Granting new roles via ranks - does it backfill those who earned the rank?

[lolagoetz]

I'm creating a new role that grants additional permissions once a rank is reached. Adding it to the rank is the easy part.

But what happens with users already in that rank --- will it go back and give them that role after a period of time? Will I need to run a report and add that role to any existing users, or does the system automatically do that within a reasonable time?

I'm testing this in stage, but shortly after the updates, the users with the rank I'm working on don't have the role granted. Therefore, it makes me think I may have to do a one-time update.

But can anyone confirm this? Perhaps @Claudius or @JonathanW?

[JonathanW · Accepted solution]

Hey Becky! I'm 95% certain that the role is only assigned at (or near) the actual moment of new rank attainment. Meaning, any users currently in that rank will not be given that role. 

There are a few ways to trick your way into resolving this. My preferred approach is create a duplicate of that rank, but place it only one placement higher in the rank tree. Have it assign the desired role. The downside here is that this will generate rank change notifications. I believe you could work with support to temporarily disable rank change notifications to try and make this seamless. Admittedly, it's tedious. 

The other approach I've seen used is the one-time update you mention. You can leverage User Reports to generate a CSV of everyone currently in that rank. You can then use bulk upload to grant all of the users in that rank the new role. 

[lolagoetz]

That's kinda what I figured, Jon. Since there's no way to really trigger an update, the system won't know to make a change.

I think that the CSV upload is probably my best bet. I'm updating two separate ranks with new role grants, so I'll do it all at once.

Thanks for the quick response!

[DanK]

I assume these are ranks within a progressive ranking system, if so then you also need to make sure you grant the role to all users above that rank in your bulk update.