[Last updated: 6th February 2025]
A number of fixes have been deployed, please try refreshing your web browser (Control + F5) if you are not seeing them, or use a different web browser.
We are still working to resolve the issues below; and we are still working our way through your helpdesk tickets. Please be patient with us as we work through this and avoid sending duplicate tickets, especially to different/other teams.
In the meantime, as well as the status log table, please see below newly created tips section to see if that will resolve your issues.
Dear colleagues,
Following the SOAR changes deployed on 28th January, we have been working on resolving a number of unexpected issues as and when reported. Please be reassured that nothing has been lost.
We have a copy of the database as backup taken on the morning of the go live - unless you tried to make changes or submissions etc on that morning, everything will have copied across ok and we can cross check any further missing items from there.
The issues and fixes are as below:
| ID | Issue | Status | Description and Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Wrong appraiser details | Fix deployed on morning of 29th January. | Some primary care appraisees are seeing their own contact details appearing in their appraiser details |
| 2 | Missing text in previous domains | Fix deployed on afternoon of 29th January. | Due to the GMP changes, some of the comments were merged into different places. The developers have moved them into comments boxes in different supporting information areas. As per previous messages, so long as the information is there, do not worry about it appearing in the wrong places and proceed with the appraisal as is. |
| 3 | Missing reflections | Fixes deployed on afternoons of 30th January and 3rd February. | Reflections missing in collective and individual CPD and PDP. This should now be brought back, all the previous text has been merged to one description box in the relevant CPD boxes. If the information is missing still then please let us know. |
| 4a | Login issues (general) | Fix deployed on morning of 31st January. | There was a redirect issue for users who bookmarked the login.aspx page, this has now been resolved. If the problem remains, please navigate to https://soar.appraisal.nes.scot.nhs.uk try hitting the Control and F5 keys to refresh your web browser. |
| 4b | Login issues (logged in as trainee) | Not a bug - users just need to link their trainee profile and SOAR appraisal account. | Some users are logging in to SOAR via their Turas login but are pointed to their trainee profile on SOAR. This is likely because users have more than one Turas account and they've logged in using a different account. To resolve this, login to SOAR, into the trainee profile, click on "My details" from the menu, click on "Turas" tab along the top right, and follow on screen instructions to be sent to the SOAR login page, enter your SOAR appraisal account login details. Thereafter your accounts will be linked. |
| 4c | Login issues (More than one Turas account) | Fix deployed on morning of 7th February. | Some users who have more than one Turas account are having issues logging in to SOAR as SOAR can only be linked to one Turas account. The developers have enabled SOAR to accept linkage to more than one Turas account. |
| 5a | Form 4 issues | Fix deployed on morning of 31st January. | Due to change in GMP domains, for all old Form 4s signed off before the changes on 28th January, you can only access this via the "Export to PDF" button. If you are not seeing this button, please try hitting the Control and F5 keys to refresh your web browser, that should enable the buttons. |
| 5b | Appraisers accessing old Form 4 | Fix deployed on morning of 6th March | Some Appraisers have reported issues when accessing an appraisee's previous Form 4s, the PDF button is missing. Some users reported that using the Control F5 method to reload the page helped resolve the issue. This has been now been resolved as of March 6th. |
| 5c | Appraisers Form 4 saving / sending issues | Fix deployed on afternoon of 12th February. | Some Appraisers have reported issues when saving on or forwarding a Form 4. A fix for this has been deployed. |
| 6 | Accessing previously submitted appraisal forms | INVESTIGATED | Reported issues of appraisers and appraisees unable to access the submitted forms. Of all the reported issues experienced, it appears that the submissions were made on the morning of the SOAR deployment, so the PDFs were not included in the SOAR backup files when things were being transferred over. Unfortunately this means the appraisees will need to re-add the documents (which are there in the "Add existing" documents function) and then resubmit the forms. Please see below steps for more information. |
| 7 | Issues with unlocking old Form 4s and adding further documents | IN PROGRESS | Please avoid unlocking old Form 4s - we will respond to those impacted ASAP after the developers have completed their review. This is being investigated and is treated as a priority. In the interim please see workaround guidance on user guide. |
| 8 | Missing documents | INVESTIGATED | To reassure everyone, the documents are on SOAR, just not attached to current appraisal. This issue is linked to the GMP change error we experienced (we couldn't link them to any supporting information category as we had no way of mapping them from previous domains). They are in the "add existing" function of the "Add documents" button. These documents just needs to be manually re-added back to the appraisal forms. Please see below steps to re-add documents back in. |
| 9 | Warning message asterisked questions not saving | Disregard warning message | There are warning messages on various pages on SOAR for appraisees to let them know which sections have mandatory questions/sections to complete. Unfortunately these messages are on screen permanently - please disregard if you have completed the relevant sections - the pages will save correctly. We will consider improving this in the next iteration of development. |
| 10 | Broken links in system emails | Fix deployed on morning of 6th February. | There has been some reported issues of users following links in SOAR email notifications being met with broken link error messages. Please proceed to login via https://soar.appraisal.nes.scot.nhs.uk and manually navigate to the relevant sections. A fix for this was deployed on the morning of 6th February. If this has not resolved the issue for you please get back in touch with details or any error messages encountered. |
| 11 | Downloading of MSF report | Fix deployed on morning of 6th February. | Users have reported that the MSF report downloaded from WASP could not be opened or downloaded, and instead are being redirected back to the new SOAR appraisee interface. The developers have identified the issue and a fix has been deployed. |
| 12 | Admins not receiving Form 4 notifications | Fix deployed on morning of 11th February. | Admins have reported that they have stopped receiving notifications of when Form 4s are completed. The developers have identified the issue and a fix has been deployed. |
| 13 | Clicking on document links from old SOAR redirecting to new SOAR | Fix deployed on morning of 6th February. | Some users have reported that when they click on a document link from old SOAR, they are being redirected to the new setup. The developers have identified the issue and a fix has been deployed. |
| 14 | Security violation messages | RESOLVED | Some users have reported an issue when accessing Form 4s. [05/02/2025] This was linked to a fix that was deployed this morning which we have rolled back - this issue should be resolved now. Apologies |
| 15 | Submission error | Fix deployed on morning of 6th February. | Some users reported issues with submissions where the spinning circle just hangs. This has now been resolved - if problem persists, please try Control and F5 keys to refresh the page. |
| 16 | Primary care Form 4 incorrect "issues" flagged | IN PROGRESS | GP Appraisers have reported issues where Form 4 has incorrectly flagged the Probity statement as "issues" - please disregard and click "Resolved" - this error was down to the new simplified form. Developers will work on this and deploy a fix soon. |
| 17 | CPD timeout issues | Fix deployed on morning of 11th February. | Some appraisees have reported issues of timing out when working on CPD items. We have extended this to 4 hours and hopefully will resolve the issue. We will work on improving the user interface for future development. |
| 18 | Appraisees unable to open their own documents | Fix deployed on morning of 13th February. | Some appraisees have reported issues clicking on their uploaded documents within the PDF of their submission. A fix for this was deployed on the morning of 13th February. |
| 19 | Self declarations statements (in primary care) not pulling into Form 4 | IN PROGRESS | Some primary care appraisers have reported that the appraisee's self-declaration statements have not correctly pulled through to Form 4. This is being investigated. |
| 20 | Amending Appraisal Periods on SOAR | IN PROGRESS | We are aware of some issues with amending appraisal periods of historical appraisals. This is being investigated. |
| 21 | "Private practice" in secondary care forms PDF | Fix deployed on morning of 6th March | We are aware of an issue where for secondary care colleagues, they filled in that they do not undertake private practice, but in the PDF it says the opposite. This has been fixed since morning of March 6th. Appraisees should be able to resubmit their appraisal forms to correct the issue. |
| 22 | Erroneous Latin text on ROT form | Fix deployed on morning of 24th February. | Some users reported that Latin text appeared on their submission in the ROT form. This was down to a testing error and has since been resolved. |
| 23 | Co-appraisal Form 4 issues | Fix deployed on morning of 24th February. | Some users reported issues with co-appraisal Form 4s being inaccessible after sign off. This was investigated and it transpired that appraisees were able to sign off the Form 4 before co-appraiser could. This has since been fixed and resolved. |
Through experiences and responses from the helpdesk, we hope the below will help answer some of the questions you might have.
If the appraisee had previously uploaded documents to the old domain section (pre go live), they will need to be re-added back in to the new appraisal forms.
If appraisees require to add more documents and resubmit their forms, follow the steps above to add the documents back in, and then follow the steps below to resubmit.
One of the difficulties we are experiencing is that users who have multiple Turas accounts are struggling to login to as they are unsure which account they should be using.
SOAR has now been enabled so that you can associate more than one Turas account to it. Which means that you can login to whichever Turas account you have, and then link it to SOAR (provided you still have your SOAR login details).
We are in discussion with colleagues from the Turas team to see how best to assist/merge users with multiple Turas accounts. We will make further contact on this when we have a firm plan of action to take this forward.
"Turas Appraisal" is an appraisal system mainly for agenda for change staff. For your medical appraisal and revalidation purposes, you need to use SOAR.
A number of appraisees had reported issues with creating new CPD entries on the CPD log function on SOAR. When creating new CPD entries, please check and make sure:
In the new setup, appraisee submissions can only be viewed via the “Export to PDF” function. It was designed for easier portability for appraisees and also in part due to the GMP changes (if old content was placed in new domains, all the references and document links would be wrong and cause even more confusion).
Appreciate this is maybe not as smooth for appraisers, but if you use the Edge web browser to open SOAR, it would allow users to open the PDFs without the need to download them.
To open the documents from within the PDF, simply click on the blue hyperlinks. So long as you are logged in to SOAR at the time you click on the links, the documents will open.
If you are unlocking Form 4 for an appraisal created/completed post January 28th go live - that's fine, please proceed as is.
If you are unlocking a Form 4 from before this, especially if adding more documents, please review guidance on our user guide first, and if needed please contact the helpdesk for further assistance.
I am sorry for the bugs and glitches experienced, if you come across any other please contact the helpdesk and we will assist further from you. Please try not to send multiple tickets though - if you have already submitted a ticket, reply via that instead of creating another, it will greatly help us manage and respond to your queries quicker.
As of March 6th there are still 130+ tickets awaiting our response. We are slightly understaffed at the moment so please bear with us as we work through the helpdesk to get to you. (Prior to this we normally get around 20 tickets a day.)
We organised a series of lunch time drop-in webinars to demo the changes and more importantly an opportunity to answer any questions you may have.
We have edited the recordings of one these sessions and you can access it as part of the SOAR user guides section. A summary of the Q&As will be collated and added to in due course.
Thank you again for your patience and continued support.
Kind regards,
William Liu
Training Manager (Medical Appraisal)
This page was last updated on: 07/03/2025
Posted: 06/03/2025
