Using Microsoft Entra (Azure Active Directory) and Microsoft 365 groups with Learn365

Introduction

In Learn365, an efficient way of adding users to courses and training plans is by enrolling the members of Microsoft Entra (Azure Active Directory) groups or Microsoft 365 groups that can be created via the Microsoft 365 admin center or in Microsoft Outlook.

In this article, you can find the most used scenarios referring to Microsoft Entra (Azure Active Directory) group or Microsoft 365 groups with Learn365.

 

 

Add groups to the Users list of a catalog 

We recommend adding all users to the Users list before admins can enroll them in courses or training plans. 

Adding users to the Users list alone doesn't use an Learn365 subscription. A Learn365 subscription is used when a user is enrolled in a course or training plan as a learner. Find information about which users are included when the number of users in the subscription is calculated in this article.

You can populate the Users list using Microsoft Entra (Azure Active Directory) and Microsoft 365 groups. For this method, you may do the following:

• Add existing Microsoft Entra (Azure Active Directory) or Microsoft 365 groups.

• Create new groups in Microsoft Entra (Azure Active Directory) admin center or the Microsoft 365 admin center that contain all employees or create separate groups that include the relevant people. Next, you add these groups to the Users list. To create groups, you need to have special permissions in the Microsoft Entra ID (Azure Active Directory) admin center and/or the Microsoft 365 admin center.

This action adds all group members to the Users list. Any users you subsequently add to these groups will be added to the Users list automatically. Users added via groups are displayed as individual users in the Users list.

For more options on how to add users to the Users list, see this article.

To add a group to the Users list:

1. From the navigation menu in the Learn365 Admin Center, select Users. 

2. On the opened Users page, select Add or invite users. 

3. On the opened Add or invite users panel, in the Enter Existing Users or Guests field, enter the names or email addresses of current Microsoft Entra (Azure Active Directory) groups.

You can enter a maximum of 50 users or 1,500 characters at a time, as a comma or semicolon-separated list. You can enter individual or multiple users, or individual Microsoft Entra (Azure Active Directory)/Microsoft 365 groups. A Microsoft 365 group means a Microsoft 365 group, an email-enabled security group, or a security group.

 

 

4. Select Add.

When the group members are added to the Users list, the Successfully added new users confirmation message will be displayed under Notifications (the bell icon). Users added via groups are displayed as individual users in the Users list.

To add more than 50 users or 1,500 characters, repeat steps 1-4.

Users who are added to the Users list don't receive email notifications. Any users who are subsequently added to these Microsoft Entra (Azure Active Directory)/Microsoft 365 groups are added to the Users list automatically. 

 

Bulk enrollment of users in courses and training plans via groups

For e-learning courses and training plans

When choosing a Microsoft Entra (Azure Active Directory) group or Microsoft 365 group to enroll in a course or training plan, all members of the group will be added to the Users page in Learn365.

 

 

For instructor-led training 

If you enroll an Microsoft Entra (Azure Active Directory) group or Microsoft 365 group in instructor-led training, the number of group members will be shown in brackets next to the group name. In the following image, a group with two members has been enrolled in the course.

 

 

Add admins to courses and training plans via groups

You can add admins to courses and training plans using groups. This is achieved via the Administrators tab in the People section of the course or training plan configuration panel. The number of group members will be shown in brackets next to the group name.

 

 

Add members to groups

If you enroll a Microsoft Entra (Azure Active Directory) group or Microsoft 365 group in a course or training plan and subsequently add more users to the group, then the next time Microsoft Entra ID (Azure Active Directory) syncs to Learn365, these users will be enrolled automatically in the same courses and training plans as the other members of that group. When users are enrolled, they'll receive an enrollment confirmation email.

The synchronization with Microsoft Entra ID (Azure Active Directory) is performed by a WebJob, which runs every three minutes. This WebJob detects any changes (additions or removals) in the Microsoft Entra (Azure Active Directory) groups.

 

Update the group member information

When the system columns of a user account are changed in Microsoft Entra ID (Azure Active Directory), including the Display Name, Email, Job Title, Manager, Department, Office, City, Country, and Company, these changes will be reflected in the Learn365 Users list when the WebJob is next run.

However, it's possible to disable synchronization with Microsoft Entra ID (Azure Active Directory) for most of these columns (except for Manager) via Global settings > LMS Configuration. In this case, you may want to populate columns from other sources.

 

Remove members groups

If you remove users from an Microsoft Entra (Azure Active Directory) group or Microsoft 365 group, they'll also be unenrolled from all courses and training plans in which the group is enrolled. 

For these users, training progress for courses and training plans will no longer be shown. If any of their courses or training plans were in progress, their learning transcript will still show the training progress status. 

Once removed from a Microsoft Entra (Azure Active Directory) group or Microsoft 365 group, and they aren't enrolled in any other courses and training plans in the catalog as an individual user, these users will be removed from the Users page. Historical learning records are still available by including inactive users in your training reports.

To remove all data associated with a specific user, you'll need to use a dedicated Learn365 API endpoint to purging those records.

 

Register attendance for users who were added groups

When registering users' attendance via the Course Management panel > Manage Course Sessions > select a session > Register Attendance, users from Microsoft Entra (Azure Active Directory) or Microsoft 365 groups are displayed individually, and not as a whole group. Find more information about registering attendance in sessions in this article.

 

Remove users from a catalog who were added via a group

It isn't possible to remove a user from the Users page if they were added to it via a Microsoft Entra (Azure Active Directory) or Microsoft 365 group. Instead, a notification will be generated, which you can select to view more information.

 

 

After selecting Details to expand the notification, you'll see the Microsoft Entra (Azure Active Directory) or Microsoft 365 groups of which the selected users are currently members.

 

 

Remove an entire group from a catalog

When you remove an entire Microsoft Entra (Azure Active Directory) group, all users who were enrolled in any courses and training plans via this group will be unenrolled from them. Find more information about how to remove the entire group from a catalog in this article.

As a result of removing an entire Microsoft Entra (Azure Active Directory) group:

• Users who were added or enrolled in courses or training plans exclusively via an Microsoft Entra (Azure Active Directory) group will be removed from the Users page.
• Users who were added as individuals or enrolled or via any other group won't be removed from the Users page. These users will be unenrolled from the courses and training plans in which they were enrolled via this Microsoft Entra (Azure Active Directory) group, but they'll stay enrolled in other courses and training plans where they're enrolled as individuals.

 

 

To remove the entire Microsoft Entra (Azure Active Directory) group from all systems (and therefore free up the license), navigate to Microsoft Entra admin center > Groups > select the relevant group > Delete. The group will be removed a short time later.