VETtrak 17.2.0 Release Notes - 30/06/2017

Version 17.2.0 is a major update from 17.1.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 838 872 or email support@vettrak.io.

The most significant changes are:

• Triggers and Actions.
• Foundation Skills add-on (AMEP and SEE).
• Extend unit dates improvements.
• Class improvements.

Changes in 17.2.0.2 (07/07/2017)

• An error when reviewing unit results in the QA manager has been fixed.

Changes in 17.2.0.1 (05/07/2017)

• An error when opening the Payment Wizard in some circumstances has been fixed.
• An error affecting class breaks when class times are edited has been fixed.

Triggers and Actions

The new Triggers and Actions Manager allows you to set up actions that are automatically performed when users perform operations in VETtrak that meet the trigger criteria. This can be used to semi-automate some workflow steps in VETtrak.

Examples of triggers include:

• When a user records an absent attendance for a client, send an SMS message to the client.
• When a user records an award, update the status of its linked enrolments to "Completed".
• When a user creates a client enrolment for a client in a certain group, run the Enrolment report, save it to the document database against the enrolment, and email it to the enrolled client.

On the left of the Triggers and Actions Manager, select a record type. A list of triggers that have been set up for that record type will be shown. Press the "Add new trigger" button to add a new trigger for that record type, or select an existing trigger to edit it. The trigger definition will be shown on the right.

In a trigger, you can define criteria that must be met for the trigger to fire (in the same way that you define query criteria in Data Insights), and set up a list of actions (send email, send SMS, run report etc) that will occur in order when the trigger is fired. Each action has data associated with it (such as the merge template to use for email and SMS). When a user causes a trigger to be fired that meets the criteria, each action will run and show a pre-populated wizard for the action. The user can adjust things if required, and run the action, or cancel to skip the action.

Triggers can only fire for operations performed in the VETtrak desktop application, not in the web portals. Currently, triggers can only be fired when adding these types of records:

• Attendance
• Award
• Client enrolment

Triggers are also currently limited to the following actions:

• Send email
• Send SMS
• Run report
• Update enrolment status

Foundation Skills add-on (AMEP and SEE)

A new VETtrak add-on has been developed to assist with the management of foundation skills training, such as the Adult Migrant English Program (AMEP) and Skills for Education and Employment (SEE). This add-on is available on request for users running VETtrak Enterprise Plus only.

The functionality includes:

1. The ability to record the hours of tuition that students are entitled to across various funding categories, such as AMEP, AMEP Extended, SPP, SPP Youth and others. This broadly falls under the concept of a student "entitlement" to a specified number of tuition hours.
2. The ability for these hours to be "consumed" based on the student's attendance in classes so that the consumption of a student's entitlement can be measured and monitored.
3. The ability to record details of ACSF assessments.
4. The ability to record details of childcare arrangements for children of students, details of the childcare sessions utilised, and claims for these childcare sessions.

State-based changes

Victoria

1. VSN for nationally-reported enrolments. Nationally-reported enrolments in VIC now have the "Include in VSN transfers" tickbox, and can be found in the VIC VSN Upload wizard. We have advice that VIC still want VSNs to be created for nationally-reported enrolments.
2. VSN Upload client button. The edit client button in the VIC VSN Upload wizard will now open the Client wizard instead of the Client Personal wizard.

Western Australia

1. $0 course and resource fees. The WA Enrolment Export wizard will automatically report a $0 course fee and resource fee for units that have a result of "Credit transfer" (9) or "Did not start" (100), or a fee exemption of "Fee exempt" (F) or "Fee waived" (V), regardless of the amounts recorded against the enrolment. If you recalculate enrolment prices, these cases will now be calculated as $0.
2. Not applicable delivery strategy. When recording results (individually, in bulk for an enrolment, or for a unit in an occurrence), if you select a result type of "Credit transfer" or "RPL", the delivery strategy will be automatically changed to "Not applicable". VETtrak will produce an error if the delivery strategy is "Not applicable" and a result type other than "Credit transfer" or "RPL" is selected, or if you have not selected a delivery strategy.
3. WA enrolment export funding model. The WA Enrolment Export wizard will no longer give an error for any enrolments that don't have a funding model set. It will continue to report the pricing amounts entered in the enrolment.

Tasmania

1. Stage field. The Stage field has been removed from the Enrolment wizard in TAS, as it is no longer used.

Client/staff changes

1. Follow-up locate USI with verify. When using the "Locate now" button for the USI field in the Client wizard, if the locate is successful, VETtrak will automatically perform a USI verify to check that the name exactly matches that for the USI on the USI registry.
2. Citizenship options. The list of options for the Citizenship field in the Client Personal wizard has been expanded. The existing option "Australian citizen or permanent resident" has been renamed to "Australian citizen", and new options added for "Permanent resident of Australia", "New Zealand citizen" and "Visa holder (humanitarian)".
3. View employee enrolment's occurrence in new tab. The "View occurrence in new tab" menu option is now available when right-clicking an employee enrolment in the Client Manager.
4. Staff occurrence events. A new "Occurrence events (linked to staff member)" node has been added to the Staff Manager. This shows occurrence events that the staff member is linked to.

Extend unit end date changes

The following changes have been made to the Extend Unit End Dates wizard, to allow more control over which units are extended to when.

1. Use tickbox, extra columns, filtering, grouping. A Use tickbox column, and additional columns for "Programme", "Funding source", "Qualification" and "Location", have been added to the Extend Unit End Dates wizard. Only rows with "Use" ticked will be updated when "Save" is pressed. You can also now filter or group by many of the columns. When using filtering or grouping, only the matching or expanded rows will have Use toggled when clicking the Use column header.
2. Custom date. A "New finish date" field is now available in the Extend Unit End Dates wizard, allowing you to choose what date you'd like the unit's end dates to be extended to when "Save" is pressed. The date defaults to the end of the following month. Note that the new end date for a particular unit will still be capped to the end of the enrolment if that is before the new finish date you've entered, unless the enrolment end date is in the past and "Extend enrolment end dates in the past" is ticked.
3. Comments. A new comments field has been added to the Extend Unit End Dates wizard, allowing you to append a comment to each of the units that are updated.

Class changes

1. Class capacity. You can now optionally specify a maximum capacity (seats) for rooms and classes. When the room is selected for a class, the class' capacity is defaulted to that of the room, but can be overridden. In various places where you can add clients to classes that have a capacity entered, VETtrak will show a warning message if the number of clients in the class exceeds the capacity of the class.
2. Class types. You can now define a list of class types in the Configuration Manager. Each class can optionally have a class type assigned. This may be useful for categorising classes for custom reporting purposes.
3. Class breaks. You can now optionally define a list of breaks in each class. Each break has a start and end date/time, an optional reason, and you can choose whether each break deducts from the duration of the class/attendance or not. Breaks cannot overlap, cannot be outside the class times, and cannot be edited once the class has attendance recorded. The duration (in minutes) of classes and attendances are now calculated and shown, which take the breaks into account.
4. Link units and tasks to class. The Add Unit to Classes and Add Task to Classes wizards have been changed to a "Link to Classes" wizard so they will list all units or tasks in the occurrence. Each unit or task currently linked to the class will be ticked. You can tick or untick classes to link or unlink the unit or task to classes on the one screen.
5. Duplicate class. You can right-click a class in the Programme Manager and duplicate it a number of times in the same occurrence. You can choose whether the class' notes, documents, units, tasks and/or breaks are duplicated. You can choose whether to add everyone who is enrolled in the occurrence to the new class, or add everyone who is in the class being duplicated to the new class (the latter includes ad-hoc clients in the class).
6. Attendance reasons. You can now define a list of attendance reasons in the Configuration Manager. When recording attendance with a "Negative" or "No effect" attendance type, you can optionally select one of these attendance reasons. This may be useful for categorising attendance reasons for custom reporting purposes, and is used by the Foundation Skills add-on.
7. Attendance wizard. The Attendance wizard now has a Finish page. The dates and times have been split into separate fields, and the seconds portion of the time removed.

Email/SMS changes

1. Client merge fields. Additional merge fields for the client's date of birth, email address, secondary email, mobile number, secondary mobile, home phone, work phone, usual address and postal address are now available for client-context email and SMS merge templates.
2. Email/SMS attendance. A new email and SMS merge context for attendance has been added. This contains all the same merge fields as the client class merge context, as well as the attendance type, attendance reason and attendance dates/times. You can right-click an individual client class with attendance in the Client Manager or Programme Manager to send an email or SMS to the attendee, or email/SMS all attendees in an class by right-clicking the class in the Programme Manager.
3. Individual sent email report. You can now right-click an individual sent email in the Client Manager or Employer Manager and select "Print email" to show or print that email as a report.
4. Select multiple employers or contacts. When adding employer or employer contact recipients to an email, you can now CTRL or SHIFT click to select multiple employers, or multiple contacts for the same employer.
5. Client occurrence enrolment employer name. The Employer Name merge field in the client occurrence enrolment merge context will now merge in the name of the client's employer if the enrolment does not have an employer assigned.

Finance changes

1. Funding model concession amounts for non-tuition fee pricing items. A new "Use concession rate for non-tuition fee pricing items" tickbox has been added to the pricing page in the Enrolment wizard, available when a funding model is selected. If ticked, and Calc is pressed, then the concession amounts, instead of the full amounts, for all non-tuition fee pricing items in the funding model will be used to calculate the prices. Previously, the concession amounts in the funding model were never used for non-tuition fee pricing items. Note that the logic for calculating prices of tuition fee pricing items has not changed - they still use the fee exemption status of the enrolment (and the client's indigenous status in VIC and QLD) to determine whether concession amounts apply to tuition fees.
2. Invoice item ordering. You can now re-order items on an invoice in the Invoice wizard, using drag-and-drop or the up and down arrow buttons. If you are using customised invoice reports, these may need to be updated to show the items in your changed order.
3. Auto create client invoices review wizard. When auto-creating invoices from the Enrolments node in the Client Manager, the Auto Create Client Invoices wizard will appear to allow you to choose which outstanding enrolments to invoice.
4. Generate schedule invoices order number. In the Generate Scheduled Invoices wizard, you can now optionally enter an order number against each of the invoices to be generated.
5. Mandatory ledger. A new "Require ledger codes for pricing items" tickbox has been added to the Invoice tab in General Preferences. If this is ticked, then VETtrak will require a ledger code to be selected for every enrolment pricing item.
6. Ezidebit eDDR. The Ezidebit integration will now not allow a payment plan total of $10,000 or more. For clients with an international address, the address fields will now be empty in the eDDR form and the student will need to fill in an Australian address.

Award/result changes

1. Require expiry date for award type. A new "This award type makes expiry date required in the award wizard" tickbox has been added to the Award Type wizard. If ticked, when this award type is used in the Award wizard, the user must enter an expiry date.
2. Certificate awards dated before unit finish. When creating a certificate-type award for a single client that is linked to enrolments, the Award wizard will now show a warning if the date recorded is before the finish date of any of the units in the enrolment.
3. Automatically started unit end date. When units are automatically started due to task activity or class attendance, and the unit has a training plan end date that is after the start date, then the end date of the unit will be set to the training plan end date.
4. Unit result importer enrolment ID. If an Enrolment ID has been specified in the spreadsheet being used in the Unit Result Importer, the importer will use this to identify the enrolment to update, and the qualification is not required to be in the spreadsheet.

Data Insights changes

1. Pricing, Invoices, Payments. Enrolment pricing, invoices and payments are now available to be queried in Data Insights. You can run invoice reports and receipt reports in bulk for found invoices or payments.
2. Bulk add event. A new bulk action to add event is now available when querying clients, staff, employers, client enrolments and occurrences in Data Insights. This allows you to add the same event in bulk to the found records.
3. Staff credential notes. The Notes field for a staff credential is now available in Data Insights.

FileTrak changes

1. File size warning. The FileTrak wizards will now show a warning if you are uploading a file that is 50MB or more in size into the document database.
2. Email file. An Email button has been added to the FileTrak file grids, allowing you to more easily send a standard or templated email with that file as an attachment.

Report changes

1. High DPI support for report dialogs. Report dialogs will now scale to suit your computer's DPI setting.
2. Custom report request. The "New support centre report request" right-click menu option in the Custom Report Explorer will now open the correct page in the support centre.

Web Portal changes

1. Trainer Portal ad-hoc client attendance. If you are QAing attendance through the Trainer Portal, you can now record attendance for clients that are not in the class through the Trainer Portal. When this is accepted in QA, the client will be added to the class.
2. Trainer Portal document upload configuration. A new Documents tab has been added to the Trainer Portal Preferences. This allows you to choose which types of records that trainers are allowed to upload documents against in the Trainer Portal.
3. Trainer Portal record signatures. A new "Tick "record signatures" checkbox by default" preferences has been added to the Trainer Portal preferences, to control whether "Record signatures" is ticked by default in the Trainer Portal.
4. Student Portal online class check-in. An "Allow Student Portal check-in to classes" tickbox is in the Class Type wizard. Any classes with a class type that has this ticked will allow the student to check-in to the class online through the Student Portal. The Programme Manager will show which clients have checked-in online to a class.
5. Student Portal file upload declaration. A "File upload declaration tickbox" field has been added to a new Files tab in Student Portal preferences. This text will be shown and must be agreed to when files are uploaded in the Student Portal.
6. Notification preferences. Portal notification preferences have been moved to a new Notifications preferences page, and adjusted to suit the new portal notifications system.
7. Portal URL preferences. New preferences for the portal URL have been added to the Trainer Portal and Student Portal preferences pages. If entered, the portals will generate a URL when sending notification emails to make it easier to go to the notification record.

Other changes

1. VET Student Loans eCAF parental consent. A new "Parental consent supplied" tickbox has been added to the Under 18 status in the VET Student Loans Client wizard. This is only available if the client is under 18 years of age.
2. Employer enrolment attribute alerts for bookings. The Add Booking wizard will now show any employer enrolment attribute alerts for the employer that the booking is being added for.
3. Shortcut keys. You can now press ALT+A to add a row to the Enrolment Staff grid in the Enrolment wizard. When adding units to an enrolment, you can now press ALT+E to add all the qualification's elective units, and ALT+R to add all the core units.
4. Remove unit from training package. In the Qualification Manager, you can now remove a unit from a training package (and change it into a module if it is not in any other training package) that is in a qualification.
5. Bulk attribute comments. When assigning an attribute to clients or employers in bulk in the Configuration Manager, and you have entered a comment, if any of those clients or employers already have the attribute, the comments will be appended to any existing comment for that attribute.