Key action points needed from all users
- Please check if you have any old historic incomplete appraisals on SOAR, if you do, get in touch and let us know if the meeting in question took place and we will take it from there.
- To ensure a smooth transition to the new system, please make sure you have a Turas account and make sure to link it to SOAR. (Instructions available.)
Newsletter content/transcript:
Hello everyone, my name is William Liu, I am the Training Manager for Medical Appraisal here at NES and I hope you have all managed to catch a bit of the summer sun. Following on from the last two newsletters, I'm here to offer a further update with regards to the new SOAR redesign for appraisees.
For those of you that are unaware, we have been working with an external developer to update the appraisee user journey on SOAR – this was based on the feedback from the all-user survey from two summers ago. Included in this development is the introduction of the new updated Good Medical Practice 2024, launched by the GMC earlier in the year. Additionally, we have also been working on changing the SOAR login where we would move away from the current setup and utilise the Turas, Microsoft 2-factor login.
The original proposal for the appraisee redesign was to develop a new skin, a new interface layer just for the appraisees role on SOAR. Unfortunately due to the aging and differing technology on the existing SOAR platform and the proposed new setup, this was simply not possible and after much deliberation, we opted to rebuild the appraisee version of SOAR instead on the new platform.
This was a significant change of scope which we hadn't budgeted for and as such, to ensure we make the most of our resources, we prioritised aspects and functions of the new system, and so not everything could be achieved as we had hoped so some functions and access will remain on the current version of SOAR, but the core functionalities will be there to ensure the full appraisee user journey.
For more details though, please check out the June newsletter.
The developers have been working very hard over the last few months and we're in the final push to get the project ready for our testing. We have a group of volunteers who have been helping us throughout this project and they will be assisting myself and my team with the testing when the system is ready for that.
Our aim is still to go live in October and we will organise a number of lunchtime webinars to demo the new setup thereafter. But to help ensure a smooth transition, we need your help, to tidy up some old opened appraisals, and to get a Turas account set up for the new login.
SOAR was designed to only handle one annual appraisal at a time and this has not changed in the new setup, in fact, to reinforce this a new mechanism has been introduced where users cannot create a new appraisal if there's any incomplete or ongoing appraisals.
As part of this, we have been reaching out to those with old incomplete appraisals on the system. Now, by "incomplete / open" appraisals, I don't mean any ongoing appraisals that are either about to take place, or ones that took place recently that just awaits the Form 4 sign off. I am referring to historic ones, the majority of them were from the pandemic where the appraisals were just left open.
My thanks to those of you who have responded to our emails to clarify the situation and we have resolved them after liaising with the local teams.
Our ask of you at this time is simple, please check your appraisal history and let us know if you have any outstanding appraisals that are not marked as "completed" in the status column. If you do, please contact the helpdesk and let us know if the appraisal(s) in question took place. We will liaise with the local team and action as necessary from there.
If this could be actioned before mid-September that would be greatly appreciated. If this is not actioned before we go live, the implication is that you will not be able to progress to a new appraisal until the old ones are closed off. So have a check and get in touch if you this applies to you.
Just to reiterate one point from the June newsletter - if you are in the middle of your appraisal whilst the new system goes live – nothing will be lost.
If you have ongoing appraisals, carry on as you are. There's no need to rush the sign off of any Form 4s but if you want to do this before the go live date, that's fine too.
As part of the redesign, we took the opportunity to review and streamline the appraisal forms to remove duplications where applicable; and as part of the new GMP updates, some of the supporting information will now appear in different domain areas - but all the information entered will still be there, but in some places it will just be merged with other boxes and some of the documents may appear in the wrong sections due to the GMP changes.
Appraisers have been asked to accept the submissions as they are, so long as all the supporting information needed (and the reflections) is there for them to draft the Form 4.
In the last update, we shared that we will be utilising the Turas Microsoft 2-factor login in the new setup, replacing the existing SOAR login mechanism.
If you are not familiar with Turas, it is a system designed by NES to bring together all your health and social care tools and learning resources in one easy to access platform: https://turasdashboard.nes.nhs.scot/
We have now worked out the logistics of how this will work from a technology point of view and we need your help.
The way the new setup works is that all users will require a Turas account in order to access SOAR.
If you don't have a Turas account, please access the Turas Dashboard and follow the link to create an account. Once the account is created and you are logged in, navigate to the "Add Applications" button and select the SOAR tile. Once this is added to your dashboard, click on it, then follow the on-screen instructions to log in to SOAR. After which, the two accounts will be linked – and that's it.
One thing to be mindful of though - don't click on the Turas Appraisal tile - that is a different appraisal application for agenda for change staff; whereas SOAR is designed specifically for Medical Appraisal and Revalidation.
If you already have a Turas account, please login to Turas and follow the previous steps to add the SOAR tile to your dashboard and link the two accounts.
For new users of both SOAR and Turas, you will still need to follow the previous steps to create a Turas account first, but to link this to SOAR you will need a temporary password. For this, you will need to liaise with your health board appraisal admin teams in the first instance, providing them with your name, GMC number, the email address you used to create the Turas account with, and they will take it from there.
If you run into any problems please contact the SOAR helpdesk for further assistance.
Please check if you have an old incomplete appraisal on SOAR, if you do, please get in touch and let us know if the meeting in question took place and we will take it from there.
To ensure a smooth transition to the new system, please make sure you have a Turas account, and make sure to link it to SOAR.
So that's it for this update, my thanks for your continued patience and support, on behalf of the team, it is greatly appreciated - so thank you.
We will post a further message when development and testing is concluded and we have a definitive go live date and scheduled in some webinar demos… in the meantime, enjoy the rest of the summer everyone!
This page was last updated on: 08/08/2024
