Eligibility Checking Service

The ECS (Eligibility Checking Service) Settings panel is used to store the credentials and information used for connection to the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) online checking service.

Modules that use ECS on Provider Portal are:

  • Headcount
  • Two Year Old Funding
  • Thirty Hour Entitlement

The ECS Configuration page is accessed via the ECS Configuration tile on each Portal Homepage in the modules mentioned above.

ECS Configuration

To perform eligibility checks, the Eligibility Checking System (ECS) must be configured.

When using a live environment, the ECS Environment must always be Live. If using in a test environment, the ECS Environment must be Sandpit.

ECS Settings

  1. From the ECS Environment drop-down list select Live.
  2. Enter your ECS Local Authority value.
  3. Enter your ECS Username.
  4. Click the Save button.
  5. Click the Update ECS Password link to display the password fields.
  6. Enter your ECS Account password in both fields.
  7. Click the Save button.
  8. If you have changed the ECS Environment value, perform an IIS reset on the Provider Portal web server.

Changing the ECS Environment affects both Early Years Pupil Premium and 30 Hours Entitlement.


ECS Override Settings

If it is necessary to override the default address for connection to the DfE Eligibility Checking Service (ECS), complete the following:

  1. Enter the following URL into the ECS Service URI Override field.
    https://ecs.education.gov.uk/fsm.lawebservice/20170701/OnlineQueryService.svc

These setting will normally be empty. They should only be set after guidance from Capita.

  1. Click the Save button.
  2. Reset the Portal application to reload the changes (either IIS Reset, or re-cycle the Application Pool running the Portal application).

Set Up Automatic Recheck

A scheduled task is set up on the application server to automatically recheck a child’s eligibility. If required, the scheduled task can be set to run daily, but the Local Authority can run it at any time. The task uses the parameters configured on the 30 Hours Free Childcare Configuration page to determine which entitlements to recheck.

The task determines which checks to do and splits them into batches of a configured size. It submits the batches to the ECS. Periodically, a timed integration server event queries the ECS for completed batches and downloads the results.

On the ECS Configuration page, the batch size and length of time between checks can be configured by the Local Authority.

To change the parameters:

  1. Select ECS Configuration from the 30 Hours Free Childcare | Administrator menu to display the ECS Configuration page. Alternatively, on the Thirty Hour Entitlement Portal home page click the ECS Configuration button.
  2. If required, enter a Batch Size (Records).
  3. If required, enter a Recheck sleep (Minutes).
  4. Click the Save button.