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Quick Summary: Attach career automations to a custom SCIM group to automatically assign careers when users appear in that group. Each automation has an eligibility rule (all users, or newly provisioned users only), a re-assignment behavior (only once, or always re-assign), an unassign on removal setting, and a one-time initial activation choice made when you save.

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Overview

Career automations tie SCIM group membership to SkillsDB career assignments. When a user is provisioned into a custom SCIM group that has career automations attached, SkillsDB assigns the configured careers to that user automatically — no manual assignment required. Career automations are useful when:
  • New hires in a specific role should always start with a standardized career (for example, every new FinanceAnalysts SCIM group member gets the “Finance Analyst” career)
  • You want careers to follow group membership — including removing the career when a user leaves the group
  • You manage team membership in your identity provider and want SkillsDB career assignments to follow automatically
Career automations are configured per custom SCIM group. The two default groups (SkillsdbGlobalAdmins and SkillsdbFullAccess) do not support career automations. SkillsDB never modifies a career a user already holds. If an admin or manager changes the level on an assigned career, SCIM does not reset it. If a career was assigned manually before the automation ran, the automation leaves the career and its level untouched.

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Prerequisites

Before setting up career automations, make sure you have:
  • Permission level: SkillsDB administrator
  • Setup requirement: At least one custom SCIM group (see SCIM Groups and Permissions)
  • Setup requirement: The careers you want to assign already exist in SkillsDB
  • Access requirement: Settings > SSO & SCIM > Configure SSO and SCIM settings

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What a career automation contains

Each career automation on a custom SCIM group has these fields: A single custom SCIM group can have any number of career automations, but each career can appear in at most one automation per group. Each automation is evaluated independently.

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How re-assignment works

Warning: Always re-assign overrides manual changes: if an admin removes the career from a member, the next SCIM event for that user re-assigns it. The only way to make the removal stick is to remove the user from the group in your identity provider, or change the automation’s re-assignment behavior. SkillsDB never resets a manually changed career level — level edits always stick in both modes.

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How eligibility works

The eligibility rule decides which users the automation applies to:
  • All users: every group member is eligible, regardless of when their account was created.
  • Newly provisioned users only: only users whose SkillsDB account was created within the previous 30 days are eligible, measured at the moment of assignment. How the account was created does not matter, and careers the user already holds do not matter.
When a Newly provisioned users only automation skips a user because their account is older than 30 days, the skip is recorded in the SCIM event log as a Career Skipped event. Identity providers such as Entra routinely send “user created” and “user added to group” as separate SCIM events, in varying order. SkillsDB treats a user created and added to the group in separate events identically to one provisioned in a single event.

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The initial activation choice

When you save a new automation — or change an existing automation’s eligibility rule — SkillsDB asks for a one-time activation choice for that automation:
  • Apply to current and future members: the career is immediately assigned to all current group members who meet the eligibility rule, and to eligible future members as they are provisioned. If the group has active members, SkillsDB shows a confirmation with the member count before saving.
  • Activate, but do not apply to current members (the pre-selected default): current members never receive the career from this automation, including on any later sync event. Only users who appear in the group after the save receive it. Each excluded current member is recorded in the SCIM event log as a Career Excluded event. The exclusion also covers members who are deactivated at the time of the save — reactivating them later does not assign the career.
Changing an automation’s eligibility rule presents the activation choice again, as if the automation were newly created. No career that is already assigned is modified or removed by the change. Changing only the re-assignment behavior or the unassign-on-removal setting does not re-trigger the activation choice.

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Track the initial activation run

When you save an automation set to Apply to current and future members, SkillsDB assigns the career to eligible current members in the background rather than making you wait for the save to finish. The Custom SCIM Groups table shows the status of the most recent run beneath that group’s automation lines, and the page updates on its own as the run progresses — you do not need to refresh. Selecting Retry re-runs the same assignment against the same members, so it is safe to retry a stalled or failed run — careers already held by members are never modified.

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Unassign on removal

Each automation has an Unassign career when the user is removed from this group setting:
  • If enabled, removing the user from the group automatically unassigns the related career.
  • If disabled, removing the user from the group makes no change to the career assignment.
SkillsDB only unassigns careers that the automation itself assigned. If the same career was assigned manually, or is also granted by an automation on another group the user still belongs to, the career is kept. Whether a user who was unassigned this way receives the career again on rejoining is decided by the automation’s re-assignment setting, not by this one: Always re-assign assigns it again; Only once does not — the user was already assigned once, and unassign-on-removal only governs what happens when they leave. Deleting the group — or the group disappearing from your identity provider — removes every member from it, so automations with unassign-on-removal enabled fire exactly as for an individual removal. Deactivating a user does not count as a removal: deactivation never unassigns careers.

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How to add a career automation

Career automations are configured in the same modal used to create or edit a custom SCIM group. There is no separate screen.
1

Open the SSO & SCIM settings

Navigate to Settings > SSO & SCIM and select Configure SSO and SCIM settings.
2

Open the group

In the Custom SCIM Groups table, select the edit icon on the group you want to configure. Alternatively, select Create SCIM Group in the top right to create a new group.
3

Scroll to the Career Automations section

Below the Permission Level dropdown, the modal contains a Career Automations section.
4

Add an automation

Select + Add Career Automation. A new row appears with empty fields.
  1. Select a Career from the searchable dropdown
  2. Select a Level if the career has multiple levels (the first level is pre-selected; clear it to assign without a level)
  3. Select a Re-assignment behavior: Only once — exclude users assigned previously or Always re-assign
  4. Select an Eligibility: All users (default) or Newly provisioned users only (last 30 days)
  5. Optionally enable Unassign career when the user is removed from this group
  6. Confirm the Initial activation for the new automation: Activate, but do not apply to current members is pre-selected; switch to Apply to current and future members to assign immediately to current members
5

Add more automations or remove one

Select + Add Career Automation again to add another career. Select the trash icon next to any row to remove it.
6

Save

Select Save Changes (when editing) or Create (when creating a new group). If any automation is set to apply to current members and the group has active members, confirm the member-count prompt.
Once saved, the automation runs for users as they appear in the group. If you chose Apply to current and future members, eligible current members receive the career immediately at save.

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How to change or remove a career automation

To change an existing automation, edit the custom SCIM group and modify the automation row. Changing the eligibility rule presents the initial activation choice again. Changing the re-assignment behavior or unassign-on-removal setting takes effect on future events without re-activation. To remove an automation, select the trash icon next to its row and save. Careers that were previously assigned by the removed automation remain on the users’ profiles. Removing an automation does not un-assign careers from anyone — it only stops the automation from running in the future.
Tip: If you need to un-assign careers after removing an automation, do it manually from the affected users’ profiles or contact SkillsDB Support for bulk-update options.

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What happens when a user is deactivated or reactivated

When a SCIM-provisioned user is deactivated (removed from all SCIM groups, disabled in the IdP, or unassigned from the SCIM application), automation-assigned careers stay in place on their (now inactive) profile. Deactivation never removes careers — not even for automations with unassign-on-removal enabled, because deactivation is not a group removal. If the same user is later reactivated through SCIM, automations that previously assigned them a career — or previously excluded them — do not run again. Reactivation is not treated as a first provisioning.

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Common Questions

It depends on the automation’s re-assignment behavior. With Only once, the removal sticks — the automation never re-assigns the career. With Always re-assign, the next SCIM sync for that user re-assigns the career; the removal only sticks if the user is removed from the group in your identity provider.
No. SkillsDB never modifies a career a user already holds, with either re-assignment behavior. If a manager changes the level on an assigned career, the change is preserved on every future sync.
A user whose SkillsDB account was created within the previous 30 days, measured at the moment of assignment. How the account was created does not matter, and careers the user already holds do not matter. Users outside the window are skipped and the skip is logged as a Career Skipped event.
That is decided by the re-assignment setting alone. Only once never assigns a second time — whether the user kept the career while away (unassign-on-removal disabled) or lost it on leaving (enabled), rejoining does not re-assign it. Always re-assign assigns the career again on rejoin whenever the user no longer holds it. Unassign when removed from group only controls what happens when the user leaves.
No. Career automations are only supported on custom SCIM groups. If you want Admins or Full Access users to receive a career automatically, create a custom group (for example, FinanceAdmins), set its permission level to Admin or Full Access, and attach a career automation.
Only if you choose Apply to current and future members at save. If you choose Activate, but do not apply to current members, current members are permanently excluded from that automation — including on later syncs — and each exclusion is recorded in the event log.
When you save with Apply to current and future members, the assignment runs in the background. If the run stalls or fails, the Custom SCIM Groups table shows Assignment may have stalled or Career assignment failed beneath the group’s automations, along with a Retry action. Select Retry to run it again — retrying is safe, because careers already held by members are never modified.
Navigate to Settings > SSO & SCIM > Event Log. Assignments are logged as Career Assigned, unassignments as Career Removed, activation exclusions as Career Excluded, and 30-day-window skips as Career Skipped.

SCIM Groups and Permissions

Create and manage the custom SCIM groups that career automations attach to.

SCIM Event Log

Verify automation runs by filtering the event log for career events.

Careers Library

Create and manage the careers referenced by automations.

SCIM Setup

Prerequisite — configure SCIM provisioning before setting up automations.

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Need More Help?

For help designing your career automation strategy or troubleshooting assignment issues, reach out to your organization’s SkillsDB administrator or contact SkillsDB Support.