What's New and Coming Soon in PICS?
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
31st May 2025
Integrations
Postcode updates were failing where descriptions for linked Wards contained characters with diacritics. Now fixed.
Users
Users that are set up to use oneAdvanced Identity / Single Sign On were unable to update their email addresses from PICS LMS if multi-factor authentication was enabled. Now fixed.
Reports
The Learner Enrolments report and Applicant Enrolments report were failing if the Course Attendance Summary or Learner Attendance Summary output options were selected. Now fixed.
24th May 2025
API
The following have been made available via the Learners endpoint: LearningExpectedEndDate, StandardCode, and Standard Level.
Dashboards
On rare occasions Widgets on the Dashboard would show a “Data cannot be found” error, with no facitily to remove the widget. A new option has been added to these widgets to allow the dashboard owner, or DBAdmin, to remove the widget.
Forms
When editing Single Select questions on Applicant WebForms for system-set answers, a new option has been added “Update to empty when no option selected?”. When selected, any blank reponses for that question when editing an Applicant will clear the data linked to that answer.
Signup Forms for courses that prevent overbooking, but have been overbooked, now prevent the applicant from completing the form and instead displays a message saying that the course is overbooked.
Date and Time fields on UDFs that are set to Mandatory would only respect the Mandatory condition if a Min or Max value had also been specified. Now fixed.
Imports
Applicant imports were not correctly identifying duplicates. Now fixed.
Learners
When editing the Start Date a reinstated aim (after a break in learning) the corresponding Delivery Plan Qualification’s Start Date would incorrectly also be updated. Now fixed.
Reports
The Users Report now has the optional output “ASSO ID”
Target Scans
When editing a Delivery Target, a new option, “Show full Target Scope desciptions in Target Scans” has been added. This will display the full description alongside the truncated title of the Target Scope when answering a Target Scan for that Delivery Target.
Workflows
When setting up Validation for a Workflow Transition with a Record Type of “Appointment” selected, the Appointment Type list would sometimes not show. Now fixed.
Configuration
A new section has been added to both Applicant and Learner configuration, “Custom Action,” which can be used to set up custom action buttons which will be displayed on each Applicant/Learner record.
General
Prior Qualification lookup lists on WebForms and on edit forms for applicants and learners would often take a long time to populate, and would freeze a users web browers if there were a huge number of Prior Qualifications configured in the data. Now fixed.
Users
The Advanced SSO ID is now displayed on the User Summary for any users using Advanced SSO/Identity
12th April 2025
Courses
Entering some GLH times (such as 01:04) against session attendance would result in the stored value changing by one minute. Now fixed.
Learners
When comparing target scans on the Target Scope page, the labels on the spider diagrams were incorrect. Now fixed.
Surveys and Functional Skills Assessments are now visible to Learners when logged into PICS.
Performance enhancements have been added when sending SMS messages to multiple learners.
Workflows
A Send Notification workflow status change action is now available for Payment workflows.
Month End
Funding Calculations were failing to run when there existed an invalid Apprenticeship Achieved date against any learners included in the calculations. Now fixed.
29th March 2025
Any user with the Use Target Scans permission can now validate target scans.
15th March 2025
User Defined Forms
Editing a User Defined Form would sometimes take a long time to load, or in rare cases would time out and return an error. Now fixed.
13th March 2025
Courses
There was an issue not being able to delete enrolments from Learner or Applicant Summary pages. Now fixed.
Forms
Clone and Retire would error if signature reminder automations were configured without a form template filter. Now fixed.
8th March 2025
Learners
The ILR validation now conforms to version 5 of the ILR validation rules specification.
Forms
Signup forms can now be used in iframes on external web sites.
Responses that contain unknown codes now display “Unknown: [code]” when displaying UDF details.
A warning message is now displayed when editing a UDF or Survey that already has responses.
When Clone and Retiring a Webform, an option is now displayed to link any signature reminder automations to the newly cloned version of the form.
Where a signature reminder automation is linked to a retired version of a Webform, the webform name will be prefixed with “(Retired version n)” in the Template name list.
A new option has been added to Signature Reminder Automations to “Send Reminders for all versions of the selected Form Templates”. When selected, reminders will be sent for all versions of the Webform in the list of Templates.
It is now not possible to delete a Webform Template which is linked to a Signature Reminder Automation.
Reports
Aim are no longer excluded from the QAR report if the Overall Year Override flag is set.
The Days Since Last Completed Activity field in the Opportunity Report was not outputting data for recently completed activities. Now fixed.
The “Most Recent First” options for Sort Order on the Learner Reviews Report were not being respected. Now fixed.
Users and Accounts
A new setting is available on the User List to update the email address of OneAdvanced Identity (ASSO) user accounts when the email address in PICS is changed.
Courses
A new option has been added to the options screen for Courses: “Prevent Overbooking”. When selected, users will not be given the option to ignore overbooking warnings when enrolling participants on courses with no remaining seats.
8th February 2025
Applicants
A new status workflow post-transition action is now available: Create Linked Contact User Account. This allows you to trigger account creation and invitation emails for any contacts linked to the applicant via the specified relationship types, or where the applicant employer is the contact’s main organisation.
When viewing a Target Scan for an applicant, the status workflow dropdown would show options for a learner instead of an applicant. Now fixed.
Configuration
KSBs for an Apprenticeship Standard can now be imported from IfATE into an empty delivery target.
Imports
Adding tags to imported records is now optional for Applicant, Organisation and RAA imports.
Learners
Validation rule LearnDelFamType_122 would be triggered incorrectly if DAM 023 is recorded or if the aim has LARS category 37. Now fixed.
A new API endpoint is available to retrieve learner placement and employer information: /api/v1/learners/{id}/placements.
Month End
LSF payments are now only paid to Adult Skills learners (FM38) if the LSF FAM is active on the last date of the month or if the aim starts and ends in the same month.
Signup Forms
Signup form answers to questions in User Defined Forms with a visibility group restriction would not be saved. Now fixed.
1st February 2025
Enrolment Forms were displaying dormant Prior Qualification Grades and Levels. Now fixed.
29th January 2025
Learners
LDM codes have been updated
26th January 2025
Courses
It was not possible to enter notes when edting Attendance for Sessions when more than one record was checked. Now fixed.
22nd January 2025
Learners
Sending out a Review with Contact or Learner UDFs for signatures would fail to load. Now fixed.
Contact and Learning Hours with On Job Type not set were hidden. Now fixed.
18th January 2025
API
Various security improvements have been implemented.
Applicants
The data on the RPL tab can now be exported to spreadsheet.
Appointments
Cloned appointments now have the same Status Workflow as the source appointment.
The Appointment conflict checking feature (if activated) now only checks for conflicts when an appointment is saved, reducing the number of database queries required and improving performance.
Configuration
A matrix view is now available when configuring a Target Scope. This allows bulk updating of Stages across different Sxope items.
A new Learner configuration option has been added under a new “Files” section, “Default files to visible”. When selected, any file that is generated or uploaded for a learner will default to being made visible to the learner.
A new section has been added to the Section Configuration: Vacancies with an Applications tab with a single option “Default Application Officer to Vacancy Officer”. When enabled, on creating a new vacancy application, the officer of the application will be set to the officer of the linked vacancy.
General
When editing mobile phone numbers against learners, applicants or officers, the value entered is now validated to check it is a valid phone number.
When entering the body of an SMS message, the number of characters and number of messages to be sent is now displayed.
When sending bulk SMS messages, the number of recipients, and the total number of messages to be sent for all recipients is now displayed.
The description for “Skills Bootcamp - DPS Competition” Contract Items has been updated to include the contract “Wave” version.
Learners
An RPL tab is now available on the ILR for customers on our RPL early adoption programme. This shows any RPL data imported from the applicant when the learner was created.
The Actual Funding and Projected Funding tabs on a Learner’s ILR record' Funding Details list was showing funding back to only the first period of 2019. This has been fixed and now displays funding back to the first period that the learner received funding.
The ILR validation now conforms to version 4 of the ILR validation rules specification.
The Status Change button for Review Details access from a calendar view were not working. Now fixed.
Officers
A new tab, “Applications,” has been added for officer records. This tab displays a list of vacancy applications that are linked to the officer.
Reports
Optimiations have been made to improve the performance of the Officer and Learner Appointments reports.
WebForms
The most recent validated Target Scan can now be shown on a WebForm.
Qualification Plan selections are now limited to those linked to the site of the learner or applicant when the Site selection does not exist on a form
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.
New learner imports with multiple records
Organisation imports with multiple records
Applicant imports with multiple records
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.