VETtrak 17.1.0 Release Notes - 13/01/2017

Version 17.1.0 is a major update from 4.4.8.x and includes database updates. Ensure you have a backup of your database before updating. If at all unsure please contact VETtrak Customer Support on 1800 838 782 or email support@vettrak.io.

The most significant changes are:

• 2017 AVETMISS reporting changes.
• VET Student Loans changes and eCAF integration.
• Staff credentials.
• Attribute alerts.
• Invoice credit terms.
• Upstream Document Management integration.

VETtrak's version numbering scheme has changed, to be more meaningful. The first part of the version number refers to the year in which the version was released (e.g.. 17 represents 2017). The second part refers to the major release within that year, starting from 1 each year. The third part refers to the minor update within that major release, starting from 0 in each major release. In future, a database upgrade is required if any of the first two parts of the version number change.

2017 AVETMISS reporting changes

1. USI exemption codes. Support for the new USI exemption codes for international offshore (INTOFF) and short course (SHORT) have been added. To specify one of these for a client, click the new exemption link above the USI field and tick the appropriate exemption tickbox. This will automatically set the USI field to that exemption code and disable it.
2. Removal of "Result not available" (outcome 90). Outcome 90 (result not available) has been removed, and outcome 70 (continuing) now applies anywhere outcome 90 was used previously. All result types with this outcome have been archived. During AVETMISS generation, 70 outcomes are no longer automatically converted to 90, and any 90 outcome result will be reported as 70.
3. Removal of validations for program and subject fields that can be sourced from training.gov.au. The "Report in CCQI" tickbox in the Qualification and Unit wizards has been replaced by a new "Exists on training.gov.au" tickbox. Ticking this will cause the ANSCO identifier and field of education fields (as applicable) to become optional, and can be left blank if you are reporting the unit/qualification nationally, or in QLD, SA, NT or WA. All other states do not yet support this changed rule and will still require these fields to be entered to include them in AVETMISS generation.
4. Support for gender X "Indeterminate/Intersex/Unspecified". The Gender field has been moved from the Client Personal wizard to the first page of the Client wizard, and a new option for "Indeterminate/Intersex/Unspecified" added. This gender will currently only be reported in AVETMISS in VIC, as this is the only state that supports it. In all other states and national, gender X will be reported in AVETMISS as @ (unspecified).
5. Auto-change commencing status in all states. In VIC, the commencing status is automatically reported as 4 (continuing) if it is 3 (commencing) and the VIC course commencement date is in a previous year. A similar thing is now done for all other states and national, except that it is based on the enrolment start date - if the commencing status is 3 (commencing) and the enrolment start date is in a previous year, it will report the commencing status as 4 (continuing).
6. Generate AVETMISS unit log. A new right-click menu option on an enrolled unit for the "AVETMISS generation log" has been added. This will show a list of saved AVETMISS generations that have contained this unit. Note that this will only include generations performed since upgrading to VETtrak version 4.4.8. For more information, refer to the AVETMISS generation log article.

For more detailed information about the 2017 AVETMISS changes, refer to the VETtrak 2017 AVETMISS changes article.

The following state-specific changes have also been made:

Victoria

1. New outcome 25 "Competency Achieved/Pass as determined via Gap Training and Assessment". The existing outcome 25, which was only applicable in QLD, has been renamed to "On-the-job assessment - PASS (Qld), Pass as determined via Gap Training and Assessment (Vic)" as it can now also apply in VIC. A new result type "Competent Achieved/Pass as determined via Gap Training and Assessment (Vic)" for outcome 25 has been added, for use only in VIC.
2. New Reconnect funding sources. New funding sources for Reconnect (RCL, RCP and ACR) have been added for VIC.
3. Tuition fee for credit transfers finishing after reporting period. In the VIC AVETMISS generation, if a credit transfer result finishes in a future reporting period and so is reported as 70 (continuing), it reported an empty tuition fee as if it was still credit transfer, causing an error in SVTS. This has been fixed to report the tuition fee in this situation.

New South Wales

Changes have been made to the NSW Provider Calculator Exporter to match version 1.9 of the Multiple Student Specifications:

1. A number of new Fee and Waiver Codes have been added.
2. Changes have been made to the column headings.

Queensland

1. Construction Skills payment history import missing qualifications. The QLD Payment History Import wizard has been changed to allow qualifications to be blank in the Construction Skills payment file.
2. Removed claim summary rollback. The old QLD Claim Summary Rollback wizard has been removed.

South Australia

1. New offshore funding source. A new funding source "Overseas Offshore Students" (OFF) has been added for SA.
2. Outcome 61 for transitioning qualifications. SA now supports the use of the "Superseded subject" result type (outcome 61) to indicate a unit that has been begun by a student when they are to transfer to a new unit. The old unit should be given the "Superseded subject" result and the new replacement unit should be given the final result. Both units must have the same start date.

VET Student Loans changes and eCAF integration

1. Rename of VET FEE-HELP to VET Student Loans. VET FEE-HELP has been renamed to VET Student Loans. The "Invoice Notice" has also been renamed to "Fee Notice".
2. Separate VCC and VCU exports. The VET Student Loans Exporter now allows the VCC and VCU exports to be performed individually.
3. Opt-in to continue old VET FEE-HELP loan. In the Client Course of Study wizard, you can indicate whether it is a VET FEE-HELP loan, and if so, whether the student has opted-in to continue the VET FEE-HELP loan and on what date. All existing courses of study commencing prior to 2017 have been set as being a VET FEE-HELP loan. In the VET Student Loans Exporter wizard, you can choose to include or exclude records based on this new field.
4. New completion date fields. New completion date fields have been added to courses of study and units of study. These are used in the VET Student Loans Exporter wizard to support the requirement for more frequent exports.

eCAF system integration

VETtrak can now integrate with the new Government eCAF (Electronic Commonwealth Assistance Form) system. This must be used for all VET Student Loans from 2017. VETtrak's eCAF system integration operates as follows:

1. Enter the VET Student Loan course of study and units of study into VETtrak as normal. A few additional fields are required.
2. Upload the course of study from VETtrak to the Government eCAF system, which operates via the eCAF API. This can be done for an individual course of study, and can also be done in bulk.
3. An automated email is sent to the student by the eCAF system.
4. Student email contains the Government eCAF URL and a passkey. Student registers with passkey and completes a validation check (with date of birth) before accessing the eCAF.
5. Student reviews general information about VET Student Loans, completes a quiz to test the student’s understanding of VET Student Loans, reviews the eCAF data, completes the remaining fields (personal email address, phone number and Tax File Number) and submits eCAF. Student receives submitted eCAF as a PDF, via email.
6. Download the eCAF data in bulk into VETtrak, which will flag the courses of study as having an eCAF submitted.

The new VETtrak features for the eCAF integration include:

1. eCAF API preferences. A new "VET Student Loans" page has been added to Global Preferences. This allows you to change whether VETtrak uses the live or training eCAF environment. You can also configure VETtrak to mark new courses of study for bulk upload to the eCAF system by default.
2. Organisation eCAF access. In the Organisation wizard in the Configuration Manager, new fields have been added for the HEIMS username and password. You must enter the username and password of an account that has been given access to the "ECAF Provider Service" role for your organisation in the Australian Government Education Portal. Use the test button to test access to the eCAF API.
3. Course of study loan cap. A new "Applicable loan cap" field has been added to the Course of Study Setup wizard. This needs to be set for each course of study you wish to upload to the eCAF system. Currently, the allowable loan caps are $5,000, $10,000 or $15,000.
4. Under 18 status. A new "Under 18 status" field has been added to the Client VET Student Loan Details wizard. This will only be shown if the client is under 18 years of age. It is required for eCAFs for students under 18.
5. New Zealand citizenship eligibility. New checklist pages have been added to the Client VET Student Loan Details wizard and the Client Course of Study wizard if the client's citizenship is "New Zealand" to check whether the student is eligible for a VET Student Loan.
6. Campus location. A new "Campus location" field has been added to the Client Course of Study wizard. This lists locations, and is required for eCAFs. It can be applied to course of study profiles.
7. Enrolment date. A new "Enrolment date" field has been added to the Client Course of Study wizard. This is required for eCAFs, as it is used to control the cooling-off period. It can be applied to course of study profiles.
8. eCAF upload information. A new panel in the Client Course of Study wizard indicates whether it has been uploaded to the eCAF system, and can be expanded to show additional details about the eCAF. A tickbox allows you to indicate whether the course of study is ready for bulk upload to the eCAF system.
9. Upload single course of study to eCAF system. You can right-click a client's course of study and select "Upload to eCAF system" to upload it to the eCAF system. If it has already been uploaded (but not yet marked as submitted by the student), you can right-click it to "Update in eCAF system" or "Delete from eCAF system".
10. Bulk upload to eCAF system. Go to the Utility menu -> VET Student Loans -> "Upload to eCAF system" to see all courses of study in an organisation that are marked as ready for bulk upload to the eCAF system but have not been uploaded yet. Press the Upload button to upload all the valid and ticked courses of study to the eCAF system in bulk.
11. Download from eCAF system. Go to the Utility menu -> VET Student Loans -> "Download from eCAF system" to download all eCAFs submitted by students that are unprocessed. Saving this will mark those courses of study as having a submitted eCAF in VETtrak, update the tax file numbers in VETtrak if specified by the student, and mark them as processed in the eCAF system.

Staff credentials

Functionality has been added to allow you to record the credentials that your staff have for delivering training for units. You can also have VETtrak validate that your staff members have a valid credential in a unit when a staff member is assigned to that unit in a training plan.

The functionality includes:

1. Set up credentials (Training and Assessment Qualifications, Vocational Experiences, and Vocational Qualifications and Licences) in the Configuration Manager.
2. Assign credentials to staff members in the Staff Manager. Each one has a status, and can have start and expiry dates.
3. Assign which of the staff member's credentials are required for which of their deliverable units in the Staff Manager.
4. Configure which staff types need to have credentials satisfied. When assigning a staff member that has one of those staff types to a unit in a training plan, you can configure VETtrak to show a warning or error if the staff member does not have that unit as a deliverable unit, or does not have a current credential for that unit.

For more information about the Staff Credentials functionality, refer to the Staff Credentials article.

Attribute alerts

In the Attribute wizard in the Configuration Manager, you can now configure attributes to give you an alert when you're adding an enrolment, invoice, payment or award to a client that has the attribute, or when you're adding an enrolment, invoice or payment to an employer that has the attribute.

When performing one of the selected actions with a client or employer that has the attribute, a side-bar will appear to the right of the wizard listing the attribute alerts. When dealing with multiple clients or employers, the side-bar will list which of the clients/employers have which alerted attribute.

This functionality may be useful if you want to be alerted to things such as VIP customers, special requirements, that discounts are required, or that other actions need to be taken.

For more information on Attributes, refer to the Attributes article.

Invoice credit terms

A new Credit Terms node has been added to the Configuration Manager. This allows you to set up a standard set of credit terms for calculating default invoice due dates, by applying a specified number of days from the invoice date or end of month (e.g.. 60 days from end of month).

You can edit a client or employer to specify their default Credit Terms.

When adding an invoice for the client or employer, their default Credit Terms are selected and used to calculate the default invoice due date. You can override the Credit Terms selection or the invoice due date if required.

Upstream integration

VETtrak now has a simple integration with Upstream's Document Management System. With it, you can:

1. Use a special VETtrak report to produce and print coversheets for clients, enrolments or enrolled units. Each coversheet contains a QR code that identifies the client, enrolment or enrolled unit.
2. When you have a large batch of paper documents to upload, insert the coversheets before each client's document.
3. Use Upstream to scan the batch of documents. Using the information in the QR codes on the coversheets, Upstream will automatically split the batch and allocate the documents to the appropriate clients, enrolments or enrolled units.
4. Within FileTrak in VETtrak, you can view the list of documents that have been uploaded into Upstream for a client, enrolment or enrolled unit. You can open the documents in a web browser, or in your locally installed M-Files application.

For more information about Upstream, go to www.upstream.com.au. Please contact VETtrak support if you'd like to add the Upstream feature to your VETtrak registration.

Enrolment/result changes

1. Extend unit dates. A new "Extend unit dates" option has been added to the Utility menu. This wizard can be used to find any nationally or state reportable units that have a continuing-type result but a finish date in the past, and push all those finish dates out to the end of the following month in bulk. Note that it will not extend unit finish dates out past the enrolment end date. For more information, refer to the Extend Unit Dates article.
2. Bulk record result comments. You can now enter a comment when recording a bulk unit result for an enrolment or occurrence, which will apply to each result recorded. The entered comment will be appended to any existing comments on the enrolled units.
3. Validation when clearing results. In the Enrolment Results wizard, the erroneous error "This unit is not NSW Smart and Skilled, so it cannot be given a blank result type" that can occur when attempting to clear a continuing result has been fixed. Also, you can record a delivery strategy without having to record a result.
4. Course progress for clients and occurrences. The Course Progress wizard is now available when right-clicking the Enrolments node in the Client Manager, which includes all enrolments for the client, as well as when right-clicking the Enrolments node in the Programme Manager, which includes all client enrolments in the occurrence. A new option has been added to the wizard to include only active-status enrolments, or enrolments where today is within the enrolment dates. A Print button has also been added to the wizard.
5. Awards linked to enrolment. A new "Awards (linked to enrolment)" node has been added when expanding an enrolment in the Client Manager. Expanding this will show any of the client's awards that are linked to that enrolment.
6. Removing a client from classes when cancelling an enrolment. When cancelling or completing an occurrence enrolment, and you select to remove the client from classes, the client will not be removed from any classes that already have attendance recorded.
7. Filter locations by region. A new "Group location filter by" state or region option has been added to Programme Preferences, which defaults to state. If you change this to region, then the location filter in the Programme Manager and Calendar Manager will show the locations grouped by region instead of state.

USI changes

1. Locate USI improvements. On the first page of the Client wizard, the "Verify now" button becomes a "Locate now" button if the USI is empty. You can click this to attempt to locate the client's USI immediately using the client's name, gender and DOB entered in the wizard. If these details are not sufficient to locate a single student's USI in the USI registry, then you will need to enter other client details to narrow down the search (email, mobile, and/or town/city of birth).
2. Streamline single USI creation. A tickbox to "Create USI" has been added to the last page of the Client Personal wizard. Ticking this will show the Identity Document wizard to add an identity document to the client if they don't already have one for USI (which can be cancelled if it is not needed), and then show the Create USI Now or Add to Create USI Batch wizette to create a USI for the client. A new preference has been added to Compliance Preferences -> USI tab to control which wizette appears.
3. Verify USI in Waiter. You can now verify (or locate) USIs when entering clients in the Waiter.

Client/staff changes

1. External staff member. A new "External staff member" tickbox has been added to the first page of the Client wizard, which is available only when the client is a staff member. If ticked, the Employer field is mandatory, and when viewing the staff member in the Staff Manager or Client Manager, the Personal node will indicate that the staff member is external and works for the selected employer. You can use this to differentiate between staff employed at your organisation and staff employed by other organisations.
2. Client Manager employee search. A new "Employees" search option has been added to the Client Manager. You can enter the first part of an employer's name, and it will find any clients who are an employee of any employer whose name starts with the search string. In addition, in the Employer Manager, you can right-click the Employees node for an employer to view all employees for that employer in the Client Manager. Additional right-click menu options have also been added to open an individual employee or contact in the Client Manager.
3. Use individual staff member email logins. If the "Use individual staff member email logins" preference is on, you can no longer change the email signature and from address when sending emails, to avoid confusion and to reduce the likelihood of email authentication issues. VETtrak will now warn you if this setting is on and you try to send an email when logged in as a user that does not have the Email Username and Email Password fields entered.

Finance changes

1. Payment history rollback. The list of payment history imports in the Payment History Rollback wizard will now show the import date and user for each batch, and will be filtered to only show history imports for the state selected at the top of the screen. Note that the payment history import date for batches imported prior to upgrading to VETtrak 17.1 is approximate only, but will be correct for any future imported batches.
2. Ezidebit payments for invoices with negative items. An issue causing payments imported from Ezidebit to not "close off" any outstanding negative items on the invoice, and thus still causing the invoice to show as "part paid" when it has a $0 balance, has been fixed.

Data Insights changes

1. Tasks. Tasks are now accessible in Data Insights. "Task enrolment" is now accessible, and you can access the enrolled tasks for an enrolment or enrolled unit.
2. VET Student Loans. Units of study are now accessible, making it possible to run invoice notice and CAN reports in bulk for individual units of study. The new VET Student Loans fields have also been added to Data Insights.
3. Payment history. Payment history data for enrolments and enrolled units is now accessible in Data Insights.

Web portal changes

For details on the changes made to the Trainer Portal, refer to the Trainer Portal 17.1.0.0 article. For details on the changes to the Student Portal, refer to the Student Portal 17.1.0.0 article. For any of these changes to take effect, your installation of the portal(s) must be upgraded to the VETtrak 17.1 version.

1. Quality Assurance client display. A new "Client" column has been added to the grid in the Quality Assurance Manager. This will show the client related to the item being QAed if applicable. Note that it will be empty for any QA items that were created before upgrading the Trainer Portal to the VETtrak 17.1 version.
2. Quality Assurance training plan. The ability for trainers to set the dates in training plans has been added to the Trainer Portal. You can configure VETtrak to send such edits to QA, so that they appear in the Quality Assurance Manager.
3. Student Portal preferences. A new Student Portal preferences page has been added. This allows you to set account recovery options, configure the external link in the portal, configure trainer email notification options, and configure QA for when clients update their details. If you have previously manually configured any of these settings in the portal's web.config file, you will need to configure them again in VETtrak Preferences. For details see Setting up Student Portal preferences in VETtrak article.
4. Trainer Portal preferences. External link settings have been added to the Trainer Portal preferences page. The notification options have been moved to the Student Portal preferences page. If you have previously manually configured an external link in the portal's web.config file, you will need to configure it again in VETtrak Preferences - for details, refer to the Migrating Trainer Portal Preferences article.
5. GO1 LMS preferences. A new GO1 LMS Preferences page has been added, allowing you to configure QA options for task results coming from the GO1 LMS.
6. Organisation public contact details. A new public contact staff member field has been added to the Organisation wizard. The contact details of the selected staff member will be shown for client's enrolments in the Student Portal.

Other changes

1. Referral source for clients and employers. When editing a referral source in the Configuration Manager, you can now choose whether the referral source applies to enrolments, clients and/or employers. A referral source field is now available when editing a client or employer (the list filtered to referral sources applicable to that type of record), allowing you to specify the referral source for the client or employer.
2. Referral source usage report. A new right-click report has been added to referral sources in the Configuration Manager, to view the enrolments, clients and employers that have been assigned that referral source.
3. Expired subscription. VETtrak will no longer start if your software subscription has expired. Your subscription will need to be renewed and your new registration key updated into VETtrak before it will start.
4. News feed special characters. Special characters in the news feed are now displayed correctly.
5. Save FileTrak documents. A new Save button has been added to the FileTrak document list, allowing you to save the document to a local file instead of opening it.
6. Enter key in Enrolment Results and Client Personal wizards. Pressing the Enter key when not editing anything in the grid in the Enrolment Results wizard will now go to the next page. You can now use the Enter key to next all the way through the Client Personal wizard.
7. Incorporated units. A new "Incorporated units/modules" node has been added when expanding a unit or module in the Qualification Manager. You can assign incorporated units by right-clicking the node, or by drag-and-drop from the Unit Search panel or elsewhere in the tree. This has no special functionality in VETtrak, but can be used to show incorporated units on Statements of Attainment if required.
8. Qualification deleted status. A new status option of "Deleted" has been added to qualifications.
9. Report update articles. A link to "View details of report changes" has been added to Report Preferences, to view the article of report changes made in your version.