VETtrak 21.1.0 Release Notes - 17/02/2021

Version 21.1.0 is a major update from 20.4.x and includes database updates. If your VETtrak is locally installed, ensure you have a backup of your database before updating. If at all unsure please contact VETtrak Customer Support on 1800 838 872 or email support@vettrak.io.

This release is predominantly aimed towards those users who are transitioning to TCSI reporting. For more information on how the transitioning to TCSI process, see our separate article VETtrak TCSI Upgrade Setup for more information.

Users not required to participate in TCSI reporting are able to upgrade at any time and will need to be on the latest version on VETtrak in order to access any future minor updates.

Changes in 21.1.0.3 patch (16/04/2021)

1. Enrolled course of study. A warning is now shown when editing or deleting a client course of study having no TCSI identifier, which may already exist in TCSI..
2. Enrolled unit of study. The following changes have been made for client units of study:
   1. The Client Unit of Study wizard now displays the unit of study code and the census date in the title when not on the first page.
   2. The process to duplicate now launches the Client Unit of Study wizard with most fields pre-populated for a new record, to allow better validation with TCSI.
   3. The census date calculation has been altered to match a TCSI change.
   4. A warning is now shown when editing or deleting a client unit of study having no TCSI identifier, which may already exist in TCSI.
3. Foundation Skills category. Removed the limit on the default number of entitlement hours.
4. LMS API logging. A button has been added to allow an option to clear the LMS API logs.
5. Finance Integrations. Fixed a high DPI issue in the Finance Accounts and Finance Items configuration wizards.
6. Moodle Integration. Fixed issues when downloading course completions and unit results into VETtrak.
7. MyProfiling Integration. When sending a training plan to MyProfiling, the MyProfiling “RTO” start and end dates are now set to the VETtrak enrolment start and end dates, and the MyProfiling “contract” start and end dates are now set to the VETtrak contract start and end dates..

Changes in 21.1.0.2 patch (26/03/2021)

1. Client unit of study wizard. Some date fields have had warnings added if the date entered falls on a weekend or a holiday.
2. API logging. A button has been added to allow an option to clear the logs for:
   1. TCSI API log
   2. Finance Integration log
3. TCSI Citizenship date. When a client is reported to TCSI for the first time as a new student, TCSI ignores the submitted citizenship date and instead uses the date of reporting. To overcome problems this creates for students having an existing Vet Student Loans course, the citizenship date is now updated in TCSI immediately after the new student is reported.

Changes in 21.1.0.1 patch (4/03/2021)

1. TCSI - Course commencement date (E534). TCSI has migrated your previously reported course commencement dates to the first day of the reported month and year. To match these translated dates, VETtrak course commencement dates on all your existing client courses of study have been changed to the first of the month.
2. TCSI - Live PRODA URL. The preconfigured live PRODA URL has been changed from "https://PRODA.humanservices.gov.au/" to "https://proda.humanservices.gov.au/" to fix a connection issue.
3. Finance Integrations. A new configuration setting to "Allow auto-creating contacts" for a finance system has been added. This controls when VETtrak is allowed to automatically create contacts in the finance system if VETtrak clients/employers have not yet been matched to a finance system contact. Turning this off may reduce the likelihood of duplicate contact records appearing in your finance system.
4. Finance Integrations - Xero. Fixed an issue matching VETtrak clients/employers to Xero contacts when matching optional fields. 
5. VIC AVETMISS changes. These changes have been made to AVETMISS reporting in VIC:
   1. Added fee exemption code A "Asylum seeker"
   2. Added fee waiver code R "JobTrainer Skill Sets initiative"
   3. Generate AVETMISS will now report a client tuition fee of 0 in the NAT120 if there is a fee waiver code and the generation year is 2021 or later
6. Moodle Integration. When creating a Moodle course from a VETtrak occurrence the default Moodle course name no longer contains the dates.

TCSI reporting for VET Student Loans

Significant changes have been made to the VET Student Loans functionality in VETtrak to comply with the new TCSI reporting requirements. Some existing fields have been removed, some have been replaced by standard AVETMISS fields, and some new fields have been added. The changes include:

1. Real-time reporting. It is strongly recommended that you use the TCSI API to report your VET Student Loans data, as this allows you to more easily report your data in a timely manner. You will first need to set up a connection to PRODA and the TCSI API as described in this article. Each wizard that contains data that TCSI is interested in has an "Upload to TCSI" tickbox on the Finish page. If ticked, VETtrak will upload/update that record to TCSI immediately. Otherwise, you can later use the Utility menu -> VET Student Loans -> "Upload to TCSI" wizard to find all data that needs to be uploaded to TCSI and do so in bulk. You can set the default for the "Upload to TCSI" tickbox in Global Preferences -> VET Student Loans preferences -> TCSI tab -> "Send data to TCSI at the end of each wizard".
2. Manual file export and upload. As an alternative to using the TCSI API, you can use the Utility menu -> VET Student Loans ->"Export for TCSI portal" wizard to find all TCSI-related data that has been changed within a date range and export it as a set of Excel files to manually upload to the TCSI portal.
3. Upload reminder. You can configure VETtrak to show a message at start-up to remind you to upload or export data to TCSI when the last upload or export was more than an configurable number of days ago in Global Preferences -> VET Student Loans preferences -> TCSI tab -> "Show reminder when last full TCSI upload or export was".
4. TCSI UIDs and status. Each record that can be uploaded to TCSI will now show its TCSI UID (Unique identifier) and status in various wizards. This allows you to see the identifier of the record in TCSI (empty if it hasn't been uploaded or linked to TCSI yet), and whether the record requires submission to TCSI. Note that the TCSI UID and Status are only relevant when using the TCSI API to upload data, they are not used for file exports.
5. Effective from/to dates. Courses of study and locations now have an effective from/to date range to indicate to TCSI when you started and stopped offering the course or location at each organisation, along with a tickbox to indicate whether it is current. If the tickbox is ticked, you must enter a "from" date (defaults to the day it is ticked), but the "to" date must be empty. If it's no longer current, you should untick the tickbox and enter a "to" date (which defaults to the day it is unticked and it cannot be in the future).
6. Initial status. When you upgrade to VETtrak 21.1, VETtrak will assume that all VET Student Loans data in the database already exists in TCSI (as you should have uploaded to HEPCAT before upgrading to 21.1 and then this data should have been transitioned from HEPCAT to TCSI). However, VETtrak will not yet know the TCSI UIDs for any of the records (you'll see in VETtrak that records have a TCSI status of "Synchronised" but the UID will be empty). As you modify records or add new dependent records, required records without a UID will be uploaded to TCSI, but should match existing records in TCSI which will cause their existing UIDs to be recorded into VETtrak (these will be marked with a yellow status in the TCSI Upload wizard).
7. Organisation. Set up your PRODA connection in the Organisation wizard. In addition, a new "Information Handling Procedure URL" field has been added for use on Fee Notices.
8. Course of study. The VET Student Loans Course of Study Setup wizard has new fields for duration (mandatory, you'll need to enter this for all existing and new courses of study), and effective from/to dates, per organisation.
9. Delivery location (campus). The Location wizard has a new page allowing you to indicate whether it is used for VET Student Loans, with effective from/to dates, for each organisation. Note that street address is now mandatory and must be entered for all existing and new locations used for VET Student Loans.
10. Student. The Client Details for VET Student Loans wizard now has only one page. Most of the fields removed from this wizard now come from the client's AVETMISS details in the Client Personal wizard. This includes citizenship, disabilities, addresses, country of birth and highest prior education.
11. Enrolled course of study. The Client Course of Study wizard has a new Course Outcome field replacing the old Completion Status, a new "Enrolled under course assurance arrangement" tickbox, and new "Highest education attainment" field. Most of the prior education credit fields, and the VET FEE-HELP opt-in, have been removed. Some other fields have changed options. Note you only need to fill out the highest education attainment here if the client has an AVETMISS prior education of "Bachelor Degree or Higher".
12. Enrolled unit of study. The Client Unit of Study wizard has new fields for "Campus location" (which is now a standard Location drop-down, replacing the old data entry fields), "Full year unit of study" tickbox, "Never send to TCSI" tickbox, and "Remission reason", and most fields are rearranged to fit on the first page. Some other fields have changed options.
13. Data Insights. All changes to VET Student Loans data has been reflected in Data Insights. This may require you to adjust your existing VET Student Loans queries, as well as require updates to custom reports that include VSL data, if you have them.
14. TCSI API log. To assist with troubleshooting unexpected errors/issues using the TCSI API, you can tick the new Global Preferences -> VET Student Loans preferences -> TCSI tab -> "Log TCSI/PRODA calls for troubleshooting" setting. You should then make the error occur again, then go back into that same Global Preferences page and click the "View log" button to view the technical log, which can be saved to a file to provide to VETtrak Support. The log is cleared when VETtrak is closed.
15. Disability Reporting. One of the TCSI changes now requires recording and reporting of Disability history. Customers with reports involving Student Disabilities may need those reports updated to cater for these changes if they error. These will be updated as a report repair and changes can be requested via our Support Centre.        

Other changes

1. Data Insights purchasing contracts. An issue querying on multiple purchasing contracts with the same state, name and code, but different schedules, in Data Insights has been fixed.
2. Foundation Skills in Programme Manager. An issue that could cause the Foundation Skills and Children nodes to not appear when they should (or appear when they shouldn't) when using the List View in the Programme Manager has been fixed.
3. aNewSpring Essentials. Support has been added for integration with aNewSpring Essentials. Since Essentials does not support Instructor Groups, ticking a new "I am using aNewSpring Essentials" tickbox on the LMS Integration Configuration wizard will cause VETtrak to handle trainers differently in aNewSpring. This will have these effects on the integration:
   1. Trainers linked to occurrences will not be transferred to aNewSpring.
   2. When a client's enrolment is transferred to aNewSpring, or the staff members for an enrolment that is in aNewSpring are updated, the trainers linked to that enrolment, and that are also in the occurrence, will be transferred to aNewSpring and linked to that particular learner in that course. Note that aNewSpring will automatically give the trainer access to every existing course as well.
   3. It is strongly recommended that you untick the "Link new learners and instructors automatically" setting on every course in aNewSpring. Any time a new trainer is transferred to aNewSpring Essentials, the new trainer will automatically be linked to every existing learner in every existing course that has this ticked.
4. aNewSpring duplicate course name. A clearer error will now be shown if a course cannot be created because a course with the same name already exists in aNewSpring.
5. aNewSpring spaces in external IDs. An error that can occur when dealing with an aNewSpring record that has an external ID containing spaces has been fixed.
6. Finance integration match issue. An error that can occur when matching a client or employer to the finance system after failing to upload it to the finance system has been fixed.

Related items 

• Trainer Portal 21.1.X release notes
• Student Portal 21.1.X release notes 
• Progress Portal 21.1.X release notes
• VTDocs 21.1.X release notes
• VETenrol 21.1.X release notes
• VETtrak API Change log 21.1.X
• VETembark 21.1.X release notes