1. Enrollment Workflow Orientation

An orientation to enrollment flows. What do the models look like? When do you use each.

One thing all organizations and collaborations have in common is that they need people to participate! Different collaborations may bring in new participants with varying degrees of formality. For collaborations where anyone can participate, a simple self enrollment process may be all that is required. For situations that are more contractually based, or that need to restrict access to materials in some way, an invitation process may be more appropriate. In all cases, you can configure the COmanage to use an enrollment process suited to your collaboration’s needs.

Enrollment refers to the process of bringing new CO Person⚙️ records into COmanage. There are multiple ways to do this, but in the end the result is the same: a new set of attributes about the person is recorded in COmanage. Enrollments are automated via Enrollment Workflows🚀 that have a standard set of steps that can be customized. As a result of the flow, you can automate things like:

• register individuals in COmanage so that they can be connected to your organization’s digital tools and resources
• perform identity matching to identify if there is an existing record for the individual to use the existing record instead of creating a new one
• detect and potentially resolve duplicate enrollments for a person
• add individuals to COUs⚙️, and CO Groups⚙️ (and CO Departments⚙️ through their association with COUs and CO Groups.)
• trigger approval steps as needed
• link to information from external sources, and use this information (attributes) to pre-populate information about the individual
• associate internal and external identifiers with the enrolled person
• have the individual authenticate to gain access to privileges and verify email addresses
• accept terms and conditions for using the platform
• provision access to tools, systems and resources
• send communications to the individual and others about the enrollment

These Enrollment Workflows🚀 can be initiated by an administrator, a non-admin designated person, or even the individuals themselves. There is no limit for the number of enrollment flows you can have, though you need to have at least one.

In this lesson, we will

0. Understand the Enrollment Workflow🚀 cast and the roles that they play
1. Explore the different types of Enrollment Workflow🚀, and how they are typically used
2. Understand the anatomy of an Enrollment Workflow🚀 and how they work
3. Learn how to set up an Enrollment Workflow🚀
4. Learn how to customize flows to meet our needs
5. Understand how to use enrollment flows to connect to each other the constituents and organizational structure that we have defined in COmanage

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Enrollment-specific terminology

There are a few terms that we’ll be using that have specific meanings:

• Enrollment - the process of bringing new CO Person⚙️ records into COmanage.
• Petition - the record of enrollment – it holds copies of the attributes that were provided at enrollment, even if the values are subsequently changed. History records are also maintained for the Petition, indicating such events as who approved it and when.
• Identity Matching - During enrollment, it is possible that the person being enrolled is already in COmanage. Identity Matching is a process for identifying and linking the objects representing the person to avoid duplication an/or errors.
• Email Confirmation - As part of the Enrollment Workflow🚀 the person being enrolled may need to confirm their email address by interacting with an email sent to that address.
• Account Linking - refers to the management of links between existing Org Identities⚙️ and CO Person⚙️ records. Linking can happen automatically as part of an enrollment process. However, a CO Administrator👑 can also manually adjust these links, usually to resolve enrollment issues.

The Enrollment Workflow cast

There are three key actors that are involved in an enrollment flow:

The Petitioner

The Petitioner executes the Enrollment Workflow🚀, creating a Petition⚙️. The Petitioner could be a CO Administrator👑 or COU Administrator👑, an existing CO Person⚙️ associated with the CO⚙️, or a non-member with no existing affiliation to the CO⚙️.

The Enrollee

The Enrollee is the subject of the Petition⚙️ and will enrolled as a result of a successful Enrollment Workflow🚀. Currently, an Enrollee only interacts with an Enrollment Workflow🚀 if the Flow requires the Enrollee to confirm their email address.

The Approver

The Approver is one or more people who optionally reviews and approves (or denies) the Petition⚙️. If an Enrollment Workflow🚀 requires approval, the set of Approvers is determined by the approvers group of the Flow.

The Steps of an Enrollment Workflow

There are several pre-determined steps in a workflow. Each step has standard activities that are executed as part of the step; in some cases you are able to configure the details of these activities. In addition to the standard activities, some steps allow for supplementary actions and customizations to be added in the form of COmanage plug-ins. Some plug-ins already exist, and just need to be enabled and configured, though there is flexibility to build (or have them built) to meet your needs!

We will look at the steps and opportunities for customization in the next section.

The workflow configuration form

You will set up an Enrollment Workflow🚀 using an enrollment workflow configuration form. This form is a “smart form”; as you make choices, the form will display or hide fields so that only the ones relevant to the choices that you have made are displayed. Each one of the steps described above can be customized through this form and the plugins that you install. This configuration makes the workflow configuration process very powerful, but it also makes it a more advanced feature that would be too much to go through in this introduction to workflows. Fortunately, COmanage comes with several pre-configured templates that are already set up for the most common enrollment patterns. In this lesson we will use one of these templates and make adjustments to it to meet our needs.

For those who will need more sophisticated enrollment workflows, there is documentation on the COmanage wiki. In addition, there are COmanage experts that can help wtih configuration needs.

The Enrollment Workflow templates

There are several common patterns for Enrollment Workflows🚀. COmanage has a template for each of these common patterns, simplifying the set up process. It is often helpful to start from one of these templates, and adjust the parts where you may need a different behavior. For advanced users, COmanage also provides the ability to customize the template list by creating your own templates.

ADMINISTRATOR AS Petitioner

• Invitation (Default) - In this flow, an administrator explicitly invites individuals into the collaboration. Once the individual joins, they are pre-approved for their interactions because they are set up ahead of time.

  • Petitioner: An Administrator👑 - the one that invited the individual.
  • Enrollee: The person that was invited. Email confirmation is required.
  • Approver: (optional) The CO Administrator👑 may be set up to approve enrollments before they are accepted.
  • Identity Matching: Conducted by anyone / any process other than the self-matching by the enrollee

• Conscription with Approval - This flow is similar to an Invitation one, though does not require a individual to confirm their email address.

  • Petitioner: An Administrator👑 - the one that started the process to add the individual.
  • Enrollee: The person being added. NO email confirmation is required.
  • Approver: An Administrator👑 MUST approve enrollments before they are accepted.
  • Identity Matching: Conducted by anyone / any process other than the self-matching by the enrollee

ENROLLEE AS Petitioner

• Self Signup with Approval - In this flow, individuals can sign up on their own. A self-registration enrollment flow is designed to require as little intervention from an administrator as possible. After this type of Enrollment Workflow🚀 is created, a common URL is available that can be posted to a website, emailed to a mailing list, or otherwise made broadly available so that anyone can request to join.

  • Petitioner: The Enrollee
  • Enrollee: The individual signing up on their own. Email confirmation is recommended.
  • Approver: (optional) An Administrator👑 may be set up to approve enrollments before they are accepted.
  • Identity Matching: Conducted through an automated process or no identity matching is done.

• Enrollment through Account Linking - An Account Linking Enrollment Workflow🚀 is used by an end-user who is already has a CO Person⚙️ in the CO⚙️. This person wants to link an additional Org Identity⚙️ to their record.

  • Petitioner: The Enrollee
  • Enrollee: The person who is linking a new account to their existing CO Person⚙️. The Enrollee must be authenticated and confirm their email address.
  • Approver: none
  • Identity Matching: the Enrollee self-matches, i.e., matched to the currently signed in CO Person⚙️

Controlling duplicates

Duplicate Enrollments can happen a number of ways, and there is no single technique to prevent them from happening. There are, however, a few options to reduce the likelihood of a duplicate enrollment happening. We will not review duplicate management in depth in this workshop, though we can talk about the processes more toward the end of the workshop if there is time and interest.

About Sponsors

At times, and particularly when managing guests, people are registered and participating in COmanage because of their relationship with another person. For example, a student’s parents may be participating because the student is. We will not review Sponsors in depth in this workshop, though we can talk about toward the end of the workshop if there is time and interest.

How Many Enrollment Flows?

You can have as many enrollment flows as you need to support your population. It is common to have between 3 and 10 enrollment flows, though at least one installment has up to 400 flow! Each flow can be paired with enrollment into specific COs or COU and to provide specific permissions within COmanage, and provision services.

DEMONSTRATION - An Enrollment in Action

To end today, we will show a typical enrollment workflow in action.

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