Add a user to a group

Result

The user appears in the group's member list. Adding them also sends the group to Google Workspace and Microsoft Entra straight away, so the change usually reaches them within a few minutes. Active Directory picks it up the next time your AD connector runs.

If the group has a Google Classroom

The same push updates the group's Google Classroom:

• staff you add (mentors and admins) become teachers in the classroom;
• learners become students — as long as their status is Active.

So adding a teacher to a class's group is how you give them that class in Google Classroom — for cover, a shared class or a head of department. See Add a teacher to a Google Classroom — one class or many. Adding someone doesn't make them the classroom's owner; that's the group's Main teacher on the Details tab.

If the group has no classroom yet, it gets one as soon as it has a member of staff — see Create a Google Classroom for any group. If someone still hasn't appeared after a few minutes, see A teacher is missing from a Google Classroom.

A membership you add by hand is locked — it is kept even if the MIS stops sending it, and its padlock shows closed in the member list (on the person's own Memberships tab it shows a Locked badge). See Group membership options.

If cloud sync is paused for the school, the membership is saved in Realsmart now and sent to the connected platforms — and the classroom — when sync resumes.

People from other schools in your trust

A trust admin can add people whose account belongs to another school in the trust — the trust's central team, or a colleague based at a sister school — to this school's groups.

• Who you can add. People from this school, plus people from the other schools in your trust that you manage. A school admin who manages only this school sees this school's people only.
• Google. They are added to this school's Google group like anyone else, using their own email address (for example [email protected]). They do not get a new account here.
• Microsoft 365. Microsoft 365 can only put people from its own organisation in a group. If their school uses a different Microsoft 365, they won't appear in this school's Microsoft 365 group. ADAdmin tells you when you add them.
• In the member list they show their school's name. Their name isn't a link, because their details are managed in their own school — switch to that school to open them.
• Removing them takes them out of the Google group, as for anyone else.

People from another school who were added to a Google group directly in Google, not in Realsmart, are left as they are — Realsmart only removes memberships it made.

Alternative — add a group from the user's own page

If you are already looking at one person, you can add them to a group without leaving their page:

1. Open the user and select the Memberships tab.
2. In the Add to a group… search box at the top, start typing the group name.
3. Select the group from the results. It appears in their list immediately.

The search box on this page offers groups only — to add people, work from the group's Members tab as above.

Alternative — add to a group from the Users page

You can also add one or more users to a group from the Users list using the Add to group bulk action:

1. Go to Users and tick the user(s) you want to add.
2. In the action bar above the list, select Add to group.
3. Type the group's name in the box and choose the group.
4. Select Add to selected user(s).

There is no separate confirmation step. See Bulk add to group for more detail.

Troubleshooting

• "I can't find the user in the search" — make sure you are on the correct school. The search shows this school's people, plus people from the other schools in your trust that you manage. If the person belongs to a trust school you don't manage, ask an admin who manages it (or your trust admin) to add them.
• "I added someone but they're not in the Google group" — look for a Suspended label next to their name in the member list. Google never puts a suspended account in a group. When you add one, Realsmart warns you: "… was added, but their account is suspended, so they won't be put in this group in Google." Reactivate the account, or remove it and add the person's active account instead — if that account belongs to another school in your trust, it appears in the search with that school's name.
• "… is already in this group." — that person is already a member, so nothing was added. Look for them in the member list.
• "Someone from another school isn't in the Microsoft 365 group" — their school uses a different Microsoft 365, and Microsoft 365 can't hold people from another organisation. Realsmart warns you when you add them ("… Microsoft 365 can't include people whose account belongs to …, so they won't appear in the Microsoft 365 group."). They're still in the Google group where Google is on.
• "I added a teacher but they're not in the Google Classroom" — give it a few minutes, then check the group's Classroom tab, which flags anyone missing and why. See A teacher is missing from a Google Classroom.
• "The Members tab is empty" — the group exists but has no members yet. Use the search box at the top of the tab to add the first member.
• "I need to add many users at once" — see Bulk add to group, or use Cohort import to add existing users to existing groups from a CSV.
• "These people should always match another group" — put that group inside this one instead of adding them one by one; see Put a group inside another group.

Related

• Add a teacher to a Google Classroom — one class or many
• Create a Google Classroom for any group
• Remove a user from a group
• Bulk add to group
• Put a group inside another group
• Create a group