Distributed Administration (DA) enables organization administrators to delegate administrative tasks to users who manage a specific area of the organization, such as a campus, college, school, division, tenant, or location.
With DA, this delegated boundary is called a Sub-org unit. A Sub-org unit is a custom org unit below the Organization level. Administrators that operate at the Sub-org unit level are called Sub-org administrators. Sub-org administrators assigned to a Sub-org unit can manage only the tools, org units, and tasks within that unit and its descendants.
This approach helps decentralize administration in large organizations. For example, instead of managing all courses at the organization level, administrators can delegate course management to Sub-org administrators responsible for specific campuses, colleges, schools, divisions, tenants, or locations.
Relevant links
Terms and definitions
- Organization (Org): The top-level org unit in Brightspace. It represents the overall institution or company and is managed by an Org administrator. For example, an organization instance may be named a Head Office in a higher education context.
- Org administrator: The administrator with full system access at the organization level and across all descendant org units. For example, an Org administrator may be named Head Office Administrator.
- Sub-org unit: A custom org unit type created by the Org administrator below the Organization level. For example, a custom org unit could be created below the Head Office called Campus in a higher education context.
- Sub-org administrator: A user assigned a role with permissions to manage tasks within a designated Sub-org unit. For example, a Sub-org unit for a Campus could be named a Campus Administrator.
Examples of Distributed Administration
You can assign permissions for Brightspace tools at the Sub-org unit level, which lets Sub-org administrators support their own campus, college, school, division, or location without accessing administrative areas outside their responsibility. The image below shows a comparison between a standard org structure, and a structure using a Campus, Location, and Sector as separate Sub-org units, each with a Sub-org administrator managing that boundary:
Example 1: Distributed Administration architecture for an educational institution with multiple campuses
In this example, a Brightspace Org administrator at the head office of a university system wants to delegate permissions for managing courses and course offerings to local Sub-org administrators at individual campuses. The Org administrator creates a Sub-org unit for each campus and assigns the Sub-org administrator role to the administrators responsible for that campus. Each campus Sub-org administrator can manage courses and related org units for that campus, but cannot access administrative tools for other campuses. In this structure, the head office is at the organization level, and each campus is a Sub-org unit. Campus Sub-org administrators can then manage the departments and courses that belong to their campus.
Example 2: Distributed Administration architecture for a corporation
In this example, a Brightspace Org administrator in a corporation wants to delegate training administration to leads in different business sectors. The Org administrator creates a Sub-org unit for each business sector and assigns the Sub-org administrator role to the leads responsible for managing training in that area. In this structure, the corporate headquarters is at the organization level, and each business sector is a Sub-org unit. Sector leads can manage training activities for their teams without accessing administrative tools for other sectors.
Example 3: Distributed Administration architecture for a training organization
In this example, a Brightspace Org administrator in a training organization wants to delegate permissions for managing courses and course offerings to local training coordinators at different locations. The Org administrator creates a Sub-org unit for each location and assigns the Sub-org administrator role to the training coordinators responsible for that location. In this structure, the head training office is at the organization level, and each location is a Sub-org unit. Training coordinators can manage courses and related administrative tasks for their location without accessing administrative tools for other locations.
