Managing and Re-assigning User Assignments: Best Practices Guide
Managing assignments in PlusPlus helps having a good understanding how to handle assignments, reassignments, due dates, and all intricacies associated, especially when dealing with complex workflows for compliance. What follows are key best practices for managing assignments effectively and efficiently.
Key Actions for Managing Assignments
Admins or content owners can take a variety of actions on assignments, including:
Editing Assignment Details: Change due dates or expiration dates
Marking as Completed or Exempt: Mark an assignment as complete or exempt, with the ability to reverse the exempt status if needed (currently option not available for courses)
Dropping/Unassigning: Remove outstanding (Not Started or In Progress) assignments from users. Completed assignments can't be dropped.
Bulk Actions: Manage multiple assignees at once, making changes more efficiently
A frequent sticking point caveat to call out is a user cannot have more than one active or open assignment or enrollment to the same content and why you might be unable to assign or enroll a user to a certain content item - always check the rosters for status of the user you're managing.
Statuses and Definitions:
Statuses for non-event content items such as tracks, courses, videos, and articles. Red highlight indicates active status
Not Started: Indicates that a person has not started the assignment
In Progress: Indicates that the user has started the assignment and it is not complete
Completed: Indicates that the user has completed the assignment
Exempted: Indicates that the person was given credit for the assignment without completing it
Dropped: This status is assigned when a person was assigned to non-event content item such as a course, and then was un-assigned
Statuses for event content items. Red highlight indicates active status
Enrolled: Indicates that a person is going to attend the event
Waitlisted: Signifies that the event's capacity is full, and the person is in line to get a spot if one becomes available before the event
Checked-in: Denotes that a person has attended the event
No-show: Used when a person did not check in to the event but also did not drop out
Dropped: This status is assigned when a person was enrolled in the event and then un-enrolled.
Canceled: Applies when the event itself was canceled
Unknown: This status is used when a person never responded to the event invite.
Note that a user can have a coexisting status of dropped and in progress in some content items except for tracks. In the scenario below Dropped is not an active status whereby the user was re/assigned receiving an alternate Not Started status indicative of two separate assignments
A deeper look into content assignment can be found here: How to assign content
Note, for track assignments (learning paths), you can manage the entire track or individual steps within it. However, if a user is dropped from a track step, they will also be unassigned from the entire track.
Handling Active Assignments
When users have active assignments or enrollments, respective of the content they may be actively consuming (i.e., they're in progress with an assignment), they will not appear in re/assignment lists, under the View Roster menu, until the current assignment is either marked as complete or expired (made inactive).
Marking a user as complete or expired avoids duplicating assignments, which is not possible, but can be confusing when attempting to reassign content. Make sure to complete or expire the assignment to enable re/assignment option for those users who've been assigned at some point
Reassigning Tracks for Recurring Compliance
For compliance workflows, it's common to reassign the same track to users over multiple periods (e.g., yearly training). Set a Time to expiration on the track and on every item in it. Once those assignments expire, each reassignment creates a brand new, independent assignment, preserving previous completions while setting up fresh expectations for the new period.
If people completed a track before an expiration was set, reassigning it marks them Completed again right away, because a track counts any non-expired completion of its items. To give them a fresh attempt, expire their old assignments with Edit Dates first. See Give people who already completed a fresh attempt in How to set expiration dates for content.
Tracks and Tasks Caveats
Remember, tasks only exist within tracks, allowing you to integrate them into a sequential learning path without cluttering your Catalog with task-based articles.
Currently, if you need to reassign tasks within a track to team members who have already completed the track, you should reassign the entire track to them. This is because the direct assignment option for tasks is currently not functional and is planned to be removed.
Tracks and Other Content
For other types of content within a track, such as events, courses, videos, and articles, you can assign these directly to users who have completed the track. It's important to note that all tasks within a track will appear as hidden, but they are visible within the track to all users, including regular users, and this visibility setting cannot be changed at the moment.
Items with Completable turned off (in the item's Edit, then Completion settings) aren't assigned when the track is assigned and don't count toward completing the track, so they won't show track assignees in their roster.
A user cannot have both a status of dropped and in progress for the same content item they've been assigned to. If a user is dropped from a track step, they will also be unassigned from the entire track, which means they cannot be both dropped and in progress simultaneously.
Managing Expired Assignments
If users fail to complete assignments in time, marking them as expired (instead of completed or failed) is essential for accurate reporting.
Completion options when editing the content item via the 3 dots
Assignments expire automatically on their Expires at date when content is set to expire. You can also expire them manually with Mark as Expired, one at a time or in bulk. Mark as Expired only works on Not Started or In Progress assignments; if a bulk selection includes any Completed, Dropped, or Exempted assignments, the whole action fails. To expire completed assignments, use Edit Dates and set Expires at to a past date.
To access these settings from within View Roster menu after choosing to edit the content item, select a user via the 3 dots, then edit
The Edit Assignments menu shows allowing you to change these options
You can also perform Bulk actions if multiple users are selected
A caveat here to call out is that it is possible to change a users Due at and Expires At dates independently from the default settings configured at the content item level
A deeper dive on this can be found here: How to set expiration dates for content
Assignment Reuse and Multiple Assignments Behavior
Assignment Reuse: When an automated rule assigns content, an existing assignment (in-progress or completed) is reused, and a new assignment is not created unless the existing one has expired. Manual Re/assign from View Roster creates a new assignment for anyone whose assignment is completed, dropped, or exempted.
Multiple Assignments: It is expected to have multiple assignments to the same content from the same employee in specific cases:
Recurring content (e.g., annual Ethics certifications): Requires separate assignments each year to preserve audit history. This is handled by setting a Time to expiration on the track and on each of its items, allowing re-assignment after expiration.
Dropped/Exempted content: If a user drops or is exempted from an assignment, a new assignment can be created later (e.g., user self-enrolls and completes it later).
Edge Cases: While it may feel like a undesired behavior to have two active assignments to the same content, Admins are intentionally allowed flexibility (e.g., un-exempting even if another active assignment exists) to meet business needs. These actions are rare and manual.
Summary of Best Practices
Automate Assignments: Set up automated rules for recurring content (e.g., annual compliance training) to reduce manual workload.
Set expiration everywhere: For recurring tracks, set Time to expiration on the track and every item before the first assignment.
Use Bulk Actions: When managing large groups of assignees, bulk actions like marking assignments as completed or expired are key for efficiency.
Clarify Statuses: Ensure that users understand the difference between expired and completed statuses, especially in compliance settings, for clearer reporting and user progress tracking.
By implementing these best practices and understanding how to navigate nuances like active enrollments and assignment expiration, admins can more effectively manage content assignments and improve overall compliance workflows.