Adobe Learning Manager (ALM) allows organizations to delegate administrative responsibilities using Custom Roles, including the ability to manage Learning Plans. Because Learning Plans automate assignment of training based on rules, it is important to understand how access works for Custom Admins with full scope or limited scope, and what happens when scopes or user groups change later.

This article explains:

• How Custom Admin permissions work for Learning Plans
• Differences between full‑scope and limited‑scope Custom Admins
• Visibility and editing rules
• How reports behave
• Important edge cases involving scope changes, user-group changes, and catalog access

1. What Learning Plan Permissions Can Be Granted?

A Custom Admin can be given:

• Full Control of Learning Plans
• Read‑Only access to Learning Plans

Full Control allows creating, editing, enabling/disabling, and deleting Learning Plans.
Read‑Only allows viewing and downloading Learning Plan reports, but not editing or creating Learning Plans.

2. Full‑Scope vs Limited‑Scope Custom Roles

A Custom Role may include:

• Catalog Scope (which training content the admin can access in ALM)
• User Group Scope (which learners the admin can manage or target in ALM)

Full Scope

A Custom Admin has full scope when:

• They have access to All User Groups
• They have access to All Catalogs

This gives nearly the same level of control over Learning Plans as a full Administrator.

Limited Scope

A limited‑scope Custom Admin may be restricted to:

• Specific User Groups (for example, only the "EMEA Sales" group)
• Specific Catalogs (for example, only the “Sales Enablement” catalog)

Their Learning Plan access is limited to only those learners and only those training objects.

3. What Full‑Scope Custom Admins Can Do

A full‑scope Custom Admin can:

• Create Learning Plans applicable to any User Group
• Add any Course, Learning Program, Certification, or Learning Path
• Edit or delete any Learning Plan
• View all Learning Plans in the account
• Enable or disable any Learning Plan
• Download the full Learning Plan report

These users behave almost exactly like full administrators for this feature.

4. What Limited‑Scope Custom Admins Can Do

A limited‑scope Custom Admin can:

Create Learning Plans

• Only for User Groups within their scope
• Only using Courses/LPs/Certifications that belong to their catalog scope

View Learning Plans

They can only view:

• Learning Plans they created, and
• Other Learning Plans created by Custom Admins with the same role and same scope

They cannot see Learning Plans created by administrators or other Custom Admins outside their scope.

Edit Learning Plans

They can only edit:

• Learning Plans they created
• Learning Plans created by users with the exact same role and scope

Learning Plan Reports

Reports include only Learning Plans that fall within the Custom Admin’s:

• User Group scope
• Catalog scope

5. Important Edge Cases & Scenarios

This section explains what happens in common situations involving scope or configuration changes.

A. What happens if a Custom Admin’s scope changes?

1. Catalog scope is reduced

If the Custom Admin loses access to certain catalogs:

• They lose visibility into Learning Plans containing content from those catalogs
• They cannot edit Learning Plans referencing that content
• They may no longer be able to save changes if the plan includes Courses/LPs they can’t access

This is consistent with ALM’s security model—which always enforces catalog-level access.

2. User Group scope is reduced

If the Custom Admin is no longer allowed to manage certain user groups:

• They lose visibility into Learning Plans targeting those user groups
• They cannot edit or override assignments to out-of-scope groups
• They may see Learning Plans disappear from their list

If they created the Learning Plan originally, they may still see it—but only the portions within their new scope.

B. What happens if a Learning Plan’s User Groups are changed?

1. User Groups are added outside the Custom Admin’s scope

A Custom Admin with limited scope:

• Will no longer be able to view or edit the Learning Plan
• Will receive an error if attempting to modify it
• May see the Learning Plan “disappear” from their list

This is expected behavior.

2. User Groups are removed from the Custom Admin’s scope

If the Learning Plan is updated so that:

• All target User Groups fall outside the Custom Admin’s scope → the plan becomes invisible to them
• Some target groups remain in scope → the Custom Admin sees and edits only the in‑scope parts

C. What happens if content inside the Learning Plan is changed?

**If a Course/LP/Certification is added that is not in the Custom Admin’s catalog scope:

• They cannot save the Learning Plan
• They cannot view courses/content outside their scope
• They may receive a permissions error

This behavior is enforced both in UI and API.

If content is removed

If the new content is within scope, the Custom Admin can edit normally.

D. What happens if a Custom Admin is assigned to a different Custom Role?

If a Custom Admin’s role changes:

• Their visibility into Learning Plans is recalculated
• Plans created under their previous role may disappear
• Plans from their new role scope may appear

Learning Plan visibility always follows the current role, not the role at the time of creation.

E. What happens when Learning Plans are created by full administrators?

Custom Admins never automatically inherit access to Administrator-created Learning Plans.

• Limited‑scope Custom Admins do not see these plans
• Full‑scope Custom Admins do see all plans

F. What if a Custom Admin loses access after creating a Learning Plan?

Example:
A Custom Admin creates a Learning Plan for "Sales North America". Later their role is modified to "Sales Europe".

Result:

• They no longer see the Learning Plan they created
• The plan still continues to run normally
• Only Admins or Custom Admins with permission to "Sales North America" can edit it

Ownership of a Learning Plan does not override scope restrictions.

6. Summary Table

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Key Takeaways

• Custom Admin Learning Plan access is ALWAYS governed by scope (Catalog + User Group).
• Full-scope Custom Admins behave nearly the same as full Administrators.
• Limited-scope Custom Admins operate inside a restricted “sandbox.”
• Changing scopes after creation can hide or block editing of Learning Plans.
• Administrator-created Learning Plans are never automatically visible to limited-scope Custom Admins.
   

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