The objects in Continu, how they connect, and what each one is for. The foundational reference for anyone building learning programs across any audience — customers, partners, channel, franchisees, contractors, members, or employees.
Continu is built around six core objects: Users, Smart Segmentation, Content, Assignments, Automations, and Completion data. Every program you build in Continu is a combination of these. Understanding how each one works — and how they connect — determines whether Continu works for you or against you.
This article covers each object in order and shows how they fit together. Once you have the model, the rest of the help center is reference material for the specific configuration choices inside each one.
Users
A User is one person in Continu. Every learner, manager, creator, and admin is a User. Users have attributes — name, email, role, department, location, hire date, manager, and any custom attributes your organization adds.
Users come into Continu from one or more sources:
- HRIS provisioning (Workday, BambooHR, ADP, etc.) — typical for employee audiences
- Partner Relationship Management (PRM) or partner portal — typical for partner audiences
- CRM (Salesforce, HubSpot, etc.) — typical for customer audiences
- SSO-driven creation on first login
- Manual creation in the admin UI for edge cases
Whichever system creates the User also owns their attributes. If your HRIS owns the employee record, attribute updates flow from HRIS into Continu. Continu doesn't override the source — clean data in the source produces accurate program targeting in Continu.
See User Management for the full breakdown.
Smart Segmentation
Smart Segmentation is attribute-driven population logic. Instead of maintaining static lists of users, you define a population by its attributes: "Tier 1 partners in EMEA," "All customers within 30 days of their renewal date," "All managers in the Sales department."
A Smart Segmentation rule evaluates continuously. When a user's attributes change — they switch tiers, move regions, hit a hire-date milestone — they automatically join or leave the segment. You define the rule once; the population maintains itself.
One Smart Segmentation rule can power multiple downstream artifacts: an Automation, an audience filter on an Assignment, a dashboard view, a notification cadence. Build segments deliberately because they're reused widely.
See Smart Segmentation for the design reference.
Content
Content is the learning material itself. Continu supports several content types:
- Articles — text content authored natively in Continu
- Videos — uploaded or embedded video
- Files — PDFs, PowerPoints, Word docs, and other binary assets
- SCORM — interactive courseware from authoring tools like Articulate or Captivate
- Workshops — live instructor-led sessions (in-person or virtual via Zoom, Teams, Meet)
- Assessments — knowledge checks (text, video, screen recording, video coaching)
- Learning Tracks — ordered sequences of content with completion logic
- Journeys — time-based programs combining content, assessments, and Workshops
Content is created once and can be assigned to multiple audiences. The same product training video can serve customer onboarding, partner enablement, and channel certification — with different surrounding context for each audience.
See Content Authoring and Content Strategy.
Assignments
An Assignment connects a User (or population) to specific Content with an expectation of completion. Without an Assignment, Content sits in the library and is browseable on Explore but not actively delivered to anyone.
Assignments come in two forms:
Direct Assignments. An admin or creator explicitly assigns Content to specific Users or Groups. Used when the audience is known and fixed.
Automated Assignments. An Automation creates the Assignment based on a trigger and Smart Segmentation rule. Used when the audience is dynamic.
Each Assignment moves through defined states: Not Started, In Progress, Completed, Overdue. State transitions trigger notifications, manager visibility, and completion reporting.
See Designing Assignments: Direct vs. Automated.
Automations
An Automation is a rule that creates Assignments automatically when a trigger fires. Every Automation has three parts:
- Trigger — the event that starts the Automation (a user is hired, a user completes a Track, a user joins a Group, a hire date anniversary)
- Audience criteria — usually a Smart Segmentation rule that filters who the trigger applies to
- Action — what Continu does in response (assign content, share content, send a notification)
One Automation can serve a population that grows and changes over years without manual intervention. The downside: an Automation with the wrong trigger or audience can create thousands of incorrect Assignments before anyone notices. Test every Automation against a small audience (two or three test users) before activating it broadly.
See Automation Design Best Practices and Automation Audience Trigger Guide.
Completion Data
Completion data is what Continu records as Users move through their Assignments. It feeds:
- Reports — engagement, completion, manager rollups, certification status
- Manager visibility — direct reports' progress on assigned learning
- Compliance tracking — who has completed required training, who is overdue
- Downstream Automations — "completed Onboarding Track" can trigger "Assign Onboarding Survey"
Completion data is the source of truth for whether learning happened. It's also how you measure program effectiveness.
See Reporting: Which Report Should I Use?
How the Objects Connect
The objects flow in one direction:
Users have attributes. Attributes are the raw material everything else operates on.
Attributes drive Smart Segmentation. A segment is a query against user attributes.
Smart Segmentation and triggers drive Automations. The segment defines who; the trigger defines when.
Automations create Assignments. Or Assignments can be created directly without an Automation.
Assignments deliver Content. The Assignment is the connection point between a learner and what they're supposed to learn.
Content drives Completion data. As learners progress, Continu records what they did.
Completion data feeds Reports — and can trigger downstream Automations. The cycle closes.
Where the Help Center Goes From Here
This article is the map. The rest of the help center is the territory:
- For audience design and segmentation: User Management and Smart Segmentation
- For content design and authoring: Content Strategy and Content Authoring
- For program design: Designing Assignments, Automation Design Best Practices, Tracks and Journeys
- For measurement: Reporting
- For specialty programs: Compliance Programs, Badges and Recognition, Surveys, Workshop Strategy
Practical Tips for New Admins
Sketch the design before opening the platform. Decide the audience, segmentation, content, and trigger logic on paper or in a doc first. Continu is fast at execution and slow to undo a bad configuration.
Test every Automation against 2–3 users before activating broadly. An Automation with the wrong trigger or audience can create thousands of incorrect Assignments before you notice.
Use consistent naming. Six months from now you'll need to find what you built. Naming conventions ("[Audience] – [Program] – [Year]") are worth the small investment.
Pick the right report for the question. Different business questions need different reports. See Reporting: Which Report Should I Use? for the selection guide.
Keep one source of truth per attribute. If HRIS owns the manager field, don't override it manually in Continu. The next HRIS sync will overwrite your edit.
Six objects: Users, Smart Segmentation, Content, Assignments, Automations, Completion. They flow in one direction. Every program is a combination of them.