SEVIS Release 6.13 Final System Changes. SEVIS Batch. All Users

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1 May 23, 2013 Production Release Date: May 24, 2013 The following summarizes the final system changes to SEVIS with Release SEVIS Batch An overview of the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) Batch modifications with Release 6.13 is in the SEVIS Batch System Changes Releases 6.13 Version 2 document on the SEVIS Batch page. The updated SEVIS Common schema, Create-Update Exchange Visitor schema, and SEVIS Transaction Log schema as well as the Release 6.13 Batch Application Program Interface (API) are also available on this page. Note that these documents will be removed from the page on Friday, May 24, 2013, to coincide with the production implementation of Release User Interface All Users We will enhance the SEVIS Real-Time Interactive (RTI) user interface with a new banner and color scheme. A preview of the SEVIS RTI logon screen is shown below for reference: May 23, 2013 Page 1 of 4

2 SEVIS Warning Statement We will modify the WARNING statement on the SEVIS RTI log on screen to read as follows: You are about to access a Department of Homeland Security computer system. This computer system and data therein are property of the U.S. Government and provided for official U.S. Government information and use. There is no expectation of privacy when you use this computer system. The use of a password or any other security measure does not establish an expectation of privacy. By using this system, you consent to the terms set forth in this notice. You may not process classified national security information on this computer system. Access to this system is restricted to authorized users only. Unauthorized access, use, or modification of this system or of data contained herein, or in transit to/from this system, may constitute a violation of section 1030 of title 18 of the U.S. Code and other criminal laws. Anyone who accesses a Federal computer system without authorization or exceeds access authority, or obtains, alters, damages, destroys, or discloses information, or prevents authorized use of information on the computer system, may be subject to penalties, fines or imprisonment. This computer system and any related equipment is subject to monitoring for administrative oversight, law enforcement, criminal investigative purposes, inquiries into alleged wrongdoing or misuse, and to ensure proper performance of applicable security features and procedures. DHS may conduct monitoring activities without further notice. Section 508 Compliance According to an approved Section 508 remediation plan, steps to make SEVIS compliant with Section 508 standards will initiate with Release While the majority of the modifications planned for Release 6.13 will be transparent to users, a few examples are below: Section (o) will permit users to skip the repetitive navigation links on the navigation bar. Section (a) will be available for all new and modified existing screens so all images have an equivalent text description. Section 508 standards, as designed by the commercial-off-the-shelf product used for development, will be applied to the Online Help. F/M School Officials RFE-Edit I-17 Update Application The Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) will have the ability to request a Request for Evidence Edit (RFE-Edit) on submitted Form I-17, Petition for Approval May 23, 2013 Page 2 of 4

3 of School for Attendance by Nonimmigrant Student, updates. If a school has a Form I- 17 update in RFE-Edit status, the following will apply: SEVIS will send an to the school s principal designated school official (PDSO) listed on the Form I-17 advising that SEVP has requested an RFE-Edit on the Form I-17 update application. The RFE-Edit School link will be available to the designated school officials (DSOs) within the Action section of the School Information screen to allow for editing of the Form I-17 update application for submission. The Edit School and View Submitted Update links will not be available to the DSOs. If a Draft status Form I-17 update exists for the school, SEVIS will auto-delete it. Note that the fields available to the school s PDSO and DSOs will be the same as a standard Form I-17 update application. That is, all data will be available for editing by the PDSO, whereas only certain data will be available for editing by DSOs. Approved School Data on Form I-20 A correction to SEVIS will address an issue where new data from submitted Form I-17 update applications pending SEVP adjudication was printing on the following fields of the student Form I-20: Page 1, Section 2 o Campus Name (second line within School Name) o School Address Page 1, Section 10 and Page 3 o Signature o Place Issued The update will address this issue so that only existing approved school data will print in these fields. Duplicate Site of Activity Names J Sponsor Officials With this release, sponsor officials will be able to use the same name for multiple sites of activity (SOA) on an exchange visitor (EV) record. Therefore, we will remove the validation to restrict the same name for multiple sites SEVIS RTI. In addition, we will May 23, 2013 Page 3 of 4

4 assign each site a unique identification (ID) number that will display in a new SOA ID field. The SOA ID is mainly for use by Batch programs; details on the purpose for and uses of it is available in the Batch documents referenced on Page 1. Print Site of Activity Name on Form DS-2019 The name of the primary site of activity will print on the Form DS-2019, Certificate of Eligibility for Exchange Visitor (J-1) Status. The name and address of the primary site of activity will print within the Primary Site of Activity section on Page 1 of the form. Correction/REUP for No Show Transfers The system change will modify the process for a responsible officer (RO) and/or alternate responsible officer (ARO) to submit either a Correct SEVIS Status or Reinstatement - Update SEVIS Status (REUP) request for a No Show status transfer-in EV record. To set or request that SEVIS set the EV record to Active status, the RO/ARO must page through three screens to enter/verify program dates, subject/field, current U.S. address, site of activity and financial information. This enhancement is necessary to address cases where a transfer-in exchange visitor record is set to No Show status prior to creation of the Form DS EIN Date of Issuance The Employer Identification Number (EIN) Date of Issuance field will be added to the following screens: Update Program Sponsor Information: Entry by an RO/ARO will be conditional in that if an EIN value exists then a Date of Issuance value will be mandatory. Program Information: If an EIN value exists, it will display as read-only to the RO/ARO. Emergency Telephone Number The system change will add the Emergency Telephone Number field to the General Contact Information section of the Update Program Sponsor Information screen. Entry by an RO/ARO will be optional. User Manuals, Online Help, and Tutorials We will update SEVIS Online Help and User Manuals for DSOs and program sponsor officials as necessary to reflect the changes implemented with SEVIS Release Additionally, we will apply Section 508 standards to the Online Help, which will allow users to view the Online Help without a style sheet. May 23, 2013 Page 4 of 4

5 SEVIS Release 6.13 Batch System Changes Version 2 Note: This is an update to the previous version dated February 15, All new/modified text of importance in this version is highlighted in yellow for identification. This document describes the planned system changes for Batch File Processing (Batch) with SEVIS Release The outlined system changes communicated on February 15, 2013 are currently available in the Beta testing environment. The additional updates identified in this version will be applied to the Beta testing environment on Friday, April 19 th to allow for testing in advance of the Production environment release. The Production environment implementation is estimated for Friday, May 24 th but this date is subject to change. The official schedule for the Production environment upgrade will be communicated in advance of this date. F/M Schools Post-Completion Optional Practical Training (OPT) Edit Note: No updates; same as the February 15 th version. The SEVIS Batch validation that restricts editing of an OPT segment if the OPT Start Date is greater than 61 days past the Program End Date will be removed. This will allow school officials to edit the following for an Active status student prior to the OPT End Date via SEVIS Batch: Approved status post-completion OPT segment with an OPT Start Date greater than 61 days past the Program End Date (NOTE: When requesting OPT, SEVIS will not allow an OPT Start Date to be greater than 61 days past the Program End Date. However, this scenario is possible if the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services approves the employment with a OPT Start Date outside this range.) Requested, Pending, or Approved status OPT Extension segment. This modification only applies to the SEVIS Batch validation so there are no updates to the Create-Update Student schema. The applicable Create-Update Student.xsd data elements available for editing in the above scenarios will remain the same: UpdateStudent.Student.OPTEmployment.Edit.EmployerName UpdateStudent.Student.OPTEmployment.Edit.EmployerAddress UpdateStudent.Student.OPTEmployment.Edit.CourseRelevance (N/A for OPT Extension) UpdateStudent.Student.OPTEmployment.Edit.StudentRemarks UpdateStudent.Student.OPTEmployment.Edit.Remarks Site of Activity Name J Program Sponsors With this release, sponsor officials will be able to use the same name for multiple Sites of Activity on an exchange visitor record. To make this ability available, SEVIS will create a new Site of Activity ID value for each Site of Activity created with a new exchange visitor record or added to an exchange visitor record in Initial or Active status. This Site of Activity ID will be displayed on several screens in the web-based SEVIS Real-Time Interactive (RTI) for reference. For SEVIS Batch, a new SiteId data element that contains up to 50 characters will be made available for use as described in the following paragraphs. First, the SiteId, SiteName, and Site of Activity address data elements will be added to the SEVIS Batch Transaction Log. These values will be returned to the program for each created/added Site of Activity so Page 1 of 2 April 10, 2013

6 SEVIS Release 6.13 Batch System Changes Version 2 the SiteId can be stored by the program for use when either deleting or editing a Site of Activity via Batch. These data elements will be included in SevisTransLog.xsd as follows: BatchDetail.Process.Record.SiteOfActivity.Address1 BatchDetail.Process.Record.SiteOfActivity.Address2 (Note: Optional; only returned if provided) BatchDetail.Process.Record.SiteOfActivity.City BatchDetail.Process.Record.SiteOfActivity.State BatchDetail.Process.Record.SiteOfActivity.PostalCode BatchDetail.Process.Record.SiteOfActivity.PostalRoutingCode (Note: Optional; only returned if provided) BatchDetail.Process.Record.SiteOfActivity.SiteId BatchDetail.Process.Record.SiteOfActivity.SiteName Second, the new SiteId data element will be added to the Create-Update Exchange Visitor schema. Sponsor officials will have the option to use the SiteId and/or SiteName when trying to match to a Site of Activity to be either deleted or edited. The SiteId data element will be included in Create- UpdateExchangeVisitor.xsd as follows: UpdateEV.ExchangeVisitor.SiteOfActivity.Delete.SiteId UpdateEV.ExchangeVisitor.SiteOfActivity.Edit.SiteId Third, the description for error code S2202 will be modified as the existing validation will be replaced with a new validation. The existing validation that restricts multiple Sites of Activity with the same name on an exchange visitor record will be removed. New validation will be added to return an error if attempting to match to a Site of Activity to be either deleted or edited by SiteName when there are duplicate values (NOTE: In this case, only the SiteId can be used to match to the Site of Activity to be either deleted or edited). The new error code description is identified in the below table. Error Code Current Description New Description with Release 6.13 S2202 Site of activity already exists SiteId is required when an exchange visitor has multiple sites of activity with the same name. Lastly, programs that will utilize this new functionality will need the SiteId values for existing Sites of Activity. To obtain SiteId data for programs in the Beta environment for testing, users should contact the SEVIS Help Desk. The process to make the Production environment SiteId data available to programs is to be determined and will be included with a future communication related to this release. Site of Activity Remark Note: No updates; same as the February 15 th version. The option for sponsor officials to enter a Site of Activity Remark will be made available via SEVIS Batch. This applies when a sponsor official is adding a Site of Activity during either creation of a new or editing of an Initial or Active status exchange visitor record. To handle this enhancement, a new Remarks data element that allows up to 500 characters will be added to the Create-Update Exchange Visitor schema. This new data element will be located in Create- UpdateExchangeVisitor.xsd as follows: CreateEV.ExchangeVisitor.AddSiteOfActivity.SiteOfActivity.Remarks UpdateEV.ExchangeVisitor.SiteOfActivity.Add.Remarks Page 2 of 2 April 10, 2013