Adding Affiliation Managers - Genius CE & Enterprise

Introduction

 In any educational initiative, the role of a manager is pivotal and cannot be overstated. Managers are those individuals who occupy a supervisory position within your learning program, playing a central role in ensuring that educational objectives are met efficiently. They can generate detailed reports and possess access to a customized dashboard, which provides valuable insights into the progress, performance, and engagement levels of a specific group of learners. This group is defined by their affiliation, which serves as a categorization method for learners under a particular organizational structure.

The purpose of this article is to provide you with a thorough understanding of the Manager role. We will detail its capabilities and limitations, providing you with a clear understanding of what a Manager can and cannot do. Additionally, we will explore the two methods available for designating a user as a Manager within the Genius CE & Enterprise framework. Furthermore, we will discuss the process of modifying the association between a Manager and an Affiliation, allowing for flexibility in supervisory roles. This includes the potential to promote a Manager to oversee a higher-level Affiliation when necessary, ensuring that the management structure remains adaptable and responsive to the organization's needs.

The Manager (or “Affiliation”) Role

In the context of Genius CE & Enterprise, the Manager Role, also known as the Affiliation-Manager role, is classified as an ‘intermediate’ role. This classification indicates that Managers hold some administrative responsibilities, but not all of them. One of the key characteristics of this role is that Managers possess visibility into the learners associated with their specific affiliation. However, it is essential to understand that this visibility is limited strictly to learners within their affiliation, ensuring that Managers can effectively oversee their designated groups without accessing unrelated data.

Affiliations and Visibility

To gain a better understanding of how Affiliations function, let’s examine a few examples. To view the available Affiliations, you can click on the Affiliations tab, which provides a visual representation of all the affiliations present in your learning initiative. This visual aid is instrumental in helping users navigate the organizational structure of the learning program:

The following diagram illustrates the hierarchical structure of learners, managers, and affiliations, providing clarity on how these roles interconnect:

Now, let’s take a closer look at the Government affiliation, which is positioned at the top of the hierarchy. Each Affiliation is equipped with its dashboard, which is accessible to the user designated as the Manager of that particular Affiliation. This access empowers the Manager to utilize Reporting and Enrollment tools that are also available to Administrators of a Genius CE or Enterprise instance. However, it is crucial to recognize that, in contrast to Administrators, Managers will have access to reports that are strictly confined to the learners under their supervision. This limitation ensures that Managers can focus on their specific group without being overwhelmed by unrelated data.

For instance, here is an example of the Manager Dashboard, showcasing the various functionalities available to Managers:

Affiliations and the Enrollment Process

As an Administrator, when you create a course, you have the option to require approval before learners can enroll. In situations where a learner wishes to enroll in such a course, the responsibility for granting that approval falls to the Manager of the Affiliation to which the learner belongs. This system ensures that enrollment is managed effectively and that only qualified learners are allowed to participate in specific courses.

Moreover, Managers can be granted permissions that allow them to enroll learners directly into courses. They can also utilize Reports to gain deeper insights into the progress, performance, and engagement levels of their learners within the learning initiative. However, it is crucial to remember that these permissions and reports are strictly confined to the learners who are part of the Manager’s Affiliation, reinforcing the focus on their specific group.

In the following sections, we'll outline the process required to elevate a regular user to the status of Manager, providing clear steps to facilitate this transition.

Two ways to add a manager:

Within the Genius CE & Enterprise platform, there are two distinct methods for designating a User as a Manager. The first method involves navigating through the Affiliations tab. This approach enables you to view all existing affiliations, select the one that interests you, and assign a manager to that specific affiliation. This method is particularly effective when you want to manage affiliations without integrating them into the system.

The second method utilizes the Administration tab, which is more suitable when the user you intend to add already exists within your learning initiative. Below, we provide detailed instructions on how to add Managers to your Affiliations using both methods, making sure that we understand the process.

Through the Affiliations tab

To get started, click on the Affiliations tab. You will then see a complete list of all the affiliations in your Learning Initiative, with whitespace preceding the names of the affiliations to indicate their dependency relationships. This visual representation helps in understanding the hierarchy and structure of the affiliations:

You can click, scroll down, and find the Affiliation you are interested in. To do this, click on the affiliation from the main list displayed on the Affiliations page. The affiliation you select below currently does not have an assigned manager, so we will need to add one to ensure effective management.

To associate an existing manager with an affiliation, navigate to Admin > Association > Manager of Affiliation. This pathway leads you to the area where you can manage the assignments of Managers to specific Affiliations:

Click on the option to Add a new manager to initiate the process:

After adding the manager, it is essential to double-check that the assignment was successful. To do this, click on the Main Page in the sidebar, and you will see that the user you just created is now designated as a Manager (with the ‘AFFILIATION’ role) for this Affiliation. This confirmation ensures that the management structure is correctly established:

Through the Administration tab

The alternative method for designating a Manager involves utilizing the Administration tab. This method is beneficial when you are adding a user who is already part of your learning initiative.

To proceed, navigate to Admin > Users and Access > Add User. This pathway allows you to manage user roles and access within the system:

Ensure that the role is set to AFFILIATION, and then select the affiliation(s) for which the user will serve as a manager before saving your changes. This step is crucial to ensuring that the new Manager has the appropriate access and responsibilities assigned: