ESFA Submission Queries and Setup

Setting up Standards

Against the standard there is a field called "External Standard Code". This is the unique numerical reference that the ESFA uses to reference the standard (sometimes referred to as a LARS code) i.e. Carpentry & Joinery is 239.

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Under the Specialism tab and against the listed specialism there is a field called "Course Option".

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These are the specialisms defined by the ESFA, based on the external standard code (LARS code). They are supplied by the ESFA and cannot be customised. Any specialism must have one of these set, otherwise submission to the ESFA for a certificate will be rejected.

Setting up your ESFA API Key

The steps to acquire this are given by the ESFA below:

You will need to sign back into your Apprenticeship Assessment Service account - Sign in to Apprenticeship assessment service (education.gov.uk)

• Select 'API Subscription' link within the 'Organisation' box at the bottom left.

• If you have 'Organisation details' permissions you will now need to select 'Enable key.'

• The 'API Subscription' page will then be displayed. If you do not have 'Organisation details' permissions you will first need to request this by selecting 'request the Organisation details permission.'

If you have any issues obtaining this API key then please contact us and we will help you to find it.

Testing API on your UAT

Firstly set up your Standards as mentioned above.

You will then need to edit the ULN and Family name on apprentices you wish to submit in the UAT environment.

As there is no specific sandbox environment for the ESFA portal, you must send test data.  This is done by changing the Apprentice family name and ULN to a test ULN.  You can send 10 apprentices per standard.

TEST uln numbers must be 10 digits and made up as follows;

• "1" - leading digit

• "xxxx" - 4 digits of EPAOrgId

• "xxx" - 3 digits of LARS Standard Code (will need a leading 0, if under 3 digits e.g. 80 will become 080)

• "00 - 09" - 10 unique ulns per standard code

Example. For EPA0001, LARS Standard Code = 80, and 1st uln in the sequence

• uln = "1" + "0001" + "080" + "01" = 1000108001

• givenNames = Test

• familyName = 1000108001 (same value as uln)

• LARS standard code = 80

The next test ULN would be 1000108002, then 100108003 etc.  

Your EPAO registration number can be found on the Register of End Point Assessment Organisations if you do not know it 

Once you can construct your ULNs, go to Manage Apprentice, select the relevant standard and a status of certified, then edit one or multiple apprentice records and for each change the ULN and the Family name to one of your test ULNs. This will allow you to submit the apprentice and get back a Certificate reference.  

This report shows if an apprentice has been processed and sent to ESFA:

Reporting → Assessment → Certification  Overview

Known error messages returned from ESFA

The most common error messages:-

• Your Organisation is not approved for this Standard: How to resolve certificate error - "Your organisation is not approved to assess this Standard"

• ULN, Family Name , Standard not found - firstly double check the details are correct e.g. the ULN, make sure the name is spelt correctly and that they don't have for example a middle name as part of the surname e.g. John Michael Doe. Check the Standard.

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• Invalid course option for this Standard & version. Must be one of the following:

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Example of this error

You will need to check if the specialism has a course option set via Entity Management → Standards → Edit Standard → Specialisms → Course Option check the dropdown as you may have the course option set to 1.1 rather that 1.0.

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The error is saying the apprentices are expected on standard version 1.0 (based on the image above you can see the version at the end of the /api/v1/standard/options/239/1)

There is more information about this in the release notes for here. The ticket number is EP-2694.

This also includes instructions on two different ways to set up standards, in order to accommodate specialism versioning.

If you see this sort of issue within the EPAPro reports - the 'certificate submitted' date does not match the date of 'certificate created' then this is likely to be because the certificates were requested via the ESFA Portal. The ESFAs API cannot currently handle multiple submissions of certificates, for example if they have been re-printed with changes and so there will be an issue with the dates that are in EPAPro vs their online portal.