Release 6.15 - 23rd June 2026

Exempting Qualifications

We have aligned the qualification exemption experience with the existing functional skills exemption flow, making it significantly quicker to manage prior learning for non-functional skills qualifications.

What's new:

  • Exempt an entire qualification in one step. You can now exempt a non-functional skills qualification directly from the Set Learning Plan Exemptions page, without having to individually exempt every unit first. A single "Exempt this qualification" action sets the exemption reason across the qualification and all of its units at once.
  • Automatic ILR removal for fully exempt qualifications. When a qualification is fully exempt, Bud now automatically removes the corresponding aim from the learner's ILR record. This mirrors the long-standing behaviour for functional skills exemptions and eliminates the manual follow-up step that was previously required.
  • Automatic ILR reinstatement. If an exemption is subsequently removed from a qualification, the aim is automatically reinstated in the ILR on the next generation — no manual intervention needed.
  • Consistent experience across aim types. The exemption flow, UI, and ILR behaviour for non-functional skills qualifications now behaves identically to functional skills, giving trainers a single, familiar process regardless of aim type.

The new exemption functionality will be present in the edit flow following this release. For further information, please see this article.

 

Make a file optional for Submissions – Flexible Learning

This release builds on our last release, and brings the file-optionality flag in to Library activities. You can now set whether an activity requires a file within the submission at the point you build it in the Library, so the choice is baked into your reusable content and carries through to Programme definition and Learning Plans. 

  • Set whether a file is required directly on the Library activity, so the decision is built into your reusable content from the outset
  • Configure once and reuse: the file requirement travels with the activity into your programmes and plans, keeping it consistent without per-instance setup.
  • Trainers retain the authority to close an activity as complete, with or without a file
  • Learners aren't held up by a file requirement that doesn't fit the activity, giving a cleaner path through activities that were never about producing a document

With Library activities now covered — alongside manual activities, learning plans and programme definitions — making a file optional is available everywhere you build activities in Bud.

 

Bug Fixes 

In this release we have fixed the following bugs:

  • We've fixed an issue where files embedded in a Library activity's instructions didn't appear once that activity was added to a programme. This was a display issue at the programme level only — the file was always present on the learner's plan, so learners were never without the content.
  • We've fixed a bug where, after a published activity's hours were changed in the Library, the programme builder kept showing the activity's hours as they were before the change was published. Anyone enrolled was on the correct version with the correct hours, so this was a display issue in the programme builder only.


Business Intelligence Release - 24th June 2026 @ 3:45pm
 

ILR Compliance Reports

In this release, we have added 23 new ILR validation rules covering:

  • EmpStat
  • ESMType
  • PriorAttain

These have been implemented as defined by the Department for Education.

 

New Data Warehouse fields

In this release we have made an adjustment to the Application tables to correct Application completion information. The following fields will now show the correct values for when the application was first completed and will no longer incorrectly update when going through the edit flow in the platform:

  • Completion Info - Completed by (Id)
  • Completion Info - Completed by
  • Completion Info - Completed Date 

Users interested in the edit flow dates can still access these in the Application Edits and Application Status History tables. 

The following fields will be added to the data warehouse in this release: 

Table Name Column Name Description Data Type Nullable
User Is Standard version manager Is a Standard version manager int Yes

 

Coming Soon

Apprenticeship Funding Rules

We have started development on the changes required for the Apprenticeship funding rules. 

The first of the changes, to add the 2026/27 academic year for the enrolment, will be available in the release on the 7th July.

To track the rest of the funding rule updates, please see this article.

 

Century Integration

We are hoping to release the first iteration of our integration with Century in next release on 7th July.

This will give you the ability to:

  • Set-up your integration settings in Bud
  • Add Century IA subjects to your Apprenticeship programmes
  • Edit the Initial Assessment section of Apprenticeship programmes
  • Automatic registration of the applicant on Century
  • The ability to capture Century IA results in the Apprenticeship enrolment

Please note, this is subject to final testing concluding in time for the next release.