User Account and Profile Records

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Every LatitudeLearning® LMS has one Portal Administrator account set up by default when the LMS is created. User Management features allow Portal Administrators to add, modify, and deactivate user accounts within their LMS.

A user's master record must include an active account Username and at least one active Profile at a location to retain “Active” status. Like all elements within the LMS, usernames and profiles are active when the current date falls within the Effective Date and End Date of the record. Therefore, these dates may differ between username and profile, or even between profiles when an account is set up with multiple profiles.

An inactive user has no active profiles. The master user record is typically end-dated, resulting in an “Inactive” user status only upon overall termination of the employee from the organization. However, administrators may also consider deactivating users in order to stay within the limits of their Active User License (the Forever Free LMS allows up to 100 active users). There is no cost for inactive users because they cannot log into the system.

Portal Administrators can review a user’s training history regardless of the user status and in most situations, can reactivate user accounts at any time.

Review the topics listed below to learn more about managing user accounts and profiles:
 

Profile Overview

As noted on the Add a New User document, all new user accounts are created with the default role “Student” and are tied to the “Location” level of the organization. This ensures that the user can successfully log in to the LMS, and that authorized administrators will be able to impersonate the user during support activities.

Some LMS users will fulfill responsibilities beyond these parameters. The LMS allows for any combination of profile Organization, Role and Position assignments.

To get to a user's profiles:
  1. From the Administration menu, navigate to Users > Search Users.
  2. Use Advanced User Search to build search queries using a variety of criteria and logical expressions. If you know the Username, you can forego the search process by entering it or the user's first, last, or user name in the Username type-ahead field. Select the user from the drop-down list of results.
  3. Click the appropriate button to go directly to a specific portion of the User Details.
    • Click Edit User Account for quick access to the General Info page to manage master data like name, email, password, or address.
    • Click Edit User Profile to manage the user's current Profiles tab entries, which define their roles and scope of access within the LMS.

     
  4. From the Profiles tab, click Edit Profile to modify an existing profile or Add Profile to add a new profile entry to the list. Portal Administrators will also see an Impersonate button for users who are not portal administrators. This feature allows the administrator to view the LMS experience from a particular user's perspective as a troubleshooting tool.

Add Multiple Positions or Roles to a Single User Profile

Each Profile is tied to only one organization unit (Company, Business Unit, Division or Location). At that particular organization profile, a user may have several Role and Position assignments, as displayed below. The positions and roles are only valid for that specified organization. In the case of a higher organization level, the rights offered by the role and position are inherited at organizational levels below it. For instance, having a Training Administrator position and Portal Administrator role at a business unit level will give rights to that business unit and any divisions and locations under it, but will not allow the rights at other business units.
 


Add Multiple Profiles to a Single User Account

A user can also have multiple Profiles, each tied to a different organizational unit within your structure. The following image provides an example of a user account with multiple profiles. One profile at the location level should always be flagged as the Primary/Default profile. These flags should never be set at higher organizational levels. From the Profile Tab, click Add Profile and fill out the form to add new profiles to a user. If other profiles become obsolete, they can be inactivated as long as one active location-level profile remains.
 


Flagging Profiles as Default and Primary

If a person has multiple Profiles, when the user logs into the LMS, they are taken to the Location-level profile that is flagged “Default”. For those with multiple profiles, the “Primary” profile flag indicates which profile contains the user's primary Organization, Role and Position assignments.

Only profiles tied to Locations can be flagged as "Default". This limitation is important for user management, support and reporting purposes. Any attempt to establish a "Default" profile at any other organization level will result in an error. Users who do not have a Default Profile are prompted to choose a profile upon logging in, as shown below.
 


The "Primary" flag is more important. It controls how the LMS tracks user activity (i.e. the information pulled into standard LMS reports) and user functionality with regard to access rights associated with role and position assignments. The Primary Profile flag should also be tied to a Location, but it is not required that it be the same as the default location.

For users who have a single profile with multiple position assignments, there is also a radio button that allows you to indicate a Primary Position within a profile. 

Note: When searching for or impersonating users, the hash or number character (#) indicates the organization assigned to a user's primary profile. In the Search Users view pictured below, the "Location Code" column is only displaying this sign next to locations associated with primary user profiles.
 


Deactivate Username and Profile Records

There are multiple ways to inactivate users and their associated profiles. It is important to distinguish between inactivating a user entirely and keeping a user active, but inactivating one or more of their profiles.

Manually Inactivate a User Account

From the Administration menu, select Users > Search Users and click Edit User Account for the account you wish to edit. On the “General Info” tab of the User Details page, click the + symbol next to “Additional Information” to expand the page. In the “End Date” field, enter the day on which you want the user account expire, and then click Save User at the bottom of the page. Doing this on the General Info page will cascade the end date to all of the user's profiles, positions, and roles automatically.
 


Inactivate a User Profile

Before doing this, you must ensure the user has at least one other active location-level profile in place. From the Administration menu, select Users > Search Users and click Edit User Profiles for the account you wish to edit. From the “Profiles” tab, click Edit Profile to modify the targeted profile. Enter an End Date for the profile's Organization and deselect it as Primary or Default, if those are currently enabled. Those settings should be enabled on one of the user's remaining location profiles.

Click Submit to save the change and cascade the end date to the profile's positions, roles, and other information.

Use the "Quick Profile Update" Tool

The Quick Profile Update tool allows administrators to quickly create new Primary Profiles for existing users, while automatically inactivating the user’s existing Profile. From one page, you can select updated Location, Position and Role assignments from drop down lists, replacing the manual process described above. This feature is found on the Administration menu under Users > Quick Profile Update.

Important: The Impact of Inactivating User Accounts and Profiles

Reactivate A User account and Profile Records

Portal Administrators can reactivate inactive user accounts and related profiles. From the Administration menu, select Users > Search Users and click Edit User Profile.

To make the selected user active, an administrator must first configure at least one active profile for him. Do this on the user's Profiles page in one of two ways:
 


To help streamline user reactivation, the system also applies the new/null Profile End Date values to the User's master Account record. After successfully activating a user's Profile, always check their General Info tab to confirm complete reactivation, removing the End Date on that tab if found.

The user can then log into the LMS with their original username and password, unless you choose to reset the password at the same time.

Toggle Between Two or More Active Profiles

Users who have multiple active profiles may need to toggle between profiles, essentially “switching hats”, as necessary to complete their LMS duties. For example, a user may complete a corporate training requirement with her Student profile under her default Location (which becomes the location associated with her transcript) and then toggle to a secondary Location where her Location Administrator profile allows her to manage her employees working at the secondary location. Portal Administrators who take part in LatitudeLearning®'s Navigator training programs can also toggle profiles to access their Navigator profile, where LMS training courses are available in the course catalog.

You can toggle between profiles quickly by using the LMS Header. Use the drop-down arrow next to your name in the header:
 


Switching profiles is particularly useful for Portal Administrators with a Company-level profile when they want to edit Courses, Resources, Majors, and other information that are tied to a Business Unit outside of their own default Business Unit. For instance, the approval requirements on a specific course can vary Business Unit. If a Portal Administrator is logged into "Business Unit A" by default (based on their default location), any change made to that course's approval settings will only apply to Business Unit A. To change the course's approval setting in "Business Unit B", the portal administrator must activate a profile in Business Unit B by entering a location related to Business Unit B in the Company profile activation field.

To return to your default profile, click RETURN TO DEFAULT PROFILE icon in the header next to the header Course Search field.

Instructor Profile

LMS users who teach instructor-led courses should be assigned the Instructor role. This Role allows them to manage course enrollments, classroom offerings, training facilities and more.

An instructor’s User Details page includes an additional “Instructor Profile” tab, where he or she can provide instructional language, qualification and availability information. This profile also indicates which Courses they are qualified to teach and which Facilities they use. Click Schedule at the top of the page to view the Training Calendar, which shows currently scheduled classroom course offerings.
 

 
  1. Effect on Open Enrollments related to the End-dated Profile: The system is designed, by default, to terminate all open enrollments tied to the end-dated user profile. The LMS design assumes that when a user changes organizations, it is possible that their training requirements and managers could also change. The courses they are enrolled in may not even be available in the new organization. Therefore, by default, all courses in which the user was enrolled, but had not completed, prior to profile inactivation will be canceled automatically, allowing the student to start at the new organization with a clean slate. This automated process does not affect training history, which is retained indefinitely and is visible on the user's History page. The default action for this can be modified to move the enrollments to the user's new location if the course is available at it. To make this change, go to Site Management > LMS Information and modify the "Inactive Profile Enrollments" setting. If the new location does not support the same course in its catalog and cannot be moved, the enrollment will still be cancelled.
  2. Data Recovery: Loss of user account or profile information due to data entry errors or situations noted above and subsequent requests to cleanup or restore data are not covered under Latitude's software assurance program. Such requests are subject to a customer's operational services support agreement with Latitude and will be scoped and estimated upon request to Support@LatitudeLearning.com.
  3. Add Profile – Create new organization, position, and role responsibilities ... OR
  4. Edit Profile – Reactivate previous assignments by removing the Profile End Date or extending it into the future. When you remove a Profile End Date, the system will automatically check for matching end dates on associated Position and Role assignments, and delete those as well.
  5. Click Submit.
  6. If you remove the end date on a profile, the LMS will automatically remove the master account end date.
  7. If you extend the end date on a profile, the LMS will automatically extend the master account end date.
  8. The "pin" icon shows which profile is currently active.
  9. Below the line, your additional profiles, if any, are listed. Click an existing one to temporarily make that your active profile. Clicking Navigator will take you to LatitudeLearning®'s training portal where you can learn how to manager your LMS.
  10. If you have a higher organizational profile, such as Division, Business Unit, or Company, you can activate ANY location found within that organization's hierarchy. Use the drop-down arrow to open a type-ahead field where you can search for the location. Once identified, select the location from the list and then click the "Refresh" icon to the right of the field.