User Group Meeting notes 25/08/2020

@Ian Jarvis

The team are well and working remotely. We have a new customer signed up and they will join in next User Group.

@Ian Jarvis

Last quarter’s big features included:

1. PHP7 and Laravel Updates

2. QA Standards and Specialisms

3. Bulk Assessment Bookings

4. Result Adjustments

Ian walked the User Group through each of these features.

The Provider booking provisional date before Gateway? Apprentices must be Completed and accepted on their Gateway before booking.

@Ian Jarvis

We have made some changes and have added in a status to move an Apprentice into Back Into Learning. There seems to be a disconnect in the CIC and the events that lead to the CIC. We updated the Next Actions terms, to align with the ESFA Definitions.

We would like to help with this process and wanted to raise and suggest. Proposed workflow as follows

1. EPAO will make the decision on BIL and would go back to the Provider with the recommendation

2. Discussion of the BIL period and length of time.

3. Apprentice to

Providers cannot assign Apprentices to a status of BIL - and that EPAOs are the only qualified party to do so. BIL is something that only the EPAO can initiate

When you go into an Assessment Element and add a Retake, the system could prompt the user to set a CIC.

A modification to the Manage apprentice screen when filtering by the Back into Learning status will show the date of the change and the date the apprentice is expected back on programme, with an option to amend the date as appropriate.  So that Back into Learning can be monitored and managed.

Reporting will also be available to support this process.

Happy to discuss:

First point:- Should BIL be an EPAO only activity?

C&G would have a challenge if a provider cannot set this – it’s upto the Provider to set the next action, rather than the EPAO.

Innovate have flagged that the Provider can cancel assessment plans and the Provider has the ability to manage other aspects of the Apprentice’s journey and this is difficult to monitor and audit. As the EPAO, there is an ongoing conversation on whether it is the Provider or EPAO’s responsibility.

C&G The fact that CIC gives the option to delete the Assessment Plan – are you comfortable with this? Is there a way to flag to the Provider that the consequences of deletion? Could there be an option for another Status? Can we lock down the permissions?

It’s very difficult to manage the permissions and lock down, it may be easier to have a similar status that doesn’t give access to Providers to deleting assessment plans.

We could look at a new status tied to user type, so Providers will not be able to delete assessment plans.

We could look at making that status a permission however this is more challenging – using a new status is our preferred approach.

ActiveIQ are happy with the suggested approach.

We will send out a summary of the proposed functionality, along with a space for Provider feedback

@Ian Jarvis

1. Gateway Improvements 

2. Online forms and offline capabilities

3. Video Integrations - GoToMeeting/BlueJeans/Vidyo

4. AOB

@Ian Jarvis

We’re hoping to bring some improvements:

Make a change to the Gateway setup – currently, you cannot make any changes to the Gateway. If this were to be more similar to Assessment Schemas, as there are numerous variations on the dates, and you will be able to make changes to Gateway.

Ability to have more control over the evidence – Basic Skills – can also prompt for an upload, without the upload being mandatory, so much more flexibility over the evidence

Ready for Assessment Dates, we’d like to try and bring some more focus onto the Provider to review these dates. There is a minimum period that a training provider to give the EPAO to let them know that the Apprentice is ready for assessment. EPAOs often are flexible on this, however this poses a challenge to assess upcoming workload and resource management. We want to prompt Training Providers a prompt to review and adjust assessment dates.

The Provider will be given an action to review and commit to or postpone the dates, so we have a better idea on when Apprentices. There are various workflows and we are keen to hear the thoughts of the User Group.

Taking away the assessment date of the Apprentice from the Provider once the Apprentice is loaded into the system – put the Apprentice on the Standard and let EPAPro allocate as necessary.

We will add in a workflow and process map to explain this further

@Ian Jarvis

Given the events of this year, there’s a move towards online testing.

Virtual assessments and allow for the addition of online tools when creating an assessment, give the assessors an option to directly input details to EPAPro, means no uploading, quicker circulation of details, reporting capabilities.

As there will still be the need to do in=person assessments and there is the

We have done some initial scoping, we could have an online PDF form that is available offline and can be downloaded and uploaded to EPAPro and convert smoothly, as if done online.

It gives the assessor to capture numerous formats of media

Tom – the customisable forms, is there scope to expand into Gateways? We use heavily customised forms, any customisation availability would be very welcome.

Ian agrees –

Innovate would also love Gateway forms

@Ian Jarvis

Video Integration – high drama

Can use Zoom in assessments and Planning Meetings. We investigated Blue Jeans and GoToMeeting. We looked at Vidyo, currently an off the shelf product and a toolkit that allows for direct capability for EPAPro. We could have video integration as part of the application, controls on where media is stored, options to build into the relevant areas within the software.

We are not against looking at other options, however we are keen to work with Vidyo. This gives us more opportunities

@Ian Jarvis

Online Testing Integration:

Very keen to hear the User Group’s thoughts on this –

A third Party product ie. Surpass – happy to use

Out of the box testing solution by EPAPro, to give a much more seamless experience, and less separation between an online testing platform and EPAPro

@Ian Jarvis

Apprentice statuses – Apprentice stage to help the EPAO ascertain where the Apprentice is in their journey. Instead of having the Apprentice as ‘On Programme’ and then ‘Completed’, there will be triggers to report more granular that the Apprentice is - for example - ‘Pre-Gateway’

Upload one contract issue with ActiveIQ – Contracts coming up for renewal and new fees for Standards, would create issues for Apprentices currently on Standards.

Libby -- biggest challenge is the availability of EPAs, and would really like some work to be done on the availability. We have made a lot of changes so the EPA’s absences, holidays and appointments are to be pushed through the calendar feed.

Tom – Fantastic feature – Notifications and actions are great - the idea of using those along with the SLAs and turn into a to-do list for the team and assessors. This is on the roadmap for the next quarter. We’ll be sending out the feature preferences spreadsheet and weigh against the priorities.

As part of that, have you considered a chat function to allow assessors and apprentices to communicate through the system?

Communication management – a screen to look at the workflow and and allow for the user to manage the notifications and the method of communication to give the user the flexibility and control over communication and notifications/e-mail. Would be keen to hear the User Group’s thoughts on the communication piece.

Stephanie Mannion – Expand reporting functionality to show the Apprentice’s first or second attempt. OfQual reporting is also keen – from Tom. We are working on building an OfQual report, and has been run past the user group and received conflicting feedback.

Lorna – given any thought to the commercial aspect to the video integration? There is a charge as we are using proprietary software and there are charges to the usage. The costs are extremely competitive. Hugely cheaper than other third parties. Would this be EU hosted? Yes, will be hosted in the UK via our data centre.

@Ian Jarvis

ESFA Certificates

Regarding the ESFA Screens and the submission screen and the employer address and bulk sending. Innovate have been asking us to flag against head office addresses so they will be able to be sent out to head offices straight away.

We could achieve this by putting flags against the Employer default tick to overwrite with the head office. Would want this against Employer and Provider. Something to make it less manual.

Online Testing & Proctoring

We have been in touch with a third party that will allow for online proctoring and with the Vidyo integration along with the integrated testing capabilities. One thing we’re looking at along with the default online platform, SME will be allowed to pick the plan that suits them. Larger orgs can have their own custom instances over the testing platform. It will also offer remote proctoring, which we can offer in 3 levels – Live, Automated Proctoring and Post-Review Proctoring. The Proctoring will be the cheapest on the UK market.

Want to get a feeling on whether this is something of interest for customer need – Is this something that’s interesting?
ActiveIQ & Innovate are very very interested. C&G are asking if they are linked and Ian will check.

One consideration is that some have specific exam platforms for the regulation side of things.

Deleting QA Records

We have given the option to update Assessment Results, however we are now seeing an increased number of QA Records that are carried out in error. This is causing our Support team an extra overhead and more concerning, QA should be part of an audited process and we are directly editing the database, this means that this can no longer be audited.

This gives us huge potential to damage the database and is a laborious & dangerous process.

Would the User Group think that there should be an audited way to change QA Result changes made by the user?

Innovate are keen as this is a consistent trip up, would be keen to explore. Stephanie agrees, DSW agree,

Does everyone agree that this should be audited? Yes.

Anything else?

Nope!