3.0, above) as well as the number of records (individual1020-byte records, not just transcripts) you are actually sending. If you can't find where you've made a mistake, call FIRN. This is one instance in which you probably will not have to retransmit the records.

15.0 Running Out of Space on a File Allocation

When this happens, your job will fail, and you will find phrases like "ABEND=SD37" or "SYSTEM COMPLETION CODE=D37" or "ABEND=SB37" or "SYSTEM COMPLETION CODE=B37" (basically, anything having a "37" among its error codes) in the diagnostics. Recheck the SPACE computations (see section 4.0, above). If you can't find the problem, call FIRN. You may or may not have to retransmit the transcripts (depending on which file was involved in the SPACE problem).

16.0 Lack of Space on the FIRN Disk Packs

If you find the phrase "ALLOCATION FAILED FOR ALL VOLUMES" in your diagnostics listing, this is an indication that the FIRN disk packs have been temporarily overloaded. Contact FIRN immediately so they can resolve the problem. They will probably have to take steps to remove old files before they tell you to resume processing. This is one case where you might be able to start processing again immediately if you break your transmission file up into smaller pieces.

17.0 FASTER System Maintenance Problems

If your job fails and you find the phrase "SQLCODE = -904" in the diagnostics, this indicates that a FASTER system resource was unavailable. You will get this error code if you try to send more than 20,000 transcripts to the Bright Futures system during any one week (or any one month, if you fail to run the Outgoing Aging Report regularly). You will also see this code if a problem has occurred with one of FIRN's FASTER data base maintenance routines (this error will usually occur on a Monday morning). Thus, if you get this error on a Monday, contact FIRN immediately: this problem will affect all FASTER users.

This is also the error message you would receive if the FASTER system itself runs out of room on the FIRN disk packs (this should not occur, given the steps FIRN is taking to acquire additional disk space). If this is the case, however, FIRN staff should be contacted immediately since this problem will affect the entire system.

Finally, this is the error that will occur if you run any FASTER jobs during FASTER system maintenance on Sunday evenings. If this is the case, rerun the job and, thereafter, do not submit a FASTER job on a Sunday evening!

18.0 System Contention Problems

If the job fails and you find the phrase "SQLCODE = -911" or the phrase "SQLCODE = -913" in the diagnostics, this is an indication that a data base "deadlock" has occurred and was not automatically resolved by the system. This can occur if too many FASTER users are trying to do the same thing at the same time (though this is very uncommon). It can also occur if FIRN staff have to make a special maintenance run during daytime hours. Contact the FIRN staff. This is likely a case in which you will not have to retransmit your transcripts.

19.0 Edit Errors (Transcript Content Problems)

If the job runs to completion but, upon review of the edit report, you find that some of the transcripts were rejected and not transmitted to the Bright Futures System, you should use the edit report to identify the rejected transcripts, correct them, and resubmit them to the Bright Futures System. These transcripts were rejected because they contained errors or omissions critical to the Bright Futures transcript evaluation procedures.

You should share the fact that FASTER has rejected a transcript with the school that sent the transcript. We often get calls from guidance counselors who tell us that they have sent a transcript, but that it isn't showing up on their evaluation reports. They ask us where the transcript is and in those cases where it was FASTER that rejected the transcript we are unable to help them. In such a case, we only know that someone has attempted to send a transcript but has had it rejected. We are then forced to refer the school back to its district MIS staff to learn the reason for the rejection (which is only carried on the Edit Report). If you share the Edit Report with your schools when rejections occur, you can speed their error resolution process (by taking us out of the loop).

Finally: when in doubt, call one of the FIRN numbers in section 11.0, above. The earlier in the processing period you call, the better (especially if you call before everyone else starts sending in their transcripts).

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