User Groups

 All LMS users are inherently grouped by their core profile assignments: Organization, Position, and Role. Portal Administrators can further organize users into functional groups by creating an ad-hoc User Group. These categories can then be leveraged to configure unique lists of employees for the purposes of mass enrollment, announcements, activity reporting, and more.
 
This document provides step-by-step instructions on how to create a User Group and manage employee membership. It will also explain the main drivers and key functionality of this LMS feature, which may ease many of your daily administrative processes.


GENERAL INFORMATION

User Groups provide a flexible way to group individuals across Position, Role, and Organization structures. There are no requirements or restrictions limiting which users can belong to a User Group. Any LMS user can belong to one, multiple, or none of the User Groups you have created, and such assignments can be edited at any time.

Key Drivers and Functionality

Reasons you may want to consider assigning users to a User Group: 

  • User Search: All User Pickers and User Search pages allow you to filter results by User Group. Because these search tools appear in many features throughout the LMS, having pre-defined groups can help simplify the user selection process. For example, you can use them to create a custom distribution list for ad-hoc Announcement messaging or to batch enroll users who must complete specified courses to meet shared training standards.
  • User Import: All new users created from the User Import process belong to a unique User Group that is auto-generated with date/time stamp information to ensure easy reference against the import. Because User Groups are integrated into user search/filter options across many areas of the LMS, this design should allow easy targeting of this specific user population for a general "Welcome!" announcement, batch enrollment in new employee orientation, etc.
  • Course Prerequisites: Prerequisite Rules allow you to define enrollment eligibility based on User Group assignment.
  • Employee Oversight: User Groups provide an excellent option for a manager to view his or her employees' status in a Certification or Curriculum program, using filtered views from the manager’s “Employees” tab.
  • Reports: In some of our standard LMS activity reports, you can include User Group as a selection criterion and/or include it in the report output. Because many reports have a user selection, user group becomes an option for selecting users for reporting purposes.

 

ADD A USER GROUP

To create a new User Group:

  1. From the left navigation menu, select User Groups > Add User Group.
  2. Enter Language, Group Name and Notes as necessary. Note: “Status” defaults to Active, but User Groups can be deactivated and reactivated at any time. Administrators can provide this information in other languages, but must first save the data in English and then edit the record with translated content.
  3. Click Submit to save changes. 

A message at the top of the page will confirm when your edit is successful.

Managing Members of a User Group

There are two ways to manage members of a User Group. You can add or delete multiple users at a time by editing the User Group itself. You can also update individual User Profiles with grouping information.

Edit a User Group

  1. From the left navigation menu, select User Groups > Search User Groups.
  2. Conduct your search and click the View/Edit link for the group you want to update.
  3. Click the Employees tab to see the list of users who are currently part of this group, at which organizations.
Example of User Group Employees tab

Add a new member:

  1. Click Add Users at the bottom of the screen to launch a User Picker and conduct your search. 
  2. When the list of users is displayed, click Add for each user you want added to the group, or Add All at the top right corner. 
  3. You can review and edit the list of users in the “User Basket” on the left side of the page before clicking Check Out to update the group. The list of users to be added will appear at the bottom of the "Edit Users in Group" page. 
  4. Click Submit to save changes.
The User Group is now added to their Primary Profile, as displayed in the "Organization" column.

Remove a member:

  1. Users can be removed from a User Group in a similar fashion. Identify the users under the the Employees tab that you would like removed.
  2. Check the Remove box listed to the right of the appropriate username. 
  3. Click Submit to save changes.

This process end dates the User Group assignment in user's profile, making it inactive with today's date.

Manage Individual Membership from the User Profile

You can review and edit a particular user’s group membership from the "Edit User Profile" page.

  1. From the left navigation menu, select Users > Search Users. 
  2. Conduct your search and next to the user account you want to edit, click Edit User Profile.
  3. Find the Organization at which you want to add or remove group membership, and click Edit Profile.
  4. The User Groups component allows you to Add a User Group, or remove the individual by entering an End Date to a group in list.
  5. Click Submit to save changes.