If you’re a Platinum or Diamond customer, you can use our Smart Groups feature to create user groups based on your own custom criteria. Unlike traditional groups, Smart Groups dynamically add and remove users based on your organization’s needs. With this feature, you can phish and train specific groups of users, generate complex reports, and more.
This article explains what Smart Groups are and how to use them. If you need instructions on how to plan and create a Smart Group, see our Smart Groups Quickstart Guide.
What Is a Smart Group?
Smart Groups automatically update based on criteria that you add. Once you add your criteria, all users who meet that criteria will be automatically added to the Smart Group.
Once users are automatically added to the Smart Group, you won't be able to manually add or remove them. Instead, the Smart Group will refresh every 15 minutes. So, users will be added to or removed from the group based on whether or not they meet the group’s criteria.
We offer several types of criteria that you can use to create your Smart Groups. For example, you can add criteria based on users’ locations, job titles, training statuses, assessment scores, and more. Once you add your criteria, any users who meet those criteria will be added to the Smart Group. Then, the Smart Group will update when you add, remove, or change corresponding user information in your KSAT console.
In your KSAT console, any Smart Groups you create will be denoted by the blue people icon on the left side of the group name. This icon is only used for Smart Groups.
How Smart Groups Are Defined
Smart Groups are defined by all the criteria you add. You can add up to five criteria per Smart Group depending on the group’s purpose. To be added to a Smart Group, users will need to meet all of the criteria for that group. If needed, you can also edit the Smart Group’s criteria at any time. For more information about our available criteria types, see our Smart Groups: Glossary of Criteria Types article.
Each Smart Group only includes users who meet all of the criteria you added. For example, if you add a criterion for users located in the Southwest and another criterion for users who have failed a phishing test, the Smart Group will only include users who live in the Southwest and have failed a phishing test. However, if you add multiple values to the same criterion, users only need to meet one of those values to join the Smart Group. For example, if you add a criterion using the Location user field, you can enter Southwest as a value and Northeast as another value. This criterion will include all users from either the Southwest or the Northeast. For best results, we recommend adding no more than 50 values to a single Smart Group criterion.
Users can be included in multiple Smart Groups at once, as long as they meet all of the criteria for each group. Additionally, Smart Groups only include active users. Archived users will not be enrolled in your Smart Groups, even if they meet the group’s criteria.
Since each Smart Group will be defined by specific criteria, you’ll want to make sure your criteria will include the right users. If you add a negative criterion to exclude users from the group, we recommend that you also add a positive criterion that targets the correct information.
For example, if you want to create a Smart Group of users who have incomplete training assignments, we recommend adding two criteria:
Negative criterion: “User must not have completed any available training”. Positive criterion: “User has been enrolled in any available training”.
The criteria above will ensure that your Smart Group only includes users who have active, incomplete training assignments. If you only add the negative criterion, the Smart Group will also include users who have never been assigned training.
Ways to Use Smart Groups
There are several different ways that you can use Smart Groups depending on your organization’s needs. With Smart Groups, you can automate your organization’s phishing and training campaigns, view specific reports, set up games for your users, and more.
To learn more about the many ways you can use Smart Groups, see the related articles below:
- Smart Groups: Training Automation Guide
- Smart Groups: Phishing Automation Guide
- Smart Groups: SAPA Automation Guide
- Smart Groups: Gamification Automation Guide
- Smart Groups: Reporting Automation Guide
- Smart Groups: Use Cases
You can also build a custom automated process to fit your organization’s needs. To start planning out your Smart Groups, we recommend using our Smart Group Planning Worksheet. This worksheet helps you plan multiple Smart Groups at once to build a cohesive automated process.