Branches are a new tool available in Console that give admins superior control and flexibility in organizing users and configuring their platform access and experience. Each branch is a grouping of users overseen by a designated branch manager user. Branches can have both parent and child branches, and an individual branch hierarchy can have up to 10 levels (i.e. the top branch in the hierarchy could have great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandchild branches). Branches can also have groups within them.

Console admins can manage branches/branch hierarchies, create and assign custom roles scoped to the branch or group levels, assign branch or group managers, create branch plans, view branch-specific data, and add/remove users from branches and groups.

Branches enable your organization to scale distribution by employing any mix of go-to-market models, with the ability to precision-configure end users’ access to and experience with your platform. Using Branches in combination with other features, including a robust Roles & Permissions engine, you can quickly and efficiently enable enterprise customers and/or reseller partners to deliver optimal value for learners and admins by leveraging intuitive administrative and analytics capabilities. 

As a BenchPrep customer organization, your BenchPrep tenant represents the top-level branch.  As an example, imagine that your organization engages with 3 enterprise customers and 2 reseller partners. In this scenario, you may choose to create 5 unique branches off of your organization’s main branch, each with its own child branches (i.e. IT Team, New Hires), groups of administrators and learners possessing unique roles and permissions, unique branding, content, data, and more. 

Branches are a paid add-on to the BenchPrep platform. This functionality is available to organizations who currently use our legacy B2B hierarchy tools and organizations subscribing to Enterprise Engine. Once your access to the branch system is enabled, select “Branches” from the “Manage Users” drop-down in the left-hand navigation menu. 

When to Use Branches

Branching allows admins to organize users into specific units, known as branches, and to designate branch manager users to oversee a given branch. 

Branching is useful if you need to organize users in a specific way for data reporting or financial tracking purposes, or simply to delegate user management. 

You might consider using branches if: 

• Your user base is K-12 institutions, universities, or another collection of classes 
• You have team members or customers that manage small sets of users, but should NOT have control over all users 
• You have team members or customers that need access to usage data for only certain users 
• You have sets of users who will use the same course, but should see different branding or feature configurations (i.e. user group A should not have access to the Discussions section) 
• You offer bulk purchases to customers 
• You want to increase revenue by distributing courses to organizations 

The articles in this section will cover how to set up and manage your branching hierarchy.