As you build up your learning platform, admin tasks can build up as well. A great way to delegate administration is to utilize Power Users.
Power Users are users in your LMS who can be given different permissions and resources in order to access otherwise hidden information and areas of the platform. By making use of Power Users, you can grant admin access to your collaborators without giving them full control of the platform.
Does this sound pretty complicated? Don’t get intimidated yet! Rather than assigning permissions individually, you can construct profiles for specific roles and assign them to multiple Power Users. This way, you can cut down on the time it takes to assign Power User permissions.
When creating these profiles, we recommend you consider the daily tasks that may be required for your team members to fulfill their role.
Keep in mind that to make full use of these permissions, you will need to assign resources to your Power Users as well. The profile is what you use to assign permissions, and resources are the users and information Power Users can enact permissions upon. You can visit our Knowledge Base to learn more!
To help you get started, here are some examples of common Power User personas and some permissions we recommend to empower them.
User Managers
If someone on your team is responsible for managing accounts and communicating with your user base, you’ll want to create a profile tailored to that role. To start, they’ll need to be able to access the tools in User Management. This will allow them to create new users and edit their details.
| Permission | What does it do? |
| Users / View | This lets them view their assigned users in various areas of the platform. |
| Users / Create | This lets them create users… |
| Users / Edit | …and this allows them to edit them and gives them access to the User Personal Summary of their assigned users. |
| Users / Can see invisible fields | This allows them to see user additional fields that are otherwise invisible to users who aren’t Superadmins. |
| Users / Can activate users | This ensures the Power User can create and activate new users no matter what your registration settings may be. |
| Users / Delete* | This allows them to delete their assigned users. *The ability to delete users is one that you may not wish to give to Power Users, even your User Manager. User deletion is permanent and can only be reversed through a full platform rollback. To avoid this, another option would be to have Power Users deactivate users rather than delete them. Power Users with the “Users / Edit” permission have this ability. |
In addition to managing user accounts, a User Manager may need to be able to contact users directly. While they can get user emails through User Management, Learn LMS also offers an easy way to mass email users with our Newsletter feature. They can select users individually or select them using branches or groups.
| Newsletter / View | While this permission is labeled “View”, it enables Power Users to both see the Newsletter area and send newsletters to users. |
Assigning permission over newsletters is a great way to enable your User Managers to send out emails to users more efficiently!
These are the base permissions for a User Manager profile, but depending on your use case, you might need your User Managers to have greater access. To see what other permissions are available, visit our Knowledge Base: Permissions for Users
Of course, User Managers are just one type of potential Power User. For an LMS, you’ll also need people focused on the learning content you’re delivering to your users.
Content Managers
Rather than manage users, content managers work with the materials on your platform to create learning experiences for your users. To do this, it’s important to empower content managers with permissions to create and edit courses. We also recommend you consider image management, as your content managers will likely be responsible for ensuring that available content aligns with your branding.
| Permission | What does it do? |
| Courses / View | This will allow the Power User to view their assigned courses. |
| Courses / Create | This will let them create courses… |
| Courses / Edit | …and this will let them edit them. |
| Image Management / Manage Images | This will let them manage the thumbnails of their assigned courses… |
| Image Management / View and Select Images | …and this will let them use thumbnails uploaded by other users. Keep in mind that this permission will only be active if the above “Manage Images” permission is also active. |
You may notice that we have not listed the “Courses / Delete” permission here. As mentioned in the User Manager section above, delete permissions are something we do not recommend you give to most Power Users. Deletion is permanent, and in this case, there are other options for deprecating courses. Putting courses Under Maintenance and removing them from catalogs, for instance, is a good option for preventing potential issues with deleted courses.
While these permissions cover the basics for course management, your content managers may also need to create and edit Learning Plans, catalogs, or ILT sessions. To read about more permissions you can use to empower content managers in these areas, visit our Knowledge Base.
It looks like your content managers are ready to go! So you have users and content covered, but what about when something unexpected happens?
Support Team
While you do everything you can to present a seamless experience for your learners, sometimes users get confused or run into problems. That’s where your support team comes in.
| Permission | What does it do? |
| Users / View | This lets them see their assigned users… |
| Users / Edit | …and this lets them edit them, which may be needed for testing. |
| Users / Can see invisible fields | This allows them to see otherwise hidden user additional fields which may affect automatic groups. |
| Users / Can impersonate normal user | This permission is invaluable for your support team as it allows them to log in as other users and Power Users from User Management without compromising their passwords. This way they can observe user issues firsthand and collect detailed information to provide to Docebo Support if necessary. |
| Groups / View | This will allow them to view all their assigned groups. As automatic groups often affect visibility and enrollments, having this visibility will be vital for troubleshooting common issues. |
| Reports / View | This will allow them to see the reporting area, which is important if your support team is expected to troubleshoot issues related to reporting. |
Because it’s difficult to predict precisely what issues your users will run into, you may find yourself adding new permissions on top of these as you grow your LMS audience. View permissions for courses, ILT sessions, Learning Plans, enrollments, and course catalogs may be particularly helpful. You can see a complete list of all Power User permissions here: Power User Permissions
With these permissions, your support team will be ready to tackle user questions and concerns swiftly and thoroughly.
Leaders
Finally, we arrive at the leaders. These are the C-suite executives watching from a bird’s eye view and making sure that your strategies are producing results. Because of this, the Leader persona focuses on access to data. They need information, and these permissions are essential to making sure they can get it.
| Permission | What does it do? |
| Users / View | This permission will allow the Power User visibility over their assigned users, which for a Leader would likely be all branches in the platform. |
| Users / Can see invisible fields | This will allow them to see information on all fields relating to users. |
| Reports / View | This is so they can see reports… |
| Reports / Edit | …and this is so they can edit them. |
| Dashboard / View | Finally, this gives them visibility of the admin dashboard. |
What about managers and instructors?
You can absolutely create a Power User profile for managers or instructors, but did you know that these roles are already built into the platform?
My Teams is a fantastic way to give managers visibility over their team members, export reports on their progress, and view feedback they give via checklists. You can explore how to use My Teams to enable your managers by visiting our Knowledge Base: Setting Up My Team as a Superadmin
For instructors, you can set them as an instructor for the courses they need to oversee. For E-Learning courses, this involves enrolling them into their courses. For ILT courses, you can assign them directly to specific sessions or events. You might be asking, how do I do this? You can find out by reading our documentation on Adding Instructors to Courses.
To learn more about what instructors can do, why don’t you check out our Instructor User Guide or see how enrollment levels in courses compare?
Congratulations! You’re now well on your way to optimizing Power User profiles for players essential to your LMS’s success.
We want to hear from you!
What kind of profiles do you have set up for your LMS? Is there a type of Power User profile you think we missed? If you already rely on profiles for your Power User strategy, tell us about it below!
This guide was put together with the invaluable support of Mara Smith, a Senior Solution Deployment Manager and Power User SME here at Docebo. Thank you