Feature Overview and Requirements

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. 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.

Step by Step Procedure and Field Description

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. 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 unit.

To add new positions and roles, start by selecting the profile you want to affect.

For the position you want to add:

1. Expand Add a Position.
2. Click Select a Position to search for and find the desired position.
3. Click Add Position to finalize the entry.
4. Adjust dates, as needed, and if this is to become the user’s primary position, check the Yes, make this the primary position box.
5.  

For the role you want to add:

1. Expand Add a Role.
2. Click Select a Role to search for and find the desired position.
3. Click Add Role to finalize the entry.
4. Adjust dates, as needed.

Although this page does not discuss User Group membership, adding a user group is done using the same steps.

When all changes are complete, click Submit.

Add Multiple Profiles to a Single User Account

A user can also have multiple Profiles, each tied to a different organizational unit or level 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.

To add a new profile, 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.

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,  and ideally it should 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. This is the position that will determine managerial status (in a Position-based Hierarchy), membership in a position group (affecting accreditation eligibility), and more.

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 Account 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

1. From the Administration menu, select Users > Search Users and click Edit User Account for the account you wish to fully end-date.
2. On the General Info tab of the User Details page, expand Additional Information.
3. In the End Date field, enter the day on which you want the user account expire
4. Click Save User at the bottom of the page.

Doing this on the General Info tab will cascade the end date to all of the Profiles tab 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.

1. From the Administration menu, select Users > Search Users and click Edit User Profiles for the account you wish to edit.
2. From the Profiles tab, click Edit Profile to modify the targeted profile.
3. Enter an End Date for the profile’s Organization and deselect it as Primary or Default, if those are currently enabled.
4. Go to one of the user’s other active Location-level profiles. Establish the Primary/Default settings there.
5. Click Submit to save the change and cascade the end date to the profile’s positions, roles, and other information.
   

Reactivate A User account and Profile Records

Portal Administrators can reactivate inactive user accounts and related profiles.

1. From the Administration menu, select Users > Search Users and click Edit User Profile for the desired user. Make sure to select “inactive” as a search filter.
2. To make the selected user active, an administrator must first configure at least one active profile for them. This is done on the Profiles tab, by removing the end dates on all the entries, as shown below.

If it was an active user and you just reactivated one of their existing profiles, they will then be active at that location.

If the user account was inactive, the system also applies the new/null Profile End Date values to the User’s master Account record on the General Info tab. After successfully activating a user’s Profile, always check their General Info tab to confirm complete reactivation.

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.