Change Automation – Add aim

You can now add an aim to a learner who is already in learning

Until now, a learner's aims could not be added to once they had started learning. Change automation - Add aim; changes that. When a learner progresses to the next level of Functional Skills, or needs a qualification that was not part of their original programme, their programme can now grow with them.

It also means programmes no longer need to be built for every eventuality. Rather than including every Functional Skills level at enrolment and exempting the ones not needed, you can add the right level once the learner's starting point is known.

An added aim reaches the learner's learning plan, Training Plan and ILR together, so there are no overrides to apply and nothing to re-key at the next return. Aims can also be recorded as non-funded or kept out of the ILR where needed. Every addition is kept in Change history with the reason, the date and who made it, so when and why an aim was added is always on record.

Add aim sits alongside Edit aim in Change automation, so it follows a journey your team already knows.

Who it's for: Compliance Admin and ILR Admin users, and anyone your organisation has given permission to edit aims.

For step by step guidance, see the following Knowledgebase article.

Modular Learning in Bud

Modular Learning is coming to Bud, and the first piece is here. Programme Managers and Programme Contributors can now create modules in the Library and add content to them, giving curriculum teams a head start on shaping flexible, modular delivery before it reaches learners.

At this stage, modules can be created and built out, but can’t yet be published or assigned to learners. That’s next.

Our Knowledge Base guide walks through creating your first module and adding content.

Coming soon: publishing modules and importing them directly into a learner’s Learning Plan.

Inclusion in Enrolment

We have updated the learner’s Apprenticeship self-enrolment workflow with the new inclusion questions. These questions will mirror the questions previously added to the training provider's view of enrolment and will enable learners to provide the information directly, resulting in more accurate answers and engaging learners with their inclusion needs at the earliest opportunity.

Specifically, the questions have been added to the following pages of the self-enrolment:

• Additional Personal Details
• Support & Access Requirements
• Qualifications

Please note that the questions added to the Qualifications page will only be displayed if the training provider feature switch to show the ‘Learner Preferences’ page is enabled. We recommend that you enable this feature to take full advantage of the Inclusion questions and data.

Like all questions in the self-enrolment workflow, either the learner or the training provider can answer questions in their view of the application and this will automatically update the other’s view.

More information on all our inclusion enhancements and a full list of questions can be found here.

Surface activity details to Employers

Employers can now open each activity in a learner’s learning plan to see the detail, including the instructions, supporting files, the assessment criteria it’s mapped to, and the hours logged against it. This gives employers the detail they need to support learners with their training without having to ask the provider, along with a clear view of what’s been completed and how many hours have been logged.

Exempt Learning Plan Assessments

Assessments can now be exempted from a learner’s plan in the same way as learning activities. When exempting, a reason must be selected from the existing list and commentary added, creating a clear audit trail. Exempted assessments stay visible on the plan but no longer count towards the learner’s progress, so the plan reflects what they actually need to complete, for example where prior learning has been recognised.

Instructions on how to exempt Assessments can be found here.

Bug Fixes

In this release we have resolved the following bugs:

• Apprenticeship enrolment – unable to open the funding document: In rare cases where the provider could not open the funding document after they have been signed during the enrolment process, this has now been resolved.
• Apprenticeship enrolment – incorrect practical period duration: Where the practical period duration was occasionally showing the wrong number of days, this has now been resolved.
• Apprenticeship enrolment – deleting employer evidence: Compliance Admin users can now delete evidence files that have been added to the employer’s page during the enrolment.
• Updated qualification dates on training plan: Once an update is made to qualification dates with the change automation – add aims workflow, the dates will now correctly update on the training plan document before and after it has been signed.  

Following the release a support-led data fix will no longer be required to ensure that the dates are consistently displayed before and after signing on the document. Until the release, this update to documents can be requested via a support ticket.  

• Funding adjustment for prior learning on restarted aims: The "Funding Adjustment for Prior Learning" field added to FS AIMs within learner's ILR, after they return from a break in learning, is no longer removed if the learner is withdrawn from their programme.
• Deleted Criteria flag incorrectly shown for Learners who went through a change of Standard version process - this has been resolved and the flag will only appear in the valid scenarios. 
• Change of Standard versions not apply KSB changes when a Learner skips multiple versions - if a Learner was to move from version 1.1 to 1.8, and 6 versions existed in between, the KSB changes were not always correctly applied. This has been resolved.  

Business Intelligence Release - 26th October 2026 (2:45pm)

Please note your reports may be blank for a brief time afterwards

ILR Reporting

In this release we have made some adjustments to ILR Reporting in Bud following the 2025/26 hard close deadline.

ILR Compliance Report

Changes to the below ILR validation rules following DfE changed to the rules;

• PlanLearnHours_02 - adjustments to funding models included 
• DateOfBirth_25 - now date bounded for learning aim start dates on or prior to the 31 July 2026 
• DateOfBirth_01 - adjustments to funding models included

ILR Reconciliation now uses the new ILR hours node for 26/27

In our Release 7.2 -15th September 2026 release notes, we explained that 26/27 learners had been temporarily removed from the Planned Hours report in ILR Reconciliation. The new ILR node for hours was causing these learners to be flagged incorrectly as mismatched between the Learning Plan and the ILR, so we kept reconciliation running for 25/26 to support your R14 processes up to hard close.

We’ve now reversed this change following hard close as part of this release. 26/27 ILRs are available again and reconcile against the new ILR hours node. The update applies to the following pages in ILR Reconciliation:

• Planned Hours
• ILR Learning Delivery
• Full Learning Aims

As the 25/26 year has now closed, 25/26 ILRs are no longer available on these pages.

ILR Reconciliation - Functional Skills Up-skill Reporting

Following the relaxation of English and maths requirements in apprenticeships, the funding rules no longer strictly require learners to progress on to Level 2 once they've achieved Level 1. To avoid any confusion, we've removed this check from the ILR Reconciliation report. 

If you've found it useful for your own internal processes and would like to see it return in another report suite, please let your Customer Success Manager know.

Data Warehouse Fields

Inclusion and Support

To support reporting around the new wellbeing and inclusion features in the platform, there are additional fields in ALS Plan and Application, as well as three new tables

• ALS Plan Impact
• ALS Plan People
• ALS Plan Support

Assessments

In support of the new Assessments feature, we have a new table - Programme Assessment. This holds details of assessments in the programme build. The Assessments table (which holds details of assessments on individual learning plans) now holds manually added assessments from the library, as well as details of exempt assessments. 

Note for ETL Customers - breaking change

In anticipation of adding assessments from programme builds to the Assessment table, the Due Date field has been made nullable. While manually added assessments all have a due date, it is possible for programme sourced assessments not to have a due date. These are likely to be added in a future release.

Reg & Cert Status

We have introduced 3 new columns to the Reg & Cert tables. These columns split out the status information currently contained in the singular status field making it easier to establish the exact state of an aim. These fields are:

• Registration Status
• Certificate Status
• Qualification Status

The full list of new fields is below.