March 2026 release notes

Exercise management

Exercise content can now be edited exclusively via the marking aid admin screen. Editing from Programme Builder and the learner’s learning plan components has been removed. 

Option to edit removed from the Program Builder

Option to edit removed from the learning plan component

This change, based on customer feedback, streamlines the editing process and reduces maintenance overhead. To edit exercises, users must have both the ‘Manage Programmes’ role and the ‘Manage Marking Aid Exercises’ role.

TNP Sum field

A new ‘TNP Sum’ field is now available in the ILRAims OData feed, returning the latest total TNP value for each aim. The value is calculated as the sum of the most recent TNP1 and TNP2 values; if these are not present, it is calculated as the sum of the most recent TNP3 and TNP4 values.

This removes the need for additional queries or manual calculations, improving dashboard refresh performance and reducing processing overhead. Users may need to update existing integrations or reports to utilise this new field. For reference, see: OData dictionary.

Expanded mode

Learners can now expand the virtual assistant side panel to an expanded view for improved visibility. This optional mode allows users to toggle between standard and expanded views without losing conversation context, while maintaining accessibility, cross-browser compatibility and existing functionality.

In the expanded mode, message content and the input area are displayed at a maximum width of 700px and centred for optimal readability. This ensures conversation content remains clear, consistent and aligned with Aptem design guidelines.

Funding Dashboard: learner identifiers restored

ULN, LRN and Learner Reference fields are now displayed in the Learner Aims, Status and Funding Data table. This resolves an issue where these identifiers were not visible, making learner-level validation more difficult. Admins may wish to re-run any exports or reconciliations that relied on learner identifiers.

Funding Dashboard: Employer field restored 

The Employer field is now correctly populated in the Learner Aims, Status and Funding Data table. This fixes an issue where the field appeared blank despite employer data being present in the source data. Admins may wish to revisit learner records previously showing missing employer information.

Funding Dashboard: break in learning funding correction 

On-programme funding values for learners returning from a break in learning are now calculated correctly. Previously, funding paid before the break was incorrectly included in post-return calculations, inflating monthly payments. The updated calculation ensures only the remaining applicable funding is reflected. Admins may need to review updated monthly funding values for affected learners.

Funding Dashboard: incentive payment period alignment

Incentive payments are now calculated using day-based eligibility periods rather than monthly periods. This aligns calculations with Funding Rule 109 and ensures accurate timing and values. Admins may wish to revalidate incentive figures against funding reports.

Quality Dashboard: alignment with January & February 2026 Apprenticeship Accountability Framework changes

The Quality Dashboard has been updated to align with the Apprenticeship Accountability Framework (AAF) specification effective from the end of January 2026.

Updates to the Accountability page include:

• Removal of the split by days for learners past planned end date, replaced with a single measure.
• Removal of the missing EPA KPI
• Removal of break in learning monitoring from this page
• Updated colour indicators for Withdrawal “At risk” and “Needs Improvement”.
• Enlarged and repositioned Learner details for improved visibility
• Clickable drilldowns added to Learner Past End and Withdrawal KPIs to update the Learner details table.

Learners on a break page

A new Learners on a break page has been introduced to support break in learning monitoring. This page reflects the previous Accountability break in learning metrics and includes:

• A user-definable filter to identify learners included within the QAR.
• Clickable drilldowns from break in learning KPIs to update the Learner details table.

These changes may impact how performance trends are interpreted compared to previous versions of the dashboard. Admins should review the updated indicator definitions to ensure reporting aligns with the January 2026 framework requirements.

For more information, see: Quality dashboard: Alignment with the January 2026 Apprenticeship Accountability Framework.

Quality Dashboard: Apprenticeship Accountability Framework specification update

When an admin uses the Quality Dashboard to monitor performance against the Apprenticeship Accountability Framework (AAF), they can now view learners past planned end date calculations that fully align with the latest published specification update.

This change enhances the calculation logic to reflect a post-publication amendment to the AAF specification. Additional criteria have been introduced to ensure learners are correctly included where the actual end date is blank and the planned end date is on or before the previous ILR submission (freeze) date. This ensures the measure accurately reflects learners who meet the updated framework definition.

It may impact past planned end date figures and related performance indicators, and Admins may wish to review recent results to understand any movement caused by the updated specification alignment.

Quality Dashboard: Ofsted Inspection page enhancements

When an admin uses the Quality Dashboard to review Ofsted inspection outcomes, they can now view a redesigned and enhanced Ofsted Inspection page with expanded inspection details and updated visual reporting aligned to the latest Education Inspection Framework (EIF).

The changes we’ve made are:

• Renamed Menu to Ofsted Inspection to better reflect its purpose.
• Split the old Inspection Framework into information about the inspection and grading.
• Added additional information to the old Inspection Framework, including Start Date, Published Date, and whether the provider has improved or declined.
• Added new visualisations to reflect the updated Ofsted EIF structure, presenting both overall and detailed results.
• Added colour coding to align with the official Ofsted grading presentation.

The Ofsted Inspection page will display the new format if they have had an inspection since November 2025, based on UKPRN using published Ofsted Management Information.

This may impact how inspection results are viewed and interpreted within the dashboard, and admins may wish to familiarise themselves with the updated layout and new visualisations when reviewing inspection performance.

• Checkpoint Assessments reporting: Tutors and Admins can now generate accurate Checkpoint reports even if a learner resumes and completes a timed-out Checkpoint without answering any questions initially. This resolves an issue where reports were missing or showed a result of zero after session timeouts. Note that this fix is applicable going forward and does not update historical data.

• Tasks OData feed deduplication: The Tasks OData Feed now returns only unique task records. A unique index has been introduced and a one-off data clean-up completed to remove existing duplicates. Users should review reports to ensure duplicate tasks no longer appear.

• Performance Dashboard – Off-the-Job Hours: In rare cases where the ILR Token is enabled and a learner has multiple programmes, planned hours could include data from previous programmes and be incorrectly flagged as insufficient. This has now been corrected. Planned hours are reported only from the learner’s current programme, improving compliance reporting accuracy. Data for learners with multiple programmes may have been affected.

• Review meeting attendee display: An issue where attendee checkboxes were intermittently not displayed when editing review meeting components via the learning plan has been resolved.

• Learner Profile – programme details: In rare cases, saving updates on the ‘Edit programme details’ page could create duplicate employment records. This has now been resolved, preventing ILR errors and data inconsistencies caused by duplicate records. Users may wish to review and clean up any previously duplicated employment records.

• ILR Template – privately funded learners (FundModel 99): Programme aims can now be saved with Completion Status 1 and Outcome 8, alongside a Learning Actual End Date. This ensures compliance with ILR requirements and supports accurate learner records. Previously blocked records may need to be reviewed and updated.

• CV Builder access: Learners can now open the CV Builder page as expected, and the ‘Import and Convert’ button has been removed. This prevents access to unsupported functionality and avoids related errors.

• User import validation handling: In rare cases where an import file contains multiple validation errors, the process previously triggered a request validation exception. This has now been resolved. Validation messages are displayed correctly using a safe line break format, ensuring imports complete successfully.

We are enhancing how marking aid exercises are managed to provide a more streamlined, scalable experience and greater administrative control.

Centralised management of programme-level exercises

Management of marking aid exercises at programme level will move from Programme Builder to the Marking Aid Management area. This will include:

• Linking and unlinking exercises to Learning Plan components
• Creating and linking new exercises
• Creating new versions of exercises
• Optionally applying a new version of an exercise to enrolled learners

Admins who currently perform these tasks in Programme Builder will continue to have access in the new location, provided they also have the Manage marking aid exercises role. To support a smooth transition, these tasks will remain available in Programme Builder for two months following the release. After this period, they will be fully managed within Marking Aid management.

New role for learning plan-level permissions

A new dedicated role will be introduced to manage marking aid exercises at Learning Plan level, including linking, unlinking and version control.

Previously, these permissions were included within Advanced Delivery Management roles. Based on customer feedback, this update provides greater control and reduces the risk of unintended changes. Users who need to perform these tasks will require the new role to be assigned.

Enhanced learner data

Additional learner data will be available within the marking aid exercise details screen to support improved reporting and oversight.

Auto-generation of actions after a review.

This AI-powered feature will expand the summarisation tool to also automatically generate and populate trackable goals and actions for learners based on the discussion during a progress review.

Power BI reports will be refreshed at tenant level whenever a user selects Refresh. This ensures that all administrators are viewing the same, up-to-date dataset, removing inconsistencies caused by individual report refreshes and eliminating data mismatches across users.