ATS FAQs

ATS Tracking is the digital tool used to create and track the status of a planning scheme amendment and submit a planning scheme  amendment to the Department. You can view the stages of the amendment via ATS Tracking.

ATS Authoring is the digital tool that enables planning authorities to draft and amend planning scheme ordinance.

You must have an ATS tracking login to access ATS Tracking.

Login to  ATS Tracking.

If you do not have ATS Tracking login details, please contact your Council Administrator who will be able to set up your access.

Yes.

When the Council Administrator creates an ATS tracking log in, they then email planning.support@delwp.vic.gov.au a request to enable access to ATS Authoring.

If you don't have ATS Authoring login details, please contact your Council Administrator.

Yes.

Planning authorities will still need to generate documents outside of the ATS system in Word and the existing naming conventions for files must be used for uploaded files.

Templates can be obtain on the Amending a planning scheme webpage.

Training programs are delivered every month.  See the ATS Training schedule for dates and times and on how to register for training.

Yes.

No.

The amendment numbers generated by the ATS Tracking and can only be used once.

Yes.

If you cannot see your amendment number in ATS Tracking you will need to regenerate a new amendment number.

Yes.

The Amendment Instruction Sheet is a word document that forms part of the Amendment package. The Instruction Sheet lists both Ordinances and Maps that is affected by the amendment.

The Instruction list is created in ATS Tracking to generate the relevant ordinances that are required to edit in ATS Authoring and does not include Amendment Maps. If you are preparing an amendment that only affects Maps you do not need to create an Instruction list in ATS Tracking.

• DELETE a Schedule, will automatically include all Schedule Sections to be deleted. Therefore you do not need to list all  Schedule Sections to be deleted.
• DELETE a Clause that is contained in the ranges 20 and above will automatically include any Sub-Clause child ordinance, therefore you do not need to list all Sub-Clause to be deleted.
• DELETE a Sub-Clause that is contained between Sub-Clause ranges of 20 and above, will automatically include all Sub-Clause Sections to be deleted. Therefore you do not need to list all Sub-Clause Sections to be deleted.
• DELETE a Sub-Clause that is contained in the Sub-Clause range of 10’s will not delete the Sub-Clause sections that is linked as part of that Sub-Clause . Therefore you must list all Sub-Clause Sections that need to be deleted.
• EXCLUDE VPP where the Clause is selected will only exclude the Clause and any child Sub-Clause will become the children of the previous ordinance. Therefore you will need to also EXCLUDE or DELETE any child Sub-Clause.
• EXCLUDE VPP where the Sub-Clause is selected will also exclude any child ordinance, therefore you do not need to list all Sub-Clause to be deleted.

When adding Instruction Items to the Instruction List, the system performs a validation check of all items in the listing.  If duplicated Instruction Items are found, for example two modify actions of the same ordinance, or if one modify action of an ordinance and then another action in the list to delete the same ordinance is found, a validation error will be appear on the screen.  The user is guided by the alert message and can use the ID field to work out which Instruction Items are causing the conflict.

Any conflicting items will need to be removed. (Select Choose Action and Remove).  Be careful when removing items!  If you've made authoring changes already to the ordinance, all changes will be lost once the item is removed from the Instruction List.

Once the conflicting item is removed, the user should be able to select Submit to ATS Authoring so that the amendment document will be updated with the latest Instruction Items from the Instruction List form.

Check the online guide, How to create and edit an Instruction List or the Module 2 video from the ATS Learning videos for further information.

From August 2020, users can now choose to submit their amendment as Draft to the department for review.  This will allow the assigned department Planner to review the amendment document in ATS Authoring (Keystone) and to assist where required.

To do this, locate the amendment number from the Amendment Listing screen and select Choose Action and Submit as Draft.

Once the department Planner has reviewed the amendment document, they will return the amendment back to the Planning Authority and the contact will receive an email from the assigned Planner.

ATS does not allow for the creation of schedule sections which may be required in order to have current schedules meet Ministerial Direction - Form and Content. The schedule will need to be replaced which means there will need to be two action items for each schedule being replaced:

1. Using ATS Tracking (Intelledox), update the Instruction List Form to Create a new schedule, selecting the appropriate template (this will bring in all schedule sections plus the schedule header) and ensure the correct location is selected for the position of the schedule (where current one is now)
2. Add another instruction item to Delete the current schedule.

To save time in re-entering text, the below steps through a way where users can copy/paste content directly in ATS Authoring (Keytone):

1. Using ATS Tracking (Intelledox), update the Instruction List Form to add action item to Create a new schedule, selecting the appropriate schedule template and positioning the new schedule in the correct location.
2. Add action item to ‘Modify’ the existing schedule header and schedule sections of the schedule that is being replaced. (You can select all relevant sections at the same time)
3. Select Submit to ATS Authoring which will update the amendment document with the required sections and template.
4. Using ATS Authoring, access the amendment document and copy text from the old schedule sections and paste into the new schedule sections – working schedule section by schedule section. You can do the same for the schedule header too.
5. Once all authoring is complete and all changes saved, return to ATS Tracking and the Instruction list and remove all of the modify instruction items related to the schedule being replaced. Submit to ATS Authoring to update the amendment document.
6. Return to the Instruction list again and add an action item to delete the current schedule and submit to ATS Authoring.

The interim publish function allows a registered user who is drafting amendment provisions to view and create a PDF in final form.

It will:

• Produce a PDF of the draft provisions to show how the amendments would look in the final publication. Useful for exhibition of an amendment or for attaching draft provisions to reports
• Create a draft provision in context with the whole provision. For example, if the amendment only modifies words in Schedule Section 3.0 of a local Schedule, the PDF will show the whole schedule based on the current, master copy of the planning scheme and include the draft changes
• Allow users to create a ‘clean’ and also a ‘tracked changes’ version of the provisions to allow users to see differences in provisions.

View the user guide 'Generate an Interim Publish and compare to other saved versions' to see how to publish the proposed changes in final form and content. The guide also covers how to generate a 'compare' file that will show tracked changes.

You can view and create a PDF in final form by using the Interim Publish function.

This function provides the capability of seeing how amendments look in the final publication and is useful for exhibiting amendments or for attaching to reports.

View the user guide 'Generate an Interim Publish and compare to other saved versions' to see how to publish the proposed changes in final form and content. The guide also covers how to generate a 'compare' file that will show tracked changes.

If the 'compare' feature is selected when running Interim Publish for the amendment, the user will see their tracked changes.

• Red denotes items that have been deleted
• Green denotes items that have been added
• Blue denotes formatting changes

Below is an example:

The system we use to author amendments is one that is also used by other companies around the world and there are a number of features and functions that appear available to be used in ATS Authoring however you will not be able to access these due to the configuration of the system for our specific use.

The system we use to author amendments is one that is also used by other companies around the world. There may be times that the software vendor is applying a feature change to the software but in a number of cases may not affect your workflow.  We suggest reading the pop-up and selecting “Got-it” to clear.

Yes.

This video shows you how to adjust your editor settings.

The three table styles used to format tables in an amendment document are Default, Style 1 or Style 2.

The format you see whilst editing the document may appear different when printed. Therefore it's important you use the Publish PDF (RGB) (Available on the Publish tab) to see your amendment in PDF form.

You can watch our video on how to work with tables in Module four of our ATS Learning Videos

The image below shows what each table style will look like when in PDF form;

Layout function

If the width of your table extends beyond the page width when printed, you can use the Layout function.

Step one: ensure you select the entire table by click on the + icon locate at top left of table.

Step two: select Layout, Click on Table Width and from the dropdown, select 100%.

Where you are modifying existing content you may want to insert a row into a table.

Ensure the content is unlocked for editing.

Place your cursor along any part of an existing row that is either above or below the section of the table where you want the row inserted. It's important you place your cursor in the table otherwise you will not see the table layout options.

From the Actions menu, navigate to the Layout section and select either of the options to insert row before or after the existing row.  The layout options also include the option to delete a row.

Note: You can copy multiple new rows of data from a Word document and paste into existing content however be sure to add the exact amount of new blank rows prior to pasting the copied data.

Email planning.support@delwp.vic.gov.au, quoting your amendment number and that you would like the ordinance sorted in your amendment document. They will be able to run a special script to sort ordinance in your amendment document.

This process may be required for any amendment document that had the Instruction List submitted to ATS Authoring (Keystone) prior to August 2020. For all amendment documents where the Instruction List was submitted to ATS Authoring post August 2020, the ordinance should be sorted in clause order, however all deleted instructions will appear at the end of the table of contents listing.

When editing ordinance content in ATS Authoring you do not immediately see the true formatting of text or tables.

The guide 'View a single ordinance with all formatting', will show you how to publish just the one content section (i.e. ordinance you have been working on) to see what it looks like when printed as a PDF file.

Users can use the 'Track Changes' function, select a version to compare to and then use the 'Merge Mode' to accept or reject a change made to content. The guide 'View saved versions, track changes and merge' shows how to use this functionality.

Users can use the 'Track Changes' function, select to compare to the version that was saved prior to the refresh being processed, and then use the 'Merge Mode' to accept or reject a change made to content. The guide 'View saved versions, track changes and merge' shows how to use this functionality.