Introduction
A NAT file import takes the files that form an AVETMISS generation and creates core data within VETtrak such as clients, enrolment and enrolled units. This form of import can serve as a jumping-off point for a much larger migration project, or can stand alone as a means to quickly and efficiently move data from your current student management system over to VETtrak.
It's important to be aware of the limitations of such an import, and the purpose of this article is to inform what data is present in a set of NAT files, how much can be imported, as well as advise what data is not present.
This article is broken up into the individual files one would find in an AVETMISS generation, and includes a description of the contents of the file as well as what we can retrieve from it. There are variations between files reported to NCVER and those that are reported to state bodies and where relevant, the additional state data is specified.
There is also a frequently asked question section that details some of the more common issues with this type of import.
File Structure
- NAT00010 - Training Organisation
- NAT00020 - Delivery Locations
- NAT00030 - Program File
- NAT00060 - Subject File
- NAT00080 - Client Personal Details
- NAT00085 - Client Postal Details
- NAT00090 - Client Disabilities
- NAT00100 - Client Prior Education
- NAT00120 - Training Activity
- NAT00130 - Program Completed
Frequently Asked Questions
- Will my statement's of attainment be imported?
- I have clients with no result recorded, what happens?
- My old system uses classes and occurrences, can these be created?
- Are my client's employment details carried over?
- Can my invoices be imported?
- What about my staff members?
- Have I missed anything?
AVETMISS 8 NAT Files
Below is a breakdown of each of the files that form part of an AVETMISS generation. The full specification can be downloaded from ncver.edu.au.
Organisation Details
Contains details about the organisation that delivers the training. Missing details can and often will be retrieved from training.gov.au.
| Organisation Identifier | This is your national RTO ID (may be different in QLD) |
| Organisation Name | Will be populated in both the Legal and Trading Name |
STATE SPECIFIC
| Contact Name | Primary contact of the organisation |
| Telephone Number | Telephone number of the organisation |
| Facsimile Number | Fax number of the organisation |
| Email Address | Organisation email address (often primary contact's email) |
Delivery Locations
Contains details of the various locations that your organisation delivers training. These could be physical locations with addresses, or include 'Online' locations where you deliver online learning with addresses that match your organisation's address.
| Organisation Identifier | RTO ID of delivery organisation |
| Location Identifier | Unique code associated with the location |
| Location Name | Name of the location |
| Postcode | Postcode of the location's address |
| State Identifier | State of the location's address |
| Suburb | Suburb/City/Town of the location's address |
| Country Identifier | The Location's country (usually Australia) |
Program File
Contains a list of each of the Programs delivered. These will be created as either a course or a qualification within VETtrak and will be populated with data available from training.gov.au
| Program Identifier | Qualification or course code |
| Program Name | Qualification or course name |
| Nominal Hours | Hours associated with delivery of program |
Subject File
Contains a list of all delivered units of competency or modules. This list is compared against those units that exist on training.gov.au to determine which training packages are required. Prior to importing NAT files, these training packages will be imported into VETtrak to allow enrolled units to be matched against an existing unit. If any units are not present (either because it is no longer present on TGA, or because it is a custom module), those subjects in this file will be created as modules within VETtrak at the time of import.
| Subject Identifier | Unit / module code |
| Subject Name | Unit / module name |
| Field of Education | Field of education attributed to the unit / module |
| VET Flag | Denotes whether the unit / module is vocational education |
| Nominal Hours | Delivery hours, where not available this will be zero |
Client Personal Details
Contains the basic details of a client that are required for reporting, and together with the next 3 files, the client and any relevant information will be populated in VETtrak.
If these files are reported to a state body, additional detail may also be present along with the below list. This will vary from state to state and includes data such as the LUI for Queensland clients, or the SACE number for South Australian clients.
Available in our help centre is an process article creating a client that details where much of this information will be populated. Whilst not all of the information in the article is present in the NAT files, it should give you a more visual representation of how these files translate into VETtrak.
| Client Identifier | Unique code associated with client for reporting (Not USI) |
| Name | Client's name in the format Surname, Given Other |
| Highest School Level | Highest school level attained by client (between 8 and 12) |
| Gender | Client's gender, either female, male or other |
| Date of Birth | Client's date of birth |
| Postcode | Residential address post code |
| Indigenous Status | Can be Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander, Both or Neither |
| Language Identifier | Language spoken at home where not primarily English |
| Labour Force Status | Whether the client is full time, part time, unemployed etc. |
| Country | Birth country of the client |
| Disability | Whether the client has a disability |
| Prior Education | Whether the client has any prior educational achievements |
| At School Flag | Whether the client is still at school |
| Address - Suburb | Residential address suburb |
| Unique Student Identifier | Client's USI |
| State | Residential address state |
| Address - Building | Residential address building (may be blank) |
| Address - Flat / Unit | Residential address flat or unit (may be blank) |
| Address - Street Number | Residential address street number |
| Address - Street Name | Residential address street name |
| Survey Contact Status | Whether the client can be contacted for communication |
Client Postal Details
Primarily a list of ways to contact a client. Will contain postal address details as well as email, telephone and so on. This file may be present, but is not required for NCVER reporting. The number of clients present in this file when it exists should match the number of clients in the previous file.
| Client identifier | Client unique code |
| Client Title | Client title (Mr./Mrs. etc) |
| Client First Given Name | Client first name |
| Client Family Name | Client surname |
| Address - Building Name | Postal address building name |
| Address - Flat / Unit Details | Postal address flat or unit details |
| Address - Street Number | Postal address street number |
| Address - Street Name | Postal address street name |
| Address - PO Box | PO box, where present will overwrite above details |
| Address - Suburb | Postal address suburb |
| Postcode | Postal address postcode |
| State Identifier | Postal address state |
| Telephone - Home | Client home phone number |
| Telephone - Work | Client work phone number |
| Telephone - Mobile | Client mobile phone number |
| Email Address | Client primary email address |
| Email Address - Alternative | Client secondary email address |
Client Disability
Where a client has a disability, they will have a record in this file identifying what disability they have. A client may appear more than once where multiple disabilities are present. This file may also be empty (or indeed not present at all) where no clients have disabilities.
| Client Identifier | Client unique code |
| Disability type identifier | A 2 character code indicating what disability is present |
Client Prior Education
Contains the list of any prior educational achievements the clients may have. This includes things like diplomas, certificates or other achievements. Similar to the above disability file, this file may or may not be present, and may be empty dependent on whether there are clients that have prior educational achievements or not.
| Client Identifier | Client unique code |
| Prior Education Identifier | A 3 character code indicating the level of education |
Training Activity File
This is the big one that contains details for each unit or module that has training activity recorded during the collection period. Using the details in this file, we are able to create stand alone contract (apprenticeship and traineeship) or non-contract enrolments for all recorded training.
When we look to review your data for suitability, this is the file that most often has issues, these records are imported verbatim so any issues present in the source data will likely be present in VETtrak post-import. Where issues are discovered, they will be investigated and where possible, a solution to make bulk changes will be implemented.
Where it is determined that repairing the data requires a human interaction, this will fall to you to resolve manually and every effort will be made to assist in locating those affected records as well as the steps required to correct them.
Lastly, the process article creating a client enrolment shows, excluding the optional section, the sort of data that will be populated against an enrolment retrieved from the NAT0120.
| Organisation Identifier | National RTO ID as it exists in the organisation file |
| Location Identifier | Location code from location file |
| Client Identifier | Client unique code from client file |
| Subject Identifier | Unit/Module code from subject file |
| Program Identifier | Course/Qualification code from program file |
| Activity Start Date | Result start date for subject |
| Activity End Date | Result end date for subject |
| Delivery Mode Identifier | Code indicating delivery (internal, external, workplace based) |
| Outcome ID - National | The outcome code (20 - pass, 60 - RPL etc) |
| National Funding Source | National funding code (20 - domestic, 30 international etc) |
| Commencing Program ID | Notes if subject is from previous year or commenced this year |
| Training Contract Identifier | Contract code, varies for state (Regn, TCID, COT, WAAMS) |
| Client Apprenticeships ID | Client contract ID varies for state (STA, Delta, LUI, VETA) |
| Study Reason Identifier | Code noting reason for study from predefined list |
| VET In Schools Flag | Whether subject is delivered as part of school system |
| Specific Funding Identifier | Commonwealth funding code for national 13 funded subjects |
| School Type Identifier | Classification of educational institute delivering subject |
STATE SPECIFIC
| RTO Outcome Identifier | Result code used by RTO for the outcome recorded |
| State Funding Source | State funding source code for state reported subjects |
| Client Tuition Fee | Total of tuition fee for subject |
| Fee Exemption/Concession | Indicates fee exemption or concession from predefined list |
| Purchasing Contract ID | Where required, this is the code of a purchasing contract |
| Purchasing Cont. Schedule | The purchasing contract schedule code of the above ID |
| Hours attended | May vary, generally attended hours of withdrawn outcomes |
| Associated Course ID | Varies for state, usually ties training to awards or funding |
| Scheduled Hours | Subject hours, usually matches hours in subject file |
| Predominant Delivery Mode | Indicates whether delivery is internal, external or workplace |
When having multiple years of NAT files imported, enrolments will be created for each year with the results present in each year. These will then be tidied up to remove units in earlier years that were later completed, whilst preserving the final outcome.
Program Completed File
Contains details of awards for clients that have completed training. Generally this will only contain full certificates as these are reported to your respective bodies. Statements of attainment are usually not reported and will not be present in this file.
| Organisation Identifier | RTO ID from organisation file |
| Program Identifier | Course / qualification code from program file |
| Client Identifier | Client unique code from client file |
| Date Program Completed | Date completed for the awarded course / qualification |
| Issued Flag | Indicates whether the award has been issued to the client |
STATE SPECIFIC
| Parchment Issue Date | Date the award has been issued when above flag is true |
| Parchment Number | Parchment / award / certificate number |
Frequently Asked Questions
Will my statement's of attainment be imported?
Generally not.
Statements of attainment are in most cases not reported to NCVER or the various state bodies and by extension, not included in the NAT00130. There are a 2 exceptions to this rule however; training for nationally recognised courses and completion of a nationally recognised skill set. Where an award has been created for one of these, a record will exist in the NAT00130 and can be imported as part of the process.
Should you require statements of attainment to be imported where they are not reported, then this will need to be discussed as part of the new customer process and may incur a cost depending on the scope of work required to extract them from provided files.
I have clients with no result recorded, what happens?
These units will not be imported.
Only training activity is included in the NAT files so a unit with no result, indicating that it has no activity, will not be included and not be present for the purpose of an import. This can extend further where a client has no training on any unit at all, which would mean the entire client would not be included in the import, rather than just a unit.
If these units are required then steps will need to be taken to ensure they are either present on the NAT files by way of a continuing result being recorded, or time set aside to add the missing units to the clients enrolments after they have been imported.
My old system uses classes and occurrences, can these be created?
Not from NAT files.
VETtrak has support for occurrences and classes as a way to deliver identical training over the same period of time to multiple clients at once. However, there is no data represented in NAT files that would allow for these to be created reliably.
VETtrak has 3 main types of enrolments; contract, non-contract and occurrence. Where data exists for the client apprenticeship identifier in the NAT00120, a contract will be created within VETtrak for the client and their units will be part of an enrolment within that contract. All other enrolments will be considered non-contract.
Are my client's employment details carried over?
No.
Employer details are not part of the AVETMISS specification and cannot be imported as part of the process, there are some options however.
If you are able to export data from your current system that includes the necessary employer information as well as a way to match it to a client, you can use the data import tools available within VETtrak to add the employers to the database and then link the employers to the client. Should this be required, support can be provided to guide you through the process.
Can my invoices be imported?
Not as part of the NAT files.
As above, these details are not part of the AVETMISS specification. Invoices could potentially be imported as part of a custom data import and would incur a cost.
What about my staff members?
No, as these are also not included in NAT files.
You can however, as with the client employment details above, use the importing tools within VETtrak to create the staff members. If you are able to export the list of staff members and any details you require from your current system, the client importer within VETtrak can be used to create these clients.
Have I missed anything?
Commonly after a NAT file import, there are a few questions asked regarding why this data or that is missing and this is most often because the data simply isn't in the NAT files to be imported.
If you're unsure about whether all of the data you need will be imported, ask yourself whether that specific data is reported to either NCVER or your state reporting body. If the answer is yes, then there's a better than average chance that data will be part of the NAT file import process. If the answer is no however, then that data probably isn't included and you should find some time to discuss options for getting other data into VETtrak.
There are solutions in place and steps available for a more custom import of data, though if required, a discussion should occur in advance as these will need to be scoped and cost appropriately, and performing a custom import as part of set up is more convenient than doing so after.
Conclusion
A NAT file import is an easy way to populate VETtrak with the data required to meet your reporting requirements. NAT files are the most common format of training data and as VETtrak is first and foremost a vehicle to report training activity to the government, these files can be imported efficiently and generally without major issue.
Worth noting however is that there are shortcomings to having a database created from NAT files alone. Understanding what is present in the NAT files is the first step to understanding whether additional data will also be required. If you are ever unsure, don't hesitate to ask your account manager or contact at VETtrak for further information.