What’s new in Oaks: sign-in, reviews and the training plan

People who sign in with email and a password now have three ways to prove it is them. Once your site’s requirement date has passed, those accounts set this up before the rest of Oaks opens.

• Authenticator app. This is the main method. Scan the QR code in an app such as Microsoft Authenticator or Google Authenticator, then enter the 6-digit code.
• Passkey. After the password, this device, a phone, or a security key can stand in for the authenticator code. Each passkey has a name, such as “This laptop”, and can be removed with the current password.
• Email code. Backup only. Oaks emails a 6-digit code to the address on the account when the authenticator app is not to hand.

An administrator can clear the authenticator app, the email codes and the passkeys from that person’s user record. They set them up again at the next sign-in.

Where Microsoft 365 is connected, someone can sign in with a Microsoft account from your organisation’s tenant. A Microsoft-linked account is not held on the setup screen. If an authenticator app is already switched on, that sign-in still asks for the code.

Find it under Profile → Two-factor authentication.

A pending review can now be marked Gone to gateway.

Oaks sets the review to Gateway, stops the automated reminders, and does not schedule another review. The completed date stays empty, because this is not a finished review. A review that is already complete, missed, or already at gateway cannot be marked again.

The reviews list shows a Gateway badge, so the caseload is easy to scan.

This sits beside the gateway pack on the learner’s record. The pack still freezes what was declared at gateway. The button on the review is how you stop the review cycle when that moment has arrived.

Each review now includes Safeguarding & Personal Development Monthly Status: the monthly modules due before that review date. Learners still complete them in the monthly popup, and Oaks emails a reminder when a module for the month is still outstanding.

On the review, each module is Completed, with the date, or Outstanding.

A tutor who can update the review can record a module without waiting for the popup:

• Upload proof of completion, or
• Upload a document of the learner’s answers.

PDF, Word, or a JPEG or PNG, up to 10 MB. The review names who recorded it and links the file. The page still asks learners to use the popup when they can. There is a link through to that learner’s activities.

The Training Plan (Delivery Plan) Record on the enrolment opens in Oaks. You can read it there, open it in Excel where Microsoft 365 is connected, or download it.

• Occupational components show a total of hours, and how many of those hours count as off-the-job.
• The off-the-job figure written into the plan comes from the hours on the enrolment profile. If those hours are not set, Oaks uses the calculated minimum for the programme.
• Delivery plan templates are one per course version. You can prefill a new template from another version of the same course.
• A workshop can split a linked KSB into smaller outcomes, such as K1.1 and K1.2.

Find the record on the learner’s enrolment, and the templates under Plans.

The How are you finding Oaks? prompt is still on the staff, learner and employer portals. It waits until an account is 14 days old, and it stays away while you are impersonating someone or signed in as an inspector.

A rating of 1, 2 or 3 now needs a note, so we can act on it. A rating of 4 or 5 can still include a note, and that note stays optional. Skipping, or sending an answer, waits until the next cycle you have set.

Answers are reviewed under Reports → Oaks Feedback.