Occurrences are an effective way to manage a group of Clients that may be participating in learning together. Usually this is a single group of students who are participating in training together and are expected to progress at a similar rate.
Many of the same tools used to manage an Enrolment are present when utilising Occurrences, however they are uniquely designed to allow recording details in bulk, such as Results, changing Enrolment Details or even Recording Awards as the learning progresses.
Occurrences also have access to additional group-based management tools such as Classes and Attendance.
- Creating an Occurrence
- Unit Selection
- Selecting State Based Fields
- Pricing Information
- Occurrence Information
- Final Details
Creating an Occurrence
Creating an occurrence is exceptionally similar to creating a Client Enrolment - this is because the Occurrence will serve as Template that will be inherited by all clients that are enrolled into it. Any details you enter/set against the Occurrence will be present in the individual Occurrence Enrolments for your clients, whilst still allowing you to manage their enrolments individually and personalise the details recorded against them however you like, independent of the Occurrences details. This can be useful for students that utilise different funding, for example.
Like Enrolments, when creating a new Occurrence you should first review what you have chosen at the top of VETtrak in the Collection State selection – You will be required to select the state that this occurrence will take place in. This will also impact the creation process, prompting for State Specific requirements to be enforced.
There are many ways to create a new Occurrence in VETtrak, in this example go to the Create menu, and select Occurrence:
There are also context sensitive ways to create Occurrences, such as expanding an existing Programme within the Configuration Manager, and selecting to Add Occurrence.
You can also Duplicate an existing Occurrence as a quick method to create a copy of an existing occurrence, with a unique start and finish date.
Upon choosing to Create a New Occurrence, the Add Occurrence Wizard will display:
In the top left we have red text, alerting me to fields necessary to progress the wizard.
- Start and Finish dates are required to define the training period of this Occurrence.
- Location - This is the recorded location where the training is taking place. If you already have locations entered, you can drop down the list and select one, otherwise press the small
button to the left hand side of the drop down box to create a new one for immediate use. - Reportability Options
- Report to state body – if you deliver any training funded by a State Body, all funded accredited enrolments must be reported to that funding body, who then forward the data to NCVER.
- *If you have a state funding contract in VIC, QLD, SA, ACT, TAS and NT you may choose this reportability option for all accredited enrolments regardless of funding eligibility.
- Report to national body (NCVER) – Any accredited enrolments that are not reported to your state body are instead reported to NCVER.
- Do not report this enrolment – this should only be used for non-accredited training.
- Training Package Qualifications / Courses - Within here you can select a Qualification, or a Course should the box be ticked, to associate with this occurrence. You can drop down the box and select the relevant option, or click into the field and start typing to quickly select the one you need.
Enrolments which are not linked to qualifications / courses are known as 'module only' enrolments.
Within this portion of the Add Occurrence Wizard you also have the option to manipulate the Occurrence Enrolment Status and Occurrence Enrolment Description. These fields are not used for AVETMISS based reporting.
Press Next to continue. This will display the Unit Selection window.
Unit Selection
- Unit Search
- To search, type the first few characters of the Unit Code, OR
- Tick the checkbox to Expand the Qual Tree and identify the unit this way.
- Unit/Modules List - This displays the units returned from the search. You can then click and drag units from this list to the right-hand area to select the unit.
If you want to select multiple units, hold the CTRL key while left-clicking each unit, or hold SHIFT to select a range. - Grouped Unit Type Selection - You can drop down the box and select the relevant grouped units to have them added to the selection Unit list.
- Selected units/modules - The currently select units.
Press Next to continue. This will display the Set State Based Fields window.
Selecting State Based Fields
Depending on the Reportability Option selected on the first page of the Occurrence Wizard, this window will change to reflect the specific reporting needs required to progress the wizard.
- For State Based learning where government funding may be involved, it is likely you will need to record funding details to reflect the particular government contribution you are eligible for.
- For National Reporting Details, the requirements are relaxed as this is often associated with Fee For Service learning.
- Enrolments set to Do Not Report will not require any specific information be entered on this page, as no information will be reported.
This screenshot is an example of Nationally Reportable Fields, showing information such as Delivery Type and (National) Funding Source.
Commencing status is used to communicate the Commencing Program Identifier of the enrolment. This serves to identify if the student started their enrolment in the current collection year or in the previous collection year. It can also be used to communicate that enrolment in question is a Unit/Module only enrolment.
Press Next to continue. This will display the Enter Pricing Information window.
Pricing Information
This area of the Wizard is designed to set up the pricing items that are to be charged for the client enrolments, and may be utilised in your AVETMISS reporting depending on State Requirements.
You can Right-click an appropriate heading (Enrolment, Unit/Module, Inventory) to choose an item to be created against that heading, where you can then enter the Amount and GST if you require.
An example of the kind of information entered here could be a Course Fee for the enrolment itself, or Tuition Fee details for the associated units. Pricing Items can be customised to suit whatever requirements you may have, and you can utilise Funding Models to create template based pricing details. These amounts can then be represented on an Invoice should you require.
This area can be used in a very broad and flexible manner. Please see our dedicated Help Centre article for more in-depth information: Assigning Pricing And Inventory Items
Press Next to continue. This will display the Enter Optional Information window.
Occurrence Information
Occurrence specific fields:
- All Occurrences must belong to a Programme. If you have already created a Programme for this occurrence, choose it from the selection box. If the Programme you want is not in the list, you can click the handy button to the left of the selection box to make a new one.
- Select a colour to represent the timeline for this Occurrence within the Programme manager. As occurrences are often designed to take place over a set period of time, customising the colour of a particular occurrence can serve to make it easily recognisable at a glance:
- Enter a Short Code for the occurrence. This is often an abbreviated identifier of the particular course. (up to 20 characters). This will also display alongside the Occurrence ID in the Programme manager:
- You can use this field to enter a longer, more descriptive name specific to this occurrence.
- The Enrolled field will populate based off the number of Clients enrolled into the occurrence, and will remain blank during the creation process.
- Once an Occurrence is created, it will generate a unique Occurrence ID that is used to identify this occurrence specifically.
- The Minimum and Maximum Clients section can be used to communicate what the required/maximum numbers of students may be for this occurrence. The system will also present an alert should you attempt to enrol more than the maximum number of students into the occurrence.
- Online Class Link is an area where an online learning environment link can be entered if the occurrences classes are being performed remotely.
The rest of this wizard page is dedicated to Optional Information. This area can be used to enter additional details that are relevant to the occurrence and may serve to benefit your own administration processes.
Noteworthy fields in here include details such as the ability to attach an Employer with a Contact to the Occurrence and an area that can be used to attach Enrolment Staff to the occurrence. In the bottom left hand side of this window, press the 
button to add a row to this section, then select the Staff Type that corresponds to the Staff Member you wish to use. You can then select your Staff Member in the final drop down box.
Associating Staff Members to Occurrences can be beneficial for tracking Trainer progress within the Staff Manager, and for querying via Staff-related VETtrak reports. It will also allow a staff member to interact with/view this occurrence within the VETtrak Trainer Portal.
Press Next to continue. This will display the Booking Based Information window:
This section is entirely based around additional information that may be required by Staff and/or attendees.
Details such as Co-ordinator, Phone number and After Hours number can be entered for the sake of communication between all parties, alongside special information regarding the venue including Venue details and Parking details. This information can then be displayed on a report, or provided as part of an email to any parties that require it.
Press Next to continue. This will display the File Notes window:
File Notes are a unique way to record targeted information against your occurrence in small, self-contained notes. For more details, view our File Notes article:
Press Next to continue. This will display the Finish page:
The Show class calendar wizard after saving occurrence will display an option to create classes using the Class Calendar Wizard. See our Creating Classes in Bulk article for details.
Final Details
At this point your Occurrence will now appear under the appropriate Programme heading:
The Occurrence will also now have a unique Occurrence ID associated with it, for use in VETtrak reports and when searching for a particular occurrence:
RELATED: Enrolling Clients into an Occurrence
RELATED: Managing Occurrence Details