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What's New and Coming Soon in PICS?

What's New and Coming Soon in PICS?

Owned by Mike Sothern (Unlicensed)
Last updated: Dec 16, 2024 by Michael Smith
147 min read

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

We also have a report on potential breaking changes to any third party tools using reports from PICS in our Report Field Changes Log

Coming Soon

Nothing just yet, check back later.

12th December

  • Qualification Plan lists on WebForm instances were not initally being filtered to those linked to the site of an Applicant. Now fixed

7th December

Month End

  • Completion payments were not being generated by the funding calculator for FM38 learners. Now fixed.

20th November

  • Distance Field now available in the Applicant Vacancy Applicantion Report

    We’re excited to announce a new enhancement to the Vacancy Application Report! We've introduced a dedicated field Application Distance that enables customers to easily determine the distance between the applicants postcode and the organisation's postcode. This new feature is designed to provide significant value, helping customers make more informed decisions when matching learners to local vacancies.

  • Assigning Delivery Targets to a Qualification Plan - This is no longer part of the PICS Portfolio license and has been moved into the Skills Scan License.

19th November

  • There was an issue with some dropdowns disappearing when redirected to the edit form after creating a record. Now fixed

13th November

Sign Up Forms

  • When editing or creating a sign up form, the list of new fields to add was always empty, which isn’t very useful. We’ve put the available fields back in now.

12th November

Forms

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

Month End

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

9th November

Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL)

Various new features are now available to early adopters to assist in the calculation of adjustments to apprenticeship duration and off-the-job (OTJ) hours as a result of RPL. These include:

  • Assigning duration and OTJ hour reductions to KSB stages

  • Validating target (skills) scans to ensure an appropriate KSB stage for the applicant is selected

  • Using the validated scan to calculate reductions to duration, OTJ hour and negotiated training price (TNP)

  • Applying any reductions to the learner record when created from the applicant

Applicants

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

Appointments

  • Learner and Applicant attendee names are now shown in the event popup in the appointment calendar view.

  • New bookmarks have been added to the appointment workflow transition Notification action:

    • Learner Main advisor Email

    • Learner Main advisor Mobile

Automations

  • Some tooltips for contact methods in Applicant, Appointment, and Organisation based communication automations incorrectly referenced “Learners”. Now fixed.

  • New bookmarks have been added to Appointment communication automations:

    • Appointment Organiser Mobile Number

    • Appointment Organiser Email Address

    • Training Officer/Careers Officer/Placement Officer/Mentor First Names

    • Training Officer/Careers Officer/Placement Officer/Mentor Surname

    • Training Officer/Careers Officer/Placement Officer/Mentor Email address

    • Training Officer/Careers Officer/Placement Officer/Mentor Mobile Number

  • New bookmarks have been added to Course Enrolment communication automations:

    • Course Leader Email Address

    • Course Leader Mobile Number

    • Delivered By Name

    • Delivered By Address (1 - 5)

    • Delivered By Postcode

    • Next Session Start Time

Learners

  • Learner FAMs EDF, HNS and SEN can now be imported when creating a new learner record.

  • A Plan ILR Planned Hours import field has been added to WebForms to show the Planned Hours set against the Qualification Plan selected in the dropdown, if that field is also on the form.

  • When creating a Task from a learning component with a Task Template containing UDF fields, the new task now contains all UDF answers from the template where the location is set to Create & Details or Details. Previously, only answers for location Details would be defaulted.

  • When viewing a Course component where the learner is enrolled on the course, a new Course Sessions tab shows a list of course sessions relevant to that enrolment.

  • The MathGrade_04 and EngGrade_04 validation rules incorrectly referred to the HNS FAM code. Now corrected to refer to MCF and EDF respectively.

  • Weekly working hours can now be added to learners during the creation process. These will be used in future features to calculate and validate the minimum required off-the-job hours for an apprentice.

Month End

  • The ILR exporter no longer sends apprenticeship financial records with a date after the year end.

  • The ILR exporter now longer suppresses achievement dates after the year end unless the aim funding model is 36 or 99.

  • The funding calculations were not paying LSF payments for Adult Skills Fund learners with a planned duration less than one month. Now fixed.

  • Achievement payments were not being paid for some devolved Adult Skills Fund learners. Now fixed.

  • The Funding Calculator’s T-Level funding report now displays the T Level Framework and Pathway

Reports

  • The QAR English or Maths field could show the opposite value for some learning aims. Now fixed.

  • The ILR Aims report now populates the Aim Planned Hours field for Tailored Learning component aims.

  • A Tailored Learning Outcome Area field has been added to the ILR Aims report.

  • FM38 (Adult Skills Fund) aims are now included in the Education and Training QAR report.

  • FM11 (Tailored Learning) aims are now included in the renamed Community and Tailored Learning QAR report.

22nd October

Reports

  • Officer Report: New Optional Field for Additional ID

7th October

Files

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

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

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

5th October

Learners

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

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

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

Month End

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

Reports

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

  • Three new fields have been added to learner reports:

    • Functional Skills Maths Required

    • Functional Skills English Required

    • Functional Skills ICT Required

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

Generic

  • The File sections for both Learners and Applicants have been updated to appear more consistent between the two areas.

  • When an error is encountered sending a message in an SMS Communication Automation (such as a badly formatted mobile phone number), the automation would stop and no further messages would be sent. This has been fixed so the automation will continue and remaining messages will still be sent.

  • Workflow Diagrams will now hide statuses not included in the workflow by default. There is a toggle to show them if required.

  • Some automations now have an option to give a short summary of the last run.

API

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

25th September

Month End

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

Courses

  • The course timetable report would error when ran from a room summary page. Now fixed.

Calendar

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

21st September

Month End

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

14th September

Appointments

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

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

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

Courses

  • When searching for a course for a learner or applicant, if the course starts and ends on the same day and only has a single session on that day, the session time is displayed.

  • A Course Details tab is now available on the Component Summary page when viewing a course component and the learner is enrolled on a course.

Generic

  • Document Generators have had some performance improvements.

  • The OneAdvanced Mosaic Theme now has an option for dark mode. This is a beta feature.

8th September

Webforms

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

7th September

Month End

  • Earning Adjustment Statement for 2024 is now available.

Calendar

  • The workspace calendar will now use officer appointment templates if configured.

Workflows

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

2nd September

Month End

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

31st August

Learners

  • DAM code lists have been updated

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

Month End

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

  • Study Programme Historic Rates are now available for 2024.

  • Process Warnings have been updated within the calculation process.

  • Funding Reconciliations are now available for 2024

Reports

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

Generic

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

30th August

Month End

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

21st August

Learner Validation

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

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

17th August

Learners

  • ILR Validation:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Month End

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

10th August

Learners

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

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

      • Tailored Learning (FM11)

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

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

    • The Tailored Learning Outcome field has been added.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Files

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

Month End

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

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

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

Reports

  • Changes to the Qualification Achievement Rates report:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tasks

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

Organisations

  • Organisation Automations could not be edited due to a missing link. Now fixed.

Provisions

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

29th July

Month End

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

28th July

Learners

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

Dashboards

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

Reports

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

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

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

Workflows

  • There was an issue causing certain post actions in Employability to fail when run as an initial transition. Now fixed.

Targets

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

Month End

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

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

User Defined Forms

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

18th July

Month End

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

3rd July

Courses

  • When enrolling learners and applicants onto a course, we now give you the opportunity to set your search filters before we perform the search for suitable courses.

User Defined Forms

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

27th June

Month End

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

24th June

Reviews

  • Completing a review could cause an error on the signatures section of the wizard if no review settings had been saved to the database. Now fixed.

API

  • Updating a learner via the API would not update the Risk Band to the provided value. Now Fixed.

22nd June

Apprenticeship Accountability Framework Report & Dashboard

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

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

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

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

Learners

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

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

Signup Forms

  • Dormant Signup forms are now hidden in the configuration section by default.

Delivery Targets

  • It is now possible to clone a delivery target from the Target summary screen in the configuration section.

Smart Assessor Integration

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

Automations

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

19th June

User Defined Forms

  • Editing the code for a multiple answer question could result in a loss of date. This is no restricted by preventing the code for existing answers to be changed when editing the design of a question.

Learners

  • The file list could throw a “null reference exception” if a file didn’t have a title in some scenarios. Now fixed.

Vacancies

  • Editing the outcome of a vacancy application will pop up a form to edit other applications for the same vacancy. This is now limited to the first 100 other applications.

5th June

Month End

  • The FM37 Skills Bootcamp Funding Calculations have been updated for HGV Contracts

  • The FM37 Skills Bootcamp Funding Reconciler has been updated to reconciler HGV Contracts

  • Funding Forecasting has been updated to handle the changes required for the Skills Bootcamp HGV Contracts

Applicants

  • When Functional Skills Assessments have been imported from bksb, a tooltip showing a description of the level is now shown.

25th May

API

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

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

Applicants

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

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

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

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

Configuration

  • Answers in a UDF multiple-choice question can now be reordered.

  • Slashes and spaces can no longer be used in UDF answer codes.

  • In the Recruit an Apprentice (RAA) integration, a default workflow and status can now be specified for any new applicants and organisations created by the RAA vacancy application import.

  • Custom course enrolment statuses can now be created in Courses > Configuration > Custom Enrolment Statuses. These can be set against learner or applicant enrolments.

  • HGV Skills Bootcamp Contracts can now be selected when creating a Contract Item against a contract. Note: Funding calculations are not yet available for HGV Skills Bootcamp contracts.

Dashboards

  • Count widgets can now use string and string list fields as the Target Column in widgets based on saved reports. Once a column is selected any number of values can be entered and the count will show the number of report records with those values.

  • Count widgets can now be used to show a count of all records in the report. Report filters can be used to limit the records in the report.

  • DB Admins would receive an error if deleting a shared dashboard if they got the permission from a User Group. Now Fixed.

Imports

  • The following imports will now be performed as a background task. If an email address is set in your user profile, you will be notified by email when the import is complete. A summary view is available to show the import details, including the results and any links which would have previously been shown on screen.

  • When importing UDF date answers from an Excel (.xlsx) file where the cell is formatted as a Date, the time 00:00:00 is no longer imported alongside the date.

  • The Learner Off-the-Job Hours import process would thrown an exception if the RecordedBy or ContactType fields were empty. Now fixed.

Learners

  • Help guides are now available for ILR errors. When a help guide is available for a particular ILR rule, a link will be available on the ILR rule name - this will open the help article in PICS.

  • When Functional Skills Assessments have been imported from bksb, a tooltip showing a description of the level is now shown.

  • A new Past Learning Expected End status filter is available on the learner list. This will show all learners where the latest programme aim planned end date is in the past, or the episode planned end date if they do not have any programme aims.

  • When a break of learning is ended for an ILR learner, the Funding adjustment for prior learning is now calculated based on the number of census days which have already been paid, rather than the number of months the learner was in learning before the planned break.

  • The current year Export in Year field is no longer set to Always if the Employment Outcome field is changed between blank, 99 and 00, for an aim which ended in a previous ILR year.

  • The current year Export in Year field is no longer set to Always if data is changed for a prior-year ILR aim on the last day of submission for that year.

  • The End Episode and Aims tool will no longer show the Outcome Grade field if there are no component aims to be updated, as this field is not relevant to programme aims.

  • Validation now checks that an apprentice has been in learning for 365 days while they are in EPA.

  • Preview File when signing reviews would not open the preview form. Now fixed.

Reports

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

  • A new Applicant Payments Report is now available.

  • A new Officers File Report is now available.

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

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

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

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

Month End

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

General

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

13th May

Reports

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

12th May

Dashboards

  • Dashboard widgets using “Set up the widget now” instead of a saved report will now cache the widget data for one hour instead of entirely reloading the data every time the widget is shown. Data will be refreshed automatically if the widget is reloaded after one hour, if the widget options are edited, or the manual data refresh button is clicked on the widget.

  • When using widgets or interactive reports with row and column analysis fields and a date Grouping Type (such as calendar month), clicking on columns would not show any data. Now fixed.

  • UDF number fields in interactive reports no longer show decimal places for whole numbers.

27th April

Learners

  • Entering new non-levy apprentices starting on or after April 1st, 2024, who are aged below 22 years old, no longer require Employer Contributions to be entered on the Apprenticeship Prices screen.

  • PICS Validation no longer displays an audit message regarding missing PMR records for non-levy apprentices aged below 22 years old, and who started on or after April 1st, 2024.

Month End

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

Reports

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

19th April

Learners and Applicants

  • Sorting of learners and applicants is temporarily case sensitive for performance reasons.

12th April

Workflows

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

Reports

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

Month End

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

Imports

  • When imporing a Recruit an Apprentice applications file, we now match applicants using Name, Date of Birth and Postcode. This is to avoid erroneous matches when a vacancy has multiple applicants with the same name.

11th April

Learners

  • The data capture Learner and Aim Provider Monitoring field names have been adjusted to align with the ILR Learner and Aim reports.

Courses

  • A new Course Type filter is now available on the Sessions list.

  • Two new course filters have been added when enrolling a learner or applicant on a course: Delivered By and Delivered For.

Reports

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

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

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

      • Minimum OTJ Hours Required

      • Minimum Planned OTJ Hours Requirement Not Met

      • Minimum Actual OTJ Hours Requirement Not Met

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

    • We now include more programme aims in the report:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Users and Access Configuration

  • Changes to User accounts, including permissions, officers, sites and file types, are now logged in the PICS audit logs and can be found in the Miscellaneous Data Changes Report. A new Report Type of Users has been added to that report.

Vacancies

  • The Contract Type field is now available for RAA vacancies.

Workflows

  • Added the ability to fire off a WebHook as a Post Transition Action. Both GET and POST calls are supported.

  • Added a new date function for Post Transition Actions. The Effective Date function will use the date entered into the effective field. This can then be further modified by using the Add Days, Working Days and Date Only options.

  • Added a new Post Action for creating Learner and Applicant user accounts.

Month End

  • The funding reconcilers were not working with a “Stream was not readabable” error message. Now fixed.

  • The Data Match reconciler’s report now includes the column “Apprenticeship Service Status”

  • The Funding Forecasting export now has an option to split “Split Additional Amounts” which will replace the Additional column with additional rows for each claim type making up the Additional value.

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

API

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

26th March

API

  • The following fields are now included when downloading learner data from the API:

    • PICS System ID

    • Workflow

    • Workflow Status

    • Workflow SubStatus

21st March

Learners and Applicants

  • The validation of National Insurance Numbers has been improved - entered values must now end in A, B, C or D in accordance with HMRC guidance.

User Defined Forms

  • A new location has been added for User Defined Forms: Learner Qualifications. This location can be set for any UDF where Leaner is selected in the Form For field, and will be shown in the Qualification Summary page, and Qualification Tracking tab for ILR learning aims. Visibility filters for Qualification Reference, Qualification Type and ILR Qualification Type are available.

Reports

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

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

WebForms

  • There was a bug causing Organisation File forms created via a “Create and Send Form” post action to not find the organisation’s email address when it was used to default the signatory address. Now fixed.

Workflows

  • When using workflows validation or actions where Qualification Plan, Officer or Organisation needed to be selectable from a drop down list, there was a bug causing the drop down to be empty. Now fixed.

8th March

User Management

  • Saving permissions was only saving the first 30 records due to a sequencing error. Now fixed.

7th March

Target Scans

  • The user experience when setting up target scope has been improved to allow scope stages to be created faster and with a more visual indication of what the value means.

Learners

  • When creating learner milestones, the milestone description is defaulted from the description of the relevant base data milestone.

Reports

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

WebForms

  • The option lists for the Programme Aim ACT and Apprenticeship Contract Type fields have been updated to clarify that the options are for levy and non-levy employers.

Imports

  • BKSB_USERNAME and SMARTASSESSOR_ID can now be used as import fields on learner import.

  • Applicant workflows can now be set via the importer using APP_WORKFLOW.

Workflows

  • Organisation and Opportunity workflows can now be set to be the default for all new instances of the entity.

  • Available status transitions are now shown in alphabetical order. The same as on the Transitions configuration page.

User Defined Forms

  • The UDF description is now shown on the index page.

Users

  • SaaS user type is now a column on the user list.

  • Indicator on the User Summary Screen if 2FA is required at system level.

Vacancies

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

Automations

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

Licences

  • The following Licences have been renamed within the system to better represent the features they govern:

Old Licence Name

New Licence Name

Old Licence Name

New Licence Name

eApply

Sign Up Forms

FCA

WebForms

APIsForPICS

API

eDashboard

Dashboards

SchedRep

Scheduled Reporting

19th February

Officers

  • Creating an officer from the main officer list was failing. Now fixed.

18th February

Target Scans

  • When adding answers to a target scan, it is now possible to view the full description of each scope item by clicking on the Information icon next to the title of the scope.

Web Forms

  • There are new fields for the officer job title value available on forms that already had the ability to add officer detail fields.

Organisations

  • Creating a new officer from the organisation summary page will now allow the relationship to be set directly rather than having to additionally set the relationship type.

Provisions

  • Adding provisions to a record has been streamlined by allowing you to indicate that you want to add another one immediately after adding the first one.

Tags

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

Reports

  • Change logs now include changes to tags. This includes adding new tags and removing existing tags in Configuration, and also adding and removing tags from Learners, Applicants, Organisations, Officers, Activities, Courses, Qualification Plans, Opportunities, Vacancies and Vacancy Applications. Changes can be seen under View Full Change Logs where the action exists, or in the various Data Changes reports. The Tags list in Lists and Types Configuration now allows searching by ID to find the name of the tag which has been changed.

14th February

Learners

  • Learner Validation was generating unexpected LearnDelFamType_114 errors for valid aims. Now fixed.

10th February

Learners

  • Learner Validation has been updated to conform to the ESFA 2023 ILR validation rules specification.

  • Added the ability to bulk transition Workflow Statuses and Opportunities. Both of these options were already available for Applicants.

  • When ending a Skills Bootcamp learner via the End Learner process, the Achievement date entered was not being set against the programme aim. Now fixed.

  • It is now possible to delete an individual learning outcome or assessment criteria from a learner record.

Officers

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

Reports

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

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

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

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

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

Appointments

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

Month End

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

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

Delivery Configuration

  • Contract Items for Skills Bootcamps has a new contract type of “DPS Competition 2”.

Users and Access

  • Two new permissions have been added to allow light users to edit notes for Learners and Applicants.

Workflows

  • It is now possible to give status transition Post Actions a sequence number. Post actions will run in sequence from the lowest number to the highest.

  • There was an incorrect officer label on the Applicant Compare Field dropdown. Now fixed.

WebForms

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

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

Automations

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

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

Smart Assessor Integration

  • When enrolling a learner you can now select which Smart Assessor Episode to add the qualifications to.

Dashboards

  • The Create An Apprenticeship Accountability Dashboard Now action is now available for any customer with the Accountability Framework licence, regardless of whether they have set up a saved Accountability Framework report.

29th January 2024

Learners

  • The Apprenticeship Service Bulk Upload export was incorrectly exporting “No” in the IsDurationReducedByRPL column when RecognisePriorLearning is “No”. Now fixed.

25th January 2024

Learners

  • The Apprenticeship Service Bulk Upload export was incorrectly generating the column header “TotalTrainingHours” instead of “TrainingTotalHours”. Now fixed.

23rd January 2024

Learners

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

Applicants

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

Reports

  • All optional fields from a User Defined Form that has Visibility Group based restrictions would be incorrectly hidden from eligible users. Now fixed.

20th January 2024

Learners

  • Learner notes will now include any files linked to applicants of other episodes if both the Other Episodes and Applicant filters are selected.

  • The Apprenticeship Service Cohort Export has been updated to conform to version 7 of the upload specification.

  • Learner Validation Configuration now has a new option, 'Exclude Aims where status is “Withhold from ILR Export”' which will exclude component aims with an ILR Export Status of “Withhold from Export” from the validation process.

Applicants

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

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

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

Calendar

  • Workspace and entity specific calendar views will now show the organiser of the appointment on hover.

Opportunities

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

Reports

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

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

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

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

Imports

  • Organisation multi record update can now add and remove sites using the new fields: ADDSITES and REMOVESITES. For each column, the code of the site to add or remove must be provided. If more than 1 site needs to be adjusted, then a list of sites can be provided using the * character as a separator.

Smart Assessor Integration

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

Sign Up Forms

  • New Fields added to Applicant Sign Up Forms:

    • ILR Sex

    • Has Driving Licence

    • Has Own Transport

27th December 2023

Month End

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

17th December 2023

Reports

  • New report templates that have been added will now be indicated with a “New” label next to them. Searching the templates for the word “new” will include any new reports in the results.

8th December 2023

Learners

  • The Learner Qualifications list would set the Standard Filter when searching. A new option for the standard filter of Any has been added to prevent this.

  • Learning Delivery Monitoring (LDM) Codes have been update to match the latest specification

  • Changing to a non-ILR programme would result in an error if the learner has generic payment records. Now fixed.

  • Learner Validation has been updated to conform to the ESFA 2023 ILR validation rules specification.

Reports

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

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

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

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

Logging

  • Learner and Applicant files will now create log records when created, edited, or deleted.

Target Scans

  • Target scans that don’t have any required user roles assigned could be automatically marked as All Answered. We now ignore target scans without roles when auto updating the status.

Signup Forms

  • If a custom theme with a dark background was used on a sign up form, the password capture could be difficult to see. The password capture now handles this better.

Generic

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

Automations

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

Workflows

  • Added the ability to give statuses and sub-statuses a colour which will be displayed through out the application. This will help to visually differentiate statuses.

  • Added the ability re-run failed post transition actions without having to move the entity backwards and then forwards again in the workflow.

  • It is now possible to display UDF answers when sending emails or SMS via the Send Notification post transition action. UDF questions must have a Unique Field Name to be available. Simply start by typing {{UDF.

WebForms

  • When copying a WebForm design, it is now possible to change the type of the copied form. Note that any fields not compatible with the new form type will be removed from the copy.

Vacancies

  • The Vacancy Edit form’s list of Contacts was not being limited to those for the selected Employer. Now fixed.

Integrations

  • Added the overall learner status field when viewing Cognassist assessment results.

22nd November 2023

API

  • Added an “All” option to the learning status filter. The “In Learning“ status will still be the default but this should allow form much easier searching when using date filters that fall outside of the Learner’s start/end dates.

  • The Learning Status filter options were not displaying correctly in the Swagger documentation. Now fixed.

9th November 2023

Integrations

  • Fixed a date format error that was appearing when creating a record in Cognassist.

  • Fixed an issue where assessment details was not updating from Cognassist.

6th November 2023

API

  • Sites can now be used to restrict which Learners, Applicants, Officers and Organisations an API user can see and interact with.

  • Added an end point to Lists and Types that shows what Sites are available to the current user account.

WebForms

  • There was a bug that rarely caused repeated field information to not display in complete form downloads. Now Fixed.

  • The LLDD multi select field was only showing the first 10 options on newly created form templates. Now Fixed.

3rd November 2023

Learners

  • DAM and LDM code lists have been updated with the latest changes in the ILR specification.

  • The Apprenticeship Achievement Date is no longer populated for non-apprentices when ending a learner’s episode.

  • The Recent Learners tile on the home page now shows an accurate count of learners added in the last 14 days.

Integrations

  • The LRS integration now uses the latest LRS client certificate, expiring in November 2024. You do not need to action any requests from the LRS to update your certificate as this is handled automatically by PICS.

Vacancies

  • When editing a vacancy, the list of Contacts would not always be of those related to the Employer. Now fixed.

25th October 2023

Webforms

  • Some dropdown fields were showing [Unknown] as the value when nothing had been selected. Now fixed.

  • Old UDF dropdowns created prior to codes being enforced were not working and always showing [Unknown]. Now fixed.

Target Scope

  • It is now possible to compare the latest scan results of two different roles from the Learner Target Scope page.

24th October 2023

Webforms

  • Forms containing certain UDF or imported FCA dropdown fields were not showing the dropdown options. Now fixed.

23rd October 2023

Webforms

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

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

21st October 2023

Applicants

  • The Applicants List has a new filter option: “Has Related Learner”.

Learners

  • Learner Validation has been updated to conform to the ESFA 2023 ILR validation rules specification.

  • It is now no longer possible to set Programme Aims to be withheld from export.

  • When reinstating a learner after a Break in Learning, any reinstated aims will now set Original Start Date to the Original Start date from the planned-break aim, if set, or the Start date if not. This is to ensure the Original Start date is set correctly when a learner has multiple breaks in learning.

  • It is now possible to set the Achievement Rates Overall Year Override to Excluded. This will exclude the aim from the overall achievements rate report entirely with the reason “Manually Excluded in PICS“.

  • Learner Qualification List now has a filter for Apprenticeship Standard.

Forms

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

Courses

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

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

Month End

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

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

  • Skills Bootcamp funding has been updated for 2023.

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

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

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

Lists and Types Configuration

  • Fixed an issue relating to a unicode DLL not loading which would cause an error when maintaining templates.

Delivery Configuration

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

Reports

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

  • The Postcode Local Authority lookups have been updated.

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

Integrations

  • It is now possible to use UKPRN instead of Organisation ID to authenticate with the LRS Web Service.

  • Configuring Cognassist now has a setting to provide the base URL so that you can open Learners and Applicants in Cognassist from PICS.

  • Smart Assessor integration now supports the Registration Date and Number fields during a refresh.

  • Customers using Smart Coach can now configure the Smart Assessor integration to set the PICS Risk based upon the Smart Coach Risk.

Dashboards

  • It is now possible to clone widgets within a dashboard. Widget options have been moved to a menu and a Clone Widget option has been added.

User Defined Forms

  • ID label in URLs will now work in Edit mode as well as View mode.

Workflows

  • Cloning a workflow will now clone the default status and sub status from that source workflow.

Generic

  • We can now enable the Advanced Mosaic theme by default for all users upon request

  • HTML Editors would not allow a link to be added correctly. Now fixed.

  • Fields that are always required now have a visual * indicator next to their label.

18th October 2023

PICS API

  • Added end points for Appointment and Task maintenance.

  • Added the ability to fetch Learner, Applicant, Officer and Organisation Photos via the API.

11th October 2023

PICS API

  • Added Site and Qualification Plan Code to the Learner Search, Details and Edit.

  • Added Provider End Code to the Learner Search and Details.

3rd October 2023

PICS API

  • Applicants and Learners now show their “Created On” and “Modified On” dates.

  • Applicants “Expected End” was showing the wrong value. Now fixed.

  • Added the ability to set Applicant Employer, Recruitment Agency and Opportunity ID via create and update.

  • Added a whole load of missing fields to the Organisations Create, Edit, Search and Details.

2nd October 2023

QAR Reconciler

  • QAR Reconciler was not using correct report date provided. Now fixed.

21st September 2023

Workflows

  • When configuring workflow validation and actions, we now offer a drop down of static values when appropriate.

Courses

  • When creating new course enrolments, we were not correctly filtering out learners/applicants with existing enrolments. Now fixed.

19th September 2023

Courses

  • It is now possible to generate a URL for an applicant signup form from with a course instance summary using the Actions menu.

Generic

  • All required edit fields on regular forms will now have a required field indicator on the label.

18th September 2023

Web Forms

  • Attempting to upload file attachments when signing a web form as a guest user would fail with an error “Object reference not set to an instance of an object”. Now fixed.

Integrations

  • We now have an integration with Cognassist. When enabled you can create Learners and Applicants in Cognassist, invite them to complete an assessment and view their assessment results all from within PICS.

15th September 2023

Learners

  • An optional field for “Learning Expected End” has been added to the Learner List.

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

  • A new Database Admin Action has been added to the Learners > Additional Sections > Qualifications list that allows you to change a Qualification Reference for one or more Learners.

  • Programme Aim Planned Hours for T Level Learners are now correctly captured in the Learner Create process.

  • There is a new optional tab on the learner delivery plan page for Files.

  • Milestones and notifications for Employability customers now have dedicated sections within the main navigation bar.

  • The list of DAM codes has been updated with the latest validity data in the ILR specification.

Applicants

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

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

Reports

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

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

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

Month End

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

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

Organisations

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

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

Appointments

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

Generic

  • Phone numbers now support clicking on to use your chosen web based telephone system, such as Skype.

  • When adding a SOC provision to a record, you can now filter based on SOC level.

  • Access to specific File Types can now be restricted at user an user group level.

27th August 2023

Learners

  • T Level Learners were incorrectly receiving validation errors for not having Planned Learning Hours or Planned EEP Hours. Now fixed.

Funding

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

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

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

18th August 2023

Month End

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

Applicants

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

Integrations

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

17th August 2023

Month End

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

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

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

14th August 2023

Reports

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

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

13th August 2023

Notes

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

12th August 2023

Month End

  • ILR Exporter

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

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

  • Funding Forecasting

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • QAR Reconciler

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

  • Funding Calculations

    • Funding Calculations have been made available for 2023

WebForms

  • New fields added to Learner and Applicant forms

    • Expected Days on Programme

    • Expected Weeks on Programme

    • Expected Days of Learning

    • Expected Weeks of Learning

  • User Defined Fields on Learner File, Applicant File, Organisation File and Learner Change Request forms can now update the User Defined Field on the Learner, Applicant or Organisation. To use this new functionality, you will need to enable it in the general form settings.

  • Certain forms were failing to auto complete the employer’s email address when set to do so. Now fixed.

  • Officer details were not auto filling when selecting an Officer on Applicant forms. Now fixed.

Learners

  • Data capture for learners now allows entry of 2023 ILR data:

    • All historic data entry fields for 2021 have been replaced with 2022 fields.

    • Planned Learning and EEP Hours fields for 2024 are now available.

    • HHS and ASL aim FAM types are no longer available for aims starting on/after 1st August 2023.

    • ACL and AFL FAM types have been added for aims which are in learning on/after 1st August 2023. These fields are also available in qualification plans.

    • Employment status and FFI fields are now visible when creating new Community Learning (FM10) learners.

    • Aim HE 1st/2nd/3rd LDCS fields are now only available in the 2022 fields section.

    • LDM and DAM code lists have been updated.

    • It is now possible to use different values for Learner NLM FAM fields for 2022 and 2023. Existing data in the 2022 field has been copied forward to 2023, but for new entries this field will need to be entered for both years.

  • Learner Validation has been updated to conform to the ESFA 2023 ILR validation rules specification. However we have not removed references to Funding Model 70 (ESF) as these rules can still be used to validate existing data within PICS.

  • The way that Functional Skills Assessment result are stored has been changed to allow for more subjects and more assessment results for each subject.

  • It is now possible to configure the default Workflow for new Learners.

  • Creating a Learner with a qualification with criteria linked would error. Now fixed.

  • Importing Aim Prior Learning and Other Funding Adjustments did not work. Now fixed.

  • When changing a Learner’s Programme from an Apprenticeship to a non-Apprenticeship TNP records are removed.

  • When ending an episode, courses that start in the future will be marked as Cancelled before Start, rather than Withdrawn.

  • Delivery Plan components can now be configured to be Default and Reusable. This will create a single instance on the learner when applying the delivery plan, but allow additional instances to be added later, if required.

  • Learner file lists now have a filter option to include files from appointments, calls, emails, and tasks.

Applicants

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

Officers

  • The filter to show officers with current learners was including officers with current applicants too. Now fixed to just limit to learners.

Organisations

  • Creating a new organisation will allow you to create their main contact at the same time

Tasks

  • A summary view has been added for tasks to allow notes and attachments to be added to the Task.

Courses

  • Searching for courses to enrol a person onto will now correctly sort when mixing Online and Offline courses.

Provisions

  • SOC code provisions for vacancies, learners, applicants and opportunities now use SOC2020 codes. Any existing codes will be displayed as SOC (2020) codes.

  • When entering SOC provisions, we also use the job titles list to search for relevant SOC codes.

  • When matching vacancies, or filtering learners, applicants, vacancies or opportunities using SOC code, we will now show matching records where the SOC code starts with the filter, or where the filter starts with the SOC code.

Delivery Configuration

  • The Workflow list now show which workflow is the default for new Applicants and Learners.

  • It is now possible to configure the default Workflow for new Learners.

Lists and Types Configuration

  • Task Templates can now have the due date defaulted

Forms Configuration

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

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

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

Reports

  • Learners

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

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

  • Employability Learners

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

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

  • Vacancies

    • Output of the Officer Main Organisation has been added.

  • Appointments

    • Workflow and Workflow Main Status outputs have been added.

    • Created and Modified date filters have been added.

  • Communications

    • Workflow and Workflow Main Status outputs have been added.

    • Created and Modified date filters have been added.

  • Tasks

    • Workflow and Workflow Main Status outputs have been added.

    • Created and Modified date filters have been added.

  • QAR Report

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

Dashboards

  • Visibility restriction by Team was not working. Now fixed.

Integrations

  • bksb

    • A new setting has been added to allow Diagnostic Skills Assessments to be downloaded.

  • Smart Assessor

    • A new setting has been added to set the Student ID in Smart Assessor to the PICS Learner Reference Number.

    • It is possible to create learners to Smart Assessor in bulk from the Learner List page when using the multi-select check boxes.

  • OneFile

    • A new setting has been added to allow changes to Learner and Qualification Start and Expected End dates to be pushed to OneFile when a Learner is synced.

Miscellaneous

  • File lists have been updated to allow multiple files to be downloaded in a single zip archive.

  • Notes: Notes no support HTML, and you can mention colleagues to notify them via PICS message by typing @ and then searching for them.

  • HTML Inputs: The font size drop down was not working. Now Fixed.

  • Sign Up Forms has improved double click protection to help avoid duplicate submissions

  • Temporary user accounts for PICS support staff will now need to be sent to the support member’s @oneadvanced.com email address rather than @pellcomp.co.uk.

  • Multi-day calendar events will now display as All Day events in day and week views

  • In rare situations, the Apprenticeship Details tab on the Qualification Plans page could constantly show and error. Now Fixed.

25th June 2023

Calendar Views

  • Not all views included the correct colour coding on events to indicate a positive or negative outcome. e.g. Attendance status on course sessions for a learner.

Learner ILR

  • The recently added DAM codes for ILR year 2023/2024 are now available in learner data capture: 064 - 069.

14th June 2023

Tasks

  • It was not possible to edit tasks assigned to the current user in the main task list unless the filter was set to Created By Or Assigned To Me. Now fixed.

WebForm Signatures

  • WebForms created as part of status transition post actions would be created, but signature request emails would not automatically be sent out. Now fixed.

13th June 2023

DropBox

  • The DropBox feature did not come back online after the nightly maintenance window. This loophole has now been corrected.

Funding Forecaster

  • Performing an export for the [Blank] Planned Starts Profile would throw an error. Now fixed.

12th June 2023

Calendar

  • There was a bug in the calendar view that would prevent additional officer calendars from being removed and added back in. Now fixed.

9th June 2023

PICS an Advanced Product

  • PICS branding has been modified to correctly reflect our new position within the Advanced family of products.

Learners

  • It is now possible to record ILR Employment Status Monitoring “Other Employment Type” (OET) codes against a qualification plan. These will be automatically added to the ILR Employment Status records for any new learners created using that qualification plan.

  • A PICS Contract can now be entered against a qualification plan. If this is entered, the contract value will be applied to any new learners created using that qualification plan.

  • The create process for a new learning episode no longer fails if a photo was attached to the previous episode, but the file record had been deleted.

  • If the delivery target for a learner was changed, existing skill scan answers would not display correctly. Now fixed.

  • It is now possible to apply a tag to a learner when they first complete a target scan. Each target can be configured to use a specific tag.

  • Learners can now perform an on demand target scan if they do not have an scheduled scans in the next 2 weeks.

  • Files tab now has the option to show files from other episodes.

  • Notes tab now has the option to show notes from applicant and other episodes.

  • Creating a private learner no longer has empty drop downs for the following fields: LLDDs, Primary LLDD and Disability Self Assessed.

Reports

  • General

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

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

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

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

  • Learners

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • Applicants

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

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

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

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

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

  • Projected Funding