Auto Assignment saves time and reduces administrative effort by automating learner enrollment based on predefined conditions. This ensures a consistent learning experience, minimizes manual work, and helps admins maintain control over enrollments while allowing for flexibility in how learners access content.
Use Case Information
Auto Assignment enables users to be enrolled in courses or learning paths based on predefined conditions built into rules. For example, you can set up a rule to enroll all users with a Ref#1 value of "Developer" into the "Cybersecurity Fundamentals" Learning Path.
When configured, here are some ideas for what you can accomplish:
- Enroll learners into a course based on panorama or sublicense placement. (By default, a panorama grants access to content, but enrollment previously had to be done via bulk import, API, or in individual learner profiles.)
- Use a combination of an Onboarding Survey and Learner Reference Fields to then create a rule based on Reference Field Values to enroll learners in specific content right when they join your site.
- Get content to show up for learners in the Learner Access widget without learner intervention and reduced manual lift on the site admin.
Here are some things to know about how Auto Assignment works:
- Auto Assignment functions as automatic enrollment. This method adds to existing enrollment options, such as manager enrollment, ecommerce purchases, self-enrollment in provisioned content, and more.
- All Auto Assignment enrollments are recorded in the Content Actions Log and appear in the learner access widget, making it easier to track enrollment activity and the impact of Auto Assignment rules.
- Auto Assignment works alongside other enrollment methods, giving admins the flexibility to configure enrollments based on their specific needs. However, without careful setup, it may be unclear why certain learners are enrolled in specific content.
- Overlapping enrollments can occur—for example, a learner may purchase a course and also be auto-enrolled, or they might be enrolled twice through different Auto Assignment rules.
- Admins can choose to backfill existing learners when creating or updating a rule and can also enable dynamic unassignment, ensuring learners are unenrolled when they no longer meet the conditions.
- Auto Assignment continuously adapts to changes. Whenever a relevant learner detail is updated, such as a change in a reference field, enrollment status, or any condition tied to an Auto Assignment rule, the system immediately reevaluates all rules and applies any necessary enrollments or unenrollments in real time.
Note
Auto Assignment cannot be used to add learners into panoramas or sublicenses, but you can create conditions based on a learner’s panorama or sublicense enrollment.
TI Labs Launch Information
TI Labs is a product innovation initiative within the Thought Industries learning platform, where current and prospective Thought Industries customers can try out potential platform capabilities and share feedback with the Thought Industries product team. Capabilities in TI Labs are fully functional and stable, offering a polished experience while serving as a space for innovation and exploration. Given its focus on innovation, some features introduced through TI Labs may evolve into general availability while others—particularly those that are more experimental—may remain exclusive to TI Labs and not progress to a full release. Our goal is to discover and test new ways of driving revenue and retention growth through learning.
Why is this a Labs feature?
Labs allows us to quickly release a fully functional, stable solution and then use Labs built-in feedback mechanism to ensure that the feature is well-designed, easily usable, and provides value to our customers.
How can I get access to this feature while it’s in Labs?
As a Site Admin, go to Apps. Locate the Auto Assignment tile and click Show Flags. Enable the feature flag. Refresh the page. The new Auto Assignment can be found under Users.
How can I give feedback on the Auto Assignment feature while it's a Labs feature?
If you are an Admin and have this feature enabled, you will see in-platform banners notifying you that this is a Labs feature and inviting you to give feedback. (Note that we will not necessarily respond to each piece of feedback, but we will use it to inform potential improvements to the feature.)
For this particular feature, the banners will appear in the Auto Assignment area in the admin interface to collect input on the feature.
We highly encourage you to interact with these banners and provide your thoughts! We appreciate it!
How much do we expect this feature to change before it is released from Labs into General Availability (GA)?
The feature is fully functional and stable and so we don’t anticipate much change. If we get feedback about issues or suggestions for significant improvements to the admin or learner experience, we’ll resolve those before releasing to GA.
Enabling Auto Assignment
This feature can be enabled by any site admin, by following these steps:
- From your Admin homepage, select Apps in the left menu.
- On the Apps page, locate the Auto Assignment item and click Show Flags.
- Enable the feature flag and refresh the page.
- When Auto Assignment is enabled, it can be accessed under Users > Auto Assignment.
Creating Auto Assignment Rules
On the Auto Assignment page, you'll find a dynamically updated list of Auto Assignment rules, refreshed in near real time. To ensure optimal performance, a maximum of 50 rules can be created.
The Auto Assignment rule creation flow takes you through five steps:
Name
Set an internal name to help you identify the Auto Assignment rule. This name is never shown to the learner and is for administrative purposes only.
Assign To
You can choose to automatically enroll a learner in course(s) or learning path(s). Enrollment is tracked via course and/or learning path actions, visible in the Content Actions Log report with a source of auto_enrollment
Conditions:
Conditions determine when a learner should be automatically enrolled in the content you selected in the previous step.
The following conditions are available:
- When a learner reaches a course or learning path status: This condition will be satisfied when a learner reaches a selected status on a given course/learning path. If you select multiple courses/learning paths, they are treated as an OR condition. For example, “When a learner completes Course A or Course B”.
- When a learner belongs to a sublicense: This condition will be satisfied when a learner is enrolled into a specific sublicense that you select.
- When a learner belongs to a client: This condition will be satisfied when a learner is enrolled into a specific client that you select.
- When a Learner has a User Ref value: You can use this condition to exclude or include learners based on the learner ref field value that you specify. For example, “User ref#1 is equal to Developer” or “User ref#7 is NOT equal to Sales”.
Multiple conditions can be added. You can choose to execute the Auto Assignment rule when all the conditions are satisfied or when at least one condition is satisfied.
For example: Let’s say you’ve created these two conditions.
- “Understanding Cyber Security” must be “completed”
- Ref#1 must be “Developer”
If you select “all conditions,” the learner will only be enrolled if they meet both of the conditions - they must have the Ref#1 value and have completed the “Understanding Cyber Security” course.
If you select “at least one condition”, the learner will be enrolled if they meet either of the conditions - they can either have the Ref#1 value or have completed the “Understanding Cyber Security” course.
Tip
These values are case sensitive. Capitalization must match the value in the learner profile (e.g., Test ≠ test)
Preview Matching Learners
You can then preview the learner(s) that match the conditions you selected. This is a good way to verify the conditions are configured as you would expect.
You can click on any of the preview users to view their profile in a new tab (so you won’t lose your spot). We’ll show up to 100 randomly selected preview users. If there are 0 preview users, that means no learners match the condition(s) configured. You can still proceed with 0 preview users if you expect future learners will meet the condition(s).
You also have two additional options:
- Automatically un-enroll learners who no longer meet the condition(s): If this setting is enabled, learners who no longer meet the condition(s) configured will be unenrolled from the content from the Auto Assignment rule.
Example
Let’s say you configure a condition.
“User Ref#1 is equal to Developer.” A user initially meets this condition but later, this User Ref value gets changed to “Sales.”
The user will be un-enrolled. When a user is un-enrolled from a course or learning path, course/learning path actions are created and are visible in the Content Actions Log report with a source of
auto_unenrollment. - Backfill existing learners who meet the condition(s): If this setting is enabled, when a rule is created or edited/updated, we’ll automatically enroll any previously existing learner who meets the condition(s) upon creation of the Auto Assignment rule.
- This setting is enabled by default.
- If 100 or more learners need to be enrolled, enrollment will occur in a background job. Otherwise, enrollment will be in realtime.
- This option is not displayed if there are 0 preview users.
Summary
Finally, you’ll be able to review everything you configured in steps 1-4.
Note
We’ve implemented a few specific limitations on this functionality in order to support the requirement for dynamic enrollment that doesn’t require admin bandwidth.
- Auto Assignment does not respect seat limits or waitlisting.
- Enrollment happens in near real-time. You may have to refresh the page to see the new Auto Assignment depending on the condition(s) set.
- Auto Assignment rules cannot trigger other Auto Assignment rules, as doing so could create an infinite loop.
For Example: Let’s say you’ve created these two conditions.
- If a learner has a “not-started” status in Course B, auto assign “Course A”
- If a learner has a “not-started” status in Course A, auto assign “Course B”
In this example, only one Auto Assignment will trigger (depending on whether the user reached a “not-started” status in Course A or Course B first).
You can use the Course/Learning Path Actions report to detect scenarios like this. For example, if you see a user with “not-started” in Course B, but they’re not assigned course A, you can visit the Course Actions report to see how they received the “not-started” course in Course B. If the ‘source’ of the Course Action is “auto_enrollment”, that means we intentionally did not trigger Auto Assignment One.
Warning
Auto Assignment rules are intentionally flexible to meet the requirements of many different programs but with this flexibility, it’s possible to create conflicting or overlapping rules. Be sure to consider the way that your Auto Assignment rules interact. A few scenarios to keep in mind:
It’s possible that multiple rules will enroll learner in the same content item. This doesn’t necessarily create any issues and it might be intentional but you should be aware of the expected behavior in this case.
- There will be two auto_enrollment content actions but the learner won’t see duplicate content items in their learner access widget.
- The rules may have conflicting states of enrollment / unenrollment but we’ll always process unenrollments first, followed by enrollments.
For Example:
- Rule #1 enrolls learners into course A under the condition: “Understanding Cyber Security” must be “completed”
- Rule #2 enrolls learners in the same content item (course A) under the condition: Ref#1 must be “Developer.”
- A learner initially meets both of these conditions and is enrolled in the content item but later, Ref#1 is changed.
- If auto un-enrollment is enabled for Rule #2, then the learner will be unenrolled from the content item. However, if they still meet the condition for Rule #1, then they’ll subsequently be re-enrolled thanks to Auto Assignment's dynamic enrollment capabilities.
Editing Rules
If no users have been automatically enrolled, all properties of the Auto Assignment can be edited. If at least one user has been automatically enrolled, there are a few limitations on editing Auto Assignment rules:
- The name can be edited at anytime.
- If the Auto Assignment enrolls learners into course(s) or learning path(s), you can add new items but cannot remove.
- When you save the changes, you can optionally elect to “Backfill existing learners who meet the condition(s).” If you enable this setting, all users who previously met the conditions of the rule are enrolled in the new content item. If this setting is not enabled, only users who newly meet the conditions in the future will be enrolled in the new content item.
- You cannot modify conditions.
Tip
Overall, our recommended best practice is to duplicate an Auto Assignment instead of making extensive edits. Editing Auto Assignment rules can result in confusion about why learners are/are not auto enrolled.
Deleting Rules
Auto Assignment rules can be deleted at any time. When you delete an Auto Assignment, you can optionally revoke access as well:
- When revoking access, we will only unenroll learners who were enrolled via Auto Assignment.
- If 100 or more learners need to be un-enrolled, un-enrollment will occur in a background job. Otherwise, un-enrollment will be in realtime.
- If you choose not to revoke access, learners will not be unenrolled from any resource(s) they received while the Auto Assignment was active.
FAQs
Does auto assignment respect access expiration settings on a course?
No. Auto assignment is effectively a management enrollment action similar to when an admin enrolls a learner in a content item from within the learner profile. Course-level access expiration settings are applied when purchasing directly or enrolling via free access with registration but are NOT applied when a manager directly enrolls a learner (via the learner profile, auto assignment, etc.)
Why is there a limit of 50 auto assignment rules?
Auto assignment rules are updated in real time whenever any relevant learner details or enrollments are changed. Having too many rules would make real-time updates impractical, as the system wouldn't be able to check each rule and adjust enrollments efficiently.
What happens if a learner meets the auto assignment rule conditions for a content item that they’re already enrolled in?
If a learner is already enrolled in a content item (by any method of enrollment like purchase, manager enrollment, etc.) and then later meets the conditions for an auto assignment rule, the learner will be re-enrolled in the content item. A new enrollment action will appear on the Content Actions Log report with a source of auto_enrollment. If the auto assignment rule is configured to un-enroll learners who no longer meet the conditions, the learner will be unenrolled if they no longer meet the conditions configured in the rule.