March 2025 release notes

When a learner is using a Marking aid learning plan component, and they wish to add supporting evidence for their exercise, they can do this by adding notes and/or files to the Marking aid learning plan component.

When a review participant is using the Communications Connector with Teams, and they want to store a review meeting transcript in Aptem for an accurate record of the event for audit purposes, they can now do so. They can click the ‘Get Transcript’ button in the ‘Transcripts and Meeting Notes’ review section to have their transcript automatically attached.

When a tutor has scheduled a review via the Communications Connector with Teams, and they want to retrieve the transcript for that review automatically via Aptem, they can now do. They need to click the 'Get Transcript' button in the Meeting Notes and Transcripts section in the relevant review. They will be notified via a toaster pop up that the transcript is being retrieved. They will also be notified when the transcript is available. In cases where the transcript has expired or is unavailable, the user will be notified by a toaster pop up.

• With the relaxation of the requirement for apprentices aged 19+ undertake functional skills in the apprenticeship 24/25 funding rules. Employers can now decide that their apprentices will be opted out of functional skills. Where this occurs providers will need to note that functional skills have been opted out of and this should be apparent on Training Plan. We have added the ability to mark functional skills that are currently part of the apprenticeship programme being delivered as being opted out. This can be done on the Edit Programme screen in Console. Once this has been done the admin can regenerate the Training Plan and the opted out flag will be present.
• Admins can now record when a learner has been assessed as having an exception to the usual functional skills requirement, by selecting "Exception agreed" in the exemption reasons. As per the exceptions to the regular English and maths minimum requirements, for people with special educational needs, learning difficulties or disabilities in the apprenticeship funding rules paragraphs 56 - 60.
  The new exemption reason is available only for admins to update in the following areas:
  • Learner profile → Functional Skills section (Classic)
    
    
  • Functional Skills review section (Console)
    
    

Both learners and admins can select 'A*' as a grade option when entering A-level qualifications manually in the PLR step of the onboarding wizard. Admins can also select this grade when adding A levels in the PLR section of a review.

When an admin wants to verify which roles line managers (User type Employer) have been assigned, they are able to create a report showing the assigned roles using the OData Users request (/odata/1.0/users?$select=Id,FullName,Type,UserRoles_Roles)

• Admins using the Restart option in the ILR to restart an aim from a break in learning encountered an issue where the programme type, funding model and source of funding was not populating. This was due to there being no 'Learning Start date' that is required to validate these fields. We have remedied this by auto-populating the 'Learning Start date' with the current date which customers can alter as needed.
• Previously, when a placement owner, who did not have a valid email for the Communications Connector with Teams, was trying to set a placement to be “online”, they would see the “Meet Online” button and could click it, even though the feature would not work for them. Now, the “Meet Online” button only appears for tutors who have a valid email (i.e. an email which matches the specified domain). Note: if a placement is first scheduled with an owner who has a valid email, and the owner is changed to an owner who does not have a valid email, the placement links will then be removed from the placement.
• When a tutor is joining a review meeting via the Communications Connector with Teams, the review form will show the ‘Start meeting’ button regardless of the review date, as long as the review is not in a 'Completed' status. When a tutor is joining a review meeting via the Communications Connector with Teams, the review task will now show the ‘Start meeting’ button regardless of the review date or status. Previously, if the review date was in the past, the review form and the task did not display the “Start meeting” button.
• When Admin uses the import functionality in Registration and Certification, error messages will be displayed if they provide a date before 01/01/1900 or an invalid date format in the specified fields. This enhancement improves the user experience by notifying them of incorrect date entries.
  • Qualifications:
    • Registered Date (date, format dd/mm/yyyy).
    • Certificate Claimed Date (date, format dd/mm/yyyy).
    • Achieved Date (date, format dd/mm/yyyy).
    • Certificate Received Date (date, format dd/mm/yyyy).
    • Certificate Sent Date (date, format dd/mm/yyyy).
  • Assessments:
    • Assessment Date (date, format dd/mm/yyyy).
    • Cancelled On (date, format dd/mm/yyyy).
    • Note: Cancelled On Date only has format restriction applied, there is no date limit restrictions applied for it - this will be reviewed separately.

We are working towards our next iteration of the Aptem Enhance Marking Aid and Feedback Assistant features. We will be gathering feedback from our early adopter customers to work towards an iteration that will extend existing functionality allowing us to wider the use of the feature for beta trial customers.

We are developing compliance template versioning which allows customers to add valid from and to dates into compliance templates. This will remove the need for customers to build new programmes as compliance documents are updated. 

As part of our ongoing enhancements, our OData API will align data access with your existing group permissions. Your API token will reflect your group hierarchy, ensuring data access aligns to assigned groups. To avoid unnecessary access issues, please verify that your admin accounts have the necessary group permissions to maintain access. This update is part of our continued work to ensure more granular control over your data, aligning to defined groups. These changes will impact our Power BI reports as they use the same OData Tables. Please see this article for further information. 

Within the Caseload dashboard, we are adding the ability to drill down on metrics - this functionality is already available for the Data Checks tab, and we are expanding this across the other applicable tabs.

We plan to change the periodic triggers in Checkpoint to be relative to the learner's start date, instead of the start date configured in Checkpoint settings. This will align with the way relative dates work in the Learning Plan and improve the user experience for learners, so that Checkpoints are staggered appropriately across their programme. This will allow customers who operate on a roll-on, roll-off basis to make use of the Checkpoint functionality.

We are developing a feature that will summarise key discussion points and themes from a Review, removing the distraction of notetaking and resulting in more meaningful conversations for all parties.