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Let people choose their Launchpad widgets

2 steps 4 min Updated 4 November 2026

Once your school's launchpad widgets are set up — Google Classroom, Calendar and Gmail or Microsoft 365 — you choose, for each widget, whether people can hide it or add it for themselves.

Before you start

  • You need to be a school admin with sync settings permission, with the school selected in the switcher.
  • The widgets must be available for your school and switched on for the people concerned. A person only ever sees widgets the school has switched on for them; their choice can hide a widget or add an optional one, never more.

Steps

Step 1: Choose each widget's setting

On Google Workspace → Launchpad widgets or Entra sync → Launchpad widgets, each widget has a choice under On their Launchpad, one for pupils and one for staff:

  • Always shown — everyone it's shown to sees it, and can't hide it. This is what every widget did before, and it's still the default.
  • Shown, they can hide it — it's on for everyone to start with, and each person can switch it off.
  • Hidden, they can add it — it's off to start with, and each person can switch it on.

Select Save widget choices.

Cover access isn't a widget of its own: it follows My classes, so it has no choice here. A widget that has both a Google and a Microsoft part, such as My classes, is one choice for both.

Step 2: What people see on their Launchpad

People choose from the Widgets button on their Launchpad, next to Edit my apps. It lists every widget the school shows them: always-shown ones are marked Always shown, and the rest have a switch. Their choice follows them to the panel on school websites too (the unread count on the Mail tile, for example), and Realsmart stops reading what a person has hidden.

People can put their widgets in order from the same button: whether Coming up or the Classroom card comes first, and the order of Due work, To review and My classes inside it. The Teams classwork card (Classwork) moves like the Classroom card. This only reorders what they already see, and it follows Let members arrange their apps and widgets on the Apps page's Personal layouts tab (see Let people arrange their own Launchpad). The button appears when at least one widget is optional for that person, or when they have two or more widgets they can put in order.

Trust defaults

From the MAT overview, Launchpad widgets shows trust admins Trust defaults at the top, one table for Google Workspace (and one for Microsoft 365, where those widgets are on). For each widget, for pupils and for staff, choose Always shown, Shown, they can hide it, Hidden, they can add it, Off, or Each school decides.

  • Save trust default records it. A school that hasn't chosen its widgets yet starts from it.
  • Apply to all schools also writes it to every school that has chosen its widgets. Above 10 schools you're asked to type APPLY first.
    • Off takes a widget away from pupils or staff.
    • The three other choices set whether people can hide or add a widget the school already shows them. Always shown shows it again to anyone who had hidden it.
    • It never switches a widget on or shows it to pupils or staff the school doesn't, because that needs the school's own access check. Those schools are counted as waiting to switch on.
    • If it switches My classes off for staff, Cover access goes off too. Cover already given stays until it ends, and the page says so.
  • Each table says how many schools are following the default, waiting to switch a widget on, or have changed it locally.

The rest of the trust page — which schools have the widgets on and what their access checks found — is described in Every school in a trust.

General Acceptable use policy at sign-in General Add and manage your school's own apps General Choose who counts as teaching staff (teaching and non-teaching staff groups) General Choose who sees each app on your school's panel