Scheduling Reviews and Meetings

Additional integrations / Add-ons

This article is about additional integrations / add-ons that are not part of any Aptem Apprentice package. If you want to use this functionality, please contact your Customer Success Manager. See Aptem Apprentice pricing and packages for information about the packages.

Overview

Reviews and meetings (learning plan components of type Meeting) can be scheduled and rescheduled in Aptem and will sync to the organiser's Teams calendar. The tutor who schedules the meeting is the Teams meeting organiser (component owner). Attendees are invited by email:

• For reviews – the learner and employer (manager and mentor) are invited if the review is configured for the employer to view it.
• For meetings – the learner is invited.

Pre-requisite

Teams must be enabled on the tenant and the access policy setup must be complete. For more information, see Setting up the communications connector with Teams.

Note: to get access to the communications connector with Teams, contact your Customer Success Manager.

Scheduling a meeting

To schedule a meeting in Teams, follow the steps below. In the example used here, the tenant is configured to schedule meetings within a 5-day window.

1. Schedule a review or meeting in Aptem as normal. The meeting must be at least three hours in the future. You can schedule within your configured timeframe or schedule further ahead. Aptem checks for meetings to schedule in Teams every three hours — for example, if you schedule a meeting for 30 April and your window is five days, Aptem will schedule it in Teams on 25 April. If you are already within the scheduling window when you create the meeting, it will be scheduled in Teams immediately.
   
   Note: if a meeting does not initially meet the criteria for the communications connector (for example, it falls outside the scheduling window or Meet online is not selected), amending these details to bring the meeting within scope will schedule it in Teams immediately, without the three-hour delay.
2. Ensure Meet online is ticked on the review or meeting component.
   
   Note: the component name becomes the meeting invite title, and the component description becomes the meeting agenda.

3. Specify the attendees (learner, manager, mentor) by selecting from the participant list. This list only appears when Meet online is selected. Once the review is scheduled, the scheduled status cannot be reversed and the Meet online toggle becomes locked. If the associated Teams meeting is cancelled in Teams, the Meet online flag is removed and can be re-ticked to re-select attendees and reschedule.

   Changes to the attendee list in Aptem are reflected in the Teams meeting. For example, if the manager is originally invited and is then replaced by the mentor, the manager receives a cancellation via Teams and the mentor receives an invitation.

   

4. The review or meeting generates a task in your Aptem calendar as normal.
   
5. You will receive an email invite from Microsoft Teams and the meeting will appear in your Teams calendar. The component owner is automatically set as the Teams meeting organiser, as shown on the email invite.
   • Note: Aptem is not notified if the learner or employer declines the meeting in Teams.
     
6. The Teams URL appears in your Aptem task for the review or meeting. You can also start the Teams meeting directly from Aptem.
   

Returning OTJT hours for meetings

When a learner attends a meeting scheduled in Teams via the communications connector, OTJT (off-the-job training) hours can be returned for that meeting. Hours are only returned where planned hours have been recorded against the learning plan component. The tutor (component owner) is always the Teams meeting organiser.

OTJT hours are calculated as follows:

• If the tutor joins but the learner does not, no hours are recorded.
• If both the tutor and learner join, hours are recorded for the exact duration the learner was present. For example, if the tutor joins for one hour but the learner only joins for 50 minutes, 50 minutes of OTJT hours are recorded.
• If the meeting link is shared outside Aptem and the tutor joins alongside two external attendees, the full meeting duration is recorded. For example, if the tutor joins for one hour, person A for 50 minutes, and person B for 40 minutes, one hour of OTJT is recorded against the component.

If a meeting takes place on a different day from the scheduled date, hours will not be returned automatically. A note is added to the associated meeting component confirming "[component name] hours verified" with the hours attached. This counts as evidence towards component completion and may result in the component being marked as complete, depending on the component setup.

The attendance verification process runs overnight, so OTJT hours are verified one day after the scheduled meeting date.

Notes

• Meetings and reviews previously flagged as Meet online (or Use Zoom, the former label) do not need to be recreated. Aptem will pick them up during the first scheduling job, provided they fall within the configured timeframe.
• The attendee options available when specifying the participant list depend on the review type settings:
  • If Participant can view is enabled, the Learner option is shown.
  • If a manager and/or mentor is present and Employer can view is enabled, the Manager and/or Mentor options are shown.
• To reschedule or cancel reviews and meetings, see Rescheduling and cancelling reviews and meetings.
• The Teams API adds the meeting in the correct time zone in your Teams calendar and invites learners at the time set in Aptem. However, when you open the meeting in Teams, it defaults to the UTC time zone. You can adjust the time zone if needed.
  • Example – meeting scheduled for 9:00–9:30:
    
  • When the meeting is opened, Teams displays the time in UTC, so it shows 8:00–8:30. [Screenshot missing from source article – add before publishing.]