TalentLMS lets you organize users into two types of categories according to your organizational needs: Groups and Branches. The differences between these two types are outlined below for a quick overview.

A. What are Groups?

Groups allow you to organize Learners who need to be assigned to a common set of training, including Courses and Learning Paths. 

For example, a Marketing & Sales department can divide its members into two Groups: one for Marketing and one for Sales. The Administrator can then assign the relevant Courses and Learning Paths to each Group.

Why are Groups useful?

• Creating Groups lets you perform mass actions and save time. For example, you can use Mass actions (1) to enroll employees in the Courses and Learning Paths assigned to their Group, or unenroll them when needed. 

• Often, there might be specific training that everyone in the organization has to complete, regardless of role or department, for example, Health and Safety training. Administrators can create Default Groups (e.g., the Health & Safety group) and assign users automatically upon registration.
• Groups are also a great tool for monitoring user progress. Group reports provide an overview of group members' activity and progress. They can be useful to heads of departments, team managers, etc. Reports can be scheduled to reach different recipients (e.g., Instructors, managers, top-level executives, etc) at a specified time (you can set the weekly frequency, and day of delivery).

B. What are Branches?

Branches let you organize your portal into independent sub-portals (e.g., company departments) with their own Administration, branding, and their own sets of rules, users, and courses.

Why are Branches useful?

Branches allow you to:  

• Bring users together in entirely separate training environments (i.e. sub-domains of your main portal).
• Restrict an Administrator’s access to a specific set of users (e.g. Head of Marketing).
• Separate different audiences from each other (e.g. employees from customers), to provide them with different course catalogs and features (e.g. Leaderboards).

A branch can have its own URL, sign-in page, logo, theme, language, and timezone. It can also have its own default group, course catalog, leaderboard, sign-up method, PayPal account, and SSO provider.

C. What’s the difference between Groups and Branches?

If your users don’t need to be separated into independent training environments with different rules and settings, Groups are the best way to organize them and assign common Courses and Learning Paths.

On the other hand, if you want to restrict your Administrators’ access to their department or a particular set of users, courses, and groups, then branches are the solution you’re looking for.

Can I combine Branches with Groups?

Branches cannot belong to groups, but a group can belong to a branch (1).

For example, if a Branch is created to train a company’s customers, Groups can be used to address different customer needs with different Courses and Learning Paths. In this context, Branch Administrators can access the Groups linked to their Branches to manage Group members and assigned training.