User Group Meeting notes 31/07/19

SLAs

@Ian Jarvis

We are looking to add SLAs to EPAPro to help with general workflow (driving actions etc) and to allow you to measure your performance across the entire EPA Process. To that end, we are looking at adding the following SLAs;

• Gateway submitted - Planning Meeting/Assessment element scheduled

  • Should this be triggered when the gateway is submitted or accepted?

    • Two SLAs here would be great. So that we can measure our speed of reviewing gateway and then moving from approving gateway to allocations.

    • Accepted as the submission could be incorrect and require further work from the provider before it can be accepted

• Assessment element taken - result added

  • We are considering a composite SLA here;

    • Test taken - Result added e.g. 5 days

    • Result added - QA completed e.g. 3 days

    • Total SLA from test - result issued e.g. 8 days

  • This means you could have a customer SLA of 8 days, and perhaps have a result that is not added for 6 days but is QA’d in 1 day. This would meet the customer SLA but internally would breach. Giving you better insights to issues with your process

• Same again for Certification.

• As a result of the above we can of course look to create some useful reporting showing your performance nose to tail, allowing you to easily see how long you take to complete an EPA.

• Should there be other SLAs added?

  • Overall assessment time?

  • - An SLA for the difference between assessor allocation and the arranging of an assessment planning meeting. (3 days).

    - An SLA for the uploading of assessment planning meetings (different to assessment components)

    - An SLA for MCQ results being uploaded (2 days or 5 days).

  • Do you mean time in EPA overall - if so yes, we are trying to ensure that this is reduced and track where we see that apprentices have been sitting in EPA for more than 90 days

Back Into Learning

@Ian Jarvis

We propose to implement the following solution for Back Into Learning;

• Next Actions will be renamed as per ESFA definitions

  • Resit - a further attempt of a test

  • Retake - a further attempt of a test following some period of instruction or learning

  • Failed - an overall fail or an assessment element

• If you decide that a candidate requires a period of learning before re-attempting the element then;

  • Set the next action to “Retake”

  • Carry out a change of circumstance to move the apprentice from “On programme” to “Back into Learning” note the expected date the apprentice will be ready to come back

  • apprentices in the Back into learning status can be reviewed and providers chased as expected dates approach.

  • There will be two options when bringing an apprentice back to On Programme

    1. If the apprentice is going to carry on where they left off, then carry out a change of circumstance back to on programme and their old assessment plan will be active again. All history will be retained.

    2. If you have decided to step back in the programme you will need to use the “Start New Programme” option to see

Consider that Provider should only be able to request that a Learner can be moved back into Learning. If not this could cause issues with the workflow.

Gateway

@Ian Jarvis

Gateway has been rewritten for Laravel and has had a general makeover, including an option for saving and a separate option to submit (like the QA function). The other consideration is how we should approach the problem many of you are experiencing where Providers submit incorrectly and there is no option to put it right.

We have two proposed options here;

1. We reintroduce the old notion of the EPAO actively accepting or rejecting a gateway submission. This would hold an apprentice in an interim stage until the EPAO accepts the gateway, at which point they would move into the completed list and carry on as before.

2. We “Lock” the gateway for Providers when they submit as it is now, but allow EPAOs to edit the content, change uploads etc until Certification at which point it would be locked down.

Option two is easier for EPAOs to manage, however should we be refocusing this area going forward?

Option 1 would be more obvious for SLA calculation, Option 2 will give more complications

Users felt the addition of a simple button to extend expected Gateway date would be useful

Caseload

@Ian Jarvis

To assist with workflow we are looking at creating a Caseload/Action screen. This would replace the Caseload screen which EPAs/EPAMs have currently, which is really just a manage apprentice screen. The new screen would be for many users but would be very useful for EPAs & Providers especially.

Essentially this will become a filtered task list with direct links to update the relevant item. When SLAs are in the system the list will be ordered by SLA, so that items closest to breaching SLA appear first.

• I like the idea of this but are you able to provide a mock visual of this as struggling to picture it. I would want to talk to EPA's/EPAMs to get their feedback on this so a visual will help (a Nikki style paint one please :0)

Open

Outcomes

@Ian Jarvis

We are looking at having a fixed list of Outcomes appropriate to Assessment elements. These would be used when something happens that prevents a grade being recorded. e.g. the apprentice cancels or does not show for the assessment. Outcomes would then have Next Actions Resit, etc.

There would be an outcome of “Result” or similar, which would allow access to the grade selection which would then be limited to Pass or fail grades.

Adding this would make it clearer that a Grade has not been achieved and also is easier to follow for appropriate next actions etc. It is also very distinct from other outcomes, which I think has confused people on Grade Profiles etc.

It would also allow us to provide a billing report so that you can charge for late cancellations etc.

We need to consider what should be in the outcomes list and should they count as attempts for that element?

So far we have the following;

Outcome

Usage

Cancellation - Notified

When an assessment is cancelled with more than X working days’ notice before the assessment is due

Cancellation - Not Notified

When an assessment is cancelled with less than X working days before the assessment is due

Cancellation - Non-Attendance

Candidate is absent from assessment without notice

Cancellation - Criteria not met

Submission such as a business project not received from apprentice which is needed for the assessment to go ahead

Voided

Technical failure such as Surpass log in failed or remote session failed, connection issues

We propose that you could put a flat rate charge against any of the above and report on them all in a specific billing report. If you wished you could include non chargeable elements and report them back to the customer.

• Completely agree on all of these, just have a question about if the options count towards attempts. For example we count a non attendance as an attempt. In a Adult Care standard you only get one second attempt so this is important to track

Need to look at a way to capture additional EPAO cancellation outcomes.

Scaling Up

@Ian Jarvis

We are starting to see an increase in throughput across most of our user base (which is nice). This of course is likely to be sustained and even increase as frameworks are finally phased out next year. This has highlighted some bottlenecks in our workflow. This is especially noticeable when trying to focus EPA’s on assessments and give the planning elements to admin/alternative users to plan activity.

We are looking at a number of areas to help with this which are listed below; Importantly though we will maintain the current workflow as we appreciate that this may not be applicable to all of our customers.

In addition to the improvements we feel the SLAs and Caseload screen changes will bring - we are considering a number of improvements to the assessment booking/management process to allow a broader range of people to be involved in the planning and administration of assessments as well as improvements to the booking process itself;

TEAMS

• Currently an apprentice has to be allocated to an EPA, before we can carry out any assessments. We have already made a change to allow any relevant EPA to carry out the assessment, however more EPAOs are splitting the bookings function into an admin function so that EPAs can focus on assessing. to that end we are proposing a TEAM function. Apprentices can be allocated to an EPA OR a Team. The team will consist of any number of users and will allow multiple users to assist in the management of assessments. A team would then be able assist with planning meetings, booking of elements chasing evidence etc

  • We need to consider how we allocate apprentices to teams and we are assuming at this stage that it would be similar to allocating an EPA, but would like feedback on this

Can a user be in two teams…

SKIP PLANNING MEETINGS

• We are looking at breaking the relationship with planning meetings and Assessment Plans. Currently you must have a planning meeting to create an assessment plan. However, if we are to create more flexibility in EPAPro then we need to make this meeting optional, which means we need to create an assessment plan without a meeting. The logical place would be after the Gateway assessment - although I have heard of some users pre booking some assessments before Gateway. We are interested to understand how people feel about this and how it might work.

  • It would be great to utilise gateway as a planning function, particularly for MCQs. This would then mean that assessment booking timelines would have to link to gateway in the way that they now link to assessment

Plan to be created when Gateway accepted.

EPA AVAILABILITY

• To assist with the selection of EPAs we are looking at utilising and extending the availability calendar on the EPA screen so that EPAs can map regular working hours and enter any holidays or one off dates where they are not available. This will be utilised when booking assessment elements as unavailable EPAs will not be shown in the available selection.

  • Yes, as long as it is simple. We are more interested in holidays then when they are busy on particular days as EPAs are organising the assessments themselves.

Overridden - option with some rules

Change to default times will check current bookings decision on what to do with them

PREFERRED DATES

• To speed up the assessment booking process we are considering an option to allow Providers to specify preferred assessment dates when they submit a gateway. This would “Provisionally” book dates for assessment meaning that the EPAO just has to add EPA details and confirm the booking. If this date is not possible then you would schedule as normal.

Consider options on this; for some standards this may be undesirable, therefore option to switch on or off useful

Optional per provider

CALENDAR FUNCTIONALITY

• As part of the extended dates functionality, we are looking at getting EPAPro to issue iCal events. This would be a calendar invite attached to the confirmation email so that attendees can update their local calendar with the relevant information.

• In addition to this we are considering a shared calendar subscription to allow EPAs or Providers to see an up to date view of the bookings relevant to them.

  • As a longer plan we will investigate an option to send out amended invites and accept responses from invites, such as declined/accepted

• Provisional / Confirmed dates

  • Another possible development is the idea of Provisional dates that can be marked as confirmed but EPA acceptance or some other criteria. We are interested to know if this would be seen as overhead or useful functionality.

BLOCK BOOKING

• This function would allow you to take a cohort of learners (via filtering and selection or possibly a Cohort ID). Once the cohort is identified a block booking function will allow you to select apprentices from the cohort and then select a venue and EPAs to carry out the booking. This would then update the individual Apprentice assessment plans with the appropriate details.

  • Yes. Useful for hair assessments and also for the invoicing as well. Currently we have to organise this outside of the system.

Unnamed learners booking, book resources with out adding in apprentices / provisional booking swap out at the last minute

COPING WITH LARGE VOLUMES

• We would appreciate any feedback on more efficient ways to book assessment components. We have been looking at different options but would like some feedback on what does or does not work;

  • Booking by component rather than plan

  • Book up an EPA at a time with components

  • Provisional bookings not requiring detail until later….

Other Items

• Online / Physical flag on assessment component