- [Eleze] Welcome everybody to the seventh webinar in the series of onboarding programs that we've been running over the last few weeks. My name's Eleze, I'm the Provider Market Access Manager and before we kick off, I'd like to acknowledge I'm coming to you from the land of the Gomeroi and pay my respects to elders past, present, and recognize any of our Aboriginal friends joining us here today. As per our process every week, please consider adding your questions to the Q and A area. This is quite a technical space so please be mindful if you have anything quite specific, it is probably better to approach us through our customer service team, but we'll drop information in as we go along. We also have a panel of people supporting us today, so what we'll do, we'll have the presentation and then we'll finish with the Q and A and but throughout the session we'll be attempting to answer your questions. Alright, it's my pleasure to introduce you to Di Rochford who's our Team Leader of the Customer Service and Operations Team and she'll be presenting the eReporting acceptable outcomes codes. Thank you, Di, over to you.

- [Di] Thanks very much Eleze. Yeah, so as Eleze mentioned, I'm Di Rochford, Team Leader for the Customer Service and Operations Team. And this presentation provides an overview of the Smart and Skilled eReporting process to assist you with meeting your reporting obligations under the Smart and Skilled contract terms and conditions. It serves as a quick reference guide on accepted training outcome codes, how to upload and submit Training Activity Data via eReporting, how to review Training Activity Data that has been submitted and to troubleshoot eReporting validation errors. The presentation will be available as a resource for you to review and it should be used in conjunction with the two eReporting user guides. I'd also like to acknowledge and recognize the ongoing custodians of the lands and waterways where we work and live and pay my respects to elders past, present and emerging and those joining us today. So what is eReporting and where can you access it? It's used to validate Training Activity Data to ensure compliance with the Smart and Skilled contract terms and conditions, AVETMISS requirements, which is the national data standard and other business rules. Training Activity Data is reported through successful submission of AVETMISS compliant data files. It's the only accepted method for reporting Smart and Skilled Training Activity Data to the department and that eReporting functionality is available within the department secure portal, STS Online under the RTO contract services menu. The objectives of eReporting are to enable providers to meet reporting obligations under the Smart and Skilled contract terms and conditions and operating guidelines. It's to allow the department to monitor student training activity under Smart and Skilled and to enable the department to make payments for Smart and Skilled training delivered subject to unit of competency or UOC outcome achievements. There are two main parts to how providers lodge Training Activity Data and in summary, without the technical details, the steps are for part one, first, export the data as NAT files from your Student Management System to create AVETMISS compliant data file. Then go to the NCVER website and use the AVETMISS validation software or AVS to validate the NAT files and fix errors. Then a CSV file is created from AVS. And you will need to rename the file to "CollectionProcessingSummaryReport.csv". Then the second part involves STS Online eReporting. So step four is to upload the CSV and NAT files to eReporting for validation. The data files and CSV file can be uploaded into eReporting by uploading all files within a compressed zip file or by individually selecting each of the files. Step five is to go to the check last validation report section to view a result summary of the submitted Training Activity Data. Then step six is if the results summary shows items with errors, the relevant students with errors must be rectified within the Student Management System and the entire process reinitiated. Please note that successfully submitted data that passes initial Smart and Skilled validation is assessed by the department before final data acceptance and payment is made within 28 days after data acceptance. The eReporting timeframe includes that Training Activity Data for a student must be submitted once training has commenced. A student has participated in at least one UOC and participation evidence has been collected before the expiry of the commitment ID or CID issued for the student at notification of enrollment. And please note that the CID must be created before training commences. At least once every 28 days, even if no UOC achievement stage has occurred and until the student has completed or discontinued the training, please note that you should also refer to section 18 of the Smart and Skilled Operating Guidelines for more details on this. You also need to be aware that each data file submitted to training services must contain data for every student that has commenced training under Smart and Skilled. Please note that an enrolled student has commenced an improved qualification when the provider has documented the enrolled student's participation in subsidized training for at least one UOC in the approved qualification and the provider has reported the UOC outcome code 70, which is continuing enrollment for that UOC. Please be aware the commitment IDs will expire if the Training Activity Data for the student is not reported within six weeks of the planned start date for all the Smart and Skilled programs except for Entitlement, Apprenticeships and Traineeships which will expire 10 weeks from the planned start date. Data files can be uploaded more regularly than once every 28 days, example, weekly or daily, noting that the daily quota for submitted data files is capped at three files per day. And please note for the TPPPQ Program training commencement must occur within the training commencement period specified in the provider activity schedule or PAS. There are accepted outcome codes for student training activity data. You need to prepare your student training activity data through your Student Management System according to the Smart and Skilled contract terms and conditions and use the outcome codes that are aligned with the contract on page 11 and are seen in the table on the right of this slide. Accepted outcome codes are outcome 20, which is competency achieved or passed for the enrolled student, satisfying all the requirements for the UOC, outcome 30 which is competency not achieved or fail for the enrolled student not satisfying all the requirements for the UOC. Outcome 40 is withdrawn, here the enrolled student has participated in subsidized training for the UOC and has withdrawn before completing all the training and assessment. Outcome 51 is recognition of prior learning granted or RPL. Here the student has successfully undertaken a recognition process to satisfy all the requirements of the UOC. Outcome 60 is where the student has received a credit transfer to satisfy all the requirements of the UOC. And please note that notification of RPL and/or credit transfer through eReporting will result in a recalculation of the fee and subsidy. If these are reported late, it may result in an overpayment which will need to be repaid to the department. Outcome 70 is continuing student where the enrolled student has participated in subsidized training for the UOC and no other UOC outcome achievement has occurred. And outcome 85 is not yet started and used if the student has enrolled in the UOC but training hasn't commenced. More information about outcomes will be provided in next week's webinar on guide to participated in subsidized training. So for guidance and instructions on eReporting including submitting data files in STS Online eReporting, it is important to use and follow the Smart and Skilled eReporting user guide and the Smart and Skilled eReporting technical specifications and business validations user guide which I'll abbreviate to technical specifications user guide in this presentation. These are located on STS Online under RTO Contract Services Support documents. Use the user guide filter where you see the red arrow on the screenshot to assist you in finding these documents. There are various technical specifications to be included in Smart and Skilled eReporting. Training Activity Data submitted must be in accordance with the AVETMIS Standard Release 8.0 specification. The full AVETMIS Standard for VET providers can be found on the NCVER website under the RTO Hub AVETMISS for VET provider section, which includes the VET provider collection specifications and data element definitions. AVETMIS allows for states to define specific requirements for some fields under Smart and Skilled. eReporting uses the below the line fields in the NAT 120 file and NAT 130 file. For the NAT 120 file, they are outcome identifier, training organization field used to record training not completed or TNC or training deferred, which is D. Purchasing contract identifier field used to record the CID and predominant delivery mode field. For the NAT 130 file, the below the line fields are parchment issue date field and parchment number field. Please refer to pages four to five of the technical specifications user guide for more on this section. Other information to include with Training Activity Data are a complete list of UoCs or modules for the qualification course or part qualification/course. The planned start and end dates, which should be actual dates and a relevant outcome code for each UOC as they are achieved. Please note as training starts and completes the data in the next data file submitted must be updated to include outcomes as they are achieved. Table nine on page 15 of the technical specifications user guide provides the codes for reporting the Smart and Skilled Targeted Priorities Pre-vocational and Part Qualifications Program or the TPPPQ using the NAT 30A and NAT 30 files as you can see in the screenshot on this slide. As mentioned earlier, the first part of the eReporting process is to use the AVETMISS validation software or AVS to validate Training Activity Data. This is to ensure the Training Activity Data complies with NCVs format requirements. All NAT files must pass AVS validation. Please note that files generated from the Student Management System and NAT files and would generally start with the letters NAT followed by numbers. For guidance on how to use the AVS, use the resources available from the NCVER website. For inquiries regarding AVS or AVETMISS error messages, you should contact NCVER using the contact details on the right side of this slide. In summary, when validating NAT files in ABS, the following should occur. When validating training activity data for Smart and Skilled programs under collection details, choose the appropriate year and period from the dropdown menu. The screenshots to the right show examples of quarterly and yearly reporting. If you are choosing the period Jan to December tick the allow continuing outcomes for activity ending this year box. For further instructions, refer to the AVS user guide. Under the AVETMISS data validation requirements, there are also preliminary data checks which are conditions that you can set prior to validating the NAT files at the collection processing screen. The preliminary check button becomes active after adding and uploading your files. The two boxes you need to select to accommodate New South Wales specific requirements are exclude all validations relating to activity end date on NAT 120 and exclude all validations relating to activity start date on NAT 120. See the red circles on the screenshot to the right. Once your data has passed validation, you'll receive a CSV file which you need to save using the correct file name format. When you receive an export the CSV file from AVS, the system will add your provider name to the end of the file name. When saving the file, you need to remove your provider name from the file name as the STS Online eReporting system will only accept a CSV file with the name "CollectionProcessingSummaryReport.CSV". The second part of the eReporting process is submitting data files in STS Online eReporting. For this, you need to log onto STS Online and click the RTO contract services menu and upload the Training Activity Data under Smart and Skilled eReporting. And please note it's recommended to use Chrome as your browser. You can upload either via a zip file or files individually. To upload a zip file, click Browse to select file and click on Upload. The screenshot at the top, see the screenshot at the top right of the slide. Or to upload individual NAT files, for each file click Browse to select a file and when all files are selected, click on Upload. See the screenshot at the bottom right hand side of the slide. Once CSV and net data files are submitted, you need to review your data upload results. Please note that upload results may take 24 hours or more from the time of upload. An email will be sent to the user who uploaded the file prompting them to view the last validation report. Then to review the result of your last upload, click on View Last Validation Report from the STS Online menu. See the red arrow on the left side of the slide . And check for any errors. Failure against at least one of the validations for a particular student will result in all data related to that student's qualification or course enrollment being rejected from the same upload. This takes you to the results summary where you'll see number of items without errors and number of items with errors. To see the number of items with errors, click on the View Items hyperlink where the red arrow is in the screenshot at the bottom of the slide. This takes you to the items with errors page, see the screenshot. Where you'll see the error ID numbers, some of which you will need to check and troubleshoot the error using the technical specifications user guide. Please note that the Excel file export is also available. Click on Save As Excel at the bottom of the student list. The same export is also available back on the validation report summary page where you click on the export to Excel link. For guidance correcting validation errors refer to table 10, pages 17 to 33 in the technical specifications user guide. Table 10 lists a validation number or error ID number, the validation system generated message you have received and the troubleshooting tips you'll need to use to correct the error. Please note that all errors need to be fixed in your Student Management System. If you need more assistance, please contact the Customer Service and Operations Team who are there to help. There are 93 error IDs in Table 10. The most common of these are in the table below and are the 1003 which is earliest start date, can't be changed after commencement of training. 1065 is particular CID is not active. 1110 is UOC supplied and not in accordance with the training package rules for the particular qualification. And 1113, the required number of core UOCs for this qualification specified in the training package has not been submitted. There are three categories of student for reporting student progress under the AVETMISS data export requirements. Students who have commenced or are continuing training in the qualification, students who have completed training in the qualification and students who have discontinued or deferred training in the qualification. For instruction on reporting students who have commenced or are continuing training and qualification refer to pages seven and eight of the technical specifications user guide. In the NAT 120 file for each UOC, report the relevant outcome codes and start and end dates as shown in table 4A from the user guide and showing in the screenshot to the right. Please note the earliest UOC start date confirms the commencement of training in a qualification. For instruction on reporting students who have completed training in the qualification refer to pages eight and nine of the technical specifications user guide. In the NAT 120 file report the UOC for the student as shown in table 4B showing in the screenshot to the right of the slide. In the NAT 130 file indicate completion as per the AVETMISS Standard. Please note, once a student is reported as completed, the student's CID record will have a status of finalized and no further data can be submitted. For instruction on reporting students who have discontinued or deferred training from the qualification refer to pages 9 to 11 of the technical specifications user guide. In the NAT 120 file for each UOC, report the relevant outcome codes and start and end dates as shown in table 4C showing in the screenshot to the top right of the slide. Report TNC or D in the outcome identifier Training Organization field against all UOCs. Please note, you may only permit a deferral or deferrals totalling no more than 12 months from the date of receipt of notice from the enrolled student. The screenshot at the bottom right of the slide shows an example of a NAT 120 file for a student being reported as discontinued. It's from the technical specifications user guide. In addition to reporting student progress, you should also report on students who have transitioned from a superseded qualification to a current qualification. Where a student has transitioned from a superseded qualification to a replacement and current qualification and commenced training in the current qualification, you should submit Training Activity Data which reflects the transition of training to the current qualification. This situation is complex and is explained on pages 11 to 13 and in appendix two superseded qualification scenarios on pages 50 to 54 of the technical specifications user guide. Please also contact the Customer Service and Operations Team if you need assistance with this. The Customer Service and Operations Team will review your successfully submitted Training Activity Data to assess whether it is sufficient for determining whether any payments are due to you under the contract and may take any or all of the following actions, seek data clarification, seek evidence, reject Training Activity Data. This may occur because the data reported may not have met contractual requirements. If you receive a request for data clarification or request for evidence, please respond within the requested timeframe of seven working days. If data is confirmed as inaccurate or no response is received from you within the required timeframe, the data will be rejected and your organization will be requested to resubmit the correct data. The steps to receiving your payments are once the successfully submitted Training Activity Data is assessed and it meets the UOC outcome achievement stage and payment installment as per the Smart and Skilled contract terms and conditions. The Training Activity Data will be deemed as accepted. Then the payment may then be made within 28 days. You need to ensure there's enough financial cap for the activity period so that the payment installment can be made. Except in the case for SBAT, A and T, and TPPPQ Programs. Please note further evidence may be requested from you regarding Training Activity Data associated with the payment. Finally, the Customer Service and Operations Team are here to assist you. You can email us at TSNSWcust.service@det.nsw.edu.au or call us on 1300 772 104. And to allow us to best help you, please include in your inquiry your legal org ID and name, commitment IDs or training contract ID for A&T and the error code received if applicable and a full description of your inquiry. Thank you. This concludes the eReporting presentation.

- Thank you very much Di. I really appreciate you taking us through that highly technical presentation and I can see that there's been a few questions and we've attempted to answer that. Just general reminder, hopefully now all providers have been received information from their regional provider support managers and/or their strategic relationship managers. We've got the details there also of the Customer Service and Operations Team as well as if you have any particular questions regarding apprenticeships and traineeships. We do have the local regional office contact details there as well. A big shout out to the team supporting these onboarding webinars behind the scenes and a big thank you again to DI for taking us through that. So I'm going to go through, see if we can answer some of the FAQs live. So I might draw on Di or other team members in the background but recognizing some of it may be technical and we may need to ask you to approach our Customer Service Team with some more information. So I'll start with the first one from Tom. Is it required to report all UOCs of a qualification when a student starts their core, noting electives must change or do we only report 85 in between them officially enrolling into a unit until they commence that unit? Di, is that something you're able to answer please? Thank you Di. Yep, go ahead.

- [Di] Yes, so you report 85 until you've collected participation evidence. So if you've officially enrolled them, yes 85 and then you need to wait for participation, that you've collected your participation evidence before you move to the next outcome.

- Thank you. Di, might go back to you with this one too. This is from Sian, how should we report students who are in the process of an RPL assessment that is taking some time to ensure we don't receive incorrect funding?

- [Di] I will take this one on notice I think Eleze, we just need to get a little bit more information about that.

- All right, thank you. Is there a requirement to have statements of attainments reported as well? I'm assuming that's under the TPPPQ Program. Can I have anyone answer that one please on the team? I'm assuming that is a yes.

- So I might be able to have a crack at that one Eleze if it's okay.

- Okay, thank you.

- Yeah, good afternoon everyone. So with the reporting and the Training Activity Data that's associated with that, essentially the reporting is occurring on all the units of competency that are relevant to the commitment ID that's been set up in the system for that enrolled student. So by default we obtain the Training Activity Data from the submission of the Training Activity Data that the provider gives us and then we obviously store that within our system. We report that information to NCVER on a quarterly basis and that information is used to update the USI registry where students can inquire regarding the outcome of their particular qualifications. So the statement of attainment per se is not necessarily reported but it's the units of competency that make up that statement that are reported through the submission of Training Activity Data. Thanks Eleze.

- Thank you Andrew. I might just go to you with this next one. Does an accredited skillset course belong to the program type of TPPPQ?

- It can do, yes. So the Smart and Skilled Targeted Priorities Pre-vocational Part Qualifications Program is designed for part qualifications and can include accredited module course modules and certainly skill sets and also combinations of units of competency. So yes, it could belong to that program.

- Great, thank you. Just go back and see what's being answered. Thank you Andrew. I'll just, sorry guys scrolling through. Just to answer a few questions that are coming up here in regards to future webinars, we will be sending out a survey to providers to ask for your feedback obviously on the webinars but also to see where there may be some gaps and suggestions for future webinars and we'll take those all into consideration. So that survey will come out to you in the next couple of weeks as we wind up the onboarding program. So please look out for that but we'll make the note of your comments here as well. Okay, sorry, let me just scroll back, make sure I haven't missed anyone. Okay. I think this one might come back to you Tom. A question to clarify, would we report tentative electives or wait to have, oops sorry, wait to have confirmation from students therefore we may only report a handful of units until we reach each new unit enrollment, regarding outcome 85? I dunno if-

- [Linna] Eleze, it's Linna, I'll answer the question in relation,

- Thank you.

- [Linna] to the outcome code 85.

- Sure.

- [Linna] So at enrollment a provider's required to at least identify the units of competency required for the qualification the student is undertaking. That includes the core and elective. So what we say in the contract is they're required to have a training plan in place within 20, at least 21 days from the day of enrollment.* When you are required to report the Training Activity Data or units or competencies for that qualification for that student must be reported. If the student has commenced training, that means the student has participated in subsidized training that exceeds meer attendance, exceeds the induction or accessing the learning materials, the 70 continuing enrollment is required to be reported. If they do not have any evidence of participation in subsidized training, a future start date is needed and an outcome of not yet started, which is 85, is required to be reported and that goes on as a lot as a student continues in its training or its journey through that qualification.

- Thank you Linna, appreciate that. This is a question I'm not sure who will answer this one. Particularly UOC is considered an imported unit in the training package. Will this be recognized when it is reported or will it come up as an error?

- [Linna] Any qualification, so the rules around the qualification is that you must have the core units and the elective that meets the training package rules. So if the qualification requires 12 units, then 12 units of competency should be reported. If unless the student is wanting to undertake additional units of competency, there's no restrictions as long as the minimum number of units for that qualification is being reported.

- Thank you. Thanks very much. What will happen for the withdrawn student that has completed UOCs? I'm not sure if that's, if I read that out correctly. We might need.

- Okay, so that's what we call a training not complete dataset that should be reported. So for the units where they have participated in subsidized training, the 40 withdrawn outcome code is reported and then a TNC if they have not commenced any of the other units is required to be reported against the commitment ID. So there's two sets, which is the 85 and the TNC is required that shows that the student has actually discontinued the training.

- Thank you. Linna, I'm not sure if you'd like to take this next one or Andrew, when can we expect to receive an invite to apply for part qualification Smart and Skilled?

- Yeah, ma'am.

- Yeah, sure. Sure I can have a crack at that particular question. So the Smart and Skilled Pre-vocational Part Qualifications Program is essentially set up with two fundamental components. One is called a training needs identification form and the other one is a provider activity schedule, what we affectionately refer to as a PAS. So once a provider is contracted under Smart and Skilled and wishes to and has been approved to deliver part qualifications and they wish to submit a training needs identification form, it's that needs based form that can be considered by the local training services New South Wales regional office in line with a range of priorities that exist for that particular program. So I think the message there is if you've identified a need that can can link in with a priority, then the submission of the TNI form can occur. There's not necessarily a guarantee that funding will flow. In other words, a no guarantee that a provider activity schedule will result from that training needs identification form. Obviously there are many training priorities out there. Also encourage all providers who are interested in part qualifications to look at the policy and the guide, which is on STS Online. That gives you some further insights about how that whole program is managed. Thanks, Eleze.

- Thanks, Andrew. Appreciate that. This question is around training plans need to be completed within 12 weeks of commencement for EFQ, not within 21 days of commencement, which has just been referred to. Can someone please clarify that or Linna are you happy to take that back?

- [Linna] Yeah, I have to get the contract. Sorry.

- That's okay.

- [Linna] It's that it's specified in operating guidelines around training plan and when they should be developed and I'm pretty sure that whoever said 12 weeks is correct.

- Okay, thank you. If a student has enrolled in a course or a class after it has already started, should we report the unit they missed before enrollment as not yet started and training not completed? Or should we remove the UOC from their enrollment? This would mean that the enrollment would not match the PAS. Is there anyone on the team that could, this is quite technical, is there someone able to answer that please?

- Yeah hi, it's Andrew again. I think we'll take that one on notice because there are probably some variables associated with that that we need to take into account to provide a case by case interpretation of that.

- Alright, thank you. It has been sent anonymously so if someone is responsible for that, please contact our customer service line. Thank you. Okay, so Zac, you're talking about the TPPPQ Program. I'm sure there is an update going out this week if it hasn't already been sent and I understand it has information around TPPPQ. And Linna or Andrew is there any format for training plan for referral? Oh, thank you Linna, you're answering that online. Alright, wonderful. Well thank you everybody, really appreciate you being with us and asking the questions. We'll, if there's anything there unaddressed, we'll make sure that we answer those and we're going to, there's been quite a few requests for the transcripts and information around the questions that have been answered. So we'll talk to our team behind the scene and see what we can facilitate so that you can get access to the answers as well. But-

- Eleze, can I just reiterate what I was saying about the training plan? The operating guidelines section 13 of the operating guidelines does specify 12 weeks of the training plan should be developed.

- Alright, thank you. Thanks very much for that. Appreciate that Linna. Thank you again everybody, thanks for the team behind the scenes. We really appreciate your support and we'll look forward to catching you next week. Next week's session is a 'Guide to participated in subsidized training.' So it's a nice follow on to the codes and all that we spoke about today. All right, all the best. Enjoy the rest of your afternoon and bye for now.