Mapping Your Future Website Redesign – Special Issue

Mapping Your Future® currently is planning a complete website redesign, which will include major changes to the site, how processes work, and how you link to Mapping Your Future. 

The redesign, scheduled for implementation during the evening of March 28, is being done in conjunction with a move to our new web domain — MappingYourFuture.org — and will change the website’s file structure and navigation.

Please review all articles in this newsletter carefully to determine what action you need to take.  If you have questions, contact CariAnne Behr at carianne@mappingyourfuture.org (best method) or (573) 634-8641.

Articles:

• Redesign training
• Web domain
• Staff e-mail addresses
• Design and content
• Linking to Mapping Your Future
• Student instructions for completing Online Student Loan Counseling
• Links to schools’ customized pages
• Spread the word
• Broken link results
• Integrating Online Student Loan Counseling
• Integrating features, content
• ExitExpress
• ServicerExpress

Redesign training

In addition to this newsletter, Mapping Your Future Sponsors and Friends have the opportunity to learn more about the changes that will occur due to the site redesign during a webinar on Friday, March 14 at 2 p.m. Eastern, 1 p.m. Central, 12 p.m. Mountain, and 11 a.m. Pacific. This is a good opportunity to see the new site design and ask questions you have after reading the following articles. 

Mapping Your Future staff members will use webinar software to showcase the site redesign and the changes to the navigation and URLs. Individuals are asked to register for this training, as the number of attendees is restricted. If possible, please limit registrations to one person per agency/organization, setting up training in a conference room at your location, if necessary.  If you are unable to attend to the March 14 training, a vodcast of the training will be available in mid-March.

For more information and to register, visit the sponsor site:

sponsors.mapping-your-future.org/sponsors/

Username: myf
Password: partners08

Click on "Monthly Training Program" under "Event Links and Information"

Web domain

In 2007, Mapping Your Future acquired ownership of the MappingYourFuture.org web domain. This helps protect the Mapping Your Future trademark and ends confusion caused when students went to that address and did not find the Mapping Your Future website.

When Mapping Your Future first designed its website years ago, the use of dashes in a domain was common.  Thus, Mapping Your Future chose mapping-your-future.org.  This address is hard to communicate, especially when verbally instructing people to visit the site. 

Staff e-mail addresses

You can easily reach Mapping Your Future staff members via e-mail, contacting them at the MappingYourFuture.org address. This includes specific staff addresses and all Mapping Your Future general e-mail addresses, such as feedback@mappingyourfuture.org.

To contact any staff member, e-mail them as follows: firstname@mappingyourfuture.org.

Design and content

The goal of the Mapping Your Future website redesign is to create a site that's usable so students, families, and schools can find information on careers, college, financial aid, and money management.  Thus, users will experience a change in how they navigate the site.

Mapping Your Future still will have audience-based navigation. However, Mapping Your Future is updating its topic navigation so it uses the terminology students and families understand, presented as tasks such as these:

• Plan your career
• Prepare for college
• Pay for college
• Manage your money
• Complete Online Student Loan Counseling

The website appearance will be similar, in that it uses Mapping Your Future’s branding (logo, colors, and graphics).  However, it will have an updated appearance and better design elements.

The content team also is rewriting existing content for placement on the site. The team is following standards for writing effectively for the web. 

Preview of new home page:

Linking to Mapping Your Future

Upon implementation of the new design, most incoming links to Mapping Your Future will stop working.  If you have a link to Mapping Your Future and don’t update it with the new URL, visitors will not arrive at their chosen destination.

Because Mapping Your Future is changing web addresses at the same time as the redesign, we won’t have auto forwarding on all content.  We have identified several critical pages that will forward; however, this will only be in effect until May 1, 2009.

Fortunately, you can find a list of existing Mapping Your Future web content with current and new URLs at mapping-your-future.org/downloads/MappingYourFutureRedesignURLs.xls.  Before March, we strongly suggest you review your own website to find existing links to Mapping Your Future, making note of where your links reside and where they point.  Then, using the documentation provided, you can talk with your web/IT staff, letting them know what changes they’ll need to make on the evening of March 28 (or shortly thereafter). 

You can do some early implementation.  The new home page URL is http://MappingYourFuture.org. This already works; therefore, if you have links directly to Mapping Your Future’s home page, you can update them now.

The new Online Student Loan Counseling (OSLC) URLs, which also already work, are as follows:

• Stafford entrance                                              http://mappingyourfuture.org/se
• Stafford exit                                                      http://mappingyourfuture.org/sx
• Spanish Stafford entrance                                 http://mappingyourfuture.org/sse
• Spanish Stafford exit                                         http://mappingyourfuture.org/ssx
• Perkins entrance                                               http://mappingyourfuture.org/pe
• Perkins exit                                                       http://mappingyourfuture.org/px
• Stafford and Perkins combined entrance          http://mappingyourfuture.org/spe
• Stafford and Perkins combined exit                   http://mappingyourfuture.org/spx
• Health Professions entrance                             http://mappingyourfuture.org/he
• Health Professions exit                                     http://mappingyourfuture.org/hx
• Nursing entrance                                               http://mappingyourfuture.org/ne
• Nursing exit                                                       http://mappingyourfuture.org/nx
• Grad PLUS entrance                                         http://mappingyourfuture.org/gpe
• Grad PLUS exit                                                 http://mappingyourfuture.org/gpx
• Stafford and Grad PLUS combined entrance    http://mappingyourfuture.org/sge
• Stafford and Grad PLUS combined exit             http://mappingyourfuture.org/sgx

These URLs are much simpler, making it easier to instruct students who need to complete OSLC. 

These URLs do NOT work for posting borrowers to OSLC as part of the integration process. See the related article.

Student instructions for completing Online Student Loan Counseling

Some schools and organizations provide written instructions about how to complete Online Student Loan Counseling (OSLC) to their students, first instructing the students to go to the Mapping Your Future home page.  Upon implementation of the new design, you will need to revise how you instruct students.  Specifically, step two will change.
Here are the revised instructions that Mapping Your Future will print on its leaflets:

1. Visit MappingYourFuture.org (no “www”).
2. Click on the “complete Online Student Loan Counseling” link on the left side of the page.
3. Click on the __________ link. (Fill in the appropriate loan counseling type. For example, for Stafford entrance counseling, the instruction would be “Click on the ‘Stafford entrance’ link”.)
4. Complete the steps to select your school, read the content and answer questions, and complete the student form.
5. Print the confirmation page (it has your rights and responsibilities) or note the confirmation number for your records.

If you provide instructions such as these to borrowers on your own printed materials, in written correspondence, etc., be sure to make revisions after March 28. 

New leaflets instructing students on how to complete counseling will be available via the Mapping Your Future store prior to the implementation of the website redesign. To access the store, visit the sponsor site:

sponsors.mapping-your-future.org/sponsors/

Username: myf
Password: partners08

Click on the "store" tab at the top of the page.

Links to schools’ customized pages

Upon implementation of the new design, all Online Student Loan Counseling (OSLC) customized school page links to Mapping Your Future will stop working. 

Many schools create free customized counseling start pages at the beginning of each counseling session.  These customized pages have unique URLs that take students directly to the counseling start page for their school, allowing them to skip the step of selecting the counseling type, school location, and school name. 

Currently, all customized school page URLs follow this format:

http://mapping-your-future.org/OslcschoolPages/?SchoolPageID=XXXX&schoolid=XXXX

Only the area denoted by red x’s varies depending on the school and page.  For example, the URL for the MYF Demo School for Stafford entrance counseling is http://mapping-your-future.org/OSLCSchoolPages/?SchoolPageID=5890&SchoolID=90. 

Upon implementation of the redesign, part of each customized school page URL will change as follows:

http://mappingyourfuture.org/oslc/counseling/schoolPages.cfm?SchoolPageID=xxxx&schoolid=xxxx

Therefore, anyone linking to a customized school page URL should update that URL by replacing the content before the question mark with http://mappingyourfuture.org/oslc/counseling/schoolPages.cfm. 

In our example of the URL for the MYF Demo School for Stafford entrance counseling, the URL would change from http://mapping-your-future.org/OSLCSchoolPages/?SchoolPageID=5890&SchoolID=90 to http://mappingyourfuture.org/oslc/counseling/schoolPages.cfm?SchoolPageID=5890&SchoolID=90 (where only the content in bold changes).

Schools can view the current URLs for customized pages in the FAO Access Area:

1. Mouse over the Customize tab and click on Counseling Start Page
2. View the URLs for pages “In Production” in the in the Pagemaster Studio area

More information on customized pages is located in the OSLC User’s Guide at mapping-your-future.org/services/oslcpscust.htm#page.

Spread the word

Mapping Your Future requests you communicate with your school clients about the site redesign and URL changes.  For example, if they link to the Mapping Your Future home page and counseling sessions, they should change those general URLs on or before March 28.  If they link to their customized counseling start pages, let them know these links will change on March 28. 

Broken link results

Should someone follow an old link to Mapping Your Future after the site redesign, they will be directed to an information page, instead of to a generic “page cannot be found” web message.  The content for this page will be something like this:

Sorry, but we’re unable to find this page for you (possibly due to a recent site redesign). Try these options:

1. Contact us and tell us what link or web address you were trying to access.  If you followed a link from another site, please let us know and include the web address for that page.
2. If you typed the web address yourself, please make sure the spelling is correct.
3. Go to the Mapping Your Future home page and try to find what you need.

Here are some commonly visited features/pages on Mapping Your Future:

1. Online Student Loan Counseling (entrance and exit interviews)
2. Calculators
3. CareerShip
4. Financial fitness tools
5. Free scholarship searches
6. Show Me the Future®

While Mapping Your Future hopes external organizations update their links in a timely manner, having a page such as this will be helpful to those visitors who access a broken link.

Integrating Online Student Loan Counseling

Several of Mapping Your Future’s Sponsors and Friends integrate Online Student Loan Counseling (OSLC) into their own online financial aid processes and loan application systems.  Upon implementation of the new design, the server application page that allows Sponsors/Friends to query Mapping Your Future for entrance counseling data will change. 

The parameters, return data, and functionality for integrating will NOT change.  Also, Mapping Your Future will have redirects on the query URL and all Online Student Loan Counseling links—though only until May 1, 2009.

If you currently integrate OSLC or are in the process of preparing to integrate, read the detailed article at sponsors.mapping-your-future.org/sponsors/uploads/myfccc/RedesignIntegrationChanges.pdf.

Integrating features, content

Some Sponsors and Friends integrate several of Mapping Your Future’s features and services, into their websites. These features add value to the Sponsor/Friend’s website without linking visitors to the Mapping Your Future site.   Upon implementation of the new design, the links for these features will change.  Fortunately, Mapping Your Future will have redirects on the URLs—though only until May 1, 2009.

After implementation of the new design but before May 1, 2009, Sponsors/Friends need to update the URLs on the pages they integrate, as follows:

• College planning tips feature for high school juniors: http://mappingyourfuture.org/collegeprep/juniortipsInt.htm
• College planning calendar for high school seniors: http://mappingyourfuture.org/collegeprep/seniorcalendarInt.htm
• Loan consolidation calculator: http://mappingyourfuture.org/paying/consolidation/calculatorInt.cfm
• Student loan calculator: http://mappingyourfuture.org/paying/standardcalculatorInt.htm
• Debt/salary wizard: http://mappingyourfuture.org/paying/debtwizardInt/
• Deferment navigator: http://mappingyourfuture.org/paying/defermentsInt.htm
• Budget calculator: http://mappingyourfuture.org/money/budgetcalculatorInt.htm
• Checkbook balancing tool: http://mappingyourfuture.org/money/checkbookInt.htm

ExitExpress

Regulations require that schools forward Stafford exit counseling records to guaranty agencies within 60 days of the borrowers completing counseling. Through Mapping Your Future’s ExitExpress, guaranty agencies (Sponsors) provide a service to schools using Online Student Loan Counseling, retrieving that Stafford exit data on their behalf.

Guarantors can retrieve counseling data via a manual client or an automated method.  Upon implementation of the new design, the manual client and automated URLs will change.  Mapping Your Future will have redirects on the URLs—though only until May 1, 2009.

After implementation of the new design, guarantors retrieving data via the manual method should use this URL: https://mappingyourfuture.org/DataExchange/iga2x.cfm.

After implementation of the new design but before May 1, 2009, guarantors using an automated method to retrieve data should update the URLs as follows:

• Automated retrieval of records: https://mappingyourfuture.org/DataExchange/x2ga.cfm?u=uname&p=password&dateStart=mm/dd/yyyy&date
  End=mm/dd/yyyyy&finalFormat=XML&flagRecs=[][1][0]
• Automated rejection of records: https://mappingyourfuture.org/DataExchange/x2ga.cfm?u=MyUsername&p=MyPassword&action=send&
  RejectedConfirmationNumbersList=1111,2222,3333

The areas denoted by red x’s vary depending on the request.

ServicerExpress

ServicerExpress allows loan servicers (Sponsors and Friends) to retrieve Online Student Loan Counseling (OSLC) data from Mapping Your Future.  Data requests are done via a manual client.

Upon implementation of the new design, the URL for the ServicerExpress client will change. The new URL will be https://mappingyourfuture.org/DataExchange/iga2x.cfm?servicerexpress=1. Sponsors and Friends participating in ServicerExpress should bookmark this new URL, since it’s not published on the Mapping Your Future website.