Adding and Managing Users

Each user in CourseMill is automatically a student, by default. Each User ID is unique to the entire site and can be created manually or by a feed from another external system (such as HRIS or LDAP).

As an administrator, you define the permissions/role given to each user. There are generally five types of users in CourseMill – Student, Instructor, Reporter, Guest, and Administrator. The input screen, where you enter a User Profile, contains flags to allow designations for each type of role. See User Role Definitions for more information.

Manage Users Menu

The menu bar for Manage Users provides the following functions:

Add User Opens the user profile details window to enter all the details for a user.
View/Edit Details Opens the user profile details window for an existing user.
Delete Provides the ability to delete a User. CAUTION: It is recommended you, instead, inactivate the user. Deletion of a user will cause all student history for that user to be deleted as well.
Transcript Provides the ability to display the detail or summary transcript for the user, allowing it to be printed or downloaded.
Gradebook Allows instructors and administrators the ability to change the completion status and scores of courses in which users are enrolled.
Register Allows instructors/reporters (who have been given permission) to register students in a course or curriculum.
Batch User Data Allows for the importing/exporting of user data. You can also mass enroll or un-enroll students, as well as a few other options.  See Batch Managing User Data for more information.
Mail Allows administrators, instructors, and reporters to email a student or a group of students.
Help Provides access to CourseMill functions within the Help documentation.

User Search Area

The Search area at the top of the screen provides the ability to easily find users when the list of users becomes too large to easily handle.

Selecting More Options will display more search criteria items if there exist any Sub-Orgs. In this example, there are four Sub-Orgs: Region, Department, Location, and Job Title.

Use the fields as follows:

Org ID You must always select an Org ID to find your user.
User ID Enter any combination of letters/numbers to search for any users that contain that combination in the User ID. For example, if you have two users, one with an ID of PaulaG and the other with an ID of PaulH, your search for aul will display both users.
First Name

Enter any combination of letters/numbers to search for any users that contain that combination in the first name. For example, if you have two users, Paul and Paula, your search for Pau will display both users.

Last Name Enter any combination of letters/numbers to search for any users that contain that combination in the last name. For example, if you have two users with last names of Beckman and Becker, your search for Beck will display both users.
Email Enter any combination of letters/numbers/special characters to search for any users that contain that combination in the email address. For example, if you have multiple users with yahoo in their email address, your search for yahoo will bring up all users with yahoo in the email address.
<sub-orgs> The remaining fields to search on are the Sub-Orgs that have been set up in your organization. These can display on the Search screen by selecting or deselecting the More Options or Less Options button on the bottom right of the search area. In the example above, there are four Sub-Orgs that have been set up and you can select any value in any sub-org by using the drop-down list for each one to narrow your search by the value in those Sub-Org selections.
Include Inactive Will actually expand your list to include not only the active users, but also the inactive ones (those without a check mark in the Active check box.

Adding Users

There are five different ways to create users (except admins) within the CourseMill organization:

Adding/Editing Users Manually

To add a user, you will need to enter information into several different tabs as shown below.

Add or View/Edit User – User Profile Tab

User ID - The Logon ID you select must be alpha numeric only. The only exception is a“@” and “.” typically found in an email address. Name: First, Middle, and Last Name Email: External email address (Ex. John.doe@trivantis.com)

Password - The initial password you assign the user and specific methods for managing the expiration of it. (See below)

Privileges - Default is Student (no selection). Select appropriate check boxes for Guest, Instructor, and/or Reporter. See Tip below

Progress Report Schedule - For Reporters only: the days of the week they wish to have their assigned student’s progress reports emailed to them and a check box if they want to be copied on all emails going to students.

Language Preference - This will determine the language displayed for that user's interface. This does not apply to the language inside courses as that is determined by how the course was designed.

Password Expirations

There are four different types of password expiration that you can set up for a user:

Tips/Notes when adding User IDs:

  • Guest accounts

    These types of accounts (and you typically only have one) are used for allowing public viewing of site content. Set up the UserID as Guest and the password as Guest. Publish this function on your public website. Multiple users can then use the account to review content, in your catalog, but no tracking will occur for this student.

  • User IDs can be email addresses to make it simple for remembering.

  • Changing the type of role

    • Students can be revised to be an instructor and/or reporter.

    • Instructors can be revised to be a reporter or back to simply a student

    • Reporters can be revised to be an instructor or back to simply a student.

    • Guests can never be revised to any other type of user role – they can only be deleted

  • If you change the type of user in a User ID, the system will update all related records to conform to the new ID. If the user has a significant number of records, this may take one to two minutes to complete.

Add or View/Edit User – Demographics Tab

Address - Street

City, State/Province, Zip/Postal, Country

Phone - Phone number

Hire Date - Date the user was hired

Accepted Terms of Use - If your company requires a user to accept their Terms Of Use policy upon logging in, this area of the screen will display the date the user accepted this. This is controlled by the managed property, RecordTermsOfUseDateForExistingUsers.

The Demographics tab in the Add User dialog as shown above, is made available by setting the managed property RequirePersonalInfo to either Mandatory or Optional. If it is set to Not Collected, the Demographics tab will not display.

Add or View/Edit User – Permissions Tab

You can select certain check boxes to create custom permissions for instructors and reporters as it relates to modifying curriculums, courses, and sessions, and users.

Students cannot update this field when updating their profile.

See User Role Definitions for more information.

Granting delete permissions when setting up a reporter or Instructor provides the user with the ability to remove data with no ability to recover the records.

Add or View/Edit User – Sub-Orgs Tab

Here you will define where this user fits into the various classifications (Sub-Orgs) that have been set up for your organization.

In this example, four Sub-Orgs have been set up in the organization: Region, Location, Department, and Job Title.

Add or View/Edit User - Personal Info Tab

Here you will further define the user by filling in the data that your organization is requesting. These field headings are defined at the organizational level.

In this example, eight user definitions have been set up.

Add or View/Edit User – User Notes Tab

This is a free form notes section for the administrator or instructor to fill in.

Users cannot see/update this field when updating their profile.

Transcripts

When a user record is selected and the Transcript button is clicked, the following screen will display. The transcript initially displays in the summary mode as shown below. This can be modified by changing the managed property DefaultSummaryTranscript. Another managed property called DefaultCurrentyYearTranscript determines whether to display the full history for the student or just the current year of history.

By selecting the Options button, the following screen is displayed allowing you to further filter the transcript by selecting a reporting period. 

If you uncheck the Summary check box, a more detailed report will show. A portion of a sample details report is shown below. Transcripts can be downloaded or printed.

Gradebook

Anyone who has permission to grade students in a course can do so here.  Initially this will display all the courses the student is already enrolled in and their status.

  • Select the course you want to grade.

  • Select the Gradebook Item.

  • Select the Status from the drop down.

  • Enter the Score value.

  • Enter the Completion Date (if left blank, it will default to today)

  • Enter the Reason for Change to the Gradebook. In managed property IncludeReasonForGradebookChange, this can be set to optional, required, or hidden.. If keyed in, the student will see this on his or her transcript. This can be changed with the managed property ShowGradeBookCommentsToStudents.

If a course has been completed and a certificate is available, one click on Resend Certificate will allow an instructor to email that certificate to the student.

Register

Anyone who has permission to register students in a course or curriculum can do so here. Initially, this will display all the curriculums/courses the student is already enrolled in. It will also show any expiration dates. (See note below) .

  • Selecting a row in the table opens a window to select the course sessions/curriculums available to the student.

    Select the course session/curriculum in which you want to register the student. To select multiple, use the standard Shift and/or Ctrl keys for selection.
  • Once you have selected the course session/curriculum you want, click the Register button.

  • Click the red icon to remove a curriculum/course session from the student’s list. This un-registers the student and removes the entire student’s history for this course session/curriculum. Use caution as the records cannot be recovered.

Mail

Administrators, instructors, and reporters have the ability to send an email to a student or a group of students. When the Mail button is clicked, the following dialogue screen will display:

If you selected a group of students (by using the shift button when selecting), you can delete any one of the students from the recipient list simply by clicking the icon to the left of the student’s name.   

Batch User Data

Using a specifically formatted spreadsheet, you can import user data manually or schedule the import process to add users to the system. CourseMill accepts a tab delimited file of imported data from external data management systems for this process. Guidelines for formatting your file can be found below.

To manually import the user data, select the Batch User Data button on the top right navigation menu of the Manage Users window.

This will bring up the Batch User Data pop-up:

Use the fields within the Manage Properties > Import Options category to specify the necessary details for automatically importing users to the system. CourseMill uses this information to determine when scheduled import processes should run, what information is required, and where to find files and external systems from which user data will be collected.  See Batch Managing User Data for more information.

© Copyright Trivantis Corporation 2015