Overview

As a collaboration grows in size, a common pattern is to create internal structure to allow for delegation of person management operations. COmanage Registry supports this through the concept of CO Units, or COUs. COUs have a hierarchical relationship within a CO, much in the same way LDAP OUs have a hierarchical relationship within an O.

If COUs are defined, they can be flat (no hierarchy, all are at the same level) or a COU can have a parent COU (in which case a hierarchy is implied).

In general, COU Administrators can manage CO Person records within the COU they are an administrator for (or any child COUs of that COU).

COUs vs CO Groups

The major differences between COUs and CO Groups are

• Any CO Person can create a CO Group, only CO Administrators can create COUs.
• CO Group Memberships attach at the CO Person level, whereas COU memberships attach at the CO Person Role level.
• Management of CO Group Memberships is simple (eg: manual management by the CO Group Owner, self-opt in for open CO Groups, etc), whereas COU memberships can be managed using Enrollment Flows and Expiration Policies.
• COU memberships imply CO Group Memberships (in the Members:COU group).