What's New in PICSWeb?

This page lists some of the recent changes to PICSWeb.

31st August 2022

• The 2021 Planned Learning and EEP Hours fields can now be edited if a value is present, regardless of the learning episode start date.

19th August 2022

• The Funding Calculator would sometimes incorrectly generate a process error for FM36 Apprentices stating “Price Episode starting dd/mm/yyyy for aim ZPROG0001 starting dd/mm/yyyy: Unable to find funding Funding Band” when the funding band does exist. Now fixed.

• When editing a Qualification Plan linked to an Opportunity a “500 Internal Server Error” was returned. Now fixed.

• WebForm checkbox ticks were being left aligned on the field instead of centre aligned on the downloaded document. Now fixed.

• Creating a survey would have an empty list in the Survey For dropdown. Now fixed.

17th August 2022

• 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 PICSWeb.

• 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.

WebForms

• 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

• 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.

General

• Searching optional fields will now correctly respect the hierarchy of fields.

Learner Reports

• The Learner Change Request report can now be filtered by Change Type.

• The Learner ILR Aims report would sometimes throw an error if the “Elapsed Days on Aim” output was selected and the report contained non-ILR learners. Now fixed.

• Learner reports containing ILR data have now been updated to use the 2022 version of annual fields, unless the report field explicitly shows a different year.

• Payment Reports can have output and now be filterign on Claimed date.

• Employment Status is output for Commerical Learners.

• Latest LSF and Has any LSF outputs added.

QAR Report

• The QAR reports (including the QAR reconciler) now conform to the calculations defined in the 2021 ESFA QAR technical specifications.

• A new report type is now available: ESF Funded Learning. This report is based on the Education and Training QAR specification, but includes all aims with Funding Model 70.

Form Reports

• The Form report is now able to be used in Dashboard widgets.

• The Form History report is now able to be used in Dashboard widgets.

Opportunities Reports

• Output of just the Qualification Plan code is now available.

User Defined Forms

• It is now possible to configure visibility restrictions for User Defined Forms

• User Defined Forms now have a summary page

Surveys

• Surveys for PICSWeb are now available in BETA for anyone with an existing eSurveys licence.

Vacancies

• Vacancy matching lists now have an Export to Excel option in the search filters More drop down.

Courses

• 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.

Users and Access

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

Workflows

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

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

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

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

WebForms

• The Has Licence and Sex fields on Applicant forms should now be working as expected.

• Learner Change Request forms are now able to be set to auto approve on remote signature completion.

• The rejection process for WebForms can now be shorted by rejecting the form directly back to remote signatories.

• There is now an option to validate a WebForm on save. This should help with missing mandatory answers for forms that are signed locally. In addition to this new feature is the ability to force all saves to be validated.

• The WebForm URL field now supports “mailto“ links.

• Defaulted Employer Representative email addresses should now be filled in as expected.

• The Prior Qualification fields on WebForms have had a bit of a re-work. Title, Level and Grade are now shown as drop downs and we have added an APL Type dropdown too.

• The permissions to create Learner File and Change Request WebForms are now working as intended.

Integrations

• OneFile: There is a new option to disable the automatic nightly refresh of data between PICS and OneFile.

• SMS: It is now possible to send SMS messages to multiple records at once from the main list views of Learners, Applicants, Officers, and Organisations.

• BKSB: There is a new option to decide if user credentials are automatically sent to the new user when creating an account in BKSB.

• BKSB: New options added to allow records to be tagged when a result for each subject is completed.

• Smart Assessor: New option to push changes to qualification assessors in PICS up to Smart Assessor.

• Smart Assessor: Now supports a learner status of Early Leaver when updating the qualification status from PICS.

18th June 2022

• 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 PICSWeb 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/PICSWeb 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.

Organisations

• More fields including Main Officer, Main Contact, SEM and ACT have been added to the import specification.

• More fields including Main Officer, Head Office, ACT, SEM, Size Band and H&S Band have been added to the bulk edit.

• Main Officer has been added as an optional field to the Organisations List.

Courses Session

• 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.

ILR Exporter

• 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.

Signup Forms

• Signup forms for a specific opportunity or course enrolment now show confirmation details of what opportunity or course the form is referencing during the signup process.

Tasks

• It is now possible to configure task types.

WebForms

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

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

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

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

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

Workflows

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

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

Integrations

• 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.

General

• Notification on Successful run of a report can now be set to None, and defaults to Email as before.

• Related Organisation output details now include the ID, Name, Contact Details (Phones & Email) for the Main Officer and Main Contact.

• Related Organisation output details - the Ward, Region and Local Authority columns have been grouped as a new option Geolocation.

Learner Reports

• A new report template, “Learner Claim History Summary Report” has been added. This will produce a periodised summary of actual funding for each learner.

• The Projected Funding By Learner, Projected Funding By Learning Delivery, and Projected Funding Individual Items reports now have an “Included FM36 employer programme payments” option. This replaces the “Show employer earned payments instead of PMR based claims”, and includes an option to “Exclude all employer payments”.

• The Projected Funding By Learner, Projected Funding By Learning Delivery, and Projected Funding Individual Items reports now have the option to exclude projected overdue payments.

• Learner based reports now have the option to display a full attendance summary against each learner.

• Filtering by related Organisation has been added to all the Learner Reports: These include custom Learner / Organisation relationships and the built in links such as ILR Employer, Work Placement, Delivery Locations, Schools, and Colleges. The built in links also allow filtering by the Head Office of the link.

• Filtering by related Officer has been added to all the Learner Reports: These include custom Learner / Officer relationships and the built in links such as Main Adviser, Training Adviser, and Mentor. The built in links also allow filtering by the Superior of the link.

• Learner ILR Aims & Learner Qualification Reports can now be filtered by Level.

• Learner ILR Aims Report - the LDM, DAM and Provider Monitoring fields have been grouped as one optional field, but remain outputted as separate columns.

• Learner ILR Aims Report now has an Aim Status output similar to the one shown in the Learner ILR Aims lists.

• Learner ILR Aims Report now has an output for the Subcontractor UKPRN Name.

• Learner Placements Report now includes optional output of the Organisation Main Officer and Main Contact.

• Learner Assessments Report now include optional output of Location Organisation, Location Notes, Cross Reference, Action Point Notes, Follow Up Due and Done dates.

• The Learner Data Changes report can now be filtered by Extra Key.

• The Learners report now includes a Programme Achievement output field which shows the achievement date of the latest ILR programme aim,

• The Learner Timeliness Report now includes a Periods Late output field which displays the number of ILR periods (census days) which have passed between an entered date and the date it was entered into PICS.

• The Learner Timeliness Report now includes optional fields which shows the current aim data for changes linked to learning aims. These include key aim dates and completion/outcome fields.

• Learner and ILR Aim Reports - filters and optional output fields have been added to support “Current LSF” rather than the existing “Any LSF”.

• Learner Change Requests reports can now be filtered by the Status of the Change Request.

• Learner Contact Hours report now includes filtering and output for Recorded By User Type.

• A field has been added for the Main Status (without the sub-status) for dashboarding.

Applicant Reports

• A new report template Applicant Status History has been added.

• Filtering by related Organisation has been added to all the Applicant Reports: These include custom Applicant / Organisation relationships and the built in links such as Employer, Recruitment Agency, Delivery Location, School, and College. The built in links also allow filtering by the Head Office of the link.

• Filtering by related Officer has been added to all the Applicant Reports: These include custom Applicant / Officer relationships and the built in links such as Main Adviser, Mentor, and Recruited By. The built in links also allow filtering by the Superior of the link.

• A field has been added for the Main Status (without the sub-status) for dashboarding.

• An output field for Days on Status has been added.

Organisation Reports

• A new report template Organisation Status History has been added.

• A new report template Organisation Officers has been added.

• Filtering by related Organisation has been added to all the Organisation Reports: These include custom Organisation / Organisation relationships and the built in links such as Head Office. The built in links also allow filtering by the Head Office of the link.

• Filtering by related Officer has been added to all the Organisation Reports: These include custom Organisation / Officer relationships and the built in links such as Main Officer, and Main Contact. The built in links also allow filtering by the Superior of the link.

• A field has been added for the Main Status (without the sub-status) for dashboarding.

Opportunity Reports

• A new report template Opportunity Status History has been added.

• A field has been added for the Main Status (without the sub-status) for dashboarding.

Course Reports

• The Day of a Session is now available as an optional field in the Course Sessions report.

• The Course Data Changes report is now available.

• GLH is now included in the Attendance Summary data.

• % Attended is now included in the Attendance Summary data, this is Present + Late / Sessions.

• Session Attendance Reporting now has optional fields for the Attendee’s Provider Assigned ID, Main Officer and Employer/Placement.

Vacancy Reports

• More RAA related fields are now available as an optional fields.

Form Reports

• Output of the Signature capture date has been added for each signature

• A new report template, “Form Fields Report” has been added which shows the fields and their responses against each form.

User Reports

• 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.

QAR Report

• A new report type is now available: Community Learning. This report is based on the Education and Training QAR specification, but includes all aims with Funding Model 10.

• Additional output fields have been added to the QAR report:

  • Aim Title

  • Aim Level

  • Maths or English

  • Delivery Qualification Assessor

  • Delivery Qualification IQA

  • Delivery Qualification EQA

  • HNS

  • HNS Code

• The Minimum Standard Qualification Type field no longer incorrectly classifies aims as ESOL.

Interactive Reports

• All interactive reports can now be analysed by multiple columns in table view.

• When analysing by date fields in interactive reports, it is now possible to apply a grouping to the date so they are not output as individual dates. Possible groupings are: As-Is, Calendar Month or Year, ILR Period or Year, ISO Week.

• Dates (included those which have been grouped) are now shown in chronological order.

• User Defined Form fields can now be used to analyse interactive reports.

• When viewing a saved interactive report, there is now a button to show the report options used when generating the report data.

• When exporting a table view or data list to Excel, the report options are now included as a hidden tab.

• Export table and Show all records buttons are now available on all interactive report types and dashboard widgets.

• Interactive table and chart views now display a title.

• When editing a dashboard widget with a Target Column, the menu no longer reverts to the first target column in the list.

Miscellaneous Report Changes

• The Event Data Changes report is now available, which includes changes to Appointments, Tasks, Communications and Calendar entries.

• The Miscellaneous Data Changes report is now available, which includes changes to Qualification Plans, Form Instances, Surveys, User Defined Forms, Contracts, and various other records not included in other data change reports.

11th May 2022

• Report output of UDF Single & Multiple Items from a list may have output only the code. Now fixed.

• WebForm notification emails sent as part of a Status Workflow did not have fully formed URLs. Now fixed.

• Adding Evidence to a Learner could result in a Bad Request error. Now fixed.

7th May 2022

General

• 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.

Courses

• Session list can now be filtered by Site.

WebForms

• 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.

25th April 2022

• Bug Fix: Forms that are set to auto approve are completed in guest mode and for certain types of forms, this was causing an error that could result in form duplicates. Duplicates are no longer created.

• QAR Report: New optional fields have been added for SSA Codes and Tiers. These use the SSA code relevant to the report type - for Apprenticeship Programmes this is the Standard/Framework+Pathway SSA code, for other reports it is the aim SSA from the LARS database.

20th April 2022

• Attempting to run the learner validation report would show an error about the hostname not being set. Now fixed.

17th April 2022

• 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.

Courses

• 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.

WebForms

• Failed documents should now be correctly recovered if the retry succeeds.

• Illegal XML chars will no longer cause document generation to fail.

• Program end date will no longer be reset each time a from with a qualification plan selector but no aim fields is loaded.

• Added the ability to save fields and then re-use them in other forms. This will be most useful for single selects with lots of answers.

• Added an additional Learner Signature. This is intended for use when the learner needs to sign twice at different stages of the form. E.g. Learner → Officer → Learner → Form Owner.

Miscellaneous

• The Licences and Accounts page now shows the number and size of files stored in PICS.

• Employment Status fields were not being populated when Generating a Document for ILR Learner and ILR Learner Aims, now fixed.

• The message shown when requesting a password reset from the login page no longer states that an email has been sent, and now suggests that an email has only been sent if the email address entered matches a valid user email address.

• The import of csv data from Recruit An Apprentice has been brought in line with the changes made by the Apprenticeship Service.

4th March 2022

Navigation

• A new icon is now available on several of the main screens to allow each user to make that screen their home page in PICSWeb.

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.

Learner ILR Aims

• The Planned and Actual duration of the Aim is show in a tool tip on the relevant date field in the list, and is available in the Export to Excel

• The Actual or Planned duration of the Aim is show in the Aim summary details.

• LDM FAM code 382 (Adult Level 3 Offer for Low Wage Learner) is now available for use.

Learner Payments

• 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.

Document Generation

• There was an issue with fields in documents not doing a case insensitive search. Now fixed.

WebForms

• 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.

Integrations

• OneFile: New configuration settings are available to update Learner, Officer, and Organisation demographic data in either OneFile or PICS during the nightly update.

• OneFile: New configuration setting available to push changes of learner employer up to OneFile.

• OneFile: New Configuration setting available to push changes to learner main officer up to OneFile.

• Smart Assessor: New configuration settings are available to update Learner, Officer, and Organisation demographic data in either OneFile or PICS during the nightly update.

• Smart Assessor: New configuration setting available to push changes of learner employer up to OneFile.

• OneFile: Errors during a manual or nightly refresh will now generate a sync log for the learner.

• Smart Assessor: Errors during a manual or nightly refresh will now generate a sync log for the learner.

• EDS: The ESFA are deactivating the EDS Web Service on 1st April. After this date the PICSWeb EDS Integration will no longer function and searches will not be available.

User Management

• If permissions are stripped from a user due to licence restrictions, eg a Light Touch User, we will now show which permissions have been stripped in the user summary screen.

9th February 2022

• OneFile Integration: Enrolling a learner into OneFile could result in an error related to creating their officer user depending on how your data and OneFile data matched up. We have made some improvements to handle a wider range of scenarios to reduce the chances of this error.

• Create Learner Process: The check for potential duplicates when entering the basic learner details has been updated to check against Date of Birth too. Plus, it should all be faster too.

• Evidence Files: It was possible for an evidence file to be locked with no way of unlocking it depending on your licences. It is now possible to unlock an evidence file by resetting it’s assessment status regardless of licences.

7th February 2022

• 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.

Courses

• It is now possible to set the Session flag in the Attendance editing form.

• It is now possible to select multiple Course records and set the status.

• It is now possible to create Off-the-job Training hours Contact records from a Session’s Attendance.

Officers

• It is now possible to select multiple records and add the same Note to them all.

• The End date field has been added to the Additional details.

Organisations

• It is now possible to select multiple records and add the same Note to them all.

Vacancies

• Recruit An Apprentice vacancies have a new tab for selecting the qualifications candidates should have.

• Recruit An Apprentice tab has had a significant rework and many fields have been changed or removed to match the new API Specification

Opportunities

• It is now possible to select multiple records to Delete or Reinstate.

Integrations

• 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 PICSWeb. 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 PICSWeb 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 PICSWeb 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 PICSWeb.

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

Form Manager

• It is now possible to customise more fields on the Forms list.

• A field for Head Office User has been added to the Forms list.

• Form owners will now be able to see all their own forms regardless of Site. Note that FCA Users will still not be able to see forms after they have been submitted.

WebForms

• A form type of “Applicant File” has been added

• Many Applicant fields were included in a form when editing an Applicant which could overwrite changes made - we now only include fields that are wanted on the template to prevent this.

• WebForm Designs now support multiple sites.

• Date and Checkbox defaults answers should now be working correctly.

• Long text fields will now properly display new lines in the downloaded word document.

• Added an ability to select the Authorising officer when approving a Learner Change Request form where the Change Request type requires authorisation.

• Added the ability for Applicant, Applicant File, Organisation File and Learner File forms to be automatically approved and imported on completion.

• Non mandatory signatures are no longer being treated as mandatory.

• A field has been added for ILR Learner Support Funding (LSF) to Learner forms.

• Learning Expected End Date will now be correctly calculated after switching to a different qualification plan.

• Learning Expected End Date will no longer show as 01/01/1970 if there are no aim fields on the form.

• Fields that end up off the page during the design process will be moved back onto the page.

• Locked Organisation Details fields will now save correctly instead of becoming blank.

• WebForm Designs can now be retired without creating a new version.

• Redisplaying a Qualification plan field will now show both the reference and title instead of just the reference on the redisplay.

• The left side page navigation is now visible on screens down to 1200 pixels wide. We now also show the page number on hovering over these.

• The “Submit Form“/”Send for Remote Signature(s)” button should now more reliably show the right text.

• Guest Fill & Sign is now much more resilient to timeouts caused by filling in long forms.

Users

• A new user permission “View Learner Funding” has been added. Users with the “Funding Calculator“ permission will have the new permission added.

• User list now shows Last Login

Configuration

• It is now possible to select multiple Qualification Plan records and set the status.

• It is now possible to set the Review Type titles.

• It is now possible to view and edit Provider Details in the Licences and Account area.

• It is now possible to edit Assessment Grades.

• It is now possible to edit Officer titles.

• It is now possible to set Export in ILR and Aim Provider Monitoring (A and B) in Contracts.

• It is now possible to edit Placement End Reason.

• It is now possible to edit payment Cost Centres.

• Learner configuration has been moved from the learner list to the Configuration section.

• The Create button in Tags was only visible to users with the “Create Opportunities” permission. Now fixed.

• It is now possible to set up ESF Subcontractor Rates for Contracts in the Configuration section.

Miscellaneous

• Text filters now have a “Starts with” option.

• Attachments sent via Dropbox email could be corrupted. Now Fixed

• When entering addresses it is now possible to search for the address based on the entered postcode.

• Attachments from FCA forms would not work in Remote Fill and Sign if it didn’t already exist. Now fixed.

• Applicant Offer Provider Addresses were not populating in the Generate Document process . Now fixed

• There is a new Show Permissions button in the top toolbar that will highlight features that need permissions.

12th December 2021

• 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.

Courses

• Notes have been added to Attendance recording.

Officers

• The officers tab now allows adding Superiors and Direct Reports.

Organisations

• An optional field for EDS reference has been added.

• A filter for EDS reference has been added.

• The organisations tab now allows adding Head Offices and Branches.

Vacancies

• Recruit an Apprentice vacancies and their upload status are now indicated on the Vacancies List.

Integrations

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

• 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 PICSWeb. 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.

Forms Manager

• The User permissions for Form Management have been split to include individual permissions for View, Edit, Reassign, Delete, Rejected and Approve.

• User Site filtering is now respected.

• There is now an option to include forms created from a previous version of a form template in the filtering options.

• Signature images can now be viewed on the Signatures tab of the the Forms Summary.

WebForms

• Where a signature email has failed to reach the recipient (bounced, blocked or error) it is now possible to see more details by clicking on the email status.

• More fields have been added to Learner File Forms including UDFs, UKPRN, Site Organisation, ILR Prior Attainment, Programme Name, Learning Expected End, Apprenticeship Standard and TNPs.

• The codes behind picklist fields can be seen in the field editor.

• WebForm templates can now be exported from, and imported into PICSWeb.

• Improvements to Fill and Sign validation that will allow for more flexibility when the form owner signs.

• Aim level column for the qualification plan control.

• Officer contact details display fields for Learners and Applicants.

• Date fields can now do fixed or rolling max/min/defaults.

• The Subcontractor field on Learner and Applicant forms is now working.

• Fixed a bug that prevented Employer details showing on forms if the Employer selector was not on the form.

Users

• It is now possible for Database Administrators to provide Pellcomp staff with temporary user accounts to assist in supporting issues. This tool should only be used when requested by Pellcomp.

• Bulk update of User records has been adding including facilities for Add/Remove Sites, Deletion and Permanent Deletion.

• Database Administrator Users can now edit a Users “Username”.

• User list can now be Site and Permission filtered

• User list now has an Update All feature for adding and removing Site links.

Miscellaneous

• If an email to a user account has been blocked (usually because the email address doesn’t exist), a warning is shown on the Workspace page when the user logs in.

• EAS Export file was not using 24 hours clock for the time portion of the filename, this has been fixed.

• The Home page now has tiles for Learner Change Requests that need Authorising or Actioning

20th November 2021

• New Learner (beta) was not creating Employer Placement records. This has been fixed and any missing records have been added.

• New Learner (beta) now applies the Contract UKPRN to the new Learner where one has been specified.

25th October 2021

• 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.

• PICSWeb 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.

WebForms

• When using the SEM (Small Employer) monitoring field in WebForms, the code list now shows the correct SEM codes. Previously it was showing the code for SEI (Self Employed).

• ILR RUI picklists no longer include Death and Illness options.

• ILR DAM fields are now included.

• ILR ACT picklist now includes an option for “ACT 1 Non Levy”

• The source of form signatory emails and the order they get sent out in can now be defaulted at form design time.

• New form type: Learner File Form. It’s like the Organisation File Form, but for Learners.

• New display only fields for:

  • Learner/Applicant

    • Full Name

    • Age at Start (used in conjunction with the Qualification Plan)

    • Current Age (used in conjunction with the Date of Birth the field)

  • Form Owner

    • Full Name

• Form owners will now have a little more control over their own forms until they are submitted. This means that issues like forms being sent out to incorrect email addresses can now be fixed directly by the form owner.

• Improvements to single and multi-line field display on the Answers tab.

• Form templates can once again be permanently deleted.

• Change Request Forms will now properly attach to the change request regardless of the number of additional attachments on the form itself.

• Added the ability to Clone an instance of a form to a new form instance using the latest version of the form template.

• URL fields will now show in the downloaded word document.

• Improvements to repeat fields which were not working in some instances.

Organisations

• Many fields in the Organisation list are now optional.

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

• Organisations list now has filters for “Has Head Office”, “Has Branches“.

• Contract Numbers for ESFA Agreement IDs are now limited to 6 characters to match the Apprenticeship Service specification.

Officers

• 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.

General

• Look up lists now show the Status of entries if they are not Live.

• Emails sent from PICSWeb now use a different email provider. Emails are still sent from noreply@picsweb.picsmail.co.uk and no changes to customer email systems should be required.

• It is now possible to configure and use custom relationship types between Officers, Organisations and Applicants.

• It is now possible to add Contract Items against Contracts under the Delivery Configuration section.

13th September 2021

Changes to the DAM code list have been made in response to the ESFA’s updated code list. This includes reinstating many codes which were expired at the end of 2020.

30th August 2021

• The ILR exporter will only send prior attainment records which are dated on or after the earliest aim start date of all aims in the ILR for that learner. If no records exist matching the earliest aim start date, the most recent record dated before that date will be sent. This is to prevent R131 errors.

25th August 2021

• New Feature: Support for the new Apprenticeship Service Cohort export format has been added. Please see Creating an Apprenticeship Service Cohort Export in PICSWeb.

• Fix: Editing programme and qualification dates in Webforms was not working as expected. Now fixed.

18th August 2021

• Fix: The Applicant Importer was not creating applicant status records correctly resulting in newly imported applicants not appearing in Applicant Status reports. Now fixed.

• Fix: The list of assessments for a single qualification did not load. Now fixed.

17th August 2021

• Fix: Ending a Break-In-Learning for a learner with an LSF FAM would result in a “From date must be specified” error. Now fixed.

16th August 2021

• Fix: Attempting to Approve a form based on an appointment could generate an error stating “Object reference not set to an instance of an object”. Now fixed.

• Fix: The FIS reference data was missing all devolved postcode information, which meant the warning LSDPostcode_02 was being shown in PICSWeb for any aim start date postcode in a devolved area, even when correct. We have now suspended this rule until we have valid reference data.

• Improvement: Speed up the View Full Change Logs feature in Recent Activity tabs

• Improvement: Speed up the QAR report could take a long time to run.

13th August 2021

• New Feature: Support for the 2021/22 ILR Year including data entry, claims and exports is now available.

• New Feature: The Learner & Applicant Lists now allow you to choose which fields to display. This means that the list will display fewer fields than before when you first open it. Take a look at the Learner List & Applicant List pages for instructions on how to select which fields you wish to see.

• New Feature: The Forms Index page can now display custom form field values in up to three additional columns.

• Improvement: The Claim History report now has “Item Subcontractor” fields.

• Improvement: ILR Learner, and Projected Funding reports can now be filtered to Learners with Aims with Funding and Monitoring RES=1.

• Improvement: Learner ILR Aims report can now be filtered to Aims with Funding and Monitoring RES=1.

• Improvement: Applicant Update All now includes Recruited By and Recruitment Agency.

• Improvement: The Forms Index page has a new "Modified Status" filter. Available options are All, Today, Last 7 Days (default), Last 30 Days.

• Improvement: Configuration, Forms has been renamed to Forms and Themes to avoid confusion with each other.

• Improvement: The WebForms Qualification plan and Aim controls should now be better at displaying previously saved values.

• Improvement: Added a warning message on UDF configuration. This will show when any question has a Unique Field name, but there are missing entity display locations. This is to help make it clearer why certain questions are not available for Web and Sign Up forms.

• Improvement: Field search on the WebForms Designer will no longer reset after a field is added to the form design.

8th August 2021

• Fix: PMR records are now sent in the ILR export if the payment date is after the start date of a later programme aim in a different learning episode.

• Improvement: Additional Forms on summary views are now broken up into separate tabs so that each form can be viewed and edited one at a time.

• Improvement: A Levels funded by Advanced Learner Loans can now be entered into PICSWeb.

• Improvement: After receiving clarification from the ESFA, the Qualification & Achievement Rates report now excludes any learner currently awaiting the result of their Endpoint Assessment. This is any Apprenticeship Standard learner with an end date entered, a blank achievement date and a Completion Status of 2 (Completed).

24th July 2021

• Fix: The “Apps Monthly Payment” Funding Reconciler was not including all learners in the Year To Date Differences and Year To Date Matches reports. Now fixed.

• Improvement: The Qualification & Achievement Rates report dataset no longer includes ESF aims (funding model 70) as these are all excluded from the achievement rate totals.

• Improvement: Clicking on the date icon next to date and date range inputs will now open the date selector.

• Improvement: Selecting optional Officer fields in reports are now grouped together visually using a tree hierarchy.

• Improvement: Contacts created from SignUp forms will now have the Contact Role automatically set.

• Improvement: The Funding Calculator’s Process Warnings report now shows a “Withheld From Export” column when PICS is configured to display withheld learners in the funding calculation.

• New Feature: It is now possible to delete a photo/avatar from Learners, Applicants, Officers, and Organisations

• New Feature: In the Learner Summary Screen, there is a new menu item in actions called User Access Check which will allow you check if another user can access the learner.

21st July 2021

• Fix: Some emails sent out today to complete signatures had an issue with the link. Retrying the link again will now work.

July 17th 2021

• New Feature: eAssessor Learner Type, Delivery Target, and Delivery Model can be set while adding a new Learner in Step 3.

• Improvement: Applicant Web Forms now has a new field “Current Status Notes“ for the new Import field “APP_CURSTATUS_NOTES“.

July 9th 2021

• Fix: The ILR Exporter no longer generates a “Failed to compare two elements in the array” error when there are Destination and Progression records with a blank code.

• Fix: Validation rule AFinDate_04 is no longer applied to Apprenticeship Standard learners.

• Fix: It is now possible to assign a learner to a status workflow even if they already have some status value set.

• Fix: The Apprentice Service CSV export now uses the start and expected end dates from the learning episode instead of the programme aim to include the EPA period.

• Fix: The Organisation Provisions list no longer shows a “item with the same key has already been added” error when viewing organisations with SIC92 provision records.

• Fix: The Qualification & Achievement Rates report will now calculate “Overdue Planned Break” correctly when the Learner Reference Number field is not included as an output in the report.

• Fix: The AEB FM35 funding calculation was not applying funding adjustments when calculating the funding cap band. Now fixed.

• Fix: Export Course Attendance report will no longer fail to run if an old attendance record exists when a more recent record is found.

• Improvement: It is now possible to assign an opportunity to a status workflow.

• Improvement: The Claim History report now has an option to exclude FM36 employer incentives.

• Improvement: The AEB FM35 Funding calculation now includes National Skills Fund Level 3 Adult uplifts.

• Improvement: Has Current Learners filter has been added to the Organisations Appointments Report.

• Improvement: File Types can now be assigned to Learner and Applicant Webforms.

• Improvement: The main file attached to a Learner Payment can be accessed from the Payment Summary.

July 3rd 2021

• Improvement: After editing a learner, the delay before validation starts has been increased to 8 hours. This is to reduce the number of unnecessary validations occurring and improve overall performance on the PICSWeb servers. Learners can still be validated on-demand by clicking the validation button under the learner’s name.

• Improvement: The Applicant Import has been rewritten to improve performance when importing large numbers of Applicants.

• Improvement: The ILR Actuals Funding and ILR Projected Funding “View Funding Details” screen now has an Export To Excel option added to the search filter’s More menu.

• Improvement: Applicant Sign Up Forms now allow the Workflow to be specified as along with the Status.

• Improvement: The Default Workflow for new Applicants can be specified in Configuration > Delivery > Workflows > Applicant Statuses along with the Default Status.

• Improvement: If you collapse the side menu, it will remain collapsed for the rest of your session.

• Improvement: Adding 19+ Traineeship learners now correctly sets the SOF and FFI fields on the Programme and Component aims.

• Improvement: Adding a learner to a Contract with a Subcontractor UKPRN and not using a Qualification Plan now correctly uses the UKPRN .

• Fix: The learner validation no longer rejects valid email addresses with single-character subdomains.

• Fix: EDS Reference Numbers are no longer automatically populated for new organisation records if the postcode returned from the EDS web service does not match the postcode entered into PICSWeb.

June 27th 2021

IMPORTANT: Please note that Learner Documents have been renamed to Learner Files to standardise the terminology across Learner, Applicant, Officers, Organisations etc.

• New Feature: It is now possible to share your saved report templates so other users can run them directly.

• Improvement: The Qualification & Achievement Rates Report now includes a new optional field: LARS Aim Type. This can be used in Interactive mode to analyse by aim type, or filter to specific types such as Functional Skills.

• Improvement: Lookup Lists that used to limit results to 20 records will now load in additional records as you scroll down the list.

• Fix: Imports were not correctly processing Employer fields where a EMPCODE, PRIOR_EMPSTAT_EMPCODE, or CHANGE_EMPSTAT_CODE field was not specified.

June 22nd 2021

• Fix: The Learner import did not support LRS fields for Ability to Share, Verification Type and Preferred Name.

• Fix: Planned Learning & EEP hours are now calculated correctly when adding a new episode for an existing learner starting in a previous ILR year.

• Fix: Accounts view of the number of actual Full and Light SaaS users was incorrect.

• Fix: Survey responses entered on the last day of the report range are now included in the survey response reports.

• Improvement: Future year Planned Learning and EEP hours fields are no longer visible for learners who ended before the year starts.

• Improvement: Full ILR years (e.g. “2020 to 2021” instead of “2020”) are shown when viewing and editing Planned Learning and EEP Hours.

• Improvement: It is now possible to enter an employed (code 10) Employment Status record prior to start for an apprentice without supplying an Employer ID, SEM or LOE code, as long as there is also an employment status valid on the first day of learning.

June 18th 2021

• New Feature: Learner Tags can now be added to qualification plans. These will automatically be added to any new learners who are assigned to that plan.

• New Feature: The Funding Late Notified Report has been added as a report template within the Reports Workspace.

• New Feature: Files attached to Learners, Organisations, Applicants, Officers and more can now have an Expiry date set. Additional filtering and reporting will be added in future releases.

• Improvement: Expected End date filtering has been added to Learner reports.

• Improvement: The description for Perform Levy Adjustments on the Apps Monthly Payment reconciliation Extra Options screen has been updated to be more explicit as to what financial data this option updates in PICS.

• Improvement: When entering a new Learner you can now leave Employer Prior to Start blank as long as there is a Status Change on the start date with an Employer specified.

• Improvement: ILR Aims Report now has Start, Expected End, Achievement and End date field from the Delivery Qualification to support cases where users are restricted to editing Delivery Qualification before details are transferred to the ILR.

• Fix: OneFile sync could create new reviews in PICSWeb instead of updating existing reviews. This is now fixed and any duplicated reviews have been removed.

• Fix: The ACE360 interface is now available but the menu item to configure the integration is still hidden. In the meantime, the configuration can be accessed at https://yourcompanyhere.picsweb.co.uk/app/Integrations/ACE360/Summary

• Fix: When adding ESF Contract Numbers to a Contract, it is now possible to enter them using the standard ILR format of ESF-0000000.

• Fix: The Claim History report and Projected Funding reports would allow selecting individual subcontractors when the Subcontracted Status option was not set to “Specified Subcontractor”. A warning is now shown, and the report will not run, if “Specified Subcontractor” is not selected when a subcontractor is selected.

• Fix: When looking at Form Answers, officer lookup fields could display “Unknown” if the current user was linked to an officer. Now correctly shows the selected officer name.

• Fix: Units specified in Qualification Plans are now added to new Learners.

• Fix: WebForm Organisation and Officer drop downs will now correctly highlight when they fail validation.

June 11th 2021

• New Feature: Apprentices can now be uploaded to ACE360 directly from PICSWeb and their ACE360 status automatically downloaded.

• New Feature: It is now possible to clone an existing review

• New Feature: The delivery plan qualification progress has been replaced with a new progress breakdown tab that shows progress against various aspects of a learner’s programme.

• Improvement: The learner list now has flags on the Expected End Date to indicate if it is overdue or soon (within 14 days).

• Improvement: Editing aims which ended in closed ILR years will automatically cause the Export in 2020 field to be set to Always. This is to ensure that the ESFA receive the latest ILR data which will avoid QAR errors.

• Improvement: Officer drop-down lists will now include the current user as the first item if they have the required role.

• Improvement: A new filter has been added to the learner list: Workflow Status.

• Improvement: Signup Forms now validate that the selections for Allowed Contact Methods make sense.

• Improvement: Change Logs can now be filtered by Additional Key.

• Improvement: “Employer Record Code” field on Applicant WebForms now populates other “Employer” fields as happens in Learner WebForms.

• Improvement: The Projected Funding Calculator can now be run for the next ILR year.

• Improvement: Learner ILR Aims Report now included Aim Certificate and Registration details.

• Improvement: Functional Skills results have been added to the Learners report.

• Improvement: OneFile sync now includes all enrolled learners instead of just those modified in the last 12 months.

• Fix: Available transitions when changing a Learner, Applicant or Opportunity status would show more transitions than it should if the target status did not have a sub status.

• Fix: Applicant picklists for Employment Status EII & BSI no longer show old values.

• Fix: The drop-down list for Sent for Form Capture in Applicant Workflow settings is now populated.

• Fix: Scheduled and Run Now reports are no longer sent to user accounts which are disabled, deleted or suspended.

• Fix: Opportunities Report - Latest Activity calculation was only including Appointments.

• Fix: WebForm Applicant Qualification Plans are now correctly populating the Aim rows.

• Fix: WebForm Qualification Plan Aim end dates are now being filled in correctly.

• Fix: WebForm file attachments should now correctly validate when there are more than two.

June 6th 2021

• New Feature: Tools to allow Status change and Deletion of multiple Tags has been added in Configuration > Lists and Types > Tags.

• Improvement: Import fields are no longer limited to 255 characters.

• Improvement: User Group Code and Name are now available in the Users Report.

June 4th 2021

• New Feature: It is now possible to enrol a Learner or Applicant onto a course from within their individual course enrolment list.

• New Feature: An “Organisation File” WebForms has been added.

• Improvement: A new Wizard style view has been introduced for adding a provision to a record.

• Improvement: It is possible to edit the status of a Workflow to make an unused workflow Dormant to stop it from being used.

• Fix: Hours from withheld learning episodes are no longer included when calculating the total Planned and EEP Hours for a learner.

• Fix: The Funding Reconcilers were not showing learner details for learner’s known in PICS but had mismatching Software Supplier Aim IDs. Now fixed.

• Fix: There were instances where reports generated by the Funding Calculator and Funding Reconcilers would throw an exception if a soft-labelled entity matched a fixed column header in the report. Now fixed.

• Fix: Applicant Employment Monitoring fields in WebForms were not being populated with the expected options.

June 1st 2021

• Fix: File Attachments and Picklist on Signup Forms are now working properly.

• Improvement: ILR Learner and Aims reports can now be filtered by LSF or ACT FAMs

• Fix: ILR Learner Report was displaying the wrong descriptions for Preferred Method Of Contact.

May 29th 2021

• New Feature: OneFile integration is now available in PICSWeb. If you have been using the Desktop OneFile interface, please read the following guide: https://pellcomp.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/POH/pages/2208366607/

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

May 23rd 2021

• New Feature: The ability to create an Apprenticeship Service Cohort Export file has been added.

• New Feature: Reporting on ILR Destination & Progression has been added as a dedicated report and as summary fields on the ILR Learner Report.

• New Feature: The ability to choose which Delivery Qualification is considered the “Main Qualification Aim” has been added. We have also standardised the name from “Main Aim” or “Main Qualification” to “Main Qualification Aim” - this may impact saved reports and learner documents.

• Improvement: Episode Start, Expected End, and End dates on the Organisation Payments report.

• Improvement: Organisation Reports now have single Head Office and Organisation filters.

• Improvement: The Funding Calculator now includes learner-entered Earnings Adjustment Statement (EAS) records and generates funding items for these.

• Improvement: The report generated by the Funding Calculator now includes a sheet for Year-To-Date FM25 funding items. This shows FM25 funding distributed over planned in-learning periods for the year.

• Improvement: The Claim History Report and Projected Funding Reports now include an option to “Distribute FM25 Totals By Period”. This will display FM25 funding as evenly distributed over planned in-learning periods instead of a single payment.

• Fix: The Advanced Learner Loan funding calculator was not including loan payments where they were paid in the year after the loan funded aim had ended. Now fixed.

• Fix: The Apprenticeship Data Match reconciliation process would not complete if a learner from the Apprenticeship Data Match Report does not exist in PICS.

• Fix: Learners recorded with an employment status with a temporary EDRS number were sometimes being excluded from the Projected Funding calculations. Now fixed.

May 17th 2021

• Fix: User Defined fields are now being output on the Learner ILR Aims report.

• Fix: Error EPAOrgID_01 no longer shows incorrectly when an aim’s standard code is less than 100.

May 16th 2021

• New Feature: ILR Employment Status and Employment Monitoring fields are now available for Applicants.

• New Feature: ILR Programme Aim Planned Hours field (Apprenticeship OTJ) is now available for Applicants.

• New Feature: LRS Identity Verification field is now available for Applicants.

May 14th 2021

• New Feature: A Settings page has been added to the Learner list Action button. This includes the option to “Withhold New Learners from ILR Export“.

• New Feature: ILR Exports can now be filtered to learners with specific tags.

• New Feature: eAssessor Learner Type and Login now available on the Learner Summary.

• Improvement: Data Capture of English/Maths Grades is now included on New Learner Step 2 for ILR Funding Model 25 Learners.

• Improvement: Data Capture of Contract Reference Number & HHS for is now included on New Learner Step 2 for ILR Funding Model 70 “ESF” Learners.

• Improvement: Search filters on text fields that could be blank like ULN, Provider Assigned ID, Apprenticeship Service Cohort now have options for “Is Blank”, “Not blank”, “Any of” and “None of” specified value.

• Improvement: Organisation Payment Report now includes optional fields for Learner Reference Number and Unique Learner Number.

• Improvement: Most reports with date filters now include “All” options where the date filters are not applied.

• Improvement: Organisations Reports now includes an optional field for Notes.

• Improvement: Learner Reports now includes an optional field for Next of Kin details.

• Improvement: The Apprenticeship Data Match reconciliation report now includes the Apprenticeship Contract Type (ACT)

• Fix: Learner Reference Numbers that are generated with a predefined prefix are now numeric, there were being generated alpha-numeric

• Fix: The aim subcontractor UKPRN from qualification plan aims is now being applied to aims on new learners.

• Fix: For new learners entered via PICSWeb, the aim list is now sorted with the main aim immediately below the programme aims.

• Fix: The Projected Funding by Individual Items & Projected Funding By Learning Delivery reports were missing aim details. These are now back in the report.

• Fix: The Funding Calculator was duplicating funding events for AEB learners where their programme is split over multiple PICS Episodes.

• Fix: The FM36 Funding Calculator was using the incorrect date to determine the appropriate funding band in rare cases. This is now fixed.

• Fix: The Start EPA and End Episode tools no longer require the Actual Off-the-Job Hours field to be completed when the learner has withdrawn or started before 1st August 2019.

• Improvement: More data capture fields for qualification registration and certification have been added - these were available in PICS desktop but not PICSWeb.

• Fix: The Qualification Achievement Rates report (QAR) had two Age at Start optional fields and using both would cause an error. One of these fields has now been renamed Age at Start (QAR) and will show the age-relevant to the QAR report type being run.

• Improvement: Updates to learner validation:

  • Clearer message to show if a Work Placement employer organisation doesn't have an EDS reference.

  • FundModel_07 now excludes programme aims which are Funding Model 99, Restarts or LDM FAM 353, 354 or 355. It previously would only exclude programme aims which were funding model 99 and a restart.

• Improvement: New learner validation rules added:

  • FundModel_15: LDM FAM 378 must only be returned for aims with funding model 35.

  • OTJActHours_02: Actual Off-the-Job Hours must be returned for completed apprenticeship programme aims starting after 01/08/2019 (except restarts).

  • LearnDelFamType_96: LDM FAM 376 cannot be used with Traineeship aims.

  • LearnDelFamType_100: LDM FAM 378 cannot be used on aims starting before 01/04/2021.

  • LearnDelFamType_101: LDM FAM 378 can not be used with Traineeship aims.

  • LearnDelFamType_103: LDM FAM codes 378 and 376 cannot both be recorded on the same learning aim.

  • LearnDelFamType_97: DAM FAM code 002, Funding Model 35 and SOF FAM 105 cannot be used together on the same learning aim.

  • R127: Traineeship component aims with LDM FAM 377 must have a corresponding Traineeship programme aim with LDM FAM 377.

  • R128: Traineeship programme aims with LDM FAM 377 must have a corresponding Traineeship component aim with LDM FAM 377.

  • PlanLearnHours_02: If returned, planned learning hours should be greater than zero. This is a warning and applies to learning aims with funding model 25, 35, 81, 10 or 99, excluding T-Levels.

  • EPAOrgID_01: The EPA Organisation ID must be valid in the FIS for the Apprenticeship Standard and the Planned End Date of the apprenticeship.

May 7th 2021

• New Feature: Change Funding Organisation and/or Group has been added to the Learner Summary Actions button.

• New Feature: End Episode & Aims has been added to the Learner ILR Actions button.

• Fix: The ILR learner validation no longer shows an error if an apprentice reaches the end of their End Point Assessment (programme aim Achievement Date is completed) but with a failed outcome (3: No Achievement).

• New Feature: Reports can now be saved with an Output Type of Interactive. Interactive reports can be viewed without the need to re-run the entire report and can be quickly filtered to show only the required data.

• Improvement: Saved reports can now be cloned by using the Clone Report menu item in the Saved Reports list.

• Improvement: The Interactive Qualification & Achievement Rates Report now has report presets to show the Achievement Rate and Cohort Counts for the selected report analysis.

April 28th 2021

• Fix: Importing Learners without an ILR Prior Attainment level value was causing an error.

• Improvement: Session Attendance recording now respects the configuration setting for the number of back in to the past that sessions may be edited.

• Improvement: Importing large numbers of Organisations could fail if the EDS Reference integration was enabled.

• New Feature: Missing Qualification Unit, Learning Outcomes and Assessment Criteria can now be added in the Unit summary.

• Improvement: Some checkboxes were not showing a border in High Contrast mode.

April 23rd 2021

• New Feature: Support for PICS 20.01 Database Structure including new ILR fields and tables for 2021/22.

• New Feature: Officer merge - can be found in Database Admin Actions.

• New Feature: Organisation merge - can be found in Database Admin Actions.

• New Feature: Start EPA in ILR Actions for Apprenticeship Standards Learners.

• New Feature: Bulk Status Updates for Applicants and Opportunities.

• New Feature: Clone field for configuring User Defined Forms.

• Fix: Import of XLSX files with blank columns now works.

• Fix: Import of CSV files including some characters including left/right apostrophes now doe not fail.

• Fix: Claim History report now works for very large numbers of in learners and aims.

• Improvement: LDM codes 378 & 379 are now available.

• Fix: The funding calculator will now calculate funding for funding model 35 programmes if the learner had progressed to a programme on another funding model, where previously it would not.

April 17th 2021

• New Feature: Reports on Learner & Applicant Prior Qualifications are now available.

• New Feature: Added a URL Field type to the available fields on WebForm templates.

• Improvement: Creating a Learner from an Applicant now includes all the Prior Qualification data including any attached certificates.

• Improvement: when updating learner details on the LRS, the display shows which fields will be updated more clearly.

• Improvement: The option to only include validated learners in ILR exports has been removed.

• Improvement: Learner Change Requests which have been rejected can now be reopened with the option to update the change request notes and upload a new file attachment.

• Improvement: EPA Organisation IDs entered against Apprenticeship Standard learners are now validated against the list of EPA in the FIS (rule EPAOrgID_01).

• Improvement: Replacing the backing document on a WebForm with one that has less pages will now no longer leave fields in limbo on pages that don’t exist. These fields will be moved to the last page of the new document.

• Improvement: Added workspace tiles for Form Capture Managers and Form Capture Users.

• Improvement: When importing an FCA form into a WebForm, URL fields are now included.

• Fix: When editing ILR Planned Hours or EEP hours, the calculated total hours for the learner no longer includes hours from deleted learning episodes.

• Fix: In certain situations, importing an Applicant edit form was creating a new Applicant instead of editing the existing one. Now fixed.

• Fix: On form templates, multiple field edits were not working due to a broken data binding. Now fixed.

• Fix: Applicant Offer Agency Max value was not being populated correctly

• Fix: Applicant Offer Agency Max value was not being output in reports and documents correctly

• Improvement: The Apprenticeship Achievement date can now be edited on the Episode End screen.

April 10th 2021

• Fix: Validation rule DateOfBirth_26 was incorrectly being triggered based on the learner’s age in year instead of the age of the learner’s age at the start of the aim.

• Fix: The learner validation no longer shows errors when component aims had an incorrect Framework or Pathway code and the aim didn’t belong to an Apprenticeship framework.

• Fix: Learning Delivery qualifications with a status of Prior Accreditation no longer cause errors when the achievement date is before the start date.

• Fix: The Funding Calculation’s Year To Date report was including employer payment (PMR) values in the totals resulting in incorrect values in the report. These are no longer included.

• Improvement: The ILR Exports and Funding Calculator lists now remind you to refresh the results after 1 minute to see any new exports or funding calculations you have run.

• Fix: Importing Prior Qualifications from the LRS Personal Learning Record (PLR) where the level or grade had no alphanumeric characters (such as **) would result in an error. Now fixed.

• Fix: Fixed an error that would occur when searching for learners if any learner in the filter did not have a Learner Reference Number.

• Fix: New Private Training Learners can now be added without an Employer.

• Fix: Sending Applicants to Webforms/FCA doesn’t require Forms Manager permission.

• Improvement: Reports no longer calculate Qualification Progress if it is not already cached.

March 26th 2021

• Improvement: The reports download list now reminds you to refresh the results after 1 minute to see any new reports you have run.

March 25th 2021

• New Feature: WebForms is now generally available to customers with FCA licences

• Improvement: Applicant Offer Report and Document Generation now includes outputs for the Qualification details

• Fix: New FM10 Episodes no longer overwrite the Prior Attainment value of a previous episode

• Improvement: Validation has been added to the Payment Edit screen to ensure that Paid items have Actual Amounts and Paid dates

• Fix: Filtering Learner Change Requests by Raised By no longer shows no results.

• Fix: The Add Qualification button is now visible if a Private Training learner has no existing qualifications.

• Fix: Deleting reports from the Downloads page no longer shows an error on any report sent to other users or teams.

• Fix: Save button on reports available for customers not licenced for Reports Scheduling

• Fix: Reports Date range “End of ILR Year“ now works properly

• Fix: Off the job hours for episode fields in the Learners report will now display the correct values

• Improvement: Officer Superior picklist now reacts to the Officer’s role

• Improvement: Applicant Imports now process Officer fields as per the specification

• Improvement: Tags output in Funding Reports

• Improvement: Mobile phone validation is now just a warning

• Fix: Raised By filters in Change Request now work properly

March 21st 2021

• Improvement: Editing Opportunity Qualification Plan values and quantities update the overall Estimated Revenue value

• Fix: Licence checks when adding an Advanced Learning Loan have been corrected

• Improvement: Distance filtering in Vacancy Matching now correctly sorts the data before returning the requested number of matches.

• Improvement: Organisation EDS Reference numbers are looked up when saving new records

March 17th 2021

• Improvement: Learner Report has Expected & Elapsed Days on Programme output

• Improvement: Month End EAS filter by Adjustment Type

• Improvement: When configured future starting Courses are allocated to the Learner when an Applicant is converted to a Learner

• Improvement: Sessions visible to a user are filtered by the Course Site

• Improvement: ULN Verification buttons are now more obviously buttons to click

• Improvement: Prior Qualification Title, Level and Grade lists are sorted

• Improvement: ILR Validation for R107/R018 has been added

• Improvement: Mandatory Units are added to Learner when the aim is added

March 16th 2021

• Fix: Projected Funding Calculation was missing the Year list

• Improvement: ILR Learner Report now has fields for First Training and First Assessment TNPs

• Improvement: Appointment calendars now have a Status filter

• Improvement: Appointments created in PICSWeb are now compatible with AdHoc Placement H&S and Insurance outputs

• Improvement: UDF fields on Sign Up Forms now resize with the same behaviour way as other fields

• Improvement: The Save button for scheduling reports is now on the Schedule tab and doesn’t close the Report options modal

• Improvement: Organisation List now has an Additional Identifiers filter for EDRS, EPA, Accounting System and Additional ID fields

• Improvement: Organisation and Officer Lists now have Contact Detail filters for Address, Postcode, Email address and Phone number filtering

• Improvement: Applicants List now have a Recruitment Agency filter

March 13th 2021

• New Feature: New Report and Document Template - ILR Learner

• New Feature: Funding Reconciliation Tools

• Improvement: In the PLR tool for learners and applicants, a Select All tick box has been added to make it easier to import everything.

March 2nd 2021

• New Feature: In all list views where filters could be saved, it is now possible to set a default saved filter to load when returning to the list.

• Improvement: Searchable dropdown lists for organisations and officers now show more details about the record to make it easier to identify the record you want to select.

February 19th 2021

• New Feature: Database administrator users can now bulk delete and reinstate Officer records.

• New Feature: It is possible to fast switch between ILR aims from the toolbar when looking at an ILR aims summary page.

• New Feature: It is now possible to convert an ILR component aim into a non-ILR aim from the Learning Aims list.

February 10th 2021

• New Feature: We have added data capture for Advanced Learner Loans details for relevant learners on the ILR summary page.

• New Feature: It is now possible to create contact and organisation user accounts for eAssessor customers from within PICSWeb.

January 26th 2021

• New Feature: It is now possible to gather Prior Qualification details from applicants in Sign Up forms.

• New Feature: On record summary screens for Learners, Applicants, Officers, and Organisations, there is a new Tasks tab showing tasks regarding the record being viewed.

• New Feature: Several new reports regarding Projected Funding have been added to the report templates list.