Introduction

In your platform, users can be categorized based on groups, or by branches of the organization chart. Groups are useful whenever there is a set of users with characteristics that are different than those determining the branches of the organization chart. You can create groups manually, or using automatic rules.

Please note before you start: The process for adding or changing group memberships works off of platform events. This process constantly analyzes the platform events in order to understand if there are users needing to be added or removed to/from groups, based on these events.

This process implies that any user modification that involves group modifications is processed asynchronously and the time needed to update the group population may change depending on the platform's ongoing activities and concurrent running processes.

If your company wants to provide a dynamic and custom experience for its various types of users, as a Superadmin you need to identify specific user segments in the platform to target an audience for various Admin actions such as course enrollment, course catalog visibility, page/menu visibility, reporting and notification delivery.

To identify specific user segments, you can configure several different user additional fields that capture important user attributes. These fields may include information such as Job Title, Hire Date, Department, Location, Manager, Product, Employee Status, or anything else that may be valuable to track within the platform. With these attributes tracked for each user, you can set up groups with an automatic assignment to automate the process of identifying a user segment. You can set up broad-reaching groups that contain only one rule (for example: The “Sales” group should contain anyone whose job title contains the word “Sales”), and also narrow groups with multiple rules (for example: The “Los Angeles Sales Team New Hires” group should contain all users whose Location is Los Angeles, Job Title is Sales, and Hire Date is after x date). By creating multiple groups, you as a Superadmin can easily target various user segments for use in the platform.

Creating groups

To create a new group, log into the platform as the Superadmin and access the Admin menu from the gear icon in the top right corner of the platform. In the Admin Menu, press the Groups item in the E-learning section.

On the main Groups page, press the plus button in the top right corner. In the New Group right panel, assign a name and, optionally, a description to the group. Then, choose the policy for the group’s population process (either manual or automatic) and press Create and edit.

Manually adding users to groups

If you have selected the option to manually assign users to the group, after the group creation, move to the Users tab and click on Assign users in the top right corner. Choose now whether you want to populate the group by selecting users individually, by copying the users already assigned to other groups, or by copying users from a branch.

You can repeat the group population procedure several times, using different options.

Once users are added to the group, they are listed in the Users tab of the group's main page. To remove a user from the group, hover your mouse at the end of the user row, click on the ellipsis button and select Remove.

In order to remove several users at a time from the group, select them by checking the checkbox next to the users’ names, then click on the Choose action button at the bottom right corner of the page, and select Remove.

It is possible to export the users’ list in CSV format by clicking on the Export users’ list as CSV button in the top right corner.

Please Note! A user can be assigned to more than one group. Users of a group can be added or removed at any time.

Automatic groups

Automatic groups allow you to create dynamic groups that get populated by users matching one or more conditions. Thanks to these automatisms, users are also automatically removed from automatic groups when they no longer match the conditions regulating their population.

When you create an automatic group, after setting the group name and description, you will land on the Properties page of the group. At any time, you can edit the group name and description in the General section.

In the Options section set whether to exclude the deactivated users from being added to the group by the automatic conditions. You will still be able to add deactivated users manually, as described in the Manual management of automatic groups chapter of this article.

Move to the Eligibility area to create the conditions for the automatic population of the group. Users will be automatically added or removed from the group depending on the conditions you configure.

To empower the automatic management of the group, conditions are grouped in sets. You can define up to 50 sets, each set can include up to 10 conditions.

For each set, define whether the user must meet all the conditions of the set or at least one of them to be added to the group. When working with more sets, you can also define whether all the sets or at least one set must be satisfied for users to be added to the group.

Add a new set by clicking on New set.

In the right panel click on the Condition dropdown and select one of the following options:

Enrollment status based condition Use this condition to assign users to the group depending on their status in a course.  As an example, you may want to include all of the users who have completed the Customer Care onboarding course in the Customer Care group. Find out more about enrolling users into courses.

Branch based condition Use this condition to assign users to the group depending on the branch they belong to. If multiple branches are selected, the user can belong to any of the included branches to meet the group eligibility. If the selected branch includes sub-branches, they are not selected by default. Include all of the sub-branches in the rule by clicking twice on the checkbox next to the branch name, or select them individually by clicking on the arrow at the end of the branch row and operating your choice.

User additional fields based condition Use this condition to assign users to the group depending on the value of a user's additional field. When you select this condition, use the dropdown to select the user additional field, then choose the value that will be used as the condition to belong to the group. The type of value and the values themselves depend on the additional field configuration. For text fields, date fields and dropdown fields you can use an operator to refine the condition and set: If the text value must include a term (contains operator), is the exact term (is equal to operator), or is anything different from the term (is not equal to operator). Both the is equal to and is not equal to operators allow you to select up to 10 values, while the contains operator allows you to select a single value. If the date field must be a specific date (on operator), after a date (is after operator), before a date (is before operator) or in a period (is in the range operator). If the dropdown value must be the selected value (value is operator) or is anything different from the selected value (value is not operator). You can select up to 10 values. If the number of user additional fields exceeds 250, only the first 250 will be listed in the dropdown and available for selection. If a User Additional Field is not listed in the dropdown, look for it by typing in its name and selecting it among the proposed results. Please note that the user additional field Fiscal code is not available for populating automatic groups.

User Fields Based Condition Use this condition to assign users to the group based on the user standard fields: Email address: automatically assign users to the group depending on whether their email address contains the keyword entered after selecting this option. You can enter a keyword per every condition configured. Language: Automatically assign users to the group depending on their selected language in the My Profile area. Remember that if users do not select a language, the platform will automatically assign them the platform default language set in the Localization Tool.

Add the conditions to the set, then set whether all of them or at least one of them must be satisfied for users to be added to the group by selecting either All conditions must be satisfied or At least one condition must be satisfied in the top right corner of the New Set of Conditions panel. Click on Create to confirm the creation of the set.

Repeat the set creation procedure to create different sets. If you have more than one set of conditions, select whether all of them or at least one of them must be met to add users to the group using the dropdown menu in the top right corner of the Manage Conditions area.

When you have configured all of the sets of conditions, click on Save changes to start the automatic population of the group. Users will be added to the group as they satisfy the conditions you have defined and will be listed in the Users tab. Their assignment method will be set to Automatic. Remember that the auto-population procedure also takes into consideration deactivated and expired users, unless you select the Remove deactivated users from the group option in the Options section.

Please note! The time needed to complete the group population may change depending on the platform's ongoing activities, on the automatic enrollment rules set for the group, and on the number of users involved in the group creation.

After the group is populated for the first time, the automatic population procedure will constantly monitor the events of the platform to keep the group population aligned.

It is possible to export the users’ list in CSV format by clicking on the Export users’ list as CSV button in the top right corner.

At any time, you can edit or remove your set of conditions by hovering your mouse on the top right corner of the set, clicking on the ellipsis icon and selecting Edit or Delete. The group population will be recalculated from scratch every time you edit or delete any of the conditions you have configured.

The last 10 versions of the group eligibility conditions are kept in the History tab. Please note that you cannot roll back to previous versions. If you need to revert your changes, you have to re-configure your sets manually.

Manual Management of automatic groups

Automatic groups are automatically populated based on the sets of conditions you have configured, but you can still add or remove users from them manually.

To manually add users to a group, click on the group name in the Groups management page, and move to the Users tab. Click on the Assign users button in the top right corner and choose whether you want to populate the group by selecting users individually, by copying the users already assigned to other groups, or by copying users from a branch. You can repeat the procedure several times, using different options. Click Confirm to add the users to the group.

When users are manually added to an automatic group, their assignment method is set to Manual. The users manually added to the group are not subject to the automatic population, based on conditions. They will be kept in the group even if they do not satisfy the population conditions until you remove the manual assignment method by clicking on the ellipsis menu at the end of the user row and selecting the Remove manual assignment option.

When you remove the Manual assignment method for a user, the user is removed from the group, unless they satisfy the conditions you have configured for the automatic population of the group. In such a situation, the user will be kept in the group, and his or her assignment method will be set to Automatic.

If you want to assign a user to an automatic group permanently so that they are kept in the group even if not satisfying its population conditions, switch the user assignment method to Manual by clicking on the ellipsis menu at the end of the user row and selecting the Switch to manual assignment option.

To remove or to switch to the manual assignment method for several users at a time, select them by checking the checkbox next to the users’ names, then click on the Choose action button at the bottom right corner of the page and select the appropriate option.

Managing groups

You can manage both manual and automatic groups from the Groups main page. Groups can be only managed individually, performing the same action on a selection of groups is not an option. Click on the ellipsis menu at the end of the group to edit, duplicate or delete the group.

When you duplicate a manual group, you can set whether to copy the users of the source group as users of the new group. When you duplicate an automatic group, users are not copied, but, by selecting the option to use the same eligibility conditions, the rules will be reprocessed to populate the new group. As an option, you can choose to copy the manually-added users.

Since Power Users cannot create automatic groups, they are not allowed to duplicate them. Power Users can only duplicate manual groups.

Associating users to groups via CSV files

As a Superadmin, you can associate users to either a manual or an automatic group using CSV files. To do so, click on the group name on the Groups management page, and click on the Manage group associations via CSV button in the top right corner of the page.

A slideout panel will open on the right side of the page for the CSV file upload. For a successful upload, it is important to create a properly formatted CSV file. Download the sample CSV file for an example of file formatting. Once your file is ready, either drag and drop it into the upload section of the slideout panel or click the upload area to find the file. Please note that the maximum file size for CSV files is 3MB.

Once the file is uploaded, press the Advanced settings title to configure additional options. The system is configured to automatically detect the Field Separator needed to organize the information by columns. Information can be divided by a comma, a semicolon, or manually, depending on your needs.

Flag the option to consider the first row as a header, if this fits your CSV file format, and select the File Charset from the dropdown menu. We recommend the UTF-8 charset, which is standard. Please remember to use quotation marks to delimit the text content. Press Confirm to upload your CSV file.

The system will then process your CSV file. Once ready, you will be redirected to the fields mapping page. In the Profiles section, you can select a preset profile from the dropdown menu to associate a previous mapping configuration to this CSV import. Press the Overwrite current preset button if you want to save changes to the current preset. Additionally, you can manually map the columns to platform fields (see more hereafter), then save the configuration by pressing the Save this preset as new button. In the pop-up box, provide a name for the preset, then press Save.

In the Preview section, drag and drop the fields in the Docebo Fields section on the left to match the fields with the column names of your CSV file, then press the Associate users button at the bottom of the page. Confirm the information in the pop-up message that will be displayed, then click Associate users.

The association will be carried out with a background job. In case of any errors, an error file will be made available for download. To find this file, access the Admin menu, then select the Background jobs item. Find the job in the list to download the file.

The imported users will be listed in the Users tab of the group. Their assignment method will be set as Manual.

Power Users managing groups

Depending on the permissions assigned by the Superadmin, Power Users may have some management permissions on groups.

• If a Power User profile has View permissions on groups, the Power Users assigned to the profile will be able to see only the groups assigned to them.
• When the profile has Edit permissions, Power Users will be able to edit the groups’ names and descriptions both for manual and automatic groups. For manual groups, they will also be able to add or remove the users they have visibility on to and from the group. They will not be able to edit the conditions for the population of automatic groups.
• When the Power User profile has Create permissions, the Power Users associated with the profile will be allowed only to create manual groups. The Automatic Creation option will not be available for them at group creation time.

Tips & tricks

Consider configuring the User subscribed to a group notification for users to inform them that they have been added to a group. The notification can act as a welcome message or you can use it to include specific information or instruction concerning the group itself. The notification works both for manual and automatic groups.