Best practice forum (Archived)

HR Import and circular references

I have installed Version 2.9.11 on a test server and it appears using HR Import no longer allows me to import my users in the way that training is managed by our company.

Our organizational structure is such that the manager of learners for a specific organization is done by a person who is not at the top of the organizational tree.

Example is I am the training coordinator for our company. My Boss is the program manager but the changes implemented with 2.9.11 seem to not allow this structure and an error is produced for all users.

I have no issues with HR import on our live server which is running 2.9.10.

I saw there is a discussion in the open community forum but thought it may not be appropriate to discuss this there.

Basically I am looking for a information. Do I need to reposition our training management team to the top of the food chain within the LMS for future releases of Totaralms beyond version 2.9.10.

We do not allow supervisors/managers to manage employee training.

The Manager of employees within the LMS is the training department staff which includes trained employees who may be a direct report of a supervisor outside the training department. This direct report holds a different position and just does training duties as an additional duty to his or her job.

Thank you,

Peter

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Hi Peter,

There was a bug in 2.6.36, 2.7.19 & 2.9.11 which may have resulted in some users being incorrectly identified as having a circular reference in their management path.

The bug only affected users with numeric IDs.

If you are seeing this message, and have the patch applied OR your users do not have numeric ID numbers then you have a genuine circular reference in their management path.

In order to import the user you must first fix their management path in the import file/database.

Please note that circular references are not allowed in any form, so if you are checking your import data look for users who have shallow paths and deep paths, e.g.

User A reports to User B, User B reports to User A (A => B => A...)

User A => User B => User C => User D => User E => User A

Hope this is useful,

regards,

George.

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Hi George,

I did not install the patch and will need to get in touch with my Totara partner to get it.

I do have ID Numbers with numeric only (this is the majority of Employee ID Numbers) and alphanumeric characters. I can wait till the next release if the patch will be included in 2.9.12. I have not installed 2.9.11 on our production server.

I am concerned that the employees manager and employee position may be intended to become linked which may not work for our current structure within the position and organizational hierarchies.

The scenario we use is each site (organization) has a specific person who is the Manager (training manager) of all personnel at the site. with a hierarchy of training managers that parallels the organizational hierarchy but does not match the position hierarchy as the employees who are training managers usually are not the site lead/manager. This parallel structure has worked for us without issue since version 2.6.

This does leave the person at the top of training managers without a manager however.

Thank you,

Peter

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Hi, Peter

To provide a bit of background in addition to George's reply, we prevented circular management assignments from being created in TL-7902 (released in 2.6.35, 2.7.18 and 2.9.10) and TL-9717 (released in 2.6.36, 2.7.19 and 2.9.11). The former prevented the ability to create them via the position pages through user profiles and the latter was to prevent them being created via Totara Sync / HR Import.

Not fixing the problem, or allowing a circular assignment to be created could result in issues that are not easily identifiable, for example: problems with Audience rules concerning reporting paths, the manager selection dialog used in programs and certifications (Management hierarchy) and Report Builder, so we opted to fix the issue and are advising that any circular reference problems identified through Totara Sync / HR Import are fixed at the source.

With regard to your scenario, it sounds like some of those numeric id numbers may have been picked up, which will be fixed in 2.9.12 (TL-10735) as George mentioned, or we can provide a patch to your Totara partner if you change your mind. It would be good to understand a little bit more about your concerns around linking and your current structure. By the sounds of it (looking at what you have mentioned), it doesn't seem like circular references would be created if all staff report into the training manager, and the training manager doesn't report into anyone. So I'm thinking that your issues are more likely related to the problem that George mentioned.

In any case, should you come up against any problems following application of the patch, or upgrade to 2.9.12, please have a chat with your Totara partner if you need some support. Should your partner need further help and support from the Totara Support Team, as always we're on hand to help out.

I hope that explains things a little more and puts your mind at rest a little bit.

Cheers.

Tom

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Thanks Tom,

I am certain that our problem is related to the issue you identified within 2.9.11. We will wait for 2.9.12.

Thank you for the clarification.

Peter

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