onCourse Changelog

What's new in onCourse 8.0.2 Build 41432

May 5, 2016

This is a minor update for all 8.0 users to fix a problem with merged tutor records not correctly updating the tutor’s skillsOnCourse records. If you are on a cloud hosted onCourse instance, this fix was also included in the 8.4 update.

New in onCourse 8.0 (May 5, 2016)

Major Features:
Payment plans
A new concept for enrolment fee payments has been developed to allow for online enrolments by paying a deposit, and regular payments thereafter.
Payment plans consist of scripts which can be applied to classes en masse, and plans in individual classes with payment dates and amounts which can be modified as required.
The student fee window in the class has changed to allow for more options in creating and setting a class fee with a deposit and then additional amounts payable in relation to the class start date.
During enrolment, the default option of payment of a payment plan class is for the deposit component only, but additional amounts up to the full class fee can be taken at this time.
Any discount that applies to an enrolment will be deducted from the final payment amount.
The invoice window layout has also had significant change to clean up the view and accommodate the payment plan schedule. Within the payment plan invoice, payable amounts and due dates can be adjusted, added or removed, for the individual student. Any invoice can be manually turned into a payment plan invoice if the balance was not paid in full on enrolment.
The printed invoice template has also been updated to include the payment plan schedule of dates and amounts payable, as have the email templates.
When a student has an invoice with payment plan amounts due in the future, and they enrol in another course, the future payable components will not be added to their amount payable in Quick Enrol. Only overdue payment amounts will be automatically added.
A new access right has been created for payment plans. Ensure you update your access roles to allow the appropriate permissions for your staff to create and edit payment plans within both classes and invoices.
A new chapter of user documentation has been written for Invoices and Payment Plans
3rd Party Integration preferences
A new window to create integration preferences has been added to onCourse for the following popular commercial tools:
Moodle – A free, open-source PHP web application for producing modular internet-based courses that support a modern social constructionist pedagogy
Mailchimp – Online email marketing solution to manage contacts, send emails and track results
SurveyMonkey – Create and publish online surveys in minutes, and view the results graphically in real time. SurveyMonkey provides free online questionnaire and survey software
SurveyGizmo – An exceptionally powerful survey tool designed to make even the most advanced survey projects fun, easy and affordable
These integrations allow you to create your own links to external services and products you have purchased, and define with a corresponding script how onCourse utilises these services. For more information, read the new onCourse integrations chapter of the user handbook.
Custom field drop down boxes for onCourse and the web
Custom fields for contact records can now be made into drop down selections of choices for use inside both the onCourse application and on your onCourse enrolment website. This feature allows you to define a list of choices inside the custom field settings, separating each item with a ; e.g. Radio; TV; Internet; *
If you include an asterisk (*) in the list as per the example above, then your users will also have the option to type in free text as a response. You can also log into your onCourse CMS to make these custom fields, show or be a mandatory question as part of the online enrolment, waitlist or mailing list process.
Retaining outcomes on enrolment cancellation
Previously, when cancelling an enrolment in onCourse, all the outcomes associated with the enrolment were deleted as part of the cancellation process (unless those outcomes had been used to create a Statement of Attainment or Qualification record in onCourse, in which case they were kept). This meant that for funded courses, withdrawn students needed to be kept as active enrolments in the class to be reported.
Now when you cancel an enrolment, by default all outcomes with a status set will be retained. This allows you to cancel the enrolment for a funded student, making the place in the class available for another, while retaining their outcomes for reporting.
During the the enrolment cancellation a checkbox is ticked by default that says ‘Delete outcomes linked to this enrolment with status “not set”’. If you have not given any outcomes a status yet, this may mean all the outcomes attached to the enrolment. This will be desirable for most types of enrolments, where you do not want to report the student as having enrolled in this program at all for AVETMISS purposes.
If the student needs to be reported as a withdrawn student for AVETMISS purposes, you have two options. Either set the value of the outcomes before the cancellation process, and they will be retained by default. Alternatively, you can untick the option ‘Delete outcomes linked to this enrolment with status “not set”’ so all outcomes, both set and not set, will be retained. To avoid AVETMISS errors, you will need to make sure that any unset outcomes that are retained are given a valid outcomes status, such as 60 – Withdrawn after processing the cancellation.
There is no change to the cancellation process when cancelling a class. All outcomes will always be deleted, unless they have been used to to create a Statement of Attainment or Qualification record in onCourse before you cancel the class.
Addition of ‘Certificate Awarded’ and ‘Certificate Issued’ fields
By default, the date the certificate was created on is added to the ‘Certificate Awarded’ and the date the certificate was printed is added to the ‘Certificate issued’ field. For both these new fields, you can manually edit the date to any date you want.
The default onCourse Statement of Attainment, Qualification and Transcript certificates now show these fields instead of the ‘Created on’ and ‘Printed on’ fields. If you have a custom certificate template and need assistance in updating it, please contact us
Addition of Skills Sets to the Qualification table
You can now create courses in onCourse linked to Skill Sets rather than full Qualifications. This data is updated weekly from training.gov.au. The wording in various parts of the user interface has been changed to reference Qualification or Skill sets. From a course set up and AVETMISS reporting perspective, a skill set is treated similarly to a qualification. It is only during the certificate issuing process that a special type of Statement of Attainment will be issued, rather than an actual AQF Qualification.
Documentation links added to all onCourse edit window views
In the bottom left hand corner of each window you will now see a question mark icon. Clicking on this icon will take you directly to the page of the onCourse user documentation that explains how to use that part of onCourse. The link to the top level of the documentation is still available in the Help menu.
User defined payment types
onCourse now allows you to add your own type of payment methods, for example, VET FEE HELP, B-Pay or PayPal. You can also edit any existing payment type that is included in onCourse, or remove a payment type that you don’t allow at your organisation e.g. cheque, provided you have never taken any payments by that method.
Banking window restructure
The new banking window allows you to see all payment in and out transactions grouped together on their banking date, including those banked automatically such as credit card and EFTPOS. This will assist with reconciliation process, as well as allow you to easily locate and edit the banking dates of transactions such as EFT/direct deposit. To access this window from the top menu by clicking on Financial -> Banking. You can manually bank money from this window by clicking on the ‘+’ icon inside the banking list view. Alternatively, the ‘Deposit banking’ window can still be accessed in the ‘Accounts’ tab of the dashboard.
Transfer enrolment wizard
A transfer enrolment process has been added to the enrolment window cog wheel function. This is similar to the ‘cancel enrolment’ process with the addition of opening Quick Enrol at the end of the process, pre loaded with the student, payer and course details, allowing you to make a speedy transfer of the student to another class.
Re-style of all reports
All standard reports have been reformatted for a more consistent look and feel, and to simplify the templates for custom changes.
Rebuild of all onCourse exports
All export CSV, XML and other custom templates have been migrated to Groovy. This significantly reduces the load on your server when running large data sets for export, and allows for much simpler custom export editing.
New preferences windows
All onCourse preferences settings have been moved into a single window with a more intuitive layout. Under File > Preferences > General… you’ll find all the general preferences previously available (College, Licences, Messaging, Class Defaults, LDAP, Maintenance & AVETMISS).
Financial general preferences has been merged into this window and a new preference has been created for adding Holidays (unavailabilities) for your whole of business timetable and scheduling availability.
Minor Features:
AVETMISS features and improvements
A new field has been added to the AVETMISS preferences panel for QLD reporting RTOs to record their QLD RTO ID. For AVETMISS exporting purposes, when choosing the export flavour QLD, this value will export, instead of the standard national Identifier. It is important you retain your national RTO ID in the ‘Identifier’ field to allow for the USI SOAP Validation process to work (#25047)
Improvement to the AVETMISS export rules for all states to set the At School Flag to N when Labour Force Status Identifier equal to 01 (#24977)
Fix for the Victorian AVETMISS export: where course commencement date is earlier than the enrolment date then export the course commencement date in the enrolment date field (#24633)
Unicode characters are automatically replaced with ASCII characters in AVETMISS export files during the export process e.g. Zoë will be converted to Zoe for AVETMISS, but the student’s preferred spelling will be stored in onCourse and can be printed on their certificate (#24397)
Added additional validation to the AVETMISS export process to prevent outcomes with start and end dates different to their class dates from exporting if their date range doesn’t match those set in the export runner (#25004)
Exclude any outcomes with Outcome Status – National ‘Did not start – 66’ from AVETMISS exporting except in NSW Department of Education and NSW Smart and Skilled export flavours (#25549)
Find related and search features
‘empty’ and ‘is not empty’ search options have been added to all onCourse advanced search fields, allowing you to search for example for students who have a USI, rather than a specific USI (#24874)
Search option ‘created by’ added to applications advanced search options (#23985)
Added the VET FEE Help Census date field to the class advanced search options (#24667)
Add ‘debtors account code’ to advanced search options for invoice window (#25114)
Payroll number has been added to the contact advanced search options (#21464)
Add to invoice advanced search options the invoice line description (#21185)
Add find related invoices from products window cog wheel (#24215)
Add find related payslips from classes window cog wheel (#24508)
Find related courses has been added to the class cogwheel options (#25321)
Find related contacts, invoices, membership product and enrolments has been added to the memberships window (#25247)
Finance features
Overdue column has been added to the invoice list view window to show the amount of the invoice that is currently overdue for payment. This is of particular use to invoices under payment plan agreements. (#24307)
The default sort order of the invoice window is ascending date order, so the newest invoices show at the top of the list (#17724)
A ‘Duplicate invoice’ option has been added to the invoice cog wheel. This allows you to quickly re-create invoices from a previous invoice template, but change contact, change the value or add a negative symbol for a credit note (#17723)
Payment out credit card reversal options only show payments that are valid to reverse (#13396)
User and login features
Add ‘last login’ date to users list view, to assist with finding users who no longer log in to onCourse regularly (#24475)
Prevent users from logging in with the same user name credentials concurrently. Second login attempt will allow the user to kick out the first user (#24500)
Auto log out settings in the general preferences are now mandatory. Maximum time that can be set is 6 hours. (#24256)
Two factor authentication will be enabled for your users during their next log in if you select the option in their access role to ‘require two factor authentication’. If the user cancels this window, it will be shown to them again on every log in until it is enabled. (#23898)
New access control permission has been added to for editing and deleting record note items (#24277)
Show/Hide filter preferences persists when you close and reopen the window (#23042)
For new users, all windows open by default to 65% of their screen size, until they adjust their own layout and preference settings (#25704)
Discount and voucher features
Change the discount default option to ‘classes tagged with’ to avoid users accidentally selecting all classes (#24319)
Improve voucher redemption process in Quick Enrol to show the voucher redemption balance available and to edit the value being redeemed as part of this purchase (#24130)
Allow promotional discounts and other discounts set to apply to all new classes as default, to apply to private classes being created in Quick Enrol (#24721)
Allow voucher payment in Quick Enrol to apply to payer’s previous unpaid invoices (#24732)
Course, class and enrolment features
If you use the cogwheel to ‘Show courses on web site’ in the course list’, and the course status was set to ‘disabled’, the status will now be changed to ‘enabled and visible online’ (#25359)
Checkbox added to class duplication to retain or discard payable time (#24323)
Enrolments are now taggable. This allows you to create new tag groups to assign to the enrolment level, such as a funding type, so you can easily locate a group of enrolments for AVETMISS exporting (#24258)
Enrolments now have notes. This allows you to record ad hoc notes against a particular enrolment that will be automatically time and date stamped with the user name of the person making the note (#24258)
New checkbox added to class and enrolment cancellation to send credit note email. This option is checked by default. (#24053)
Added a checkbox to the class cancellation process to automatically create credit note reversals of any manual invoices joined to the class (#24785)
Membership expiry date is now editable during the Quick Enrol sales process for the membership. This allows you to override the automatically set date (based on the membership type preferences) to another date of your choice. (#24089)
The class cancellation process has been optimised to make it run faster (#21186)
The class duplication process has been moved to the server to make it run faster (#24958)
Suppress the send credit note email option and send cancellation message option when using the enrolment transfer wizard (#25398)
Pre-populate Quick Enrol with the course from the transferred enrolment, along with the payer and student details (#25398)
Sales features
People > Purchased memberships list view has had additional columns and core filters added to the window to make it more readable and sortable (#25246)
A new edit purchased membership view has been added to the Purchased Memberships and Sales windows. When you double click on a membership that has been purchased you can change the expiry date and view the enrolments it has been used for (#25249)
Date purchased column added to Sales window (#25787)
‘Delivered’ status and cog wheel function to set status to delivered added to product sales and products filter in Sales window (#25788)
Other features
A new messages list view has been added to the ‘People’ menu option, showing all messages sent from onCourse. This is the same information that is available in the contact message window, and includes all messages sent automatically via script triggers (#24912)
All icons and images inside the onCourse application have been updated or otherwise adjusted to provide better visual support for retina displays (#23708)
Qualification name added to the certificate list display in the contact window (#17391)
Add onCourse student number to user choice of retention/replacement options in the contact merge feature (#22694)
Reports
A new report has been added to the discount window called ‘Discount take up summary’. This report shows during the date range specified, and for each discount chosen, how many enrolments for each class have used that particular discount. This report is for marketing purposes, so show you the take-up success of a particular discount during a campaign date range. (#24468)
A new report has been added to show the detail of the enrolments which have taken up a discount offer, called Discounts Take Up. This report can be printed from the discount window, and groups by each discount type each class and its enrolments from the date range entered in the report runner. (#22885)
The standard Statement of Attainment, Qualification and Transcript reports were updated to include the student middle name field. If we have created a custom certificate report for you, this change was also made to your custom report. If you have created your own custom report and need assistance in updating it, please contact us (#24195)
A new report was added to show the projected pre-paid fee liabilty to income journals for each of the next 7 months from the date the report is run, for each class. This report can be found in the classes menu and is called ‘Income journal projection’ (#24109)
A fix was implemented for the trial balance report. Any accounts of type expense were displayed on the credit side, and they have now been correctly moved to the debit side (#24943)
Update all class roll reports that include the tutor names to use a consistent layout so tutor names display correctly. Custom rolls have also been updated and will be distributed directly (#25042)
Custom fields in reports can now be easily accessed using syntax like this: $F{contact}.passportNumber or if the field name contains spaces like this $F{contact}.customFieldValue(“how did you hear”).
The statement report now shows and opening and closing balance for the report time period selected (#22853)
A new Certificate template has been added for Skills Sets. Read the Certificate issuing section in the user guide for more examples of how to create, customise and issue Skill Set Statements of Attainment (#24920)
Class details report sorts in chronological order by default (#25624)
Scripts and templates
When a change has been made to a script or template, onCourse will not automatically overwrite your files as you may have added your own customisations. You can choose to update your templates and scripts manually by accessing the latest versions on Git Hub.
Improvements have been made to the script edit view to allow you to check if you have the latest copy of the script and upgrade it with a single click (#24611)
A description has been added to each script to explain what it does
A link has been added to a CRON helper tool to enable you to change the script schedule to your choice of date(s)
A new script (send enrolment notice for tutors) and accompanying email template (enrolment notification) has been developed to send automatic notifications of enrolment to a defined tutor contact for all classes tagged with ‘notify manager’. You can create a tutor role called ‘course manager’ and the tutor assigned to the class with this role will receive the notification. This script is disabled by default.
An optional notification section for the USI reminder script has been added, to alert a manager to the number of students emailed each week. You can auto update your script using the button inside onCourse, or manually by adding to the end:
smtp {
from preference.email.admin
subject 'USI reminder email notification'
to preference.email.admin
content "A USI reminder was sent to ${enrolmentsWithoutUsi.size()} students enrolled in
VET classes who have not supplied their USI."
You can manually change your script from preference.email.admin to the actual email address of your choice. (#24396) (#21733)
Add capacity to define the name of the export file inside a script (#25654) & (#25914)
A new event type ‘enrolment successful’ has been added to the onCourse scripting engine and can be used to trigger custom scripts (#25199)
All new exports can now be called from, scheduled and emailed from within a script (#25470)
Wording in the default Voucher purchase plain text and HTML template was made consistent, with the word ‘quick’ removed from the HTML voucher template. You can update the wording of your HTML template to the latest version available here.
Labels for tax amounts updated in the plain text Tax Invoice. Total is now shown inclusive of tax, and tax is itemized separately. You can update the wording of your plain text template to the latest version available here.
Payment plan payment dates and amounts payable have also been added to the Tax Invoice plain text and HTML templates. The link for the item above is directly to the plain text template which includes these changes. You can update the wording of your HTML text template to the latest version available here.
An optional clause can be added to the student and tutor reminder scripts to only send to classes that have met their minimum enrolment requirements – if ( courseClass.successAndQueuedEnrolments.size() >= courseClass.minimumPlaces ) {. Follow the links to update the script for the Student Class Commencement Notice and the script for the Tutor Class Commencement Notice
Fixes and other improvements
Search and find related fixes
For find related ‘contacts purchased’ from product find contacts with successful purchases, and exclude contacts with failed purchase attempts (#24211)
For the advanced search option in contacts ‘number of enrolments’ only count active enrolments, and exclude failed, cancelled or credited enrolments (#24504)
Fix to advanced search results when you are searching for date type data ‘on’ a specific date. Previously a from and to date range was required to return valid results (#25094)
Improvements were made to the ‘find related’ options for vouchers so that find related invoice finds invoices created on voucher purchase (including $0 invoices) and any invoices created on voucher redemption, and find related enrolment finds any enrolment purchases where the voucher was used as a payment method (#25237)
A range of advanced search fixes to remove any instances of case sensitivity (#25674)
Course, class and enrolment fixes
Quick Enrol window layout was adjusted so relationships window was better accessible as it was sometimes drawn off screen (#22983)
Ensure outcomes tab correctly updates UOC when the course code is changed to another course after class creation. The course code can not be changed for a class once the class has enrolments (#23570)
Quick Enrol will now select the class starting next by default (#24749)
Finance fixes
Display payment out amounts in banking with a negative symbol in front of the the amount (#24015)
Improvement to the labeling and identification of failed payment attempts on the invoice payment summary (#24781)
Allow copy and paste in search fields (#25029)
Fix to the layout of the payment in and payment out window defaults so fields are not truncated from view (#25036)
Apply rounding options to final price instead of just discount value . This will correct some 1c rounding issues that may show on purchases which have GST applied. (#25094, #25059 & #24133)
Fix to the payment out post processing process to ensure the refund advice email is sent where enabled by the corresponding script (#10073)
Fix to the voucher expiry job to ensure that vouchers where the purchase price has been modified expire correctly. Old records that did not correctly expire will be corrected as part of the upgrade process (#25102)
Allow banking of inactive payment method types (#25587)
When creating a new manual tutor payslip, only allow clairvoyant lookup of contacts marked as tutors (#25489)
Invoice manual payment plan view row height increased to make values readable during edit (#25512)
CONTRA payments now display on the contact financial record summary to calculate the correct totals when a payment is reversed (#25526)
Time limitations on credit card payments out have been removed (#13396)
VET and certification fixes
Improvement to the certification creation logic from the class cog wheel. In summary: When a course is ‘sufficient for qualification’ a qualification is created for student where all outcomes have been successfully achieved, a Statement of Attainment when some of outcomes are successful and some unsuccessful, and no certificate is created when all outcomes are unsuccessful. When a course is NOT ‘sufficient for qualification’, a Statement of Attainment is created when at least one outcome was successful, and no certificate is created when all outcomes are unsuccessful. (#24223) *Allow private classes and traineeships to be marked as self paced on creation (#25008)
General fixes
Significant performance improvements were made to the loading of list windows in onCourse so they will open noticeably faster (#24489)
Emails that are unable to be sent due to mail configuration errors will stay in the mail queue rather than be marked as failed on the sending attempt (#24149)
Fix to user account permission ‘override tutor payrate’ to allow this to be enabled and disabled for different user roles (#24509)
Students TFNs were being cleared from their record when it was opened in Quick Enrol. This has has been fixed. (#25116)
Any ‘Special Needs’ notations made on the Documents tab are not being retained after saving and closing. This has has been fixed. (#25178)
Students that have no active enrolments are not displayed under ‘students currently enrolled’ filter (#19074)
Fix to discount window where save process could fail if classes are added before a discount name (#25269)
Fix to allow two tutor records to be merged successfully (#25298)
Improvements made to the payment replication process between onCourse and the web to reduce the occurrence records stuck in ‘in transaction’ state (#24905)
When cycling through enrolment records using the ‘next’ and ‘previous’ option, the VET Fee Help fee charged value updates to show the current record value as expected (#25343)
VET Fee Help charged value automatically calculates to be inclusive of any discounts or tax applied to the enrolment fee (#25513)
Improvement to the Class Budgets CSV export to make the values exported consistent with the values displayed in the class budget view (#25384)
Fix to the cancel voucher UI to allow a cancellation fee to be charged (#25790)
The “timetables” view has been removed from onCourse. This view was not well optimised for speed and the way it displayed all sessions from all classes in one big view wasn’t terribly useful. The poor performance of this view was giving new users a bad impression, where there are better ways to show a timetable from site, room, class, course, student or tutor views. We’ll restore this view once we have a more useful interface designed.
Improvements and fixes added since 7.10 release
Fix to ‘Course details report’ to correctly display nominal hours and reportable hours (#26106)
Fix to MYOB summary export process which was not completing since 7.10 (#26031)
Load of preference window speed has been improved (#26076)
Change to end date of the discount period to mean 11.59pm on the nominated date. Previously is meant 12.00am on the date (#26050)
Deposit banking only shows payment out records that were successfully processed. Failed transactions are suppressed from this list (#26037)
$0 transactions are now suppressed from the student statement report (#25811)
onCourse users can not create export templates that begin with the key code ‘ish’. This is a reserved code to indicate that that the template was packaged with the onCourse product and is under version control. Users can create their own key codes containing their organisation name. (#26287)

New in onCourse 7.1 Build 38931 (Apr 16, 2015)

Major Features:
USI validation improvements:
Once as USI has been validated, the student contact details for First Name, Last Name and Date of Birth, along with the USI lock for editing. When the student advises you they have changed their details with the USI Agency, a new option allows you to unlock the record, forcing a re-validation attempt with the new details.
A middle name field has also been added to contact records, allowing you to store this data separately from first names. Middle names stored with first names were making USI validation attempts fail.
A new type of class roll has also been added, showing if the student has supplied a USI and if that USI has passed validation or not, so your tutors can assist with the data collection process.
The USI verification process also now runs during the Quick Enrol creation, so if you choose to add a student’s USI to their record while processing an enrolment or other purchase for them, the SOAP verification will run the background.
The student merge process also only allows the verified USI data to be chosen when merging two students and will not allow two students with different USIs that have been validated to be merged. Students with the same validated USI can be merged.
The USI portal link sent out in the student enrolment confirmation and the USI reminder email has also been changed to a 7 day expiry, up from 3 days. You can also manually adjust this to a longer or shorter period yourself by editing your email templates.
Two factor authentication
An optional added layer of security for users accessing onCourse cloud instances in particular, but also useful for locally hosted onCourse servers with VPN access enabled.
Two factor authentication requires both a password and a device generated one time token, so if a computer used to access onCourse has it’s security comprised, for example, has a malicious keylogger installed, your onCourse database access will remain secure. You may use a similar process when logging into internet banking. For two factor authentication log in access to be compromised, someone would need to have the onCourse users phone and also know their password.
An application installed on each onCourse users smart phone, such as Google Authenticator will generate the one time token required to successfully log in. The token has a limited life span and will automatically update every 30 seconds inside the app.
Two factor authentication is available for all onCourse users at no cost. There is no cost to install the software on your smart phone. More information about how to enable this feature is in the onCourse manual Users and Authentication Chapter
Notes field layout:
All notes fields are now multiple part records consisting of the note, with the time and dates and user details of who created it. This change has been made to the contact, course, class, site, room, application and invoice records.
Admin users can edit and/or delete existing notes. All other user types can create new notes only, but not change existing notes. Further access control options will be added in the next release of onCourse.
Enrolment tab redesign:
New fields have been added to allow for changed AVETMISS reporting requirements, as well as an overall layout refresh. Additional fields have been added to the enrolment level, particularly to cater for NSW Smart and Skilled reporting that include VET in Schools flag, Purchasing Contract Identifier (NSW Commitment ID), Outcome Identifier – Training Organisation, Associated Course Identifier (SA – SACE Student ID) and Funding source – State.
For some of these fields, such as the Purchasing Contract Identifier (NSW Commitment ID) you can set the value at the class level, enrolment level or outcome level. Values set at a higher level will automatically export at the lower level, except where a different value is set. For example, you can set a funding source value at the class that applies to all enrolments and outcomes, but if one student is funded under a different arrangement, you can set that funding source in their enrolment only.
AVETMISS exports update for NSW Smart & Skilled, NSW OLiV, VIC and SA
Two new AVETMISS export flavours – NSW Smart & Skilled and NSW OLiV have been added. The previous NSW DET option is still available and is unchanged as RTOs complete reporting for 2014 data.
The new Smart & Skilled export standard includes special rules such as exporting Outcome Status – National as blank for all outcomes which have not yet commenced (any outcome with a start date after the day you run the export).
Victorian and South Australian specific fields have been added to onCourse and the AVETMISS export options have been updated in line with the 2015 export formats.
Updated AVETMISS reporting information is available in the onCourse manual AVETMISS chapter
Minor Features:
Addition of the voucher redemption value in Quick Enrol voucher sales process to make it clear of the difference between the voucher sale cost and voucher redemption value (#20999)
Remember the last used location for attaching files, to avoid having to repetitively navigate through folder structures (#22104)
Added per unit wage type to tutor role preferences (#22967)
Removed unnecessary UI validation requiring the onCourse user to set RPL outcomes to delivery type ‘not set’. The AVETMISS export process sets this value as standard whenever an RPL outcome is encountered during export (#22612)
Add additional access control options for products, contact relation types, scripts and templates (#22412)
Add selection of background template option to the Banking Report print process (#22676)
Add new feature for scripts to include ‘tagged with’ options (#23565)
Added new fields in the VET tab of a student record called “Client Industry of Employment (VIC)” and “Client Occupation Identifier (VIC)” (#23885)
Add find related enrolments to the discount cogwheel option, to locate all enrolments that used a discount (#23417)
Printing of all class rolls now includes electronically completed marking results – Y for Yes – attended, N for No – absent/not attended. Sessions with no electronic mark continue to print as a blank space so they can be completed by hand (#23627)
Addition of two fields to the preferences window next to the mail server to configure an outbound mail server in order for email from onCourse to be delivered (#23213)
SMTP username (optional)
SMTP password (optional)
You can now send templates from the following list views: (#24380)
waiting list
invoice
application
payment in
payment out
Addition of new report in the class list “Enrolment summary by state”. This shows the detail of each state’s running and cancelled classes, and enrolment numbers by gender in each class
Addition of a new class roll “Class roll – Age”. This shows the students age in years next to their mobile phone number.
Addition of a new class roll “Class roll – USI”. This shows the units of competency covered in the class and the student’s USI status – not supplied, verified or not verified
Update to the enrolment fee sheet in the class budget tab, in preparation for the upcoming payment plan feature
Update to the invoice edit view layout, in preparation for the upcoming payment plan feature. Manual payment schedules can be created for an existing invoice in this release, but they will not be visible to your customers until the completed feature set is rolled out.
With the addition of manual invoices that can be linked to a class budget in 7.0, a number of budget reports required updates to include this new type of income. Updates have been made to Budget Details by Class, Budget Summary by Class and the Pre-Paid Fee Liability report (now only available in class list, no longer in the enrolment list)
Fixes:
Improved speed of drop down panels which were drawing in slow motion. This was particularly noticeable for Windows users. (#23736)
New validation message requires new record to be saved before attempting to attach documents (#23894)
Ensure selection of a top level tag also selects all records tagged with any of its child tags (#23439)
Country of Residency value was not saving when updated in the contact record (#23942)
Ensure contact merge retains saved values of AVETMISS enrolment question responses (#23997)
Quick search option in the applications window now searches by Student Name and Course Name (#23975)
Contact merge window has been resized so it won’t be truncated on lower resolution displays (#23696)
Improved speed of opening the cogwheel list when a large number of records have been selected (#23699)
Fix to application status to ensure it is correctly marked as ‘accepted’ when a student enrolment is processed via Quick Enrol from an ‘offered’ application (#24016)
Fix to payrate override function when two valid pay rates already exisit for the tutor role (#24101)
Prevent application selection from disabled courses (#23994)
Allow payroll and payslips to contain $0.00 lines as valid values (#24114)
Export OSPC for overseas delivery sites and student addresses in the AVETMISS NAT00020, NAT00080 and NAT00085 files (#24202)
Fix to the CSV Class Export file alignment when the class is not assigned to a site and room (#22611)
Fix to the VET FEE HELP export files where the class census date was incorrectly formatted (#24181)
Remove any information about GST (inc or ex) in relation to voucher products on the web as they are non-taxable supply (#23603)
Ensure invoices manually joined to a class are included in the income totals in the class budget (#24047)
Fix display of voucher ‘value available’ in Quick Enrol to only show the unused portions, excluding any amount applied to the current enrolment (#24161)
Customer reference field on printed invoice widened to allow for 24 characters (#23786)
Improved credit card payment failure handling to reduce the occurrence of enrolment stuck ‘in transaction’ (#18926)
Add Quick search option to voucher window. Quick search operates on the ‘Invoice to’ contact value (#24276)
Ensure ‘this record has been changed’ message does not appear when cancel is selected and no change has been made (#24025)
Fix the AVETMISS export dialogue so it says the ‘The AVETMISS files were created in…’ instead of ‘The null files were created in…’ (#24076)
Allow attachments uploaded in error to be deleted before saving and closing the record (#24192)
Enable voucher product URLs that have not been enabled for online sale to be accessible via direct URL for customers who have purchased them through the office (#24196)
Ensure email ‘undeliverable’ setting is only set automatically after 6 emails have attempted and failed to be delivered (#24398)
Improve the class to room join where the rooms have all been changed at the session level (#23926)
Allow shared saved searches to be deleted by any onCourse user (#24210)
Improvement to the user interface for opening documents from within records (#24528)
Ensure email receipt is not sent when the checkbox is unticked (#24566)
Include details of all invoices payment has been applied to on emailed payment receipt (#22297)
Fix to enrolment cancellation process that was preventing $0 enrolments from being cancelled (#24586)

New in onCourse 7.0 Build 38006 (Dec 19, 2014)

Major Features:
USI Creation and verification process:
Complying with the January 1 2015 USI requirements is important for our RTO customers, and there are a number of tools we have added to streamline this process for you. More information about what you need to do to be compliant is available on our forum
The new enrolment confirmation email template contains a conditional string for VET students that explains what a USI is and why they need to tell you theirs. This email directs them to a special onCourse portal page (no log in required) requesting they supply their USI or go through the process to create one.
onCourse is now integrated with the USI Web services, so once you have received a student’s USI the web services verification process will run and mark the USI as either ‘verified’ or ‘not verified’. For students completing the self service portal, they will be prompted to update their name or date of birth in onCourse if this doesn’t match their official USI data e.g. Bob may need to update his name to Robert, as per his drivers license record.
Every Monday morning, all recently enrolled VET students who have not supplied you with their USI will be sent an automatic reminder email on how to complete this process and why it is important they do so. There is a customisable email template and script that runs this process which you can edit to meet your preferred business requirements.
A student who gives up or can not validate their USI will be flagged in onCourse for you to follow up.
Alternatively, you may need to undertake the creation and validation process on behalf of the student. On the student record AVETMISS tab you will see the USI field now has an additional option next to it that says ‘create a USI’. Once you enter a 10 character USI, the verification process will run automatically in the background. If the USI verifies, then there is nothing more for you to do. If the verification returns an error, you can edit the non-matching data (first name, last name or date of birth) and try again.
Additional validation has been added to assist your USI compliance. A student in onCourse who has a verified USI can’t have their first name, last name or date of birth changed without the USI agency having the updated change also.
As you are not allowed to issue certifications to students without a USI, the onCourse certificate print process now includes an additional validation check. If your certificate record was created after 1/1/2015, it will not print unless the student has a verified USI in onCourse. Certificates created prior to 2015 will continue to be printable without a USI. Additional access control levels have been added to allow you to override this print control for selected users.
New HTML and plain text email templates
All onCourse system email templates have been re-written as part of this release in a new formatting language. System emails can have both a plain text and HTML version, allowing you to embed your own logos, links and layout options in the email directly.
New templates can be created at any time, and used to send automatic emails at the time of your choice using the the workflow and scripting engine, also part of this release.
New email templates have been added for:
Enrolment confirmation (including a USI request for VET students)
Tax invoice
Payment receipt
Refund advice
Voucher
USI reminder
Student notification of class commencement
Tutor notification of class commencement
Enrolment application accepted
Enrolment application rejected
More information about the new templates is in the Email templates chapter in the user documentation.
Workflow and scripting
A major revision of the way onCourse sends templated emails has been implemented to allow for a much greater breadth of functionality and customisation for your business.
The new Scripting function also allows onCourse to become a completely customisable tool with your business workflow engine built right into our core product. You can create and update onCourse records on an event, send messages to key contacts when a record is created or changed, or automating the publishing, exporting or printing of data how and when you require it.
These scripts have been added for all users of onCourse, but are switched off by default. You can enable them in your database.
Send a reminder email to students one day before their class commences
Send a reminder email to tutors two days before their class commences
Send a reminder email to VET students every 7 days for the next month if they haven’t supplied their USI after enrolment
Send a receipt on the processing of a successful payment in for a payment taken not during the enrolment process
Send refund advice on creation of a successful payment out e.g. credit card refund
Send an email to a student to notify them their application has been accepted, what their custom enrolment fee is and how they can enrol
Send an email to a student whose application has been rejected
More ideas about how to use scripting in your business and how to create your own scripts is in the new onCourse Scripts and Custom Workflow chapter in the user documentation.
All onCourse license options can choose to enable or disable scripts provided by ish. All paid license plans can commission changes to existing scripts or request new custom scripts from ish. Customers with Enterprise level licensing can modify and add to their own scripts to onCourse themselves.
Enrolment by Application
A new way to take enrolments has been added to onCourse. Enrolment by application allows you to add an approval process between the student requesting a place in a class and the enrolment and payment taking place.
By default, all current and new courses in onCourse have been set to ‘Open Enrolment’, located on the course general tab. When a course is changed to ‘Enrolment by application’ that will change the website to show any of the courses classes ‘Enrol now’ buttons to ‘Apply now’ and suppress the display of the class fee. The student will then complete the application process for their selected course/s, which are visible to you in onCourse as a new application record in the People menu. You can reject or approve a students application. When you approve an application, you can optionally set a fee override which will become the enrolment fee for that student (useful for enrolments in programs like Smart and Skilled) and optionally set a date where the offer to enrol expires.
Successful students will be sent a special link to the website allowing them to enrol in the class of their choice once their application has been approved. The link will not allow other contacts to enrol in that class who haven’t had an application approved.
Link manual invoices and credit notes to classes:
When creating an invoice or credit note manually, you can now select within the invoice line to link the income to a particular class by providing the course and class code.
If you select a class during this invoice creation process, the standard fee paid fees liability and income deferral rules will apply to this invoice.
The income (or credit) will appear in the class budget summary and the class session rules will apply to the income, journaling it from the pre paid fees liability account to your selected income account, as per your selected financial preferences. When creating a manual invoice line, you can still select an income account which may or may not be the same income account as defined at the class level.
The layout of the class budget tab has also been adjusted to cater for these additional income lines. We have simplified the view by hiding all sections which have no data.
To reverse the income out of a class that was created by a manual invoice, you can create a manual credit note linked to the same contact and class.
Find related records
An exciting new way to search and locate records for reporting, marketing and more has been added to onCourse 6.1.
In earlier versions of onCourse, the contact window cog wheel had a ‘show related….’ function that allowed you to find records related to a set of contacts. This concept has been extended to every window in onCourse, allowing you to find related records, and then perform further searches, filters, reporting or exporting on that data set.
For example, to locate all the employers of all the students aged 18 to 25 in the last three months of VET programs to send the Employer Satisfaction Survey to you can search for all classes with a particular tag or use the advanced search VET course flag. Once you have those classes, you can highlight those delivered in the last three months, and select from the cogwheel ‘Find related….’ > Enrolled students. Once the student list has opened, you can search that list of results for students aged 18 to 25. With the reduced list of students, you can use the cog wheel ‘Find related…’ to select contacts related as Employer. From this new window, you can use the cog wheel to send a message to the student’s employers.
VET FEE Help Export:
A new cog wheel export option has been added to the class to export the VET FEE Help export files for your selected class or classes. This process works similarly to an AVETMISS export, creating a range of text files in your user home directory. These files can be uploaded to HEPCAT for validation and lodgement.
Note VET FEE Help exports are only available for customers on Professional or Enterprise support plans. Contact us if you would like to upgrade your support plan to access this feature.
Minor Features:
‘Add this discount when creating or duplicating classes’ checkbox has been added to the Discount edit view on the Classes tab. If you select this checkbox, this discount will be added to all new classes on creation and is useful for global discounts like a 10% early bird discount, which might apply to all your programs. Selecting this option means you don’t need to return to the discount window to manually add new classes you’ve created.
Allow fractional discounts to one decimal place
More options for depositing you banking. An editable ‘Date banked’ field has been added to the Deposit Banking window. By default this will be set to ‘today’ but can be changed to the date of your choice. You can also chose to check and uncheck whole payment type groups (e.g. cash) or just individual transactions. Unchecking a group or item will hold it over until you run the next bank. Using this feature you can now choose single line items like EFT/Direct deposit payments and choose to bank them retrospectivly to the actual ‘date received’ into your bank account.
Added ‘Send email’ checkbox to manual invoice/credit note window. This option is checked by default. When you create a new invoice or credit note, and this option is selected, it will send your email template invoice to the contact when you save and close the record.
Added ‘Set log level’ and ‘view logs’ HELP menu function. This will allow you locate and send supporting files to ish if you are having any problems with your onCourse instance on your local machine.
Added scrolling to ‘add tag’ option in record windows, for very long tag lists
Gravatar images will automatically load for contact records if the user has a avatar linked to their email address at https://en.gravatar.com. Gravatar images can still be overriden with locally uploaded profile photos as per previous onCourse versions. These images will also display in the tutor portal on the class roll for student identification purposes.
The generation of payroll data has been moved to the onCourse server to make the process run significantly faster. To create payroll records, open the ‘Tutor Pay’ window and use the cogwheel option ‘Generate tutor pay…’. This will pick up all unpaid sessions for all classes up until the date you select in the window. The class cogwheel option is still in place, but better used for generating pay for single or small groups of classes.
Reports:
Examples of and detailed information for all new reports can be found in the onCourse documentation reports chapter
A new report called ‘Class Tutor Pay Schedule’ has been added to the classes menu. This report provides the detail of the expected payslip lines that will be generated for all tutors attached to a class with wages in the budget, allowing you to confirm that the correct details have been entered at the class level prior to generating the tutor pay.
A new report called ‘Payslip report’ has been added to the payslip menu. This allows you to print the payslips for error checking prior to exporting them to your payroll system
A new report called ‘Class Timetable – Planning’ has been added to the classes window. This is an alternate version of the class timetable report which includes the session private notes field.
Updated the ‘Mailing list’ report to include date of birth, postal address and phone numbers
An important fix has been applied to the ‘Transaction Summary’ report available to print from both the Transaction window and Account window. There were some instances where when large numbers of records (> 2000) were selected prior to printing, that the reporting engine over calculated the totals. The date selector field for the print engine is now a date time field so you can clearly see the start and end of the data you wish to collect. By default, the start and end date will be 12am. To print all data for the range 1/1/2014 – 31/12/2014 enter the date range 1/1/2014 12.00am to 1/2/2014 12.00am
Fixes:
Remove timezone information from date of birth field when copying and pasting contact records from the contact list view
On the Special Needs report, unset gender was displaying as Female. Report fixed to show Not Stated
Remove label QLD only from the outcome 90 – Result Not Available, and allow this value to export for all flavours of AVETMISS
Prevent users from creating multiple paylines for the same tutor, for the same class, of the same repetition type in the class budget, which caused an exception when the payroll was run
Force window close after sending class cancellation message
Ensure AVETMISS calculation for fee per unit when an enrolment fee is charged is never calculated at less than $1 per unit
Fix minimum height of course brochure description field so that a large list of classes do not collapse it to an unreadable size
If a class has been published to the web can not be deleted from onCourse, but can be unpublished or cancelled to prevent enrolments
Only classes with active enrolments appear in the students timetable. Sessions from cancelled enrolments do not show.
Allow for PDF backgrounds with rotations
Prevent a tutor added to the class from being edited prior to the class record save
Skip email addresses with formatting errors during batch sending processes and notify the onCourse user of any uncontactable addresses encountered
Open payslips window to front focus after running the tutor pay process
Ensure onCourse system users can not have a null administration location
Re-enable operator alerts in the new Quick Enrol interface
Remove title field from company record view in Quick Enrol
Ensure class export data shows class site timezone instead of server time zone
Ensure rounding for invoice reversals is calculated in the same way as invoices to avoid potential $0.01 differences
Don’t display cancelled vouchers when the active filter is checked
Update advanced search options in Users window to search for admin = true and active = true
Correctly display membership fees inclusive or exclusive of GST as per their purchase price settings
Correct date of birth errors that could alter entered data where timezone differences between client and server exisit
Ensure CMS login passwords stay in sync with LDAP password changes

New in onCourse 6.0.1 Build 37040 (Oct 22, 2014)

Prepaid fees
When you create an invoice in onCourse, the general ledger is not immediately credited with the income from training delivery. Instead, a liability is created called “prepaid fees”. onCourse then journals that liability to income as the class delivery takes place. Some onCourse users don’t use our general ledger or worry about pre-paid fees. In that, case this issue will not affect you.
A defect was discovered that has existed since onCourse 4.0. The issue is triggered when a student had only partially paid for one invoice, then enrolled in another class, creating a another invoice. The remaining fee liability component from the first unpaid invoice (or invoices) was reset to be the full balance of the original income, resulting in a potential over allocation of income from the liability account for that invoice. On upgrade to 6.0.1, the over allocated invoice’s income will be debited against the appropriate income account and credited to the fee liability account to bring all account balance back to the correct position. You will see these paired transaction lines posted on the date the upgrade takes place.
This is a once off adjustment which will bring your general ledger back into the correct position. For most users this means you will see a decrease in your income that corresponds with a decrease in your liability. This fix also prevents this error from occurring on any future invoices.
Web enrolments: parent/child relationships
If you are using the new parent/child relationships for online enrolments, this fix will allow those relationships to flow back from the website to your onCourse system. All historic data will automatically be synchronised.
Locking issue
We found and fixed a particular locking issue which would sometimes cause the contact window to freeze on trying to open a contact record. Mostly this was very rare, but annoying when it did happen.
Proxies and document management
For users who have no direct connection to the internet, this will allow the new document management feature to work through their proxy server.

New in onCourse 5.0.1 Build 36102 (Jul 7, 2014)

New in onCourse 5.0 Build 35147 (Apr 25, 2014)

Major features:
Some of the improvements include:
Improved contact look-up selection: See a full list of possible contact matches, with more data shown
Simpler class and product selection: search, show all, or choose for the quick list of recently sold items
Sell products and vouchers: Two new types of products, which can be bought along with the existing enrolment and memberships
More flexible invoicing: easily add custom invoice lines on the fly, and set the invoice due date into the future
Your choice of payment delegation: Manually select which historical invoices you wish the payment to apply to, or use our auto-calculate feature to disperse the value of this payment against the invoices outstanding
Redeem vouchers for payment: a new feature for this release, allowing vouchers to be redeemed during Quick Enrol
Choice of confirmation method: after enrolment, send emails, print confirmations or both
Minor features:
Western Australia specific reporting
The West Australian RAPT and CQR exports are now implemented.
Additional WA only options have been added to the class delivery mode options, enrolment concession options and outcome status options to meet this requirement.
The RAPT export format is available in the list of AVETMISS 7 options in the File > Import/Export window, class cogwheel or enrolment cogwheel.
The CQR export format is available from the Certificate list cogwheel.
VET FEE HELP
The first round of User Interface features for VET FEE HELP functionality has been added to onCourse. In the student AVETMISS record, class VET tab, and enrolment FEE-HELP tab additional fields have be added to record information that relates to VET FEE HELP reporting.
In following versions of onCourse, HEPCAT and CHESSN integration will be added.
Performance
In this release we continue our work on improving performance over slow networks. A high speed NBN may now never happen, so every bit helps. In particular we compress network streams to get a 30% reduction (roughly) in bandwidth needed. There is a new option in onCourse.cfg to tweak the compression setting.
We have also moved the AVETMISS reporting system onto the server, so performance of this export will be dramatically improved (in some cases by a factor of 10).

New in onCourse 4.1.5 Build 34144 (Feb 18, 2014)

New in onCourse 4.1.3 Build 33428 (Jan 7, 2014)

New in onCourse 4.1.1 Build 32791 (Nov 14, 2013)

New in onCourse 4.1 Build 32107 (Aug 19, 2013)

New features:
CorporatePass
Printing backgrounds
Course relations
USI and AVETMISS 7
Improvements:
Performance:
We have spent significant effort in this release to improve network performance and reduce memory usage. This will impact the entire application, but in particular the class edit screen has been a focus of our efforts. You may not notice any difference if you were on a fast local network, but remote connections should see significant improvement. In some cases on a very slow link we observed open the class edit view improve from 30 seconds to 5 seconds.
Tagging:
Tag groups can now no longer be available to both courses and classes at the same time. This has caused quite a lot of confusion for our users over the years, and the use-case for such a feature is so narrow that we figure it is time to restrict this option to what people mostly want to achieve. Tagging classes should be a pretty rare thing anyway, and if you have a tag group linked to both courses and classes, the class tags will be deleted by this upgrade. In 99.99% of cases that’s what you were probably trying to do. If not, contact us before you run this upgrade.
Report improvements
New outcomes export, allowing you to export all students and their outcomes from a selection of classes to CSV format to confirm their outcome status. Report available from File > Import/Export > Export Classes > Class outcomes CSV
New Trial Balance report, showing transactional movement in and out of all accounts during the chosen date range period. Report available from Financial > Summary Extracts > Trial Balance
Include both Certificate issued and Certificate printed dates on standard onCourse template certificates and transcripts, inclusion of the onCourse student number on the transcript and removal of the embedded logos now they are handled by background printing options
Fix to the Discounts by Class report to ensure manual discounts were included in the discount totals, improvements to the way combined discounts are handled by the report, and to ensure non-active enrolments are excluded from the report
Invoice report includes customer Purchase Order details in the printed report
Improvement to the content of the invoice line title and description for printed invoices – now shows the course and class code and name for the enrolment, plus the name of any discount applied. Note this improvement only applies to new invoices created after upgrade
Update Total Discounts report to use a clearer layout and provide more information about percentage take-up of discounts
Fix to the layout of the Student Special Needs report which was previously printing one record per page
A fix to the total of the Class Invoice Record report to ensure the total only takes the invoice lines relating to the class selected into account
Minor improvements:
Screen re-size capabilities for attendance window improved
In class tutor add window, updated wording from ‘add the selected new tutor to class sessions’ to ‘add selected tutor to all class sessions’ to make the intent of the checkbox clearer
Improvement to AVETMISS 80/85 student import process to avoid validation errors
Disable the outcome status options 52 RCC granted & 54 RCC not granted as they are no longer valid in AVETMISS. Existing records with these outcomes will retain their status, only new and unset outcomes can not be set to this status.
Improvement to the contact window financial tab to identify payments in and out, and payment types
Improvement to discount ‘add classes’ user interface, plus the new ability to add classes based on tag group
When processing a payment out by credit card, all previous payments in are shown in reverse chronological order to assist with transaction identification
Improvement to discount window – now allows addition of classes by tag group, plus simplification of the other ‘add classes’ options
Modification of QLD AVETMISS export to allow for the reporting of new Certificate 3 Guarantee Program, including the addition of the new QLD specific outcome status code 65 – Superseded qualification.
Fixes from 4.0/4.01:
Fix to allow for changes to multiple session session duration, where tutor pay could be set to null and disallow record save. 0min payable time is now the default value when the payable time value is removed
Fix of +/- 1c GST rounding issue for Memberships where GST applies
Fix of field validation issue for onCourse User accounts which was preventing changes being made to user accounts within onCourse
Fix to restore labels to email and mobile phone fields within Quick Enrol contact view
Fix to the Concession Types access control option which was disabled in the user interface and couldn’t be applied to a role other than admin
Failed credit card payment attempts made post invoice creation (e.g. payments not made during Quick Enrol, when the invoice is created) no longer ask the user if they want to reverse the invoice. Failed credit card payment attempts during Quick Enrol still ask if you want to keep or abandon the invoice.
Fix to AVETMISS export to ensure that the fee paid (inclusive of discounts) is reported in the Student Tuition Fee field, instead of the full class fee
Fix to the AVETMISS export to ensure that the ‘Not stated’ response for Prior Educational Achievement is reported as a non response (@) in the NAT00080, instead of a Yes (Y), creating a ‘Miscellaneous’ NAT00100 record
Disabled the name field for the email templates, to prevent user changes that could stop templates being sent for default events
A fix to the training plan feature to ensure units removed at the course level (when allowed, prior to any enrolment) are also removed in the class training plan

New in onCourse 4.0.1 Build 24164 (Apr 3, 2013)

New in onCourse 4.0 (Apr 3, 2013)

Major features:
Self paced delivery
Flexible delivery classes can now be defined. This is useful for online classes where students might have a maximum time to complete the class (say 6 months) but there is no start or end date. These classes can be assigned to virtual sites, but do not have a timetable i.e. no fixed meeting pattern.
Instead, the start date is taken as the time of enrolment and the end date is start date plus time to complete. These classes also display on the website available for online enrolment in a slightly different format, showing the words ‘self paced’ and the approximate hours of duration. These classes can also be assigned to the new ‘virtual sites’ which are sites without a physical location. You could define multiple virtual sites like online, Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) or correspondence to assign classes to.
Self paced class open for online enrolments
Training plans:
The addition of training plans at the class level allows onCourse VET program managers to schedule the delivery of the embedded course units over the delivery period of the class. This allows outcome based reporting to funding bodies which shows accurate commencement and completion dates for each unit of competency, and improved AQTF evidence collection showing which trainers/assessors are responsible for the delivery of which units across a clustered unit or whole qualification class.
In the class timetable, for each session, each unit of competency that is applied from the parent course can be checked or unchecked for delivery. The mapping of the tutors and units for each session can be printed in a comprehensive Training Plan report that can be provided to class participants, employers and teaching staff to ensure all stakeholders have access to detailed information about their scheduled class sessions.
For AVETMISS reporting purposes, the start and end date for each student’s outcome will be inherited from the training plan rather than just the start and end date of the class period.
Other features:
Certificate and VET record management improvements
Improve Certificate editing rules, so unprinted certificates can be edited e.g. units added or removed, while printed certificates are immutable.
Display revoked Certificates in a light grey font, like cancelled classes
Added a ‘Create Certificates’ option to the enrolment window to create certificate records based on the outcomes linked to a particular enrolment
Improve display of Qualification and Module data by showing additional Name/Code data from the record when using clairvoyance searching
Make all columns in outcomes list sortable
AVETMISS improvements:
Changed the way the NAT00120 commencing course identifier is calculated. Now, enrolments will only be set as commencing (3) if the course they are linked to is flagged as a full qualification. All other enrolments will be set as module only (8). Previously, commencing enrolments were set on any course linked to a qualification record. For most clients, this will result in reporting less commencing students and improve subsequent completion rates.
Altered the AVETMISS standard export to include the NSW outcome of 66 Did Not Start, instead of converting it to a nationally valid 40 Withdrawn. This change is specifically for Community Colleges reporting though OLiV.
Improved the export of the NAT00130 data to ensure that record end dates exported to not exceed the exporting period (if set)
Finance improvements:
Major change to the layout of the contact Financial tab. All invoices and payments are now shown in a single panel, fixed into date order and showing a running balance total in the final column. This improves clarity of the debtors balance outstanding and also prevents any failed transactions being added into the contact totals.
Use a credit note to contra pay another outstanding invoice for the same contact via the invoice cog wheel function. This will balance a credit note against an outstanding invoice to reduce the balance outstanding
Display credit card payer name in the payment in window
New CSV export option for class budgets from the classes table
Allow tutor wage rate to be set to $0.00
Allow payable time to be set to greater than the session duration
Sort payslip window records by created date by default, so the newest records show at the top of the list
Improvement to the invoice CSV export file to include additional fields and more useful data for manual reporting options
Add Business Number field to company contacts
Waiting list improvements:
Enrol students on waiting list directly into the next available class using the cogwheel function. This also removes them from the waiting list.
New CSV export option from wait list table
Discount improvements:
Added active and inactive filters to discount window to automatically hide discounts which have expired
Improvement to the wording in the concession window to differentiate between concession types available for self service online, and those that are only visible online to students whose records already have the concession details populated
Add function to allow discounts to be accessed via the website or only via enrolments processed through the office
Add ability to suppress the display of discount fees in the online advertising to hide ‘internal’ discounts like staff pricing
Add core filters for active and inactive to membership products
Added validation to discounts so all discounts must be linked to 1 or more classes
Added display information to discounts with expiry dates, to display expiry date in hover on website
Printing and Reports:
Print preview. All reports open first in preview mode using your PDF reader. If you are on Windows, make sure you have Acrobat Reader installed. OSX users already have a PDF viewer as part of their operating system. Once the PDF opens you have the choice of printing to a printer, sending by email, uploading, and more. Plus you get more control over printing: color, black and white, double sided, resizing, etc.
Reporting printing windows have been updated to an improved layout. Each report now includes a descriptive summary of the reports purpose and content, visible in the window when you have clicked on the report name in the print dialog.
New liability report available from the enrolments menu, showing the breakdown of the outstanding liability held on each enrolment (enrolment fee component not yet posted to the defined income account), grouped by class and sorted by start date.
Class start and end date added to ‘Budget Summary by Class’ report
Reports listed within print dialogue box of a given window now display in alphabetical order.
Banking report now includes payments out in addition to the payment in data
Fix to the layout of the class sign report to allow for very long class names and printing of absolute dates instead of relative dates
Other improvements:
Allow course lookup in class by code or name
Added link to onCourse EULA from splash screen (About onCourse)
Allow attachments to be set as public, private or students. Public attachments appear in the marketing content of the website, student attachments will only appear via the student portal (to be implemented) and private attachments never are visible on the web.
Show disabled courses in list view in light grey font, enabled but not visible on web in mid grey font, and enabled and visible online in normal black font
Improved filters in enrolment window to now show under core filters, current, cancelled, completed and other enrolments
Moved the File > Preferences > General Preferences > Export tab list to it’s own window, like reports, now available via File > Preferences > Exports
Allow keyboard arrow keys to be used to scroll between list items e.g. timetable sessions
Improvement to the re-send email process for enrolment confirmations and invoices to notify the user when the email sending fails because the contact does not have a valid email address on file
When a class or enrolment is cancelled, a template email and SMS message is generated and opened in a new window for the list of affected students, to notify them that their class is not proceeding as scheduled. You can modify the message contents or remove people from the list before proceeding to send it.
Unsubscribe option for emails sent using the mailing list feature. If the contact clicks the unsubscribe link in the bottom of the email, they will have the mailing list tag removed from their contact record.
Improved error message for course deletion which is not allowed due to related records (classes or waiting lists)
Ability to edit the CMS has been added as a checkbox within the User edit view of onCourse. This will mean that Colleges are no longer reliant on ish to grant CMS access to staff, as they can now manage this themselves. Login credentials for CMS and onCourse will be the same.
Automatic detection of mismatched onCourse client and server versions with a prompt to download the correct client version automatically.
Added ‘VET Course’ query option to class advanced query list
Fixes:
Fix for Assessment Outcome Report to prevent duplicate columns printing for each unit code
Improved validation for the manual addition of units of competency to an outcome
Fixed student details report to show the concession type and concession number details
Improved user interface messages for AVETMISS exporting exceptions
Ensure XML and brochure exports round GST amounts to the nearest 5 cents
Merge note fields from both records in the ‘merge contacts’ process
‘Is offered’ option in the unit of competency and qualification had been disabled for selection. These fields are now enabled again for users to restrict onCourse to their scope of qualifications and units.
Improve the user interface in the private booking option to auto-create the next available class code and to calculate class fees either GST inclusive or exclusive
Enforce unique names for tags with a tag group
Improvements to timetable resource collision detection performance to confirm new allocation availability before record is saved. This has improved the speed of opening the class page and adding new sessions.
xls and docx file extensions were not being recognised for attachments added to onCourse for download on the web. This is now fixed along with many other file extensions.
Fixed issue whereby fixed income budget line item would initially reset to show per enrolment calculation if you adjusted the projected and maximum enrolment numbers within the budget tab of the Class. Fixed income budget line item now remains as entered when you adjust enrolment numbers.
Closed loophole whereby you could record a payment in entry despite initial payment attempt being ‘in_transaction’. System now prevents operator from recording a payment in entry until the ‘in_transaction’ status is resolved.
Adjustment made to which date is shown for CC payment within the context of a Payment Out refund via Credit Card. Whereas previously the system would display the originating CC payment date as the date of settlement, this has now been adjusted to show date paid.
Improved validation in Qualification Certificate record, so any certificate marked as a Qualification has to be linked to a nationally recognised qualification to save, where a Statement of Attainment can be optionally linked to a nationally recognised qualification
Improved validation for deleting or removing mandatory tags from records and show better user messages when a tag has been set as mandatory
Fix to the onCourse preferences set print logo setting which was not allowing some images to be assigned
Prevent non-enrolment process failed payment attempts from creating an automatic credit note to reverse the invoice

New in onCourse 3.0.2 Build 21012 (Aug 24, 2012)

User interface improvements:
Remove empty tutor wage record from budget when class is duplicated and “assign the same tutors..” option is not selected
Improvement to the visual layout of the Quick Enrol window to ensure the delete record icon doesn’t get hidden behind the scroll bar
Class budget now deduct manual discounts from the total income
After removing the entire class timetable, the class start and end dates would be retained. Now they are removed.
Added ability to query on enrolment or invoice source fields
Increased default server permgen memory from 64 Mb to 256 Mb to prevent out of memory errors when running complex data exports
Report improvements:
Sales Report fixed to print all records on a single page
The class CSV export has been fixed to only count active enrolments
Improve the Transaction Detail report to show the account name on every page, the contact reference name for every invoice and payment in record and correct the page by page account totals to always show the account total.
Fix the transaction detail and summary report to show the data of transactions to the COS Discounts given account
Added new Transaction CSV and XML export options
Fixed Discounts by Class and Total Discount reports to exclude GST for discount fee income reported
Transaction record improvements:
Display the deferred income journal method in cases where the college had not explicitly chosen a setting. If you have not selected a Post prepaid fees option in the financial preferences, the applicable income for each class will be posted every session to your chosen income accounts. See the Deferred Income chapter in the user manual
Fix to transaction record details to balance GL transaction account debits and credits where default account options had not been selected by the college
Invoice transactions in the general ledger would sometimes be posted at midnight instead of the correct time of day
Added server start up trigger to transfer pre-paid fees in advance liability to the designated income account, for college who shut down their server overnight. The standard process is for this job to run at 12.30am.
Tagging improvements:
Improvements to tagging and filter results when multiple entity types are tagged with the same tag
Removed advanced search options “Not tagged with” and “Not tagged with (or parent of this tag)” and added “tagged with (including children)” as part of the re-factoring to tag filters and searches to improve the return of accurate cross table results
Improvement to the filter user interface in the sidebar options of every window. Now tag filter groups can be collapsed and hidden from view.
New feature: Tag groups for courses and classes are shown twice as filter options in the contact window, once for filtering students enrolled in, and a second time to filter for tutors teaching classes that are tagged with that tag option.
Show tag long name inside onCourse user interface list views. Only use short name for URL generation.

onCourse Changelog

What's new in onCourse 8.0.2 Build 41432

New in onCourse 8.0 (May 5, 2016)

New in onCourse 7.1 Build 38931 (Apr 16, 2015)

New in onCourse 7.0 Build 38006 (Dec 19, 2014)

New in onCourse 6.0.1 Build 37040 (Oct 22, 2014)

New in onCourse 5.0.1 Build 36102 (Jul 7, 2014)

New in onCourse 5.0 Build 35147 (Apr 25, 2014)

New in onCourse 4.1.5 Build 34144 (Feb 18, 2014)

New in onCourse 4.1.3 Build 33428 (Jan 7, 2014)

New in onCourse 4.1.1 Build 32791 (Nov 14, 2013)

New in onCourse 4.1 Build 32107 (Aug 19, 2013)

New in onCourse 4.0.1 Build 24164 (Apr 3, 2013)

New in onCourse 4.0 (Apr 3, 2013)

New in onCourse 3.0.2 Build 21012 (Aug 24, 2012)

New in onCourse 3.0.1 Build 20115 (Jul 5, 2012)

New in onCourse 0.6.3 build 3728 (May 24, 2007)