Understanding MAT mode and school context
Understanding MAT mode and school context
ADAdmin is designed for Multi-Academy Trusts (MATs) with multiple schools. How you work depends on whether you are operating at the MAT level or inside a specific school.
MAT mode vs per-school mode
MAT mode ("All schools")
When your active context is All schools, you are in MAT mode. In this view the sidebar shows cross-school tools, grouped under Users & Groups and Platforms, including:
- Dashboard — the MAT overview
- Find a user — cross-school search
- User log trace and Merge history
- Merge users — combine duplicate accounts across schools
- Groups — a cross-school groups list with the same bulk actions as the per-school Groups page (status, settings, add members, Classroom state, delete)
- Admin permissions — manage which admins can access which schools
- Sync status, Sync preview, Cloud reconciliation, and the platform settings pages
- Wonde data, MIS preview, Audit trail, Recent activity, and more
So group management is available in MAT mode — you can review, filter, and bulk-edit groups across every authorised school without switching. What's still per-school only is anything scoped to a single record: creating a new user or group, and editing one specific user's profile in detail. Those actions redirect you to switch into a school first.
Per-school mode — a specific school selected
When you select a school from the switcher, you enter per-school mode. In this view:
- You see that school's Users, Groups, and Apps pages.
- Creating a user or group, and editing an individual user's profile, all happen here.
- You cannot see or act on users from other schools.
The school switcher
The school switcher at the top of the left sidebar shows your current context. Select it to:
- Switch to a different school
- Switch back to MAT overview — all schools
See Switch school context for step-by-step instructions.
Why this matters
Many pages in ADAdmin are context-sensitive — they show data or actions specific to your current context:
| Action | Where to do it |
|---|---|
| Create a user or group | Per-school mode |
| Edit one user's individual profile | Per-school mode |
| Reset a user's password | Per-school mode |
| Add/remove group memberships | Per-school mode |
| View users across all schools | MAT mode (Find a user) |
| Bulk-edit groups across schools | MAT mode (Groups) |
| Merge duplicate accounts | MAT mode (Merge users) |
| View MAT-wide sync status | MAT mode |
Your access level
Whether you can see a school in the switcher depends on your MAT admin permissions. If a school is missing, contact the platform owner to check your access.