Find and link a group's Google Classroom

Each group has one Google Classroom at a time, and Realsmart keeps it in step — students in, work kept, handled at end of term. Each new school year the group gets a fresh classroom, and last year's is kept with its work.

If the group's Classroom tab says This group is not linked to a classroom for this academic year, but the class clearly exists in Google, the link between the two has been lost. Left alone, the next sync creates a second, empty classroom beside the real one.

This page finds the real classroom and links it back. Nothing in the classroom is deleted or recreated — its work, students and history are kept exactly as they are.

If many groups lost their classrooms at once — a fault at a past end of term, say — don't relink them one by one: the Severed classrooms review on Google Workspace → Classroom reconnects them in bulk. See Severed classrooms.

What the Classroom tab shows

Top to bottom: Linked Google Classroom (the course itself), End of term, Classroom ownership, Who is in the classroom, and — when Classroom is on for the school — Find this group's classroom. The tab says it is read from synced data, with no live call to Google, until you press Refresh from Google.

When the group is linked, the top of the tab identifies the classroom in Google, so you can be sure it is the right one before changing anything:

• Name — the classroom's name in Google, which is not always the group's name.
• Classroom status — directly under the name, with what it means for students. Anything other than Active is highlighted, and a Provisioned or Archived classroom has a Make active button — see Make a classroom active.
• Course ID in Google — Google's own id for the class. This is what you paste into the search box on another group, or into Google's own tools.
• Realsmart alias — the alias the sync gives the class, in the form d:<group id>_<school id>_<year>_<year>, for example d:12345_67_2025_2026. The sync creates classrooms with this alias and uses it to find them again if the link is ever lost.
• Owner, and its Students, Teachers and Assignments counts.
• Open in Google Classroom — the class itself, in a new tab.
• A Current year or Previous year badge next to the name.

The alias reads Unknown — the school has no final provision date set until the school has a final provision date — see Google Classroom settings.

End of term

Under the course sits an End of term panel: what happens to this group's classroom when the provisioning window closes. This group can be Inherit school default (it shows the current default, for example Archive at end of term), Archive at end of term, or Leave active (never archive). Choose one and select Save — you see Classroom option saved for this group. A classroom left active stays live over the summer, but every group still gets a fresh classroom when sync resumes for the new year: the old course keeps its members and work, and new students only ever join the new one. See End of term Classroom options.

Make a classroom active

Google creates every new classroom as Provisioned. Students can't see a provisioned classroom until its owner — usually the group's main teacher from the MIS — opens Google Classroom and accepts it. When the MIS names the wrong main teacher, nobody accepts it and the class sits there looking empty to everyone else.

When that happens, the status under the classroom's name reads Provisioned, and a reminder shows at the top of the group's page on every tab, with a link to the Classroom tab. To fix it:

1. Open the group's Classroom tab.
2. Select Make active beside the status, then confirm.

The status strip and its Make active button show straight away, but the button only switches on once the classroom has been checked with Google, which takes a few seconds. You confirm Make this classroom active? Its students can see it straight away, and the owner no longer needs to accept it. and the button reads Making active… — it takes a few seconds more. The status changes to Active when Google confirms (This classroom is now active — its students can see it.), and students can see the class straight away. The owner doesn't need to accept it any more. If Google refuses, you see Google didn't make this classroom active with the reason under the status and on the group's Logs tab.

Make active also brings back a current classroom that has been Archived. It isn't offered for a Declined or Suspended classroom, because Google doesn't allow those to go straight to active.

You need the Change sync, platform & API settings permission to make a classroom active. Without it the tab says Making a classroom active needs sync settings permission — ask a full admin. It works even while cloud changes are held over the summer.

To stop new classrooms starting as provisioned at all, turn on Create classrooms as active in Google Classroom settings. For last year's classrooms, use Reactivate classrooms.

"The details have not been read back from Google yet"

Sometimes the tab names the Course ID in Google and the Realsmart alias, but says the classroom's details have not been read back yet, and the student and teacher counts show a dash.

This does not mean the link is broken. The group is linked — the course id on screen is the proof. It means nothing has yet read that class back from Google to fill in its name, status, owner and roster. It is the usual state for a school that has Google Classroom turned on but Classroom reporting turned off, because reporting is what normally reads classes back.

Select Refresh from Google to fetch the class now (you see Refresh queued — reading this classroom from Google now.). It takes a few seconds; the tab updates on its own when the details arrive. A dash means not read yet — never nobody in the class.

Do not try to relink a group in this state. It already has the right classroom, and linking a second one is not possible anyway.

How fresh the details are

Once the details have been read, the tab dates them — and dates the class and its roster separately, because they are read at different times:

Course checked 2 hours ago · roster last read 3 days ago

The nightly sync checks the class itself every time it runs, but it only re-reads the roster when the group has changed, or on a regular drift check roughly weekly. A group whose members have not changed can therefore show a roster that is a few days old, which is normal.

Select Refresh from Google whenever you need the live picture — for example before chasing why a pupil cannot see their class. You can refresh a group again after a minute (Just refreshed — you can refresh again in 40s.).

Classes at schools with Classroom reporting turned on are read back every day, and show no dates because they are never stale in this way.

Who is in the classroom

Below End of term and Classroom ownership, the tab lists everyone Google has on the classroom — every teacher and every student — and compares them with the group's members using the same rules the Classroom sync applies. The gaps come first, so the question the tab is usually opened for ("why can't this pupil see the class?") is answered at the top.

The same comparison also appears the other way round, one person at a time: a person's own Memberships tab badges each of their direct groups with whether they're actually on that group's classroom, so you can check one person across every group they're in without opening each group in turn.

The header counts teachers and students, then how many are as expected, missing, extra, and how many need a look. Under it:

• Missing from the classroom — people the sync expects on the classroom who aren't listed on it. Each shows whether they'd be a teacher or a student, and why they're missing where the data can tell: no Google account yet, added to the group after the roster was last read, cloud changes held over the summer, or the last thing the sync logged for them (for example an add that failed, or a removal).
• Extra in the classroom — people listed on the classroom who aren't expected there in that role: someone added in Google Classroom directly, a member of another school on your domain, a user who is suspended or deleted in Realsmart, a teacher who has left the group, the classroom's owner, or a colleague covering the class through Cover access (explained as Covering until …).
• Teachers in the classroom and Students in the classroom — the full lists, with the classroom owner marked, anyone who arrives through a nested group marked Via that group, and an In classroom, Extra or Missing badge on each row.

Each gap carries a verdict:

• Explained — a valid reason; nothing to do. The next sync sorts it out, or it is by design.
• Needs a look — something to check: an add that failed, a removal that failed, someone the sync removed who has reappeared, a student recorded as a teacher (or the other way round), a classroom owner who isn't a teacher in the group, or a Protected learner (the sync only keeps Active learners on a classroom).
• Unexplained — no reason found. Select Refresh from Google for the current picture, or see the group's Logs tab.

Who the sync expects

The sync puts on a classroom:

• as teachers — the group's staff (any non-learner whose status is Active or Protected), plus the staff of any group nested directly inside it;
• as students — the group's Active learners, plus the Active or Protected learners of any group nested directly inside it.

It never removes the classroom's owner, whoever they are. Whether it also removes other teachers who leave the group depends on a Classroom setting for your school. Where it doesn't, the Extra list says so, and that teacher stays on the classroom until removed in Google.

If the group is outside the sync's limits — no teacher at all, more than 50 teachers, or 1,000 or more people in total — the sync skips its classroom entirely, and the tab says so at the top.

When there is no roster yet

If nothing has read the classroom's roster back from Google (or the group has no classroom yet), the tab lists who the sync expects instead, so it never answers "who is in this class?" with nothing. Select Refresh from Google to read the real roster; the lists update on their own when it arrives.

Before you start

• You must be an admin with the Manage users & groups permission for the current school.
• Google Classroom must be turned on for the school (see Google Classroom settings).
• Linking, and making a classroom active, need the Change sync, platform & API settings permission. Without it you can still search and see which group each classroom belongs to.

Steps