LBP portal help guides

Owen: Kia ora, welcome to the MBIE LBP webinar on using the new LBP portal.

This webinar is designed for existing LBPs; or people who have applied before and were not successful, or have let their licence lapse, who have used our old portal in the past and need to know how to get back into the new portal.

Today we’ll be going through a portal walkthrough, guidance on how to set up access, renew a licence, download a digital licence, and some Q&As at the end – a chance for you to ask us questions.

Today your presenters will be myself, Owen Campbell – I’m a senior registration and licensing officer. We have with us Bruce Duggan, who is our senior technical advisor, and we have Olga, who is our principal engagement advisor.

This seminar is not for anyone who wants to use the portal for the first time to gain access. There will be more information on our website regarding this.

Olga: Thank you. Owen.

Hi, everyone. Kia ora. My name is Olga Hoxha, and I'm a principal engagement advisor. I'm going to take you through the portal and explain in a little bit more detail on how to set up access, renew a license and download a digital licence in the new system.

Before we get started, just a few housekeeping items: This session is being recorded, so for those who are unable to attend, or for those who would like to watch this later, we will publish a recording of this webinar on our website.

The chat in this session is disabled, so you cannot use it unfortunately. However, we've got a Q&A function which is available, and it should be at the bottom of your screen. There should be a button called “Q&A” that you can click on and submit your questions throughout this webinar. At the end of the presentation, we will have a Q&A session where we will answer some of your questions.

You also are welcome to switch on closed captions to be able to see the text on the screen. You would do this by clicking on the “Live Transcript” button at the bottom of the screen.

So without further ado, let's get started.

Well, the presentation format for this webinar will be in two parts, so part one will be about how to set up access to the new LBP portal. This is really important for anyone who has used the old portal in the past, to come in and set it up.

Please be aware that if this applies to you, your information has been transferred across to the new portal. This includes your name and your LBP number. However, you still need to go through the setup process in order to be able to use the new LBP portal.

The second part of the presentation will be about how do you then – once you've got your setup,  when you've set up your access – how do you then renew your license and download your new digital license.

So we'll get started with the MBIE opening karakia:

Tāwhia tō mana kia mau, kia māia
Ka huri taku aro ki te pae kahurangi, kei reira te oranga mōku
Mā mahi tahi, ka ora, ka puāwai
Ā mātau mahi katoa, ka pono, ka tika
Tihei mauri ora

So I've mentioned previously that in order for you to be able to set up… in order for you to be able to use the new LBP portal, you need to set up access. So what do we mean by that?

Basically, there are a couple of steps you need to take in order for you to start using the new system, and there are two ways you can do this. Option one is you can set up access using an invitation email. This email will be sent to you when your licence is coming up for renewal. So before you receive our standard relicensing notifications, you should receive an email with a link that will take you to a page on our website, where you can set up your access.

If, for any reason you don't receive that email, or if you would like to set up your access in your own time, you can do this by completing an online form on our website. I will explain in a little bit more detail how to do those two things next.

With option one, which I mentioned is when you receive an email from us inviting you to set up your access, the email will look something like this: what you see on the screen now. You need to read through the content, and you need to click on the “Redeem Portal Invitation” link to initiate the setup.

When you click on the link it will take you to a page on our website that will be called something like “Sign up with an invitation code”, and you will see an invitation code pre-populated there for you. You don't need to change this in any way. But what you will need to do here is you'll need to tick “I have an existing account”. That's because you are an existing user of an LBP of the old LBP Portal, and now you're creating an account in the new portal. Once you tick that, you need to click on the “Register” button.

Once you click on the register button, it will take you to this page on our website, and this is the “Welcome to the LBP portal” page.

What you need to do from there is, you will need to select one of the login options on the left-hand side. You could select “RealMe”, which is probably the option most of you are familiar with, because this is what the old portal used to have. Or you could sign in with a Microsoft or Google account. So these are the two new options that are available to you.

Please be aware that the option you select at this point will be… will need to be the same every time you come to the new LBP portal, and we will not be able to change this for you.

Once you sign in with any of the options you choose, you will be taken to the dashboard, and then from there you can do / perform the activities that you need to perform, such as renewing your licence, updating your skills maintenance activities, and so on and so forth.

This is option one, setting up your account using an invitation email. Now, on to option two, which is setting up your account using an online form.

To be able to do this, you will need to come to our website, lbp.govt.nz. The website will look something like this, and you need to look for a login button at the right-hand side corner. That login button will take you to the LBP portal. That's the part of the website where you can complete tasks such as renewing licences and updating skills maintenance activities.

Go ahead and click on that log in button, and it will take you to this “Welcome to the LBP Portal” page which we saw in the previous examples. However, with this option, there is an extra step you need to do in order for you to be able to sign in: You will need to click on the “Request portal access” button, and this button will take you to an online form that you need to complete in order to initiate that same email that I showed you earlier.

Please do not use the “Apply to be an LBP” button. This is for those building practitioners who would like to become licensed. That's a completely different functionality, and it's not to be used when you're setting up your access. Similarly, do not try and sign in with your… with your preferred Service Provider, because it will not work.

If we click on “Request portal access”, it will open up an online form. And this is what we mean by setting up access using an online form. You will need to complete your details on this form. Similarly, you will need to put in your LBP number.

There are a few things to note about this form: The name and email address that you use on this form must match the record we have for you on the register. This is very important: If your name or your email address don't match the records, you will not be able to receive that email.

Similarly, when you put in your LBP number, or in this case we call it “Practitioner ID”, you need to make sure you put in “BP” in front of the number. if you don't, again, you will not be able to receive that email.

If this happens, or you don't receive an email for any other reason, please do not submit another form. You will then need to get in touch with us.

I will go ahead and complete this form now, and then I'll click the “Submit” button.

Now I can see a confirmation email… confirmation message. What this message is telling me is that if the details I provided match the record, I will receive an email.

Going back to the email I showed you earlier, it will be the same email, except this time you initiated it yourself. In this case again, you'll need to click the “Redeem portal invitation” link, and then “I have an existing account” and “Register”. That will complete the setup of your account in the new LBP portal.

After you click this “Register” button, the system will take you to the “Welcome to the LBP Portal” page. We saw this page before, but now the difference here is that you have set up your access, using this “Request portal access” form. So now you can go ahead and log in with one of your preferred service providers.

In my case I will use “Sign in with Microsoft”, and I will select my account, and now type in my password. I've got a message asking me if I would like to stay signed in. You're welcome to say “Yes”, but in my case I will say “No”.

Now I was successful in setting up my account, and I was able to log in to the new LBP portal. Now I'll spend a few minutes explaining what this dashboard is about, and what can you do from here.

As you can see the dashboard is personalised: It's got my name, and it's got all my information under the “My Information” heading. On this main part of the dashboard, you can see a number of links that can take you to different parts of the portal where you can complete a range of tasks.

Under “My Current Classes”, you will see a list of all the licensing classes you hold, if you have more than one. Under “My Draft Applications”, you will see any applications you have in progress. You may see one or more, or there may be none in there, if you haven't started any.

And then on the right-hand side, under “Key Tasks”, you will see all the main tasks you are able to do in the new portal. As well as that, under “My Profile”, you can see there is an option to update your profile, which is the place you go to update your contact and personal information.

This completes the first part of our presentation, which is an overview on how to set up your access.

Now this brings us to the second part of the presentation.

Now that you've set up your access, you can then go ahead and renew your license. This is what I'm going to show you next.

Please be aware that if you'd like to renew your licence, you need to wait until your licence is coming up for renewal. Otherwise you will not be able to see a “Renew existing license” key task under “Key tasks”. The link here, “Renew your existing licence”, will still be there, but if you click on it, it will give you an error.

In my case, I have a license coming up for renewal. When I click on “Renew existing license”, it will allow me to proceed with a renewal.

On the screen here, I need to confirm that I've continued practicing, and tick “Yes”. Then I need to click “Save and continue”.

On this page here, under “Skills maintenance”, you will see that the system is checking whether my skills maintenance is required. In this case it says that my skills maintenance update is not required, and in this case I can simply click “Save and continue” to proceed. If you see a message here saying that your skills maintenance update is required, there will be a link that will take you to the place on the portal where you can update your skills maintenance activities before you can proceed with your licence renewal. In my case I can go ahead and proceed by clicking on the “Save and continue” button.

The next page I see is a photograph page. I've got my photo in here already. I can click here to preview it, or I can decide to change it. This is not where you change your photo – this is basically just to preview your photo. If you decide to change it, you'll need to scroll down, and under “My photograph”, look for a drop-down arrow. You need to click on it, and you need to select ”Upload photograph”.

In my case, I’m not going to do this, but you’re welcome to do it if you want. Please be aware that if you update your photo when you’re relicensing, your application will take longer to process. However, if you proceed through relicensing without updating it, your licence renewal application should be approved pretty much immediately.

There is an option here that says, “Make my approved photograph available on the public register”. If you select this option, the photo that you have on file will show on the register. We strongly recommend that you choose this option because it makes it easier to verify your identity. In my case, I will leave it unticked, then click “Save and continue”.

The next page I see is the “Contact details” page, and you can see that here all my details are already pre-populated. My email address is shown, and my mobile address is shown as well.

The requirement is that I must provide at least one phone number on the register. I have an option to tick “Do not show on public register”. This is entirely up to you if you want to do that, however, you are not able to do the same for the email address. The email address will show on the register by default. I've reviewed my details, and then I click on “Save and Continue”.

Now I can see the “Address details” page. I must provide at least one address… and one postal address in order for me to be able to proceed. To do this I click on the “Create” button, and here on this page I can either use a lookup – which is where it says “Search” – or I can manually enter the address.

I will test the lookup function. I select the address I want to add, and then I need to click the “Use address” button. What happens there is that your details have now been pre-populated. I can see that it's all correct, so I just click “I confirm that the information I have supplied is true and incorrect”.

“PAF validated” is basically a notification saying that this “Use address” functionality worked as expected. I'm happy with my address, so I click on “Submit now”.

I need to select an address type, so I'll select “Postal address” and click “Submit”.

Okay, now I've added an address. I can then go ahead to “Save and continue”.

Now, you can see we arrived at the “Application summary and declaration” page. You can see there is my photo shown at the top, and my application fees are shown as well. I need to review this information, and then I need to click the declaration, basically confirming that everything I supplied is true and correct.

You can see there is a button called “Submit”. If I click on this button, I will not be able to go back and make any more changes. I'm happy with the… with the information that I've got, and I click on the “Submit” button now.

Now I can see that I've arrived at the “Pay and complete application” page. I simply review my details. Everything looks correct, and then I click “Pay”. When I click on the “Pay” button, it will take me to a payment screen where I can enter my payment details to be able to complete my application.

On this page you can see there is a summary of fees and levies. There is an option to pay by credit card or debit card, or internet banking. In my case I want to use credit card, so I will select “Credit”. You're welcome to say, “Retain card for future payment” if you wish, but you don't have to tick it if you don't want to.

There is an option here to change details – this is the blue button here. For example, if you would like your tax invoice sent to another email address, you can change it here.

I'm happy with the information on this page, and I'm happy to pay with a credit card. So I'll click on process payment now.

It's asking me to update my address details.

I'll click on process payments. Here, I enter my credit card details, put in my name, an expiry date, and the CVC code. I click “Submit”.

When I click “Submit”, I can see a small window pop up, basically confirming that my credit card has been charged. I need to click “Complete transaction”: This is actually really important. If you see this message, make sure you click on this to be able to complete the payment.

I click on complete transaction, and you can see It's taken me back to the LBP portal. The message is telling me that my application has been submitted, and my payment has been completed. As mentioned earlier. If you did not update your photo during the relicensing, your application should be approved pretty much immediately.

Now that my application has been submitted, I can go back to the LBP portal dashboard.

Here we are, back to the dashboard now. For the purpose of this webinar, let's pretend that my application got approved, in which case I can go ahead now and download my digital licence.

To download my digital licence, I click on this option under “Key Tasks”, “Download your digital licence”, and you can see that it's happening straight away on the screen. The message is telling me that it's been successfully downloaded.

When I click on the downloaded file, it opens up my digital licence. It has all my personal information relevant to the LBP portal, the issue date as well as the expiry date. And it’s got my photo.

At the bottom of the lines of the digital license, you can see that there is QR code that others can scan to be able to verify my details on the public register. You're welcome to print this licence or save it on your computer for future use.

Now I'll go back to the dashboard. This completes the second part of the presentation, which is an overview on how to renew your existing licence and download your digital licence in a new portal.

Here's a confirmation email that you will receive when you renew your license. It’ll basically tell you how to download your digital licence, which is in the steps that I showed you just now.

Again, here's an example of what a digital licence will look like in the new system.

This brings us to the end of the presentation, and I'll hand it over to Owen and Bruce to run the Q&As.

Bruce: Good afternoon, all. Don't forget that at the bottom of the screen is your Q&A button if you'd like to submit any questions. We do have a few that came prior to the webinar this afternoon, so we'll just… Owen and I'll just run through a few of those.

The first one, Owen, is, when will the new LBP portal become available?

Owen: The new LBP portal is due to become available on the third of October. This is the date we are expecting it to become live.

Bruce: Great. What if I run into problems when setting up my access to the new portal that Olga has just taken us through?

Owen: So, if you don’t get the expected email that we send you, you can check your spam mail, of course. We would suggest that you call our contact centre. They’re open Monday to Friday, 8am till 5pm. Their number is 0800 60 60 50, and they should be able to help with any issues you have trying to get access to our online portal.

Bruce: Great. Now in Olga's talk just now, she mentioned that when you have sorted out your digital license, you can download it onto your computer. Are you able to put that on your phone so that the client… you can just walk around and give it to your client. Is that possible?

Owen: Yes, it is the digital licence’s design, so that you can have it on your phone to show to the client, the BCAs and territorial authorities. It is ideal for that purpose.

Bruce: Great. Now we have a question that has come in: I'm already invited to renew my licence. Do I renew now and wait for the invite for the new portal after, or the other way around?

Owen: If you can renew it now, that would be wonderful. It’s technically available to do it now. You can, if you wish, to wait till afterwards, but now would be a good time to renew your licence as well.

Bruce: So how long would this questioner have to renew their licence now, rather than waiting for the new portal?

Owen: There are only a few days left. Our online portal is going to be closed down as of 6pm Wednesday the 21^st in preparation for the move to the new system.

Bruce: Great. Now once I'm up and running and got my new licence, how do I update my skills maintenance activities?

Owen: When you log into the online portal on the left-hand side... sorry, the right-hand side – sometimes I confuse my left with right – on the right-hand side, there is a link to the Skills Maintenance portal that will take you into your skills maintenance. Or, as Olga showed, if you are in the middle of relicensing, and it tells you you are due to relicense, there will also be a link there that will take you to your Skills Maintenance portal to update your skills maintenance.

Bruce: Awesome. What about fees? Are there going to be any changes to the fees because of this new portal?

Owen: So there is no change to the fees in the new portal. The general fees are staying the same. However, there is a slight change in that you may see the late fee coming about if you are more tardy in your renewal. We would remind you to be very up to date with your renewal as the late fee may show its face more often now.

Bruce: Yes, it's very important to keep up to date, because the system is going to be in charge of letting you know, if you're not up to date.

Owen: Yep.

Bruce: Another one coming through: Will my previous skills maintenance and Certificate of Work be maintained after the update to the new portal?

Owen: Your skills maintenance will definitely be there. Any documents that you have submitted to us – your Certificate of Work, or records of work that you have submitted to us – will still be on your file to be able to get. However, you will not be able to upload them or store them in the new system. This new system will not store them anymore, but yours there are the ones will still be on record.

Bruce: So in the future as far as uploading documents…?

Owen: You can still upload documents as part of your skills maintenance, definitely. And you can still do the submitting of skills summaries from third-party providers. However, the system won’t allow you to store these records of work like you could currently.

Bruce: Cool, thank you. Will there be some guidance available on how to use a new portal after the third of October?

Owen: Yes, there will be a guide on our website regarding the use of the portal. On our website.

Bruce: And is that anywhere special in the website, or just go there, and it's pretty obvious how to do it?

Owen: It should be very, very easy to find. I have not seen it yet myself, but Olga is very good at these things. I think she said that if you get lost you can simply go to the top of the screen and type in, “Portal Guide”, and it will be there. I think it could even be linked on the homepage.

Bruce: What about this webinar? Is that going to be available for anybody to have a look at?

Owen: Yes, as Olga said at the beginning: This is all being recorded, and this is being recorded for that purpose. So it is available at the end for you to be able to use as part of guidance on how to the website.

Bruce: Great. Can I still submit a paper application to renew my license?

Owen: Yes you can. There’s nothing that’s stopping you from using paper applications. They are still in the same place they were previously for you to use, and submit paper applications to renew your licence or make applications.

Bruce: Why are you not issuing physical IDs anymore? Can I still ask for a physical ID card?

Owen: We're not producing plastic ID cards anymore. It's reducing plastic in the world as the whole world’s trying to reduce plastic, and we are reducing the amount of plastic we are producing. We’re not producing plastic ID cards anymore.

If you wanted a paper copy of your licence and you are not able to print one yourself, you could ask us and we can send you out a paper copy of your licence, but we’re not physically producing plastic ID cards anymore.

Bruce: That’s great. We don't seem to have any more questions coming through. Just one thing again: What's the phone number for the service centre in case somebody is really getting a problem or they need a bit more help?

Owen: So our service centre’s phone number is 0800 60 60 50. They are available. Monday to Friday, 8am to 5pm. Of course, try and avoid them at peak times like 12:00 or 3:00 or smoko time, because that’s when everyone else is trying to ring them, of course.

Remember that sometimes the emails that you don't think you have are in spam, so check your spam that it’s not there. Please by all means call them and they are able to help you.

Bruce: Awesome. Well, in the event of no more questions, can I hand it back to you, Olga?

Olga: Yes, thank you, Bruce. Thank you, Owen. So if you have any questions or comments about today's webinar feel free to email us at engage@lbp.govt.nz. Similarly, if you have any other lingering questions that you didn't get a chance to ask, you can also use this email to ask us those questions.

And now we’d like to run a quick poll, which you are welcome to answer if you want to. There are two questions. However, you don't have to if you don't want to, and your responses will be anonymous in case you want that.

You should see a screen pop up now, with two questions in front of you.

I can see responses coming through, and it appears that most people found the webinar either useful or very useful. And the majority seem to be confident in using the new LBP Portal, which is great news for us.

Okay, I think most people have now voted, so we’ll end the poll, and this brings us to the MBIE closing karakia:

Ka hiki te tapu 
Kia wātea ai te ara
Kia turuki ai te ao mārama
Hui ē, Tāiki ē

Thank you very much for your time. We hope you enjoyed it, and as a reminder, the webinar recording will be available on our website afterwards. Thank you. Ka kite!

Owen: Ka kite!