How to import "Is Manager" and "Direct Manager" fields automatically into the LMS

Hi @Eric M VanAuken yes you can do this in any of the methods you wish but you need to have a file that will take your raw data and transform it to “Docebo” format I order to make it work. If using a fully automated solution where you have an FTP server, you can write rules to transform your raw data to the format yo need. If using something like the automation app or CSV import, you would transform the data outside Docebo and then load those ‘final’ files. We had to get the services of a developer for the fist option.

What we want here is the native ability to do this via SAML. Having linked numerous fields to an EE instance of SAML, it is strange we can’t link ‘Is a Manager’ or ‘Direct Manager’. We want to have a fully automated solution stemming directly from Active Directory to Docebo. As this doesn’t seem to be possible, we were wondering if there was some workaround via tying User Additional Fields to the actual ‘Is a Manager’ and ‘Direct Manager’ fields. You can provision essentially anything in Azure, but seemingly not in Docebo.

Using CSV is our current state, but we are moving away from that as people make mistakes on spreadsheets, it is time consuming, and while it works, our customer is requesting better automation. An FTP server is sort of a last resort here, as we were unsuccessful coaching this same client to set it up in the past.  

Let me know if that clarifies the dilemma.

Unfortunately that is what I expected to hear.   Most other LMS systems have moved away from CSV files as they are not easy to maintain and are much older technology.    

II would love to use the API approach but the agency that needs this does not have an API expert to manage this.  

In short the best long term solution would be to modernize your SSO so that it includes all the appropriate fields.

@pmo Unless I’m fundamentally misunderstanding how relationships are built between users, this answer doesn’t cut it for me. Theoretically here is how I see it working:

1. Associate ‘Is Manager’ with field in AD
2. Associate ‘Direct Manager’ with field in AD
3. User A with ‘Is Manager’ field Logs In for first time; account is created.
4. This triggers them to have the My Teams view (if set up this way)
5. User B with ‘Direct Manager; field logs in for first time; account is created.
6. The value for User B’s ‘Direct Manager’ is filled with User A’s name by IDP Admin
7. Since User A ‘Is Manager’ and User B indicates that their ‘Direct Manager’ is User A, the communication completes. 

Perhaps you could provide a technical expert to explain why this isn’t how this works. I have a gut feeling that the team simply didn’t want to build this functionality.

@tommyVan I understand your frustration and I understand the difficulties of managing an LMS with a limited technical resources.  I would definitely work with your account manager to see what they can do to help you find additional information outside of the community. 

I would like to reply to your post though and mention that the limitation I posted is that when “user B” logs before “user  A” then there would be no “user A” to map to which isn't covered in the post above. I’m just an LMS admin and don’t work with product so I can’t really expand more on the technical reasons persistent with SAML/Oauth/OpenID  but I’m wondering if that might be the issue since it was mentioned as a previous reason for not moving forward with the change. I’ll continue to see what I can find internally and report back with anything that I find. 



 

@pmo Appreciate all of the effort being put in! 

Thank you for your response.  The real issue is that we already have the option to make that same mistake in doing a CSV type file approach.    I believe this should be re-evaluated as this is how other LMS systems operate and they do not seem to have this issue.

• Eric VanAuken

@pmo Any updates on exactly how direct manager is a relational field? I’ve done some digging into APIs and when you call a user, one of the user fields that is returned is Direct Manager. That would seem to indicate that this isn’t a relational field after all. 

Furthermore, in the example you gave 

 “user B” logs before “user  A” then there would be no “user A” to map to

the field for direct manager for user be could be written something like:

function returnsNoDirectManager(){ if (userB && !directManager) {

return ‘No Manager Found’}

}

There’s clearly something Docebo isn’t explaining correctly about why the user field Direct Manager cannot be mapped via SSO.