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JANUARY 2016

How did 2015 shape up?

To no one’s surprise, the introduction of the USI created a

significant admin overhead for RTOs in 2015.

The start of the year was a challenging period for our support team as

RTO’s came to terms with the new USI requirements. This was followed

by the AVETMISS reporting deadline at the end of February. The good

news (there was some after all) only came in June: RTOs no longer need

to report CCOS (Competency Completions) since this information is

part of the AVETMISS data reported in February.

The Moodle (E-Learning) integration which was scheduled for mid to

late 2015 did not happen. Unfortunately, the Moodle partner organisa-

tion that agreed to develop a matching plug-in/component platform let

us down at the last minute. We are looking for alternative partners to

finalise this small project and provide our clients with an integrated

solution for this popular E-Learning platform.

A new USI 2.0 interface will be developed during 2016. The major

improvement for RTOs will be the “Locate USI” function. This interface

will be ready before October 2016.

As a result of the economic downturn, we had several RTO clients

closing business during the year. Nevertheless, the PowerPro RTO client

base keeps growing and we anticipate 2016 to be a consolidating year

for our industry.

The next pages will take you through the new functionality introduced

in this new Release. We hope you enjoy PowerPro RTO 2016.

TO-DO LIST PAGE 2

A new top level window enables users to create and

track specific tasks. Deadlines, priority tags and

status flags will assist PowerPro users organising

their weekly work in 2016. See page 2 for more

information.

STATE COLLECTION CHANGES PAGE 3

AVETMISS reporting requirements have changed

in Victoria for 2016. Smaller changes in PowerPro

RTO 2016 will help RTOs reporting in NSW and

SA. More on page 3.

SIMPLIFIED UNIT FEES PAGE 4

See how easy it is to manage Unit Fees for funded

Programs in PowerPro 2016. All on page 4.

TRAINER CONTACT LOG PAGE 5

Keep track of the contact made with your Trainers

using the new Trainer Contact Log feature. See

Page 5 for details.

SUPPORT FOR PAYMENT PLANS PAGE 6

Use Client Payment Plans to adjust to the financial

needs of your Clients. See the new Payment Plan

function on page 6.

WEB PLUG-IN IMPROVEMENTS PAGE 7

A few small changes to the web plug-in. Worth a

look. Pin Payments are coming early in the year.

See page 7 for more information.

OTHER IMPROVEMENTS PAGE 8

Small changes/improvements you will find in Re-

lease 2016. Compiled here for your convenience.

Page 8 has the full list.

UPGRADING TO RELEASE 2016 PAGE 9

Simple instructions on how to upgrade from Re-

lease 2015 to the new 2016 Release.

WHAT’S IN THE PIPELINE PAGE 10

A quick view at our 2016 schedule. Happy new year!

The yearly newsletter providing information on your RTO platform changes and

improvements

2 0 1 6

DIRECTIONS

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POWER PRO RTO

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Service is a journey, not a destination.Catherine Devrye

POWER PRO RTOJANUARY 2016

The ongoing admin work carried out by RTO staff members should not be overlooked. To assistwith this process, and as requested by our Clients, PowerPro RTO 2016 introduces the new To-doList function. The To-do List is available in all versions of PowerPro RTO (Lite, Single and Multi)and is accessible from the Home menu.

The To-do list includes open Contact Logs, open En-quiries and To-do tasks.

A To-do task could be something like organising aChristmas party by Tuesday or handing the Studentcertificates for a particular group to the Trainer by to-morrow.

Using a date range and an optional User Name filter,admin tasks will no longer “slip through the cracks”.

A colour tag can be used to prioritise each item.

The Type icon identifies the item type (Contact Log,Enquiry or To-do task).

A Status icon indicates whether the task is open orclosed.

Use the New>To-do Task drop down button to createa new To-do Task.

Use the New>Enquiry drop down button to create anew Enquiry.

Improvements to this new function may be rolled outthroughout 2016 as part of ongoing updates.

T O - D O L I S T

In New South Wales, State Training Services defined specific reporting requirements under the Smart andSkilled reform in 2015. These included the use of the “Outcome Identifier - Training Organisation” to reportany discontinued Students (TNC) and any deferrals (D):

Outcome Identifier - Training Organisation (NAT00120): “For discontinued Students the value TNC (Train-ing Not Completed) should be used; for deferral, the value is D (Deferred)”

PowerPro RTO 2016 includes a new field for this purpose: Enrolments>AVETMISS(NSW)>NSW Outcome Id

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Those who fail to prepare, prepare to fail.

POWER PRO RTOJANUARY 2016

Skills Victoria has introduced AVETMISS collection changes for 2016 reporting. This only affects RTOs re-porting any funded programs delivered in Victoria. The new fields are as follows:

Program Supervised Teaching Activity Completion Date (NAT00130):“The date upon which supervised training and assessment activity is scheduled to complete, in line with thestudent’s Training Plan, and should exclude assessment activity where the student is not directly participating,such as the time elapsed between the submission and evaluation of written assessments. Where a studenthas completed or otherwise discontinued their program enrolment, this date should reflect the occurrence ofthat event.”

Program Unique Supervised Hours (PUSH) (NAT00130):“The total number of unique hours of supervised training and assessment activity for the Program(Course/Qualification) enrolment. In this context Supervised means directed, structured learning, where a stu-dent has real time access to a trainer and/or assessor, independent of delivery mode.”

Funding Eligibility Key (NAT00120):“This element creates the ability for the Department to provide VTG funding for identified cohorts of students.Initial scope of this element is likely to include training to otherwise ineligible students under the AutomotiveSupply Chain Training Initiative.”

PowerPro RTO 2016 includes these new fields and generates VIC AVETMISS files as specified by SVTS.

More information on these fields can be found on the SVTS web site. The direct link is:http://www.education.vic.gov.au/Documents/training/providers/rto/Victorian%20VET%20Student%20Statistical%20Collection%20Guidelines%20-%202016%20-%20v2.pdf

In South Australia, a field called “SACE Student ID” has been a requirement since 2015:

SACE Student ID (NAT00120): “The Purchasing Contract Identifier is currently used to record the contractnumber supplied in the funded contracts for funding under Productivity Places Program, Skills in theWorkplace and specific state contracts. This contract number should be supplied to the organisation with theircontract and must be entered accurately.SACE Student ID numbers are also entered here for students study under VET in Schools.”

PowerPro RTO 2016 includes a new field for this purpose: Enrolments>AVETMISS(SA)>SACE ID

S T A T E C O L L E C T I O N C H A N G E S

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As products improve, so do customerexpectations. Catherine Devrye

POWER PRO RTOJANUARY 2016

Most funded Training Programs across all States and Territories require the Client/Unit Fee val-ue to be reported when lodging any funding claims. This has always been possible in PowerProRTO however it was time consuming as a dollar figure had to be entered against each unit. Pow-erPro 2016 brings good news hereby providing a Fee per Hour price list:

Upon enrolment, the Unit fees are applied to the Client, based on the Course Qualification level,Fee Exemption/Concession type and Unit nominal hours.

Should you need to update the Unit Fees for an enrolled Client, please use the new Update UnitFees button (Enrolments>AVETMISS or Enrolments>RAPT):

S I M P L I F I E D U N I T F E E S

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If a job is worth doing, it’s worth doing well.

POWER PRO RTOJANUARY 2016

This function was suggested by several clients. Very similar to theClient Contact Log, the Trainer Contact Log will be easy to useand look familiar to any PowerPro user. Thanks for your valuableinput once again.

T R A I N E R C O N T A C T L O G

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Hire character. Train skill. Peter Schutz

POWER PRO RTOJANUARY 2016

Another popular request from our clients has been to integrate aPayment Plan subsystem for better tracking Client (Student) pay-ments. PowerPro 2016 introduces this functionality.

Adjust the Start Date, Instalment Frequency and Duration and thesystem will calculate the Instalment dates and Instalment value.

Once the Payment Plan is created, use the paid flag to indicate flag any payments received.Overdue payments will show as a red date.

P AY M E N T P L A N S

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The only way around is through.Robert Frost

POWER PRO RTOJANUARY 2016

The Web Plug-in has the following improvements in 2016:

Capture the Referral/Lead Source upon enrolment.Capture My Fields upon enrolment (can be set as mandatory or optional).Changed the Course field to be mandatory and rendered as a drop down list(on the Learner Surveys).

We are working on an alternative payment “gateway” (Pin Payment) for Web Enrolments. The feesare very reasonable: 1.75% + $0.30 per transaction as opposed to the current 2.6% + $0.30. ETA:March 2016. More info on Pin Payments at https://pin.net.au/

W E B P L U G - I N I M P R O V E M E N T S

Qualification Rule: “Max Points (cap)” for Unit Groups and new view in Enrolments>Outcomes.

Client Licences: Configure Licence types in Application Options>Clients>Licence types.

Enquiries: Option to assign colour coded priority tags and to attach documents.

Continuous Improvement Register: “Qualification/Unit” optional field.

Client Documents: ability to link document to up to 8 Units.

Continuous Improvement Register: “Qualification/Unit” optional field.

Company Documents: ability to specify document type (Configure in App. Options>Companies).

USI: option to require First Name/Surname/DOB/USI match as opposed to just Surname/DOB/USI.

Invoicing: “Export this Invoice” field prevents specific invoices from exporting to Accounts Ledger.

Cert. III Guarantee (QLD): new “Survey” tab to record/track/report C3G specific survey.

RAPT: ability to specify “Delivery Strategy” (no longer mapped from AVETMISS code).

Long Client names: use the new Override name fields for Clients with longer names.

Qualification check: improved performance/response time.

Mail Merge Clients: new merge field - “cli_custom”.

Invoicing template merge: new merge fields “My_f1, My_f2,…”.

Training Matrix: shows “N/A” for any Unit/Module the Client is not enrolled.

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Everything you can imagine is real. Pablo Picasso

POWER PRO RTOJANUARY 2016

This section lists smaller improvements found in Release 2016. These are in no particular order so pleaseread on.

Most of these changes are a result of your ideas. Thanks again for contributing to our ContinuousImprovement process.

O T H E R I M P R O V E M E N T S I N T H I S R E L E A S E

1. Make sure all users are logged off from PowerPro RTO.

2. From a PowerPro workstation , download and run the following (needs to be run only once fromany workstation): http://www.powerprorto.com.au/tms/2016/2016.exe

This should download quickly but might take a couple of minutes to run, depending on the size ofyour database. Please do not try to stop/kill this process. It should finish with the message “Data-base updates succeeded”. If this is not the case please contact us and we will assist.

3. On each PowerPro workstation, download and run the following:http://powerprorto.com.au/tms/2016/workstation.exe

All done. Login to PowerPro RTO and you will be on release 2016.

Important:

The “To-do List“ and the “Trainer Contact Log” functions are disabled to all users (except forRTOADM) until such actions are allowed in the User Roles. Please browse toConfiguration>User Roles & Actions> 3 (for the To-do List) and 8 (for the Trainer Contact Log).

Custom reports:

Due to the increased demand of Custom Reports we are introducing a very reasonable cap of 24new custom reports a year for each RTO. This measure is to ensure we can keep providingour clients with the support service we are known for. Additional Custom Reports (above the 24cap) will be charged an additional fee and require client consent.

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Don’t count the days, make the days count.Muhammad Ali

POWER PRO RTOJANUARY 2016

Upgrading to Release 2016 is a simple process. Please follow these instructions carefully and you shouldbe running the new 2016 Release in a matter of minutes.

U P G R A D I N G T O R E L E A S E 2 0 1 6

Trainer Web Plug-in: Give your Trainers/Assessors the power to result their students from theirphone, tablet, laptop or PC. Trainers will have secure password protected access and will only “see”their Students. A demo is available at http://powerpro.appvault.com.au/trainer/homeUser: pedro@vidatek.com.au Pass: passwordETA: February 2016.

Pin Payment option (alternative to PayPal) for Web Plugin.ETA: March 2016.

Moodle Integration.ETA: June 2016.

USI 2.0 including USI Lookup functionETA: September 2016.

Thanks for taking the time to read this newsletter, that’s all for now. We wish our Clients a happy,healthy and prosperous new year. Your team: Alison, Serge, Niels and Pedro.

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There are no hard times for good ideas.H. Gordon Selfridge

POWER PRO RTOJANUARY 2016

Anticipating a steady and consolidating calendar year in terms of Training regulation, we planned the fol-lowing developments for 2016:

W H A T ’ S I N T H E P I P E L I N E ?