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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

  • Data capture for learners now allows entry of 2024 ILR data:

    • Three new programmes have been added for capturing the new ILR funding models:

      • Tailored Learning (FM11)

      • Adult Skills Fund (FM38, no programme type code)

      • Combined Authorities Programme (Adult Skills Fund) (FM38, programme type 33)

    • The Tailored Learning Outcome field has been added.

    • An additional OET Employment Status Monitoring field has been added.

    • Planned Hours is now available for Tailored Learning component aims.

    • LLDD code 18 (down syndrome) is now available.

    • All historic data entry fields for 2022 have been replaced with 2023 fields.

    • Planned Learning and EEP Hours fields for 2025 are now available.

    • OET, NLM, SOF, LDM and DAM code lists have been updated.

    • T Level Tranistion Programme has been renamed T Level Foundation Year.

    • Framework and Pathway codes are no longer required for learners starting from 1st August 2024.

  • Learner Validation has been updated to conform to the ESFA 2024 ILR validation rules specification. However we have not removed references to Traineeships or Destination and Progression records as these rules can still be used to validate existing data within PICS.

  • The Learner List has a new optional column of “Learner ID”, this shows the learner’s internal PICS LMS episode ID.

  • The Advanced Learner Loans payment calculator has been updated to generate the first expected payment on the third Wednesday of the month following the second Thursday of the month on or after the loan start date.

Miscellaneous

  • Files with no file extension or where the extension is .svg or .htm can no longer be uploaded.

Month End

  • ILR Exports conforming to the 2024 ESFA ILR Specification can now be produced. 2022 ILR files can no longer be created, but existing files can be downloaded.

  • The QAR Reconciler can now read 23/24 QAR data extracts.

  • Funding calculations have been updated for the 2024 ILR Year, this includes the addition of Adult Skills Fund FM38 funding.

Reports

  • Changes to the Qualification Achievement Rates report:

    • The QAR report has been updated to conform to the 2023/24 QAR Techincal Specifications.

      • Traineeship aims are now included in the Education and Training report.

      • T Level Adult Pilot aims (LDM384) are now excluded from the E&T report.

    • A new option is available for the QAR report: Include previous-year Overdue Planned Breaks as withdrawals. This allows aims which started a planned break in the year before the report year to be included as withdrawals (as they were previously), or exclude them from the report. This is to remove withdrawals where the learner could theoretically still return before the year and and not negatively affect the achievement rates. Aims which are excluded are included in the Minimum Achievement Rate forecast as withdrawals.

    • The QAR calculation to determine the year an aim was first reported completed or withdrawn (which affects the overall/hybrid end year) now uses change logs from all years, not just the report year. This means that totals for previous years should not change when the report is run for a subsequent year.

    • Aims which ended more than 4 years ago but the Achievement Rates Overall Year override field is set to a year within the last 4 years will now be included in the QAR report.

  • Learner reports containing ILR data have now been updated to use the 2024 version of annual fields, unless the report field explicitly shows a different year.

Tasks

  • The Cancelled status is now available for Tasks using workflows.

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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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  • 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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  • New Feature: OneFile integration is now available in PICS. If you have been using the Desktop OneFile interface, please read the following guide: Image Removed

  • New Feature: Survey responses can be now viewed for Learners, Applicants, Officers and Organisations. This is available via the relevant summary screens or using the relevant Survey Response report.

  • New Feature: Configuration > Delivery > Qualifications now has an Update All that allows editing of Qualification Types and Status.

  • New Feature: A document template for ILR Learners with Aims has been added.

  • Improvement: Report filtering and output of Learner Current Workflow Status.

  • Improvement: Opportunities Report now includes fields for "Last Completed Activity Date" and "Days Since Last Completed Activity".

  • Improvement: The ILR Learner tab on the ILR Summary page now includes all fields required for the ILR learner record. Previously, some of these fields could only be found on the top-level learner summary.

  • Improvement: ILR Aim Report now has fields for “Expected Days on Aim”, “Elapsed Days on Aim“, “Funding Qualifying Period“, and “Qualified for Funding“.

  • Improvement: Learner Qualification and ILR Aims Reports can be filtered by Qualification Type.

  • Improvement: Applicant Update All now includes Main Officer, Mentor, and Site editing.

  • Improvement: The WebForms Qualification Plan fields now include a separate Aim Title field and will output to the downloaded document exactly as displayed.

  • Improvement: WebForm Qualification Plan aim fields will now not display dates if the aim is not wanted.

  • Improvement: WebForms will update the title of the form to Learner\Applicants name if there is one.

  • Fix: Overall and Timely Transfer is now being calculated correctly in the QAR report when a learner transfers to new learning aim at the same provider.

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