The branching system is backwards compatible with the legacy B2B hierarchy system in the Tenant Dashboard. 

BenchPrep has synced all existing legacy hierarchies to the branching system. This means that these hierarchies exist in both Console and the Tenant Dashboard, and you can use either application to manage them. Any hierarchy created in the Tenant Dashboard today is automatically synced to Console. 

Synced branches–branches that have a corresponding institution in the Tenant Dashboard–will appear in the Branches section of Console with a lock icon. Hovering over the lock icon will display the ID of the legacy hierarchy level the branch is synced to. 

Managing Synced Hierarchies

If you add/remove users from synced branches in Console, your changes are automatically applied to the corresponding legacy hierarchy. You can also use Console to add or revoke course access from these users at an individual level. 

Note: If you want to double check that a change you make in Console has synced back to the Tenant Dashboard, always check the user’s record in the Tenant Dashboard. For example, the Tenant Dashboard does not display a list of all members of a given admin division, so to verify that you’ve successfully added a user directly to an admin division, check the user’s details page, which shows their standing within the legacy hierarchy. 

Some functions are currently “locked” in Console, but you can still perform these actions in the Tenant Dashboard. If you make any of these changes to your hierarchy in the Tenant Dashboard, the changes are automatically applied to the corresponding branches: 

• Updating names and external IDs of admin divisions, districts, and institutions 
• Adding/removing users
• Revoking or extending course access for individual users 
• Adding/removing groups, institutions, districts, or admin divisions 
• Adding/removing users from groups 
• Moving users from one institution to another 
• Moving institutions from one district to another (“Renesting” institutions) 
• Moving districts from one admin division to another (“Renesting” districts) 
   

It is possible to create child branches of a synced branch in Console, but note that new branches created in Console are not synced back to the corresponding legacy hierarchy in the Tenant Dashboard. New Groups created in Console are not synced back to the corresponding legacy hierarchy in Tenant Dashboard. 

Branch Plans and Contracts

Just as all existing legacy institutions have been synced to the branching system, all existing institution contracts have been synced to the branch plan system, becoming branch plans associated with the branch the institution was synced to. In other words, you can view existing institutions and their contracts in the legacy view in the Tenant Dashboard, or you can view them within Console, where they are listed as branches and branch plans. 

When you create a new contract in the Tenant Dashboard, this contract will automatically be synced to Console as a branch plan associated with the corresponding branch/institution. Likewise, if you create a branch plan in Console for a synced branch, that branch plan will have a corresponding institution contract in the Tenant Dashboard. 

There are two ways in Console to see if a branch plan is synced to a contract. In the branch plans tab in the Plans section, there is a “Synced to Contract” column that will display “Yes” if the branch plan has a corresponding institution contract. 

On each branch plan’s individual details page, there is a “Synced Institution” field in the Overview tab. If the branch plan has a corresponding institution contract, the ID of the corresponding institution appears in this field. If the branch plan is not synced to a contract, this field will be blank. 

Branch Plan-Contract Feature Parity 

Branch plans contain most of the functionality currently available via institution contracts. There are a few notable exceptions: 

• If a branch member receives course access via a branch plan, admins and branch managers must remove the branch member from the branch plan in order to revoke or expire their course access individually. This also removes the branch member from the seat count of the branch plan. In the Tenant Dashboard, tenant admins can remove or expire a learner’s license, but this does not remove them from the institution contract or change the contract’s seat count. 
• When adding a user to an institution contract, you have the option to choose which courses on the contract the user should have access to. When adding a branch member to a branch plan, the user is automatically added to all courses on the branch plan. If members of the same branch need access to different courses, they will need to be added to different branch plans. 
  • Users who have access to courses via an institution contract will continue to have access ONLY to the specific courses they were authorized for. The syncing of contracts to branch plans does not change which courses they do/do not have access to. 

Other B2B Functionality

You can continue to manage client organizations via the Tenant Dashboard. Curriculums, essay grading, and the message center are still manageable via the Boost Dashboard. Instructor resources and real-time reports, if applicable, remain accessible via the Boost Dashboard as well. 

Live classes and other functionality available at the tenant, course, and/or institution levels remain manageable via the Tenant Dashboard. 

Feature Accesses 

The BenchPrep platform will continue to recognize feature access settings set at the institution level. Features controllable at the institution level are also controllable at the branch level. Group-level feature accesses have been phased out. 

Syncing Details

BenchPrep synced legacy hierarchies to the branching system by translating the top level of each legacy hierarchy into a root branch. If you used all four levels of the legacy hierarchy (admin divisions, districts, institutions, and groups), your admin divisions translated to root branches. If districts were the highest hierarchy level you used, your districts translated to root branches, and so on.

After establishing the root branch, the remaining hierarchy levels translated to child branches, grandchild branches, and groups. Here are some examples of how different legacy hierarchies translated to branches

All learners, instructors, institution admins, and institution supervisors became members of the branch corresponding to their institution. Learners and instructors who were members of groups within their institutions became members of their branch’s corresponding group. 

Users who are members of a district, but NOT members of an institution, became members of the branch corresponding to their district. 

Users who are members of an admin division, but NOT members of a district or institution, became members of the branch corresponding to their admin division. 

Users with legacy hierarchy roles (i.e. instructors, admins, supervisors, etc.) continue to hold those roles, but they have NOT become branch managers or group managers. Admins can use Console to make these users branch or group managers, if desired.  

On a user’s details page in Console, you’ll see the branch the user is a member of in the Overview tab. Unlike the Tenant Dashboard, this page does not show the parent branches (district and admin division) of the user’s branch, but the connection between the branches still exists. Information about the user’s group memberships is in the Groups tab. 

If your legacy hierarchies include custom engineering work, reach out to your BenchPrep contact for more information on the syncing process. 

Reporting

All standard user-level data shown in the Boost Dashboard is also available in Console via the User Dashboard in the Analytics section. Data is also available at the branch level via the “Branch Reporting” tab on each branch’s details page. 

If your tenant includes real-time reports or non-standard data points, these will continue to be available in the Boost Dashboard.