Troubleshooting: Cohort Auto-Enrolment Not Triggering

If users are being added to a cohort but are not being automatically enrolled in the expected courses, work through the following checks.

Check 1: Confirm the Enrolment Workflow is applied to the course

1. Navigate to the course in the catalogue.
2. Click the cog icon > Update Course.
3. Scroll down to the Workflows section and confirm the Enrolment Workflow is listed.

If the workflow is not applied, add it and save. See How to Add a Workflow to a Course.

Check 2: Confirm the Cohort Restriction is set on the workflow

1. Go to Admin > Workflows and open the Enrolment Workflow.
2. Scroll to Cohort Restrictions and confirm the correct cohort is selected.

If no cohort restriction is set, the workflow applies to all users, not just cohort members. If a specific cohort is required, add it.

Check 3: Confirm the user is actually in the cohort

1. Go to Admin > User Management > Manage Cohorts > open the cohort and search for the user’s profile.

If the user is not in the cohort, add them manually or check the cohort’s membership rules. See Manually Add Users to a Cohort.

Check 4: Check the workflow trigger

An Enrolment Workflow with the trigger set to User Account Creation fires when a user is first created — not when they are added to a cohort after account creation. If users already exist in Acorn and are being added to the cohort retrospectively, the workflow will not fire for them automatically.

To enrol existing cohort members, use a one-time Bulk Course Enrolment Upload to catch up historical members, or use Enrol or Unenrol Users in a Course to manually enrol them.

Check 5: Check if the user is already enrolled

If the user is already enrolled in the course, the Enrolment Workflow will not re-enrol them. Check their current enrolment status in the course.

Still not resolved?

Contact Acorn Support with the workflow name, the cohort name, the course name, and a specific example of a user who was not enrolled as expected.