Learning plan synchronisation

Rachael Stewart

Updated 24 March 2026 21:56

Overview

Learning plan synchronisation functionality gives you the ability to make changes to one learner’s learning plan and then to synchronise this across other learners’ learning plan, thus saving you time instead of having to redo this on an individual per learner basis.

The permissions required to use the learning plan synchronisation functionality differ based on several factors. For details, see: Permissions required for synchronisation.

Steps

Navigate to your learner’s learning plan.
Make the changes you want to make, for example: amending the due date for an activity, deleting an activity, editing activity details, selecting additional criteria mapping, etc.
Once you have made all changes, click Sync Activities on the top right of your screen.
If the learner is enrolled only on a delivery programme, this programme is pre-selected by default. In cases where subprogrammes are present, the desired programme can be chosen from the dropdown menu.
- A full list of all components available for you to 'sync' will be displayed; you can filter the components to show only components of a particular type. This will filter the list to only show you the relevant components.
- If there are many components, the list may span several pages. Where there have been updates to components, deletions, or components have been created - these components will be pre-selected for synchronisation.
  
  You can use the Activity type filter or the Search functionality to locate the activity you are looking to synchronise.
Use the checkboxes to select the activities you wish to synchronise.
You can choose to select all the activities displayed on a page, or all the activities across all the pages. Please note, the wizard does not support synchronisation of more than 2089 components at once.
After you have selected the list of activities to be synchronised, click Next.
On the Select Learners step, learners on the same programme will be displayed for you to select from. Expired, Cancelled and Archived learners are excluded from the grid in Console.
You can filter the learners by using the available filters: Programme Status, Groups, and Tutors. Within each filter, you can use the search functionality to filter learners by a specific criteria. Note that learners with a 'Pending Change of Programme' status will not show up on the list.
Select your learner(s) and click Next.
On the Select Conditions step, you specify conditions for the synchronisation. On the left, you can choose to apply the synchronisation to activities with specific statuses. Select the applicable status(-es) and click Next.
On the Select Type step, you can pick a synchronisation type dictating which component properties are to be synchronised:
- Apply ONLY changes: This is the default option, but is disabled in cases where no recent changes have been made to the learning plan. Selecting this option will ONLY apply the recent changes that you have made to activities. Note that this includes the 'Planned for QA' status changes and 'Delivery via Employer' option.
  - Recent changes are changes that have been made since the administrator accessed the Learner record. Navigating within the Learner record is permitted, however if administrator navigates away from the record the changes will no longer be regarded as 'recent'.
  - Please note that for synchronization relating to recent changes to work properly, the system time should be correct.
- Apply and overwrite ALL Activity attributes: Selecting this option will apply all of the attributes for the selected activities to the learners that you have selected, and not just the recent changes. For example, you can use this option to synchronise changes made to a Review Type.
- Apply and overwrite SELECTED Component attributes based on programme template in Classic: Selecting this option will apply SELECTED of the attributes for the selected Components to the Learners that you have selected, as well as the source Learner, based on the programme template Component configuration. Only listed fields can be synchronised. Available attributes to selectively overwrite:
  - Component Name
  - Completion mode
  - Criteria mappings
  - Instructions
  - Evidence required
  - Minimum number of evidence
  - Documents
  - Delivery via Organisation
  - Marking Aid exercise (for tenants with Marking Aid enabled)
Select the applicable conditions and click Next.
The Summary screen summarises the options selected in the tool, and lists the learners who will be affected by the synchronisation. The Summary displays:
- Number of components selected
- Number of learners selected
- Selected programme or sub-programme
- Number of component statuses selected
- Selected component statuses
- Several warnings may be displayed:
  - In case there are some learners for whom some components will not be synchronised.
  - If Marking aid evidence is submitted against the component being synchronised, as changing the linked exercise would eliminate access to submission data.
  - If 'Apply and overwrite SELECTED Component attributes based on programme template' synchronisation type was selected, as the source learner’s component is going to be updated.
The following columns are shown on the Summary grid:
- Component
- Component type
- Action: Synchronise, or Create, or Delete
- Last Updated date
- Number of learners that this component will be synchronised for
- Number of learners that this component will not be synchronised for
In the Summary grid, you can see the expanded view for each activity to see the details of Learners to be synchronised and the Learners not synchronised.

The former may display warnings if a component can be synchronised but the operation would entail significant updates to related entities, such as Tasks.
You can navigate to Learners not synchronised to view the learner/programme details, and the reason why the learner cannot be synchronised.
- Where the administrator does not have permission to add/edit/delete but attempts to synchronise, the reason for not being able to sync will be displayed here.
- Also, note that the reason for not being able to synchronise will not be displayed in Classic, although the same rules apply (components are synchronised via 'Apply and overwrite ALL Component attributes' synchronisation type there).
To proceed, click Confirm & Synchronise.
Once the synchronisation is successful, you will see a success message at the bottom left of your screen.
Subject to what was specified on the Summary screen, the learners will now have the synchronised changes made in their learning plans.

Notes regarding component owner

In case you selected 'Apply and overwrite ALL Activity attributes', and if source component's owner is the same as the source learner's case owner, then the destination component's owner will not be updated if destination component exists, or set to null/unassigned if destination component does not exist yet.

In case you selected 'Apply ONLY Changes', there is no change to the target learner's component owner unless it was modified explicitly - in this case it will be synchronised along with other fields to match the source learner's component configuration.

Permissions required for synchronisation

Administrators with the Supervisor or Compliance QA permissions will always be able to add/edit/delete in all scenarios.
Users with the Internal Verifier permission can add/remove an activity from a 'Planned for QA' state and sync this change for any activity that is in any state.
Note that where administrators do not have any of the permissions required to enable a sync, the Synchronise button will be hidden.
Although the sync permissions apply to both Classic and Console, you will not see warnings etc. in Classic.

Add Activity

To add a Programme Template activity which was previously removed from learner's learning plan and is now being re-added via synchronisation, administrators must have any one of the following permissions: Advanced Delivery Management (Add), Supervisor or Compliance QA.

Edit Activity

To edit a Programme Template 'non-finished' activity, administrators must have any one of the following permissions: 'Advanced Delivery Management (Edit)', 'Supervisor' or 'Compliance QA'.
To edit a Programme Template 'finished' activity, administrators must at least one of the following:
- the Advanced Delivery Management (Edit) AND Edit/Delete Finished Components permissions
- the Supervisor permission
- the Compliance QA permission.

Delete Activity

To delete a Programme Template 'non-finished' activity, administrators must have any one of the following permissions: Advanced Delivery Management (Delete), 'Supervisor' or 'Compliance QA'.
To delete a Programme Template 'finished' activity, administrators must have at least one of the following:
- the Advanced Delivery Management (Delete) AND Edit/Delete Finished Components permissions
- the Supervisor permission
- the Compliance QA permission.

Synchronising a Review*

Upon synchronising a component of type Review, related Review entity gets synchronised as well:

If a component is being created from scratch for the target learner, a related review with a status of Not Started will be created. Depending on the source learner’s component set up, calendar tasks may get scheduled as well for the target learner and admin.

If existing target learner’s component is being updated, related review and calendar tasks are re-created unless already completed.

Further notes:

Review Type can be updated via 'Apply ONLY Changes' synchronisation type only if target learner’s review is in either 'Not Scheduled' or 'Scheduled' status.

As a result of a synchronisation between Not Completed and Completed components, if the schedule date/time was changed in the Not Completed component, the date/time is not amended in the completed Review meeting task and in the completed review, but is amended in the learning plan component.

Notes

The list of fields available for synchronisation via 'Apply and overwrite SELECTED Component attributes based on programme template' synchronisation type might get expanded in the future. The fields which will never become available for synchronisation via this type include those which cannot be synchronised via other synchronisation types, as well as those which are not present within programme builder component template, and also Due Date (which requires a 'reason' for manual admin amendments to be provided - and should instead be synchronised via the 'Apply ONLY Changes' type).
When selecting the 'Apply and overwrite SELECTED Component attributes based on programme template' synchronisation type, the component remains preselected in the Sync wizard even after the synchronisation process is completed. This happens because the source learner’s attribute is also updated. According to the functionality, if there are any recent changes, the corresponding component will be automatically selected by default in the next synchronisation.

Some common questions / Troubleshooting tips

Why do I see the message: ‘Component(s) for some Learners will not be synchronised’ when trying to sync learning plan components?

If when trying to sync learning plan components you are seeing the following message:

This means you require the Advanced Delivery Management (Delete) OR Advanced Delivery Management (Edit) permission assigned to your account to be able to the sync learning plan components.

Speak with your Aptem administrator who can assign these permissions to your account.

When I click "synchronize" in the Learning Plan (in Aptem console), the page does not display a list of all the learners I expect to see. Why?

The list of learners will be limited to those learners whom the Admin is allowed to see. It could be that you do not have permission to view the group(s) that the 'missing' learners are aligned to.

To address this issue, the Admin must have access to view all the required groups to which the learners are associated with.

When syncing components, does it matter who the Case owner or Component owner is?

If the case owner and component owner are the same, then if you sync to another learner, the component owner will change to also be the new case owner.

If the component owner is not the case owner, then the component owner will remain unaffected.

LIMIT: Maximum learner selection limit

If an Admin selects more than 2,089 learners, they see the following message: “Too many learners have been selected. Please synchronise no more than 2,089 learners at a time.” This is due to SQL’s maximum parameters limit.