Group Preview (Early Adopter)

Groups are used for many business-critical functions, including learning assignments, task assignments, and generating reports. When editing a Group, it is easy to make errors, resulting in erroneous training or task assignments that are difficult and time-consuming to fix. The only way to detect a mistake is to save the edited Group, wait for the refresh to process, and then view the users in the Group to see if the membership is correct.

The Group Preview enhancements allow administrators to preview the Group membership based on the edited criteria so mistakes can be detected and fixed before saving the Group. Administrators can also save changes as a draft so edits can be made asynchronously while the current Group is retained.

The following key features are included in this enhancement:

  • Generate a preview of users in the Group based on edited criteria before saving the edits.
  • Create a Draft Group for asynchronous editing and preview. Draft Groups are saved for 90 days unless they are published or deleted.
  • Optionally require all administrators to generate a preview before saving Group edits.
  • Additional pop-up notifications will be sent when critical actions are taken.

How Does this Enhancement Benefit My Organization?

This enhancement allows previewing Group membership based on the edited criteria to detect and fix mistakes before saving. Administrators can also save changes as a draft so edits can be made asynchronously while the current Group is retained.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Preview processing time varies based on the criteria being evaluated. However, most Group previews will process in fewer than three minutes. If the preview has not been generated within three minutes, the administrator receives this message, so they know the preview is still processing. An administrator can cancel and try again, which often resolves any latency, or select the Save Draft and Generate Preview option, which creates a draft using the modified criteria and continues processing the preview in the draft.

No. Currently, there is no email notification when a preview is done processing in a draft.

No. Based on permissions and constraints, any administrator with access to edit a Group can resume and publish a draft for that Group.

There are no changes or enhancements to the Group Modification History. If a draft is published, the Group’s Modification History will show "Modified by” followed by the administrator’s name, just as if edits are made directly on the Edit Group page.

No. Any administrator with access to edit an existing group can generate a preview or save and publish a draft.

No. Preview is only available when editing an existing group. If you are creating a new group and want to use preview, save the group, then edit and begin adding criteria. You can then generate a preview.

Yes. The ‘Require Preview Before Saving Edits’ setting does not apply to changes made via Edge Import.

No. The Group Preferences settings will be copied down, but any draft Groups in the higher environment will not be copied down.

No. It is not possible to view or export the complete preview membership list.

No. It is not possible to generate a preview until at least one criterion is edited. Changes to the Group metadata, such as Title, ID, Description, do not require a Preview to save the group.

Implementation

This functionality is automatically available but turned off for all organizations. Administrators with the Group Preferences - Manage permission can enable the functionality via the new Group Preferences page in Core Preferences. Group Preferences are global and cannot be configured by OU. Group Preview can be deactivated at any time. However, deactivating the feature will delete any draft groups.

Upon release, the new Group Preferences - Manage permission is automatically granted to the default System Administrator role. Administrators must grant this permission with the appropriate constraints to other roles, if necessary.

Permissions

The following new permission applies to this functionality:

PERMISSION NAME PERMISSION DESCRIPTION CATEGORY
Group Preferences - Manage Grants the ability to access and modify the Group Preferences page. This permission cannot be constrained. This is an administrator permission. Core Administration

The following existing permissions apply to this functionality:

PERMISSION NAME PERMISSION DESCRIPTION CATEGORY
OU Group - Manage Grants the ability to create, copy, and edit custom groups of users without allowing the ability to manage organizational units (OUs). This permission can be constrained by OU, User's OU, and Provider. This is an administrator permission. Core Administration
OU Group - Update Grants access to edit existing custom groups of users. This permission can be constrained by OU, User's OU, and Provider. This is an administrator permission. Core Administration