August 2023

Updates based on ILR 23/24 changes

Based on the proposed changes to the ILR for 23/24 published by the ESFA, we have made some more changes.

References to the European Social Fund

We have removed all references to the European Social Fund from our compliance paperwork. This will make the documents compliant as it will be clear who is funding the learning and therefore what compliance rules apply.

We have removed the following from the Training plan and the ILR Compliance document:

• Removed the European Union and Education & skills Funding Agency logos.
• Removed all mention of the ESF in the 'Learning Declaration'.
• Removed the following text from the 'Learning declaration' box: “and may be part financed by the European Union through the European Social Fund (ESF)".

Note that the changes to the ‘Provider will’ default text on the Training Plan will only apply to new programmes that are created from the Account Programme template, and not to any existing templates. All other changes will apply to existing templates. 

Ordering of compliance documents

We have updated the order in which the compliance documents are presented to our customers' learners and employers. This will allow them to follow a compliant workflow.

In case of Employers/Learners, we now display the Apprenticeship Agreement before Training Plan in the following areas:

• Onboarding Wizard
• Signature required screen (both in Classic and Console)
• Signatures (for Employers)

Exporting the learner’s personal email in the ILR batch file

The ILR export function has been updated to include personal email if present. This will allow customers to report the email address required by the ILR specification.

Going forward, if a learner’s ‘Personal email' field is populated, the value in the field will be exported as the ‘Email’ element in the xml batch file. If the ‘Personal email' field is empty, the ‘Email’ field value will be exported as the ‘Email’ element in the xml batch file.

In general, when customers are adding learners to Aptem, we advise that they use personal email addresses. In cases where this is not possible, due to SSO for example, they can turn on personal email in the User form field and invite learners using the SSO email and then either have the learners enter their personal email address / have an administrator input this information into the system.

Sub-Programme ID in the Learning Plan Component OData feed

Sub-Programme ID has been added to the Learning Plan Component OData feed. Using this, you can identify learning plan components which are on a sub-programme as against those which are on a main programme.

• If a component belongs to a sub-programme, the sub-programme ID field is populated with the correct sub-programme ID.
• If a component belongs to a main programme, this field will be null.

The OData dictionary has been updated to reflect this change: OData dictionary.

Accessibility Improvements

At Aptem, we aim to offer our users an accessible product that meets the latest WCAG AA Standards. We are committed to improving accessibility, including updating styles for interactive elements like buttons and links.

Keyboard focus / Interactive elements

Interactive elements must be entirely compatible with a keyboard. Improvements made:

• Interactive elements can be activated with a keyboard - Learning Plan
• Interactive elements receive keyboard focus - Tasks
• Interactive elements receive keyboard focus - Learning Plan

Contrast

When components have custom focus indication, such as a custom ‘outline’, the indication must pass colour contrast requirements with adjacent colours. Improvements made:

• Custom focus indication contrast (background change) - Filters
• Custom focus indication contrast (background change) - Learners Grid
• Custom focus indication contrast (background change) - Signatures Grid
• Custom focus indication contrast (background change) - Tasks
• Custom focus indication contrast (background change) - Dashboard
• Custom focus indication contrast (grey/yellow outline) - Dashboard

Heading

If a relationship between elements is expressed with visual cues, it also needs to be programmatically determined. This enables assistive technology to communicate the relationships to users. Improvements made:

• Heading marked up semantically - Dashboard Cards
• Heading marked up semantically - Learner Profile
• Heading marked up semantically - Help & Support

Duplication of links

Multiple links on a page pointing to the same destination unnecessarily increase the number of tab presses required to navigate these elements for keyboard users. Improvements made:

• Adjacent links no longer point to identical destinations - Dashboard

Minor updates / Bug fixes     

• We have added the ability to use Digital Skills assessments as a component.
• A customer reported seeing duplicate records in the learningplancomponents OData feed. This has now been fixed.
•  A customer reported an error when applying learners on a programme. This has now been fixed.
• A customer reported that there were missing visuals on the Power BI Funding Reports. This has now been fixed.
• In one case, the Learner Data Table in the Quality dashboard and the Learning Funding Data table in the Funding Dashboard were showing different values when the 'In learning' filters was applied. This was due to ‘test’ learners being included within the Quality dashboard. The ‘test’ user filter has now been applied to all the pages within the Quality dashboard and the “In learning” figures are now consistent across the dashboards.
• A ‘Withdrawn Learners’ column has been added to the QAR Summary Tables. This will provide a quick count of the learners that have withdrawn, alongside the other learner counts. The label ‘Count’ has also been amended to ‘Learner Count’, to provide a clearer understanding of what the value represents.
• Learner's progress in the Review PDF was showing as above 100% due to hidden activities/ components. The issue has now been resolved, and the maximum learning plan progress is now 100% within the Review PDF visuals. Note that the fix applied prevents this issue from occurring in the future. However, it does not fix documents from previous reviews. In such cases, customers can regenerate their documents manually if they wish to. If customers regenerate the documents manually, the documents will need to be signed again by all parties that signatures are required for.
• The planned/scheduled date within the Learning Plan Component/ Review add/ edit forms was accepted in a 2-digit format instead of 4-digit format (that is 23 instead of 2023). This was causing further issues in OData and has now been resolved. Note – this fix prevents this format of date for any Reviews scheduled for after the release. Any Reviews with this problem before the release will need to be manually rescheduled via these forms.
• On the calendar integration screen, adding any domain using the +Add Connection Modal was resulting in a ‘lost in space’ error, and the Calendar module was getting disabled automatically. This issue has now been resolved ensuring the integration can be enabled for any new/ existing tenants.
• In some instances, a review was completed on a previous programme, but the admin still had an incomplete task for this review. A data fix has been implemented to close these outstanding tasks. Further logic changes will be required to ensure these tasks are automatically closed when Reviews are completed. Note that after the Reviews re-architecture, you can no longer create an independent review task. But there were some pre-existing tasks that remained in the system, even though the review that they were associated with had been completed. Such ‘orphaned tasks’ have now been removed from the system.
• Upon processing, the Process automation Withdrawal tracker was updating the Learning Support Funding (LSF) 'todate' to the same date as the withdrawal date, even when the 'todate' was in the past. This issue has now been fixed. The withdrawal tracker will now update the LSF 'todate' to the same date as the withdrawal date only when the 'todate' is in the future.
  • If the LSF to date <= withdrawal date, then the LSF to date will not be changed.
  • If the LSF to date > withdrawal date, then the LSF will be set to the withdrawal date.
  • If the LSF to date is blank, then it will remain blank. (LSF requires a from and to date to be valid, we will not support the scenario where there is no to date)
• Upon processing, the Process automation Break in Learning (BiL) tracker was updating the Learning Support Funding (LSF) 'todate' to the same date as the last learning date, even when the 'todate' was in the past. This issue has now been fixed. The BiL tracker will now update the LSF 'todate' to the same date as the last learning date only when the 'todate' is in the future.
  • If the LSF to date <= break date, then the LSF to date will not be changed.
  • If the LSF to date > break date, then the LSF will be set to the break date.
  • If the LSF to date is blank, then it will remain blank. (LSF requires a from and to date to be valid, we will not support the scenario where there is no to date)
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Upcoming features – not part of the August release

Based on the work we have completed in the past few weeks, we have the following features lined up for release in the near future:

Trackers in Console

The management of trackers will be available on Aptem Console in a future release.

This will enable administrators to directly control which process automation trackers they want to use, thus avoiding the intermediate step where an administrator would request these to be enabled via Aptem support/ICs.

Addition of Custom Withdrawal Reasons to the ‘Withdrawal from learning’ tracker

We will be adding the ability for customers to have flexible withdrawal reasons. The ESFA withdrawal reasons are either not applicable or too general, leading to problems for the tutors in selecting the correct reason. There was a need to manually create the reasons elsewhere to be able to generate meaningful reports. This feature will enable more targeted interventions to avoid withdrawals.

Update to the epaPRO integration functionality

We have improved the way updates are received from epaPRO. This queuing functionality allows for large volumes of updates to be received. Currently this option is off by default, but we feel this would be beneficial to all customers using epaPRO. We are therefore enabling this for all customers in the September release. Customers who have used the epaPRO API with multiple MI systems using the same account, may be asked to opt out for a period of time. For example, customers who are transitioning from an MI system to Aptem. Your CSM will discuss with you if we think that the Queue is not suitable for your organisation, and as such, we may request that you are opted out for an agreed period of time.

Aptem Assess OData feed

We will be adding a new OData feed for the Aptem Assess cognitive assessments. Customers will be able to use the data to report on historical and current assessments and track progress, trends, and insights.