Version 4.23.0 - 29/03/2022
- Tom Erbe
- Rachel Bocking
- Frances Harrison
- Lisa Clancy
Release Date: Mar 29, 2022 | Version: 4.23.0 |
The Release webinar is available from here; Click here to view the 4.23.0 release video. Note: you can copy and share this link with other people in your organisation
We have added a new column on the table below called “Action Required” this shows several new status labels:
Setup_required - some setup will be required to use this element
New_Permissions - new permissions have been added
Recommend_Training - training is recommended - usually for new major features.
This is to help highlight to you anything you need to ensure is set up for the day of release or in advance of this. We do still recommend that all of the release notes are read.
Epic | Key | Type | Action Required | Summary | Release Notes Description | Video link |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
EP-2668 | FEATURE |
| Apprentice - New In Assessment status | A new “In Assessment” apprentice status has been introduced into EPAPro. This status is used to separate apprentices that are currently in learning (“On Programme”) from those that are being assessed. This now status should now be offered alongside the existing “On Programme” status where it is pertinent, such as reporting filters, screen filters etc.. Note that any saved reports that are checking specifically for “On Programme” status may need to be updated to also check for “In Assessment” – please ensure that any reports are checked & updated for this. The default view for screens (such as the apprentice listing screen) is still “On Programme” – seeing “In Assessment” apprentices will require the apprentice status filter to be changed. In addition to this, where the system previously switched apprentices to the “On Programme” status, it will now automatically provide the correct status depending on whether the apprentice is post gateway - examples include during a change of circumstance, back into learning & booking elements for a “Complete” apprentice. Note that the API & Bulk Upload features have been updates to enforce the correct status for an apprentice when performing a change of circumstance. This means that a validation error will occur if an attempt is made to move an apprentice that is post gateway to “On Programme” – it must now go to “In Assessment”. |
| |
EP-2668 | FEATURE |
| Assign Apprentice - new active caseload number has been introduced. | The menu & assign apprentice screens have been updated to show a new figure for caseload (Active caseload) - this figure shows the apprentices that are assigned to an EPA(M) that are in Assessment or completed, excluding those that are currently on programme. This new active caseload figure is now the default used in capacity calculations for EPA(M)s. The menu shows this new figure against the “Caseload → My Caseload” menu item as two numbers - the first number is the new active caseload, the second (in brackets) is the pre-existing total caseload (which includes on programme apprentices). The assign apprentice screen (both bulk assign & individual process) shows the new active caseload figure in a separate column. The total caseload figure is shown in the total caseload column. Please note that the calculation within the assign apprentice figures includes those apprentices that are pending acceptance from the EPA(M). |
| |
EP-2985 | FEATURE | New Permissions | Back Into Learning - Add confirm stage for Providers | Note that this extra stage is entirely optional. A apprentice not being confirmed does not block them from leaving back into learning. This extra optional process is to serve as a way to identify apprentices and thus should be implemented into your business process. We have extended the Back Into Learning process to now include a confirm stage. This acts as a way for providers to flag an apprentice as ready to return, allowing AO users to identify apprentices that are ready and process them accordingly. PermissionsThese permissions are given to some of our system roles by default, as detailed below. If you’re using custom roles they will need to manually assigned to those roles. Two new permissions have been added:
Assessment ProfileThe assessment profile has been updated to now include the Confirmed Ready To Return date which is shown under the Back Into Learning section when the apprentice is in a Back Into Learning Status. BiL Side DrawerWe’ve updated the Back Into Learning details widget within the Back Into Learning side drawer to now include a new “Confirm Ready” or “Unconfirm Ready” button, if the user has permission. The side drawer also includes two new fields:
BiL ListingThe back into learning listing screen has been updated to now show a new “Ready To Return” circle when looking at back into learning results. This indicates that that apprentice has had this new confirm state toggled. We’ve also improved how this screen fetches the results shown which will improve performance and in some instances may also remove results that should not have been showing. ReportingWe have also updated the back into learning report to now include the two new fields that are shown within the side drawer. Finally, we have introduced a new report called “Back Into Learning Confirmed History” this will show the history of the confirmed state making it easy to identify when a back into learning record was flagged as confirmed or unconfirmed and what user caused that action. Other changes / fixes
|
| |
EP-3032 | FEATURE | SETUP REQUIRED | Planning Meetings - Reminders | The new notifications are disabled by default, but can be enabled via the communication management screen. We have introduced two new reminder notifications for planning meetings. These can be configured separately to automatically remind attendees of the planning meeting is coming. The emails / SMS contents for both of these reminders can be controlled individually along with the number of days before the meeting that the reminder is sent. These two reminders are both sent at 7 am on the day configured by the settings.
|
| |
| FEATURE |
| Calendar Export - expand functionality to AO users & return pending planning meetings. | The Awarding Organisation entity screen has been updated to generate calendar tokens, similar to the pre-existing functionality found within the EPA(M) entity screens. This new field can be found under the “Availability” tab. This will allow Awarding Organisation users to add their appointments within EPA Pro to their calendar application (i.e. Microsoft Outlook) by adding an internet calendar via the URL (acquired via the “Copy calendar URL” button provided). The calendar entries have been expanded to detail whether the planning meeting appointment is a pending entry or not, via the new “Is Pending” part of the calendar entry description. |
| |
| FEATURE |
| Assessment Profile - Show next action for components in QA for internal users | The assessment profile has been changed to show the next action to internal users for assessments that are still pending QA. |
| |
| FEATURE |
| Gateway - Improved visibility of gateway resubmission dates. | The gateway pending/rejection screens have been updated to show the first gateway submission date, if this is a resubmission. The date displayed in the gateway submission column has been unchanged (showing the most recent submission date). If however this is a resubmission, a new information hover over has been introduced that will show the first submission date. There are no changes to any related reports. |
| |
| FEATURE |
| Awarding Organisation user listing screen - shared filters | We have added shared filters and AJAX paging to the Awarding organisation user listing screen. |
| |
| FEATURE |
| Provider listing screen - shared filters | We have added shared filters to the provider listing screen. As a part of this work we have also added the standard filter as a filtering option to this screen. We have also implemented the AJAX paging that has been added to other listing screens so that the page no longer performs a full refresh when filtering/searching. |
| |
| FEATURE |
| Reporting - Adding date fields to Results and Certification Pending QA reports | The Results Pending QA and Certification Pending QA reports have been extended to include the date delivered and certification datetime fields respectively. |
| |
| FEATURE |
| Surpass - Ability to download a PDF export of the test results | The result screen within the assessment profile for an apprentice has been extended to include a button to download a PDF of result details for Surpass tests. The PDF design is clean and basic but includes the logo of the EPAO and a set of tabular data similar to that displayed on screen. An example of this PDF can be seen below. 
|
| |
| FEATURE |
| Assessment Schema - Allow editing of review date | The assessment schema area has been updated to allow those with edit permission the ability to update the review date at any time. This is primarily so that a review can occur and if no new schema is required then a further review date can be added. |
| |
| FEATURE |
| Assessment Profile - standardise the view of certification date. | The certification side drawer has been updated to show the Certification published date. Internal users will see both the certification date & published date, external users will only see the latter. The components table within the assessment profile has been updated to show the certification qa published date, not the certification creation date - this applies for all users (both internal & external). |
| |
| FEATURE | NEW PERMISSIONS | Assessment Plan - update schema against a plan before elements are booked. | Functionality has been added to the assessment plan screen to allow users to change the schema against a plan, providing no elements have been booked against it. The user can select any active schema that meets the standard/specialism requirements of the apprentice. This functionality is controlled via the new “Assessment → Update Assessment Plan Schema” permission, and will be provided to the “owner”, “admin” and “awardingorganisation” roles by default. |
| |
| FEATURE |
| Reporting - Addition of new "to date" date filters | We have added three new date filter modes these are all available under a new “To Date” option under the “Date Filtering” field:
The following reports have been updated with this new option:
The other date options, next/last X days/months/years, has also been added to a handful of reports that did not have them. These reports are:
|
| |
| FEATURE |
| ESFA - prevent external users from changing the ESFA preferred address | We have made some changes to ensure that external users cannot set or edit the ESFA preferred address on the Employer or Provider screens and Bulk Upload Employers. |
| |
| FEATURE |
| Gateway - Rejected gateway screen to show most recent rejection date. | The Rejected Gateway screen will now show the most recent rejection date in the Rejected Gateway Date column - previously this was the first rejection date. |
| |
| FEATURE |
| EPA/EPAM manage screen filters | We have introduced shared filters that are being used in other parts of the application to the EPA/EPAM manage screens. This has allowed us to introduced new filters for assessment standard, assessment specialism, provider, employer, EPA manager, QA standard and QA specialism to the screens, As a part of this work we have also fixed the column sorting and added AJAX paging (so only the EPA/EPAM listing reloads when paging through search results. |
| |
| FEATURE |
| Reporting - Added Purchase Order Number to billing reports | The apprentice’s purchase order number has been added to both the Late Registration and Registered Apprentice Billing reports. |
| |
| FEATURE |
| Apprentice/QA user listing screen consistency | To bring the QA user listing screen in-line with other user listing screens we have:
Additionally, we have also added filtering options for standard and specialism for the QA user listing screen.
We have also added shared filters to the Apprentice user listing screen. |
| |
| BUG |
| Questions - Validation added for field type | Validation has been added to the gateway component & assessment component screens to prevent questions from being saved with a blank field type. |
| |
| BUG |
| Communication Management - Reduced Performance | Fixed a bug with the communication management screen that was causing slower performance than expected. |
| |
| BUG |
| Assessment Plan - errors when viewing EPA availability without an end time defined. | Fixed a bug whereby EPAs with a work day without an end time caused a background error, when viewing availability during the element booking process. |
| |
| BUG |
| Assign Apprentice - fixed background error when assigning apprentices. | Fixed a bug whereby a background error was thrown in some situations, when allocating an EPA an apprentice. |
| |
| BUG |
| SLA - "Time from Apprentice Assignment to EPA Decision" now works for EPAM users | Fixed a bug whereby SLA “Time from Apprentice Assignment to EPA Decision” did not work when an EPAM was the user who did the assignment. |
| |
| BUG |
| Communications - UX - Disabled message not showing correctly | Fixed a bug in the communications management area, where the message to show that a notification is disabled was not showing correctly or clearly. |
| |
| BUG |
| Assessment Result - Next Action validation updated for Alternative grades | The validation on the next action field has been updated to cater for alternative grade profiles. |
| |
| BUG |
| Questions - Max length frontend validation added for question answers. | Added frontend field restrictions to prevent the max length of an answer from being breached, before saving is attempted. The rules are:
|
| |
| BUG |
| Gateway - Questions: Added character limit on text area input fields | Added a 3000 character limit for gateway/assessment questions that are of type “text area”. |
| |
| BUG |
| Change Log - Error looking up user activity | Fixed a bug where no response was shown on screen, when trying to look up the activity for a given user. |
| |
| BUG |
| EPA - improved validation & persisting data for availability. | Fixed a bug whereby the availability information against EPA(M) users would not persist when an error occurred. A bug has also been fixed whereby the availability validation was not occurring against EPAM users – it was previously only working for standard EPA users. |
| |
| BUG | SETUP REQUIRED | EPA - now possible to assign apprentices to inactive EPAs | It is now possible to assign apprentices to those that have been flagged as inactive within the system. To prevent inactive EPAs from receiving new apprentice assignments, please disable the “Accepting New Apprentices?” within the “EPA Details” tab of the edit EPA screen. |
| |
| BUG |
| Assessment Profile - persist next action on error when doing result adjustment/edit | Fixed a bug whereby the next action does not persist on error when updating/adjusting a result. |
| |
| BUG |
| Gateway Specifications - "Mandatory File Upload or Link" checkbox now persists on error | The “Mandatory File Upload or Link” checkbox should now persist on error within the gateway specification screen. |
| |
| BUG |
| Support Materials - title and description validation | We have moved the validation for support material titles and description to the Laravel validation, in-line with the method used to validate the rest of the support material details. |
| |
| BUG |
| Employer - Fix paging when sorting listing screen results | We have fixed an issue where the pagination on the Employer screen listing was not working if the results had been pre-sorted. |
| |
| BUG |
| Assessment profile - prevented various actions against past programmes | We have updated the side bars (accessed via the assessment profile) to prevent making changes to the elements/certification when viewing a past programme. This should prevent various actions, including:
Note that it is still possible to update past programme assessment info uploads - this is by design. |
| |
| BUG |
| Assessment Profile - Prevent editing a result post QA when using multiple browser tabs. | Fixed a bug that allowed a result to be edited post QA when using multiple browser tabs. |
| |
| BUG |
| Result Adjustment - Fixed a bug where the certification QA action was unpaused | We’ve fixed a bug where the certification QA action would continue to count down, even though it was not possible to complete the QA. The following scenarios will now happen:
|
| |
| BUG |
| Planning Meetings - Rescheduling now saves any attendee changes that are made | Rescheduling a planning meeting will now update the attendee list, if changes to the attendees are made at the same time as the reschedule. |
| |
| BUG |
| Contracts - Component prices now persist on error | The component pricing should now persist on error when updating via the contracts screen. |
|