ClearCompany Learning: Groups

Groups exist to help organize Users that share common traits or responsibilities like departmental employees or special teams. In this article, we will explore how to individually add Groups to build your grouping structure, how to bulk import Groups, and how to effectively manage Groups.

In this article:
Groups Overview
Adding Individual Groups
Editing Individual Groups
Bulk Group Import
Bulk Group Import Error Codes
Additional Resources

Groups Overview

Groups are a powerful tool in a Learning Management System that allows administrators or managers to quickly assign training to a designated collection of users. They are also useful in running reports for specific groups in your organization. 

Adding Individual Groups

Step-by-Step Guide

1. Navigate to User/Groups > Groups and click +Add Group.

2. Update the information under Settings. All boxes highlighted in yellow are required fields.

Parent Group: 

• Setting a Parent Group will determine where this group falls in the organizational hierarchy.
• For example, the groups outlined below both have the same parent group (Emma Williams) and therefore nest below that group in the hierarchy. 
• Notice that the parent group mentioned (Emma Williams) has its own parent and nests below that group in the hierarchy

Group Code: Give your group a code. Each group code must be unique.
Group Name: Name of your group. While
Group Type: Group type will help categorize your groups for easy filtering and searching. Some examples are department, job title, and location.
Group Description (optional): Provide a description of the group you are creating.
Group Status: Active or Inactive
Manually Manage Membership: This option defaults to "No". If a situation arises in which you have an automated process, like one of our connector options, that is removing users from a group in which you would like them to remain, this function can be set to "Yes".

3. Click Save.

Once a new group is created and saved, additional tabs will be added: labels, members, options, company news, and email templates.

Note: If an organization’s Learning platform is set up to sync with another system (i.e.: an HRIS) this may not be applicable.

Editing Individual Groups

Step-by-Step Guide

Once a group is created, Admins with access in the system can edit information for individual groups in the Learning platform. To access configurable elements, click on the edit pencil icon for the desired group.

Settings: This tab allows you to update your parent group, group code, group name, group type, description, and group status.

Labels: This tab allows you to adjust vernacular throughout the Learning platform for just users who have that group as their primary group. For example, ClearCompany Learning uses the term "Learning Objects" to describe training. This term may be applicable for some users. However, a certain group of users may use specific vernacular to refer to training, such as the word "Courses". In cases like this, the label "Learning Objects" can be changed to that specific vernacular for that certain group of users. As shown in the screenshot below, the English label name "learning_objects" is being edited to display the text "Courses". Once this change is added, anywhere throughout the site where the words "Learning Objects" were displayed, that label will now display the word "Courses" instead. That change would only apply to this one group of users if that group is the user's primary group.  

Members: This tab allows you to see all users that are currently members of this group. You can search through the list and click the edit pencil icon next to any user to be taken to their account page.

Options: This tab allows you to connect a LinkedIn account to a group. If connected, the Company News gadget (one of the possible gadgets on the user dashboard) will display the feed from the LinkedIn account.  

Company News: Within this tab, you can create what will display in a user's Company News gadget (one of the possible gadgets on the user dashboard)

Email Templates: When an email is sent from the Learning platform, it is sending a default message built into the site called an email template. These default messages can be edited or other templates can be created to provide message options. In cases where a certain group of users needs to receive specialized communication, an email template can be created for that group on the Email Templates tab. Users will only be sent the specialized email templates for their primary group. For example, an assignment may use the default assignment email template to communicate to learners that they have been assigned something new. But if a certain group of users within the assignment needs a different assignment message than just the default, a specialized assignments email template can be created within that group. Users who have this group as their primary group will receive the specialized template rather than the default selected within the assignment. 

+Add Sub-group: The +Add Sub-group option in the top right corner will take you to create a new group. The Parent Group will default to the Group you were just editing. This is another way to help build your organizational hierarchy

Note: if an organization’s Learning System is set up to sync with another system (i.e.: an HRIS) this may not be applicable

Bulk Group Import

Step-by-Step Guide

1. Within Administration, navigate to User / Groups > Groups > Bulk Group Import. We recommend you Download Basic CSV as a backup csv file.

2.  You will Select your starting Group which determines where your groups will be built from. In most cases, this will be your Top Group. 

3. Choose your delimiter and determine if you want to Create new groups if found in file and/or Update existing group data.

4. Choose a file and click Upload and Continue. You will be shown a sample of which rows/groups can be will be created. With this, you can spot check and verify that the information is correct.

You will also be shown which rows/groups have an error. This can help you identify any adjustments needed for the csv to reupload. Different Bulk Import Error Codes can be found below.

5. Click Save and Process Good Rows Only to confirm the error-free groups. The lines of data that have errors will need to be corrected and then re-uploaded. Alternatively, you can Cancel, make any adjustments to the errored rows, and then re-upload the full file.

CSV Fields

Fields	Description
Group Code	This is a unique code for each group that tells the system in what group you want your users. This is not visible on the front end.
Group Name	This is the name for the group that is visible to front end users. It is best practice to have these also be unique.
Group Status	Active or Inactive Active groups will be displayed in the Group Structure
Group Type Code	You can automatically add an existing Group Type using the Group Type Code and the corresponding Group Type. Group types must be created manually on the Learning platform administration side for the Bulk Upload to capture them; bulk upload can create group codes and group names but not group types.
Group Type	This is the Group Type Name.
Parent Group Code	The value in this field will build your hierarchy. You can give any group a Parent Group depending on where within the hierarchy you want a group to nest. The Parent Group code can be found in the group's Column A.
Parent Group Name	This verifies the parent group with the corresponding information that comes from column B (see example below)

Bulk Group Import Error Codes

Error Codes

Error Codes	Description
Parent Group Not Found	The Parent Group provided in the file does not exist.
Group Type Not Found	The Group Type provided in the file does not exist.
Parent Group Name / Code Mismatch	The Group Name is incorrect based on the provided Group Code.
Group Type Name / Code Mismatch	The Group Type Name is incorrect based on the provided Group Type Code
Parent Group Access Issue	The administrator who initiated the bulk import does not have access to the provided Parent Group.
Group Access Issue	The administrator who initiated the bulk import does not have access to the provided Group.
Impossible Move	Moving this Group would create a cycle in the group structure and cause an invalid hierarchy (the group would eventually connect back to itself via Parent Groups which is not possible).

Additional Resources

ClearCompany Learning: Introduction to Organizing Learners