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ATS Tracking is used to create and track an amendment’s status. Once an amendment is created, a user can access the amendment details, forms for lodgement including exemption, extension or panel requests. The Ordinance changes tool  is found when in the amendment details screen.

ATS Authoring is only used to author changes in the selected ordinance and will never need to be used where an amendment proposes to only change maps.

Your first step is to get access to ATS Tracking to create and manage amendments. See an existing member from your Planning Authority who can add you to the group.

See Access ATS tracking for further details.

Yes. The Instruction Sheet must still be uploaded as a supporting document when submitting an amendment to the department.

Yes. When completing the application form for Authorisation (Exhibited amendments) or Approval (Ministerial or Prescribed amendments) you will see an option to submit for Draft Review. (See the Submit options page of the form).

After submitting an amendment for Draft Review, the status will be updated as Draft Review. Once the department has completed it’s review, the amendment will be sent back to you and go back to Draft status.

Yes, but only where there are no child schedules to the VPP ordinance i.e., no schedules to the Mixed Use Zone

If there are child schedules to the VPP level ordinance there will need to be two amendments undertaken:

  • Amendment 1 – delete all child schedules of the VPP level ordinance
  • Amendment 2 – after the gazettal of Amendment 1, exclude the VPP level ordinance in Amendment 2

No. If a change to a schedule is required to include all the required schedule sections to meet the Ministerial Direction – For Form and Content of Planning Schemes, then the entire schedule will need to be replaced.

The Ordinance changes tool available from the amendment details screen will need to be used to select the existing schedule to be deleted and then a new schedule added within the same sub clause of the planning scheme. The added schedule will include all of the relevant sections in accordance with Ministerial Direction.

The ATS Authoring system will need to be used to author the contents of the new schedule.

For further guidance:

Yes.

No.

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

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:

Track changes colours scheme

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;

ATS Authoring Table Styles

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%.

format a table in Authoring

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.Inserting a row into an existing table

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.

Page last updated: 05/12/23