PICS LIS reconciliation

Peter, January 11, 2012

The amendments to the LIS Known Issues document that were released just before Christmas   explain almost all the differences reported by the PICS LIS reconciliation report,   and lead us to believe that the SFA and YPLA funding calculations in PICS are substantially correct.   Many amendments are promised for LIS 19.02; in the mean time, there is a document   on our website which helps to explain most of the differences reported by the PICS reconciler.

Posted in Contracts & Funding, Hints & Tips, PICS Procedures | Tagged

Update from the Data Service

Mike, November 19, 2011

We’ve just had a reminder from the Data Service that the final LR05 collection for 2010/11
is due on November 21st, and this is a ‘hard close’, so no revisions will be accepted after that.
You’re also being asked to get our R04 return, due on December 6th, in as early as possible to avoid the rush.
We at Pellcomp are sorry to keep nagging you like this, but we feel we ought to pass these things on: the theia post can be found in the
FE Connect blog.

Posted in Industry News | Tagged , ,

Final submission for 2010/11

Peter, November 8, 2011

We all know, I hope, that the final ER13 submission needs to be with the Data Service by close of play this Friday, November 11th.  You may not be aware that any provider that has not made a submission since October 7th is required to re-submit their data for 2010/11: apparently some of the calculation bases have changed, and it’s necessary for the Data Service to re-calculate all values.  So if you haven’t made a submission in the last month, please be very sure that you re-submit a period 13 before this Friday.  The Information Authority announcement can be found here.

As always, before you submit your data, check it against the LIS, make sure there are no rejections, and reconcile against the LIS.  Check the ENR that you receive from the submission, make sure you get a PFR, and check this too against PICS.  You don’t have very long to get this right.

Posted in 2010-11 Changes, Industry News | Tagged , ,

PFR Reconciler Released

Pellcomp, November 2, 2011

Hot on the heels of the first PFRs from the Data Service, we’ve released the PICS PFR reconciler for 2011/12.  There are several new issues which may lead to unexpected differences between PICS and the PFR:

• In a number of cases, aims are given incorrect learning aim reference codes in the PFR: this will lead to mismatches between PICS and the PFR, and to reports of duplicate entries.  In most cases these are compensating errors which don’t affect the overall funding; these cases are commented in the reconciler output, and will disappear when the PFR is corrected.

• Area uplift is consistently shown as zero in the PFR: checking against this uplift is therefore suppressed in the reconciler until the PFR is corrected.

• There are many known funding discrepancies in both the LIS and the PFR: some of these are documented by the Data Service in their Known Issues Document available here.

The format of the 2010/11 PFR has also been changed for period 13: these changes are also taken account of in the new reconciler.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged

R03 And Period 13 Are Looming

Pellcomp, October 27, 2011

The end of period 3 is always a particularly important time in the SFA year, and is even more stressful this year. By November 4th, you’ll need to have all your first quarter SFA data into the Data Service: we understand that the SFA really will pay on actuals this time.

Now, the XML submission system has given us two levels of ILR rejection: one is the load error, which means that the LIS or the OLDC has failed to read the XML file that we’ve sent; the other is the familiar Error Notification Report, which specifies rejections on individual fields by Learner Reference. The second kind you know how to deal with by now (use the ENR reader that’s part of the PICS exporter); the load error report is new, and gives remarkably little useful information. This section is about these XML load errors.

We’ve been working very hard at our end to try to deal with the unexpected (and under documented) features of the XML importer: we’ve certainly dealt with all the oddities we’ve seen, but of course we can’t guarantee that we’ve hit every possible combination of data that the LIS and OLDC won’t like. To give you one small example, we found out the other day that if you have a learner provider monitoring value 12 characters long (permitted) including a ‘£’ sign (also permitted), the LIS will reject it. (We’ve fixed this by removing ‘£’ signs from this field in the export.)

Our message, therefore, has to be: make sure your PICS software is up to date, create your export files as early as possible, run them through the LIS immediately, and let us know if you hit any rejections at the XML load stage. (If you don’t like using the LIS for any reason, send them to OLDC.) We will, as always, be on the alert for any problems you send us right up to the closing moment; but the sooner you can get them to us, the more likely we are to fix them in time for your submission.

Do remember that, if you only have a single PICS file to send to OLDC, it’s not necessary to produce it from the LIS: simply send the file that we produce. There are a few reasons for this: it’s quicker, since you have the zipped file there already; you don’t have to worry about the transmission number, since PICS takes care of it for you; and just occasionally the LIS export will do some unexpected things to our carefully crafted data.

After November 4th, of course, you then have just a week to put together your final period 13 submission for 2010/11. Again, don’t wait, and do it early: November 11th is a hard deadline, so you won’t be able to change your data after that. Do reconcile your PFR and examine your 2010/11 funding now, to avoid any problems in the next couple of weeks.

Posted in Contracts & Funding, Hints & Tips, PICS Procedures, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

New LIS Released

Pellcomp, October 26, 2011

As you’ll have noticed, a new version of LIS 19.01 was released on October 20th by The Data Service.  We’ve had a play with it: on the whole, it’s an improvement on the previous version.  When you install it, do remember to uninstall the old version first, and to update the provider data.

There are one or two changes you should know about:

  • YPLA funding has changed, so that provider uplift and ALS rates are no longer dependent on the YPLA region code.  This will mean that many calculated values in Claim History will have changed, so don’t be surprised if the YPLA Late Notified Report shows a number of rate differences.
  • There is still a problem with large employer discounts, noted by the Data Service in their Known Issues document at paragraph 1.4. This will mean that the LIS, and presumably the PFR, will calculate a higher value than PICS: we don’t know yet what action the SFA will take on this, but you can easily work out the overpayment by comparing the PICS and LIS value columns in the Value diff tab of the LIS reconciler (the difference percentages should be around 33%).

There are still a few other areas in which the LIS doesn’t agree with PICS, mostly in cases where there are multiple programme aim records and similar confusions.  As far as we know, we’re following the funding specification correctly, and we’re taking these issuesup with the Data Service.  If there’s anything in the LIS reconciliation that strikes you as particularly odd, do let us know, with a PICS backup and details of the problem.

We’ll be talking a lot more about this in the upcoming Financial Management seminar.

Posted in 2011-2012 Changes, Contracts & Funding, Industry News, Newsletters | Tagged , , ,

Skills Funding Agency announces payment arrangements for R02 ILR return

Peter, October 6, 2011

Colleagues

Please note the following statement from the Skills Funding Agency:

‘The Skills Funding Agency wrote to providers in August about changes in the way data is captured and returned to the Agency. In August the Agency paid those providers that are usually paid on actuals (19+ Adult Skills Budget, 16-18 Apprenticeships, Joint Investment Programme (JIP) and ESF) on profile for the first ILR return (R01) of the 2011/12 contract year.

For month 2 (R02) the majority of the same providers will be paid a profile payment for the same activity. This activity will include the amount for Outcome Incentive Payments but will not include the additional allocations issued through variations.

For a very small number of providers they will not be automatically making a profile payment but the Area Director will be contacting these providers directly to discuss this with them.

Please note: in order to make the profile payment a signed contract for 2011/12 must have been returned to the Skills Funding Agency. Providers who have not yet signed and returned their contract will not be paid for month 2. The return date for RO2, the month 2 ILR data return is 06 October 2011.

For any queries please contact your relationship team at the Skills Funding Agency in the first instance.’

Kind regards

Posted in Contracts & Funding | Tagged , ,

PFR Availability

Pellcomp, September 29, 2011

You will probably have heard that PFRs to show your SFA funding will not be available until November.

It’s worth using the LIS to give you an idea of how the SFA may calculate your funding, but there are a number of errors in the LIS funding calculation: this is acknowledged in their Known Issues document, paragraphs 1.5 and 1.8.

The PICS calculations for SFA are, we believe, in full accordance with the SFA funding specification, so for the time being these values should be used for internal purposes: they will allow you to calculate funding, project income by learner, and profile the year ahead. If you are unsure how to use these features in PICS please contact our support services.

Posted in 2011-2012 Changes, Contracts & Funding, Hints & Tips, Industry News, PICS Procedures | Tagged , , , ,

Online Data Collections for Period 2

Pellcomp, September 26, 2011

We understand that OLDC is scheduled to be available from the morning of September 27th.  For those of you who need to submit Employer Responsive data for August and September, we calculate that this gives you eight working days to get everything right: this is particularly important, since you were paid on profile for August, and you need to be sure that you can get as much data as possible into your September claim.

We at Pellcomp are very aware of the time pressures you have to operate under, and we’re geared up to give you as much help as possible during this short period.  We’ve been recommending that you check your data by exporting to the LIS: we hope that you’ve done so, and reported any problems to us already.  Even if you have used the LIS, of course, the national system will impose additional validation; and if you haven’t, you’ll be faced with two months’ worth of errors, most of which will use unfamiliar field names.  Our message to you, therefore, is to submit data to OLDC as soon as you can, to have as much cleared up as possible before October 6th.  Do remember that you can read the Error Notification Report through the Export function in PICS, which ties up the ULIN data in the ENR with the more readable information in PICS.

If you have problems that we can’t resolve immediately on the phone, firstly please run software updates to ensure you are runnign the latest version of PICS. If your problem persists then you will need to send us enough information to investigate your problem: we will need a backup of your PICS data, the error notification that you get from OLDC, and the XML file that you’ve submitted.

We’re told that PFRs will not be available until November. You will therefore need to use the LIS to see the basis on which the SFA will be paying you. There are, however, known errors in the LIS funding calculation (detailed in our forthcoming newsletter): we believe that an updated version of the LIS will be available in four weeks or so.

Posted in Contracts & Funding | Tagged , , , ,

2011/12 ILR Importer Available

Pellcomp, September 19, 2011

We are pleased to announce that the ILR importer for the 2011/12 contract year is
now available.

This importer is fully compatible with the latest XML ILR format, allowing licenced
customers to import this data into PICS and PelControl. If you are only able to
obtain the data you wish to import in flat file format then you will first need
to run this file through the LIS to convert it to the latest XML specification.

Please do not hesitate to contact our support services on 01603 492620 should
you require any further information or would like to know more about our data
import options.

Posted in 2011-2012 Changes, Pellcomp Product Updates | Tagged , , , ,