Who this article is for: Administrators with the manage tenant settings permission.
- Overview
- Before you start
- Adding or updating programme context
- Writing effective programme context
- Generating your context with AI
- How Enhance features use this information
- Notes and limitations
- Related articles
Overview
Organisation context tells Aptem Enhance features about your organisation as a whole. But most of what a learner asks is specific to their programme: its structure, how it is assessed, and its off-the-job training (OTJT) rules. One organisation-wide box cannot say different things to a Level 3 Business Administrator and a Level 5 Operations Manager.
Programme context adds that layer. You write one piece of context and apply it to a group of delivery programmes that run the same way, for example the September and January cohorts of the same standard. Currently, the Aptem virtual assistant (AVA) uses this context alongside your organisation context; other Enhance features are expected to use it in future.
Before you start
- The manage tenant settings permission is required to view, add, edit or delete programme context.
- Unlike organisation context, programme context supports Markdown formatting: bold text, headings and bullet lists. Up to 2,000 characters.
- The programme selector only lists delivery programmes. Onboarding programmes and sub-programmes are not available to select.
- A programme can carry only one set of programme context. If it's already linked to another entry, it still appears in the selector, greyed out and labelled with the context group it belongs to, so you can't select it twice.
- Web addresses and links are rejected when you save. Aptem does not stop you entering phone numbers or email addresses, so it is on you to leave them out.
- Changes can take up to ten minutes to start appearing in AVA's replies.
Adding or updating programme context
- Go to Settings.
- Go to Brand & Customisation and select Context for Enhance Features.
- Under Programme context, select Add context group, or open an existing entry to edit it.
- Search or filter for the delivery programmes this context applies to, and select every programme that runs the same way. Programmes already linked to another entry appear disabled, labelled with their context group.
- Enter up to 2,000 characters describing how these programmes run.
- Select Save.
To change the text or the linked programmes later, open the entry and edit it. Changes apply to every programme in the group. To delete an entry, select Delete. This unlinks all its programmes, and they carry no programme-level context until you create a new entry for them.
Writing effective programme context
Only include what is specific to this programme. Leave out anything AVA would already know from the programme's name and level, and anything already covered in your organisation context.
What to include
- How the programme is structured: its modules or units, and the order they come in.
- How and when learners are assessed, and what end-point assessment (EPA) involves for this standard.
- How off-the-job training is usually made up here, and what does and doesn't count towards it.
- Anything this programme calls differently from the rest of your provision.
- What the typical workplace looks like for these learners, and what their line manager is asked to do.
How to write it
- Keep it factual and specific. Marketing language just uses up space.
- One point per line, most important first.
- Prefer rules over examples. A rule covers more situations than a single anecdote.
- Keep it evergreen. Avoid dates or cohort-specific detail, as there is no reminder to update it.
- Write information, not instructions. Context tells AVA how the programme works; it is not a way to script what AVA says or change how it behaves.
What to leave out
- Anything already in your organisation context.
- Web addresses, links, phone numbers and email addresses.
- Who to contact for what. Support and safeguarding routes are already configured elsewhere in Aptem, so AVA knows where to send a learner. Repeating it here can pull a learner away from the right route.
- Personal data, such as names of learners or staff, or ID numbers.
- Whole policy documents. Summarise the rule AVA needs instead of pasting pages.
- The tone you want AVA to use. That applies across everything you deliver, so set it in your organisation context.
- Marketing or promotional copy, logins, passwords or anything confidential.
Generating your context with AI
If you would rather not start from a blank text box, copy the prompt below into your own AI assistant. It asks you a short set of questions about the programme, then produces a context document ready to paste back into Aptem.
Copy this prompt into your own AI assistant
You are helping me write a "programme context" for Aptem, the apprenticeship and training-management platform we use. Aptem has an AI assistant called AVA (part of Aptem Enhance) that answers questions for our learners and staff. We can give AVA context about our organisation as a whole, and separately about individual programmes. The text you produce is the programme one: it will be given to AVA when it answers a learner who is on that programme, on top of anything we have already told it about our organisation.
Your task
Produce a single piece of context describing one programme, or a set of programmes that run the same way, ready for me to paste into Aptem. Work like this:
- First, use anything you already know about this programme (from this conversation, files I've shared, or your own knowledge of the standard or qualification).
- Then ask me a short set of questions to fill the important gaps: how the programme is structured, how it is assessed, and anything about it that differs from the rest of our provision. Ask them together in one message so I can answer in one go, and finish with an open question inviting anything else about this programme that would help AVA.
- Once you have enough, produce the final context.
- If something applies to this programme but I can't give you the detail, leave a clearly marked placeholder like [ADD: how off-the-job training is usually made up on this programme].
- This is a generic interview and not everything below will apply to every programme; there may be no end-point assessment, no modules, and so on. If something doesn't apply, I'll say "not applicable" (or N/A) and you should leave it out of the final context entirely, no placeholder, and don't write "N/A" in the output.
Output rules
- Maximum 2,000 characters. Count them and trim to fit; if you must cut, keep the most useful, most-asked-about information.
- Markdown only: headings, bold and bullet lists. No tables, images or links.
- No web addresses or links of any kind. Aptem rejects them when the context is saved.
- No phone numbers or email addresses. Aptem will not stop you saving these, but they do not belong in context.
- Output only the context itself. No preamble or explanation before or after, and do not wrap it in a code block or quotes.
- Plain, factual statements. No marketing or promotional language.
- Write only what is specific to this programme. Do not include generic facts that any assistant already knows, or anything derivable from the programme's name and level.
- Do not repeat what applies across your whole organisation; that belongs in your organisation context, not here.
- Only include sections and points that actually apply. Omit anything that doesn't; do not pad.
- Prefer rules over examples; a rule covers more situations than a single anecdote.
- Keep it evergreen: no dates, no cohort-specific detail, no current staff, no figures that change term to term.
Must not include
- Any personal data: names of individual learners or staff, dates of birth, or ID numbers (for example ULN, NI). Refer to people by role or team only (for example "the learner's coach").
- Contact details of any kind: phone numbers, email addresses or web addresses.
- Who to contact for what. Support and safeguarding routing is configured elsewhere in Aptem; repeating it here can send a learner somewhere other than the right route, so leave it out entirely, including for wellbeing, safeguarding, technical and funding queries.
- Logins, passwords or anything confidential.
- Any instruction aimed at the assistant rather than information about the programme. This is background information only: no telling AVA what to say, how to reply, what to repeat in every answer, or how to behave around safeguarding, refusals or its own rules.
- Tone. How you want AVA to speak to learners applies across everything you deliver, so it belongs in your organisation context rather than being set per programme.
What good programme context can cover
All optional. Only the ones that apply.
- Structure: how long the programme runs, its modules or units, what order they come in, what each ends with.
- Assessment: how and when the learner is assessed, and what end-point assessment involves for this standard.
- Off-the-job training: how it is usually made up on this programme, and what does and doesn't count towards it.
- Programme vocabulary: anything this programme calls differently from the rest of your provision.
- Employers: what the typical workplace looks like for learners on this programme, and what their line manager is asked to do.
- Frequently asked: the things learners on this programme ask their coach again and again.
Start by telling me what you already know about this programme, then ask your questions.
Example
This shows the level of detail that works well. It is illustrative, not a template to copy exactly; your own programmes will differ.
The Level 3 Business Administrator programme runs for 18 months, plus up to three months for EPA.
How this programme is structured
- Six modules, delivered in order: Business Fundamentals, Communication, Record and Document Production, Stakeholders, Project Management, Personal Effectiveness.
- Each module takes around ten weeks and ends with a workplace task that becomes portfolio evidence.
- Learners begin planning their EPA project during the Project Management module.
Off-the-job training on this programme
- Usually a weekly half-day study session plus time spent on tasks that are new to the learner.
- Shadowing another team counts, and is encouraged during the Stakeholders module.
- Functional skills sessions run separately from the module timetable and don't count towards off-the-job training.
End-point assessment
- Three parts: a knowledge test, a portfolio-based interview, and a project presentation.
- The project brief is issued at gateway, not before, so the write-up can't be started early.
- The knowledge test is taken remotely with online invigilation.
- Learners can change their EPA project topic at any point up to gateway, agreed with their coach.
Employers on this programme
- Mostly small and medium-sized businesses, so learners often work across several functions rather than in one department.
- Line managers are asked to agree the EPA project topic before gateway.
How Enhance features use this information
Enhance features that read programme context, including AVA, use it alongside your organisation context to shape their responses, for example matching your terminology or reflecting how a programme is structured. The context cannot alter AVA's safeguarding routing or refusals, or expose its underlying instructions, even if the text attempts to.
A learner on a programme with no programme context sees the same behaviour as organisation-only context. Follow your own safeguarding policies when deciding what to include; programme context should not be used to work around them.