We previously created a project reference number so users could quickly tell apart academy transfer projects.

The first part of the reference number is an abbreviation of the incoming trust’s region. For example, SW is South West.

An academy transfers project. It has the reference number SW-MAT-10000001.

When DfE changed from 8 regions to 9, this created a bug in our service. When we tried to create an academy transfer project, we received an error message and couldn’t create a project. This of course would stop users (regional delivery officers) from creating a project.

The Manage an academy transfer service. It has a Start a new transfer project button.

What we did

We removed the regional abbreviation from the project reference number. We tested this and confirmed that:

  1. The region doesn’t appear on the project reference number when creating a project.
  2. Previous projects which had a regional abbreviation can still be accessed without any issues.

The new reference number displays on both the projects list page and the project task list.

A list of academy transfer projects. They all include a reference number that starts with SAT.

A task list for Oxford Diocesan Bucks Schools Trust. It includes the reference number SAT-100002182.

We kept the incoming trust name as the project title instead of the project reference number. This was in line with previous considerations about the project title name.

Next steps

We’ll confirm if users find the new project reference format useful.

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Content design User experience Academies