This page lists some of the recent changes to PICS. We also have a list of known issues being investigated.
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9th November
Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL)
Various new features are now available to early adopters to assist in the calculation of adjustments to apprenticeship duration and off-the-job (OTJ) hours as a result of RPL. These include:
Assigning duration and OTJ hour reductions to KSB stages
Validating target (skills) scans to ensure an appropriate KSB stage for the applicant is selected
Using the validated scan to calculate reductions to duration, OTJ hour and negotiated training price (TNP)
Applying any reductions to the learner record when created from the applicant
Appointments
Learner and Applicant attendee names are now shown in the event popup in the appointment calendar view.
New bookmarks have been added to the appointment workflow transition Notification action:
Learner Main advisor Email
Learner Main advisor Mobile
Automations
Some tooltips for contact methods in Applicant, Appointment, and Organisation based communication automations incorrectly referenced “Learners”. Now fixed.
New bookmarks have been added to Appointment communication automations:
Appointment Organiser Mobile Number
Appointment Organiser Email Address
Training Officer/Careers Officer/Placement Officer/Mentor First Names
Training Officer/Careers Officer/Placement Officer/Mentor Surname
Training Officer/Careers Officer/Placement Officer/Mentor Email address
Training Officer/Careers Officer/Placement Officer/Mentor Mobile Number
New bookmarks have been added to Course Enrolment communication automations:
Course Leader Email Address
Course Leader Mobile Number
Delivered By Name
Delivered By Address (1 - 5)
Delivered By Postcode
Next Session Start Time
Learners
Learner FAMs EDF, HNS and SEN can now be imported when creating a new learner record.
A Plan ILR Planned Hours import field has been added to WebForms to show the Planned Hours set against the Qualification Plan selected in the dropdown, if that field is also on the form.
When creating a Task from a learning component with a Task Template containing UDF fields, the new task now contains all UDF answers from the template where the location is set to Create & Details or Details. Previously, only answers for location Details would be defaulted.
When viewing a Course component where the learner is enrolled on the course, a new Course Sessions tab shows a list of course sessions relevant to that enrolment.
The MathGrade_04 and EngGrade_04 validation rules incorrectly referred to the HNS FAM code. Now corrected to refer to MCF and EDF respectively.
Weekly working hours can now be added to learners during the creation process. These will be used in future features to calculate and validate the minimum required off-the-job hours for an apprentice.
Month End
The ILR exporter no longer sends apprenticeship financial records with a date after the year end.
The ILR exporter now longer suppresses achievement dates after the year end unless the aim funding model is 36 or 99.
The funding calculations were not paying LSF payments for Adult Skills Fund learners with a planned duration less than one month. Now fixed.
Achievement payments were not being paid for some devolved Adult Skills Fund learners. Now fixed.
The Funding Calculator’s T-Level funding report now displays the T Level Framework and Pathway
Reports
The QAR English or Maths field could show the opposite value for some learning aims. Now fixed.
The ILR Aims report now populates the Aim Planned Hours field for Tailored Learning component aims.
A Tailored Learning Outcome Area field has been added to the ILR Aims report.
FM38 (Adult Skills Fund) aims are now included in the Education and Training QAR report.
FM11 (Tailored Learning) aims are now included in the renamed Community and Tailored Learning QAR report.
22nd October
Reports
Officer Report: New Optional Field for Additional ID
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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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