Create a group

Admins can create groups. Group admins automatically become an administrator of the new group. Platform admins and owners are not added as group admins, as they already have sufficient permissions to manage any group.

Groups are useful in three typical cases:

1. Share courses, sessions, and paths to a set of users (instead of individually to each learner).
2. Track statistics per group.
3. Create a community where people can help each other.

Create a group

Create a group as a group admin

1. At the top of the homepage, click Groups.
2. Next to the group that will become the parent, click Create subgroup.
3. In the Name field, enter the name of the group.
4. In the Group Visibility section, select Private or Public. Learn more about the difference between public and private groups ↗.
5. Optional: Turn off the Activate Learning Needs for this new group toggle if you don’t want this group to use Learning Needs.
6. At the bottom right, click Create.

Create a group as a platform admin or platform owner

You can follow the same steps as a group admin to create a group from the hierarchy. This is useful if you want to see the full group hierarchy before creating a subgroup.

You can also create a group using the following steps:

1. At the top right of the homepage, click Create, then click Group.
2. In the Name field, enter the name of the group.
3. In the Group Visibility section, select Private or Public. Learn more about the difference between public and private groups ↗.
4. Click Update parent to change the parent of the group.
5. Optional: Disable Activate Learning Needs for this new group if you don’t want this group to use Learning Needs.
6. At the bottom right, click Create.

About the page layout for a new group

When a new group is created, it automatically inherits a default layout from its parent group:

• The presence and position of non-configurable widgets (such as Courses, Paths, and Leaderboard) are inherited on the new group's page.
• Configurable widgets (such as carousels, galleries, HTML blocks, custom training sections, and text) are not inherited and must be set up manually on the new group's page.

To replicate a full page layout (including configurable widgets) to an existing group and all its subgroups at once, see Apply layout to all subgroups.

Track and manage your group

After creating the group, you can track its hierarchy and manage your groups:

• On the platform: see the group’s position, expand subgroups, sort, and mark favorites for quick access. See View the group hierarchy ↗.
• Offline: export a full list of groups you manage, including hierarchy levels and self-enrollment information. See Download the list of groups ↗.

Change group privacy

See Change the privacy (private/public) of a group.

Customize a group page

You can:

• Customize the URL of a private group.
• Customize the colors of a group (with the Extended Academies solution).
• Configure the layout of the group page.

Add users to a group

See Add users to the platform.

Remove users from a group

See Remove an account from a group without deleting it from the platform.

About group privacy

A group can be public or private. Admins of a group automatically have administrator permissions on all groups below it.

• Public
  • Members of the group can be seen by other members of the group, and members of all publicly connected groups.
  • Learners of the group are automatically added to all higher level groups (groups closer to the platform group), until and including the first private group encountered.
  • Comments (in the forum of a course’s activity or a learning need) published in the group can be seen by members of the group, and members of all publicly connected groups.
  • Messages (in the newsfeed of a group, or the profile page of a user) published in the group can only be seen by members of the group.
• Private
  • Members of the group can be seen by other members of the group, and members of all publicly connected groups.
  • Comments (in the forum of a course’s activity or a learning need) published in the group can be seen by members of the group, and members of all publicly connected groups.
  • Messages (in the newsfeed of a group, or the profile page of a user) published in the group can only be seen by members of the group.

About publicly connected groups

A public group is publicly connected to another group if they share the same lowest private ancestor. There must be a public connection between them through the group hierarchy links.

A private group is publicly connected to all public groups below it, that are not separated by another private group. A private group is not publicly connected to any group above it.

The following diagram shows a group hierarchy, where private groups are represented with a lock. All the groups of the same color are publicly connected.

In the example above, Group 1.1 (a public group) is publicly connected to Group 3.2 because they share the same lowest private ancestor (Main group). Group 1.1 is not publicly connected to Group 2.1.1 because a private group (Group 2.1) separates them.

Group 2.1 (a private group) is publicly connected to all public groups below it. Group 2.1 is not publicly connected to any group above it.

Group 3.1 (a private group) is not publicly connected to any group because, as a private group, it can only be publicly connected to public groups below it, and there are none.

Display rules for group cover images

Technical limitations

See our article about limitations →