What's New in 4.47?
I am delighted to introduce ebs 4.47, the first release of 2025. This release includes extensive updates to our application-to-enrolment flow in Ontrack, with improvements to interview management and conversion of applications to enrolments. This release also helps our first Scottish customer prepare for their go-live deadline, with additional work on the FES funding return, curriculum planning, and SQA exams integration.
As with the previous release, users of ebs: central will be prompted to view the release notes post-upgrade. All changes are documented in the release notes, which we recommend all customers read. They contain key information on product updates and how you can make use of them. Recordings of release webinars including a solution demo are available on Tribal Communities for all releases.
Statutory
This release includes all the necessary supporting fields required for the Scottish funding return, as specified in the guidance provided by the Scottish Funding Council. These fields facilitate the setup of the Scottish curriculum, as well as the application and enrolment processes for learners. Any new field established for the Scottish market also includes supporting web service documentation. In the CDR process for Northern Ireland customers, we have standardised the reporting tables to reduce colleges' reliance on custom configurations and enhanced the stability of these reports. This includes the Learner Manager and Enrolment grids. For the ILR, we have added Tailored Learning Purpose and Outcome fields to the Learner Manager tab.
Ontrack
We continue to improve the enrolment flow for ebs, with updates to Ontrack Concierge including updated interview functionality and the ability for staff to convert an application to an enrolment in Ontrack. New tabs allow staff to view an application overview and view or edit key information before completing an enrolment. As a reminder, Concierge functionality is included in your applications and enrolments licence at no additional cost.
An updated Content Security Policy improves both institution security and PCI compliance by blocking the execution of inline scripts, preventing the insertion of malicious code in Ontrack web pages. Customers can continue to use custom JavaScript by adding scripts in specific supportable manners, either using Designer for custom HTML controls or adding scripts to the translation and analytics folders.
Integrations
The first release of our CENTURY integration was extremely popular. As promised, we follow the initial phase with extended functionality for bulk transfer of learner data. This includes new Ontrack pages to enable staff to view and define CENTURY classes against ebs curriculum and register data, and a scheduled workflow to create classes, students, and teachers in CENTURY. New Data Miner views allow reporting on CENTURY course membership and register membership. Please note this is a licensed feature that now has a cost.
For institutions using our custom data management options, a new data type has been introduced for custom logs. This should be used for columns storing more than 4000 characters, extending the use of custom logs for more complex data management.
Authentication
Users planning to implement external authentication, allowing sites to enforce multi-factor authentication on users outside their active directory, should be aware that Microsoft have introduced a new service, Entra External ID as a replacement for Azure AD B2C. This customer identity and access management can support third-party access providers like Google and Facebook, enabling users with limited technical capability to authenticate securely.
As ever, I welcome your feedback,
Gabi Walshaw, Lead Product Manager for Vocational Learning and Engage