Part of workforce Minimum Dataset collection vehicle guidance IT system user guidance

Monitoring submissions

Viewing validations within the system

It may be apparent from the confirmation email received after the upload of data to the wMDSCV system, that there were errors and/or warnings within your submitted data. These could be a range of issues and are listed in the understanding validations within the system section. Prior to this, this section outlines how to view warnings and validations within the system.

The following section will help you to:

view the validations page
view validations on individual submissions
understand validations within the system

Viewing the Validations page

1. Open your web browser

2. Once your browser is open enter the following web address (URL) into the address bar at the top of the browser: https://wmdscv.digital.nhs.uk

This URL will take you to the wMDSCV sign in screen. Click the Sign In link at the top right of the screen. Enter your username and password and click the Sign In button.

You will be taken to the wMDSCV home page.

3. Navigate to the validations page under the submissions menu.

WMDSSCV validations screen

4. This will display all the validations which have been recorded within the wMDSCV system. This includes warnings, which are flagged to the user but still allow data to be uploaded to the data store, as well as errors which do not allow data to be uploaded to the data store. Test submissions are not included, as data is not uploaded to the data store. If you experience warnings, please see the ‘Viewing validations on individual submissions’ in Section 5.1.3.

wMDSCV validation summary

From this page you can download the validations from your organisation’s submissions. To do this click the download button as highlighted above. This downloads a Text file which contains all the validations from your organisation’s submissions. The file includes the Structure where the validation occurred, the Period which it was reported, your Organisation code, the affected Rule or Field name and an Error and Warning count.

5. Within the system, you can drill down for further detail relating to the field where an error or warning has been reported. To do this click on a ‘Field or Area Name’. This will take you to a page similar to the one below. This page details the type of validation which occurred for the system to have reported an error or a warning.

The example below demonstrates that there are 96 warnings in the submission on National Insurance Number for this organisation, labelled as ‘Invalid Data Format’ validation type.

wMDSCV validation type invalid date format message

6. You can then drill down to the level of organisation by clicking on ‘Validation Type’. This will only display the organisation for which you are assigned.

Throughout these pages you can use the ‘Back to Validation Summary’ button to return to the original Validations screen. If you do not want to navigate this far back, there is a navigational title at the top of the page which indicates the path. Pressing each individual title will return you to the previous page. This is indicated below.

wMDSCV validation summary NI number and invalid date format

7. Clicking on submitting organisation will navigate you to the organisations submitted on behalf of’. As you are a Single Organisation user, only the organisation for which you are associated with will be displayed.

wMDSCV organisation submitted on behalf of

8. Finally, drilling down on organisations submitted on behalf of navigates you to the details page. This details all the individual validations which relate to this validation type. This includes the date and time at which the submission was made, the level of the validation as either a warning or error, the message for the validation, the affected value and an action of View which allows you to view the original submission.

wMDSCV submitted screen

Filtering on the Validations page

Within the validations page there is the option to filter on the reporting period as displayed below. You will only be able to see validations for your own organisation. It may be useful to view validations in certain reporting periods to compare data quality across months and observe validations which consistently are reported over time within your organisation’s wMDS submissions.

wMDSCV filters

When navigating through the pages and back to the original validations page, filters will be retained. Additionally, once a filter has been applied, the download button can be used. Only validations which are applicable to the filter will be included in the Text file.

When the applied filter is no longer required, click the green Reset button, which will remove all applied filters.

Viewing validations on individual submissions

1. Open your web browser

2. Once your browser is open enter the following web address (URL) into the address bar at the top of the browser: https://wmdscv.digital.nhs.uk

This URL will take you to the wMDSCV sign in screen. Click the Sign In link at the top right of the screen. Enter your username and password and click the Sign In button.

You will be taken to the wMDSCV Home Page.

3. Or alternatively, click the link in your invitation email (or submission validation report email).

4. Navigate to the All Submissions page.

wMDSCV all submissions

5. Click detail for a submission for which you received errors or warnings.

wMDSCV detail

You will only be able to view validations for the organisation for which you are assigned.

6. You will be presented with the following page. Click on the Field or Area Name to display the Validation Messages section which provides further details relating to the errors/warnings reported. Alternatively click the Download All Validations button and this will provide the validation details to you in a text file. The text file will include the structure of where the error or warning was found, the rule or field name affected, the location of the error or warning within the file, the level whether it was an error or warning, a message associated with the validation and the value which caused the validation.

wMDSCV details structure summary and validation summary

A validation summary will only be present where there are errors or warnings associated with your submission. The validation summary will not be visible if there are no errors or warnings to report.

Understanding validations within the system

When submitting workforce data to the wMDSCV system, users may experience a number of errors or warnings with their submission. Below are further details relating to these errors and warnings and this section will grow as further validations are added to the system and in response to queries and comments received from data suppliers.

Distinguishing between errors and warnings:

If warnings are generated from your submission, the data which you have submitted will still be uploaded into the data store. However, please ensure that these warnings are checked and that you are happy with the data as is or that data can be updated in a later submission.

If errors are generated from your submission, the data which you submitted will not be uploaded to the data store and therefore will be required to be amended and resubmitted to the wMDSCV system. More details on resubmission can be found in the section Resubmitting Data for a Reporting Period.

The sections below explain in more detail the different Errors and Warnings that may be highlighted when your submission is validated, split by the different elements of your submission.

More detail on the valid format of different data items is given in Appendix 1 – including data in the wrong format for a column will generate an error, for example including text in a date field or a date in a field which expects a decimal number. Therefore, it is important that you do not add an extra header row to the template or delete any data columns.

Staff details

ERROR: Employing organisation code is blank

Error message: Field is mandatory.

The employing organisation code field is mandatory. This field must also match the organisation for which you are submitting data for.

WARNING: Employing organisation code does not match submitting organisation code

Warning message: Organisation code does not match the organisation code of the submitter.

The employing organisation code field is mandatory. This field must match the organisation for which you are submitting data for.

ERROR: Key is duplicated

Error message: Duplicate Key found in Staff Details structure.

The key for an employee is made up of:

Employing Organisation code

And one or more of the following:

National Insurance number
Employee number
Role number

Where the combination is unique for each row in the staff details element of the submission

Key details for employees (and their roles) must be unique for each individual/role and the same key values must be used across the submission as a whole. That is registration (or absence) information relating to an individual (or one of their roles) must have the same key within all elements of the submission so that registration and absence information can be related to the correct staff details information

WARNING: National Insurance Number is not valid

Warning message: Not a valid National Insurance number

National Insurance Numbers need to follow the government guidelines and be of a certain format. More details on this can be found in the List of Values document

WARNING: Invalid occupation code

Warning message: Occupation code not recognised.

Occupation code is a mandatory field and must follow the three-character format as defined in the national coding system. More information on occupation codes is available the NHS Digital workforce team would be happy to speak to you about mapping your workforce information to the NHS Occupation Codes.

WARNING: Expired occupation code

Warning message: Occupation code is not current.

Occupation code is a mandatory field and must follow the three-character format as defined in the national coding system. More information on occupation codes is available. Occupation codes must be currently valid. Historic occupation codes will generate warnings within the system.

WARNING: Date of birth indicates that the employee is over 80 years old

Warning message: At the end of the submission period this employee is indicated to be 80 years or over – please check that the date of birth is correct, and they are still in employment.

Date of birth for the employee will generate a warning if they are aged 80 years or over at the end of the reporting period. Please ensure that the correct date of birth has been entered.

WARNING: Date of birth indicates that the employee is under 21 years old with a medical and dental occupation code

Warning message: At the end of the submission period this employee is indicated to be less than 21 years old – please check that the date of birth is correct, and they are a member of the medical and dental staff group.

Employees with a medical and dental occupation code must be aged at least 21 years old at the end of the reporting period.

WARNING: Date of birth indicates that the employee is under 15 years old with a non-medical occupation code

Warning message: At the end of the reporting period this employee is indicated to be less than 15 years old – please check that the date of birth is correct.

Employees with non-medical occupation codes must be aged at least 15 years old at the end of the reporting period.

An employee’s Combined Full Time Equivalent is greater than 1.28

Warning message: An individual person’s total combined contracted FTE is not expected to exceed 1.28, please check the figures are correct.

An employee is not expected to have an FTE which is over 1.28. Although this is quite feasible in some cases, the system will generate a warning if this occurs. This applies to individual records as well as across records. For example, if an employee undertakes two roles in the same organisation, the total FTE cannot exceed 1.28.

WARNING: Contracted FTE value is not correct

Warning message: Figure provided for contracted FTE ([value]) does not equate to the calculated value for FTE ([value]) [Contracted hours/Standard hours]

The Contracted FTE value should be equal to the value for Contracted hours divided by the value for Standard hours. This should be given to five decimal places or less. This validation will only run when the values for contracted hours and standard hours are not null and the standard hours value is above zero.

WARNING: Start date at the organisation is after the end date

Warning message: The START_DATE_ORG value DD/MM/YYYY must not be greater than the END_DATE_ORG value DD/MM/YYYY.

The start date of employment with an organisation cannot be after the end date of the employment with the organisation, that is the date leaving cannot be before the date joining the organisation.

WARNING: Reason for leaving expects an end date

Warning message: An end date at the organisation must be provided if a REASON_FOR_LEAVING has been provided

If a Reason for Leaving has been provided, the system expects an end date of employment at the organisation for that employee.

WARNING: Destination on leaving expects an end date

Warning message: An end date at the organisation must be provided if a DESTINATION_ON_LEAVING has been provided

If a destination on Leaving has been provided, the system expects an end date of employment at the organisation for that employee.

Registrations

WARNING: National Insurance Number is not valid

Warning message: Not a valid National Insurance number

National Insurance Numbers need to follow the government guidelines and be of a certain format. More details on this can be found in the List of Values.

WARNING: Occupation code requires GMC registration

Warning message: GMC Registration Required.

Some occupation codes require registration with a professional body. A warning will be generated if registration is not assigned to an employee who has an occupation code which requires GMC registration. More information on NHS Occupation codes is available.

WARNING: Occupation code requires GDC registration

Warning message: GDC Registration Required.

Some occupation codes require registration with a professional body. A warning will be generated if registration is not assigned to an employee who has an occupation code which requires GDC registration. More information on NHS Occupation codes is available.

WARNING: Occupation code needs GMC not GDC registration

Warning message: Only GMC Registration is required – GDC registration not required

Some occupation codes require registration with the General Medical Council. A warning will be generated if General Dental Council registration is assigned to an employee who has an occupation code which requires GMC rather than GDC registration. More information on NHS Occupation codes is available.

WARNING: Occupation code needs GDC not GMC registration

Warning message: Only GDC Registration is required – GMC registration not required.

Some occupation codes require registration with the General Dental Council. A warning will be generated if General Medical Council registration is assigned to an employee who has an occupation code which requires GDC rather than GMC registration. More information on NHS Occupation codes is available.

WARNING: Occupation code needs either GMC or GDC registration not e.g. HCPC registration

Warning message: Either GMC OR GDC Registration Required.

Some occupation codes require registration with the General Medical Council or General Dental Council and not with another professional body. A warning will be generated if a different professional body is assigned to an employee who has an occupation code which requires GMC or GDC registration.

More information on NHS Occupation codes is available.

WARNING: Occupation code does not require registration

Warning message: No registration required.
Some occupation codes do not require registration with a professional body. A warning will be generated if registration is assigned to an occupation code which does not require this, as it suggests that the employee may have been assigned the wrong occupation code. More information on NHS Occupation codes is available.

Absence

WARNING: National Insurance Number is not valid

Warning message: Not a valid National Insurance number
National Insurance Numbers need to follow the government guidelines and be of a certain format. More information on this can be found in the list of values document.

WARNING: Absence periods cannot overlap

Warning message: Multiple periods of absence for an individual should not overlap
An employee cannot have multiple overlapping periods of absence. Start dates and end dates of absence should be distinct. The validation will only run where start and end dates are populated with valid dates.

Vacancies

WARNING: Vacancy days unfilled value is incorrect

Warning message: The number of VACANCY_DAYS_UNFILLED (DURATION) provided does not match the duration (DIFFERENCE INTERVAL) calculated from the start (START_DATE) and end dates (END_DATE)

The vacancy days unfilled value must be equal to the number of days between the start and end dates of the vacancy. The validation will only run when start and end dates are populated with valid dates.

Whole submission validations

ERROR: Structure is missing

Warning message: Excel submission file is missing the mandatory “xxx” worksheet.

Files need to be composed of four worksheets; Staff Details, Registrations, Absence and Vacancy. All four sheets are mandatory to enable the upload of data. More information can be found in the File Specification and Validation section.

ERROR: Key does not match

Error messages: Key for record in Registration structure does not exist in Staff Details Structure. Or: Key for record in Absence structure does not exist in Staff Details Structure.

The key for an employee is made up of:

Employing Organisation code
And one or more of the following:
National Insurance number
Employee number
Role number

Key details for employees (and their roles) must be consistent across the submission, so that a key can only exist within the Registration or Absence sections if it corresponds to a record in the Staff Details section. That is there cannot be a registration or absence record for which there is not a linked person record.

Last edited: 14 July 2023 9:55 am

Monitoring submissions

Viewing validations within the system

Viewing the Validations page

Filtering on the Validations page

Viewing validations on individual submissions

Understanding validations within the system

Staff details

Registrations

Absence

Vacancies

Whole submission validations

Chapters