This page lists some of the recent changes to PICS. We also have a list of known issues being investigated.
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Learners
Signup Forms
Delivery Targets
Smart Assessor Integration
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19th June
User Defined Forms
Editing the code for a multiple answer question could result in a loss of date. This is no restricted by preventing the code for existing answers to be changed when editing the design of a question.
Learners
The file list could throw a “null reference exception” if a file didn’t have a title in some scenarios. Now fixed.
Vacancies
Editing the outcome of a vacancy application will pop up a form to edit other applications for the same vacancy. This is now limited to the first 100 other applications.
5th June
Month End
The FM37 Skills Bootcamp Funding Calculations have been updated for HGV Contracts
The FM37 Skills Bootcamp Funding Reconciler has been updated to reconciler HGV Contracts
Funding Forecasting has been updated to handle the changes required for the Skills Bootcamp HGV Contracts
Applicants
When Functional Skills Assessments have been imported from bksb, a tooltip showing a description of the level is now shown.
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The following imports will now be performed as a background task. If an email address is set in your user profile, you will be notified by email when the import is complete. A summary view is available to show the import details, including the results and any links which would have previously been shown on screen.
New learner imports with multiple records
Organisation imports with multiple records
Applicant imports with multiple records
When importing UDF date answers from an Excel (.xlsx) file where the cell is formatted as a Date, the time 00:00:00 is no longer imported alongside the date.
The Learner Off-the-Job Hours import process would thrown an exception if the RecordedBy or ContactType fields were empty. Now fixed.
Learners
Help guides are now available for ILR errors. When a help guide is available for a particular ILR rule, a link will be available on the ILR rule name - this will open the help article in PICS.
When Functional Skills Assessments have been imported from bksb, a tooltip showing a description of the level is now shown.
A new Past Learning Expected End status filter is available on the learner list. This will show all learners where the latest programme aim planned end date is in the past, or the episode planned end date if they do not have any programme aims.
When a break of learning is ended for an ILR learner, the Funding adjustment for prior learning is now calculated based on the number of census days which have already been paid, rather than the number of months the learner was in learning before the planned break.
The current year Export in Year field is no longer set to Always if the Employment Outcome field is changed between blank, 99 and 00, for an aim which ended in a previous ILR year.
The current year Export in Year field is no longer set to Always if data is changed for a prior-year ILR aim on the last day of submission for that year.
The End Episode and Aims tool will no longer show the Outcome Grade field if there are no component aims to be updated, as this field is not relevant to programme aims.
Validation now checks that an apprentice has been in learning for 365 days while they are in EPA.
Preview File when signing reviews would not open the preview form. Now fixed.
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Dashboard widgets using “Set up the widget now” instead of a saved report will now cache the widget data for one hour instead of entirely reloading the data every time the widget is shown. Data will be refreshed automatically if the widget is reloaded after one hour, if the widget options are edited, or the manual data refresh button is clicked on the widget.
When using widgets or interactive reports with row and column analysis fields and a date Grouping Type (such as calendar month), clicking on columns would not show any data. Now fixed.
UDF number fields in interactive reports no longer show decimal places for whole numbers.
27th April
Learners
Entering new non-levy apprentices starting on or after April 1st, 2024, who are aged below 22 years old, no longer require Employer Contributions to be entered on the Apprenticeship Prices screen.
PICS Validation no longer displays an audit message regarding missing PMR records for non-levy apprentices aged below 22 years old, and who started on or after April 1st, 2024.
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When imporing a Recruit an Apprentice applications file, we now match applicants using Name, Date of Birth and Postcode. This is to avoid erroneous matches when a vacancy has multiple applicants with the same name.
11th April
Learners
The data capture Learner and Aim Provider Monitoring field names have been adjusted to align with the ILR Learner and Aim reports.
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Changes to User accounts, including permissions, officers, sites and file types, are now logged in the PICS audit logs and can be found in the Miscellaneous Data Changes Report. A new Report Type of Users has been added to that report.
Vacancies
The Contract Type field is now available for RAA vacancies.
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The validation of National Insurance Numbers has been improved - entered values must now end in A, B, C or D in accordance with HMRC guidance.
User Defined Forms
A new location has been added for User Defined Forms: Learner Qualifications. This location can be set for any UDF where Leaner is selected in the Form For field, and will be shown in the Qualification Summary page, and Qualification Tracking tab for ILR learning aims. Visibility filters for Qualification Reference, Qualification Type and ILR Qualification Type are available.
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The user experience when setting up target scope has been improved to allow scope stages to be created faster and with a more visual indication of what the value means.
Learners
When creating learner milestones, the milestone description is defaulted from the description of the relevant base data milestone.
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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.
User Defined Forms
The UDF description is now shown on the index page.
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SaaS user type is now a column on the user list.
Indicator on the User Summary Screen if 2FA is required at system level.
Vacancies
New sort option on Vacancy list for the “Closes” field.
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Change logs now include changes to tags. This includes adding new tags and removing existing tags in Configuration, and also adding and removing tags from Learners, Applicants, Organisations, Officers, Activities, Courses, Qualification Plans, Opportunities, Vacancies and Vacancy Applications. Changes can be seen under View Full Change Logs where the action exists, or in the various Data Changes reports. The Tags list in Lists and Types Configuration now allows searching by ID to find the name of the tag which has been changed.
14th February
Learners
Learner Validation was generating unexpected LearnDelFamType_114 errors for valid aims. Now fixed.
10th February
Learners
Learner Validation has been updated to conform to the ESFA 2023 ILR validation rules specification.
Added the ability to bulk transition Workflow Statuses and Opportunities. Both of these options were already available for Applicants.
When ending a Skills Bootcamp learner via the End Learner process, the Achievement date entered was not being set against the programme aim. Now fixed.
It is now possible to delete an individual learning outcome or assessment criteria from a learner record.
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The Create An Apprenticeship Accountability Dashboard Now action is now available for any customer with the Accountability Framework licence, regardless of whether they have set up a saved Accountability Framework report.
29th January 2024
Learners
The Apprenticeship Service Bulk Upload export was incorrectly exporting “No” in the IsDurationReducedByRPL column when RecognisePriorLearning is “No”. Now fixed.
25th January 2024
Learners
The Apprenticeship Service Bulk Upload export was incorrectly generating the column header “TotalTrainingHours” instead of “TrainingTotalHours”. Now fixed.
23rd January 2024
Learners
Incorrect validation meant that when creating or editing a learner's ILR with an “AS RPL Identified” value of “Recognised prior learning has been identified”, it was not possible to save the learner unless the “AS Duration Reduced By” value was 1 or greater. Now fixed.
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All optional fields from a User Defined Form that has Visibility Group based restrictions would be incorrectly hidden from eligible users. Now fixed.
20th January 2024
Learners
Learner notes will now include any files linked to applicants of other episodes if both the Other Episodes and Applicant filters are selected.
The Apprenticeship Service Cohort Export has been updated to conform to version 7 of the upload specification.
Learner Validation Configuration now has a new option, 'Exclude Aims where status is “Withhold from ILR Export”' which will exclude component aims with an ILR Export Status of “Withhold from Export” from the validation process.
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New report templates that have been added will now be indicated with a “New” label next to them. Searching the templates for the word “new” will include any new reports in the results.
8th December 2023
Learners
The Learner Qualifications list would set the Standard Filter when searching. A new option for the standard filter of Any has been added to prevent this.
Learning Delivery Monitoring (LDM) Codes have been update to match the latest specification
Changing to a non-ILR programme would result in an error if the learner has generic payment records. Now fixed.
Learner Validation has been updated to conform to the ESFA 2023 ILR validation rules specification.
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When copying a WebForm design, it is now possible to change the type of the copied form. Note that any fields not compatible with the new form type will be removed from the copy.
Vacancies
The Vacancy Edit form’s list of Contacts was not being limited to those for the selected Employer. Now fixed.
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There was a bug that rarely caused repeated field information to not display in complete form downloads. Now Fixed.
The LLDD multi select field was only showing the first 10 options on newly created form templates. Now Fixed.
3rd November 2023
Learners
DAM and LDM code lists have been updated with the latest changes in the ILR specification.
The Apprenticeship Achievement Date is no longer populated for non-apprentices when ending a learner’s episode.
The Recent Learners tile on the home page now shows an accurate count of learners added in the last 14 days.
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The LRS integration now uses the latest LRS client certificate, expiring in November 2024. You do not need to action any requests from the LRS to update your certificate as this is handled automatically by PICS.
Vacancies
When editing a vacancy, the list of Contacts would not always be of those related to the Employer. Now fixed.
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The Applicants List has a new filter option: “Has Related Learner”.
Learners
Learner Validation has been updated to conform to the ESFA 2023 ILR validation rules specification.
It is now no longer possible to set Programme Aims to be withheld from export.
When reinstating a learner after a Break in Learning, any reinstated aims will now set Original Start Date to the Original Start date from the planned-break aim, if set, or the Start date if not. This is to ensure the Original Start date is set correctly when a learner has multiple breaks in learning.
It is now possible to set the Achievement Rates Overall Year Override to Excluded. This will exclude the aim from the overall achievements rate report entirely with the reason “Manually Excluded in PICS“.
Learner Qualification List now has a filter for Apprenticeship Standard.
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It is now possible to clone widgets within a dashboard. Widget options have been moved to a menu and a Clone Widget option has been added.
User Defined Forms
ID label in URLs will now work in Edit mode as well as View mode.
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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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We now have an integration with Cognassist. When enabled you can create Learners and Applicants in Cognassist, invite them to complete an assessment and view their assessment results all from within PICS.
15th September 2023
Learners
An optional field for “Learning Expected End” has been added to the Learner List.
Full support for a “Preferred First Name” fields has been added to web forms, imports, data capture, reports and API.
A new Database Admin Action has been added to the Learners > Additional Sections > Qualifications list that allows you to change a Qualification Reference for one or more Learners.
Programme Aim Planned Hours for T Level Learners are now correctly captured in the Learner Create process.
There is a new optional tab on the learner delivery plan page for Files.
Milestones and notifications for Employability customers now have dedicated sections within the main navigation bar.
The list of DAM codes has been updated with the latest validity data in the ILR specification.
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Phone numbers now support clicking on to use your chosen web based telephone system, such as Skype.
When adding a SOC provision to a record, you can now filter based on SOC level.
Access to specific File Types can now be restricted at user an user group level.
27th August 2023
Learners
T Level Learners were incorrectly receiving validation errors for not having Planned Learning Hours or Planned EEP Hours. Now fixed.
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New fields added to Learner and Applicant forms
Expected Days on Programme
Expected Weeks on Programme
Expected Days of Learning
Expected Weeks of Learning
User Defined Fields on Learner File, Applicant File, Organisation File and Learner Change Request forms can now update the User Defined Field on the Learner, Applicant or Organisation. To use this new functionality, you will need to enable it in the general form settings.
Certain forms were failing to auto complete the employer’s email address when set to do so. Now fixed.
Officer details were not auto filling when selecting an Officer on Applicant forms. Now fixed.
Learners
Data capture for learners now allows entry of 2023 ILR data:
All historic data entry fields for 2021 have been replaced with 2022 fields.
Planned Learning and EEP Hours fields for 2024 are now available.
HHS and ASL aim FAM types are no longer available for aims starting on/after 1st August 2023.
ACL and AFL FAM types have been added for aims which are in learning on/after 1st August 2023. These fields are also available in qualification plans.
Employment status and FFI fields are now visible when creating new Community Learning (FM10) learners.
Aim HE 1st/2nd/3rd LDCS fields are now only available in the 2022 fields section.
LDM and DAM code lists have been updated.
It is now possible to use different values for Learner NLM FAM fields for 2022 and 2023. Existing data in the 2022 field has been copied forward to 2023, but for new entries this field will need to be entered for both years.
Learner Validation has been updated to conform to the ESFA 2023 ILR validation rules specification. However we have not removed references to Funding Model 70 (ESF) as these rules can still be used to validate existing data within PICS.
⚠️ The way that Functional Skills Assessment result are stored has been changed to allow for more subjects and more assessment results for each subject.
It is now possible to configure the default Workflow for new Learners.
Creating a Learner with a qualification with criteria linked would error. Now fixed.
Importing Aim Prior Learning and Other Funding Adjustments did not work. Now fixed.
When changing a Learner’s Programme from an Apprenticeship to a non-Apprenticeship TNP records are removed.
When ending an episode, courses that start in the future will be marked as Cancelled before Start, rather than Withdrawn.
Delivery Plan components can now be configured to be Default and Reusable. This will create a single instance on the learner when applying the delivery plan, but allow additional instances to be added later, if required.
Learner file lists now have a filter option to include files from appointments, calls, emails, and tasks.
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PICS branding has been modified to correctly reflect our new position within the Advanced family of products.
Learners
It is now possible to record ILR Employment Status Monitoring “Other Employment Type” (OET) codes against a qualification plan. These will be automatically added to the ILR Employment Status records for any new learners created using that qualification plan.
A PICS Contract can now be entered against a qualification plan. If this is entered, the contract value will be applied to any new learners created using that qualification plan.
The create process for a new learning episode no longer fails if a photo was attached to the previous episode, but the file record had been deleted.
If the delivery target for a learner was changed, existing skill scan answers would not display correctly. Now fixed.
It is now possible to apply a tag to a learner when they first complete a target scan. Each target can be configured to use a specific tag.
Learners can now perform an on demand target scan if they do not have an scheduled scans in the next 2 weeks.
Files tab now has the option to show files from other episodes.
Notes tab now has the option to show notes from applicant and other episodes.
Creating a private learner no longer has empty drop downs for the following fields: LLDDs, Primary LLDD and Disability Self Assessed.
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The Course Session Attendance Summary report now includes the totals row when exported to spreadsheet.
20th April
Learners
Duplicate checking for Learner Reference Number or ULN was not ignoring Applicants like it should have. Now fixed.
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Searching for an applicant’s ULN using the LRS integration no longer results in a “Invalid data sent to LRS” error.
15th April 2023
Learners
The multi learner Change Request list can now be filtered by Sites.
Prior Qualification list now displays the Qualification Reference and Title.
The Learner Validation Audit rule “Work experience aims must not overlap” for Traineeships was incorrectly using the aim’s Planned End Date to determine an overlap with subsequent aims instead of the aim’s Actual End Date. Now fixed.
ILR Employment records shown in Learner Summary Placements are now ordered by start date before removing duplicates.
Contract is now available on the Update All bulk editing tool.
Importing just a Primary LLDDs did not work. Now fixed.
Importing Disability and LLDDs for non ILR Learners did not work. Now fixed.
PICS ILR validation now conforms to version 6 of the ESFA validation rules specification.
A new automation feature for communications has been added, this can also be used to set up reviews, appointments and course enrolment reminders.
Review signatures can only be requested if the review has been competed with a positive attendance outcome.
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General
Saved Reports list can now be sorted by Type, Created, or Name.
Appointment Description has been added to all Appointment reports.
Output of just the code values for User Defined Dropdown and Checklist fields has been added.
Database Administrators can now see all running reports from the Available reports tab, and abort them if required.
Duration can now be output for calls in all Communications reports.
Created By User information can now be output in all Files reports.
Learner
🆕 a Learner ILR Aim FAMs report has been added.
🆕 a Learner Vacancy Application report has been added.
ILR Learning Aim Report generation has been optimised.
ILR Destination & Progression Report generation has been optimised.
ILR Learner Report - Output of Actual OTJ Hours is now available.
Learner Component Report - Filtering by Component Type and Stage is now available.
Learner Component Report - Sampling Method now included in IQA summary.
Learner Sessions Report - Output of Attendance Notes is now available.
Episode Original Start and Learning Original Start dates can now be output on all Learner reports.
Reviews report can now be filtered to reviews that are Late or Overdue by a range of days.
Reviews report can now output the number of days Late or Overdue a review is.
Reviews report can now output if a review was Late or is Overdue.
Learner Data Changes report can now be filtered to records that have the Learner Main Qualification Reference in the Extra Key.
Learner Data Changes report can now be filtered Learner Achieved Target field.
City & Guilds Status can now be output in ILR Aim and Qualifications reports.
Prior Year Partner UKPRN can now be output in ILR Aim reports.
Needs Authorisation, Has Attachment and Unique ID are now available for output on Learner Change Request reports.
Contract code is now available for output.
Other System ID is now available for output.
More ILR Work Placement details are available for output on Placements reports.
Applicants
🆕 a Applicant Vacancy Application report has been added.
Created By User information can now be output.
Forms
Form Report generation has been optimised.
Filtering by Form Template is now available.
Form IDs are now a navigation link in interactive reports / dashboards.
Officer
Task Report - Output of Regarding and Done By Types and IDs is now available.
Projected Funding
Projected Funding By Learner Report - Two new optional outputs, “Total Episode Funding” and “Total Programme Funding” have been added.
Projected Funding By Learning Delivery Report - Two new optional outputs, “Total Aim Funding” and “Total Programme Funding” have been added.
Courses
The Course Session Attendance Summary report is now available. This allows you to see a summary of course attendance records broken down by type (present, late absent). The report is also available for use in dashboard widgets.
For Qualification details are now available for output.
Vacancies
The current user will be defaulted to the officer when they create a vacancy application.
Additional filters added for applications for Has CV Sent, Has Application Sent, Has Ended.
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bksb Integration: Diagnostic Assessments results completed in bksb could override Initial Assessment results in PICS. These are now correctly ignored.
10th February 2023
Learners
PICS ILR validation now conforms to version 5 of the ESFA validation rules specification. Changes to Learning Start Date Postcode rules (LSDPostcode_01 and LSDPostcode_04) have not been implemented as the ESFA are currently reviewing these rules as the changes are not relevant to FM35 Traineeships.
Programme aim DAM FAM fields have been added to qualification plans. These should be used for ILR programmes which use Programme Type 33: Combined Authorities. These are used when creating new learners, and the values from the plan main aim are no longer copied to the programme aim.
Creating a learner from an applicant will now also link the learner to the applicants opportunity without requiring opportunity qualification plan provisions configured.
⚠️ Functional Skills results can now be recorded in a more detailed Level.Sublevel format i.e. “Level 1.2”
Bulk Editing of Start and Due dates has been added to Learner Unit, Learning Outcome and Critera lists.
Tabs on the Summary, Employability and Learning Plan screens can now be hidden for all PICS users. Additional optional tabs have been added to the Portfolio screen.
Restarted apprentices on funding model 35 and Trailblazer apprentices on funding model 81 can now be entered. The configuration setting “Allow new episodes for FM35 Framework Apprenticeship and Trailblazer programmes” must be enabled to allow this.
When using Change Programme, the new group description on step 2 now shows the correct description instead if the previous description assigned to the learner.
The Learner list “Has Course Enrolment” filter now has a “No current or future” option.
Learner Contact Hour display was not sorting the data before displaying the requested number of records. This is now fixed.
The Learner Files list now has sorting options and filtering by File Expiry.
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⚠️ Column visibility on the Course list is now user controlled.
A Main Tag optional field is now available on the Course list.
Delivered For & Delivered By are now available on the Course list as optional fields and filters.
My Courses Only user permission has been renamed to View My Courses, this is now the required permission to see courses. View Courses has been renamed to View All Courses.
Users without View All Courses permission were not able to see any courses they created if Course Leader was not set to themselves after creating the course. Now fixed.
Users without View All Courses permissions was not restricting course base reports to just their courses. Now fixed.
Vacancies
Vacancy Applications now has bulk editing of more fields including Start & End dates, Contact & Officer and Outcome.
Vacancies & Vacancy Applications lists can now be filtered by Employer.
The Vacancy Application list now respects the sites of the linked Learner or Applicant record in Strict Site mode.
⚠️ The Vacancy Applications list is now filtered by the Vacancy’s Employer Sites in Strict Site Mode.
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Clone and retiring any Webform would error if any Create Form Workflow actions had been created but had a status of Incomplete. Now fixed.
User Defined Forms
The validation for checking if all single and multi select answers had a code set would give an error. Now fixed.
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⚠️ Important: Enforced Two Factor Authentication for all users can now be enabled in Users & Access.
There is a new option in Profile > Preferences to remember which sub tab was selected when moving between records.
SmartAssessor Integration, Dashboards, and Surveys, have all completed their beta release period and are generally available to be licenced.
Learners
🆕 A new Document Generation type of “Learner Delivery Plan” has been added to allow generation of “Action Plan” documents based on the new “Learner Delivery Plan” report. Help and guidance will be linked here.
The Planned Hours tab of the ILR now has a clearer display of hours and includes more information on which learning episodes are used to calculate planned hours for the LRN.
If entered, planned learning and EEP Hours for previous year are now displayed on the Planned Hours tab of the ILR.
Entering planned learning and EEP hours for a learning episode now instantly shows the total learner hours.
The ILR learner validation now conforms to version 4 of the ESFA validation rules specification.
Some missing T Level validation rules have been added: ProgType_18, ProgType_19, ProgType_20, AimType_08, AimType_09.
A new Other ESFA Adult (non funded) programme has been added. This can be used to enter learners on programmes with Funding Model 99 aims, such as Multiply.
"Number of Overdue Reviews" and “Number Overdue Components" KPIs have been renamed “Learners with …”
Aims with Funding Model 99 (non funded) can now be added to Community Learning ILR learners.
Number of signatures are now shown on reviews and evidence lists.
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Checkboxes for contact methods should now be more reliable.
Added Main Aim Level and Next of Kin fields to Learner Change Request and Learner File forms.
The Qualification Plan control should now be saving the current state correctly regardless of dates or Aim types.
Learner form Officer contact details should now be populating correctly.
Added the ability to download a copy of the template used to create a WebForm design. This should help when the original has been lost.
When Strict Site Mode is enabled, form designs can no longer be saved if no sites are selected.
If Strict Site Mode is enabled and the logged in user account has site restrictions, the user’s sites are automatically defaulted on any new form designs.
User Defined Forms
Single and multi select questions will no longer allow quotation marks (“), asterisks (*), duplicates in the code section.
Single and multi select questions will no longer allow empty codes.
Single and multi select questions will no longer allow quotation marks (“) in the description section.
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The Tiles on the default home page have been rearranged to show actionable Tiles first.
Document Generation can now set the File Type for the document produced and specify if the document is to be protected from editing. These options can be set in Configuration > Lists & Types > Document Templates for each template.
Learners
⚠️ Important: All references to consortia have been removed from learners, funding and ILR exports. This feature has now been replaced by PICS Contracts.
The default setting for the “Adjust Future Date” option in Reviews can now be set to off in Configurations > Lists & Types > Reviews.
Learner List now has a filter for Course Enrolments with options Current, No Current, Future Starting and No Future Starting.
Create Learner now uses the LRN prefix from the Contract if one is specified.
Create Learner now imports FFI_1 and FFI_ALL correctly.
Create Learner will use the DAM codes from the qualification plan main aim when creating a learner on a Combines Authorities programme (ILR programme type 33).
Create Learner will no long require a Length of Unemployment to be specified for Funding Model 25 Learners whose Employment Status is “11: Unemployed and looking for work”.
Main Tag has been added as an optional display on Learner Lists.
Editing ILR aims with a Programme Type of 00 no longer changes the Aim Type from 4 to 3.
2021 aim fields are now visible if the Export in 2021 flag is set to Always, regardless of the aim’s start date.
Changes to validation rules:
The validation rules have been updated to align with the ESFA Validation Rules specification version 3.
Validation rule LearnDelFAMType_06 is no longer triggered where aims started before the start date of a FAM code in the ILR specification. This matches the ESFA validation rule specification.
Rule R133 has been removed
Validation rules which relate to the “age at the start of the current teaching year” are no longer triggered if the learner does not have any open aims. These are: DateOfBirth_04, DateOfBirth_07, DateOfBirth_20 and DateOfBirth_25.
The “Change Funding Organisation/Group” has been renamed to “Change Programme” to align it with the Create Learner and Filtering options.
Creating a Learner from an Applicant will copy forward the Applicant photo.
Creating a Learner from an Applicant will copy forward or move the Applicant files to the Learner if configured to do so in Configuration > Sections > Learner > New Learner.
ILR fields RUI and PMC have been removed from Learner Create forms.
Aim and Qualification lists Status field now shows Overdue when not ended and past the expected end.
The notes field for Dependants records has now been added.
Email and Phone number are now shown on the list of related Officers.
The Learner List now has optional fields for Provider End Code and Provider Destination.
Ending an Episode will allow the user to delete future dated reviews.
Withhold from ILR export status flags are only show for ILR Learners.
The Learner Caseload screen can now have saved and default filters.
An additional Apprenticeship Service Status option of “AS System Issues“ has been added.
Programme Aim Provider Monitoring fields (A-D) can now be entered against qualification plans.
The LRS Personal Learning Record (PLR) can now be printed.
Review UDFs now show in the notes section rather than the details section of the summary view.
Learners uploading evidence could result in a “Bad Request” error which would prevent them from selecting the evidence links. Now fixed.
Course documents selected to be available for “All Learners” wouldn’t show for all learners. Now fixed.
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Document generation support has been added for Opportunities.
The Opportunities list can now have the fields displayed specified by the user.
The Main Tag optional field has been added to the Opportunities List.
Vacancies
⚠️ Important: In Strict Site Mode vacancies will only be visible to a user if the User has any of the Sites associated with the Employer Organisation linked to the Vacancy.
The Employer Organisation can now be specified when adding a Vacancy.
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New option to just add a survey record to a Learner/Applicant/Officer. And then once added, a system user can manually add the answers on the other persons behalf.
When survey reminders are sent, we now record the number of reminders that have been sent and display this count in the list view.
User Defined Forms
Fields can now be marked dormant to hide them from data capture and reporting.
It is now possible to configure forms for Tasks
Help tooltips are not supported on header and group questions
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Signup forms for applicants can now support a Vacancy ID in the URL to automatically assign the new application to the vacancy.
Review actions that do not yet have a Done date can now be edited even if the review has signatures assigned to it.
The setting to Trust contact hours logged by the learner in eAssessor is now also available and supported in PICS.
Funding reconciler now allows viewing of reports from past years rather than just the one previous year.
Reporting on UDF answers derived from a “multiple select” question would sometimes have a trailing comma on the answer being reported. Now fixed.
16th August 2022
Learners
An “item with the same key has already been added” error no longer occurs when editing ILR aim data.
A “Nullable object must have a value“ error no longer occurs after editing ILR Learner RPL information.
The Apprenticeship Service bulk export now exports RecognisePriorLearning as Yes/No to conform with the upload specification and prevent the error Enter whether prior learning is recognised as ‘true’ or ‘false’.
Filtering the learner list by Status now allows all learners on a status to be shown, regardless of sub-status, without the need to select every sub-status. This change also applies to applicant and organisation lists.
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Data capture, WebForm fields, imports and reporting has been added for the new Recognised Prior Learning fields required in the Apprenticeship Service Bulk Upload.
When downloading a ULN using LRS Web Services, an error no longer appears when the ULN is already assigned to another applicant.
Applicants can now be removed from a workflow with the option to clear the current status and status history. This option functionality is only available to users with the DB Admin permission.
Applicant users can now be created for customers with the Surveys Beta Licence.
Learners
Data capture for learners now allows entry of 2022 ILR data:
It is now possible to record two OET values against an Employment Status record.
OET codes 2 and 3 are now available.
Skills Bootcamps can now be recorded with Funding Model 37 and Programme Type 32. Contract Reference Number and DAM FAMs have been enabled on programme aims to allow for this.
Combined Authorities programmes can be recorded with Programme Type 33. Learning Start Date Postcode has been enabled on programme aims to allow for this.
Preferred Method of Contact (PMC) cannot be recorded for learners starting on/after 1st August 2022.
Restricted Use Indicator (RUI) codes 6 and 7 cannot be recorded for learners starting on/after 1st August 2022.
Aim HE field Student instance identifier (NUMHUS) is no longer available in the 2022 ILR and has been moved to the 2021 fields section.
The LDM code list has been updated.
All historic data entry fields for 2020 have been replaced with 2021 fields.
Learner Validation has been updated to conform to the ESFA 2022 ILR validation rules specification.
Data capture, WebForm fields, imports, reporting has been added for the new Recognised Prior Learning fields required in the Apprenticeship Service Bulk Upload.
The new Recognised Prior Learning fields required in the Apprenticeship Service Bulk Upload are now included.
Data capture has been improved for aim Export In Year and Historic fields to allow for incorrect data to be corrected.
When creating a PICS login for a learner with multiple episodes, any existing login on a different learning episode will be moved to the selected episode instead of a second login account being created.
It is now possible to manually move a learner login from one learning episode to another.
Learners can now be removed from a workflow with the option to clear the current status and status history. This option functionality is only available to users with the DB Admin permission.
Users with Portfolio Edit permissions can now edit learner notes.
Learners signing reviews can now complete the learner rating field.
Signatures for Reviews and Evidence that have not yet been completed now have an option to Send a Reminder.
Deleting a review which had some signatures attached would appear to succeed even if the review wasn’t deleted. An error message is now correctly shown if the review could not be deleted due to it having signatures.
Gap Analysis: The mark achievements as done feature will now work with units without outcomes, and outcomes without criteria, rather than just at criteria level.
Users with Edit Portfolio permission can now create contact hours from course sessions.
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Output of just the Qualification Plan code is now available.
User Defined Forms
It is now possible to configure visibility restrictions for User Defined Forms
User Defined Forms now have a summary page
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Surveys for PICS are now available in BETA for anyone with an existing eSurveys licence.
Vacancies
Vacancy matching lists now have an Export to Excel option in the search filters More drop down.
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Qualification Progress values were not being updated when editing achievements data. Now fixed.
10th June 2022
Learners
The Qualification Tracking dates are now shown on the ILR Aim details.
A JOBTITLE field has been added to Imports and PICS forms, see Learner Import Specification in PICSWeb for more details.
Creating a new episode with WebForms would not carry over UDF Answers. Now fixed.
When editing ILR Planned Learning / EEP Hours, PICS no longer includes hours from non-exported learning episodes with Funding Organisation SFXX or YPXX in the total hours calculation.
Deleted ILR learning aims no longer show as “Non-ILR” aims if the deletion fails because the aim is the learner’s Main Qualification Aim.
Updating a Learner's email address will now update their username if they have a eAssessor/PICS Portfolio user account.
Learner Reviews now have a new Complete process wizard including the ability for remote signatures to be collected from the learner, officers, and employer contacts.
The Learner Caseload screen now uses the list of officers that the user can access for providing a list of officers to see the caseload for.
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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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When filtering lists by Status or Workflow Status, using the “None Of” option would sometimes exclude too many items.
Learners
Review Ratings fields have been brought over from desktop.
Document Generation is now available for Units, Contact Hours and Enrolments.
Workflow Status is now an optional column on the Learner List
Next of Kin details are now available on the Additional tab when creating a new Learner.
Bug Fix: Change Apprenticeship Standard Code was not limited to the Standards of the same level as the Learner is currently.
Learner Qualification list can now be filtered by Contract.
Learner Placement list can now be filtered to Is Current.
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Improvement: The Projected Funding reports now have an option to show “Postcode Uplifts”.
The Interactive QAR Report no longer includes excluded leavers in the Achievers total if they are excluded from Achievement Rates.
The QAR now has additional optional fields to display the SSA code and title. These show the standard/framework SSA code for Apprenticeship Programme reports, and the aim SSA code for other report types. This is consistent with the data used by the ESFA.
The ILR Learners Report no longer shows Yes in the Has ILR Aims with LSF column when the LSF aims contain a null code entered in desktop PICS.
8th April 2022
Learners
Learner validation now includes an audit check for FM25 Condition Of Funding.
Reviews: A new attended option “By Video” has been added
It is no longer possible to record Planned Learning Hours multiple times when creating a learner and moving back from the Additional page to the Programme page.
When the ILR Export Status of a ILR learner is changed, the learner-level Planned Learning and EEP Hours values are recalculated.
The Planned Learning and EEP Hours values are no longer removed when the hours are edited on a Withheld learner.
Learner change logs for payment records (table pcTrnPay) now include an extra key showing the Expected Date, Actual Date and unique ID for the payment record to assist in identifying which record has been changed.
Entering payment records (including automatically generated loan payments) no longer result in a “Maximum key has been reached” error.
Deleting a learner placement that was a custom relationship type would result in a “Placement not found” error. Now fixed.
The Status field is now displayed in the Learner Assessments list.
The Grade and Cross Reference fields are now displayed in the Learner Assessments list if there is data to display.
Learner Validation now includes Audit warnings for conditions reported in the OfS HE data credibility quality report.
Evidence: It is now possible to clear the IQA and EQA date on an evidence file for users who have the Database Administrator permission.
Qualifications: It is now possible to clear the IQA and EQA date on a qualification for users who have the Database Administrator permission.
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A new icon is now available on several of the main screens to allow each user to make that screen their home page in PICS.
Learners
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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Attendance Report: New optional output field for Attendance Guided Learning Hours
User list: New option in Update All to set the User Group.
Reports: Report to Show filter was not correctly filtering to “Mine and Shared” on first load. Now fixed.
Learner Reports: Break in Learning filter was broken for Exclude On Break In Learning. Now fixed.
Learner Report: System Status filter has been added.
Learner Qualification Report: Qualification Awarding Body is now available as an optional field.
Learner Qualification Report: OneFile ID and Smart Assessor ID are now available as optional fields.
User permissions: Vacancies can now be used by Light Touch SaaS users.
Forms: Create button was incorrectly checking for both Form Create & Form Capture Users rather than checking for either. Now fixed.
Forms: Approving a Learner or Applicant form was not attaching a copy of the form to the Learner or Applicant in certain instances. Now fixed.
Organisations and Officers: Archive All is now available from the main list.
4th February 2022
Learners
“Classic” New Learner has been removed.
A list of Reviews for multiple Learner (similar to Learner Payments) has been added to Learners > Additional Sections.
More values have been added to Apprenticeship Service status to make managing records easier.
It is now possible to select multiple records and add the same Note to them all.
The End Episode and Aims tool now offers the ability to Delete future PMRs.
The Apprenticeship Service upload tool no longer requires you to filter by AS Cohort.
Core and Main Aims are now identified in Qualification & Aim lists.
It is now possible to select multiple Payment records and set the Expected date to either a specific date, or move the existing date back or forward a number of days.
A display of ILR Planned Off the Job Hours to Date has been added to the Contact and Learning Hours screen. This uses the expected and elapsed days of learning taken from the Programme Aims.
It is now possible to update the LRS Other Verification Text to blank after changing the Verification Type from Other to another value. Previously this action would result in a WSEC0001 error from the LRS.
The learner validation now includes rules LearnDelFAMType_79, 80 and 81. These validate that FFI code 1 (Fully Funded aims) has been used correctly.
The Learner validation no longer shows an error when the Start Type is set to Restart.
City and Guilds fields against Learner (Enrolment Number), Learner Qualifications (Registration Status) and Units (Grade and Status) have been added. These are only available to customers using the City and Guilds interface and must be requested from Pellcomp.
Dated Changes can now be created and deleted.
Change Requests
An email notification is sent to any user who is assigned to authorise a change request.
Authorising Officer and Authorised Date are now shown on the list of change requests.
The change request list can now be filtered by authorised date.
Framework Tracking has been renamed Apprenticeship Tracking as it was visible on all apprentice learner records.
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It is now possible to select multiple records and add the same Note to them all.
Vacancies
Recruit An Apprentice vacancies have a new tab for selecting the qualifications candidates should have.
Recruit An Apprentice tab has had a significant rework and many fields have been changed or removed to match the new API Specification
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WebForms: Fixed a bug that prevented checkbox answers from being saved.
8th December 2021
Learners
Framework Tracking information has been moved to the Delivery Plan section.
The new New Learner process “Create (beta)” has been promoted and now appears just as “Create” with the old methods now labelled “classic” - these are expected to be removed in early 2022.
Delivery Target and Model for a new Learner can now be defaulted from the Qualification Plan.
Qualification Reference has been added to the Learner Payments record edit screen.
Break-in-Learning support has been added to Commercial Programme learners
Filters for the 5 main officer roles have been added to the Learner and Learner Qualifications lists.
Filters for the main Placement types have been added to the Learner and Learner Qualifications lists.
LRS Privacy Notice Seen has been added to the New Learner “Learner Details” form.
LDMs have been added to the New Learner “Programme Details” form.
Additional fields have been added to the Learner Payments import.
Apprenticeship Costs are now shown for Apprenticeship Trailblazer learners.
A qualification can no longer be deleted if it is the learner’s main aim. The main aim must be changed to a different aim before deletion.
Suitable Source of Funding values are now defaulted on new FM35 learners if their postcode is in a devolved area.
The learner validation will now warn if an aim’s Learning Start Date Postcode does not correspond to the correct SOF for devolved aims.
Learner Payment records can now have Cost Centres set.
Qualification Aims can be added to the Learner with any default values and dates applied.
The learner validation now includes audit messages to highlight possible errors. These are also available in the learner validation report.
DAM code 062 is now available for aim starting on or after 1st August 2020.
When creating a new Learner if the default SOF is 105 or 107 it will not be applied to non-funded aims.
Learner Payment records can now have their Paid date set to the Expected date in the bulk edit.
Fixed a bug where Learner Change Requests wouldn’t show without applying an additional filters for site restricted users.
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An optional field for EDS reference has been added.
A filter for EDS reference has been added.
The organisations tab now allows adding Head Offices and Branches.
Vacancies
Recruit an Apprentice vacancies and their upload status are now indicated on the Vacancies List.
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WebForms may not have presented the user with a picklist for Employer and some Officer fields. Now fixed.
Some form signature emails which bounced were showing as Delivered. Now fixed.
Saving an ILR Employment Status record could result in an error if either zero or multiple external officers were linked to the employer organisation. Now fixed.
PMR and Incentive Payment records were being created without Debit or Credit markers. Now fixed.
The beta version of the New Learner process would error if there were no Contracts defined. Now fixed.
22nd October 2021
Learners
A new New Learner process if now available - see Creating a New Learner in PICSWeb for more information.
A “A Prior Attainment record already exists” error no longer appears when entering a second episode for a learner where the start date is the same as the existing episode.
Learner list now has optional fields for Learner Reference Number & Employer.
Bulk Delete, Archive, and Reinstate are now available for Learners.
ILR DAM (Devolved Area Monitoring) fields can now be imported, and can be added to WebForms.
The display and editing of ILR Planned Learning and EEP Hours has been improved.
When adding or editing ILR Employment records, we now attempt to align the learner Placement records with the ILR records.
Changing the Learner Reference Number for a commercial learner no longer generates an error.
It is now possible to unlink a learning episode from a learner - this can be done from the Other Episodes tab of a different learning episode for the same learner.
Non-yeared learner FAMs now show in the FAM list on the Learner FAM tab.
PICS now uses the correct fields for Employment Status at Start/End for Commercial learners.
DAM FAM codes and descriptions have been updated from version 3 of the ESFA code list.
The validation will no longer show an error if there are no prior attainment records (rule PriorAttain_01) if all aims in that learning episode ended before 1st August 2021.
The LRS “Ability to Share” field has been renamed to “Privacy Notice Seen” to align with the LRS portal.
Bulk Edit and Delete is available for Reviews.
Qualifications linked to Commercial learners can now be deleted. This will not delete any units but will remove the qualification-unit links.
Qualifications can now be deleted for Commercial learners.
The “Export in 2020” field for aims is now visible if the learning episode started before 1st August 2021. Previously it was only visible if the aim started before that date.
Learner Qualifications Bulk Edit now includes Main Assessor, Main Internal Verifier, and Main External Verifier officers.
Learner Payment Invoiced, Claimed and Reconciled dates are now available to edit.
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