PowerPro RTO 2020 Newsletter Page 1

WELCOME • P.1

NEW FUNCTIONALITY • P.2

COMPLIANCE CHANGES • P.4

SMALL IMPOROVEMENTS • P.5

INSTALLING THE 2020 UPDATE • P.6

WHAT’S IN THE PIPELINE • P.7

ANNUAL REPORTING WINDOW IS OPEN NOW

INSIDE THIS ISSUE:

It is common place to talk about

shrinking years but 2019 just flew

by.

2020 brings PowerPro to its 12th

anniversary making me proud to

belong to the growing community

who keeps pushing our platform to

the next level.

Thank you all for the continuous

feedback and improvement

suggestions, PowerPro would not

be the same without your valuable

input.

Please read on and find out what’s

in PowerPro 2020 for you.

Happy new year!

Pedro Fonseca

The direct reporting window for 2019 AVETMISS

fee-for-service activity to NCVER is open from 2

January until 28 February 2020.

We encourage all RTOs to submit their AVETMISS

data as soon as possible to ensure reporting is

complete before the end of February deadline.

See the latest NCVER data support bulletin for

more detailed reporting information.

TWELVE YEARS OF SERVICE

* Happy 2020 PowerPro users *

STAY UPDATED

We hope you are having an optimistic

and re-energized return to work after a

holiday marked by sad and distressing

events.

Please keep us updated on any contact

changes on your end as we rely on it to

reach our clients.

Follow us on social media to ensure you

have access to all our products and

events.

Should you need any assistance

remember we are only 10 digits away

(08 9511 1040).

Please read on.

2020 NEWSLETTER

POWERPRO RTO WORKSHOPS IN 2020

Whether you are upskilling or have new staff

members requiring training, the public PowerPro

RTO workshops offer the best value for money

option. Besides the actual training, users will

benefit from the presence of an experienced

Compliance consultant and from networking with

other PowerPro users.

The public PowerPro workshops will be happening

between June and August this year. The exact

dates will be announced in the Workshops page on

our web site.

Please note: workshops are subject to a minimum

enrolments number.

Looking forward to meet you.

PowerPro RTO 2020 Newsletter Page 2

MASTER COURSES

Ready for a new concept? Introducing Master Courses. These are

Courses used exclusively as models from which to clone from. The

idea behind this concept is to ensure consistency when cloning

Courses.

Master Courses are exclusively used for cloning purposes. They do

not take enrolments and are not reportable. Master Courses are

configured in the Accredited Courses window and are omitted in the

Enrolments window. RTOs are encouraged to create Master Courses

for all the Courses offered.

COLOURED TAGS

Colour coded tags will help you identifying Client groups. Create tags by associating a colour with

a description. Examples of possible tags are: “International”, “Funded”, “Returning student”,

“Fees outstanding”.

1. Open Configuration>Application options>Client>Client Tags to configure the different tags

2. Use the Enrolments & Results>“Tags” column to set Client tags.

3. The “Tags” column in Enrolments & Results shows the different tags associated with a Client

4. Mouse hover the “Tags” column to see the description of the Client tags

UNIT PRE-REQUISITES

Some Units have specific enrolment requirements known as Pre-requisites. Set pre-requisites for your Units and access them from the Enrolments

window. Having easy access to the Unit’s Pre-requisite list improves compliance and effectiveness of the enrolment and resulting processes.

1. Use Configuration>Units of Competency>Unit Pre-requisites to set Unit Pre-requisites

2. Hover the mouse on the Unit PR icon (in Enrolments>Outcomes & Dates) to quickly view the list of Pre-requisites for that Unit.

Tracking Pre-requisites for each Student will be possible later this year. Keep your PowerPro updated to benefit from the ongoing improvements.

NEW FUNCTIONALITY

MASTER COURSES •

COLOURED TAGS •

UNIT PRE-REQUISITES •

LOCKED FINAL RESULTS •

PARCHMENT FLAG •

NEW REPORTS •

The new features packed in PowerPro

2020 are the result of a moderation process

based on a list of recommendations. These

were sourced by our Client RTOs who

through their daily use best know the

system. We have always believed this is

the most efficient approach which provides

way to meet your needs and to provide

your organisation with an ever improving

platform meeting this way its operational

and compliance requirements.

This section details the features introduced

in 2020 so you can consider their

application to your RTO operations.

Hopefully the use of these new features will

improve efficiency, data accuracy and

ultimately provide a better service to your

Students.

We hope you enjoy PowerPro 2020.

PowerPro RTO 2020 Newsletter Page 3

NEW FUNCTIONALITY (CONTINUING)

LOCKED FINAL RESULTS •

PARCHMENT FLAG •

NEW REPORTS •

XERO API INTEGRATION •

LOCKED FINAL RESULTS

Prevent final results being accidentally updated. This release introduces the “Update (overwrite)

final results” role action allowing you to control who can update these results.

All existing User Roles at the time of the update are granted this action.

Please review your User Roles and revoke this permission from those Roles that should not be

allowed to overwrite final unit results

PARCHMENT STATUS

Quickly identify Clients’ Parchment status. The new Enrolment list view shows an AQF column with a coloured dot indicating the

Parchment status:

• a green dot means the final Parchment has been issued

• a red dot means no Parchment has been issued

• a yellow dot means a Statement of Attainment has been issued for a Full Qualification Course

NEW REPORTS

Missing USIs report: 2020 incorporates an essential USI report. It lists any AVETMISS reportable Student for whom a USI has not been provided or has not

been verified. The “Missing USIs” report is found in the Compliance Reports group and filters on Students with training activity within a

specific calendar year.

Course Numbers report: Course Numbers report lists all Courses starting between dates detailing the number of enrolments, completions, withdrawals and failed

Clients.

These reports use a powerful reporting engine which we will further explore in 2020.

XERO API INTEGRATION

An interface between PowerPro and Xero is now available. Filtering Invoices and Payments on a date window it connects to the

RTO’s Xero database and uploads the Invoices and Payments directly into Xero. This plugin is highly configurable to ensure the

Invoices and Payments are linked to the right account and that any Xero custom fields are populated correctly from PowerPro.

The Xero API integration plugin costs $200 +GST per year. Please refer to the PowerPro RTO Xero API Guide or contact us for more

information.

PowerPro RTO 2020 Newsletter Page 4

COMPLIANCE CHANGES

AVETMISS 2020 •

TCSI •

AVETMISS 2020

NCVER is introducing minimal changes this year. These mainly relate to data validation. However,

there is one data element change which we must mention here:

• The new Funding Source National codes 31 and 32 replace code 30 (International Students). If

you have international Students transitioning to or enrolling in 2020, make sure their enrolment

uses the new codes 31 or 32 instead of code 30.

Skills Tasmania is introducing significant changes to their State reporting requirements – please

refer to the Skills Tasmania reporting specifications (to which PowerPro 2020 complies with):

https://www.skills.tas.gov.au/providers/rto/how_do_i_report_my_activity/

TCSI REPLACES HEPCAT/HEIMS

If the TCSI acronym does not ring a bell it means your RTO is not registered for Vet Student

Loans (VSL). Otherwise you will be glad to know that PowerPro 2020 complies with the new

TCSI file upload specifications. This replaces the current HEPCAT/HEIMS VSL reporting

solution.

Similar to the AVETMISS reporting subsystem, the TCSI compliance of PowerPro 2020 provides

all TCSI data elements as well as a file generator to produce the required TCSI Excel files. These

files are then uploaded by the RTO to the TCSI Data Entry Portal. This portal should be available

in the early months of 2020.

Please read this document for more information on TCSI in PowerPro RTO:

https://powerprorto.com.au/tms/qh/TCSITransitionGuide.pdf

We listen to you

PowerPro RTO 2020 Newsletter Page 5

BE A PART OF THE ARTS

LIGHTEN UP

POWERPRO SKY LEVERAGES YOUR

IT INFRASTRUCTURE COSTS

SMALL IMPROVEMENTS

WEB ENROLMENT FILES •

FASTER AVETMISS PRE-VALIDATION •

FUNDING SOURCE DEFAULTS •

TRAINER USI FIELD •

UPDATED POSTCODE LIST •

NEW COLOUR SCHEME •

WEB ENROLMENT FILES

Web plugin data files (Enrolments, Feedback, etc.) are now stored within the database (as

opposed to being stored in folders) for easier access and improved privacy. This makes the

enrolment files easily reachable for any user to import. Use Web>View downloaded files to view

downloaded files and export them if required .

FASTER AVETMISS PRE-VALIDATION

Pre-validate your AVETMISS data faster than ever with the 2020 Release. This process has

been re-engineered to improve your experience.

FUNDING SOURCE DEFAULTS

Set default Funding Source codes in your Courses using PowerPro 2020. New enrolments will

default to these pre-defined codes which will save you data entry time and reduce AVETMISS

errors. Use Course>AVETMISS to set Course Funding Source codes.

TRAINER USI FIELD

Release 2020 allows tracking Trainers’ USI. This option has been requested by several RTO

clients. Convenient when enrolling your Trainers in accredited Courses and a valuable field for

future system integrations.

UPDATED POSTCODE LIST

This release ships with the latest Postcode/Suburb reference list. This list is used during data

entry and when pre-validating AVETMISS data. The benefits of having an updated Postcode/

Suburb reference list are obvious.

NEW COLOUR SCHEME

The first thing you will notice is that PowerPro 2020 has a new icon. But there’s more: use

Configuration>Colour Scheme to try the new “2020-skin” look and feel. Enjoy :)

FULL RESULTS HISTORY

Track all changes made to a Unit Result throughout time. The new “View result history” menu

item is accessible from Enrolments>right-click on Outcomes & Dates and shows the full history of

that Unit Result including the date changed and the user name.

PowerPro RTO 2020 Newsletter Page 6

INSTALLING THE 2020 UPDATE

POWERPRO SKY CLIENTS PLEASE NOTE •

UPDATING INSTRUCTIONS •

YOUR DATA BACKUPS POLICY •

POWERPRO SKY CLIENTS PLEASE NOTE

If you are a PowerPro Sky subscriber:

• Please contact us to schedule a convenient short downtime (30 min) and we will install the update for you.

• Ignore the remaining instructions on this page.

UPDATING INSTRUCTIONS

The update process is simple. Please follow these instructions and you should be running the 2020 release in a matter of minutes:

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

2 - From a PowerPro workstation, download and execute the following install file (needs to run only once, from any workstation):

https://powerprorto.com.au/tms/2020/2020.exe

This may take a few minutes, please be patient.

3 - On each PowerPro workstation, download and run the following file:

https://powerprorto.com.au/tms/2020/workstation.exe

All done. Log in to PowerPro RTO and you will be on release 2020.

YOUR DATA BACKUP POLICY

We take this opportunity to reinforce the importance of having a solid database backup procedure in place. It is the RTO’s responsibility to

ensure database backups are available should a data restore be required.

What to look for:

• Check if your Scheduled database backups are working

• Ensure there is a periodic off site (or online) backup copy procedure in place

Your IT company should be able to assist with this. Otherwise, feel free to contact us If you need any assistance.

Please ignore this if you are a PowerPro Sky subscriber since we take care of that for you.

PowerPro RTO 2020 Newsletter Page 7

BE A PART OF THE ARTS

WHAT’S IN THE PIPELINE

M2M AUSKEY REPLACEMENT •

CANVAS LMS INTEGRATION •

RPL ASSESS INTEGRATION •

STUDENT NOTIFICATIONS (SKY) •

CUSTOM REPORTS •

THANK YOU •

M2M AUSKEY REPLACEMENT

AUSkeys will be decommissioned by the 31st of March 2020.

Machine-to-Machine (M2M) credentials are replacing the Device AUSkey. To obtain a M2M credential please follow the instructions

provided by the Australian Business Register https://www.abr.gov.au/auskey/your-auskey-replacement

This guide and this video have been made available to assist organisations obtaining their machine credentials (please note we are not

able to assist you obtaining the M2M).

Our development team is updating PowerPro 2020 to work with the new M2M credentials. A compatible update (build) will be released in

late February or early March. This will ensure our clients can transition to the M2M without disruption of service.

RPL ASSESS INTEGRATION

The integration with RPL Assess (rplassess.com.au) is on our schedule for the first half of the year. This integration supports Student

provisioning (PowerPro to RPL Assess) and Unit resulting (RPL Assess to PowerPro). We will announce once this plugin becomes available.

In the meantime, why not check out this emerging platform? Stay tuned!

CANVAS LMS INTEGRATION

We are currently working on an API integration with this popular E-Learning platform. As you would expect this will support Student

provisioning (PowerPro to Canvas) and Unit resulting (Canvas to PowerPro).

This plugin should be complete within the first half of the year and will cost $500 +GST per year.

STUDENT EMAIL NOTIFICATIONS (SKY)

Another module under development is a Student email notification function for PowerPro Sky. This module enables custom defined events to

act as triggers to fire a specific emails to Students. Examples of notifications are: Invoice overdue, payment plan instalment overdue, Workflow

stage completed and course completion feedback request.

Each notification type will require some setup therefore it will attract a cost. The notification setup cost is a $150 +GST one of fee.

This functionality is only available on the PowerPro Sky version.

CUSTOM REPORTS

In the last couple of years, we’ve seen a gradual increase in the number of Custom Report requests. The development effort/time

required to fulfil these requests became quite significant and is affecting the number and quality of improvements packed in the

PowerPro software builds.

To provide a more streamlined reporting service and to ensure the availability of resources required for the continuous improvement

of PowerPro we are introducing a token fee on new Custom Reports and on amendments to existing Reports.

As of March 1st 2020, Custom Report requests will incur a $50 +GST fee and any adjustments will cost $25 +GST. These fees are

payable online upon report service request.

Thanks for your understanding.

THANK YOU

We hope you enjoy and benefit from PowerPro 2020.

Thank you for taking the time to read this newsletter and for your continued support.

The PowerPro Team