August 2026 release notes

Available with Aptem Essentials and above.

Admins can now enter their organisation's Designated Safeguarding Lead contact details, name, email, phone and a web link, in one place in Settings. Once set, learners see these details on the Help and Support page, and the safeguarding icon there has also been refreshed to match the rest of the platform.

On tenants with Aptem Enhance, learners can also ask the virtual assistant directly, for example "who is my DSL?" or "I have a safeguarding problem", and get the same contact details back in the conversation, with the phone number and email ready to use on supported devices.

Available with Aptem Enhance.

Learners who are not sure whether something counts as off-the-job training can now ask the virtual assistant and get a clear answer, along with the reasoning behind it. Once the learner is ready to record the time, the assistant can draft the log entry for them to review and submit.

Available with Aptem Enhance.

Learners can now personalise how the virtual assistant communicates with them. From account settings, learners can pick a preferred style (coached, guided or directed) and a preferred format (concise or extended), plus helpful accessibility options such as plain language, bold key terms, literal language or extra examples. These preferences apply to virtual assistant conversations only and do not affect review summaries.

Available with Aptem Enterprise.

New programmes created on Enterprise tenants now have the virtual assistant switched on by default, so learners can benefit from it without an admin needing to enable it first. This also applies to every programme on a newly created Enterprise tenant. Admins can still turn the virtual assistant off for any individual programme from the existing configuration in tenant settings, and can turn it back on again at any time. Existing programmes and tenants are not affected by this change; their current configuration stays as it is.

Available with Aptem Enhance.

Learners no longer need to go looking for a new checkpoint. A banner now appears in the learning plan when a checkpoint is waiting for them, taking them straight to it, and it counts only the checkpoints on their current programme.

Learners are also told when a new checkpoint becomes available, through the notification bell, naming the checkpoint and showing the deadline where one is set. These notifications are sent over a 24 hour period.

Tutors are told too. When a learner in their caseload completes a checkpoint, a message names the learner and the checkpoint and links straight through to review it.

Available with Aptem Essentials and above.

The ILR schema now defaults to the 2026/27 version across new, cloned and existing programmes, so providers do not need to set this manually. Two new outcome grade codes, high pass and high merit, are also available and are accepted by the ILR export without validation errors.

Available with Aptem Essentials and above.

When a provider staff member uses the Create Tracker screen to apply recognition of prior learning for a learner starting on or after 1 August 2026, they can now select a new RPL Calculator (2026) tracker that is compliant with the 26/27 ILR specification. The tracker must be enabled in the Process Automation section of Tenant Settings before it can be used.

Key changes:

• Writes remaining planned off the job hours (HRS 1) and RPL reduction hours (HRS 4) to the new Hours entity
• Automatically creates a RIP - Price Reduction financial record on processing, removing the need to create it manually
• Displays the apprentice's contracted weekly working hours and presents three duration options: suggested date, custom date, or no revision
• Shows implied average off the job hours per week and the percentage of contracted working hours when a date is selected
• Existing trackers renamed to RPL Calculator (2024) and RPL Calculator (Legacy) for clarity; their behaviour is unchanged

Available with Aptem Essentials and above.

The funding dashboard now includes the 2026/27 academic year and its rates, opening on 2026/27 by default.

For foundation apprenticeships starting on or after 1 August 2025, the dashboard now shows the employer incentive as three instalments: two during the apprenticeship and a conditional payment when the apprentice progresses onto a new apprenticeship with the same employer.

The standard 16 to 18 incentive payment schedule has also been corrected so the second instalment date is calculated from the apprenticeship standard's typical duration, in line with the 2026/27 funding rules. This may change the date shown for some existing learners.

For apprenticeships starting on or after 1 October 2026, the dashboard now shows predicted dates for the £2,000 employer hiring payment, where the employer does not pay the levy. The payment is shown in two instalments and is clearly marked as payable to the employer, not the provider.

Available with Aptem Pro and above.

Admins can now upload a custom thumbnail image when creating or editing resource centre content, and it appears as the card image in the resource centre. 

Available with Aptem Essentials and above.

When building or updating a programme, admins and tutors can now see the total planned off-the-job training and English and maths hours directly in the learning plan token, without needing to attach the programme to a test learner first.

Available with Aptem Essentials and above.

The compliance signatures grid now loads noticeably faster for tutors reviewing signer progress across their learners, thanks to performance improvements behind the scenes. There is no change to how the grid works.

Available with Aptem Essentials and above.

Interactive documentation for the OData v2 reporting API is now available, covering the datasets on offer, the fields each one returns, and how to query and page through results. Requests to the API are also automatically managed within fair-use limits, to keep performance consistent for everyone using it.

Available with Aptem Essentials and above.

The /odata/1.0/LearnerEmployment feed has been rewritten to remove duplicate rows and correct inaccurate employment end dates, so each learner now returns at most one row per employment status.

Unqualified requests to this feed are now capped at 5,000 rows, in line with other OData feeds. Integrators pulling larger datasets should page through results using $top and $skip; requests with $top set above 5,000 are rejected.

Available with Aptem Essentials and above.

The QAR reports in the quality dashboard now include the 2026/27 academic year, with minimum, maximum and expected figures. The 2023/24 academic year has been removed, and 2025/26 now shows as a single result rather than separate rows. The accountability framework has also been updated to show the current and previous reporting years correctly.

Login recognises most recent account details

Some learners were occasionally unable to log in from certain Aptem login pages after changing their email address or username; login now recognises the most recent details from any entry point.

Signature reminder emails sent to active accounts only

Accounts with an "Invited" or "Prospect" status were incorrectly receiving signature reminder emails for completed reviews; these emails are now sent only to active accounts.

Verified placement hours update made more reliable

On some high-volume accounts, the overnight update that refreshes verified placement hours could occasionally fail to complete, understating the figures shown; this has been made more reliable, and any affected accounts correct themselves automatically.

Virtual assistant responsiveness restored on shared standards

The virtual assistant could stop responding for some learners on programmes that shared an apprenticeship standard; it now reuses the standard's existing data instead of duplicating it, so affected learners can use it normally again.

Checkpoint marking and font consistency

Checkpoint questions with more than one valid interpretation, including negatively framed questions, were sometimes marked incorrect; affected questions have been temporarily disabled while the marking logic is improved. Font sizes across checkpoint questions and answers have also been made consistent.

QAR figures aligned across the quality dashboard

On the quality dashboard, some QAR figures did not match between the summary view and the QAR headline report for the same period; the figures are now consistent across both views. Corrected figures may read slightly higher than before on the QAR headline, age and ethnicity, and gender and disability pages.

Checkpoint submission now shows which questions are unanswered

When submitting a Checkpoint with unanswered questions, learners previously saw a message stating that not all questions had been answered, without saying which ones; the message now identifies the specific unanswered question(s), so learners can go straight to them.

Activity log

A clearer way to record off-the-job training, English and maths, and other learning hours, moving time recording out of evidence submission and into a dedicated activity log. This is now planned for the September 2026 release.

Activity log for apprenticeship unit programmes

Delivery hours collection for apprenticeship unit programmes will move to a dedicated activity log configuration, replacing the current programme requirements toggle.

Extending activity log into review and verification

We're extending activity log to cover the tutor-facing review and verification workflows that are not yet part of the new experience.

A simpler way to bring learner data into Aptem

We're building a self-service data import tool for ILR data, designed to reduce the manual back-and-forth involved in fixing data issues during import. A first customer trial of this tool is expected soon.