We also have a report on potential breaking changes to any third party tools using reports from PICS in our Report Field Changes Log
Data capture for learners now allows entry of 2023 ILR data:
All historic data entry fields for 2021 have been replaced with 2022 fields.
Planned Learning and EEP Hours fields for 2024 are now available.
HHS and ASL aim FAM types are no longer available for aims starting on/after 1st August 2023.
ACL and AFL FAM types have been added for aims which are in learning on/after 1st August 2023. These fields are also available in qualification plans.
Employment status and FFI fields are now visible when creating new Community Learning (FM10) learners.
Aim HE 1st/2nd/3rd LDCS fields are now only available in the 2022 fields section.
LDM and DAM code lists have been updated.
It is now possible to use different values for Learner NLM FAM fields for 2022 and 2023. Existing data in the 2022 field has been copied forward to 2023, but for new entries this field will need to be entered for both years.
Learner Validation has been updated to conform to the ESFA 2023 ILR validation rules specification. However we have not removed references to Funding Model 70 (ESF) as these rules can still be used to validate existing data within PICS.
The way that Functional Skills Assessment result are stored has been changed to allow for more subjects and more assessment results for each subject.
It is now possible to configure the default Workflow for new Learners.
Creating a Learner with a qualification with criteria linked would error. Now fixed.
Importing Aim Prior Learning and Other Funding Adjustments did not work. Now fixed.
When changing a Learner’s Programme from an Apprenticeship to a non-Apprenticeship TNP records are removed.
When ending an episode, courses that start in the future will be marked as Cancelled before Start, rather than Withdrawn.
Delivery Plan components can now be configured to be Default and Reusable. This will create a single instance on the learner when applying the delivery plan, but allow additional instances to be added later, if required.
Learner file lists now have a filter option to include files from appointments, calls, emails, and tasks.
It is now possible to record ILR Employment Status Monitoring “Other Employment Type” (OET) codes against a qualification plan. These will be automatically added to the ILR Employment Status records for any new learners created using that qualification plan.
A PICS Contract can now be entered against a qualification plan. If this is entered, the contract value will be applied to any new learners created using that qualification plan.
The create process for a new learning episode no longer fails if a photo was attached to the previous episode, but the file record had been deleted.
If the delivery target for a learner was changed, existing skill scan answers would not display correctly. Now fixed.
It is now possible to apply a tag to a learner when they first complete a target scan. Each target can be configured to use a specific tag.
Learners can now perform an on demand target scan if they do not have an scheduled scans in the next 2 weeks.
Files tab now has the option to show files from other episodes.
Notes tab now has the option to show notes from applicant and other episodes.
Creating a private learner no longer has empty drop downs for the following fields: LLDDs, Primary LLDD and Disability Self Assessed.
The multi learner Change Request list can now be filtered by Sites.
Prior Qualification list now displays the Qualification Reference and Title.
The Learner Validation Audit rule “Work experience aims must not overlap” for Traineeships was incorrectly using the aim’s Planned End Date to determine an overlap with subsequent aims instead of the aim’s Actual End Date. Now fixed.
ILR Employment records shown in Learner Summary Placements are now ordered by start date before removing duplicates.
Contract is now available on the Update All bulk editing tool.
Importing just a Primary LLDDs did not work. Now fixed.
Importing Disability and LLDDs for non ILR Learners did not work. Now fixed.
PICS ILR validation now conforms to version 6 of the ESFA validation rules specification.
A new automation feature for communications has been added, this can also be used to set up reviews, appointments and course enrolment reminders.
Review signatures can only be requested if the review has been competed with a positive attendance outcome.
Funding Calculator - It is now possible for users with the DB Admin user permission to select a period to draft or final if periods have not been finalled for a number of months.
Funding Forecasting - It is now possible to export the data shown in the Overall tab and the Planning tab.
Funding Forecasting - A toggle has been added to the Summary page to enable viewing the financial data in a cumulative, profile start to date, mode.
Funding Forecasting - It is now possible to view Periods as a calendar year and month date view. The default view can be set via a new Settings option in the Actions list on the Funding Forecasting profile list page.
Funding Forecasting - The speed at which profiles load have been increased. Controls are now disabled during the loading and saving of profiles to prevent data corruption.
Funding Forecasting - A bug was identified which would cause the Overall tab’s Planned funding amounts to be calculated based on Planned Starts for Qualification Plans that do not generate funding. Now fixed.
A new subcontractor rate type of “Learning Support Funding (LSF) rate” has been added for apprenticeship programmes.
PICS ILR validation now conforms to version 5 of the ESFA validation rules specification. Changes to Learning Start Date Postcode rules (LSDPostcode_01 and LSDPostcode_04) have not been implemented as the ESFA are currently reviewing these rules as the changes are not relevant to FM35 Traineeships.
Programme aim DAM FAM fields have been added to qualification plans. These should be used for ILR programmes which use Programme Type 33: Combined Authorities. These are used when creating new learners, and the values from the plan main aim are no longer copied to the programme aim.
Creating a learner from an applicant will now also link the learner to the applicants opportunity without requiring opportunity qualification plan provisions configured.
Functional Skills results can now be recorded in a more detailed Level.Sublevel format i.e. “Level 1.2”
Bulk Editing of Start and Due dates has been added to Learner Unit, Learning Outcome and Critera lists.
Tabs on the Summary, Employability and Learning Plan screens can now be hidden for all PICS users. Additional optional tabs have been added to the Portfolio screen.
Restarted apprentices on funding model 35 and Trailblazer apprentices on funding model 81 can now be entered. The configuration setting “Allow new episodes for FM35 Framework Apprenticeship and Trailblazer programmes” must be enabled to allow this.
When using Change Programme, the new group description on step 2 now shows the correct description instead if the previous description assigned to the learner.
The Learner list “Has Course Enrolment” filter now has a “No current or future” option.
Learner Contact Hour display was not sorting the data before displaying the requested number of records. This is now fixed.
The Learner Files list now has sorting options and filtering by File Expiry.
A new Document Generation type of “Learner Delivery Plan” has been added to allow generation of “Action Plan” documents based on the new “Learner Delivery Plan” report. Help and guidance will be linked here.
The Planned Hours tab of the ILR now has a clearer display of hours and includes more information on which learning episodes are used to calculate planned hours for the LRN.
If entered, planned learning and EEP Hours for previous year are now displayed on the Planned Hours tab of the ILR.
Entering planned learning and EEP hours for a learning episode now instantly shows the total learner hours.
The ILR learner validation now conforms to version 4 of the ESFA validation rules specification.
Some missing T Level validation rules have been added: ProgType_18, ProgType_19, ProgType_20, AimType_08, AimType_09.
A new Other ESFA Adult (non funded) programme has been added. This can be used to enter learners on programmes with Funding Model 99 aims, such as Multiply.
"Number of Overdue Reviews" and “Number Overdue Components" KPIs have been renamed “Learners with …”
Aims with Funding Model 99 (non funded) can now be added to Community Learning ILR learners.
Number of signatures are now shown on reviews and evidence lists.
Important: All references to consortia have been removed from learners, funding and ILR exports. This feature has now been replaced by PICS Contracts.
The default setting for the “Adjust Future Date” option in Reviews can now be set to off in Configurations > Lists & Types > Reviews.
Learner List now has a filter for Course Enrolments with options Current, No Current, Future Starting and No Future Starting.
Create Learner now uses the LRN prefix from the Contract if one is specified.
Create Learner now imports FFI_1 and FFI_ALL correctly.
Create Learner will use the DAM codes from the qualification plan main aim when creating a learner on a Combines Authorities programme (ILR programme type 33).
Create Learner will no long require a Length of Unemployment to be specified for Funding Model 25 Learners whose Employment Status is “11: Unemployed and looking for work”.
Main Tag has been added as an optional display on Learner Lists.
Editing ILR aims with a Programme Type of 00 no longer changes the Aim Type from 4 to 3.
2021 aim fields are now visible if the Export in 2021 flag is set to Always, regardless of the aim’s start date.
Changes to validation rules:
The validation rules have been updated to align with the ESFA Validation Rules specification version 3.
Validation rule LearnDelFAMType_06 is no longer triggered where aims started before the start date of a FAM code in the ILR specification. This matches the ESFA validation rule specification.
Rule R133 has been removed
Validation rules which relate to the “age at the start of the current teaching year” are no longer triggered if the learner does not have any open aims. These are: DateOfBirth_04, DateOfBirth_07, DateOfBirth_20 and DateOfBirth_25.
The “Change Funding Organisation/Group” has been renamed to “Change Programme” to align it with the Create Learner and Filtering options.
Creating a Learner from an Applicant will copy forward the Applicant photo.
Creating a Learner from an Applicant will copy forward or move the Applicant files to the Learner if configured to do so in Configuration > Sections > Learner > New Learner.
ILR fields RUI and PMC have been removed from Learner Create forms.
Aim and Qualification lists Status field now shows Overdue when not ended and past the expected end.
The notes field for Dependants records has now been added.
Email and Phone number are now shown on the list of related Officers.
The Learner List now has optional fields for Provider End Code and Provider Destination.
Ending an Episode will allow the user to delete future dated reviews.
Withhold from ILR export status flags are only show for ILR Learners.
The Learner Caseload screen can now have saved and default filters.
An additional Apprenticeship Service Status option of “AS System Issues“ has been added.
Programme Aim Provider Monitoring fields (A-D) can now be entered against qualification plans.
The LRS Personal Learning Record (PLR) can now be printed.
Review UDFs now show in the notes section rather than the details section of the summary view.
Learners uploading evidence could result in a “Bad Request” error which would prevent them from selecting the evidence links. Now fixed.
Course documents selected to be available for “All Learners” wouldn’t show for all learners. Now fixed.
Important: Editing and display of Functional Skills Assessments have been brought in line with the Learner version. They are now displayed on a new tab “Functional Skills Assessments“. This includes the Date of the Assessment and Result fields.
Applicant List now has a filter for Course Enrolments with options Current, No Current, Future Starting and No Future Starting.
Assigning an Qualification Plan to an Applicant now defaults the Employer if specified in the Qualification Plan.
Qualification Plan and Applicant’s Home Postcode SOF are displayed on the Programme details.
Main Tag has been added as an optional display on Applicant Lists.
When entering new prior qualifications, the Title list no longer shows dormant titles.
LRN has been added as a filter on the Applicants list.
Email and Phone number are now shown on the list of related Officers.
Contracts can now be entered against applicants.
Applicants can now be registered on the LRS and a ULN downloaded. This feature is only available if the LRS Integration is enabled.
The LRS Personal Learning Record (PLR) can now be printed.
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.
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.
The Qualification Tracking dates are now shown on the ILR Aim details.
A JOBTITLE field has been added to Imports and PICS forms, see Learner Import Specification in PICSWeb for more details.
Creating a new episode with WebForms would not carry over UDF Answers. Now fixed.
When editing ILR Planned Learning / EEP Hours, PICS no longer includes hours from non-exported learning episodes with Funding Organisation SFXX or YPXX in the total hours calculation.
Deleted ILR learning aims no longer show as “Non-ILR” aims if the deletion fails because the aim is the learner’s Main Qualification Aim.
Updating a Learner's email address will now update their username if they have a eAssessor/PICS Portfolio user account.
Learner Reviews now have a new Complete process wizard including the ability for remote signatures to be collected from the learner, officers, and employer contacts.
The Learner Caseload screen now uses the list of officers that the user can access for providing a list of officers to see the caseload for.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 PICS EDS Integration will no longer function and searches will not be available.
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.
“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.
OneFile: A log of the most recent learner refresh can be viewed from the learner delivery plan summary.
OneFile: Improvements to support multi centre support for officers and organisations.
OneFile: DB Admin users can manually edit the OneFile ID of a qualification in PICS.
Smart Assessor: A log of the most recent learner refresh can be viewed from the learner delivery plan summary.
Smart Assessor: When enrolling a learner, we will automatically create any missing officer or employer records in Smart Assessor if they have not already been connected in PICS.
Smart Assessor: DB Admin users can manually edit the Smart Assessor ID of a qualification in PICS.
Postcode data is now automatically downloaded after a new postcode has been entered into PICS. This includes Region, Local Authority and Ward. There is also a new Postcode Data section under Integrations where it is possible to download postcode data for all postcodes currently in the database. These fields have also been added to various reports.
Recruit An Apprentice has been updated to work with the new API, any existing keys will no longer work see the following blog post for more details https://www.pellcomp.co.uk/theblog/the-recruit-an-apprentice-api-is-changing
SMS: We are releasing a new SMS integration for PICS using Twilio.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 PICS.
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.
A new New Learner process if now available - see Creating a New Learner in PICSWeb for more information.
A “A Prior Attainment record already exists” error no longer appears when entering a second episode for a learner where the start date is the same as the existing episode.
Learner list now has optional fields for Learner Reference Number & Employer.
Bulk Delete, Archive, and Reinstate are now available for Learners.
ILR DAM (Devolved Area Monitoring) fields can now be imported, and can be added to WebForms.
The display and editing of ILR Planned Learning and EEP Hours has been improved.
When adding or editing ILR Employment records, we now attempt to align the learner Placement records with the ILR records.
Changing the Learner Reference Number for a commercial learner no longer generates an error.
It is now possible to unlink a learning episode from a learner - this can be done from the Other Episodes tab of a different learning episode for the same learner.
Non-yeared learner FAMs now show in the FAM list on the Learner FAM tab.
PICS now uses the correct fields for Employment Status at Start/End for Commercial learners.
DAM FAM codes and descriptions have been updated from version 3 of the ESFA code list.
The validation will no longer show an error if there are no prior attainment records (rule PriorAttain_01) if all aims in that learning episode ended before 1st August 2021.
The LRS “Ability to Share” field has been renamed to “Privacy Notice Seen” to align with the LRS portal.
Bulk Edit and Delete is available for Reviews.
Qualifications linked to Commercial learners can now be deleted. This will not delete any units but will remove the qualification-unit links.
Qualifications can now be deleted for Commercial learners.
The “Export in 2020” field for aims is now visible if the learning episode started before 1st August 2021. Previously it was only visible if the aim started before that date.
Learner Qualifications Bulk Edit now includes Main Assessor, Main Internal Verifier, and Main External Verifier officers.
Learner Payment Invoiced, Claimed and Reconciled dates are now available to edit.
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
Form Owner
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 PICS 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 PICS.
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 PICS 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.PICS.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.
New Feature: Apprentices can now be uploaded to ACE360 directly from PICS 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.
New Feature: OneFile integration is now available in PICS. 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.
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.
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 PICS, 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 PICS.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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 PICS 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
symbol to explain more about the data shown in the field