Assigning Courses
An assignment says who should do a course, by when, and how often.
Where to find it
Architect Panel → eLearning:
- Courses & Assignments — the course console — courses, units, assignments
- Learner Records — a learner’s registration against a package
- Course Attempts — each attempt at a package
- Course Sessions — individual launches
- Learning Objectives — objective-level results
Admin Panel → User Administration:
- User Groups — the groups an assignment can target
What an assignment carries
- Label — what this assignment is, for you.
- Target — everyone, a group, or a specific person.
- Due days — how long a learner has from enrolment.
- Recur months — how often it comes round again.
- Obligation type — linking it to your obligations framework.
- Auto-enrol — whether people are enrolled automatically.
Target groups, not people
Almost always. A group target means new joiners are covered the moment they are added to the group, and leavers stop being chased. Individual targets are for genuine exceptions and they are the ones that go stale.
If you find yourself creating many individual assignments, the group structure is the thing to fix.
“Everyone” means everyone
Including contractors, service accounts and whoever you onboarded last week for a two-day project. Use it deliberately, and check what the population actually is before you do.
Due days start from enrolment
Not from a fixed date. So somebody joining in June gets the same window as somebody who joined in January, which is fairer and produces a steady flow rather than a cliff.
Set it to a realistic period. Seven days for a thirty-minute module is aggressive; ninety days is long enough to be forgotten.
Recurrence makes it a programme
Setting a recurrence turns a one-off assignment into an ongoing requirement — annual refreshers, quarterly briefings. Combined with the course’s validity period, that is what produces a live compliance position rather than a historic one.
Auto-enrol or offer
- Auto-enrol on — people are enrolled and expected to complete. Right for mandatory training.
- Auto-enrol off — the course is available and people choose. Right for a development catalogue.
Do not use auto-enrol for optional material. An enrolment somebody did not ask for and is not required to finish becomes an overdue item that trains people to ignore overdue items.
Link to obligations where you have them
An assignment can name an obligation type, which connects training to the framework that says why it is required. That is what turns "we ran the course" into "we met the obligation".
Check the population before enabling
An assignment enrolling four hundred people is four hundred notifications and a support load. Look at who it would target before switching it on.
Worked example
An organisation assigns its security course to the All Staff group with a thirty-day window, recurring every twelve months, auto-enrolled and linked to an obligation type. Its development catalogue uses the same courses with auto-enrol off and no due date.
Recommendations
- Target groups, not individuals.
- Auto-enrol only what is mandatory.
- Realistic due windows — not seven days, not ninety.
- Check the population before enabling.