Version 5.15.0 - 07/11/2023
- Tom Erbe
- Lisa Clancy
Production Release Date: Nov 7, 2023 | Version: 5.15.0 |
UAT Release Date: Oct 10, 2023 | |
The Release webinar is available from https://skilltechsolutionsltd-my.sharepoint.com/:v:/g/personal/lisa_clancy_skilltechsolutions_co_uk/EathK5OSk5hHtCp4fd25MUwB21WJNN2qLe08XDqtsrAYDQ?nav=eyJyZWZlcnJhbEluZm8iOnsicmVmZXJyYWxBcHAiOiJTdHJlYW1XZWJBcHAiLCJyZWZlcnJhbFZpZXciOiJTaGFyZURpYWxvZyIsInJlZmVycmFsQXBwUGxhdGZvcm0iOiJXZWIiLCJyZWZlcnJhbE1vZGUiOiJ2aWV3In19&e=TL3K5h (following the Friday demo meeting);
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.
screen_changes - changes have been made to existing screens
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.
low impact medium impact high impact We are also adding a column for Potential Impact to you our customers, this is an estimation of any impact to your businesses the work may have. This is just offered as a guideline, as we appreciate you all use EPAPro slightly differently.
We recommend you check any Comms settings with the release notes, as whilst newly introduced comms will be listed in them, we may not mention if an existing comm needs to be enabled, which we assume may be on from previous releases.
What you have enabled can be seen via the System Management → Communications .
Epic | Key | Type | Action Required | Summary | Release Notes Description | Potential Impact |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FEATURE |
| Assessment Result - Behind the scenes refactoring and code improvements | OverviewWe have completed some improvements behind the scenes to the assessment result screen and area. These changes should keep existing functionality, with the exception of the Send External Notification button. This button would show for a Surpass result and would send the External Assessment communication. However, this button would only show when a result has been created with Surpass details - given the communication is to inform the apprentice of an upcoming Surpass test, it isn’t very useful. Impacted Areas
| low impact | |
| FEATURE |
| Assessment Plan - Backend code improvements | OverviewWe have improved some of our backend code on the assessment plan to improve maintainability moving forward and potentially provide performance improvements in some instances. This should not impact functionality. Impacted Areas
| low impact | |
| FEATURE |
| ProctorU - Improved support for non-Surpass external services | OverviewWe have improved our ProctorU integration to work better with our other non-Surpass external assessment integrations. Impacted Areas
| low impact | |
| FEATURE |
| ESFA - Improved standard versioning with course options | OverviewWe have improved our ESFA integration when fetching Course Options on the standard screen.
However, saving the standard would still require a version being entered as it did before. Impacted Areas
| low impact | |
| FEATURE |
| EPA Date Booking Fix | OverviewWe have addressed an issue that prevented providers from booking a planning meeting, if the apprentices estimated gateway date is the same day as the desired booking date. The book button will now display as expected and the provider will be able to book the planning meeting in this situation. | low impact | |
| FEATURE |
| Users - New locked flag | OverviewA new locked flag has been introduced to prevent users from logging into epaPRO. Changes to FunctionalityA new “locked” flag has been introduced to prevent users from logging into epaPRO. Previously, this was handled by the active/inactive status of the user, but this flag also controlled when users appeared elsewhere in the system (such as EPA(M) users being assigned to elements) - by splitting the functionality of these features, users will no longer temporarily disappear from lists etc. when users are locked out of their accounts due to failed login attempts. A user will be locked when either of the following situations occur:
When a user is locked, a new [ LOCKED ] badge will display within the “Status” column of that user listing page to highlight this. A filter has been introduced to allow filtering users based on their locked status. Note that the functionality behaves slightly different for employer and provider users, due to those entities having sub-users assigned against them - to see the locked/unlocked status of those users, edit/view the employer/provider record and use the Users tab. The Miscellaneous → User Details report has been updated to show the new locked status. Impacted Areas
PermissionsNone | low impact | |
| FEATURE |
| API - Automatic clean-up of old and unused API events | OverviewWe have introduced automatic clean-up of old API events that are either not used or old. Changes to functionalityActions within epaPRO trigger an event in our API queue, some customers use this queue to then update their own systems and an apprentice progresses through epaPRO. Customers that do not use our API will have their queue grow larger over time, causing increased resource usage and also a large backlog that they may not need if they start using our API. When an event is processed via our API it is also moved into a “history” table, which is just a record of an event being processed. This can also grow large for customers that are using our API. In this release, we have introduced a couple of automated clean-up routines for both of these tables. The following will now apply to all environments:
Both of these routines will run weekly. | low impact | |
| FEATURE |
| API - Overall result against apprentice endpoint | OverviewAdded new entry to the API queue when a certification overall result becomes available, containing the show apprentice URL. Changes to FunctionalityThe QA publishing of a certification record has been updated to add an additional entry into the API queue. The result is that two entries are now input at point of publishing, these are:
Impacted Areas
PermissionsNone | low impact | |
| FEATURE | Screen Changes | Calendar entries consistent within epaPRO | OverviewWe have made the calendar entries more consistent across epaPRO so that they all follow the same format. The new format is as follows: <pending status> <apprentice name> - <component name>/<planning meeting> Where <pending status> determines if the booking is pending, and as such will only be visible for pending bookings. Examples: [PENDING] David Smith - Knowledge Test or Adam Ant - Planning Meeting Impacted AreasPlanning meeting and component booking calendar entries PermissionsNo new permissions | low impact | |
| BUG |
| QA - Improved error handling when publishing | OverviewWe have improved the error handling of the publish QA logic so that any changes made are rolled back. Previously an error during the publishing of a QA may have half published the QA causing some unintended side effects when viewing some screens such as the apprentice’s profile. |
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| BUG |
| Book Planning Meeting - Gateway approval date is not shown on screen | OverviewFixed a bug where the “Booking Details” screen for booking planning meetings would not show the Gateway Approval date if an apprentice had completed gateway and would still show the Gateway Submitted date. |
| |
| BUG |
| Provider/Employer Users - Prevented sub-users with delete permission from deleting themselves. | OverviewFixed a bug that allowed sub-users to sometimes delete their own user record. Changes to FunctionalityIt was possible for sub-users with delete permissions, who were not the primary user, to delete their own user record using the delete button. This ticket adds a check to prevent this from occurring. Impacted Areas
PermissionsNone |
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| BUG |
| Appeals - Type dropdown appears when no types are set | Overview
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| BUG |
| Users - Activating/Deactivating a user without permission now shows error message. | OverviewActivating/Deactivating a user without permission now shows error message Changes to FunctionalityActivating/Deactivating a user without permission now shows error message. Previously an empty alert window was shown. Note that before this fix the user was still unable to perform the action. Impacted Areas
PermissionsNone |
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| BUG |
| Reporting - Certification Overview: Certification Status Fix | Overview
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| BUG |
| Appeals - Possible to open appeal after ESFA submission | Overview
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| BUG |
| Standards - Fields still selectable and buttons still visible in read only view | Overview
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| BUG |
| Files - Improved handling of failed uploads | OverviewWe have improved the handling of files that may fail to upload in various areas. We have also completed a little internal housekeeping in the related areas. Impacted Areas
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| BUG |
| Actions - Outstanding actions on certified, withdrawn, and cancelled apprentices | OverviewWe have cleaned up actions that were still outstanding and the apprentice is certified, withdrawn, or cancelled. These actions appear to have been caused by older bugs that had since been fixed. |
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| BUG |
| QA listing - previous results not selected for QA appearing | OverviewWe have fixed a bug where previously failed results that were not selected to be QA’d were incorrectly making apprentices appear in the QA list. Impacted AreasQA PermissionsNo new permissions |
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| BUG | Screen Changes | Apprentice - Last Registration Date validation not triggering on bulk | OverviewWhile this appears to be a small bug fix it required a potentially high-impact change to our screen’s validation. Please ensure that the create and update apprentice screens still validate as you would expect for your business’ process. We have fixed a bug with the bulk create and API create for apprentices where the last registration date against the standard would not properly validate. With this change the last registration date will validate when creating an apprentice via the screen, bulk upload, or API but not when updating an apprentice via the screen, bulk upload, or API. | Rated as potentially HIGH IMPACT given the note. Suggest thorough testing. | |
| BUG | Screen Changes recommend training | Apprentice - Custom username on create is lost | OverviewWe have fixed a bug where a custom username when creating an apprentice would be replaced with the email address, sometimes causing duplicate usernames. This has been fixed. Changes to functionality
Impacted Areas
| medium Impact Suggest training for familiarisation and to suggest more testing in the impacted areas. | |
| BUG |
| Actions - Clean up Assign Apprentice actions after certification | OverviewAdditional work has been done to prevent actions from persisting after an apprentice has been certified. Changes to FunctionalityLogic has been added to remove any Apprentice assignment awaiting decision actions for an apprentice once they are certified. At this point, the apprentices do not appear in the Accept/Reject apprentices screen for EPAs, therefore they will never be fulfilled. Impacted Areas
PermissionsNone |
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| BUG | RECOMMEND TRAINING | API - Apprentice get endpoints | OverviewWe have fixed a bug that caused the GET apprentice endpoint to fail if the apprentice username provided was a number. Changes to FunctionalityWe have created two new apprentice GET endpoints to replace the endpoint that currently allows apprentices to be found by either id or username.
Full details of these endpoints can be found within the API documentation. We have deprecated the current apprentice get endpoint. It will be removed in a future release. Impacted AreasAPI PermissionsNo new permissions |
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| Epic Link | key | type | Action Required | Release Notes Title | Release Notes Description | Potential Impact |
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