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Administrator Documentation

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Set up Distributed Administration

The purpose of this page is to guide you through the steps of setting up Distributed Administration in your organization's instance of Brightspace.

A visual representation of a organization structure with a Sub-org Unit added.

Before you begin

Before you begin setting up, plan the delegated administrative boundary (Sub-org unit) that you want to support, such as a campus, college, school, division, tenant, or location.

To avoid access and visibility issues later, make sure that the hierarchy under the Sub-org unit boundary supports the tasks that Sub-org administrators need to perform. For example, if Sub-org administrators need to manage courses, semesters, departments, or templates, those org units should be structured under the correct Sub-org unit.

This is the paper note and pencil icon used for notes.

Note: The Sub-org unit is the highest level a Sub-org administrator can manage. Even though a Sub-org administrator may have access to the Organization level, they can only manage tools within the Sub-org and its child org units.

As an Organization administrator, ensure all child org units you want your Sub-org administrator to manage are created below the Sub-org unit.

Key rules for Distributed Administration

Use a custom org unit type for the Distributed Administration boundary.
Do not reuse standard org unit types such as Semester or Department for your custom Sub-org unit type.
Do not assume that visibility and access to tools at the Organization level matches visibility at the Sub-org unit level.
Users should open tools from the correct Sub-org unit context.
Semesters, departments, templates, and course offerings should be structured under the Sub-org unit that needs to manage them.

Plan your hierarchy carefully

Before you set up Distributed Administration, make sure your org hierarchy reflects the administrative boundary you want to delegate. For example, if a campus or college is your Sub-org unit, the semesters, departments, templates, and course offerings that administrators need to manage should be structured under that campus or college.

An image showing the separation between a Sub-org 1 and Sub-org 2 unit heirarchy with a line between each indicating they are separate.

As an org-level administrator, before you set up Distributed Administration, review the permissions and administrative activities you want to delegate to Sub-org administrators. Then plan your org structure so that your Sub-org units and their hierarchy support those tasks.

For example, if Sub-org administrators at a campus or college need to manage courses, semesters, departments, or templates, make sure those org units are structured under the appropriate Sub-org unit.

Important: Do not use the same custom org unit type for both the Distributed Administration Sub-org unit and a standard org unit type. Do not share the same semester structure across multiple Sub-org units. Users see only content within their current Sub-org unit context.

What this setup includes

After you complete this page, you will have completed the following setup steps for Distributed Administration:

Set Distributed Administrator configuration variables.
Create a new custom Sub-org unit Type.
Create a new Sub-org unit.
Add your Sub-org unit Type to Roles and Permissions.
Apply role permissions to your Sub-org administrator role.
Create and enroll a user as a Sub-org administrator role.
Create a custom widget to link to the Sub-org unit homepage.

Set Distributed Administrator configuration variables

The first step is to turn on Distributed Administration in your instance of Brightspace using configuration variables.

To set required configuration variables

Navigate to Admin Tools > Config Variable Browser.
Search for d2l.Tools.CMS.CoursePathEnforced (Org).
Set it to ON.
Click Save.

Distributed Administration is now available for setup in your instance of Brightspace.

Note: Refer to CMS configuration variables for more details about each of these configuration variables.

Create a new custom Sub-org unit Type

The next step is to create a new custom Sub-org unit Type. This is a custom Org Unit Type that is located below the parent level Organization unit. You must create this Org Unit Type to assign a Sub-org administrator to it and allow them to complete delegated tasks.

This is the bullhorn icon used for warnings.

Important: You must create a new custom Org Unit Type for use in Distributed Administration. Your new Org Unit Type must be named differently than the standard Org Unit Types included in Brightspace. This is to avoid confusion between your custom Org Unit Types and the standard and existing org unit types. The standard org unit types included with Brightspace are semester, department, course template, course offering, group, and section. You can rename standard org unit types. It is strongly recommended that you name your new custom Org Unit Type something distinctive so you can identify it for use by Sub-org unit Administrators. For example, Sub-org unit Type.

For more information about the differences between your top-level (parent) Organization Unit, standard Org Unit Types, and custom Org Unit Types, refer to the Org Units and Org Unit types section of About Org administration.

To create a Sub-org unit Type

Navigate to Admin Tools > Org Unit Editor.
Click Manage Types.
Click Create Org Unit Type.
From the Create Org Unit Type page, enter a Name, Display Name, and Description.
Click Save and Close.

Your custom Sub-org unit type is created.

Create a new Sub-org unit

Now that you have created a new Sub-org unit Type, you can use that type to create a Sub-org unit with a parent Org unit.

To create a new Sub-org unit

Navigate to Admin Tools > Org Unit Editor.
Click Create Org Unit.
Under Type, select the custom Sub-org unit Type that you created.
Enter a Name and Code for your Sub-org unit.
Next to Parent ID, click Select Org Unit.
Select the top-level Organization unit and click Update.
Click Create.

You have now created a Sub-org unit for use by a Sub-org administrator.

Create a new Sub-org administrator role

The next step is to create a new Sub-org administrator role to associate with your Sub-org unit type. The Sub-org administrator role is used to assign specific role permissions and enroll users as that role.

Important: You must choose to either copy an existing role or create a new role depending on the needs of your Organization. In both cases, set the role as a Cascading Role so that any user enrolled as a Sub-org administrator inherits all org units that fall below the org unit.

To create your new Sub-org administrator role

Navigate to Admin Tools > Roles and Permissions.
From the Role List page, click Create / Copy and do one of the following:
- Under Choose a roleselect an existing role and click Copy.
- Click Start Fresh to create a new role.
Complete subsequent steps to create your Sub-org administrator role ensuring that you set the role as a Cascading Role.

Your Sub-org administrator role is created.

Add your Sub-org unit Type to Roles and Permissions

Now that you have your Sub-org unit Type and Sub-org administrator role created, you need to ensure that you can set permissions for the Sub-org administrator role at the Sub-org unit Type level. This means choosing this type and adding it to the available types for your role.

To add your Sub-org unit Type

Navigate to Admin Tools > Roles and Permissions.
Locate your new Sub-org administrator role.
Click Actions for (Arrow icon) > Edit Permissions.
Click Choose Org Unit Types.
Select your new Sub-org unit Type from the list of types and click Apply Filter. The Org Unit Types displayed in the Roles and Permission table update to include the selected type.
Click Save and Close.

Now your new Sub-org unit Type is added to the table of Org Unit Types displayed in Roles and Permissions.

Apply role permissions to your Sub-org administrator role

As an Org administrator, you must assign your Sub-org administrator the required role permissions at the Sub-org unit level to ensure they can access and use the tools you want them to use within their Sub-org hierarchy. Customize the role permissions you want your Sub-org administrator role to have. These specific role permissions will vary depending on the needs of your organization.

To apply role permissions to your Sub-org administrator role

Navigate to Admin Tools > Roles and Permissions.
Click your new Sub-org administrator role to open the Edit Permissions page.
From the Filter by Tool drop down menu, select the tool you want to apply permissions for.
Set any role permissions required and click Save and Close.

Role permissions and tools available to Sub-org administrators

As an Org administrator, you can access administrative tools using the Admin Tools menu by selecting the gear icon beside your user profile. However, Sub-org administrators do not have access to the Admin Tools menu, and must access tools using the Course Admin page of their Sub-org unit homepage. Therefore, as an Org administrator, it is recommended that you add a link to the Sub-org unit homepage navbar to give Sub-org administrators access to the Course Admin page.

Important: The tools available to a Sub-org administrator in a Sub-org unit depend on the permissions assigned to the Sub-org administrator role. If you do not assign a required permission, the tool may not appear to Sub-org administrators, or they may receive a Not authorized message when they try to access the tool.

Tool	Required role permissions	What Sub-org administrators can do	If permission is missing
Courses	Manage Courses > Has Access to the Manage Courses tool	Create courses and course templates. Refer to About Courses for more details.	The Courses tool does not appear or returns a Not authorized message.
Org Unit Editor	Org Unit Editor permissions	Create and manage course offerings and templates. Refer to About Org Unit Editor for more details.	Sub-org administrators cannot create or manage course offerings or templates.
Grades	Grades > Manage Grades Schemes	Create grade schemes for the Sub-org unit. Refer to Create grading schemes for more details.	Sub-org administrators cannot create or modify grade schemes.
Homepages and Widgets	Homepage permissions (all)	Manage homepage layouts and widgets. Refer to Set up your course homepage for more details.	Sub-org administrators cannot create or edit homepages or widgets.
Navigation & Themes	Navbar permissions (all)	Create and manage navigation and themes. Refer to Set up course navbars and themes for more details.	Sub-org administrators cannot create or manage navbars or themes.
Announcements	Announcements > See Announcements Announcements > Add/Edit/Delete Announcements	Create announcements scoped to the Sub-org unit. Refer to Create an announcement for more details.	Sub-org administrators cannot view or manage announcements.
Import / Export / Copy Components	Import/Export/Copy Components > View Copy Course Components Log	View copy history and manage course transfers. Refer to Access the View Copy Course History page for more details.	Sub-org administrators cannot access course copy history.
Source Courses	Manage Courses permissions related to Source Courses	Create and manage reusable source courses. Refer to About Source Courses for more details.	Sub-org administrators cannot create or manage source courses.

Create and enroll a user as a Sub-org administrator role

You must enroll new user as a Sub-org administrator role. However, you must ensure that you are not enrolling your new users as a Sub-org administrator role at the Organization level.

To create a user at the organization level

Important: From the Organization level, create a new user and assign them a limited organization role. This ensures that the user and their assigned role does not have full administrator access at the organization level. For example, when you create a new user, enroll them as a default learner role to limit their organization level access.

From the Organization home page, navigate to Admin Tools > Users.
Click New User.
From the Create User page, fill required fields. As you complete fields to create a new users, ensure that you select an appropriate role for that user. The role selected should reflect the access that you want that user to have at the Organization level. For example, if you want your user to have limited role access at the organization level, select a Learner role.
Click Save.

To enroll your new user as a Sub-org administrator role at the Sub-org unit level

Important: Use the Org Unit Editor to enroll the new user as a Sub-org administrator role at the Sub-org unit level. This gives the user enrolled as a Sub-org administrator role all applied role permissions at the Sub-org unit level.

From your Organization homepage, navigate to Admin Tools > Users.
Locate the new user you created at the Organization level.
Click Actions for (Arrow icon) > Manage User Enrollments.
Locate the Sub-org unit you want to enroll your user in.
Select the Sub-org administrator role.
Click Close.

Important: You must have the Users > Enroll 'Sub-org administrator' role permission at the Organization level to enroll a new user as a Sub-org administrator at the Sub-org unit level.

Enable access to the Sub-org unit homepage

With Distributed Administration, your Sub-org unit can now function as a new homepage for the entire Sub-org. Depending on your organizational needs, the Sub-org unit can be used by your Sub-org administrator to access tools to manage Brightspace, or it can serve as the main homepage for all your users if they only need access to Courses or Org Units under the Sub-org.

Use the Sub-org Unit as a main Landing Page with Custom Login Logic

To direct your users to your Sub-org unit as their primary homepage within Brightspace you can utilize Custom Login Logic. This sends your users right to the Sub-org unit when logging in to Brightspace rather than your Organization homepage.

Important: Custom Login Logic can only be created by D2L during implementation. Contact D2L Support for assistance. Refer to Brand Your Organization with Custom Login Logic for details.

My Org Units Widget

Adding the My Org Units widget to your Organization homepage will ensure users who need Sub-org unit access can easily navigate there. The widget can be customized to only show select Org Unit Types, and it is recommended to set it to show your custom Sub-org unit type. Refer to

Important: You and your Sub-org administrator role must have the My Org Units > See My Org Units tool role permission at the Organization level to access the My Org Units widget on the Organization homepage. Refer to Add a My Org Units widget to an organization homepage for details.

Custom widget

If you need something more customized for your organization, you can create a custom widget and configure it to provide a direct link to the Sub-org unit homepage, then place that custom widget on the Organization homepage. This enables Sub-org administrators to click and navigate to their Sub-org unit homepage.

To create a custom widget and add it to your Organization homepage

Create a custom widget. Refer to Create a custom widget. Add a custom hyperlink to your widget that points directly to the Sub-org unity homepage you created.
Add that custom widget to your Organization homepage, refer to Add widgets to your homepage.

Once you complete this setup, any assigned Sub-org administrator can access their Sub-Org Admin homepage and begin delegated tasks. For more information on the Sub-Org Admin homepage. Refer to Explore the Sub-Org Admin homepage.

Validate your setup

After you complete setup, confirm the following:

The Sub-org administrator can access the Sub-org unit homepage.
The correct tools appear in the Sub-org unit Course Admin page.
The user is enrolled at the correct level with the intended role.
The hierarchy under the Sub-org unit supports the tasks that the user needs to perform.

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