How to use policies

Modified on: Mon, 1 Dec, 2025 at 10:14 AM

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1 Overview & Introduction
2 Prerequisites & Requirements
Permissions:
3 Getting Started

1 Overview & Introduction

Policy is a collection of profile settings that can be assigned to profiles or individual users within an organisation (such as a school or site). Policies override default profile or user settings, allowing administrators to apply specific rules without editing profiles. This provides flexibility for schools to manage their own rules independently from the rest of the site.

Important Behaviour of Policies
Policies are always assigned at profile or individual level, even if you select a group or class in the hierarchy.

If a user moves to another group or class, the policy stays with the user until it is removed or the policy is deleted.
Adding a new student to a group does not automatically apply the policy; you must assign it manually.
If a student changes schools within the same site, the policy will not follow them unless it is a site-wide policy created by a system administrator.

2 Prerequisites & Requirements

Permissions:
- Policy management must be granted via profile or policy.
- This permission gives access to User and access rights and Policies.
System Access:
- Administrator tab in itslearning.
Dependencies:
- Profiles must exist before policies can override their settings.

Note! Because of earlier use cases of too restrictive policies on sys admin profiles, some policies are not available for these users.

3 Getting Started

3.1 Create a Policy

1. Click Administration and select Policies

2. Click Add policy

Note! For sysadmin; On this page, you can filter policies by organisation. That means that if you only want to see policies from one school on your site, you can open the dropdown "Organisation" and choose the school/organisation you need.

3. Complete the fields:

Name: Policy name (appears in list)
Description: Brief explanation, e.g., Turns off messages for students
Organisation: Select school or site
Functionality: Choose functions to include

4. Tick Override for each setting you want to change
5. Select Allowed or Not allowed for each overridden setting

6. Click Save

Imae of the edit policy overview with its earlier described input fields.

3.2 Configure Policy Settings

You can combine multiple settings in one policy
You can also assign multiple policies to the same profile or user if needed

Note!

Policies are always set on an individual or profile level, even if you choose a group or class in a hierarchy. That means a policy will follow the user, even if you move them in the hierarchy. That means that a policy set for a class (for instance close messenger system), will follow the individuals in the group if they change classes later.

4 Core Features & Functions

Create, assign, and delete policies
Override default profile settings for flexibility
Delegate policy management to school administrators
Apply policies at organisation, profile, or individual level

Practical examples:

Enable messages for students when disabled by default
Disable messages temporarily for specific learners
Set school dashboard as login start page
Increase personal storage for advanced users

5 Step-by-Step Workflows

5.1 Assign existing Policy to profiles

1 Go to Administration > Policies
2 Locate the policy and click No profiles
3 Select profiles to assign

4. Click OK

When you return to the policy overview, you will see the policy updated with the profile name it`s activated for.

5.2 Assign existing Policy to individual users or groups

1. Go to Administration > Policies

2. Click the + by Add users

3. Search users by name, course, hierarchy or profile

4. Select users and click OK

5 Go back to policies overview and see it updated with user number (and profile from earlier)

5.3 Removing a Policy

5.3.1 Deleting a user from the policy

Go to the policy overview page
Press the number where the amount of users with the policy is indicated
Tick the checkbox next tu the user name
Press "Remove user(s)
The user is removed immediately. There is no warning box.

5.3.2 Deleting the policy

Select the policy or policies to delete
Click Delete policy
Press OK

6 Settings & Customisation

Local administrators can only manage policies for their own organisation
Site-level policies created by system administrators override local policies
Separate policies must be created for each organisation on a site

7 Technical Information

Changes apply immediately after saving
Policies can be combined; conflicts are resolved by highest security level

8 Troubleshooting

Cannot create a policy

Symptoms: Option to add policy is missing
Cause: Missing Policy management permission
Solution: Ask system administrator to grant permission via profile or policy

Policy does not override settings

Symptoms: Changes have no effect
Cause: Override checkbox not selected
Solution: Tick Override and select Allowed/Not allowed

10 Additional Resources

In creation