To support you while the Portal is offline, we have set up this web form to replicate the process you would go through to complete bookings for controlled assessments for Functional Skills and external assessments for CACHE qualifications and Functional Skills.
1. Please download and use the booking CSV template
2. Have your centre number to hand as you’ll need this to submit the web form and for password protection
3. Take your time to double check that you’ve inputted all the relevant data fields and included all relevant learners – a single web form submission will ensure much quicker processing time by our internal team.
4. If you are booking a Functional Skills controlled assessment please see the list of assessment topics the topic will need to be added to the relevant column in the booking template.
5. Please password protect the booking CSV file with your centre number (see below for advice on how to password protect a file), complete the web form, attach the CSV file and click submit.
All previous rules and deadlines relating to external assessments are still in place. Forms will be reviewed before processing, and should our teams have any queries, we’ll get in contact with you before making the booking.
Please note that the first date for sitting paper-based Functional Skills assessments is Monday 12 January 2026, due to our Christmas closure and the printing and processing timescales required. Please only book assessments for Functional Skills with an assessment date up until Saturday 31 January 2026 while we work on getting the Portal available to you.
In order for our internal teams to complete and process your booking by midday on Wednesday 24 December 2025 the final submission date for CSV files and the accompanying web form is 5pm on Monday 22 December. We close during the Christmas period and will begin processing these requests again from Monday 5 January 2026.
Open the Excel file.
Click File → Info.
Select Protect Workbook.
Click Encrypt with Password.
Enter a password.
Re-enter the password to confirm.
Click Save.
