This article explains how the "Force unassignment regardless of completion or certificate’s expiration" automated rule setting works when applied to Courses or Curricula.
Overview
When configuring automated assignment rules, you can choose to remove Courses or Curricula from users once the due date has passed. Enabling this specific setting also ensures that users are unassigned even if they have already completed the training or their certificate remains valid.
This can be helpful if you’d like to enforce consistent reassignments, clear outdated records, or maintain workflows that require all users to be unassigned regardless of previous completions.
Use case
Below is a detailed example illustrating how this setting behaves in combination with the Unassign users once due date is missed option.
Assignment
- A manager assigns two users to a course on July 1st.
- The Due Date is set to September 1st.
User actions
- User 1 successfully completes the Course on July 25th, well in advance of the due date.
- User 2 does not complete the Course and misses the due date.
Scenario A: Only “Unassign users once due date is missed” is enabled
After September 1st, the system checks which users have not completed the Course by the due date.
- User 2, who did not complete the Course, is automatically unassigned.
- User 1 retains their completed Course assignment, as they completed it on time.
Scenario B: Both “Unassign users once due date is missed” and “Force unassignment regardless of completion or certificate’s expiration” settings are enabled
After September 1st, the system unassigns both users:
- User 2 is unassigned because the due date was missed.
- User 1 is also unassigned, even though the Course was completed before the due date.
This setting ensures that all users are unassigned in a consistent way, regardless of their completion status or certificate validity.
If a user is unassigned by either the "Unassign users once due date is missed" setting or the "Force unassignment regardless of completion or certificate’s expiration" setting, and they still match the rule’s assignment criteria, the next scheduled rule evaluation would previously reassign them again — creating a repeating unassign-and-reassign cycle for that user on that course.
Exclusion From Future Rule-Based Assignment
To prevent this cycle, a user who is unassigned via either of these two settings is now automatically excluded from future rule-based (re)assignment for that specific course — the rule will no longer reassign that user to the course automatically, even if they continue to match the rule’s criteria.
This exclusion is scoped per course: once a user is excluded this way, they are excluded from every automated assignment rule configured for that course, not only the rule that originally unassigned them. They can still be assigned to the course manually, through the individual assignment page or the advanced assignment page.
Manually Reassigning an Excluded User
If a manager wants to assign the course to this learner again, there are two ways to do so:
- Assign the course manually, with a new due date or with no due date.
- Reassign the course from the Oblige to Retake page.