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GL Assessment Platform Overview

Extracted from GL Platform Knowledge Base for test case generation Source: gl-platform-kb/context/company-and-platform.md

This document provides platform context to understand technical requirements when generating test cases.

Company & Product Overview

GL Assessment (GL) is a UK-based digital assessment company that develops and delivers standardised educational assessments for schools. The core delivery platform is called Testwise (internally also referred to as Epoch in its v2.0 incarnation).

Key selling point: GL uses Standardised Age Scores (SAS), putting results in context against a national sample. A student performing at the expected level receives SAS 100; 50% of scores fall between 90–110.

Core Products on Testwise

Product Full Name Format
CAT4 Cognitive Ability Test v4 Digital + Paper
PTE Progress Test in English (Forms A, B) Digital + Paper
PTM Progress Test in Maths (Forms A, B) Digital + Paper
PTS Progress Test in Science (Forms A, B) Digital + Paper
NGRT New Group Reading Test (Forms A, B, C) Digital + Paper
NGST New Group Spelling Test (Forms A, B, C) Digital
NGMT New Group Maths Test Digital (Trial)
PASS Pupil Attitudes to Self and School Digital
Dyscalculia Dyscalculia Screener Digital
Dyslexia Dyslexia Screener Digital
EXACT Assessment (4 subtests) Digital
ISEB → AAT Admissions assessment (rebranding) Digital
KRS Kirkland Rowell Surveys Digital
Placement Placement test Digital
Wellcomm Communication/language assessment Digital

Core Platform Architecture (Testwise / Epoch)

Epoch (Administrative Platform)

"Epoch" is the back-office of Testwise — responsible for school/student onboarding, sittings, and test management.

Component Repo Stack Role
Epoch UI (legacy) gl.platform.ui Angular 9.2.4 Admin SPA
Epoch UI (current) gl.epoch.ui Angular (newer) Team Mightier
Services API gl.platform.service .NET Core 3.1 Controllers → Services → Repositories (Dapper)
Repositories API gl.platform.repositories .NET Core 3.1 IdentityServer4 + EntityFramework to Epoch DB
Epoch DB gl.platform.database SQL (.NET 4.5.2 / DBUP 3.2.1) dacpac + DBUP migration scripts

Three-layer pattern: Controllers → Services → Repositories. Repositories use Dapper ORM to communicate with Epoch SQL database.

Testwise API (Entry Point)

  • Repo: gl.testwise, .NET 7.0
  • Routes requests to Services API or Reporting API
  • Handles Blob Storage communication and SignalR connections
  • Azure SignalR Service for real-time updates (test lobby, sitting progress, report availability)

Testplayers

Angular SPAs built on shared gl.testplayer.core npm library.

Batman testplayers (product-specific): CAT4, Dyscalculia (Robin), Dyslexia (Robin), Exact, ISEB, NGRT, NGST, PASS, PTE, PTM, PTS

Dynamic Testplayer (gl.testplayer.dynamic): Single manifest-driven repo; currently used for NGMT Trial on Epoch.

Key testplayer behaviours:

  • Offline mode supported during a test
  • On completion: response uploaded to Azure Blob Storage (epoch-test-responses container), Testwise API notified
  • Students: 10-hour access token, no refresh token
  • Standard users: 5-minute access token, 1-hour refresh token

Scoring Architecture

Azure Functions (.NET Core 3.1), one per product:

  • scoring.{product} — scoring calculation
  • scoring.{product}.testresponse.resolver — error recovery (reformats test response if scoring fails)
  • scoring.common — shared dependency used by all scoring functions

Scoring triggered via Azure Storage Queue (testwise-productscoring-storage-queue-X).

Reporting Architecture

  • Reporting UI: gl.report.ui, Angular 16.2.5
  • Reporting API: gl.reporting, .NET 7.0 — Controllers/Services/Repositories pattern
  • Reporting DB: reporting.db, managed with DbUp
  • Legacy TRS: gl.reporting.trs, Java 8 (Apache Tomcat, Spring 2.5, Hibernate 3, Apache FOP for PDF)
  • HTML reports: generated in Reporting API
  • PDF/Excel/CSV: generated via eTRS (Java service)

Technology Stack

Front-End

  • Angular (v5.x legacy testplayers → v9.x platform UI → v12–v16+ newer repos)
  • NgRx (state management in Epoch UI)
  • Angular Material (primary UI component set)
  • Tailwind CSS + Sass (Epoch UI and Reporting UI)
  • SignalR (@microsoft/signalr for real-time updates)
  • Application Insights JS SDK (@microsoft/applicationinsights-web)
  • ngx-translate (internationalisation; en-GB and en-US locale files)
  • FontAwesome Pro (icons)

Back-End

  • .NET Core 3.1 and .NET 7.0 (C# APIs)
  • IdentityServer4 — OUT OF SUPPORT since Nov 2022; active replacement work ongoing
  • Dapper (ORM for SQL queries in Services API)
  • EntityFramework (used in Repositories API with IdentityServer)
  • AutoMapper, FluentValidation, Polly, Newtonsoft.Json (common NuGet dependencies)
  • Azure Functions (.NET Core 3.1) for scoring
  • Java 8 — gl.reporting.trs (Spring 2.5, Hibernate 3, Apache FOP for PDF generation)

Databases & Storage

  • Azure SQL Server (primary: Epoch DB, Reporting DB, scoring lookup DBs, watermark DB, ingestion pipeline DB)
  • Azure Blob Storage (test responses, scoring lookup CSVs, branding assets, GLDD metrics)
  • Azure Cosmos DB (referenced in scoring.common dependencies)
  • Azure Storage Queue for scoring message dispatch
  • Azurite (local Azure Storage emulator for development/testing)

Data & Reporting

  • Power BI (Premium capacity workspace required for embedding reports)
  • Azure Data Factory (ADF) (ETL/ingestion pipelines)
  • SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)

Infrastructure / DevOps

  • Azure (primary cloud provider)
  • Azure DevOps (Boards, Repos, Pipelines, Test Plans, Artifacts)
  • Azure Front Door (entry-point WAF)
  • Azure App Configuration (feature flag management)
  • Azure Key Vault (secrets management)
  • Azure Container Registry (ACR)
  • Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) (hosts self-hosted build agents with KEDA autoscaling)
  • Terraform (IaC)
  • Docker / Docker Compose (local development and CI testing)
  • NGINX (serving Angular apps in containers)
  • Cloudflare (DNS management and ACME challenge responses for SSL certs)

Testing Tools

  • Cypress + Cucumber (E2E testing)
  • SpecFlow (BDD regression)
  • Jest (Angular unit tests — replaced Karma April 2024)
  • XUnit (.NET integration tests)
  • TestContainers (.NET — Docker containers in integration tests)
  • Mend Bolt (open-source security and licence scanning)
  • SonarCloud / SonarLint (static code analysis)
  • Application Insights (monitoring/telemetry)

Environments

Environment Purpose
DEVCI Continuous integration / developer (auto-deploys on PR merge)
QA Quality assurance testing
PREB Pre-production B environment
PRODB Production B environment
BAUB Business As Usual B environment (DBA access)

Authentication Framework

  • IdentityServer4 (OpenID Connect / OAuth 2.0 for ASP.NET Core)
  • OUT OF SUPPORT since November 2022
  • MFA: ASP.NET Core Identity with TOTP

Token Lifecycle

User Type Access Token Refresh Token
Standard users 5 minutes 1 hour
Students 10 hours None (refresh attempt logs student out)

Password Policy

  • Length: 8 to 100 characters
  • Must contain: lowercase letter, uppercase letter, and a number
  • No special character requirement
  • Max login attempts: 3 → 5-minute lockout

Integration Points

SIS Integrations

  • Wonde — UK MIS/SIS bridge for school/student data sync
  • Clever — US education SSO provider (Clever SIS integration)

Common Integration Patterns

  • REST APIs for external systems
  • Azure Storage Queues for asynchronous processing
  • Azure SignalR for real-time updates
  • OAuth 2.0 for authentication

Use this platform context to understand the technical environment when generating test cases.