EP-1383

FEATURE

Apprentice - Auto calculate EPA date and completion date

A new field has been added to the standard's screen, entitled "Maximum Assessment Duration" - this new field holds the maximum amount of time (in days) allowed for the EPA assessment period.

Using the existing "Minimum Programme Duration" & the new field above, the "Expected Date Ready for EPA" & "Expected Completion Date" fields are now auto calculated when creating a new apprentice. Because these calculated dates are governed by the standard, the pre-calculated dates cannot be changed when creating a new apprentice. The fields can be changed by updating the apprentice after creation, but the rules used in the calculation still apply. If the new "Maximum Assessment Duration" field is not populated, the completion date will default to one day after the ready for EPA date (as per original functionality).

This change affects both the screens, API & Bulk Upload functionality.

EP-1383 Video

EP-1482

FEATURE

Gateway - Add question forms

A new tab has been introduced to the gateway components admin screen (Question Form). This new tab allows the entry of questions that will be asked against a specific gateway component, along with a key (this has no current functionality, but has been provided for potential future use).

When processing a gateway, a new "Questions" step will show if questions have been assigned against any of the gateway components for this particular specification. Each question will then accept a text based answer, which is then stored against the gateway submission.

The rules surrounding viewing/editing the question answers follows the same logic as the rest of the gateway information.

EP-1482 Video

EP-1988

FEATURE

Reporting - Date when EPA date is committed.

We have added the EPA date committed date to the apprentice details and completed gateway billing. We have also added this date to the date comparison filters for these reports.

In addition, we have also added a filter to these reports to allow filtering on apprentices' that have had their EPA date committed to and those that haven’t.

EP-1988 Video

EP-2123

FEATURE

Reporting - Include the new result in the result adjustment report

The result adjustment report has been enhanced to show the new result information against each row, as only the old result information was shown originally. The new columns that have been added are:

• new_result

• new_grade_type

• new_result_next_action

To cater for both the old & new grade type being present on the report, the report filter "Grade Type" has been updated to say "Previous Grade Type" to make the distinction clear.

EP-2123 Video

EP-2206

FEATURE

Minimum gateway submission date (minimum programme duration)

We have added code to prevent users from being able to submit gateways (they can still upload files, set them up and save the gateway) before the standard's minimum programme duration has passed.

EP-2206 Video

EP-2207

FEATURE

Reporting - Assessment Attempts

A new attempts report has been added to the Assessment category.

This report is designed to allow users to count assessment attempts with user defined criteria. This is done across multiple assessment plans but within a single programme; this allows for flexibility where breaks in learning may occur and result in multiple assessment plans.

Most of the default filters are applied before any counting occurs so that users can broadly define what they wish to count, or not count i.e. Void results may not be considered an “attempt” and therefore can be removed via the filter before the counting occurs.

The only filter that takes effect after counting are the date filters that allow users to view a specific timespan. Any attempt across any timespan will always be counted.

EP-2207 Video

EP-2210

FEATURE

New Assessment Plan Report

We have created a new report to allow the reporting of assessment plans. This is available to owner, awarding organisation and provider role users by default.

This report has most of the standard filters and also a filter that allows the report to be filtered by assessment plan status.

EP-2210 Video

EP-2226

FEATURE

New permissions to allow 'log-in-as'

Individual permissions for each user type have been added to allow other user types outside of Awarding Organisations (AO) to log in as other users. These are located under the specific user type that a user is being granted permission to log in as i.e. if you wish a user to be able to log in as an EPA then this is located under the EPA permissions.

Logging in as another user is still subject to the relevant relationship to the logged in user. For example an EPA Manager who is granted permission to log in as EPAs will only be able to log into EPA accounts for whom they are associated with. This does not apply to the QA and AO user types because there are no linking properties; so we advise caution to which users are granted the permission to log in as these user types.

During this development a bug was also discovered and fixed where the list of providers shown in a filter for EPA and EPA Manager users would be empty by default and would only show a provider if the user was assigned to one. This has been fixed as the default should be to show all providers in keeping with the employer filter.

EP-2226 Video

EP-2245

FEATURE

Assessment Plan - Reminder to complete the declaration when the last element is booked.

A reminder has been added to the assessment plan screen to sign the declaration when the last assessment element is booked. This reminder will persist each time the assessment plan is viewed, until the declaration is signed off.

EP-2245 Video

EP-1149

FEATURE

Notifications - Improved control over who can receive various notifications

We’ve improved the notifications system to provide much more flexibility and control over who can receive system notifications and even allow the global toggling of communication within the system.

New management area for system defaults

We’ve added a new management area for system defaults to be configured. When deployed this will be as close as possible to the previous defaults the system used.

The new screen is available under Settings and requires the user to have the Manage System Communication Settings permission which is available under the Miscellaneous permission group.

Notifications that can be managed are shown in defined categories as tabbed along the top of the screen.

This new screen allows for three main functions:

1. Toggle the global communication status

2. Toggle the status for notifications system-wide

3. Toggle the status for notifications on a per-user type (or guest type) basis

Toggle the global communication status

If the user has the Enable/Disable Global Communication permission a switch will be shown at the top of the screen labelled Global. If switched to the off position (shows red with the switch to the left) then all notifications and emails controlled by this screen will not be sent.

A permanent notice will also be shown in the top toolbar (next to the search input) for all users notifying them that communication will not be sent for any actions they make.

Note: Password reset emails will still be sent out if requested, welcome emails will still be sent out if the new user is able to be logged in and record of achievement emails will still be sent out if a user performs the action to do so.

Toggle the status for notifications system-wide

To the right of each notification, there’s a switch labelled Enabled. This switch will disable the notification for all users across the system. An alert will be shown and if switched off it will highlight red, similar to the global toggle.

Switching a notification off in this way will prevent all override all user settings, the only rule that will override this is if the global toggle is disabled.

Toggle the status for notifications on a per-user type (or guest type) basis

Finally, this new screen allows for finer control over what user types are able to receive each notification. A list of user types for each notification can be seen by clicking the notification’s name. The list of user types for each notification will vary. The reasons for this depend on the notification, but the general rule is that:

• If it’s a system notification then it must be a system user (no guests can be sent the notification)

• With the exception of Awarding Organisations, the user type must have a direct link to the cause of the notification. For example, an EPA will have a link to an apprentice, element, QA, result etc. whereas a Quality Manager will only have a direct link to a QA record or an element

There are some exceptions to this, but those are the general rules.

User types are grouped into three categories:

• Special User Types - These are some special system types that are usually context-specific for the given notification. For example, result and element-based notifications the subject is the EPA assigned to the element.

• System User Types - These are EPAPro user types, such as Apprentice, Awarding Organisation, EPA etc.

• Guest User Types - These are types where there’s no user entry within EPAPro instead it might be a name, telephone and email against a specific planning meeting, element or apprentice.

Each user type will have an enabled or disabled toggle. For guest user types this will toggle if they receive the email or not, for system user types this will set the default rule, that they can override, special user types will be a mixture of the above depending on the notification.

The restricted toggle will prevent users of that type from being able to change or override the value. For example, if a notification is set to enabled for an EPA and the restricted toggle is also on, then the EPA will be unable to disable that notification. The restricted toggle is also available for the special user types. This will mean that any user override will be ignored, however, due to the nature of the subject type being a special case the user’s version of the screen will not be able to accurately determine if they’ll receive the notification or not, instead, it may show a message stating the user could receive it when this toggle is checked.

To keep all of the notifications consistent and predictable, the system user types follow strict definitions as defined below:

• Apprentice - this will always be the apprentice in the context of the notification. If no there’s no direct link to a single apprentice then this type will be unavailable

• Awarding Organisation - this will always be every Awarding Organisation user, some notifications have permission restrictions, which they’ll mention in their descriptions

• Employer - this will always be all employer users linked to the apprentice if they have an employer

• EPA - this will always be the EPA linked to the apprentice. Note: even if an EPA Manager is assigned to the apprentice they will still be bound by the EPA rules

• EPA Manager - this will always be the EPA Managers for the EPA assigned to the apprentice

• Provider - this will always be all of the provider users assigned to the apprentice

• Subject - this will vary depending on the notification, each notification will have a description stating what user this is

Most of the guest types will go to the single email address stated, however, Planning Meeting Guest will go to every guest assigned to a planning meeting.

New management area for users

System users can also view a version of the above screen but for any user overrides they would like. By default, no user has access to this and requires the Manage Own Communication Settings. Once they have this a new menu item will appear under the top right dropdown (clicking the logged-in user’s name).

This version of the screen is very similar to the system management screen. However, the following changes are made:

1. The global toggle will never show, even if they have permission

2. There’s no dropdown to see user types, these settings apply to this user only

3. Notifications will be removed depending on the permission they have

4. Toggles will be disabled if the user type is restricted or the notification is disabled globally

Each notification will also show a status indicating why it is enabled or disabled.

EP-1843

BUG

Provider profile save blocked for provider users

We have fixed a bug where the provider profile could not be saved by a provider user as the validation was looking for a field that didn’t exist on the form displayed to provider users.

EP-1874

BUG

Assign apprentice gateway filter - added rejected status

We have added the rejected status to the Gateway Status filter on the Assign Apprentice screen.

EP-2040

BUG

EPAs - Absences are not always picked up when booking a component

We've fixed a bug where EPA absences are not always picked up in some instances. This should now be corrected.

EP-2214

BUG

Server - Adjust server configuration

As part of this release we’ve adjusted the server configuration to remove identifying data, this is to improve the security of the infrastructure.

EP-2238

BUG

Surpass - Result being added to suspended apprentice

Apprentices that are not at "On Programme" status will no longer have their status automatically changed to "Complete", once all elements have results.

EP-2282

BUG

Apprentices through Gateway Dashboard Widget not displaying correct volumes

Fixed a bug where the Apprentices through Gateway widget on the reporting dashboard would display incorrect figures.

EP-2339

BUG

Reporting - Ready for Certification missing apprentices

Fixed a bug on the Ready for Certification report where apprentices were not showing on occasion when the “Omit Partially Passed” filter was set to Yes.