Activating and managing the Enrollment rules app

Introduction

Enrollment rules make it possible to automatically enroll users into courses or learning plans upon joining a particular group or branch. 

For example, if you configure an enrollment rule for the group “new hires” and the learning plan “onboarding”, any user who is added to the “new hires” group will be automatically enrolled in the “onboarding” learning plan. 

→ Note that the enrollment rule is only triggered when users are added to a group or branch. Pre-existing members will not be automatically enrolled. For more information see Notes on automatic enrollments.

When you configure an enrollment rule, you specify: 

• The groups or branches that will trigger the enrollment rule when new users are added to them. 
• The courses or learning plans into which users will be automatically enrolled when the rule is triggered.  

Note that you cannot combine groups and branches within the same rule: You can specify a set of groups or a set of branches, but not a mixture of groups and branches. Similarly, you cannot combine courses and learning plans within the same rule.

The Enrollment rules app can be managed by all Superadmins and by the Power Users with the Enrollment / Manage enrollment rules permission and only for the resources assigned to them.

Requirements and limitations

• Enrollment rules are available for e-learning courses, ILT courses, and learning plans but are not available for the sessions of ILT courses.
• Enrollment rules do not trigger enrollments on deactivated users.
• The maximum enrollment quota of a course is bypassed for enrollments processed through enrollment rules. This means that users can be enrolled even after the course has reached its defined capacity.

Use case scenario

To implement a course access hierarchy using enrollment rules and automatic groups, set up groups that move users through content based on specific conditions, like hire date or course completion, enabling sequential learning paths.

• Step one: When new users are created in the platform, they are added to the New hires automatic group based on their hire date user additional field (User additional fields based condition). Then, set an enrollment rule to automatically enroll members of the New hires group in the Onboarding course.
• Step two: Create a Permanent employees automatic group that adds users upon completion of the Onboarding course (Enrollment status based condition). Then, add an enrollment rule so users in this group automatically enroll in a Mandatory learning plan for all employees.

This setup structures content access based on specific learning progression criteria, ensuring that users advance only after meeting defined requirements.

Activating the Enrollment rules app

Activate the Enrollment rules app as described in the Managing apps & features article of the knowledge base. The app is listed in the Docebo additional features tab.

Creating enrollment rules

To create enrollment rules, once you have activated the Enrollment Rules app, access the Navigation menu. Find the Configuration (spanner icon), select the Automation item, then press the Enrollment rules subitem.

You will land on the main page of the Enrollment rules app, listing all of the rules you have already configured in the Rules tab. Add a new rule by clicking on the plus button in the top right corner.

In the right tab that opens, set a code and a name for your rule, then define whether the rule will automatically enroll users belonging to groups or branches in courses or learning plans by selecting the corresponding options. Click on Create and edit to create the rule and to start configuring it.

Assigning and unassigning resources to rules

Once you have created a rule as described in the chapter Creating enrollment rules, you can begin to assign resources to it. You can also edit an existing enrollment rule to alter its resource assignments.

In the Assigned resources tab of the rule, you can define which users (groups or branches) will be enrolled in what content (courses or learning plans) as a result of the rule. 

In the vertical navigation, under Resource type you will see

• Groups or Branches: Whether you can assign users to the rule based on groups or branches depends on the option you selected when creating the rule. You can assign multiple groups or multiple branches, but not a combination of groups and branches. 
• Courses or Learning plans: Whether you can use the rule for enrollments in courses or learning plans also depends on which option you set when creating the rule. You can assign multiple courses or multiple learning plans, but not a combination of courses and learning plans. 
• Notifications: (available to Superadmins only) you can also associate a notification that will be sent out when an automated enrollment takes place. For details see the chapter Enrollment notifications. 

To make an assignment: 

1. Under Resource type select the desired item (for example, Learning plans), then click the ellipsis menu alongside it and select the corresponding Assign action (for example, Assign learning plans).
2. In the right panel that opens, you can select the specific items you want to assign. When you confirm, you will see that the selected resources are listed in the Assigned resources tab of the rule. Note that: 
   • When assigning groups, courses, or learning plans, the right panel will show only those items that have not yet been assigned to the rule. Select the check boxes next to the desired ones and click Assign to confirm.
   • When assigning branches, the right panel will show all the branches, with an empty check box indicating those not yet assigned, and a filled check box indicating those currently assigned to the rule (either with or without descendants). You can select or deselect the check boxes to change the branches assigned to the rule, then click Update to confirm. Note that when you select a child branch, its parent branch will not be automatically selected by default. 

To remove a resource assignment from the rule: 

1. Locate the item you want to remove in the Assigned resources tab. 
2. Click the ellipsis menu on its row and select Unassign.
    

Note: You can also assign resources starting from the + icon (Assign resources) in the top right corner. In this case, in the right panel you must first select the resource type and then proceed to set the desired items.

Notes on automatic enrollments

Enrollment rules are not retroactive

Remember, an enrollment rule is triggered only when users are added to the specified groups or branches. 

Therefore, users who already belong to the groups or branches will not be automatically enrolled. The rule will enroll only the users added to a group or a branch after the rule is activated. 

In addition, if you add a course or learning plan to an existing enrollment rule: 

• Users belonging to the group or branch already assigned to the rule will not be enrolled in the newly added content. 
• You have to remove them from the group or branch and add them back again to trigger the rule, and so have them automatically enrolled in the content.

However, if you remove a course or a learning plan from an enrollment rule, the users belonging to the group or the branch assigned to the rule are not unenrolled from the course or learning plan.

Learning plans

The standard behavior for learning plans is that: 

• When a course is added to a learning plan, the users enrolled in the learning plan are automatically enrolled in the newly added course. 
• But when a course is removed from a learning plan, the learning plan users are not automatically unenrolled from the course.

This behavior also applies to learning plans that are assigned to enrollment rules. If the enrollment rule causes a user to be enrolled in a learning plan, the user will be auto-enrolled in all its courses, and also into any courses later added to the learning plan. And these enrollments will not be lost if the learning plan is removed from the rule, or if courses are removed from the learning plan. 

Automatic groups

If you assign an automatic group to an enrollment rule, remember that the population of these groups is processed asynchronously and may fluctuate due to platform events. This may result in the rule being triggered unexpectedly, as pre-existing members of the group are briefly removed and then added back.   

For example if you add a course to an active enrollment rule configured for a group, you would expect existing group members to not be enrolled in that course. However, if some platform event causes the automatic group membership to be recalculated, any members removed and added back will be enrolled.

Configuring the enrollment validity period

Activate the Enable deadline option to set a content access period for learners enrolled in courses or learning plans linked to the rule, defining the validity period of their enrollments. Alternatively, you can set only the start date for enrollment validity, without specifying a deadline. The validity period you configure will be the same for all the learners enrolled in the content by the enrollment rule. You can then configure personalized validity periods at the learner level by editing single enrollments.

This configuration sets the validity of the enrollments from the moment learners are enrolled in courses or learning plans via the enrollment rule. When this option is enabled, set the enrollment validity period by using the following options:

• Start date. Set the first available date for learners to access the course or learning plan. The content will have no deadline and will not be displayed in the My calendar widget and page. The start date is expressed in UTC, meaning that the content will be accessible at 00:00:00 UTC on the selected date. If, for example, your timezone is UTC +04:00, the content will be accessible at 04:00:00 on the selected date.
• End date. Set the last available date for learners to access and play the course or learning plan. After this date, the content will no longer be accessible. The end date is expressed in UTC, meaning that the content will be locked at 23:59:59 UTC of the selected date. If, for example, your timezone is UTC +04:00, the course will be locked at 03:59:59 of the following day.
• Timezone: Select the timezone for the calculation of the validity period.

Setting the enrollment priority

Once you have assigned courses or learning plans to an enrollment rule, if the Show the Enrollment attributes section option is enabled in the platform's advanced settings, the rule General tab shows the Enrollment attributes section which allows you to set the enrollment priority which informs learners if the courses and learning plans in which they are enrolled via the enrollment rule are mandatory, required, recommended, or optional.

Setting an enrollment priority helps learners understand which courses and learning plans they must complete first and which ones are less critical or entirely optional.

When set, the enrollment priority is displayed on courses and learning plans cards on the My courses and learning plans page and learners can filter content according to its priority.

Enrollment notifications (Updated!)

If the notifications feature is active on your platform, you can opt to notify users of the enrollments that occur as a result of a rule. You do this by associating a notification of type Digest: User enrolled in a course.  Notifications are associated at rule level, so you can consider whether to activate them only for some rules.

Please note: Only Superadmins can associate notifications to an enrollment rule. This option is not available to Power Users, even if they have full notification permissions and resource assignments. 

Select Navigation menu > Configuration (spanner icon) > Automation > Enrollment rules and click the <enrollment rule name> to open its configuration page.  There, in the Assigned resources tab, select Notifications to see the notifications currently associated with the rule, if any. 

To associate a notification, click the Assign resources (+) button in the top right corner, select Notifications and click Next.  The Eligible notifications list will show all the active notifications of type Digest: User enrolled in a course that are configured in the platform: 

• Select the check box next to the notification that you want to send. 
• Make sure the chosen notification has the appropriate recipient audience. 
• If the notification has trigger filters, make sure these include the groups or branches and the courses or learning plans configured in the enrollment rule. Otherwise the notification will not fire in the case of resources that are filtered out.

When you are finished click Assign. 

The notification you select will be immediately sent out when an enrollment occurs as a result of this rule.

Activating and deactivating enrollment rules

Enrollment rules are created as inactive rules so that you can enable them once you have completed their configuration.

In order to activate them, move to the main Enrollment rules page and click on the circle in the Status column corresponding to the rule you wish to activate, turning it into a checkmark.

You can deactivate rules at any time by pressing the checkmark, and turning it back to an empty circle.

Managing enrollment rules

All of the rules created in your platform are listed on the main Enrollment rules page.

From here you can:

• click on the rule name to access its configuration area
• click on the icon representing groups/branches, courses/learning plans, and notifications in the rule row to directly access the Assigned resources tab already filtered for that resource
• activate and deactivate the rule using the Status column
• edit the rule by clicking on the ellipsis menu at the end of the rule’s row and selecting the Edit option
• delete the rule by clicking on the ellipsis menu at the end of the rule’s row and selecting the Delete option. When a rule is deleted, the users already enrolled in courses and learning plans by the rule will keep their enrollment status

Enrollment rules logs

You can see all users that have been assigned to specific courses or learning plans from your enrollment rules from the Logs tab in the main Enrollment rules page.

Each row shows the date and the time when the enrollment occurred, the username of the enrolled user, the rule type and name and the number of courses and learning plans the user has been enrolled in.

Click on the icon in the Courses / learning plans column to see a recap of the courses and learning plans where the user has been enrolled.

Rolling back automatic enrollments

You can roll back the enrollments automatically done by enrollment rules from the Logs tab in the main Enrollment rules page. This operation can be done both for a single user or for a selection of users, unenrolling them from ALL of the courses and learning plans they have been automatically enrolled in.

Once in the Logs tab, identify the user you would like to unenroll, click on the ellipsis menu at the end of the user row and select the Roll back option. The user will be unenrolled from all of the courses and learning plans he or she has been enrolled in through automatic enrollment rules.

You can roll back the enrollments for a selection of users by clicking on the checkboxes at the beginning of their corresponding row, then selecting the Choose Action button in the bottom right corner of the table, and finally Roll back. Set now whether to unenroll users from learning plans only, or also from the courses included in learning plans. 

Rollbacks are managed with background jobs.