Page Comparison

This page lists some of the recent changes to PICS. We also have a list of known issues being investigated.

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11th April

Courses

• A new Course Type filter is now available on the Sessions list.

• Two new course filters have been added when enrolling a learner or applicant on a course: Delivered By and Delivered For.

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• The Contract Type field is now available for RAA vacancies.

Workflows

• Added the ability to fire off a WebHook as a Post Transition Action. Both GET and POST calls are supported.

• Added a new date function for Post Transition Actions. The Effective Date function will use the date entered into the effective field. This can then be further modified by using the Add Days, Working Days and Date Only options.

• Added a new Post Action for creating Learner and Applicant user accounts.

Month End

• The funding reconcilers were not working with a “Stream was not readabable” error message. Now fixed.

• The Data Match reconciler’s report now includes the column “Apprenticeship Service Status”

• The Funding Forecasting export now has an option to split “Split Additional Amounts” which will replace the Additional column with additional rows for each claim type making up the Additional value.

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• There was a bug causing Organisation File forms created via a “Create and Send Form” post action to not find the organisation’s email address when it was used to default the signatory address. Now fixed.

Workflows

• When using workflows validation or actions where Qualification Plan, Officer or Organisation needed to be selectable from a drop down list, there was a bug causing the drop down to be empty. Now fixed.

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• BKSB_USERNAME and SMARTASSESSOR_ID can now be used as import fields on learner import.

• Applicant workflows can now be set via the importer using APP_WORKFLOW.

Workflows

• Organisation and Opportunity workflows can now be set to be the default for all new instances of the entity.

• Available status transitions are now shown in alphabetical order. The same as on the Transitions configuration page.

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• Two new permissions have been added to allow light users to edit notes for Learners and Applicants.

Workflows

• It is now possible to give status transition Post Actions a sequence number. Post actions will run in sequence from the lowest number to the highest.

• There was an incorrect officer label on the Applicant Compare Field dropdown. Now fixed.

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• Appointment Reminders can now include the Learner or Applicants Main Officer name, email and mobile as a merge field in the message

Workflows

• Added the ability to give statuses and sub-statuses a colour which will be displayed through out the application. This will help to visually differentiate statuses.

• Added the ability re-run failed post transition actions without having to move the entity backwards and then forwards again in the workflow.

• It is now possible to display UDF answers when sending emails or SMS via the Send Notification post transition action. UDF questions must have a Unique Field Name to be available. Simply start by typing {{UDF.

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• ID label in URLs will now work in Edit mode as well as View mode.

Workflows

• Cloning a workflow will now clone the default status and sub status from that source workflow.

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• We can now enable the Advanced Mosaic theme by default for all users upon request

• HTML Editors would not allow a link to be added correctly. Now fixed.

• Fields that are always required now have a visual * indicator next to their label.

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• QAR Reconciler was not using correct report date provided. Now fixed.

21st September 2023

Workflows

• When configuring workflow validation and actions, we now offer a drop down of static values when appropriate.

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• Added an automation to allow WebForm signature reminders to be sent out automatically at the start of each day.

• It is now possible to select a filetype to output a redacted version of a WebForm file. Fields marked as as sensitive will not be displayed in the redacted version.

Workflows

• Added the ability to automate workflow status transitions to run at the start of the day on a given schedule. Automated transitions will run all validations and actions.

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• Qualification Plans

  • Qualification Plan calculations no longer rely on fields existing on the form.

  • Some redisplayed aim fields were not working. Now fixed.

  • By default, optional aims will now be marked as Wanted - Optional and will not be included in the Qualification Plan date calculations. Selecting wanted - yes will rerun the calculations with the optional aim included.

  • Added fields for ILR AppStandard Code, ILR AppStandard Title and ILR AppStandard Level. These will auto fill if possible when and Qualification Plan is selected.

  • Added fields for Qualification Plan Apprenticeship Prices. These will auto fill if possible when and Qualification Plan is selected.

  • Newly created forms should have all their Qualification Plan details filled in on the answers tab.

• Change Request forms

  • Added a lot more Learner fields. Should now (mostly) have the same fields that were available in the Learner File Forms.

  • UDF questions on these forms should now populate correctly.

• Learner

  • ILR LSR field are now special selectors.

  • Added the ability to display Learner aims. Use the “Aims Row“ in the import fields list to display each row.

• Organisation File

  • Organisation Head Office detail fields are now available.

• General

  • It is now possible to select Tags in the form design to be added to a Learner or Applicant on completion of a Learner or Applicant Form.

  • Locked checkbox fields should no longer cause forms to crash is certain situations.

  • Non mandatory signatures will now be treated as mandatory once requested. This will prevent an issue where a requested non mandatory signature could cause a form to get perpetually stuck in the remote signing process.

  • Employer Main Contact fields should now auto populate correctly when an Employer is selected.

  • Added the ability to set the text, background and border colours of the remote fill fields on the Guest Fill&Sign. The settings can be found under Guest Themes.

  • It is now possible to display contact details for officers/contacts linked to Learners and Applicants via a custom relationship in WebForms. These fields will appear in the usual field list under the name of the custom relationship.

  • Adding a single select UDF without any answers to a form should no longer cause an error on trying to open the form.

  • Completing a form that went through a “Clone to New“ was incorrectly setting the status of the original form after the import. This should now be fixed.

Workflows

• Surveys can now be sent out using a post action. Note that the same user restrictions apply for surveys sent out this way.

• Workflow Validations and Actions are now available for Opportunity status transitions.

• The Send Form post action should now get less confused after a selected form design is Cloned and Retired.

• It is now possible to use {{ }} bookmarks in the the Send Notification - Email subject. To use these bookmarks, simply copy them from the message input.

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• A new menu item under Users and Access configuration is available called Visibility Groups, these are used to restrict User Defined Forms to a group of users.

Workflows

• UDF answers can now be validated on performing a status transition.

• The send notification post action now has the option of sending the notification via SMS if you have the integration enabled.

• Officer relationships can now be set as a post action for Learners and Applicants.

• Post actions are now logged and will display a success or failure message on the entity's Recent Activity tab.

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• The emails sent out for WebForm signature request/reminder and form completion can now be customised in PICS.

• Added a column for Aim Subcontractor to the qualification plan control.

• Bug Fix: Help text was not showing for single select.

• Bug Fix: URLs will now correctly show in guest Fill & Sign.

• Bug Fix: Defaulted email addresses from Officer relationships for Organisation File Forms will now work correctly.

Workflows

• Adding Learners and Organisations onto a workflow with a default status will now create a status history record.

• Beta: The Applicant send notification post transition action now has a lot more bookmarks available.

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• Trainee Assessors are not being included in the Edit Officer OneFile ID form. Now fixed.

• Smart Assessor integration now has an option to push changes in qualification status up to Smart Assessor.

Reports

Important: Output of Postcode fields has been separated from general Address fields. We will be upgrading your stored reports to include this field if the Address field has been selected but please check the report outputs to ensure this has happened successfully.

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• A new report template, “User Sites Report” has been added which shows the Sites each user is linked to (or not).

• Filtering by Status has been added to the User report.

• Filtering by Site on the User report has been changed to allow “Any of”, “All of”, “None of” options - this will break existing stored reports that have selections in this filter - please check your reports if you have used this. At the time of writing there is 1 customer with 1 report.

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• The wording of whether a Learner, ILR Aim, Destination & Progression, or Workplace is included in the ILR has been standardised across data entry and reports. The variations of Export Status, Report in ILR etc. are now all referred to as ILR Export Status with options of Include in ILR Export or Withhold from ILR Export. This will need updating in existing reports and documents that use this field.

• Ending a Break-in-Learning will now copy forward the HHS, DAMs, Subcontractor/Partner UKPRN and Learning Start Date Postcode where appropriate.

• Actions that change a Learner’s Break-in-Learning status now refresh the whole page to ensure that the correct Start, Cancel, and/or End options are shown.

• Learner Sex is now an optional for non-ILR Learners.

• Learner Status filtering now includes an option for “In Learning and Last Year Leavers”.

• The Learner Reference Number can now be set if there is not already an existing LRN for that learner. This only affects commercial learners who have been stored in PICS for several years, or where a new learning episode has been created for such a learner.

• Editing the postcode on the ILR Learner Edit screen will now trigger a background update of postcode information.

• Changes have been made to the ILR validation to reflect the ESFA Validation Rules version 5. These include:

  • New rules LearnDelFamType_108, Fworkcode_07, AchDate_12 and R133.

  • EmpId_13 (Employer ID cannot be 999999999) has been downgraded to a warning.

  • Minimum duration rules for Apprenticeship Standards (DateOfBirth_46 and DateOfBirth_47) are now applied.

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• Reports will now be aborted if they take more than 2 hours to run.

• Reports are now limited to 200 optional fields.

• For outputs linked to organisations, the following fields have been added to help report on the geographic spread of linked organisations: Ward, Ward Name, Region, and Local Authority.

• Site filters in all reports are now multi select.

• New Reports

  • A new report, Contracts Report, has been added to report against contracts.

  • A new report, ESF Contracting Report, has been added to report against ESF Supplementary Data.

• Learner Report:

  • Performance improvements have been made to populating fields defined on the base Learner report.

  • Performance improvements have been made to populating UDF fields.

  • Filtering by Apprenticeship Service Status has been added.

  • Output of Age Band has been added to show the current Age Band.

  • Output of Programme SSA Tier 1 Title has been added.

  • Output Programme SSA Title has been renamed to Programme SSA Tier 2 Title. This will need updating in existing reports and documents that use this field.

  • Output of Source Applicant ID has been added.

  • Output of ILR EPA Organisation ID and Location have been added.

  • Output of the “Current LSF” field has been fixed. It was previously showing “Any LSF”.

  • Output of Start / End Reported Period fields has been added.

• Learner Assessment Report

  • There were 2 fields name Title - for the Learner honorific and the Assessment Title - which could cause errors. The Assessment Title field has been renamed “Assessment Title”. This will need updating in existing reports and documents that use this field.

• ILR Learner Report

  • Non ILR Funding Organisation can be included in this report - you must specify the Funding Organisations to include in the report options.

  • Filtering by ILR Employment Status has been added. This will return Learners that have any Employment records with the selected Statuses

  • Filtering by ILR Employment Monitoring has been added. This will return Learners that have any Employment Monitoring with any of the selected values.

• Learner ILR Aims Report

  • Non ILR Funding Organisation can be included in this report - you must specify the Funding Organisations to include in the report options.

  • Non ILR Aims can be included in this report - you must specify the Aim Types to include in the report options.

  • Filtering by “Aim records added between dates” has been added.

  • Filtering by “Aim records with completion fields changed between dates” has been added. The fields are End Date, Completion Status, Learning Outcome, and Employment Outcome. Achieve date is also included on Programme Aims.

  • Output of EPA Organisation Location has been added.

  • Output of HE fields has been added.

• Reviews Report

  • Output of Count of Attached Files has been added.

• Change Request Report

  • Filtering by the Date the request was rejected has been added.

  • Output of the Date the request was rejected has been added.

  • Output of the User who rejected the request was has been added.

• QAR Report

  • A new report type has been added: Apprenticeship Component Aims. This allows you to report across all apprenticeship component aims instead of just the programme aims. This is the equivalent of the “Report on comp aims (not prog aims)” option in desktop reports.

  • Completion, Retention and Pass totals and charts are now available for all report types, not just Education and Training reports. A new menu to select the type of table you wish to display has been added to allow this to be selected.

  • Achievement Rate forecasting (minimum and maximum rates) has been added to the QAR report. This will calculate a maximum learner total based on learners who are still in learning and could potentially still achieve, this is added to the existing achievement rate. Maximum rates assume that all of these learner will achieve, minimum rates assume that none of them will. A new menu to select the type of table you wish to display has been added to allow this to be selected. Any existing reports must be re-run to calculate the forecasting data.

  • New QAR reports will default to use the Interactive output mode. Existing saved reports are unaffected.

  • Output of Outcome Grade has been added. This is taken from the Main Aim for reports based on Programme Aims.

  • The QAR report can now be filtered by Site, Contract, UKPRN, or ILR Export Status for learners and aims.

  • The QAR dataset now includes a QAR Notes output which provides helpful notes when the overall year is modified due to events such as overdue planned breaks, or programme aims at EPA.

• Learner Timeliness report. This is a new report which shows the time taken to enter key dates on a learner or aim, such as start, end, or achievement. It also includes changes to key dates to allow better monitoring of when these changes occur.

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