The November (2024.11) release has the follow highlights:
Agent portal
Enhancements and features for the agent portal:
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Agent application notes
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Agents can now create individual notes for applications. Agent notes have a title, which is also displayed in the applications grid. Selecting the title in the applications grid opens the agent note in the mini-view panel. Agents can sort applications and search for applications using the title of the agent notes.
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Applicant name display on pages
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The applicant's name is now displayed at the top of all applicant and application pages. This helps ensure clear identification of applicants when processing applications.
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Enhanced mini-view panel efficiency and accessibility
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Agents can now select the row of an application to open the mini-view panel. This improves navigation in the agent portal. This also improves accessibility, as agents no longer need to tab through every column to locate and open the mini-view panel.
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Introduction of user-friendly immigration and CAS statuses
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The agent portal now uses the CAS statuses from Tribal Visas and Immigration.
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Missing documents toggle
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The mini-view panel now displays a list of the missing documents. Missing documents are documents that must be uploaded to complete document tasks.
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Task count in applications grid
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A new column has been added to the applications grid to display the number of open tasks associated with each application. This enables agents to quickly identify applications with outstanding tasks.
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Unassign an agent
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The responsible agent assigned to an application can now be unassigned.
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Simplified agent access control
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Access to the agent portal can be removed from agents to prevent unauthorised actions from a rogue agent or a compromised agent account. This ensures greater security and control. To remove access, clear the option In Use the reference data for the agent.
The video Agent portal shows the new features in this release.
Clearance checks
The Clearance check tab of the application overview now has a section Cancelled that displays cancelled clearance checks as shown in the image Clearance checks. The image also shows the clearance checks of an application filtered to show only the cancelled clearance checks.
Decision making
Admissions staff can now see when an application has passed, failed, or is pending instead of only passed and pending. The application statuses are:
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Passed: the application has met the offer conditions
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Failed: all the qualifications have been received, but the application has not met the offer conditions:
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Pending: not all qualifications have been received or clearance checks are outstanding on the application.
New functionality has been added to confirm qualifications. When an applicant has received all their qualifications, admissions staff can now select Set qualifications to received on the application, which initiates the decision engine to calculate a decision based on their qualifications. However, for UCAS applications, on receiving the results from UCAS, the decision engine will confirm qualifications automatically.
Admissions staff can undo confirm qualifications by selecting Set qualifications to pending on the application. Confirm qualifications will also be undone when a decision is unpublished and reset, and undone automatically for UCAS applications.
For more information, go to What is decision making and offer tracking?
The video Confirm qualifcations shows how to set qualifications to received.
Documents
Documents uploaded by applicants are only available to download once the document has been scanned and is free of viruses. Following latest industry standards, the anti-virus scans are asynchronous and feedback is not immediate. This helps prevent malicious attempts to infect the system. If a virus is detected:
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The document is deleted. However, the document is still displayed so that applicants and admission staff are aware in case a conversation is held.
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An email is sent to the to the applicant so that they are aware that the document, free of viruses, needs to the uploaded again.
The table Document status shows the document icons on the applicant portal that indicate whether a document is virus-free or has a virus.
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Icon |
Description |
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The document has been scanned and is virus-free. You can download and view the document. |
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The document is being scanned. You cannot download the document. |
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The document has been scanned and a virus was detected. The document name is displayed but the document has been deleted and cannot be downloaded. |
Admissions staff now have a clearer and more organised view of documents and clearance checks to help speed-up up tasks.
For more information, go to Virus protection in What are documents?
Localisation
Web apps can now be translated into Welsh as shown in the image Web app localisation.
Visa sponsorship
Applications transferred through integrations may already have a visa sponsorship status set. For example, applications have a visa sponsorship status of Not required, Required, Query, or Other visa. However, for applications without a visa sponsorship status, you need to set the status.
For an application without a visa sponsorship status, you set the status automatically by enabling the Nationality and entry point calculation functionality. This sets the visa sponsorship status by evaluating the nationality of the applicant and the entry point of the application when the application is received and after duplicate matching. If both the nationality and entry point require a visa, then the visa sponsorship status is set to Query. Otherwise, the status is set to Not required. The reference data Nationality and Entry point must have been set up with the option Is visa required set as appropriate.
For more information, go to What is visa sponsorship?
The video Visa sponsorship status calculation demonstrates how to automatically calculate the visa sponsorship status.
Workflow
Workflow now has conditions for the applicant's country of residence. Workflow example:
- Custom event
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Default desk allocated
- Transition
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Conditional actions IsCountryOfPermResidence and the action parameter UK
- Activity
- Action Update Fee Status and the action parameter Home.
For more information, go to What are transitions?