When you work with automated assignment rules, you expect users to be enrolled and removed from courses based on the criteria you set. In some cases, however, you may notice that certain users remain assigned to a course even though they no longer meet the rule’s criteria. This article walks you through why this can happen and how you can ensure everything remains aligned with your intended enrollment workflow.
Why Some Users Remain Assigned
The "Unassign when criteria are not met anymore" option is designed to automatically remove users who:
- Were assigned by the rule, and
- Have not yet completed the course.
If a user was added to the course through any other enrollment method—such as manager assignment, self-enrollment, or a bulk import by file—the system categorizes them differently. Because of this, they are not included in the automated unassignment logic.
A common situation where this occurs is when a bulk import is used to update users’ completion statuses. During this process, users will be recorded as "Assigned by Manager" instead of "Assigned by Rule", which means they will remain assigned even if they no longer meet the rule’s criteria.
Recommended Approach for a Clean Assignment Workflow
If you want to update users' completion data and also ensure that any future job or role changes will automatically assign and unassign users exactly as your rules define, you can follow this workflow to realign your course assignments:
- Pause the automated assignment rules for the affected courses.
Perform the necessary bulk import to update user data as needed.
-
Mass-unassign all users from each course.
Note: Completion records and certificate history will remain intact. Removing users from the course will not affect any historical data. - Reactivate the automated assignment rules so users are reassigned by rule.
Why This Works
This process ensures that all users are enrolled under the correct source, specifically "Assigned by Rule". With everyone aligned under the same enrollment method, the automated assignment and unassignment logic will work consistently moving forward.
Summary
If you ever find that users remain enrolled in a course even though they no longer meet the rule criteria, it’s often due to how they were originally added to the course. By resetting enrollments and allowing the rules to reassign users, you establish a clean and consistent foundation that enables accurate, automated updates whenever users’ organizational attributes change.
This approach helps keep your training assignments fully aligned with your organizational structure and ensures that your automated rules perform exactly the way you intend.
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