We have today launched a major update to both our Appraisal toolkit and Learning Diary.
The system remains familiar and easy to use but there are some big new features that we are very excited about.
- The main update is a tighter integration between the Learning Diary and the Appraisal system. Any new Learning Diary entry can go straight into your appraisal now rather than having to do this later.
- CPD entries can also now go into the appraisal, rather than just an exported summary, which we recognised was confusing.
- Completed colleague or patient surveys now automatically go into your Learning Diary.
- The appraisal summary now includes navigation links to improve moving through the summary.
- The PDP is much improved and we think clearer to use and more useful as a development tool.
- Most supporting information now includes fields for reflection and credits.
- MAG form data transfer is much clearer and simple.
The Appraiser’s Area has also been improved with added features and it is clearer what needs to be done to sign off appraisals.
The update has also paved the way for us to be able to release different customised Appraisal and Learning Diary systems for different professionals and we have updated our nurse templates for both the Appraisal system and Learning Diary in line with the latest NMC revalidation guidance.
Because supporting information has been enhanced with new fields you may find that you have some entries with an autocompleted title (for example PDP entries may just have a title PDP entry).
If you have already added CPD summaries to an appraisal these will now be seen as a single CPD entry but in future these will just be a list of CPD entries.
If you attach Learning Diary entries to an appraisal these will no longer be editable on the iPhone / iPad app once the appraisal is completed. This does not work as smoothly as we would like, for example you can’t actually see if an entry is attached to an appraisal on the app. We are working hard on the next version of the app which we hope to launch in the next couple of months along with an Android version and several other enhancements.
Please do let us know if you have any problems or if anything isn’t clear. As always any feedback is really valuable to us.
