Learn - Create a Group hierarchy to cascade learning assignments

In this article, we'll show how to create a hierarchy of Groups, so that all learning assigned at the 'top' of the hierarchy (Parent Group), will cascade to all Groups below in the hierarchy (child Groups).

Group hierarchies are useful for reports and for assigning Courses and Catalogues to an organisational unit. For example, a Course assigned to a Group at the top of a group hierarchy is automatically assigned to all members in descendant groups.

Note that this applies only to Courses and Catalogues. Accreditation assignments are not cascaded.

In the below example:

• Learning assigned to the People Ops Group, would cascade down to HR level 1 and 2, and to L&D level 1 and 2
• Learning assigned to HR Level 1, would cascade down to HR Level 2 only

Note: Before starting to build your hierarchy, we recommend that you document your plans for future reference.

Steps to create a Group hierarchy

For this example, we'll recreate the hierarchy shown above.

1. Browse to the Group area of Learn admin:
2. Select the Group at the top of the hierarchy (for this example, the People Ops group)
3. Select 'Group' from the Group administration menu. By default, the view will show all 'Current' Group assignments. If no Groups are assigned, no Groups will be listed.
4. Select 'All' to view all Groups. Assign the 'HR team Level 1' Group, and the 'L&D team Level 1' Group
5. Select 'Submit' to save the assignment. The first level is now in place. 
6. Select 'Hierarchy' from the Administration menu to see a visualisation of the hierarchy. Any Courses and Catalogues assigned to the People Ops Group will be cascaded to HR team Level 1, and L&D team, Level 1:
7. The next step is to create the Level 2 hierarchy. Browse to the HR Team Level 1 Group
8. Select 'Group' from the Group administration menu. By default, the view will show all 'Current' Group assignments. If no Groups are assigned, no Groups will be listed.
9. Select HR Team Level 2
10. Select 'Submit' to save the assignment
11. Browse to the L&D Team Level 1 Group
12. Select 'Group' from the Group administration menu. By default, the view will show all 'Current' Group assignments. If no Groups are assigned, no Groups will be listed.
13. Select L&D Team Level 2
14. Select 'Submit' to save the assignment

View the Hierarchy

The Hierarchy can be viewed from any point. For example, browse to the HR team Level 1 Group, and you'll see this view:

Browse to the People Ops Group, and select 'Hierarchy' and you'll see this view:

It's also possible to move between Groups by selecting an item from the map. For example, select 'HR team Level 1' from the above map, and you'll jump straight to that Group.