Business Unit (BU) Group Structures

Deep Dive: BU group structure and import overviews

What are BU Group Structures?

Organisational structures can be replicated in the imc Learning Suite using Business Unit (BU) groups. This is achieved by creating groups in hierarchical structures that establish reporting lines between BU group Supervisors and the Users within their groups. These reporting lines have many use cases and benefits.

BU Structure Use Cases

Establishing reporting lines in BU group structures enables Supervisors and Deputies to:

• view their staff in the My Staff function,

• have deputies who can monitor staff training progress,

• view their staff in the 'Supervisor' reports,

• perform training enrolments on behalf of their staff; and

• approve their staffs' training and skill requests.

The BU Groups are additionally ideal for:

• granting Clearances to objects (E.g. to catalogues); and

• targeting automatic training enrolments or recommendations,

• restricting training access with prerequisites, and

• reporting based on group achievements.

BU Group Structure Configuration options

There are three methods to create Business Unit Group structures in the imc Learning Suite:

1. Manual creation in the LMS GUI;

2. Manual import using .csv in fixed format; and

3. Manual or automatic interface using .xml files in fixed format.

These options are described below along with benefits, creation instructions, and user assignment options.

Manual BU Group Creation

Manual group creation is the simplest method to create a basic BU group structure. This approach can be ideal for smaller structures that rarely change and where no external source system can provide the required data. Business Unit groups can be manually created in the 'Organisational structure and groups' function by clicking the 'Create' icon and selecting the 'BU' option.

Creating will launch a new tab to commence populating the new BU Group. Only the 'Description' tab fields need to be completed and below are the main fields to complete with descriptions:

1. Type of role: Normally 'Standard' is used for BU Groups. Changing to 'Content administration' sees all Users within the Group receive Clearance to objects created by other Users in the Group. This could make sense for some BU groups where members actually create content in the LMS such as HR departments or Training teams.

2. Group Code: This field has no actual function in the LMS, but can be used for assignment of Users to the BU Group with custom business rules that look for a match of a User Profile attribute value to this Group Code vale; the 'Abbreviation' field can also be used for rules.

3. Supervisor: Enables selecting one or more Users that are responsible for managing the Business Unit Group and provides them with visibility to the staff assigned to the Group. The 'Deputy' field is basically the same and just does not receive email notifications that the Supervisors do.

4. Status: The status must be 'Active' for the Group to be used throughout the LMS. If the BU Group is no longer needed it can be made 'Inactive' or deleted if a record is no longer required.

5. Name: Enter a name for the BU Group. This does not need to be unique, but is recommended.  

6. Description: Optional fields can be used to describe the role of the BU Group within the organisation including Goals and Achievements which can be renamed if needed.

Populate these fields with details for the base BU Group and then click the 'Save and Back' button.

Next, to create child BU Groups, highlight the base BU Group, click the 'Create' icon, and select 'BU' option. In the pop-up select 'In the hierarchy below the selected element' option and click the 'OK' button. The tab will refresh once again with a screen to populate fields for a new BU Group. Keep repeating this process until the required structure has been achieved.

An example of a basic structure could look like the below where there are multiple levels within the structure replicating a traditional Division/Department/Team/Location style structure:

Hint: Once the structure is created it can be a good idea to grant Clearances on each Group to the Supervisors so they can view their own groups in system filters.

CSV Import BU Group Creation

BU Group structures can be efficiently created and updated using .csv file imports. The import first requires a parent/base group to be manually created as previously described. Before importing a .csv file though it's important to understand the required format.

CSV File Format

The .csv file will need to be created in the LMS required format with supported column names, delimiters and values. The table below lists all possible columns that can be in a valid .csv file, but not all are actually required.

Below is a sample file that illustrates a more basic .csv file that will be used in the next section:

exampleGroupImport_comma.csv

Configuring the CSV File Delimiter

The delimiter can be altered between a comma, semi-colon, pipe and tab in the 'Client' function 'Settings' tab in the 'CSV group import separator' field.

Importing the .CSV File

To commence the .csv import, highlight the desired BU Group that will be the base of the structure, then click the 'Create' icon and select the 'CSV import' option. In the next screen 1) click the 'Upload' button, then 2) in the pop-up choose your .csv file using the 'Choose file' button, 3) once the file is selected click the pop-up 'Upload' button, and then click the 'Continue' button to progress to the next step.

Hint: The csv file will require the LMS object ID of the base group in the Internal parent ID field.

The next step is a Simulation run that performs a trial run to test the file structure. Check the results of the simulated import in terms of group updates by viewing the downloadable import log. If there are structural errors, messages will be displayed on-screen and the import logs will provide specific error data. If the results look good, click the Continue button to progress to the import step; if there are errors update the .csv file and repeat this step.

Clicking the Continue button in the previous screen will automatically commence the .csv file import and the import results will be displayed in seconds. The browser can simply be closed rather than clicking the 'Back' button. Return to the Organisational structure and groups function, locate the base BU Group, and expand using the + symbol to reveal the imported structure.

A nice feature when using .csv imports is that updating the structure is possible using delta files that do not require the full group structure. Only the unique ID of the parent group is needed.

XML Import BU Group Creation

Many imc clients with larger BU group structures utilise the XML interface to automatically update groups, assign users, and define Supervisors. The XML file import is the most efficient and powerful method to maintain organisation structures. This is because the import can be interfaced to automatically consume an .xml file produced by an external source system. However, this approach is the most complicated as the .xml file format is specific to the imc Learning Suite and must be custom produced in the source system or an analytics tool.

Use of the .xml interface also requires an imc BU Connector licence and some imc consulting effort is required. Consultants would discuss the options, setup a base group, activate the .xml import, setup a scheduled import job, possibly write assignment rules, and coordinate the setup of an imc SFTP server account. The assigned imc consultant would provide a specification detailing the required .xml file format and possibilities; a basic sample .xml is a valid format is embedded below:

Sample_Structure_with_users.xml

Many customers order technical support to assist in file creation troubleshooting, but imc developers will not be responsible for producing xml files from customer source systems.

Hint: With an imported structure, explicit deletion of values is not considered and leaving the value for a certain column empty will keep the previous value.

User assignment by Business Rules

The use of business rules can automatically assign users to BU groups whenever a user record is created or updated. Assignment works by matching the value of a personal attribute on the user profile to the external ID of a BU group. imc consultants would normally work with customers during implementation projects to identify relationships within the data and configure some dynamic rules. An example of a basic dynamic rule for a single personal attribute is listed below:

<co:hashTable identifier="ORG_MAPPING" defaultValue="0" comment="maps section ids">
	<co:hashTableSelectStatement isIntAttribute="false">SELECT GROUP_ID FROM PLATFORMGROUP WHERE EXTERNAL_OBJECT_ID =?</co:hashTableSelectStatement>
</co:hashTable>
		
<co:rule>
	<co:assignCommand context="GROUP" target="_hashval" hashident="ORG_MAPPING" index="LOCATION_ID" execute="ALWAYS" />
</co:rule>			

Business rules are also able to assign Supervisors and Deputies to BU groups based on personal attribute values. These rules would normally be more advanced to consider AND / OR conditions with attributes such as a Position title and Department. The assign command part of the rule would then have a ‘type’ attribute containing value of “SUPERVISOR”, “DEPUTY1” or “DEPUTY2”.

<co:rule>
  <co:ruleConditions>
        <co:orCondition>
            <co:ruleCondition expression="POSITION_ID" matching="HASSUBSTRING" value="Manager"/>
            <co:ruleCondition expression="POSITION_ID" matching="HASSUBSTRING" value="Supervisor"/>
        </co:orCondition>
    <co:ruleConditions>
  <assignCommand context="GROUP" target="_hashval" hashident="ORG_MAPPING" index="DEPARTMENT_ID" type="SUPERVISOR" execute="ALWAYS" />
</co:rule>

Hint: For the use of business rules to assign users to BU Groups create a 2nd Level Support Ticket to request consultant support.