Using Microsoft Entra 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 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 group or Microsoft 365 groups with Learn365.

Add groups to the Users list of a catalog

Adding users or groups to the Users list of a catalog and enrolling a group in training are separate actions. Adding users or groups to the Users list gives them access to the catalog but doesn't enroll them in any courses or training plans. When you enroll a Microsoft Entra or Microsoft 365 group in a specific course or training plan, the group members become learners of that training.

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

Training audience and course targeting can further control who can see and access specific training. For more information, see the Combinations of targeting settings section in this article.

Adding users to the Users list alone doesn't use a 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 and Microsoft 365 groups. For this method, you may do the following:

• Add existing Microsoft Entra or Microsoft 365 groups.
• Create new groups in Microsoft Entra 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 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. Go to the Learn365 Admin Center > select a catalog > Users and groups > Users. 

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

3. On the Add or invite users panel, enter the names or email addresses of the users or groups in the Enter Existing Users or Guests field.

You can add existing Microsoft 365 users, Learn365 user groups, and Microsoft Entra groups, or invite guests. Learn365 adds users and groups that can already be resolved in your Microsoft 365 or Microsoft Entra environment. If a user isn't already available, you can invite them as a guest.

To invite guests, external sharing must be enabled in SharePoint and Microsoft Entra ID.

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 guests, or individual Microsoft Entra/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 or 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 you enroll a Microsoft Entra or Microsoft 365 group in an e-learning course or training plan, all members of the group are enrolled in the training and become learners. The group members are also added to the Users list of the catalog.

For instructor-led training 

If you enroll a Microsoft Entra 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 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 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 is performed by a WebJob, which runs every three minutes. This WebJob detects any changes (additions or removals) in the Microsoft Entra groups.

If a Microsoft Entra group contains one or more nested groups, changes made to the membership of a nested group might not be reflected immediately in course enrollments.

Learn365 synchronizes membership changes more quickly for groups that are directly enrolled in a course. Changes to users added to or removed from nested groups are updated when the full user synchronization process runs.

As a result, users from nested groups may temporarily remain enrolled after being removed from a nested group, and newly added users may not appear in course enrollments until synchronization has completed. 

Update the group member information

When the system columns of a user account are changed in Microsoft Entra ID, 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 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 group members

If you remove users from a Microsoft Entra 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. 

If users are removed from a Microsoft Entra or Microsoft 365 group and aren't enrolled in any other courses or training plans in the catalog as individuals, they're 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 purge those records.

Register attendance for users who were added via groups

When registering users' attendance via the Course management panel > Manage course sessions > select a session > Register Attendance, users from Microsoft Entra 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 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 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 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 group:

• Users who were added or enrolled in courses or training plans exclusively via a Microsoft Entra 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 group, but they'll stay enrolled in other courses and training plans where they're enrolled as individuals.

To remove the entire Microsoft Entra 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.