Assigning Leads

Overview

Leads are responsible for managing assessment data, mission statements, and outcomes for their assigned Organizations. Administrators assign these roles via Organization Management. This article outlines the steps for assigning the Lead role and clarifies the distinction between editing permissions and reporting access. It specifically explains how the Dean’s View enables oversight of nested organizations through the Insights tab without granting full administrative control.

Definition and Permissions

In Planning & Self-Study, each Organization in your hierarchy can have multiple Leads assigned to it.   Assigning someone as a Lead designates that individual as someone responsible for managing assessment and planning data related to that Organization.  A Lead has access to view and edit the following content for an Organization:

  • Mission Statement
  • Outcomes
  • Curriculum Maps (only available for Program-type Organizations)
  • Cyclical Assessment Plans (Measures, Findings, Actions, etc.)
  • Program Reviews
  • Alignment to Strategic Plan Goals

Users with the Contributor role (see above for details) must be assigned as a Lead to at least one Organization in order to enter data in Planning & Self-Study.  Users with the Administrator role (see above for details) do not have to be assigned as a Lead in order to access and edit content for an Organization, although assigning an Administrator as a Lead has the benefit of identifying them as someone responsible for managing that Organization’s assessment and planning data.

An Organization can have up to 20 Leads assigned to it, and one user can be assigned as a Lead to multiple Organizations.

 

How to Assign Leads

A user with the Administrator role can assign users as Leads by first clicking the Organization Management tab in their administrative navigation bar on the left of the screen. This will display all Organizations that the Administrator has access to.

The organization table showing a list of organizational units with type and ID information, a Leads column with Assign Leads links or lead names, and an Outcomes column with outcome counts or Add Outcomes links.

To assign a user as a Lead to an Organization, click the Assign Leads link to the right of that Organization name.   If that Organization already has one or more Leads assigned to it, you will see a list of the individuals who have already been assigned as Leads, and you can click on one of their names instead.

This will open a window that allows you to search through your institution’s users.  To assign a user as a Lead to your selected Organization, click on their name from the list of users.  You can also remove a user as a Lead from an Organization by clicking the X to the right of their name from the box with your Organization Leads.

The Add Leads modal for Demo Program showing a lead selection field with an existing lead chip and an input for adding more leads, followed by a list of users with names and emails, with the buttons Cancel and Apply at the bottom.When a Lead logs in to their account, they will see a My Leadership category on their home page which lists all of the Organizations to which they have been assigned as a Lead, with links to add and edit assessment and planning data for those Organizations.
The My Leadership page showing a program card for Demo Program with project details below, including an academic assessment plan, outcome progress indicators, and right‑side profile progress details with the Enter Program button on the card.

Please note that assigning a Lead to an Organization in your hierarchy does not confer full access to all Organizations nested within it in your hierarchy.  For example, if you assign a user as a Lead to a Department, that user will not automatically have full access to all Programs within that Department; you would need to also assign that user as a Lead to each of those Departments to give them that level of access.

 

Dean’s View

Although a user who is assigned as a Lead to an Organization does not automatically have full editing access to all Organizations nested within it in your hierarchy, that user does have access to run reports on Plans for all Organizations within it.  

For example, someone who is assigned as a Lead to College-type Organizations will be able to run reports on Assessment Plans completed by all Departments and Programs within that College, without also having to be added as a Lead to each individual Department and Program within it. This level of access is referred to as the Dean’s View.

To give a user access to the Dean’s View, that user needs to have the Contributor role (see above for details), and then they must be assigned as a Lead to an Organization that has other Organizations nested within it (examples include Division, College, or Department).  We advise giving users who need this level of reporting access the Dean’s View instead of giving them the Administrator role, since Dean’s View does not allow them the level of editing access that an Administrator has,  thus preventing potential permanent and irreversible mistakes.
The user in the following screenshot has the Dean’s View for their College:
The organization table showing Demo College at the top with type and ID details, a lead assigned, and an Add Outcomes link, followed by nested units such as departments and programs with their assigned leads and outcome links.
When that user logs into their account, they will see their assigned College listed in their My Leadership area, and to run reports on all Organizations within that College, that user must first click on an Assessment Plan they want to report on:
The Demo College page showing a Projects in Progress section with an academic assessment plan listed, including organization and outcome details, along with a right‑side profile progress panel and the Enter College button at the top.
On the following page, they will click the Insights tab in their top navigation bar, which will let them see Plan data for all Organizations within their assigned Organization.
The Progress by Organization tab showing a table of organizations with nested units, each displaying a lead name and a status column that includes indicators such as In Progress and Not Started, with an Insights tab highlighted at the top.
 

Consolidated Dean's View

For institutions utilizing the Dean’s view for plans involving multiple participating organizations, the Program page offers a more organized data structure.

 

Organization-Specific Stats

Each participating organization is listed individually under the parent plan with its own status badge. To facilitate rapid review, a Quick Stats section is provided for every entity:

  • Default Visibility: The first organization’s statistics are expanded by default upon loading the page.
  • Flexible Navigation: Subsequent organizations remain collapsed but can be toggled individually or expanded as a group.

Outcome and Results Mapping

To ensure granular oversight, every organization associated with a plan maintains a dedicated view for:

  • Outcome Progress: Real-time tracking of goals.
  • Results: Performance data categorized by the specific organization.
Deans View of specific organization and plan status showing submitted.
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