Create and Manage Enrollment Policies

Enrollment policies determine the enrollment process for learners, including withdrawal procedures, required information, and notification templates.  You can establish approval-based enrollment policies for courses needing manager approval.  When a learner enrolls, an email is sent to their manager for approval. This approval process can involve multiple steps, such as manager and instructor approval, either concurrently or sequentially. Organizations may opt to enforce an approval process for withdrawals, especially for paid enrollments, through enrollment policies.

The Default Enrollment Policy

The default enrollment policy (Default Policy) is a policy that does not require an approval process. It is assigned to new courses by default and you can use it to allow learners to self-enroll without waiting for the enrollment to be approved by a manager, supervisor or other reviewer.  

Organization-Level Enrollment Policies

Organization-level enrollment policies enable approval workflow to be determined by a user's organization rather than requiring all organizations to use the same course-specific enrollment policy.

When enrollment policies are assigned to a course, all users who self-enroll in that course have the same enrollment policy, which may or may not require approval. By contrast an organization-level enrollment policy is assigned at the organization unit level and, optionally, configured in the course enrollment policy as taking precedence over an approval-based policy selected for the course. You can configure an enrollment policy for all organizations that require an organization-based approach to approval workflow. 

Users can often belong to a hierarchy of organization units. For example, user A can belong in:

  • Sales and Marketing
  • Sales
  • London

Each organization in the hierarchy can have its own enrollment policy, and when determining which policy to use, the LMS works from the bottom of the hierarchy up. In the example above, if the Sales and Sales and Marketing organization units have their own separate enrollment policies, the LMS would use the policy configured for Sales (assuming the organization level policy is configured to take precedence over the approval-based policy assigned to the course).

An organization-level policy will be used for enrollment processing only when all of the following conditions are true:

  • The enrollment policy assigned to the course is approval-based (that is, not the DEFAULT POLICY).
  • An organization-level enrollment policy has been selected for the course.
  • The property Allow a configured organization enrollment policy to take precedence over this course policy box is checked.

Create a New Enrollment Policy

First, you'll create a new enrollment policy and configure the summary information and details. After you have saved it, you can configure additional details like approval steps and withdrawal procedures.

To create a new enrollment policy

  1. Go to Manage Center > Learning > Enrollment Settings > Enrollment Policy Editor.
  2. Click the Create Policy button in the top navigation menu.
  3. Enter the policy's summary information and details. For detailed information about the enrollment policy details fields, please see Enrollment Policy Details.
  4. Click Save. 

Edit the Withdrawal Details

You have the option to create parameters related to the withdrawal process within an enrollment policy.

To edit the withdrawal details

  1. Go to Manage Center > Learning > Enrollment Settings > Enrollment Policy Editor.
  2. Select the enrollment policy in the Policies list and choose Edit withdrawal details.
  3. Enter the withdrawal details. For detailed information about the withdrawal details fields, please see Withdrawal Details.
  4. Click Save.
When a learner submits a request to withdraw, a notification is sent to the withdrawal approver and the learner's transcript updates to indicate the request.  The learner can still engage in regular program and course activities while waiting for approval, but cannot change course status.

Additional Enrollment Information

You can include fields to collect additional information from learners who enroll. These fields can be optional or mandatory.

To include additional enrollment information

  1. Go to Manage Center > Learning > Enrollment Settings > Enrollment Policy Editor.
  2. Select the enrollment policy in the Policies list and choose Edit additional enrollment information.
  3. A list of available fields is provided.  Each field shows the field name, field type (text, checkbox, etc.).  Some fields cannot be marked as required.  When this is the case, the field description will say Optional Only.
  4. Click the checkbox for each field you would like to include with the enrollment. To make a field mandatory, click Mark as Required.
  5. Click Save.

Add Approval Steps

When setting up or modifying an enrollment policy, you have the option to establish multiple approval steps for learner enrollment in a course. Each stage requires an approver and allows you to specify email templates for request and reminder notifications. Additionally, you can define a deadline for automatic approval or denial of enrollment requests. 

To add approval steps

  1. Go to Manage Center > Learning > Enrollment Settings > Enrollment Policy Editor.
  2. Select the enrollment policy in the Policies list and choose (Add a step).
  3. Configure the approval step details.  For detailed information about the approval step details fields, please see Approval Step Details.
  4. Click Save.
Learners can monitor the progress of their requests and withdraw pending ones on the Enrollment Requests page. Approvers can review, accept, or reject all pending approval requests at Workspace > Enrollment Approval.

Order the Approval Steps

If the enrollment policy has multiple approval steps, the can be put into a specific order.

To order the approval steps

  1. Go to Manage Center > Learning > Enrollment Settings > Enrollment Policy Editor.
  2. Select the enrollment policy in the Policies list and choose Edit steps ordering.
  3. Click the up and down icons to move the steps up or down respectively. The steps are re-ordered instantly, you do not need to save the screen.

Clone an Enrollment Policy

You can clone an enrollment policy to quickly create a new policy with similar details.

  1. Go to Manage Center > Learning > Enrollment Settings > Enrollment Policy Editor.
  2. Select the enrollment policy in the Policies list.
  3. Click the Clone Policy button in the top navigation menu.

Delete Enrollment Policies

Enrollment policies can be deleted one-at-a-time or you can delete multiple policies in batch.  Note that the Default Policy and Default Two-Step policies cannot be deleted.

To delete a single policy

  1. Go to Manage Center > Learning > Enrollment Settings > Enrollment Policy Editor.
  2. Select the enrollment policy in the Policies list.
  3. Click the Delete Policy button in the top navigation menu.

To delete multiple policies:

  1. Go to Manage Center > Learning > Enrollment Settings > Enrollment Policy Editor.
  2. Click the Batch Delete icon on the toolbar. The Batch Delete page opens, listing all of the enrollment policies.
  3. Select the check boxes of the policies you want to delete and click Delete.
  4. Click OK.