Reviews

Review Types

In this release, we are introducing the remainder of the new Review Types. This concludes the Types, having introduced 7 into the platform. The ones in this release include:

Teaching and Learning – to provide specific sessions for Training Providers to teach Learners.
Start Review – supports the start of learning process.
Check-in – an informal type used for ad-hoc sessions as and when required.
Learner Support Review – for providing or planning Learners Support.
Exit Review – to be used when a Learner leaves programme.

The questions in these Reviews have been defined in partnership with our Customer Advisory Board to meet our customer’s needs.

For more information on the new Review Types, please see this article.

Reviews - notifications

For the new Review Types, we have added the ability for a Training Provider user to send an email notification to the participants of the Review when the Review is booked. This is the same functionality as the existing Progress Review and will apply to all Review Types.

Reviews - contributions

Following your recent feedback, we have extended the timeframe a user can contribute to a Review, from 7 days to 14 days, giving you greater flexibility when it comes to preparing for reviews.

For details on this feature see this article.

Review Webinar & Overview

We are hosting a webinar on 23rd April to walk through all of the new Review enhancements. If you haven't yet registered, you can do so here.

For more information on the Review workstream, please see this article.

Or for a walkthrough of the Review workstream, please see the below:

Skill Scans

Skill Scans in Self-enrolment

It is now possible to include the Skill Scan assessment in the applicant’s self-enrolment journey. This is a premium feature switch, so please speak to your Customer Success Manager about enabling this.

When the feature switch is enabled, all applicants on your tenancy will have the ability to complete the Skill Scan during self-enrolment if you have selected the programme before they start.

Please note that if you do not select the programme before the applicant enters self-enrolment, they will not see the Skill Scan.

As you may want to configure the Skill Scan in self-enrolment for applicants on specific programmes, you will be able to hide the Skill Scan in self-enrolment for specific programmes by updating the configuration in programme build. This will ensure that you, as the Training Provider, will remain in control of completing the Skills Scan. For more information on programme configuration, please see this article.

For more information on inviting applicants to complete the Skill Scan in self-enrolment, please see this article.

As we understand this will be the first time an applicant sees a Skill Scan, we have created a guide for them that will be accessible via a link on the page: https://support.bud.co.uk/hc/en-gb/articles/17518710440477-Completing-your-Skills-Scan-assessment

Skill Scans UI updates

We have started work on updating the UI of the Skill Scan feature. The goal is to improve the user experience by making the Skill Scan easier to navigate and complete. We are also improving the accessibility of the feature by updating the design and adding back-end functionality to help users using a screen-reader.

Please note that these changes will be applicable wherever the Skill Scan is show in Bud, including:

The applicant's self-enrolment journey
The training provider's enrolment view
All reviews where the Skill Scan is enabled

The first changes implemented in this release include:

Restructuring the layout of the page and how information is presented in the accordions. You can now open an accordion for a work aspect and see the score mechanism for all learning outcomes associated with that work aspect. This will make it quicker and easier to score the outcomes.
We have moved the criteria information into its own accordion, meaning that the information is not displayed when the work aspect is open. This is to reduce the amount of information immediately presented. However, the criteria information might help users to score the learning outcome, so this is still available by opening the accordion.
We have updated the scoring mechanism to include score boundary guides aimed at helping users to select a more accurate score. We have also updated the accessibility requirements on the score mechanism and the changed the design, so that it is more responsive on mobiles and tablets.

More changes to the UI will be made in the next release in May, including the addition of a new 'Discussion' section where you will be able to add supporting comments for each learning outcome.

For a walkthrough of the Skill Scan updates, please see the below:

Apprenticeship co-investment

Following the recent announcement by the ESFA and subsequent release of the updated funding rules, we have made changes to the enrolment logic to consider the new rules regarding employer co-investment that came into effect on the 1st April 2024.

For details of the changes made, please see this article.

Training Plan

Following the recent work completed to align the min-OTJH calculation in Bud with the ESFA’s, we have updated the explanation of the calculation used in Appendix B of the Training Plan document.

We have added additional wording to the Progress Reviews section of the training plan to clarify the format of reviews in line with the funding rules.

2024-25 ILR Specification

As part of our commitment to ensuring the Bud platform is ready for the new funding year in good time, we have started to introduce changes announced in V1 and V2 of the ILR specification document for the 24/25 academic year: https://guidance.submit-learner-data.service.gov.uk/24-25/ilr/overview

Many of the changes we will be making over the next few releases will not be valid until after 01/08/24. Where this is the case, this will be marked with a “Valid from 01/08/24” label. A similar label of “Valid to 31/07/24” will be used in the case of deprecated fields.

For the details of changes made and their respective release dates please see this article

Bug Fixes

In this release we have fixed the following bugs:

Previously, when a Progress Review was completed, the 'Review Overdue' alert didn't always get cleared down and removed from the Trainers dashboard. The alert informed the Trainer the Learner had not had a Progress Review within the provider configured timeframe. This caused unnecessary noise to our Training Provider Users and made the actions/alerts inaccurate. This has been resolved for instances where the Trainer for that Learner delivers a Progress Review. Note, only the Progress Review will clear these alerts, all other types of Review will not.
The incorrect duplication of LSF Funding and Monitoring records on the ZPROG aim is created following a return from a break in learning.

Business Intelligence - Tuesday 16th @ 7pm

Due to a release coupled to the front end we will be releasing at the same time as the main release (a day earlier than usual). Please note your reports may be blank for a brief time afterwards.

Standard Reports - Completed Payments

We have added a new report to the compliance section of Standard Reports to monitor completed payments. These can be accessed in the navigation footer of the page and follow the same layout as the scheduled and overdue payments reports.

We have also refined the employer slicer on all three payments reports to filter to the employer who paid / is due to pay rather than current employer.

Standard Reports - IQA Report

This page now has all status’ enabled and can be used to audit all completed, planned or in-progress samples. To retain loading times the status description slicer is set to In progress, withdrawal requested & approved, break requested & approved and in EPA. Other status’ can now be included by changing this slicer.

Standard Reports - Review Types

With the recent changes to review types, references in this report to progress reviews have been changed to Reviews to encompass all review types where appropriate.

The following changes have been made to each page:

12 week tripartite: Only "Progress Review" review types are included in the calculation to work out last tripartite review and next tripartite review.
Missing Signatures: Review type has been added as a field in the data table and a slicer
All Progress Reviews: Review type has been added as a field in the data table and a slicer

Operations Dashboard - Review Types

With the recent changes to review types, references in this report to progress reviews have been changed to Reviews to encompass all review types.

We have also added last review type and next review type to the reviews page.

Employer Reports - Review Types