SMSS Release Newsletter - April 2014

Hi all and welcome to the Artena 09.07.00 release newsletter.

SMSS has just about completed our 2014 Road Show visits. We had a lot of fun and thoroughly enjoyed our time out and about with our clients. We really appreciate the positive feedback and constructive suggestions for improvements. There were a couple of common threads coming out of our discussions:

  • Information about what SMSS is doing with Artena does not always filter through to everyone who would benefit from it
  • There is increased interest in taking advantage of functionality in Artena that could be making your lives easier

We have started working through with your Artena owner about how SMSS can support you to utilise more of the functionality in Artena to make your job easier.

We have also decided to change the format of the SMSS newsletter, putting the focus on our releases to highlight some of the important changes we have made and the benefits these changes will bring to you and your colleagues.

We would like to thank those of you who were able to attend our onsite user testing on the 17th and 18th of March. This was of great benefit in assisting with the identification of issues in the release candidate as well as being a great chance for clients to see how SMSS works and get to know our friendly staff a little better. So thank you all and we look forward to seeing more of you in September for the next round of onsite user testing.

Included in this newsletter are:

  • Summary of new functionality
  • Summary of enhancements to existing functionality
  • Summary of known issues
  • Maintenance

The team has been working extremely hard to ensure that this release is up to our usual high standard. It includes many of the changes you have requested, updated functionality and some exciting new enhancements.


Summary of new functionality


Online Enrolments

We were approached late last year by several sites wanting to bring data captured through web-based application forms straight into Artena to reduce time and effort.


The online enrolment application import facility gives your institution freedom of design and a comprehensive range of data fields, while allowing you to maintain control over which applications are accepted. Staff view applications in the processing area, match persons and ensure data quality before accepting applications for enrolment. An accepted application will create a person with a student role and a study contract, as well as capturing personal data such as contact information, citizenship, language and support requirements. Note - this functionality is separate to SWArtena.


The import facility is easy to set up, allowing you to concentrate your resources on designing your online enrolment application form to meet your institution’s needs. Full documentation is available and, as always, the team at SMSS is ready to assist you when you want to get started.


Address Verification Service

Entering addresses in Artena is easier with the new address verification service. Simply start entering the address then select from the options presented. This new service enables your site to ensure all New Zealand addresses entered into Artena meet the NZ Post requirements. Please contact helpdesk@smss.org.nz if you are interested in subscribing to this service.


International Homestay Payments Tracking

A homestay accommodation contract concept enables Artena to link homestay providers, students and rental agents together to keep track of rent amounts, when rent payments are received, and when rent payments are due. You can now view a student’s payment history as well as extract a report detailing rent payments due to be paid to homestay providers or rental agents. This report can be used to identify outgoing payments due.


StudentCard Extract

You can select a group of students and create a .csv file with photos to send to StudentCard from Artena. StudentCard will then print your student ID cards. The .csv file needs to be individually configured for your site. Please contact helpdesk@smss.org.nz for assistance if you are going to utilise this functionality.


Import Documents

There is now an automated function for importing student documents once they have been saved into a specified folder on your network. Once imported, you will be able to view these documents against the person in Artena.


Examples of how can this be used:

  • Fuji Xerox have recently developed a system for scanning a number of enrolment documents at one time, separate them based on their type and save them in pdf format in a network location with the student ID. The Artena import documents process is then used to automatically copy these into Artena against the student. This allows the site to reduce their reliance on physical student files and instead access important documents through Artena.
  • Documents supplied by applicants through the new Online Enrolments functionality can be saved to the specified folder then imported to Artena.

Class Creation Wizard

There is now a wizard which assists with the creation of classes and attaching non-exclusive classes together to allow students from different SCs to learn together. It also ensures classes adhere to the SCC/Class start and finish date rules.



Summary of enhancements to existing functionality

Qualification Audit allows choice of qualification specific or all courses

Buttons have been added to the individual and group qualification audit functions to allow users to elect to consider only qualification specific courses or allow the audit to look at all courses the student has completed.


Product now available as a query condition on Marketing Dashboard

Product has been added as a query condition to allow the creation of campaigns targeted towards those who have enquired about a specific product. This adds an extra dimension to the enviable power of the marketing functionality in Artena.


Show status of mail and email requests in event viewer

The Enquirer Events screen enables you to easily identify if written communication requests have been sent by showing the status of the request.


Capture user’s email address

The ability to add an email address to a security profile has opened up a raft of possibilities for messaging directly from Artena. This was introduced to facilitate the notification of people when they are assigned online enrolment applications. We encourage you to identify other areas in which this functionality could be utilised to enhance your work practices.


Assessment tab added to student’s Study Contract Component screen

You are able to view a student’s assessment results from their SCC screen. Assessment results may be entered via this screen, however this should be used sparingly as there is limited validation performed on results entered here rather than in the assessment dashboard.


Moodle

Artena provides support for Moodle subdivisions of student groups. Classes now have a groups indicator that can be linked to a student enrolment. Sites will need to use classes in Artena in order to utilise this functionality. Artena also supports the ability to import academic results from Moodle to Artena, eliminating the need for duplicate data entry.


Correspondence button available from the study contract components tab

The Correspondence button has been made available in the SCC tab in Admissions Dashboard. This allows correspondence to be sent to everyone enrolled in a course regardless of the qualification they are enrolled in. Ensure ‘include all OTEs’ is selected.


International Visa

The LookUp_ISVisaType table has been populated with student-related visa types approved by Immigration New Zealand and is now locked to ensure the visa types available for selection when renewing or recording student visas conform to Immigration New Zealand rules.


JobCreator available as replacement field in SCE

SCE has a new replacement field that allows you to display the name of the person who created the communication in Artena. This is useful for creating personalised letters sent from Artena. The JOBCREATOR field shows the same text as the display name of the person logged into Artena who creates the Output Job. This merge field is available from the Common context.


Student ID number generators added for 2015 to 2019

The Student ID number generators are now available from 2015 to 2019, allowing you to update to your specific Student ID format for these years.


Requisites button

Have you noticed the Requisites button when adding course components to your study contract? Set the pre- and co- requisites in prescribed teaching and you will be able to check if there are any requisites for a particular course when adding components.


Download bulk components

You are now able to download components for all recipients rather than having to do it one at a time by using the renamed Download button (previously called ‘Save a Copy’) in the Output Job Monitor. Search for and find the jobs required, then choose one of the options available under the download button.


Finance

Filters allow you to filter lists so you can choose to view only active or inactive accounts on the Accounts Setup and Fee Types areas in Finance Administration.


Concurrent Codes

Institutions can now identify the optional age-related date ranges required for StudyLink to correctly allocate student loans and allowance entitlements.



Summary of known issues


The known issues in Artena 09.07.00 are as follows:


Accommodation Provider Contract (new functionality)

Issue: Failing to enter the First Payment Date on creation of the contract means the payment schedule will not be created for the student, even if this date is subsequently entered.

Impact: Minor

Workaround: Set the existing contract’s end date to yesterday’s date and set the status to Terminated. Create a new contract for the accommodation provider, ensuring the First Payment Date is completed.


Issue ID Card from Student Role (existing functionality; does not affect Admissions Dashboard)

Issue: Attempting to issue a student ID Card from the student role results in a data conversion error on save.

Impact: Minor

Workaround: Queue the ID Card from the student role and issue it from the Admissions Dashboard.


Duplicate Classes showing in Class Lists
Selecting multiples of the same cohort allowed on Admissions Dashboard

Issue: Duplicate classes are showing in Select Class drop down in both Admissions Dashboard and Client-Person if multiple cohorts are assigned to the Class.

Impact: Minor

Workaround: None required; selecting either class will return the correct result.


Qualification Audit – one course not displaying in Completions course list

Issue: One course is not displaying in the Completions course list when Qualification Audit is used. However, the audit result is correct as the record is being processed and included in the audit.

Impact: Minor

Workaround: None available


Online enrolments – main venue field mapped to incorrect lookup table

Issue: The Main Venue field is reading from the Lookup_Venue table rather than the Lookup_MOECampus table.

Impact: Minor

Workaround: As this field is primarily intended to identify where the applicant wishes to study, utilise an Additional Data field rather than the Main Venue field to capture this information.


Prescribed Teaching – New OTC assigned to one OTE only when offering the OTC to multiple OTEs

Issue: Only one of the selected OTEs will receive a new OTC when offering the OTC to multiple existing OTEs.

Impact: Medium

Workaround: Offer courses to each OTE separately.


Prescribed Teaching – Qualification rules do not transfer when creating a new programme version

Issue: The sets of courses are not transferring from the original programme version to the new programme version. All other rule components are copying successfully.

Impact: Medium

Workaround: None available – you will need to add the courses manually for each new programme version.


NZQA Batch – Non-NQF Batch will generate blank file

Issue: The NZQA Batch will generate a blank results file for Non-NQF courses rather than displaying an error message if there are no results available.

Impact: Minor

Workaround: None required – ignore the results file created.


Maintenance


Citizenship Code error in the SDR

Some sites are experiencing an error with the SDR, indicating that some citizenship codes contain the wrong values. If you are experiencing this issue please:

  1. Request a data fix from SMSS if you are on Artena 09.06.00 or later -OR-
  2. Correct these codes manually in the citizenship table if you are on a version prior to Artena 09.06.00

The incorrect values vary from site to site so we are unable to provide a generic script to delete and replace the table without creating orphan records. We will work with each site individually to ensure the appropriate corrections are made.


Result lookup list is empty when adding a miscellaneous Academic Record

When adding a miscellaneous academic record, result values will not display in the lookup list if a result key has not been assigned to the corresponding offered teaching component. To avoid this issue, ensure all offered components have result keys assigned. Where the result key is the same for the OTE and its OTCs, adding the result key to the OTE and responding yes will trigger the result key to feed down to the OTCs.


Summary


As you can see from above there have been some great changes to Artena in this release and we are certain that the changes in functionality will benefit all of our users, enabling you to save time and reduce the effort required to manage your students. If you have any questions please contact your Artena owner or view the detailed release notes .

We hope you all had a fabulous Easter break and if you were lucky enough to extend the break through to Anzac Day, made the most of the down time.

The next exciting event on the SMSS calendar is the User Forum in Wellington on 22nd and 23rd May. We have a very full agenda with several demonstrations and visits from six government agencies.

As always, if you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact me directly, or send your query to the helpdesk.



Your Feedback

You are a vital part of the Artena development and we welcome your thoughts, suggestions, criticisms, and feedback.

SMSS : PO Box 5768, Lambton Quay, Wellington 6145. | rhian.nicholls@smss.org.nz |
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