April 2026 release 2

New role for Marking Aid

New role for learning plan-level permissions

A new role - Advanced Delivery Management (Marking Aid) is being introduced to manage marking aid exercises at learning plan level, including:

• complete marking aid admin actions 
• link a new exercise 
• unlink the associated exercise 
• create a new version of an exercise

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.

With the introduction of this role, tutors must have this role if they wish to continue being able to complete the aforementioned marking aid tasks from the learners' learning plans.
 

Centralised Marking Aid Management

Create and link exercises in Marking Aid

When an admin uses the Marking Aid management area in Console to maintain programme components, they can now create and link marking aid exercises directly to programme-level components.

This change centralises exercise creation and linking, applies existing logic, and restricts access to authorised Admins. 

This may impact programme-level exercise workflows, and users may need to review permissions, and communicate to staff that the create and link an exercise function will be removed from Programme Builder in a future release.

Optional propagation of new exercises

When an admin uses Marking Aid exercise new version creation wizard to update the exercise linked at the Programme Builder-level component template, they can now also optionally propagate the exercise update for a subset of already enrolled Learners of their choice by completing an optional wizard step at the end.

This change further centralises Marking Aid maintenance actions for Admins. This may impact programme-level exercise workflows, and users may need to review permissions, and communicate to staff that the create new version function will be removed from Programme Builder in a future release.

Create new versions of exercises in Marking Aid

When an admin uses the Marking Aid management area in Console to maintain programme-level component exercises, they can now create a new version of an exercise directly from this area.

This change centralises marking aid maintenance, allowing authorised Admins to manage exercise versioning without relying on Programme Builder in Classic. Only new enrolments receive the updated version, while existing learners retain their current version.

This may impact programme-level exercise workflows, and users may need to review permissions, and communicate to staff that the create new version function will be removed from Programme Builder in a future release.

Optional learner sync when creating new versions

When an admin uses the Marking Aid feature to create a new exercise version, they can now choose whether to apply the new version to already enrolled learners or skip this step entirely. This change streamlines the workflow by making the learner sync optional, reducing unnecessary steps and potential confusion.

Unlink exercises in Marking Aid

When an admin uses the Marking Aid management area in Console to maintain programme-level component’s exercises, they can now unlink an exercise directly from the component.

This change enables authorised Admins to manage exercise links without using the Programme Builder in Classic, streamlining marking aid maintenance. Unlinking only affects new enrolments; existing learners retain access to their exercises. Visual indicators and updated messaging clarify the impact of unlinking actions.

This may impact programme-level exercise workflows, and users may need to review permissions, and communicate to staff that the unlink function will be removed from Programme Builder in a future release.

Usability improvements

Enhanced learner grid data

When an admin uses the Marking Aid management area to review learner data, they can now easily identify when a component is overdue, view each Learner’s Exercise Score and Primary Tutor directly in the learner grid.

This change adds new columns for ‘Exercise Score’ (showing achieved/maximum marks) and ‘Primary Tutor’, which allows for analysing score trends, and highlighting overdue components for better tracking and reporting.

Please note that the score will only initially be displayed exercises marked following the release. We will look to bring through historical scores at a later date.

Direct navigation from Programme Builder

When an admin uses the Programme Builder to manage learning plan components and marking aid exercises, they can now click a marking aid exercise name to open its details directly in the Marking Aid admin area. This change streamlines navigation and reduces time spent searching for exercises.

If an admin creates a new version and does not save the programme, the link will point to the previous version of the exercise. This is a temporary issue and will be resolved in a future release.
 

When a learner uses SCORM assets to learn, they can now see their score on the generated PDF if the asset they completed was imported into Aptem.

Questions are now correctly surfaced for SCORM 1.2. Although there were limitations here that prevented us from removing underscores. Unnecessary technical prefixes in the question are also no longer surfaced for SCORM 2004. This change improves the way SCORM assets data is handled upon being surfaced in the PDF reports.

Auto Actions error messages

When a tutor uses the Review - Actions feature to generate AI-driven actions, they can now see clear error messages if action generation fails due to service unavailability, timeouts, or missing summaries. This change improves transparency by providing specific feedback for different failure scenarios and updates the spinner to the latest design for consistency. This may impact user workflows, and tutors may need to retry action generation or review summaries as prompted.

Updated error messages for three key scenarios:

• OpenAI unavailable: "Actions couldn't be generated right now. Please try again in a moment."
• No actions generated: "No actions could be found in this summary. Try reviewing the summary and generating again."
• No summary: "A summary is needed before actions can be generated. Please add one and try again."

Toaster messages no longer appear while actions are being generated. Progress indication now appears next to the "Generate" button, consistent with review summarisation. Toaster messages only appear after the generation completes, showing either success or error.

• When an admin uses the CSV bulk upload function from the Users overview tile (Classic interface) to bulk create or update users, they can now set or update the Standard Version for each user directly in the CSV file. This feature all only work for users attached to apprenticeship delivery programmes. This change extends the existing bulk upload to support managing the Standard Version field at scale, helping providers keep learners aligned with the correct standard versions without manual, one-by-one updates.
  
• When an Admin uses the Public API to manage users, they can now create, update, and retrieve users with the Standard Version. This change introduces Standard Version support in the Public API, reducing admin burden and enabling streamlined user management. This may impact user data workflows, and users may need to update their API integrations to utilize the new Standard Version endpoints.

When a tutor or admin uses the Console UI to access the marking aid exercise screen, they can now see a loading indicator during content delays. This change introduces a visual loading overlay to improve user feedback during processing times.

Mark as "done" moved to the navigation row

When marking a learner's work using exercise navigation, the Mark as Done control is now available in a dropdown within the navigation row, replacing the button that previously appeared at the bottom of the answer area. To mark the final question, select the dropdown in the navigation row and choose done. The dropdown shows the current marking status as either To Do or Done. This change removes the banner from the bottom of the screen, freeing up additional vertical space for the answer area. Admins and tutors who are familiar with the previous button placement may need to familiarise themselves with the new location.

Question info panel is now collapsible

When reviewing a learner's work, admins and tutors can now collapse the question info panel to free up additional screen space. When collapsed, the grade and question title remain visible at all times. Selecting the panel again expands it to show the full question text, learner name, word count, and originality risk where applicable. Users may want to try both states to find a working preference.

Answer templates for exercise questions

Admins can now configure an optional answer template for each question within a new or existing exercise. The template pre-fills the learner's answer area when they begin the exercise, supporting more structured assessment tasks such as partially completed tables or formatted prompts. The template is accessible from the options menu on each question. If no template is configured, the answer area remains blank as before. On subsequent attempts, the learner's previous answer pre-fills rather than the template. Where table-based templates are used, feedback can only be applied to the table as a whole. Markers cannot target individual cells or answers within a table. Admins should consider this when deciding whether a table template is appropriate for a given question, and tutors may need to adjust their marking and feedback approach accordingly.

When an employer (non-manager or non-mentor) is invited via the Signatures grid to sign a document, they will now receive an email notification directing them to complete the signature. The employer required for the signature will still need to set up as an employer login against the same organisation as the user but not assigned to them as the manager or mentor in their user profile.

This change introduces a dedicated email for invited employers, replacing the previous “Documents for signing and completion” email. The email includes a direct link to the Signatures grid in Console (with no filters applied) and ensures reminders are sent based on the invitation date, rather than the document creation date. Reminder cadence continues to follow tenant settings, and emails are only sent for documents associated with the learner’s current programme. In order to send invitations to specific employers, you will need either the supervisor or compliance mass processing permissions.

• When a Tutor or Admin uses the End-Point Assessment screen in the learner profile to review learner details, they can now view the Standard Version the learner is on. This change improves visibility of learner progress and supports more informed decision-making. This may impact workflow for learner reviews, and users may need to reference the Standard Version information during assessments.
• When an Admin enters End-Point Assessment details in EPA Pro, they can now use an 8-digit integer End-Point Assessment ID to include the AO’s UKPRN. The End-Point Assessment ID field now accepts either EPA#### or an 8-digit integer number, and shows a validation message if the value doesn’t match these formats. This may impact Admin data entry processes; ensure new IDs follow the updated formats and update any internal guidance referencing the previous 7-character limit.

When a Tutor or Admin uses the Training Plan v2.1 Compliance Document to manage apprenticeship standards, they can now display the Standard Version.

This change ensures the standard version appears in the document when available, remains blank if not provided, and updates automatically when the version changes. The functions works the same if an admin updates or resets the Training Plan v2.1 Compliance Document and the version field has been completed or deleted. The field is hidden if the feature flag is off.

This may impact compliance document workflows, and users may need to review document templates and enable the feature flag as required.

Employ Dashboard group filtering

When an admin uses the Employ Dashboard to analyse and monitor data by organisational structure, they can now filter reports using Group selections across all applicable pages.

This change introduces Group filtering across the Employ Dashboard, aligning it with other dashboards and enabling users to segment and view data by their selected groups. The implementation ensures consistent behaviour, accurate data results, and maintains overall dashboard performance. 

This may impact how data is filtered and segmented across reports, and Admins may wish to apply Group filters to tailor views and compare performance across different organisational structures.

Power BI global dataset refresh

An upcoming change due before the next scheduled release, is when an admin with a PowerBI report permission uses the Power BI Dashboard refresh function to update the reporting data, they will now trigger a global refresh that updates the shared tenant-level dataset for all users of the refreshed report.

This change centralizes the data refresh process, ensuring that once a refresh is triggered, the updated data is reflected across the entire tenant simultaneously. This ensures data consistency (a "single version of the truth") and protects platform performance by preventing multiple, redundant refresh requests to the OData endpoints and Power BI capacity.

Message Centre reliability: Fixed loading errors when accessing messages and notifications, particularly in high-data environments. Also prevented errors when no conversations exist by disabling the “Show Notifications” button in those cases. 

SCORM table data protection: Admins can now safely rename or delete table columns in Form-type assets without risking learner data loss. In-progress work retains original structure, while new learners see the updated version—ensuring both flexibility and data integrity. 

SCORM hours categorisation: Added the ability to define how recorded hours are classified (Off-the-Job, English & Maths, or not recorded). This improves compliance reporting and ensures evidence reflects the correct hours type automatically. 

RPL hours retention: Fixed an issue where Recognised Prior Learning (RPL) hours could reset to zero after enrolment. Values are now consistently retained across the system. 

Audit history completeness: Deleting review components from the Learner Dashboard is now fully logged in the audit history, improving traceability. 

Apprenticeship export performance: Improved performance of apprenticeship service batch exports by optimising the underlying endpoint, significantly reducing generation time.

Office file download fix: When a learner or admin uses the evidence links to download Office files (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) in Aptem, they can now download these files directly within the Edge browser. This change resolves an issue where Office files would previously download as “LogOn.htm” and redirect users to a local login page.

Marking Aid: Copying and pasting images between resources using the text editor no longer causes the destination resource to fail to save. Users may want to check and re-save any resources where images previously failed to copy across correctly.

Employers will be able to access their learners learning plans and see a "read-only" version. This will support employers with their apprentices journeys, giving them a clear overview of progress and where they can aid their apprentices.

Due to the updates made to centralised marking aid management, we will be working to remove the ability to create and unlink exercises in the programme builder.