This page contains list of releases and changes for the Practique Server software.

Practique Server and Practique for iPad compatibility

This table shows which versions of Practique Server and Practique for iPad are compatible. Versions indicated in bold have changed Practique server requirement for the iPad application.

4.2.1 - 5th April 2016

Fixes

PRAC-624: ASCII error when downloading results from View standard screen

Case when Candidate information or Marks contained special characters outside the ASCII range caused Practique to fail.

It is now possible to download results containing special characters.

PRAC-829: Examiner room not showing when the examiner has no Candidate

When the Examiner started in Rest room there was no room number on View Logins screen for that examiner.

View Logins now correctly displays room number for all Examiners regardless if they start in Rest rooms or not.

PSD-210: Written - Unable to mark incorrect VSAQ answers as correct in a batch operation

When marking VSAQ questions of the written exam it was not possible to mark wrong answer as correct one in batch operation and Practique would display an error. When marking one question at a time the problem didn't occur.

It is now possible to use batch operations during VSAQ marking.

PRAC-895: Possible to corrupt an exam and trigger iPad crashes

It was possible to corrupt an exam by changing date of the exam while the exam had already locked locked Item sets and Examiners.

This has been fixed by allowing to change date of the exam only when all sections on the Continue preparing screen are all unlocked.

4.2.0 - 31st March 2016 (requires Practique for iPad version >=4.1.0)

New Features

Combining exams

Combining exams feature provides means how multiple OSCE or Written exams (more specifically exam blocks) can be combined into single exam of the same type to allow desired results processing.

This feature allows you for example to run 2 day exam with the same Candidates on both days but with different Item sets (2 part OSCE) and then combine these 2 parts into single exam for processing. After combining the exam you can use all result processing and reporting functionality for Combined exam as you'd use normal exams.

Changes to the current functionality

• Create new exam now allows to create Combined exam
• Combined exam can be crated by combining any number of exam blocks of the same exam type (OSCE / Written)
• Dashboard as been enhanced
  • to indicate which exams are Combined exams
  • to indicate which exams are part of the Combined exam
• Completed exams screen allows to display exams which are part of Combined exam, these exams are not displayed by default
• When working with Combined exam or Exams which are part of Combined exam user is notified about this to prevent errors.

Communicate to iPad that the candidate ‘Did not attend’

Practique Server allows marking Candidate as ‘Did not attend’ via View logins screen. This information has not been previously propagated to iPads meaning that examiners still had Candidate visible on their schedule and could mark Candidate who did not attend. User interface for the ‘Did not attend’ features has been reviewed and updated to be consistent and easier to use.

Practique now propagates ‘Did not attend’ to iPads so that Examiners are clearly notified that the Candidate did not attend and are not able to mark such Candidate.
Please refer to Practique for iPad release notes for more details.

Show which iPad has been used by which user in View logins screen

View logins screen has been improved to provide information which iPads are used by each user. There is a new column ‘Devices’ which is populated over the time of the exam with iPad Device Names for each user. This feature is very useful (especially in off-line mode) when marks needs to be extracted for specific Examiner. Previously exam team would need to either keep records themselves or check every single iPad to find one used by specific examiner.

Separation of Examiner/Candidate ID and their Passwords for iPad application

Practique used Examiner/Candidate IDs which were imported or synchronised (LDAP) into Practique as passwords for iPad application as well as Examiner/Candidate identifiers. This caused problems as there was transformation (removing letters, etc...) of the identifiers into the passwords which were hidden from the exam teams and done automatically. As a result and despite Examiners/Candidate has been imported with correct IDs it may happen that iPad passwords were unexpectedly different.

Practique now separates Examiner/Candidate IDs from iPad passwords.  New field Password is now available for Examiners/Candidates. You have also option to import Examiners/Candidates with new 'password' field which should be populated with desired iPad password 'as is' should you wish to have different passwords from Examiner/Candidate IDs. If you wish to have iPad passwords same as Examiner/Candidate ID you omit 'password' field from your import files or won't set it during editing and Practique will use ID as password.

Improvements

PRAC-705: Show assigned Blueprint Dimension Category including whole breadcrumb trail

Practique now displays complete information about assigned Blueprint Category on the Item > Overview and Item > Blueprinting screen. This allows users to clearly see what Dimenstions & Categories are assigned to the Item

PRAC-804: Edit Global Marksheet - ‘Apply If’ show whole path in Blueprint category drop-down

When using ‘Apply If’ feature via Edit Global Marksheet it was difficult to distinguish different Blueprint Dimensions and their Categories because dropdown menu to select the Blueprint Category only contained Category names. This has been improved and dropdown now shows complete information including Blueprint Dimension and parent categories  (if any).

PRAC-823: "PIN" is used inconsistently throughout the user interface

Multiple pages (Dashboard, View Logins) had field "PIN" which showed different information on each page which made it inconsistent and confusing.

Dashboard has been changed to read "Exam PIN" to indicate PIN required for students to login into Written exam. View Logins page has been changed and "PIN" has been renamed to "Password" to reflect that the fields is used as password for the iPad application (for Examiners/Candidates/Marshals).

PRAC-831: Allow to set "Show on Candidate feedback report" during creating the criteria

In order to show particular Observation criteria on the Candidate Feedback Report users had to first create the Observation criteria and then Edit that criteria in order to be able to indicate that the criteria should be visible on the Candidate Feedback Report.

This has been now improved and users can indicate the desired feedback during creation of the Observation criteria.

Fixes

PRAC-865: Candidate drop down select for Reporting is not sorted in any way

Drop-down with Candidates was not sorted in any way which made very difficult to find specific candidate in order to generate his/her report.

Drop-down is now sorted alphabetically by Candidate ID ascending.

PRAC-889, PSD-203: Inaccurate error message when importing candidate schedule fails

When user tries to import CSV file (in Specify Candidates step of Exam preparation) with invalid format Practique will display error message. This error message has been wrongly formatted and could result in long string of letters in one column instead of row.

Practique now displays correctly formatted error message as well as correct format hint.

PRAC-500: Generated PDF reports are not regenerated when Standard settings changes

When users generated PDF reports using Standard Settings before finishing exam result customization then reports may have not reflected all changes made by users. This problem could have been experienced if the workflow of the Exam team included generation of the PDF reports before they perform result adjustments.

Practique now correctly purges old PDF reports as changes are made to the exam results or Standard Settings.

PRAC-709: Saving an Item may fail due to full-text search index

When an Item (OSCE/Written) contained very long texts (2000+ characters) error would be triggered when saving such an item.

Limit for 2000 characters for Item text information has been removed.

PRAC-787: Displayed wrong number of registered devices

View Logins screen did not accurately inform about number of total registered devices.

Total number of registered devices now indicate correct number.

PRAC-824: Blueprint dimensions and categories are not enforced to be unique

It has been possible to create Blueprint Dimensions and Categories with exactly same name which lead to the duplicates. This could later cause problems during Import and assigning the Dimensions/Categories.

It is now not possible to create Dimensions or Categories (within Dimension) with the same name.

PRAC-632: WRITTEN - Upload results template CSV file has wrong format

CSV file template for uploading results available to download via View Sessions > Upload Result CSV provided CSV file with wrong format where headers for the questions were populated wrong.

CSV template is now provided in correct format.

PRAC-815, PSD-112: WRITTEN - Importing Written exam Item with duplicate Blueprint Dimension(s) cause error

When user tries to import Written exam Item using CSV which contains one or more Blueprint dimension more than once Practique crashes.

Practique now displays correct error message allowing user to rectify the issue with CSV file.

4.1.11 - 22nd March 2016

New features

...