Examples: managing cohorts and access

In SimChat, a few settings decide who can see and edit your scenarios. This article gives six common examples to follow. First, here is what each setting does:


Setting

What it does

Who it affects

Scenario visibility

Decides whether a scenario is open to everyone, or only to specific cohorts

Learners

Cohorts

Groups of learners and the staff who run them, such as a year or a course. Cohorts can be nested (College → Programme → Course). You use them to decide which learners can see a scenario, and which staff look after it

Learners and staff

Cohort staff

The authors, cohort leads and assessors you add to a cohort. They work on that cohort's scenarios and, for cohort leads and assessors, review its learners' sessions - without being organisation-wide administrators

Staff

"Only show assigned content"

An organisation-wide setting under Organisation settings → Policies. When it is on, learners see only the scenarios and collections assigned to their cohorts, and nothing else

Learners

Collections

A way to group SimChat scenarios together so they are easier to find. A collection can be open to everyone or restricted to specific cohorts

Learners

Invite links

A link you share so people can join. Learner invite links can add people to a cohort, and staff invites can make new authors, cohort leads or assessors staff of chosen cohorts

Learners and staff


These examples are about which live scenarios learners can see. Draft and in-review scenarios are only visible to staff. Whether a learner can open a live scenario depends on that scenario's visibility setting. Collections only help people find scenarios - they do not control who can open them, unless Only show assigned content is on, in which case an assigned collection is also how organisation-wide content reaches learners.


Where to find each setting


  • Scenario visibility - the Key details step when creating or editing a scenario, under Who can access this scenario?, or Manage access on the scenario list
  • Cohorts - Cohorts in the sidebar. Set a Parent cohort to nest one inside another
  • Cohort staff - open a cohort, then use Add staff on the Staff tab
  • Only show assigned content - Organisation settings → Policies
  • Collections - Scenarios → Collections in the sidebar
  • Invite links, including anonymous users and expiry options - Users → Invites for learners, Staff → Invites for staff


Example 1: one course, three year groups


You run one course with three years - Year 1, Year 2 and Year 3. Each year should see its own scenarios in SimChat. You may also have a few scenarios that every year should do. One team looks after all the SimChat content.


How to set it up:


  1. Create three cohorts: Year 1, Year 2 and Year 3
  2. Create an invite link for each year with that year's cohort selected. When a learner uses the link, they are added to the cohort automatically. Share each link with the right year
  3. For year-specific scenarios, set visibility to Specific cohorts and pick the year it is for
  4. For scenarios every year should see, leave visibility on All users in this organisation
  5. Optionally, make a collection for each year so the scenarios are easy to find


With this setup, each year sees its own scenarios plus any shared ones.


You do not need to add staff to these cohorts, because one team looks after everything.


Want each year to see only its own scenarios? Turn on Only show assigned content in Organisation settings → Policies. Learners will then stop seeing anything set to All users in this organisation unless it is in a collection assigned to their cohort. This applies to your whole organisation, so only use it if every learner should see a curated set.


Example 2: three courses, each with their own staff


You run three courses - for example Medicine, Nursing and Pharmacy. Each course has its own teaching staff, who should only manage SimChat scenarios for their course. Learners should only see their own course's scenarios.


One cohort per course handles both sides: its learners see the right scenarios, and its staff only work on their own course's content.


How to set it up:


  1. Create a cohort for each course: Medicine, Nursing and Pharmacy. Use an invite link for each course to add learners to the right cohort
  2. Add each course's staff to their cohort - open the cohort, then Add staff. Make the person who should sign off content a cohort lead; make people who only write scenarios authors. If they are not in your organisation yet, invite them with the cohort pre-selected
  3. When you make a scenario, set Who can access this scenario? to Specific cohorts and pick the course it is for


Each course's authors now write scenarios for their course and submit them for review; the course's cohort lead publishes them and can review the course's learner sessions. Owners and administrators still see and manage every scenario in your SimChat organisation.


Example 3: a one-off event, alongside your course


Your normal SimChat setup runs as usual. You also want to run a one-off event, such as an open day, for a lot of people who should see only the event scenarios. They do not need long-term accounts in your SimChat organisation.


How to set it up:


  1. Create a cohort for the event, such as Open day 2026
  2. Set the event scenarios' visibility to Specific cohorts and pick the event cohort
  3. Create an invite link for the event with the event cohort selected. If people should join without making an account, turn on Anonymous users and set a maximum number of uses. To stop access after the event, set the link to expire after a number of days or on a set date
  4. Your existing SimChat setup keeps working as before


Event attendees will also see anything set to All users in this organisation. If your course content is open to everyone and you don't want attendees seeing it, either restrict that content to your course cohorts, or turn on Only show assigned content for the whole organisation (see Example 1).


Example 4: shared scenarios, plus extras for each cohort


Everyone does the same core SimChat scenarios, and each cohort also has a few extra scenarios that are just for them. For example, all students do the core communication scenarios, and each year also has its own extra cases.


How to set it up:


  1. Create a cohort for each group that needs its own extra scenarios - for example Year 1 and Year 2
  2. Leave the shared scenarios set to All users in this organisation, so everyone can see them
  3. Set each extra scenario's visibility to Specific cohorts and pick the cohort it is for. You can pick more than one cohort if a scenario is shared by some cohorts but not everyone
  4. Leave Only show assigned content off. If you turn it on, learners will stop seeing the shared scenarios unless you put them in a collection assigned to every cohort


Example 5: let each cohort's tutor run their own cohort


You run one course split into several cohorts - for example a tutor group for each clinical placement - and you want each tutor to look after their own cohort without seeing everyone else's. You stay in overall control as the administrator.


This uses the cohort lead role: an administrator within their own cohorts.


How to set it up:


  1. Create a cohort for each placement - for example Placement A and Placement B
  2. Invite each tutor as a cohort lead with their placement cohort selected, or change an existing staff member's role from Staff → All staff
  3. Each tutor can now write and publish scenarios for their cohort, see its activity and sessions, and manage its invite links - without touching other cohorts


If a tutor should only review sessions rather than write scenarios, make them an assessor instead. If they should write but never see learner results, make them an author - their scenarios then wait for you, or a cohort lead, to publish.


Owners and administrators still see and manage every cohort, user and scenario across the organisation.


Example 6: a college with programmes and courses


You are a college with several programmes, each split into courses - for example College of Health → Nursing → Year 1. College-level staff should oversee everything; programme staff should look after their programme; and some content is shared across the whole college.


How to set it up:


  1. Create the top-level cohort College of Health
  2. Create a cohort per programme (Nursing, Midwifery) with College of Health as the Parent cohort, then a cohort per course (Year 1, Year 2) with the programme as its parent. Cohorts can be nested up to three levels deep
  3. Invite learners with links that select their course cohort - the bottom of the tree
  4. Add college-level staff to College of Health and programme staff to their programme. Staff of a parent cohort automatically have access to every cohort beneath it
  5. Set college-wide scenarios' visibility to Specific cohorts → College of Health. Learners in every nested course can access them. Set programme- or course-specific scenarios to the relevant cohort


Filtering by College of Health on the Users, Sessions, Exports or Coverage pages includes every programme and course beneath it, so college staff can report on the whole tree in one go.



Updated on: 08/09/2026

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