# About Cohorts

**Cohort Locations & Roles is an agile method that enables you to create/import dynamic company structures. It allows for the dynamic creation of sections, roles, and location types.**

Cohort Locations & Roles is incredibly powerful and more humanistic when used with audience targeting instead of groups by allowing the selection of organisational attributes to determine which users/locations are targeted instead of manually creating and assigning groups.

For example, you may wish to set content targeting for users who are Managers, in the Sales Department, in the United Kingdom region. In groups this requires setting up the groups and users manually, with location targeting you only need to select the desired attributes and the location group is automatically created for you.

<figure><img src="/files/GFIMwod0q2NO0W6jDVUo" alt=""><figcaption></figcaption></figure>

Additionally, if a user is removed/added/transferred to a location or their role has changed, the user will automatically be assigned the correct content. This removes numerous steps for managing users and content.

## Example

**You can lower the amount of** [**roles**](#roles) **by creating** [**sections**](#sections)**.** The below example shows a scenario that would result in a duplication of roles & sections:

1. Service Employee
2. Stock Employee
3. Sales employee

**Instead**, you can create one [role](#roles): Employee, and the [sections](#sections): Services, Stock, Sales.

This allows targeting for:

1. Employee - anyone with the Employee [role](#roles);
2. Stock - any user in the Stock [section](#sections);
3. Stock / Employee - only users that are an employee in the Stock [section](#roles).

## General Tips

**To get the best out of Cohort Locations, a general rule of less is more is applicable.** This relates to using the least amount of roles, sections, and location types as possible. Over-categorising can lead to a difficult data set to maintain and manage, especially at large scales.&#x20;

How you categorise Cohort Locations should follow a wide approach initially rather than providing overly specific roles and sections that provide no functional value on the platform. Here are some suggested tips:

### **Roles**

**Don't** provide overly specific roles such as Sales Manager, Support Manager, and Financial Manager (unless necessary). **Instead**, try to create one Manager role and assign users to the Sections of Sales, Support, and Finance.&#x20;

### **Sections**

**Don't** use sections as role classifications such as Managers, Support Managers, and Sales Managers. **Instead**, try to create sections that describe the areas/functions/departments of a location such as Sales, Support, Product, Development, and Finance.

**Sub-Sections**\
If you have multiple sub-sections you can sub-divide sections. For example, if you have multiple divisions in the Section Sales, split the Sales section into Sales - Support, Sales - Product, and Sales - Marketing. This will allow fewer roles and wider targeting opportunities.&#x20;

### **Targeting**

**Don't** use narrow targeting by selecting every possible combination of roles, sections, and location types. **Instead**, take a wide approach by initially thinking about who/where you are targeting content. For example, if you are targeting several roles at every region, just select the roles instead of selecting roles and regions.

In Summary, when working with the classification system use the DRY (Don't Repeat Yourself) principle to keep data optimized and easy to manage.

## Limitations

Cohort Locations provide synchronisation of users and content automatically in the background i.e. When user roles/locations/sections are changed. To ensure optimal processing times for background synchronisation, we recommend using 25 or fewer and no more than 50 groups per content. See [Targeting Tips](#targeting) for guidance.

Higher usage is only available on enterprise instances with limited/single tenancies. If you require a higher get in touch with your licensee provider to discuss options.


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