VIC: Victorian Student Numbers (VSN)

Introduction

In 2011, the Victorian government introduced the Victorian Student Number (VSN) system. This article is a guide to the implementation of that system. Before your organisation can participate in the Victorian Student Number (VSN) system, a number of steps must first be taken:

• Firstly, your organisation will be contacted by a member of the VSN implementation team, who will provide you with more information and ask you to sign an authorisation. You cannot be part of the VSN system until this has occurred.
• You will then receive your login details for the Victorian Student Register (VSR) web services.
• You will also be allocated your submission day, which will be between the 4th and 18th of each month.
  
  

Submission Process

NOTE: Only students who have unit-level result activity during the reporting period will be picked up in the VSN search.

The submission process for the VSN system is as follows:

• When you enter new clients in your system, you need to indicate if they already have a VSN or not. If they have a VSN and know what it is, you must record this number in your system.
• Each month, you send a list of clients to the VSR. The clients included in the upload are those who have applicable enrolments where there is activity during the reporting period. Activity is determined by looking at the start and finish dates of the units or modules within the enrolment.
• The VSR will then send the list back with VSN information added for each student whom you don't already have a VSN for. You will retrieve this list the following month before you upload your next lot of students.
• If you enter more than one submission per month, the latest submission sent in the three days leading up to close of business on your submission day will be used.
• You must send your submission by the date you have been allocated. The VSR will contact you if you miss your submissions.
• If you miss one or more submissions and need to catch up, you must upload all your monthly submissions in sequence. You must not skip any months with your submissions.
  
  

Implementation in VETtrak

VETtrak provides the following functionality for implementation of the VSN:

• Enter VSN information on the first page of the Client Personal Wizard.
• Indicate in the Enrolment Wizard that the enrolment is to be included in VSN transfers.
• Set up your VSN information.
• Perform your VSN transfers.
  
  

Client Personal Wizard

The Personal Wizard has two fields to record VSN information:

• A dropdown list to specify whether the client has a known VSN, has a VSN but doesn't know it, or does not yet have a VSN.
• A field to record the VSN, if known. A valid VSN must be entered here if Known is selected from the dropdown list.

Enrolment Wizard

If the location for an enrolment is in Victoria, a tickbox has been added to the AVETMISS page of the Enrolment Wizard to indicate whether to include that enrolment in VSN transfers.

VSN Setup

Before you can send and receive VSN information you need to set up your VSN provider details. To do this, go to Utility > Vic utilities > VSN Setup.

1. Enter the URL for uploading your files.
2. Enter the URL for downloading the report from the VSR.
3. Enter your login details for the VSR web services.
4. Enter the day of the month that you need to have your files uploaded by.
5. Enter the details for the appropriate contact person in your organisation.
6. Click the button to update your details.

Default URLs

If you require to re-enter the Default URLS for this area, the following items must be used to restore functionality:

Training File Upload Web Service:
https://www.eduweb.vic.gov.au/VETVSRWebService/TrainingFileService.svc/nomtom

Student VSN Report:
https://www.eduweb.vic.gov.au/vsrwebservice/reportservice.asmx

VSN Transfer

To perform your VSN transfers, go to Utilities>Vic utilities>VSN Transfer.

1. Download

First you will download the VSN data that the government has returned to you from your last month's upload

1. Choose the month that you want to download data for.
2. Click Download.
3. The grid will fill with all the students you uploaded last month, with VSN information for each one. The VSN will be automatically updated in the person's record in VETtrak (there is no actual file to download).
4. If you want to keep a record of the data you have downloaded, you can export it as an Excel file.
5. Click Finish to save the VSNs in the clients' records in VETtrak. The VSN Upload Wizard will now open.

2. Upload

1. Select the month that you want to upload data for.
2. Click Search.
3. The grid will fill with all the students you need to upload this month.
4. Tick this box if you want to save the data that would be uploaded (it won't actually be sent to the VSR, just saved locally).
5. Click Upload and Save. If you have ticked the box at (4) this will only save a copy of the file to your computer. If you don't tick the box, it will save the file, and upload it for you.