Dynamic Cohorts

Dynamic cohorts in Lumify LMS are powerful tools that allow administrators to automatically group users based on specific criteria, such as user profile fields (e.g., department, city, or custom fields). These cohorts are dynamic because they are automatically updated as users meet or no longer meet the defined criteria, saving time and ensuring accuracy in user grouping.

What Are Dynamic Cohorts?

A dynamic cohort is a site-wide group of users whose membership is automatically determined by rules based on user profile fields or other attributes. For example, you can create a dynamic cohort to include all users in the “Marketing” department or users from a specific city. When a user's profile matches the defined rules, they are automatically added to the cohort, and when they no longer meet the criteria, they are removed.

Dynamic cohorts are particularly useful for bulk enrolments into courses, as cohorts can be synced with course enrolments using the Cohort Sync enrolment method.

Use case Example: You are a learning manager/admin in your organisation and you would like to enrol the new employee in an on boarding course. Previously you use to do this manually as the new employee is hired, however, you have now found a tool called Dynamic Cohorts that uses the rule set by you to group users site-wide and as a learning manager/admin you can sync this dynamic cohort to any courses you would like to enrol a new employee eliminating you to manually enrol or unenrol them.

1. Benefits of Using Dynamic Cohorts

• Automation: Membership is updated automatically based on the cohort membership rules set by the administrator.

• Efficiency: Reduces manual work of adding/removing users.

• Consistency: Ensures users are always assigned to the correct groups.

• Scalability: Ideal for large organisations with frequent changes in user attributes.

2. Creating a Dynamic Cohort

Follow these steps to create a dynamic cohort:

Step 1: Access the Cohorts Page

1. Log in as an administrator.

2. Navigate to Site administration > Users > Accounts > Cohorts.

Step 2: Add a New Cohort

1. Click the Add new cohort button.

2. Enter the following details:

   • Name: Provide a clear and descriptive name for the cohort (e.g., “Marketing Team”).

   • ID Number: Optionally, add a unique identifier for the cohort.

   • Context: By default, cohorts are created at the site level.

   • Description: Add a description to explain the purpose of the cohort.

Step 3: Define Membership Rules

1. Under the Users > Accounts > Dynamic Cohorts > Manage rules section, click the Add rule button.

2. Select a profile field or other criteria (authentication method, user created, user enrolment, last login, user role etc) from the dropdown menu. For example:

   • Select User standard field as Condition and Department under profile field and set the rule to equals “Marketing”.

   • Select Condition as User last login > click on Add a condition and select the condition on the prompts

3. Add additional rules if needed (e.g., combine multiple criteria with AND/OR logic).

4. Click Save changes.

Step 4: Verify the Membership

Once the cohort is saved, it will automatically populate it with users who match the rules.

1. Click on the cohort name from the list of cohorts.

2. Review the list of members to ensure accuracy.

3. Managing Dynamic Cohorts

Editing Dynamic Cohort Rules

1. Navigate to Site administration > Users > Accounts > Dynamic Cohorts > Manage rules.

2. Click the Edit icon from the dropdown of the rightmost column of the cohort.

3. Modify the rules under the Dynamic rules section.

4. Save the changes to update the cohort membership.

Deleting a Dynamic Cohort

1. On the Cohorts page, locate the cohort you want to delete.

2. Click the Delete icon next to the cohort.

3. Confirm the deletion.

Deleting a cohort will unenrol its members from any courses where the cohort sync method was used.

4. Using Dynamic Cohorts for Course Enrolments

Once a dynamic cohort is created, you can enrol it into a course using the Cohort Sync enrolment method:

Step 1: Enable Cohort Sync in a Course

1. Go to the course where you want to enrol the cohort.

2. Navigate to Participants > Enrolment methods.

3. From the Add method dropdown menu, select Cohort sync.

Step 2: Configure the Cohort Sync

1. In the enrolment method settings:

   • Select the dynamic cohort you created.

   • Assign a default role (e.g., Student).

2. Save the changes.

Now, all users in the dynamic cohort will be automatically enrolled in the course. As the cohort membership changes, course enrolments will update automatically.

More details: https://docs.moodle.org/401/en/Cohort_sync

5. Common Use Cases for Dynamic Cohorts

Dynamic cohorts can simplify many administrative tasks. Here are some examples:

• Department-Based Grouping: Automatically group users based on their department (e.g., “Marketing,” “IT,” “Sales”) and enrol them in department-specific courses.

• Location-Based Grouping: Create cohorts for users in different cities or regions to enrol them in localized training programs.

• Custom Field Rules: Use custom profile fields (e.g., “Job Role” or “Training Level”) to dynamically assign users to cohorts.

• Program Enrolments: Use dynamic cohorts to enrol users into multi-course training programs.

6. Troubleshooting and Best Practices

6.1 Troubleshooting

• Cohort Membership Not Updating:

  • Ensure that the user profile data matches the defined rules exactly (e.g., spelling and case-sensitive fields).

  • Verify that the cohort rules are correctly defined.

• Enrolment Not Working:

  • Check if the cohort is properly linked to the course using the Cohort Sync method.

  • Ensure the enrolment plugin (Cohort Sync) is enabled under Site administration > Plugins > Enrolments.

6.2 Best Practices

• Use clear naming conventions for cohorts to avoid confusion (e.g., “Region: Asia-Pacific” or “Department: HR”).

• Regularly review cohort rules to ensure they reflect the current organisation structure.

• Test the dynamic rules in a staging environment if available, especially for large-scale changes.

• Avoid overly complex rules that could result in unintended cohort membership.

7. Appendix

• Dynamic Cohorts - Plugin Page: https://moodle.org/plugins/tool_dynamic_cohorts

• Cohorts Overview: https://docs.moodle.org/401/en/Cohorts

• Cohort Sync Enrolment: https://docs.moodle.org/401/en/Cohort_sync

• User Profiles: https://docs.moodle.org/401/en/User_profiles