Organisational structures can be replicated using hierarchical Business Unit (BU) Groups that create reporting lines by establishing one-to-many relationships between BU Group Supervisors and the Users within the groups. These reporting lines allow the Supervisors to view their staff in the My Staff function, view their staff in the “Supervisor” reports, perform training enrolments on behalf of their staff and approve their staff's training requests. The BU Groups are additionally ideal for granting clearances to objects (e.g. to catalogues) and using within training enrolment workflows like automatic enrolments or prerequisites.
There are three ways that Business Unit Group structures can be created in the LMS which are:
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Manual creation in the LMS GUI
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Manual import using .csv in fixed format
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Automatic interface using .xml files in fixed format
Manual Creation of BU Group Structures
The simplest way to create a basic BU Group organisational structure is by doing it manually. This approach can be ideal for smaller structures that do not undergo regular change and where there is no external source system that can provide the structure.
Business Unit groups are created in the “Organisational structure and groups” function accessed via the “Admin → People → Group administration” menu path. To commence creation of a group, the “Create” icon is clicked and the “BU” option is selected.
If an existing Group was highlighted when clicking create, a pop-up window asks whether “Before” or “After” is to be created; if no group was highlighted, the tab refreshes with a screen to commence populating the new BU Group. Here only the “Description” tab fields need to be completed and below are the main meta fields to complete with descriptions:
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Setting |
Description |
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Type of role |
The setting provides access to objects which group members have created:
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Group code |
A group code is used for unique identification of the groups throughout the entire learning management system. As part of the seat assignment import, the group code is used as the identifier for allocating seats to the group. |
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Function |
Assigns a function to the BU |
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Abbreviation |
This field can also be used for the group code |
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Supervisor |
Superiors have special authorisations in order to edit staff BUs and talent profiles. They can be displayed in the BU profile. |
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Deputy |
Deputy supervisors have the same rights as the supervisors. Deputies can be displayed in the BU profile; they are not displayed in the organisational chart. |
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Deputy without access |
A deputy without authorisations does not receive the same settings as the superior. Rather, he acts as a contact person for certain tasks whilst the supervisor is on holiday for example. In addition, these deputies can be displayed in the BU profile but not in the organisational chart. |
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Exclude deputy as mail recipient
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The activated setting will ensure, that no supervisor e-mails will be sent to the deputy of this BU. |
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Image |
The uploaded image of an BU is displayed in the BU profile. |
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Status |
Inactive BUs are not yet or no longer used in the system; however, reports can still be created through them. Furthermore, inactive BUs are no longer visible in the organisational structure and are no longer displayed in the group search. Automatic course enrolment based on inactive BUs can no longer be executed either. |
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Start date |
The start date can be used to automatically change the status of an BU to ’active’. |
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Expiration date |
If the end date of an BU is reached, it automatically receives the ’inactive’ status. |
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Business Unit is visible, but cannot be evaluated for the Seat limitation. It only serves structural purposes. |
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Name |
Enter a name for the BU Group. This does not need to be unique, but is recommended |
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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 |
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Goals |
The targets defined here are visible as information in the BU profile. |
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Achievements |
BU results are displayed for everyone visible in the BU profile. |
These fields are populated with details for the base BU Group, and then the “Save and Back” button is clicked.
The next step is to create the first-level child BU Groups from the base BU Group. To do this, the newly created base BU Group is highlighted, the “Create” icon is clicked, and “BU” is selected.
A pop-up now asks where the new group is to be created; “In the hierarchy below the selected element” is selected and the “OK” button is clicked. This once again refreshes the tab with a screen for populating a new BU Group, where the “Description” tab fields need to be completed. This process is repeated until the required structure has been created.
Once the structure is created it can be a good idea to give Clearances on each Group to the Supervisors so they can view their own groups in system filters.