Data Exchange in the PICS Smart Assessor Integration

This feature is only available to users licensed for Smart Assessor Integration.

If you have Enabled the Smart Assessor Integration, data will be exchanged daily between the two systems. There are two main parts to this exchange:

  • The Learner Upload, where a learner is enrolled in Smart Assessor from PICS. This creates a learner record in Smart Assessor with the necessary PICS data, as well as Smart Assessor records for their qualifications, officers and organisations.

  • The automatic synchronisation, where progression and review data is pulled down from Smart Assessor and imported back in to PICS. This process happens automatically every day.

Learner Upload

Once you have Enrolled a Learner with Smart Assessor, the following details will be uploaded from PICS to Smart Assessor.

The following details are only uploaded to Smart Assessor when the learner is initially enrolled. Following this, the only data that will be uploaded are the items in the Smart Assessor Synchronisation list below.

Learner Details

The following details will be uploaded from the Learner Record to the new Smart Assessor learner record:

  • Learner Ident

  • First Name

  • Surname

  • Date of Birth

  • Unique Learner Number (ULN)

  • Email

  • Address 1

  • Address 2

  • Address 3

  • Address 4

  • Postcode

  • National Insurance (NI) Number

  • Phone Number

  • Mobile Number

Organisation Details

To upload an existing organisation from PICS, refer to the guidance in Linking an Organisation to a Smart Assessor Employer.

If the Organisation set as the learner’s current Placement has an Additional ID set in their Organisation Summary, this will be uploaded and used to match the organisation to an Employer record in Smart Assessor.

If the Additional ID field is blank, a new Employer record will be created in Smart Assessor. The following fields from the Organisation Summary will be added to the Smart Assessor Employer:

  • Name

  • Phone Number

  • EDRS Number

  • Address – Up to 4 address fields will be used.

  • Postcode

  • Website

  • Employer Size

Officer Details

If the Officer set as the learner’s Main Officer has an Additional ID set in their Officer Summary, this will be uploaded and used to match the officer to an Assessor record in Smart Assessor.

If the Additional ID field is blank, a new Assessor record will be created in Smart Assessor. The following fields from the Officer Summary will be added to the Smart Assessor record:

  • Email Address

  • Forename

  • Surname

  • Phone Number

  • Mobile Number

  • Organisation ID

If you have specified a Qualification Second Assessor Role in Smart Assessor Integration Settings, a second assessor will be linked or created in Smart Assessor with the same details. The officer uploaded here depends on which role you have chosen.

Qualification Details

For each qualification uploaded, the learner will be enrolled onto the corresponding course in Smart Assessor and the following details are sent:

  • Qualification Reference Code – This is the code for the Qualification in PICS Configuration.

  • Learner Qualification Reference Code – This is the code for the Learner Qualification in the Delivery Plan.

  • Start Date

  • Planned End Date

  • Registration Date

  • Registration Number

Off the Job Hours Details

The Planned OTJ Hours for a learner will be uploaded to Smart Assessor when the learner is uploaded.

Smart Assessor Synchronisation

The synchronisation with Smart Assessor takes place automatically once a day. During the synchronisation, qualification and review data is imported into PICS and used to update your Smart Assessor learners.

Synchronisation will only take place for learners with a Live system status who are either In Learning or who ended in the last month.

Qualification Details

When the daily synchronisation occurs, the progression from each Smart Assessor aim will be pulled down and used to populate the Elements Done field in each corresponding Learner Qualification.

Review Details

Review details imported from Smart Assessor will first be checked against existing Reviews for the learner to see if the data should be used to create a new review or update an existing one.

Reviews are matched based on the Smart Assessor System ID field in the Review Summary. This is a read-only field used to join the PICS review with the Smart Assessor record.

If a new review is created, the following fields will be populated:

  • Review Ident

  • Review Type – As Smart Assessor uses different review type codes, this will be categorised according to your preferences in the Smart Assessor Summary.

  • Attended Status – This will initially be set to Unknown, then updated if any attendance information can be found in Smart Assessor.

The following fields are then populated for both newly created and previously imported reviews:

  • Proposed Date and Time

  • Actual Date and Time

  • Duration

  • Attended Status

Off the Job Hours Details

The Actual OTJ Hours field in PICS will be updated from the total in Smart Assessor every time the synchronisation takes place.

Changes to Learner Details

Depending on your Smart Assessor Integration Settings, changes to learner details in PICS or Smart Assessor will either be ignored, pushed from PICS to Smart Assessor, or pulled down from Smart Assessor to PICS. However, the ULN field can only be pushed from PICS.

If you have set your Update Learner Demographics Mode to Push PICS Data to Smart Assessor, the following learner details will be pushed when the synchronisation takes place:

  • First Name

  • Surname

  • Birth Date

  • Address 1-4

  • Postcode

  • Phone Number

  • Mobile Number

  • National Insurance Number

  • Ethnicity

  • Unique Learner Number (ULN)

If you have set your Update Learner Demographics Mode to Update PICS From Smart Assessor Data, the following learner details will be pulled down when the synchronisation takes place:

  • First Name

  • Surname

  • Birth Date

  • Address 1-4

  • Postcode

  • Phone Number

  • Mobile Number

  • National Insurance Number

  • Ethnicity

  • Risk – This will only be pulled down if you have switched on the Update PICS Risk using Smart Coach Score option in Smart Assessor Integration Settings.

Changes to Officer Details

Depending on your Smart Assessor Integration Settings, changes to officer details in PICS or Smart Assessor will either be ignored, pushed from PICS to Smart Assessor, or pulled down from Smart Assessor to PICS. The following details will be updated:

  • First Name

  • Surname

  • Email

  • Phone Number

  • Mobile Number

Changes to Organisation Details

If you have switched on Push Changes to Learner Employer in Smart Assessor Integration Settings, any change of the learner’s employer in PICS will be respected in Smart Assessor, as per the organisation linking process outlined above.

Depending on your Smart Assessor Integration Settings, changes to organisation details in PICS or Smart Assessor will either be ignored, pushed from PICS to Smart Assessor, or pulled down from Smart Assessor to PICS. The following fields will be updated:

  • Name

  • Phone Number

  • Website

  • Address 1-4

  • Postcode

Changes to Qualification Details

Changes to Qualifications statuses against learners are synced with Smart Assessor. These changes can be done by updating the ILR data against the Learning Aim, setting the appropriate Actual End Date, Completion Status & Outcome. With the Learning Aim closes, this will be reflected in Smart Assessor upon the next data synchronisation; be that automatically overnight, or manually by clicking the Update Learner In Smart Assessor button located on the learners Delivery Plan page.

In addition to this Learner statuses are also updated in Smart Assessor by placing a learner on a Break in Learning. This is done in the ILR Summary page, under the Actions button.

Please see Breaks in Learning in PICS for more details.