This article explains common scenarios in which an employee is displayed in the Employees to Assign list for a rule, yet the assignment is not automatically triggered.
Understanding these cases can help you verify whether further action is needed to ensure the intended assignments are processed correctly.
Use Case Overview
When you configure a rule for assigning training, you may notice that certain employees appear in the Employees to Assign list but do not receive the assignment as expected. This can occur for the following reasons:
Case 1: Employee Previously Forcefully Unassigned and Excluded
One possibility is that the employee was forcefully unassigned from the specific training in the past and marked as excluded from the rule.
When a user is excluded in this manner, they will remain visible in the Employees to Assign list to indicate that they meet the criteria, but the system will not assign the training.
Case 2: "Assign Now" Option Not Selected When the Rule Was Created
Another reason is related to how the rule was initially configured. When you create a rule, you have the option to select the Assign Now checkbox.
- If the Assign Now checkbox is not selected at the time of creation, any users who already match the rule's criteria prior to the rule being created will not be assigned automatically.
- Instead, only users who are added later or whose organizational structure changes after the rule's creation will receive the assignment.
This behavior ensures that assignments are applied only to users whose status changes moving forward, unless you explicitly choose to assign existing matches immediately.
Recommendation:
If you would like to include users who already matched the criteria prior to the creation of the rule, please ensure that you select the Assign Now button when creating the rule.
Case 3: "Employees Already Assigned" Count Differs From Report Builder's Enrolled Count
The "employees already assigned" number shown when running Assign by Criteria only counts employees who carry an explicit assignment record for that course or Learning Path — for example, employees assigned by a manager, by an automated rule, or through a Learning Path. It does not include employees who joined the course through self-enrollment.
Because of this, this count can be lower than the total number of employees Report Builder shows as enrolled in the same course. Report Builder's enrollment reports list everyone in the course regardless of how they joined — including self-enrolled employees — unless the report is filtered to exclude self-enrolled sources.
This difference reflects two different measurements, not a calculation error: Assign by Criteria's count tracks assignment history, while Report Builder's default enrollment count tracks course membership. To compare the two consistently, add the Course Enrollment Source field to your Report Builder report and filter out the Self-enrollment value — the remaining rows match the population Assign by Criteria counts as already assigned. See Understanding How Users Are Enrolled for the full list of enrollment sources Report Builder tracks.