What it does
Groups organize people into named collections — cohorts, lab sections, clinical teams, advising panels — usable anywhere the platform needs an audience or assignment target. The Groups directory lists every group in your scope with type, tags, member count, advisors, and a health indicator.
Who it's for
Institution administrators, program administrators, and coordinators. Viewing the Groups directory needs the groups view permission; creating, editing, and deleting groups needs the groups manage permission.
How it works
Open Users → Groups to see the directory. Search by name, description, or primary advisor; filter by group type, tags, or health; sort any column; export the rows currently shown. Summary cards show total groups, advising groups, advising groups still missing advisors or learners, and groups near capacity.
Creating a group. First choose its purpose: roster or scheduling group for cohorts, rotations, labs, and other operational groupings, or advising group when advisors need a defined learner panel. Then set a name, an optional description, a group type (general, cohort, section, lab, clinical, study, project, or mentor), optional tags, an optional badge color, and an optional maximum size.
Scope. Where you create the group sets its scope: a program-created group belongs to that program, and an institution-level group is visible institution-wide. A program-scoped group can also link to an academic period, keeping advising and roster groups aligned to the right training year.
Health. Each group shows a health state computed from its membership: empty (no members), needs advisor (an advising group with no advisors), near capacity (at 90% or more of its maximum size), over capacity (more members than the maximum), or OK. Filter by these states to find groups that need attention.
Select a group to open its detail view, where you manage members and advisors and link curriculum courses and rotations. Deleting a group asks for confirmation and removes it from all lists; it does not remove or change the people who were in it.
Before you start
You need the groups view permission to see the directory; creating, editing, or deleting a group needs the groups manage permission.
Program admins can only create groups scoped to their own program. Creating an institution-wide group needs institution admin access.
Decide the purpose before you start — advising groups need a program before advisors can be added later.
Do this
Open Users → Groups (
/users/groups) → you should see the Groups page with summary cards, filters, and the group list.Select the Add Group button in the toolbar → the Add Group sheet opens with two purpose cards.
Select Roster or scheduling group or Advising group on the sheet → choosing Advising group sets Type to Mentor.
Enter a Group Name on the sheet, and optionally a Description, Type, Academic Period, tags, Color, and Max Size, then select Create → you should return to the Groups page and see the new row.
To change a group later, select its row on the page → the group's detail sheet opens; select the pencil icon (Edit Group) to reopen this form, or the trash icon (Delete Group) to remove the group.
You're done when
✓ The new group shows on the Groups page with the name, type, and tags you set.
✓ Its health badge reads OK, or Needs advisor for an advising group that has none yet.
✓ Selecting the row opens the detail sheet, where you manage members and advisors next.
Boundaries and limits
Group names must be unique within an institution; a second group with the same name fails to save.
Group names are limited to 100 characters and descriptions to 500; neither can contain HTML.
The maximum size is advisory only — the platform flags groups as near or over capacity but does not block adding more members.
Deleting a group is a soft removal: it disappears from lists but is not permanently destroyed, and members' accounts are unaffected. Groups cannot be hard-deleted.
The academic period field only appears once the group is tied to a program.
Export covers only the rows currently shown; an all-results export is not available from this list.
Viewing a group needs membership in its owning institution, or access to its owning program for program-scoped groups. Editing needs the groups manage permission at the matching scope, and program administrators cannot edit institution-level groups.
Common questions
Q: What is the difference between a roster group and an advising group? A: Same kind of group, different type. Advising groups (the mentor type) additionally show an advisors panel and are flagged "needs advisor" until one is assigned.
Q: Who can see a group? A: Institution-level groups are visible to institution members; program-scoped groups to people with access to that program. Editing always requires the groups manage permission.
Q: What happens to members when I delete a group? A: Nothing happens to their accounts — deleting a group only removes the grouping itself.
Q: Can I limit how many people join a group? A: You can set a maximum size, and the directory warns when a group is near or over it, but the platform does not prevent adding more members.
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