Question

Admin Control needed for Cohort Content in Channels

  • 4 February 2022
  • 4 replies
  • 64 views
L
Userlevel 2

We are a software company with three primary branches: Internal Staff, External Customers and External Partners (who work with us to support implementations and sell our platform). 

We have resources that fall into distinct functional Channels such as “planning for your implementation” or “integrating (our software) with external systems”

Most of these functional Channels are relevant for All three branches noted above BUT we need the ability to tailor the specific Assets presented for each branch within a given Channel, e.g. in the “Planning” channel, we want to post:

  • 3 PPT guides visible to All (Staff, Partner, Customer)
  • 1 Video visible only to Staff & Partners (not Customers)
  • 1 Xcel file visible only to Staff

Currently, doing this requires 3 different versions of the same “Planning” Channel, where visibility is set by Branch on each version:

  • Customer version with only the 3 PPTS
  • Partner version with PPTS and video
  • Staff version with all Assets

We’ve been experimenting with Cohorts as a solution - and have created three Groups that mimic our Branch structure (Staff, Partners, Customers).

BUT, I believe Cohorts assumes that only members of each cohort group will be uploading content to the channel (and visibility is determined by the group identity of the member uploading or asking questions).

We would like SA’s to be able to upload content to the Channel and designate which cohort group can see it. I believe that currently, the system assumes that any content uploaded by an SA should be visible to all. Are we understanding this correctly? If so, this change is CRITICAL to our design structure and use of Channels for collaborative learning. 

4 replies

Marco.T
Rank
Userlevel 5
Badge +2

 

Hello @Lisa Genyk   I'm Marco, Business Product Owner here at Docebo.

About your request (allow SA, when sharing content to a Cohort channel, to select to what Cohorts should be accessible) is something that was evaluated during the design of the functionality and was decided to do not implement.

The reasons are 2, perfomances and simplicity of use.  

Adding a third layer of visibility rules (now Channels and Cohort Membership adding the Cohort Sharing Rules) would have impacted performances for the users.

Also having multiple visibility rules, co-existing, creates scenarios where is very difficult for administrators to understand who sees what, especially in cases like when a configuration is changed and gets very unpredictable to foresee the consequences, as multiple rules must be applied.  

I've checked your use case, and let me propose two possible approaches for your needs
From my understanding, you have 3 levels of visibility, like the diagram below



You can test 2 different approaches if they can solve your needs..

First approach is to create a channel with 3 different cohorts: Staff, Partners, and Customers, and create 3 “Contributor” users.
One user  “Wide Audience Contributor” member of cohorts staff, parter, and customers 
Another user  “​Partner and Internal Audience Contributor” member of cohorts staff and partner 
And finally a user “Staff Contributor” member only of the cohort staff
In this way, you can log in with the user you need based on the visibility you need to apply, and share the content with that user.

The “pros” of this approach are that from the asset contributor name you can understand immediately the visibility applied to the content, and thanks to the Cohorts, you separate also Q/A visibility based on Cohort (so your Customers can’t see questions made by your staff, that may contain confidential information, and vice-versa) 
The cons in that you have some additional clicks to impersonate users when you have to share content 

Second approach is to use 3 channels, one for each visibility group 
One for “Staff Partner and Customers, one for “Partner and Staff” and one “only Staff”. 
This is the easiest way to implement it, you share to the channel according to the visibility you want to give to the asset. If you need to segregate Q/A visibility too you can also implement cohorts in these channels.

Thanks for your interest in channels, I hope this helps
Marco

L
Userlevel 2

Thank you Marco for such a detailed and prompt reply...super helpful! I also appreciate understanding the history and thinking that has gone into the Cohort feature design. I have continued testing since my initial post, coming to understand most aspects of the strategies you are suggesting. Essentially our objectives are to 1) minimize repetitive Channels that are only distinguished by audience and 2) minimize and, ideally, eliminate duplicate uploading of the same content. 

As such, the first approach you detail is where our thinking/testing is headed. What I’m not completely understanding is the way to manage the “middle ground” Partner/Staff Contributor (User) - because our Cohort Groups in this scenario are essentially Branches. Certainly that User could be part of both the Partner and Staff Cohort Groups separately, but how should we handle Branch designation for that “mixed” User? 

Again, many thanks. 

L
Userlevel 2

Ahhh, just figured out a possibility for my question above: the Partner-Staff Contributor is technically part of the Partner branch but gets pulled into the Staff Cohort Group by virtue of a very specific additional Group condition that only applies to that User configuration. Yes?

margretek
Rank
Userlevel 1

I’m following up on this.

 

We see a great need to build engagement in our platform, and a way to do this is to use our advantage customer programs and upload recording of meetings and other documents dedicated to the program for each user.

We have several customers in these programs, each have a strategic advisor managing the program. They all need the same product channels, so instead of having tons of similar channels for each customer, we started using cohorts. 

The strategic advisors are power users, with visibility to the groups of customer users in the programs they administer. One advisor may have up to 10 customers. But when they upload documents and recording for one customer, only the users from that customer should see the content.

The only solution I have found so far is to create one “admin” user for each customer, and make them log in with that one to publish content. This is a time consuming solution, I fear that it will not drive engagement from the advisors when they need to do much more work to a other relatively easy task. Also, it will drive up the active user count unnecessary 

true? Or another solution?

 

I would love the option that Power Users and SuperAdmins have the extra choice when adding content into cohort channels to select if the content should be visible to all groups, or a selection of one or many groups. 

 

 

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