Page Comparison

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

...

13th November

Sign Up Forms

• When editing or creating a sign up form, the list of new

...

• fields to add was always empty, which isn’t very useful. We’ve put the available fields back in now.

12th November

Forms

• Remote Signature Sequencing was not being respected. Now fixed.

Month End

• Reports created from Funding Reconciliation would be blank. Now fixed.

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

Applicants

• A new configuration setting has been added, “Automatically generated Learner Reference Number”, which will automatically generate Learner Reference Numbers for applicants added to the system.

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

7th October

Files

• Learner and Applicant File Deletions would fail. Now fixed.

• Downloading a file from Review signing as a guest would ask the user to login. It now recognises their guest status.

• Signup forms including attachments could error if the title of the file was over 50 characters long. Now fixed.

5th October

Learners

• The ADL and ALB FAM values recorded against learning aims were not being set when a learner is reinstated after a break in learning. Now fixed.

• The Aim Planned Hours field is now visible when creating a new Tailored Learning learner. If a value is stored against the main aim in the qualification plan, this will be used to populate the field.

• The ILR validation now conforms to version 3 of the ILR validation rules specification.

Month End

• The Apps Co-Investment Contributions funding reconciler has been updated to recognise the multi-sheet xlsx version of the report.

Reports

• The output options “Learner Funding Age Band” and “Aim Funding Age Band” found on some ILR based reports were not outputting a value for FM38 Adult Skills learners. Now fixed.

• Three new fields have been added to learner reports:

  • Functional Skills Maths Required

  • Functional Skills English Required

  • Functional Skills ICT Required

• Some small optimisations have been applied to the reporting tools in general.

...

• We are implementing a rate limit of 100 endpoint calls per minute on the PICS API. The API will return status 429 for users that exceed the limit as which point you will be required to wait (up to) a minute before being allowed to do more calls. Authentication calls are not included in this limit and have a separate one of their own.

25th September

Month End

• The FM36 Funding Calculator was generating Co-Investment Payment claim items instead of Levy Payment claim items for Levy funded apprentices that started on or after April 1st, 2024 and were under 22 years old when they started their programme. Now fixed.

...

• Appointment start time would be incorrectly defaulted when using appointment templates. Now fixed.

21st September

Month End

• Aims starting in the 2024 ILR Year on programmes that started in previous years were sometimes preventing some learners from generating funding when running the funding calculations for the 2023 ILR Year. We now exclude aims starting in future years from the funding calculations.

14th September

Appointments

• The appointment type can no longer be changed if the appointment is linked to a PICSWeb template, regardless of the version.

• Calendar views are now refreshed when an appointment status is updated in the preview screen.

• iCal Feeds were starting to take a little while to load, so we have speeded them up a bit.

...

• Using a links to complete a web form, sign a review, or complete a survey could result in an error about an Invalid Token. Now fixed.

7th September

Month End

• Earning Adjustment Statement for 2024 is now available.

...

• When using the Notification status transition post-action to send an email, any email bounces are now detected and shown on the Recent History tab of the record where the status was changed. The Retry button can be used to resend the email after any changes to the email address has been made.

2nd September

Month End

• The FM38 Adult Skills Fund funding calculations were not calculating achievement payments for North East Mayoral Combined Authority (SOF 120) learners recorded with DAM 002. Now fixed.

31st August

Learners

• DAM code lists have been updated

• Document generator for ILR learners could fail to merge ILR specific fields. Now fixed.

Month End

• The FM38 Adult Skills funding calculations have been updated to match the latest version of the FIS.

• Study Programme Historic Rates are now available for 2024.

• Process Warnings have been updated within the calculation process.

• Funding Reconciliations are now available for 2024

Reports

• Cancelling the report options screen could be a touch on the slow side, so we’ve speeded it up.

...

• Starting a trial licence, such as the Apprenticeship Accountability Framework Dashboard, could take an hour for the trial to kick in. These will now start immediately.

30th August

Month End

• When running funding calculations for the 2023 ILR year, the FM36 Apprenticeship Funding Calculation was excluding aims from episodes where the episode originally started before the 2024 ILR year and there exists a restarted programme aim starting in the 2024 ILR year. Now fixed.

...

• Rule LearnDelFAMType_02 now displays the correct funding model in the error message.

• Rule LearnDelFamType_117 is no longer triggered for aims with a LARS Learning Delivery Genre code EOU.

17th August

Learners

• ILR Validation:

  • LearnDelFAMType_22: The 2023 Full or co-funding indicator (FFI FAM) must not be recorded for aims with 2023 Funding Model 10, is no longer triggered whem the 2023 Funding Model is 10.

  • LearnDelFAMType_111: The 2023 Full or co-funding indicator (FFI FAM) is required for aims with 2023 Programme Type 32 is now triggered if the 2023 Programme Type is 32 and there is no 2023 FFI value entered.

  • ILR Export Status is Required is no longer triggered for Destination and Progression records.

• The 2022 export status fields are no longer visible in Destination and Progression records.

• The Action Plan validation level can now be configured in Configuration > Sections > Learners > Validation. When set to Error, Action Plan documents and WebForms can not be created.

• Deleted task records are now hidden when viewing learner components.

• When creating a task component using a task template, any UDF answers from the template are now populated against the task.

• When adding a learning aim using the Add Learning Aim from Qualification Plan menu item, any aim Provider Monitoring fields specified in the qualification plan will now be populated against the new aim.

Month End

• Funding Reconciliation reports were duplicating data across report sheets. Now fixed.

10th August

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.

• Scope ordering on the radar charts for target scans was not respecting decimal points in the scope code. Now fixed.

...

• Files with no file extension or where the extension is .svg, .htm, .py, and .apk 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.

...

• Using the Add Another feature of provisions with certain types of provision would fail to correctly reload the create page. Now fixed.

29th July

Month End

• Funding calculations were failing if there were any learners with a missing residential postcode or aim delivery postcode. Now fixed.

28th July

Learners

• Target Scan answers can now be exported to a spreadsheet from the Target Scan Summary page.

...

• On the dashboard list, the export to Excel option would not work. Now fixed.

Reports

• The learner files report field for File Description was incorrectly outputting the File Title field value. This has been corrected, and additionally a File Title field has been added.

• The Learner Event Files report has been optimised to increase performance.

• We have clarified the difference between Sharing and Sending reports to users and teams with some help prompts on the save and scheduled tab when setting up reports.

...

• Target Scope, such as Knowledge, Skills, and Behaviours, now support decimal points in their codes.

Month End

• The Funding Calculation process has been optimised to increase performance.

• The FM36 Apprenticeship funding calculations were incorrectly paying 90 and 365 day payments from the start date of a restarted Programme Aim. Now fixed.

...

• URL question types would not accept multiple URL parameters in the URL. Now Fixed.

18th July

Month End

• The FM36 Apprenticeship funding calculator was incorrectly paying 90 day and 365 day incentive payments based on the start date of any restarted programme aims instead of only the start date of the original programme aim. Now fixed.

...

• URL questions that contained the & symbol between parameters would not work correctly. Now fixed.

27th June

Month End

• The Skills Bootcamp Occupancy funding reconciler was throwing the error “Cannot get a text value from a bool cell”. Now fixed

...

• OTJ Hour indicators are no longer set to true for aims starting before 01/08/2019.

• The No Actual OTJ Hours recorded at Apprenticeship completion and Minimum Actual OTJ Hours Requirement Not Met fields are now only set for completed aims where Completion Status = 2. Minimum OTJ Hours Requirement Not Met (Planned or Actual) will not check actual hours if the aim is not completed with Completion Status = 2.

• A new report output is available: Expected Days of Learning (OTJ). This field shows the number of days between the start and planned end dates of the earliest programme aim within the episode. Expected Weeks of Learning (OTJ) now uses this field to calculate the number of weeks used in the minimum OTJ hours calculations - so the minimum OTJ hours will no longer change if a learner ends their learner before or after their planned end date.

• The Create Apprenticeship Accountability Dashboard tool no longer creates widgets which identify where there are more than 250 records which are withdrawn, past planned end or on planned break. This is to reflect the June update of the AAF specification.

Learners

• Review Summary now includes Planned and Actual OTJ hours to date for the review.

• Review Signatures: It is possible to default which signatures are required when completing a review

...

• There is a new configuration setting to create OTJ records in PICS from OTJ records in Smart Assessor.

Automations

• It is now possible to schedule email notifcations for Applicants, Learners, Reviews, Appointments and Enrolments at a specific time of day instead of 05:00. This feature was already available when sending SMS messages.

...

• 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.

...

• 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.

...

• Endpoints have been added to list and download file attachments for tasks.

• Endpoints have been added to add, edit and delete functional skills assessments for learners and applicants.

Applicants

• A new Payment Records tab is now available on the applicant summary screen where payments with a custom type can be entered against the applicant.

• A new Recruit an Apprentice System ID has been added to applicants. This is visible when the Recruit an Apprentice integration is enabled. When importing RAA vacancy application files, this ID is now used in addition to the Other System ID to match applicants in the files to existing PICS applicants.

• A new configuration option has been added for applicants: Validate Applicant’s Age Against Qualification Plan Age Checks. When enabled, editing an applicant will validate the applicant’s age (based on the Available To Start date) against the age limits definited against the qualification plan. The Programme tab will also display an error message when the applicant’s age is not within the qualification plan’s age limits.

• Applicants logging into the system would receive an error when previewing a course session or opening their record in bksb. Now fixed.

...

• 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

  • RAA Imports

  • OTJ Hours imports

  • Learner Payment imports

• 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.

Reports

• The ESFA have published new thresholds for the Apprenticeship Accountability Framework - specifically the indicators for Withdrawals, Past Planned End and Break in Learning. These thresholds have now been updated in PICS when generating a new AAF Dashboard - existing dashboards will need to be edited manually or recreated. To facilitate this, the AAF report includes two new fields to identify apprentices who are past their planned end date by more than 180 days, or by 90-180 days.

• A new Applicant Payments Report is now available.

• A new Officers File Report is now available.

• The Learner Files Report has a new optional output: File Officer.

• All reports that display Learner ILR data now require the View Learner Programme (ILR/PRaP) user permission.

• The Learner Payments Report contains a new option, Include TNP Records, which will include TNP records in the report.

• When nested output options were selected for the same entity type, only the options selected for the first nested entity would be respected. Now fixed.

Month End

• Historic episodes that have been Archived are now included in the FM36 funding calculations. This is essential for the funding calculations to determine any required adjustments due to previous earnings for an apprentice’s programme.

...

• As part of OneAdvanced suite of systems, PICS is known as the Learner Management System. We have started to transition towards using this naming convention within the system and you will start to see PICS Learner Management System, or more commonly PICS LMS, in any system level notifications and emails.

13th May

Reports

• Interactive Run Now reports would not show in the available reports list. Now Fixed.

...

• 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.

Month End

• The FM36 Apprenticeship funding calculation now calculates non-levy apprentices aged below 22 years old who started on or after April 1st, 2024, as fully funded by the ESFA.

Reports

• The Funding Forecasting Planned Starts Breakdown report was showing incorrect periods on rows where there is no actual funding for learners on that row’s qualification plan. Now fixed.

...

• There was a issue affecting some automated workflow transitions that could cause them to not run as expected. This has now been fixed and automations that failed to run should run as expected when they are next triggered.

Reports

• A new template, “Funding Forecasting Planned Starts Breakdown Report” has been added. This report will allow reporting on Planned Start forecasted funding and actuals funding for a Planned Starts Profile.

Month End

• Funding Forecasting has a new report option under the Planned Starts Profile’s export menu, “Funding Forecasting Planned Starts Breakdown” which will preload the selected Funding Profile and Planned Starts Profile into the Funding Forecasting Planned Starts Breakdown Report within the Reports workspace.

...

• 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.

...

• 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.

Reports

• A new Expected Weeks of Learning (OTJ) field has been added to the ILR Learners report. this matches the calculation method used in the OTJ Hours Calculator published by the ESFA.

• There have been several improvements to the Apprenticeship Accountability report to align the indicators with the ESFA dashboard calculations:

  • We’ve added several new Off-the-Job Hours fields to the report based on the recent OTJ Hours Calculator published by the ESFA. The Create Apprenticeship Accountability Dashboard feature has also been updated with three new widgets including these fields with thresholds matching the ESFA supplementary indicators specification.

    • Minimum OTJ Hours Required

    • Minimum Planned OTJ Hours Requirement Not Met

    • Minimum Actual OTJ Hours Requirement Not Met

    • Minimum OTJ Hours Requirement Not Met (Planned or Actual)

  • We now include more programme aims in the report:

    • The aim ended before the report period but the Achievement Date is during the period.

    • The Export in Year field is set to Always for the ILR year of the Report Date.

    • The learning episode contains any aim (programme or component) where the Export in Year field is set to Always for the ILR year of the Report Date.

  • Aims ending within 42 days of their start date are now only excluded if they not restarted aims (RES FAM = 1)

  • Aims are no longer included in the report if their start date, or the date they were entered into PICS, is after the Report Date.

  • Aim end dates are no longer included in the report if they were first entered into PICS after the Report Date.

• Interactive reports and Dashboard widgets which use the Sum function on a decimal or currency field no longer show an “Unable to cast object” error.

• Saved interactive reports can error when creating the charts with an error “Unable to cast object…”. Now fixed.

• The Saved Reports list spreadsheet output now includes the users and teams a report is shared with.

...

• 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.

• The Create button is no longer available when viewing ILR Exports for 2021 or earlier.

...

• 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.

Reports

• A new Learner Occupancy by Period report is now available. This will show all learners, broken down by period (calendar month or ILR period), and show the number of learners who started, ended or were in-learning in that period. The interactive output of the report will show a table displaying all periods and the total learners included in that period. This can also be published using dashboard widgets via the Saved Report widget type. This report is intended to replace the Officer Caseload report previously available in desktop PICS.

• A new Column Analysis Field is now available in Interactive Reports and Dashboard widgets. This can be used with Table reports and when a field is selected, all values from that field will be shown as columns in the report, in addition to a Total column, similar to a pivot table in a spreadsheet. As part of this change, we’ve renamed Analysis Columns to Row Analysis Fields which provides a better description of their function.

...

• 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.

Reports

• The No Planned OTJ Hours recorded and No Actual OTJ Hours recorded at Apprenticeship completion fields in the Apprenticeship Accountability Framework report are now only set for aims with Funding Model 36. This is because these fields are not available in the ILR for other learners.

...

• New sort option on Vacancy list for the “Closes” field.

Automations

• Email Review Communication Automations now have the option to CC in the Reviewer and Review Mentor.

...

• Changes to tags on records are now included in the change logs.

Reports

• 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.

...

• Creating and editing officers would allow the role to be skipped. This is not valid, so the role is now a required field.

Reports

• A new report template has been added: “Applicant Course Session Report”.

• Running reports which have become “stuck” and are no longer running can now be cancelled using the View All Running Reports button on the Available Reports tab within Reports.

• The Funding Late Notified template would error when outputting custom relationships as an optional field. Now fixed.

• The Officer report template would sometimes error when outputting custom relationships as an optional field. Now fixed.

• The Users Report now has an optional output for User Phone Number.

Appointments

• Filters on calendars with more than one option selected would not work correctly. Now fixed.

Month End

• The status labels within the funding calculator and funding reconciler have been updated to be consistent with the rest of PICS.

• Planned funding based on Planned Starts within Funding Forecasting was not respecting mid-year rate changes in the LARS. Now fixed.

...

• Added the ability to default file attachments for WebForms. Defaulted files can come from the form owner or the entity the form was created from.

• Converting to File WebForms could sometimes leave UDF questions locked when they were not meant to be. Now Fixed.

Automations

• Applicant automations now have an additional filter for Expected End Date.

• SMS messages can now be scheduled to deliver later in the day for each automation.

...

• 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.

Applicants

• Incorrect validation meant that when editing applicants with an “AS RPL Identified” value of “Recognised prior learning has been identified”, it was not possible to save the applicant unless the “AS Duration Reduced By” value was 1 or greater. Now fixed.

Reports

• 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.

Applicants

• Previous Surname is now available in Applicants as well as in learners.

• Using delivery models and target scans required some learner permissions to be fully functional. Applicant only permissions are now supported.

• Education Health Care plan is now available within Applicant Programmes. This has also been added to Signup Forms and WebForms, and “APP_EHC” has also been added as a new header to the Applicant bulk import.

...

• USD is now available as a currency option for opportunities.

Reports

• Course Session and Course Enrolment Reports: Main Tag and Course Tags fields would only work if attendance based fields had been selected. Now fixed to include tags whenever they are requested regardless of other field selection.

• Applicant based reports now have an additional output option, “ILR EHC”.

• The Course Session Attendance Report has had the following output options added: Programme Type, Attendee Start Date, Attendee Expected End, Attendee Actual End, Sex, Disability, Age, Ethnicity, Episode Planned Hours, ILR Planned Hours, and Programme Status.

• The filter “All Appointments between dates” on Applicant, Officer and Organisation appointment reports is now working as intended.

...

• Users of PICS Skill Scans from Smart Assessor can now configure what to default the Skills Scan Type for new Smart Assessor learners from the Smart Assessor Integration Settings.

Sign Up Forms

• New Fields added to Applicant Sign Up Forms:

  • ILR Sex

  • Has Driving Licence

  • Has Own Transport

27th December 2023

Month End

• Apprenticeship Funding Calculations have been updated with the new rates for English and maths aims.

17th December 2023

Reports

• 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.

Reports

• Site Code is now available as an analysis column in interactive reports and widgets on the Learners, Applicants, Courses, and User Sites reports.

• An Organisation Activity File Attachment report has been added to the report templates.

• An Officer Activity File Attachment report has been added to the report templates.

• Fixed an issue where User Defined Form single and multi select codes would not output if selected as an optional field.

...

• Looking up the value of a provision of type ACE 360 Emp Sector could fail. Now fixed.

Automations

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

...

• 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.

...

• Learner and Applicant forms containing any filled “Aims Wanted“ fields were failing to open for fill and sign. Now fixed.

• Learner File and Change Request forms containing a filled EPA Organisation field were failing to open for fill and sign. Now fixed.

21st October 2023

Applicants

• 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.

Forms

• Fixed an issue when using the Return To Entity setting would redirect to a location the user did not have access to.

...

• Uploading additional files to a course session could result in a bad request error. Now fixed.

• URLs for signup forms to auto enrol applicants onto a course can now be generated from the Course summary screen.

Month End

• The FM25 Funding Calculator has been updated with the latest published National Rates.

• The T Level Funding Calculator was incorrectly funding Band 6 and above learners as Band 5 if the total planned hours for the learner was set lower than the band’s expected minimum hours. Now fixed.

• Skills Bootcamp funding has been updated for 2023.

• The Earnings Adjustment Statement data collection has been updated for 2023.

• The Projected Funding by Learner, Projected Funding by Learning Delivery, and Projected Funding by Individual Items reports now have an output option of “Funding Line”. This will display the Funding Line as calculated by the Projected Funding calculations.

• The QAR reconciler has been improved and shows clearer differences when an aim is excluded from the ESFA QAR report but not PICS, or vice versa. If the aim is excluded from both reports but the reason is different, this is not highlighted as a data difference unless other fields are also different.

...

• Contract Items for Skills Bootcamps now allow setting the contract type to either “Wave 3”, or “DPS Competition 1”

Reports

• The “Total Programme Funding” output option within the Projected Funding By Learner and Projected Funding By Learning Delivery reports would sometimes cause the report to take a long time to complete or generate an error. Now fixed.

• The Postcode Local Authority lookups have been updated.

• The Site filter within the Learner Contact Report was not being respected. Now fixed.

...

• 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.

...

• 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.

Applicants

• Change logs for ULN and LRN and some other ILR fields were not being show in Recent Activity > Show Full Change Logs.

• Full support for a “Preferred First Name” fields has been added to sign up forms, web forms, imports, data capture, reports and API.

Reports

• Reports for outputting details of files attached to Appointments, Tasks and Communications for Learners and Applicants have been added.

• The Claim History Summary report was not fully populating some ILR Learner fields. Now fixed.

• The Vacancy Application report was showing records for deleted Applicants. Now fixed.

Month End

• Funding Forecasting now allows profiling up to 9,999 planned starts per period per age band per Qualification Plan.

• The FM35 AEB Funding Calculations were calculating the wrong Devolved Authority Disadvantage Uplift for the Greater London Authority. Now fixed.

...

• Signup forms for employers/organisations, now have an option for Invoice Name.

• Creating an organisation at the same time as providing their main contact record will now display the main contact in the organisation’s officer list.

Appointments

• Reminder emails now have additional fields to merge, including description, and learner employer.

...

• 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.

...

• Funding Forecasting was not forecasting funding for T Level learners. Now fixed.

• The FM25 Funding Calculations were not calculating funding for T Level learners if a learner had previously been on another Study Programme. Now fixed.

• The FM35 AEB Funding Calculations now include Devolved Authority Disadvantage Uplifts to match the funding generated by the FIS.

18th August 2023

Month End

• The option to reconcile 2023 funding reports has been made available within Funding Reconciliations.

Applicants

• Deleting the Recruited By Officer would not work. Now fixed.

...

• The OneFile integration now detects day light saving dates being returned from OneFile and adjusts them correctly.

17th August 2023

Month End

• ILR files are no longer rejected by FIS or SLD if the HE Special Fee Indicator and Net Tuition Fee fields are both entered against any aim. This error was due to a mistake in the ESFA ILR schema.

• The Funding Band Maximum was not being found for some Apprenticeship Standards. This resulted in process warnings within the Funding Calculator and Funding Forecasting for these Standards. Now fixed.

• The Funding Calculator was incorrectly calculating an achievement element for aims with a Category of “Adult Education Budget - Work Placement”. Now fixed.

14th August 2023

Reports

• The Projected Funding By Learner, and Projected Funding By Learning Delivery reports were not including the Total column header when there is no funding shown in the reports. This was causing Dashboard Widgets based on these reports to display an error. Now fixed.

• Including Functional Skills Assessment details in learner and applicant reports could cause an error. Now fixed.

...

• Adding a note to a record could result in an error. Now fixed.

12th August 2023

Month End

• ILR Exporter

  • ILR Exports conforming to the 2023 ESFA ILR Specification can now be produced. 2021 ILR files can no longer be created, but existing files can be downloaded.

  • ILR Export email notifications for 2023 exports now contain any export warnings.

• Funding Forecasting

  • It is now possible to Add and Delete periods from an existing Funding Profile.

  • It is now possible to maintain Planned Starts Profiles, including the editing Planned Starts profiled against a Qualification Plan for each Planned Starts Profile.

  • The process to select a Qualification Plan to profile Planned Starts against has been improved.

  • From the Overall tab, a new action has been added against each period of the profile: “Qualification Plan Planned Starts Breakdown”. This displays a list of Qualification Plans which have profiled Planned Starts that contribute towards the Planned values in the profile for that period, which can then be loaded into the Planning tab.

  • A new Export action has been added: “Actual Totals Reporting”. This allows the running of Projected Funding Reports found within the Report section’s Templates list, with the report options pre-filtered to generate reports showing data contributing towards the “Actual” columns in the profile.

  • When saving Planned Starts, and then switching to the Overall tab of a profile, the newly entered Planned Starts would not be shown unless the profile was reloaded. Now fixed.

• QAR Reconciler

  • The QAR report options are now defaulted correctly when using 2022 QAR extract files.

• Funding Calculations

  • Funding Calculations have been made available for 2023

...

• 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.

Applicants

• Fixed the email link to applicant files when generating an applicant offer document.

...

• Added a new Location for Activity Create. This allow user defined forms to be captured when creating an Appointment, Call, Email, SMS or Task.

• Added User Defined Form visibility restrictions for Appointment Type and Class.

• Learner Forms can be configured to show the latest Target Scan results for the applicant during the signature process.

Reports

• Learners

  • The calculation of Expected Off the Job Hours to Date differed slightly from the Learner display when a Break-in-Learning had occurred. The reports version is now the same as the Learner display.

  • Learner reports containing ILR data have now been updated to use the 2023 version of annual fields, unless the report field explicitly shows a different year.

• Employability Learners

  • Filtering by Purchase Order Number and Date has been added.

  • The JobCentre output field is now full organisation output not just the name

• Vacancies

  • Output of the Officer Main Organisation has been added.

• Appointments

  • Workflow and Workflow Main Status outputs have been added.

  • Created and Modified date filters have been added.

• Communications

  • Workflow and Workflow Main Status outputs have been added.

  • Created and Modified date filters have been added.

• Tasks

  • Workflow and Workflow Main Status outputs have been added.

  • Created and Modified date filters have been added.

• QAR Report

  • The QAR reports (including the QAR reconciler) now conform to the calculations defined in the 2022 ESFA QAR technical specifications.

• Reports with a Current Age filter could fail to update when saved interactive reports mode. Now Fixed.

...

• 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.

Reports

• General

  • ⚠️ A database maintenance window is being introduced from 23:30 to 03:00 each night to avoid reports from failing and interrupting database maintenance task. More details can be found in this blog post.

  • Interactive bar charts showing a small number of results (fewer than 10) will no longer show counts as decimal numbers, or duplicate values.

  • Reports and dashboards can now be shared with specific users and teams. If the sharing type is Shared but no users or teams are selected, the report or dashboard is shared with all users.

  • The width of the chart labels has been increased to allow for longer labels to display fully.

• Learners

  • A report of Initial Assessment result associated with Learners has been added.
    A report of Tasks associated with Learners has been added.

  • A report of Provisions associated with Learners has been added.

  • Output of Related Organisations and Officers has been added. The new fields appear in the Optional Fields list before the User Defined Fields.

  • More output fields have been added to the Status History report including Main & Sub-Status Description & filtering to Latest Status Only.

  • On the Review Summary report it is now possible to specify how the “Next Review” is chosen. The current behaviour of “First Future Non-attended Review” or the “First Non-attended Review”.

  • Learner Assessments report now has a Data Sort Order option including a variety of Due & Done Dates, Title and For Reference. The default option is Due Date.

  • An age range filter has been added to the Learners, ILR Learners, ILR Aims and Applicants reports.

• Applicants

  • A report of Initial Assessment result associated with Applicants has been added.

  • A report of Tasks associated with Applicants has been added.

  • A report of Provisions associated with Applicants has been added.

  • Output of Related Organisations and Officers has been added. The new fields appear in the Optional Fields list before the User Defined Fields.

  • More output fields have been added to the Status History report including Main & Sub-Status Description & filtering to Latest Status Only.

• Projected Funding

  • ⚠️ The Projected Funding By Learners Report has 2 fields called “Learner Funding Age Band“ one of these has been removed. This may alter the output of your saved reports.

• Organisations

  • A report of Tasks associated with Organisations has been added.

  • A report of Provisions associated with Organisations has been added.

  • A report of Agreements associated with Organisations has been added.

  • Output of Related Organisations and Officers has been added. The new fields appear in the Optional Fields list before the User Defined Fields.

  • More output fields have been added to the Status History report including Main & Sub-Status Description & filtering to Latest Status Only.

  • Reports with “Has Current Learners” filters now have 2 more filters “Has Current Learners with ILR Employments” and “Has Learners with Current Placements”.

• Officers

  • A report of Provisions associated with Officers has been added.

  • Output of Related Organisatons and Officers has been added. The new fields appear in the Optional Fields list before the User Defined Fields.

• Vacancies

  • A report of Provisions associated with Vacancies has been added.

• Tasks

  • A Task report has been added.

• Opportunities

  • More output fields have been added to the Status History report including Main & Sub-Status Description.

• Forms

  • Optional Output fields for Status Reasons have been added to reasons for Rejection, Reassignment and Deletion.

• Courses

  • The Course Data Changes report now shows results when the table name filter is set.

• Anonymous Surveys Report

  • A new report has been added to look at the answers for anonymous surveys.

...

• 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.

Sign Up Forms

• It is now possible to control the required Google Recaptcha Score for each sign up form. We recommend a score of 0.5 or above to help prevent potential spam applications. However, if you are confident that real users are receiving lower scores, you can experiment with lowering the required score.

...

• It is now possible to create surveys to be completed by anonymous users. For these surveys, a dedicated URL will be generated that you can send out to your target audience. All answers recorded will be anonymous from a point of view of being linked to other PICS Records.

• Anonymous Answers can be viewed in the survey summary screen.

• The new Anonymous Survey Report can be used in conjunction with Saved Interactive Reports to provide visual dashboard summaries of answers.

Month End

• Skills Bootcamp calculations have been added to the Funding Calculator and Projected Funding.

• It is now possible to reconcile Skills Bootcamp funding.

• The Data Match reconciler was not always identifying the correct PICS Episode for a learner. Now fixed.

• The App Monthly Payments reconciler’s option to perform Levy adjustments was setting the incorrect Claim Type of “N” for newly created Claim Items. Now Fixed.

• Funding Forecasting

  • The Export now splits the Actual funding column into multiple columns identifying different Actuals funding types.

  • A new option “Include Optional Aims When Calculating Planned Starts Funding” has been added to the Setting screen to determine if optional Qualification Plan Qualifications are included in the forecasting calculations.

  • The “Planned In Learning” column was ambiguous as to its meaning, and has been removed from the profile tables. The Details view now shows Planned In Learning for a given period, along with the total Expected In Learning representing the Planned In Learning plus the Actual In Learning figures.

  • The Export now includes columns for Planned In Learning and Expected In Learning.

  • When forecasting funding for Qualification Plans the Source Of Funding is now only compulsory for AEB programmes and FM25 Traineeship programmes.

• The ILR Exporter will no longer write Prior Attainment records dated after the latest aim start date being exported in that ILR file. This is to prevent PriorAttain_09 errors when future year ILR aims are added before the 2022 year end.

...

• Our HTML editors have been extended to allow hyper links to be included in the text.

16th May

Reports

• Applicant and learner status history reports could both include applicants and learner. Now fixed.

...

• ILR Exporter has had some performance improvements to reduce stress on the application during busy submission periods.

10th May

Reports

• Performance improvements to specific scenarios in Course Session Attendance, Applicant & Learner Enrolments, Qualification & Achievement, Forms Status History, Form Status and Course reports.

3rd May

Reports

• Officer reports have been optimised when including user defined fields in the output

• Organisation reports have been optimised when including user defined fields in the output

• Opportunity reports have been optimised when including user defined fields in the output

• Vacancy reports have been optimised when including user defined fields in the output

• Vacancy Application reports have been optimised when including user defined fields in the output

...

• Pasting images when logging an email would be lost. Now fixed.

• Subjects containing unicode characters would cause an error when using dropbox email. Now fixed.

Reports

• Applicant communications report has been optimised

29th April

Reports

• 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.

...

• In the more common emails sent from PICS, such as reports and requests for signatures, we now add a bit of extra detail to the subject, such as the date the report was run or the name of the form. This should help reduce spam filtering in larger organisations.

19th April 2023

Applicants

• Fixed a bug where generating an applicant offer document would result in a 404.

Automations

• Email appointment communication automations now has the ability to also CC Officer Attendees.

18th April 2023

Applicants

• 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.

Applicants

• ⚠️ Significant changes to how Applicants are stored in the database - https://www.pellcomp.co.uk/theblog/important-information-for-users-of-pics-applicants

• Prior Qualification list now displays the Qualification Reference and Title.

• Imports of multiple Applicants now produces an entry in the Import History containing a log file detailing if the record was matched or added. Performance has also been improved by allowing you not to tag each record.

• A new automation feature for communications has been added, this can also be used to set up appointments and course enrolment reminders.

Reports

• 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.

...

• A custom logo, From name and message can now be added to all emails sent from PICSWeb. Settings can be accessed by database administrators in Configuration > Integrations > Email.

• Dropbox Email now supports forwarding emails as attachments that have been sent to users from applicants or learners.

• Data change logs writing during scheduled data exchanges now use a specific username for each integration, rather than the username of the user who enabled it.

• bksb

  • The Result value could have resulted in a value < 0 due to a calculation error. Now fixed.

  • A link to view the learner or applicant in bksb has been added.

• Smart Assessor

  • It is now possible to withhold Sex, Ethnicity and Disability when exchanging data with Smart Assessor. This can be configured in Configuration > Integrations > Smart Assessor.

  • A link to view the learner in Smart Assessor has been added

Month End

• Funding Calculator - It is now possible for users with the DB Admin user permission to select a period to draft or final if periods have not been finalled for a number of months.

• Funding Forecasting - It is now possible to export the data shown in the Overall tab and the Planning tab.

• Funding Forecasting - A toggle has been added to the Summary page to enable viewing the financial data in a cumulative, profile start to date, mode.

• Funding Forecasting - It is now possible to view Periods as a calendar year and month date view. The default view can be set via a new Settings option in the Actions list on the Funding Forecasting profile list page.

• Funding Forecasting - The speed at which profiles load have been increased. Controls are now disabled during the loading and saving of profiles to prevent data corruption.

• Funding Forecasting - A bug was identified which would cause the Overall tab’s Planned funding amounts to be calculated based on Planned Starts for Qualification Plans that do not generate funding. Now fixed.

• A new subcontractor rate type of “Learning Support Funding (LSF) rate” has been added for apprenticeship programmes.

...

• File lists now make use of the Preview option if configured.

• Mosaic Theme now has dedicated icons to match.

15th March 2023

Reports

• Surveys

  • Surveys reports would error if there was a multi select answer with no answer recorded. Now fixed.

• Vacancies

  • Vacancy Application reports could include details of Applicants/Learner not in the Users Sites list in Strict Sites mode. Now fixed.

...

• 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.

Applicants

• ⚠️ Functional Skills results can now be recorded in a more detailed Level.Sublevel format i.e. “Level 1.2”

• Ward code can now be edited.

• The Applicant list “Has Course Enrolment” filter now has a “No current or future” option.

...

• 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.

Reports

• General

  • Report output fields which are shown when a different field is selected are now included in the available analysis fields in interactive reports. Examples include the Course Attendance Summary fields or form signature fields.

  • Reports no longer fail to run when writing very large string values with more than 32767 characters to a spreadsheet.

• Dashboards

  • Dashboards can now be cloned. This will create a copy of the dashboard and all widgets including the widget settings, although it will not copy the underlying reports for widgets set up using “Use a saved report for this widget”.

  • Interactive charts showing percentage fields now have the range of 0 to 100% and the values display as percentages. Percentage values in tables and raw data views are now formatted as percentages to two decimal places.

  • Currency values in interactive reports are now displayed correctly with a £ sign and to two decimal places.

  • The error The REPORT_DATA_FILEGUID field is required no longer appears when deleting a report with an output type of Interactive for Dashboard.

  • Exporting widget data to a spreadsheet no longer fails if a large number of filters is used for the widget.

• Learners

  • Learner Payment reports now include more fields from the associated Delivery Qualification.

  • The Aim Provider Monitoring fields for programme aims in the Projected Funding reports are now populated correctly in line with the values entered in the ILR.

  • The Attendance Summary on the Learner and Learner Enrolments reports can now be calculated to a specified date range.

  • TNPs are now shown for Apprenticeship Trailblazers.

  • A “Last Status Change By” field has been added to Learner reports.

• Applicants

  • A “Last Status Change By” field has been added to Applicant reports.

• Organisations

  • Organisation Payment reports now include more fields from the associated Delivery Qualification.

  • A “Last Status Change By” field has been added to Organisation reports.

  • Output of Site Codes has been added.

• Courses

  • Course Attendance Summary calculations can now be filtered to include only Learners or Applicants.

  • Course Enrolment & Session Attendance Reports can now be filtered to include only Learners or Applicants.

  • Session Attendance Report can now be filtered to only output when no attendance has been recorded.

  • Reports can be filtered to Course Organiser and Leader.

• Vacancy

  • Learner and Applicant ID fields have been added to Vacancy Application Reports.

• Surveys

  • Measures have been added to prevent the Survey Response reports from erroring with a 1500 (Failed to load Unicode support DLL) error.

• Data Changes

  • The Data Changes reports can now be filtered to multiple field names by adding multiple fields to the Field Name filter, separated by a space.

...

• ⚠️ 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.

Month End

• The ILR exporter no longer sends RUI codes 5 and 6 if there are no aims starting before 1st August 2022.

• Planned learning and EEP hours are no longer exported for T Level learners.

• Programme aim planned hours are now exported for T Level learners.

• The Apprenticeship Co-Investment Contributions Funding Reconciler would throw an error if there are blank lines at the end of the report. Now fixed.

• The FM36 Funding Calculation was incorrectly using the earliest start date of all of an apprenticeship programme’s aims to determine the apprentice’s age when it should have only looked at programme aims. Now fixed.

• The FM36 Funding Calculation was calculating Over Cap payments incorrectly where there are more than one Price Episode within a programme. Now fixed.

• The Funding Calculator was still generating a process warning for employers with ID “999999999”. This process warning has been removed for 2022 calculations onwards.

...

• ⚠️ Important: Enforced Two Factor Authentication for all users can now be enabled in Users & Permissions.

• A user's Two Factor Authentication settings can be reset in the User summary in cases where they have lost access to the device where the authenticator application is set up and they don not have access to any recovery codes.

• User Group and Status has been added to Bulk Edit Users.

• User Status has been added to Group membership list.

• User Group list no longer shows irrelevant columns.

Reports

• Applicants

  • 🆕 An Enrolments report has been added.

• Learners

  • 🆕 A new “Learner Delivery Plan“ report has been added to allow Document Generation of “Action Plan” documents. Help and guidance will be linked here.

  • The QAR now has an additional table option of Achievement Rate (Latest Year) which only shows the latest year included in the report.

  • Output of “More Site Hierarchy” has been added.

  • Learner Data Changes report was not respecting the Officer Tags filter. Now fixed.

  • QAR Reports now has output of LARS Basic Skills Type.

  • Expected & Elapsed Days of Learning were returning incorrect values for Apprentices. Now fixed.

  • Output for “Expected Weeks on Programme” and “Expected Week of Learning” have been added.

  • Projected Funding reports have output of Level and Partner UKPRN where appropriate.

• Vacancies

  • Output of Vacancy Tags has been added.

  • Output of Vacancy Application Tags has been added.

• Users

  • Filtering by Create, Modified and Last login dates has been added.

  • Filtering by User Group has been added.

...

• 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.

Applicants

• ⚠️ Important: Editing and display of Functional Skills Assessments have been brought in line with the Learner version. They are now displayed on a new tab “Functional Skills Assessments“. This includes the Date of the Assessment and Result fields.

• Applicant List now has a filter for Course Enrolments with options Current, No Current, Future Starting and No Future Starting.

• Assigning an Qualification Plan to an Applicant now defaults the Employer if specified in the Qualification Plan.

• Qualification Plan and Applicant’s Home Postcode SOF are displayed on the Programme details.

• Main Tag has been added as an optional display on Applicant Lists.

• When entering new prior qualifications, the Title list no longer shows dormant titles.

• LRN has been added as a filter on the Applicants list.

• Email and Phone number are now shown on the list of related Officers.

• Contracts can now be entered against applicants.

• Applicants can now be registered on the LRS and a ULN downloaded. This feature is only available if the LRS Integration is enabled.

• The LRS Personal Learning Record (PLR) can now be printed.

...

• 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.

Sign Up Forms

• Performance improvements have been made when saving Applicant Sign Ups containing many User Defined Forms.

• Sign up forms can now be marked as dormant to prevent them being used.

• Using a signup form in a iFrame will now support custom logos

...

• 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

Reports

• General

  • Failed reports can be deleted from the Available Reports list.

  • Qualification Plan filters now allow multiple selections and include is in selection, is not in selection, is blank and is not blank filtering modes.

  • Contract filters now allow multiple selections and include is in selection, is not in selection, is blank and is not blank filtering modes.

  • A new report Output Type is available: Interactive for Dashboard. This will allow the report output to be used in a dashboard widget.

  • Outputs of Last Workflow Status now have a field outputting just the date.

  • Interactive report tables now show a Total row for Count and Sum analysis methods.

  • A “Report has failed to run” email will no longer be sent if the report was run successfully, but the first attempt at sending a success email failed.

• Learners

  • 🆕 A Learner Officers report has been added that includes all Officers directly linked to a Learner including those linked by Relationships.

  • 🆕 A Learners Organisations report has been added that includes Organisations linked to the Learner by Placements and Relationships.

  • 🆕 A Learner ILR Employment Statuses report has been added.

  • 🆕 A Learner Session report has been added. This included Attendance details.

  • 🆕 A Learner Review Signatures report has been added.

  • 🆕 A Learners without Review report has been added, allowing reporting of Learners who don’t have a review in the defined dated range. Revew Type and Attendance status can also be used to filter the data.

  • 🆕 A Learner Components report has been added, allowing reporting of Portfolio Components.

  • 🆕 A Learner Target Scan report has been added, allowing reporting of Portfolio Target Scans.

  • An Episode Status Filter has been added to Learner reports. Options include In Learning, Leavers, and Yet To Start.

  • A filter by related Officer Tags has been added.

  • ILR Aims report includes GLH from the Delivery Qualification.

  • ILR Aims report includes output of the qualification's SSA.

  • ILR Aims report can now be filtered to aims that have been exported or not in the current and/or previous year.

  • ILR Learner report can now be filtered to Learner with aims that have been exported or not in the current and/or previous year.

  • Learner Qualification report includes output of the qualification's SSA.

  • Assessment report can now be filtered by what the Assessment is of Learner, Qualification, Unit etc.

  • Learner report includes output of the result of most recent validation.

  • ILR Learners report includes output of the Episode Planned Learning/EEP Hours.

  • The Traineeship QAR report no longer fails to run with a TraineeshipFM35WorkExperienceAims error.

  • The QAR report now includes the Learner Reference Number field by default.

  • Apprenticeship Level and Title are now available as optional fields in the QAR report.

  • Output of Expected Months on Programme and Expected Months of Learning has been added.

  • Enrolment Report is now sorted by Name and Enrolment dates.

  • Qualification Report now outputs the same Statuses as displayed in the Learner Delivery Plan list of Qualifications.

  • Output of TNP Totals has been added.

  • Output of Apprenticeship Standard Government Cap has been added.

  • Reviews reports can be filtered to exclude Reviews due after a Learner has left.

  • Funding Age Band has been added to ILR Learner and ILR Aim reports. The calculation takes into account Funding Model, EEF and Programme Start dates as appropriate.

  • The Timeliness report would fail to run if invalid dates were historically recorded against a learner. Now fixed.

  • Learner Payment reports can now be filtered for blank dates, including Expected, Paid, Authorised, Invoice and Claimed.

  • Data Change Reports now has an “Exclude Extra Keys” filter.

  • Learning Start, Learning Expected End and Learning End fields are now taken from latest Main ILR Aim when there is no programme aim, otherwise taken from the Episode.

• Applicants

  • 🆕 A Learner Officers report has been added that includes all Officers directly linked to a Learner including those linked by Relationships.

  • 🆕 A Learner Organisations report has been added that includes all Organisations directly linked to a Learner including those linked by Relationships.

  • Filtering by System Status allow output of Deleted and Archived record.

  • Age Bands output has been added.

• Officers

  • Appointment reports can now be filtered to include Appointments the Officer is the Organiser for.

  • Appointment report now can output what roles the officer plays in the appointment.

  • Filtering to a specific Officer or Superior has been added to all Officer reports.

• Courses

  • Output of number of Enrolments.

  • Attendance summary by Course has been added.

  • Output of Course Notes has been added.

  • Output of the number of session linked to a Course has been added.

  • Output of the Course Site has been added.

• Opportunities

  • Output of the Quantity for Qualification Plans

  • Output of the linked Organisation’s Sites has been added.

• Vacancies

  • Output of Qualification codes and title has been added.

  • Output of Qualification Plan codes and title has been added.

  • Output of the linked Organisation’s Sites has been added.

• Forms

  • The Field and Value filters now support space separated values - allowing search where the value is X or Y etc.

• Users

  • 🆕 A User Officers Restrictions report has been added.

  • The User Sites report has been relabelled User Site Restrictions.

  • Output if 2FA is enabled.

• Projected Funding

  • The Projected Funding By Learning Delivery report now has an option to show LSF as a separate row.

Month End

• Funding Calculator

  • There was a bug which prevented funding periods from being updated once the funding calculations had completed when the Last Year had been set against a Funding Organisation. Now fixed.

  • The FM35 funding calculation was incorrectly applying funding caps to apprenticeship component aims. Now fixed.

  • The FM35 funding calculation was incorrectly paying achievement payments for apprenticeship knowledge and competency aims that had ended but not achieved. Now fixed.

  • The FM36 funding calculation was not calculating balancing payments when there is a change of negotiated prices (TNPs) during the End Point Assessment period. Now fixed.

  • The FM36 funding calculation was not applying the “Funding Spent at Previous Provider” value correctly to programmes with more than one Price Episode. Now fixed.

  • The Process Warning “Aim [reference] is not valid in the LARS for this funding year” was incorrectly being triggered for FM36 Apprenticeships and ESF programmes. Now fixed.

  • Where subcontractor rates have been configured to split FM36 programme rates by training and assessment, this was always returning a 50% split. Now fixed.

  • The Funding Details report generated by the funding calculator has two new sheets: Occupancy and Out Of Funding.

• Funding Reconciliation

  • Learner Tags were missing from some of the reports generated by the reconciliation process. Now fixed.

  • It is now possible to upload .XLSX files to the reconciler. Care should be taken that only original, unedited files are used in the reconciliation process.

• Earnings Adjustment Statement

  • 🆕 EAS Data collection and export is now available for the 2022/23 ILR Year.

• ESF Contracting

  • Deliverables now show the Deliverable Code as part of the description to help identify each deliverable.

...

• 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.

...

• The validation for text input fields was misbehaving and occasionally flagging fields as invalid even when they were valid. Now fixed.

• Extra blank pages are no longer added to forms.

15th August 2022

Applicants

• 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.

...

• Organisations 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.

• The Description field will now populate correctly when editing Additional Details.

Month End

• The ILR Exporter is now capable of exporting ILR files which conform to the 2022 ESFA ILR Specification.

• The ILR exporter no longer sends any aims which start in a future year.

• It is no longer possible to create 2020 ILR files.

• Funding calculations have been updated and are now available for the 2022-23 ILR year.

• FM81 Funding Calculations were calculating reimbursement values incorrectly. Now fixed.

• The Funding Calculations were assigning loan payment derived claims to the wrong aim when there were more that one loan funded episode in year. Now fixed.

• Funding Reconciliations have been enabled for the 2022-23 ILR year.

• The QAR Reconciler would fail to match on some aims where the SW Supplier ID in PICS is different to that in the QAR. Now fixed.

Reports

Spreadsheet Output for reports that includes multiple details records for the main entity - for example the Learner Reviews Report can now be output with an Output Type of “Spreadsheet - Across”. This will present the detail records in repeating column sets across the spreadsheet.

...

• It is now possible to copy sessions forward every X weeks, rather than every week.

Sign Up Forms

• Any contact records created as part of Applicant or Employer sign up forms, will now also be linked to the same site as the applicant/employer if a site is defined on the form.

• The employer and course details panels can no be positioned as part of the form editing process so they can appear at the required location within the form completion process.

• Sign Up forms can now be used in iFrames in your own website.

...

• 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.

Applicants

• Archiving of records has been added the the Database Admin Actions.

...

• The “Quick Session Dates” filter now includes “This week”, “Next week”, “Last Week” - where this week is from the Monday on or before the current day to the Sunday on or after the current day.

• The Day of a Session is now include in the Export To Excel.

Month End

• The Funding Calculation was producing a Process Error for Devolved AEB level 4 aims when DAM ‘023’ was recorded. Now fixed.

• The Funding Calculation’s Funding Details report would not show learner Tags if the learner finished more than two years ago. Now fixed.

• The ESF Contracting list of items now displays the “Learning Delivery” associated with each item where applicable.

• The Apps Monthly Payment Reconciler’s option to “Perform Levy Adjustments” was incorrectly making adjustments where the Apps Monthly Payment report showed a clawback against co-investment payments for Levy funded apprentices. Now fixed.

• Editing an ESF Supplementary Item generated by the funding calculator within ESF Contracting would disassociate the linked Learning Delivery from the item. This would result in the funding calculation process resetting any changes made to the item. Now fixed.

• The Funding Calculator’s Funding Details report’s “Funding Details” sheet has been renamed to “Current Period Funding Details” to better describe the details included on the sheet.

• The FM81 Apprenticeship Trailblazer calculation was incorrectly calculating 90 and 365 day incentive payments from the start date of each aim after a restart. Now fixed.

...

• DAM FAMs are now ordered numerically when exported.

Forms

• A tool to Reinstate delete forms has been added. This can be accessed from the Form Summary screen.

...

• 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.

...

• 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.

...

• 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.

Applicants

• Site is now an optional column of the Applicant List.

• Postcode is now an optional column of the Applicant List.

• Government Cap for Apprenticeship Standard is now show on the Financial Details.

...

• Bug Fix: Picklists for DLA, EDF and SEN are now available.

• All “File” WebForms not longer require “Applicant/Learner Send to Form Capture” and can now be created by any user with the “FCA Client User” or “Forms Management - Create Forms” permissions.

• Bug Fix: When using the Create WebForm button to create an empty instance of a WebForm the link in the email will no longer be broken.

• Bug Fix: WebForms can no longer be submitted multiple times by having the same form open in multiple tabs/windows.

Reports

• Optional Field searching now works better with expandable fields, such as officers and organisations.

• Enrolment reports can now be filtered by the Course Start and End dates.

• Claim History report performance has been improved.

• Opportunities report now has output of Qualification Plans and linked Learner and Applicant counts.

• Applicant Report now has output of ILR Prior Attainment.

• Bug Fix: Communications reports were incorrectly reporting the Type.

• Learner Qualification report can now be filtered by Registration Number.

• Learner Qualification report can now be filtered to include Deleted and Archived Learners.

• Learner ILR Aims report can now be filtered to include Deleted and Archived Learners.

• Learner ILR Aims report now has output of Delivery Qualification Status.

• Learner Units report can be now be filtered by Unit Reference and Linked Qualification.

• Form History report can now be filtered by the History Status.

• Added Notes reports for Learners, Applicants, Officers and Organisations.

• The Projected Funding reports now includes learner ILR output fields.

• Added Status History report for Learners

• Learner report now has an optional output for Workflow

• The Projected Funding By Learner, and Projected Funding By Learning Delivery reports now have an output option of “Total Overdue”, which is the sum of funding which has been projected into the next unfinalled period because they are overdue.

• The Projected Funding Individual Items report now has an output option of “Overdue Projected Item” to identify funding items that have been projected into the next unfinalled period because they are overdue.

• The “Projected End Period” output in the Projected Funding reports was showing the next unfinalled period at the time the report was run. It now shows what the next unfinalled period was at the time the projected funding was calculated.

• The data change reports for learners, applicants, organisations and officers can now be filtered by old and new values.

• A new System Logs Report is now available.

Month End

• The Funding Calculator’s Funding Details report’s Summary sheet now separates out PMR totals from the FM36 totals as an additional row.

• The QAR Reconciler no longer shows a “Value cannot be null” error when reconciling an Education & Training report.

• The Projected Funding Calculator now produces a downloadable report against each year that summarises the funding calculated and highlights any process warnings encountered.

...

• Bug Fix: Deleting a widget could sometimes fail with an error of “Widget not found”. Editing a widget could result in an unexpected status behind the scenes that would prevent the delete. Editing widgets no longer does this, but some widgets may have already been broken. If you can not delete a widget, please contact our support team.

• Bug Fix: Setting the course sessions list to your home page would fail to load when clicking the home page icon. Now Fixed.

• Bug Fix: The AEB funding calculation was applying the Level 3 National Skills uplift incorrectly which was affecting the funding cap of applicable learners. Now fixed.

• Bug Fix: The funding calculation was showing a process warning for devolved AEB learners who were studying a level 4 aim as not part of an apprenticeship, even when the aim was recorded with DAM code “023: MCA/GLA Delivery Exclusion” and was not calculating funding for these aims. Now fixed.

Reports

• 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.

Month End

• Funding Calculations:

  • The funding calculator was excluding learners that have validation errors. They are now included.

  • FM36 Apprentices eligible for “National Skills Fund: Level 3 Adult Offer” were being assigned the wrong disadvantage uplift. Now fixed.

  • Balancing payments were not being paid for some Apprenticeship Standards on completion of their End Point Assessment. Now fixed.

  • The FM36 funding calculation was sometimes calculating framework uplifts incorrectly where residual TNPs had been added. Now fixed.

  • The FM36 funding calculation was withholding employer incentives for apprentices aged under 19 when they were recorded as a care leaver. Now fixed.

  • The projected funding calculation for FM36 apprentices was setting the effective date of overdue unpaid PMR derived claims to the PMR record’s expected date. This was resulting in the items not appearing in the Projected Funding reports. The effective date is now projected to be in the next unfinalled period.

• Funding Reconciliation:

  • The “Price Episode Actual End Date” column has been added to the report generated by the Apprenticeship Data Match reconciler.

• Additional filtering options have been added to ESF Contracting.

• The QAR Reconciler is now available. This allows an ESFA QAR data extract to be uploaded and a report is produced showing any differences between the ESFA data and the PICS QAR data. A new QAR Reconciler permission has been created to restrict its use - this will need to be assigned by a database administrator before it will become visible.

...

• Session GLH will now be defaulted based on the start and end time when creating a session

• Added GLH to the export to excel function for the course sessions list

• Total Sessions GLH has been added to the course summary page for Fixed Start Date Courses, this will sum up all the Sessions GLH for that course to compare with the Course Total GLH

Reports

• Reports will now be aborted if they take more than 90 minutes to run. It was previously 120 minutes but this has been reduced in line with other report optimisations.

• Customers with many UDF fields may have experienced an error with the ILR Aim Report. Changes have been made to avoid this in future.

• Data Change reports are now available for Learners, Applicants, Officers and Organisations. These allow reporting on changes made to these records.

• QAR Reports

  • The Interactive (Beta) option is no longer available for QARs. Instead, saved reports using Interactive output mode should be used.

  • The Interactive QAR now uses the terms Leaver, Achiever and Completed instead of referring to aims. This is to standardise with the terms used by the ESFA on the QAR reporting dashboard.

  • An Export Table option is now available in the Interactive QAR. This will export the current table view to a spreadsheet.

  • QAR Charts now show a title describing the report. These will also be included when exporting the chart to an image.

  • QAR charts and tables now use the multi-year format for years e.g. “2020 to 2021” instead of “2020”.

  • Learning Delivery Monitoring (LDM FAM) and Aim Provider Monitoring outputs are now available.

  • More fields are included by default when creating a new QAR report. This is to ensure that all information is available which details how the year and achievement data for a learner has been calculated.

  • Timely achievement rates no longer include learners who are still in learning and have not past their expected end date by more than 90 days on the date the report is run.

  • The QAR report can now be filtered by multiple contracts instead of just one.

• Interactive reports which include calculations on decimal numbers now round the values to two decimal places.

• The Qualification Plan and Qualification Plan Elements reports now include the following optional outputs:

  • Plan Training Negotiated Price

  • Plan Training Employer Contribution

  • Plan Training Employer Contribution Spread

  • Plan Assessment Negotiated Price

  • Plan Assessment Employer Contribution

  • Plan Assessment Employer Contribution Spread

  • Element Awarding Body (Elements report only)

  • Element Awarding Body Reference (Elements report only)

  • Element Level (Elements report only)

• The Learner Claim History report would throw an error if there were any incomplete ESF records in the data for the report. These records are now not included.

• Output of just “Non-ILR Aims” in the ILR Aims report was incorrectly identifying aims as “Non-ILR”, this has been corrected.

• The HE fields have been removed from the ILR Aims Report and added to a new “Learner Higher Education Aims Report”.

• BETA Feature: A beta version of Dashboards is now available for customers who have the eDashboard licence.

Forms

• The following form lists can now be edited in Lists and Types: Reason for Rejection, Reason for Deletion and Reason for Reassigning.

...

• 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.

...

• The filters for Reference and Purchase Order have been made easier to use in Any Of / Start with mode.

Reports

• 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.

...

• Attachments now properly lock when the user they are assigned to has signed the form. This is indicated by a padlock symbol in front of the attachment name.

• Attachments now show when they have failed validation. This is indicated by an “X” symbol in front of the attachment name.

• Users with the DB Admin and Form Builder permissions can create test forms - these forms will auto fill with test data and are intended to help testing the placement of fields on the output signed document.

• Added the ability to set the minimum and maximum length of answers for text and long text fields.

• After a form is submitted, the system takes a bit of time to generate the signed document. While this is happening, the form’s status will now indicate that this is happening. You will need to wait until it has finished generating the document before the form can be approved.

• Check boxes for users that have already signed the form will no longer be reset when the form is saved again.

• Added a new section for all users that have FCA. This section will show all WebForms that you have been assigned as a signatory on. You will be able to navigate directly to these forms once they are ready to sign.

• Added a new workspace tile that shows how many WebForms are ready for your signature. Click on the tile to view these forms.

Month End

• Funding Calculator

  • The Funding Details report’s Process Warnings sheet now shows where a learner’s episode has ILR validation warnings or errors.

• Projected Funding Calculations

  • Where an apprentice is in EPA, the calculation would forecast completion only in the next unfinalled period. It now forecasts completion on the expected end date if this is in the future.

• ESF Contracting

  • It is now possible to bulk update the Payment Claimed, Payment Received, Subcontractor Claimed and Subcontractor Paid fields.

  • The ability to copy a single Supplementary Data Item, and the ability to copy forward multiple Supplementary Data Items has been added.

...

• 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.

Applicants

• 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.

• Most Recent Status Change has been added as an optional field and sort order on the Applicant list.

...

• OneFile: A log of the most recent learner refresh can be viewed from the learner delivery plan summary.

• OneFile: Improvements to support multi centre support for officers and organisations.

• OneFile: DB Admin users can manually edit the OneFile ID of a qualification in PICS.

• Smart Assessor: A log of the most recent learner refresh can be viewed from the learner delivery plan summary.

• Smart Assessor: When enrolling a learner, we will automatically create any missing officer or employer records in Smart Assessor if they have not already been connected in PICS.

• Smart Assessor: DB Admin users can manually edit the Smart Assessor ID of a qualification in PICS.

• Postcode data is now automatically downloaded after a new postcode has been entered into PICS. This includes Region, Local Authority and Ward. There is also a new Postcode Data section under Integrations where it is possible to download postcode data for all postcodes currently in the database. These fields have also been added to various reports.

• Recruit An Apprentice has been updated to work with the new API, any existing keys will no longer work see the following blog post for more details https://www.pellcomp.co.uk/theblog/the-recruit-an-apprentice-api-is-changing

• SMS: We are releasing a new SMS integration for PICS using Twilio.

Reports

• Reports spreadsheets now have filters on the title row.

• Optional Fields may now have symbol to explain more about the data shown in the field

• Superior Code and Name has been added to Officer outputs.

• Reports can now be Re-run if they are not the result of a scheduled report.

• “Database Administrator” users can now access all saved reports.

• Report now have “Full Name” and “Surname, First Names” fields.

• New Reports

  • have been added for Qualification Plans and Qualification Plan Elements.

  • reports on Communications (Call, Email, SMS) has been added for Learners, Applicants, Organisations and Officers.

  • have been added for Officer Tasks.

• Learner Reports

  • filtering by Provider Destination & End Codes has been added.

  • filtering by Has ever had a Break-in-Learning has been added.

  • output of Learner Title has been added.

  • output of Programme Aim Planned Hours has been added.

  • output of Site Parent has been added.

  • output of User who Entered the Leaner has been added.

  • output of Beyond Expected End flag has been added.

  • output of Expected Days of Learning and Elapsed Days of Learning have been added. These are derived from the episode dates if there are no ILR Programme Aims.

  • output of Learning Actual End has been added. This is derived from the episode dates if there are no ILR Programme Aims.

  • output of Learning Start Date has been added. This is derived from the episode dates if there are no ILR Programme Aims.

  • output of ILR Programme Planned Hours Progress has been added. This is logged Actual OTJ Hours / ILR Programme Planned Hours.

  • output of ILR Programme Planned Hours To Date has been added. ILR Programme Planned Hours * (Elapsed Days of Learning / Expected Days of Learning).

  • output of ILR Completion, Outcome and Withdrawal Reason ahs been added.

  • output of PICS Portfolio Type has been added.

  • output of Current LSF status has been added.

  • output of Has ever had a Break-in-Learning has been added.

• ILR Learner Aim Report

  • can now be filtered by “originally starting between” and “ending or expected to end between”.

  • can now be filtered by Only Main Aim and First/Latest version of Aims.

  • filtering by Provider Destination & End Codes has been added.

• Learner Qualification Report

  • can now be filtered by “ending or expected to end between”.

  • can now be filtered by Only Main Aim.

  • filtering by Provider Destination & End Codes has been added.

• Session Attendance Report

  • outputs of LRN and ULN for Attendees have been added

  • output of Main Tag for Attendees has been added

• Organisation Report

  • can now be filtered by System Status.

• Officer Report

  • can now be filtered by DBS Date and Last Modified.

• Vacancy Report

  • can now be filtered by Created, Opens, Closes and Expected Start dates.

• Projected Funding Reports

  • these would throw an error when UDF (User Defined Form) values are selected as optional outputs. Now fixed.

• Forms Reports

  • output of Form Owner Signature has been added.

• User Reports

  • can now be filtered by Permission.

  • output of SaaS User Type added.

Month End

• The FM36 funding reports now only show funding up to the period being reported - not the complete year.

• ILR Exports

  • The exports list now shows the user who created the export. This field will only be populated for exports created after this version of PICS has been released.

  • The exports list now shows ILR years on individual tabs and files created in 2017-19 are available for download.

  • There is now a “No Site” option sites filter when creating a new export - this is visible if the user does not have site restrictions preventing them accessing learners with no site code.

• The Projected Funding calculation was not limiting the number of years into the future calculations were run for which would result in a very long runtime if a learner had an incorrect start date far into the future. Now fixed.

• The ESF Contract Managager is now available within PICS.

• The ESF FM70 Funding Calculation process was causing the Funding Calculator Finalling process to take a long time for some users. Now fixed.

...

• 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.

Applicants

• A field has been added for recording Delivery Location for Applicants. This is available for use in WebForms, Reports, Sign up forms and Imports.

• The organisations tab now allows adding Employer, School, College, Recruitment Agency and Delivery Location.

• The officers tab now allows adding Main Officer, Mentor and Recruited by.

...

• A new integration with bksb has been added to PICS.

• OneFile integration will now search for existing officers and organisations before trying to create a OneFile record, if the Other System ID is not set in PICS.

• Smart Assessor integration added to PICS. This a Beta version so is not automatically available - please contact us if you wish to use it.

Reports

• The Claim History report would fail if optional fields containing information from the latest Programme Aim were selected. This is now fixed.

• A report for Learner Contact and Learning Hours has been added.

• A report for Learner Units has been added.

• A report for Learner Evidence has been added.

• A report for Course Session Attendance has been added. This offers output of both recorded Attendance and Expected Attendance.

• A report for Opportunity Provisions has been added.

• A report for Learner Enrolments has been added this includes per Enrolment and pre Learner Attendance analysis.

• An Age Band at Start field has been added to Learner Reports: The following bands are used 0-15, 16-18, 19-24, 25+.

• A “Learning Expected End” Date field has been added to Learner Reports. This is taken from the latest programme end if there is one. Otherwise it is the same as the Episode Expected End.

• Learner Export status filtering has been added to the Learner Reviews Report.

• Filters have been added to the Learner ILR Aims report to show there "Aim not Ended but Delivery Aim is Ended" and "Aim End Different To Delivery Aim End".

• ILR Aim Report now includes filters for “Export in Current Year” and fields for Export in Current and Prior years.

• A Learner Self Assessed Disability filter has been added to appropriate Learner reports.

• ESF Contract Actual records are now included in the Learner Claims History report.

• Opportunity Report now includes Date of Latest Status Change and Status Change Notes.

• Learner Report includes Delivery Target and Delivery Model descriptions.

• Learner and Officer reports include PICS Username & Last Login fields.

• Officer Report now includes fields for Current Learner Caseloads.

• The QAR Report no longer excludes aims which are at End Point Assessment if they ended before 1st August 2019.

• Deleting saved reports which were sent to multiple users no longer results in an error.

• The Projected Funding By Learners report and Projected Funding By Learning Delivery report now have “Projected End Period” and “Projected End Status” columns to help identify learners/aims that are in learning beyond their planned end date.

• The Forms and Form Status History reports now includes more information about each signatory including email address and status.

• The Forms and Form Status History reports now include fields for data fields Site, Qualification Plan Code and Start Date.

• Learner Reports now include Latest Placement, Delivery Location, School and College and their Start and End Dates.

• Learner Reports now have a filter for “Leaver or Expected End” in the date range.

• User Report now has Site filtering options.

• Course Reports now include the Qualification Plan the course is linked too and any Qualification Plans the Enrolees are linked too.

• Learner Reports now have a calculated Age Band field - 16-18, 19-24 & 25+.

• The learner progress fields now output as percentages formatted to 2 decimal places.

• Actual and Planned Contact Hours fields are now formatted to two decimal places.

• A filter on “Has Files of Type” has been added to the Learner, Applicant, Organisation and Officer reports.

• More output fields for Opportunities linked to Applicants and Learners have been added to Applicant and Learner reports.

• Head Office Feedback, Site, Qualification Plan, Start Date and many signature related fields have been added to Forms reports.

Month End

• The Month End Funding Calculator now includes the FM70 calculations for ESF ILR derived items.

• The user interface has been improved to allow easier switching between financial years.

• Earnings Adjustment Statement Funding Lines starting “16 to 18” and “19 to 24” have been updated to “16-18” and “19-24”.

• The Projected Funding calculations were not projecting Apprenticeship Achievements if the Programme Aim ended in the previous ILR Year.

...

• 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.

Applicants

• Applicant list can now be filtered by ULN.

• Applicant list now has optional fields for ULN, Provider Assigned ID, Mentor, Assess

• Qualification Plan, Available to Start and Expected End Dates can now be bulk edited.

• The LRS “Ability to Share” field has been renamed to “Privacy Notice Seen” to align with the LRS portal.

...

• Many fields in the Officer list are now optional.

• An optional Roles field has been added to the Officer list.

Reports

• Organisation information in Reports has been brought into line with how we show Officer information. This may effect some saved reports and/or document generation templates as we have has to change some field names.

• ILR Learner Report now includes output of Next Year and Prior Year Learning and EEP Hours fields

• ILR Learner Report now includes output of Has Aims with LSF.

• ILR Learner Report now includes output of Latest TNPs.

• New Report Template for Learner Review Summary. This report will be a row per learner showing last and next review fields, gap between last and next reviews, summary of total reviews attended/missed, and review history.

• Appointment type has been added as a filter for appointment based report templates.

• The interactive QAR report has been improved and now offers a summary table and several charts. Any existing saved interactive reports will need to be recreated to be compatible with the new format.

• Apprenticeship Standard aims at EPA with Completion Status = 1 and Outcome = 8 are now excluded from the Apprenticeship Achievement Rates Overall report.

• Organisations report now has filters for “Has Head Office”, “Has Branches“, and fields for “Branch Count“.

• New: Learner Files Report. Produces a filtered report of learners and their associated files.

• New: Applicant Files Report. Produces a filtered report of applicants and their associated files.

Month End

• The ILR Exporter will no longer export prior attainment and aim FAM records which are exact duplicates of another for that learner or aim.

• Earnings Adjustment Statement has been updated with Funding Lines and Adjustment Types for 2021.

• Projected Funding now has it’s own page and now has a setting to run the Projected Funding automatically each evening.

• The Funding Reconciler now has the option to store uploaded files for re-use when updating reconciliations.

• The Funding Calculator now has the option for users with the Database Administrator permission to delete the most recently finalled period in each year.

...