Circles: Best Practice | Learningbank Help Center

What Circles Are (and Why They Matter)

Circles help you group employees and deliver relevant learning and events to the right audience. Use capability profiles in Capability Framework to define role expectations, required skills and certificates, and readiness.

Think of them as living groups of employees that represent your company’s reality - departments, roles, locations, or career stages.

Key idea🌱 Circles make learning about people, not just about content.

The Mindset Shift -> “Circles aren’t folders for content - they’re living groups of people.”

When you think this way:

Content becomes more personalized.

Compliance gets easier.

Employee growth feels intentional, not random.

Two Types of Circles

There are only two and you should be intentional about which one you use.

Dynamic Circles (Default)

Automatically include employees based on rules (e.g. role, department, location, hire date).
Perfect for departments, lifecycle stages, or any audience that should always stay up to date automatically.

Static Circles (Special Case)

Manually curated - you pick exactly who’s in.
Use for VIPs, pilot groups, or unusual cohorts.

Designing Circles the Right Way

Mirror your company: Circles should look like your real org chart and lifecycle.

Name clearly: Use simple, structured names - e.g. DK – Store Managers or All Employees – Compliance.

Describe the purpose: Every Circle should have a short description explaining who it’s for and why it exists.

Give ownership: Someone should always be responsible for keeping the circle accurate.

Sharing Content: People First

When you share learning, ask yourself: “Who is this for?”

Then share it with the Circles that match that audience.

Universal content (e.g. GDPR, Code of Conduct):

Assign to an All Employees Circle or use the Journey interface to push to multiple Circles at once.

Targeted content (e.g. store manager training, advanced GDPR):

Assign directly to the specific Circles that need it.

Quick tip💡 Build Circles first → Then assign content to them.

This keeps things scalable and avoids circular sprawl. Users can and often should be in multiple circles.

Scaling for Big Organizations

Role-first approach: Don’t create 200 circles for 200 restaurants — rather create circles for each role and let rules pull people in automatically.

Layer lifecycle stages: Add “New Hire,” “Ramp,” “Leadership” circles on top of roles to target by career stage.

Stay organized: As circles multiply, use consistent names to stay organized.

Support Role Development with Capability Profiles

Use Circles to group the employees who need relevant learning and automate content assignments.

Use capability profiles in Capability Framework to define the skills, certificates, and required levels for a role, and assess readiness against those requirements.

Existing Circles can provide a starting point for identifying the relevant audience.

Learn how to set up capability profiles in Capability Framework.

Avoid These Pitfalls

🚫 Don’t create a circle just to send one piece of content.

🚫 Don’t duplicate Circles for each campaign. When setting up a Campaign, select the existing Circle or Circles that match your intended audience.

🚫 Don’t use static circles when a dynamic rule would do.
🚫 Don't purely use Circles as a means for skill development and growth. For this, we instead recommend the capability profile.