User Group Meeting Notes 04/04/19

Date

Apr 4, 2019

Participants

@Ian Jarvis

Goals

Establish function of the group and regularity of meetings etc
Discuss current issues and preferred solutions

Discussion topics

Item	Presenter	Notes

Item	Presenter	Notes
Ready for EPA Date	@Ian Jarvis	Should we calculate this date based on Standard? Should we change the name from Ready for EPA to Ready for Gateway or Estimated Gateway?
Actions & Outcomes	@Ian Jarvis	The current list of Actions and Outcomes is not quite fulfilling everyones requirements. There are also some different interpretations of resit, retake, back into training etc. We would like to get a definitive list of outcomes and appropriate actions Back into learning Process
Gateway Stages	@Ian Jarvis	Currently Gateways are locked as soon as a provider has submitted the data. We would like to look at introducing an additional step which would allow EPAOs to make some changes prior to the completion of an apprentice.
Standards Versioning	@Ian Jarvis	Whilst the standard itself does not have a version control system we can version control Assessment Schema which is generally what changes when Standards are updated. This however has ramifications on contracts and billing which we would like to clarify with the user base to establish what rules need to be applied
Employer Records	@Ian Jarvis	There has been a long outstanding request to introduce some levels of hierarchy to employer records to accommodate regions, sub brands, divisions etc. We would like to understand exactly what functionality the user base needs from this Currently you must have an employer record attached to an apprentice to pull any data through to the ESFA submission. As we develop the API interface to the ESFA we are keen to understand how best to record employer data in the system without it being burdensome to the user base
Provider Records	@Ian Jarvis	There have been some recent requests to accommodate the notion of a prime provider who is contracted to the EPAO and will be responsible for billing and contracts but they then appoint a sub provider to deliver the training for some or all of this contract and therefore will require limited access to some apprentice records. We would like to understand requirements and impacts of any potential solutions to this
Contract Changes	@Ian Jarvis	Review of the interim contract changes and how they will be implemented
Video Conferencing	@Ian Jarvis	Review of Video conferencing functionality in relation to assessments. Is Zoom the right platform going forward.
Wording on Apprentice Screens	@Ian Jarvis	We are getting feedback from our ATPs that there is confusion over one programme assessor and mentor fields as they are considering these to be the EPA assessor and the mentor being the on programme coach. I would like to request that these are changed to on programme coach and employer mentor or somthing along these lines may be easier for the ATPs to understand.
Allocation Emails	@Ian Jarvis	Stop allocation emails to Apprentices? Confusion with Re-Allocation

Action items

@Ian Jarvis to model some ideas on Employer structure to feed back into user group

@Ian Jarvis will carry out further investigation into video options available

Decisions

It was agreed that we will change the “Ready for EPA” to “Estimated Gateway Date. We will also calculate this date from the standard so that the default lengths are honoured. This will be editable after creation
We agreed that we should have the following Actions: Resit, Retake and Fail. These will follow ESFA definitions with resit being an immediate resit without any intervention, Retake will be another attempt after further learning and Fail will represent an overall fail of the component. We will also extend the descriptions so that providers and employers can clearly see consequential outcomes to actions. We delayed discussing the Back into Learning process
Rather than adding an additional administrative process back into Gateway, we will allow EPAO users to amend Gateway details up until final certification at which point the Gateway would be locked
Date functionality already present in assessment schema addresses the needs with regards to amended Standards.
Although there is a wider discussion to be had around employer records - especially in regards to ESFA submissions, the user group felt that it would be useful to add a maximum of three levels of hierarchy to employer records, to allow them to be grouped an categorised appropriately.
Provider records need to have a flag to denote billing data, so that a Prime provider can be invoiced directly for activity undertaken by sub providers
Contract changes are working effectively with no issues
A decision around video options was not taken, however it was felt that Skype was not a suitable alternative to Zoom or other options.
The wording changes were acceptable to all parties and will be applied as described
Allocation emails are no longer automatically sent out following the introduction of the notifications system. We will review this is due course to ensure it does not cause any issues going forward.
User Group meetings will be held quarterly in the first instance, but important or urgent matters will be communicated to the users on an adhoc basis for feedback and decisions where required