What each option on School settings → Sync does

7 min read Updated 4 November 2026

The Sync tab of School settings decides what your MIS sync brings into Realsmart, and how long Realsmart keeps accounts after people leave. This page explains each option in the MIS & provisioning card, and what changes when you turn it on or off.

None of these options changes anything the moment you save. Each one takes effect the next time the job it controls runs — usually the next MIS sync.

Before you start

You need the Change sync, platform & API settings permission. Without it, Sync isn't offered under School settings in the sidebar, and the Sync and Sync services tabs refuse to open if you try them from the tab bar on the School settings page.
Pick the school in the switcher first. School settings can't be edited in MAT overview.

Open the Sync tab

In the sidebar, open School settings → Sync (or open School settings and choose the Sync tab in the tab bar along the top: Details, Profile, QR login, Teaching staff, Launchpad, Sync services, Sync, Password). The MIS & provisioning card is first. The chips at the top of the tab jump to the other cards further down.

Tick or untick the options, then select Save sync. Everything in this card is saved together.

When changes take effect

Fetch groups from MIS and Add all mentor roles as cohort members apply at the next MIS sync. The MIS sync runs on weekdays. To see exactly when, open Sync status and look at the schedule — see The sync schedule.
MIS profile pictures are copied each weekday evening.
Purge retention is checked each weekday evening.
Import parents shows the Classroom parents page straight away. Nothing is imported or sent until someone uses that page.

While your school's sync is frozen for the summer, MIS changes are held until it resumes — see The provisioning window and the freeze.

MIS & provisioning options

Fetch groups from MIS

Classes, year groups and registration groups always come in from your MIS, and so do pupils' houses. This option adds the other groups your MIS keeps — the groups your school sets up itself, such as KS3, intervention or club lists. For staff, it also brings in their MIS house groups (named like house-Oak).

On: at the next MIS sync, each of those groups becomes a Realsmart group with the MIS members in it. If your school syncs groups to Google or Entra, they go there too.
Off: at the next MIS sync, people are taken out of those groups. Anyone you added to a group by hand stays in it. A group left with no members is suspended.

Before you turn it on, check with your data team. Some schools keep confidential lists in the MIS as groups. Every one of them would become a Realsmart group, and could become a Google or Microsoft group too.

Add all mentor roles as cohort members

This decides which staff go into a class's group when it comes in from the MIS.

Off: only the class's main teacher in the MIS is added.
On: the main teacher, plus any other teacher the MIS lists on the class (for example a co-teacher on a shared class), plus staff attached to the class with one of these roles: Head of Department, Head of Faculty, Second in Department, Curricular Manager, Course Co-ordinator, Supervisor, or Support (teaching assistants and support staff). Staff attached with any other role are not added.

If your MIS doesn't record a role for a class at all, everyone attached to it is added, whether this is on or off.

Why it matters for Google Classroom: the staff in a class's group become the teachers in its Google Classroom. So with this off, a co-teacher, head of department or TA won't get the class in Google Classroom unless you add them by hand.

If you turn it off, the next MIS sync takes those extra staff out of the class groups. Anyone you added by hand stays. Taking someone out of a group doesn't always take them off the Google Classroom — see Add a teacher to a Google Classroom.

For anyone the MIS doesn't attach to the class — cover, or a teacher who needs access to a class they don't teach — add them to the group by hand. See Add a teacher to a Google Classroom.

Import parents

Turns on Classroom parents (sidebar → Engagement → Classroom parents), where you invite parents and carers to Google Classroom as guardians.

Ticking it doesn't import or send anything. On the Classroom parents page, someone has to import the guardians from the MIS, approve them, and send the invitations. Google Classroom must also be on for your school. See Classroom parents.

This isn't the Smart Parents app — see Smart Parents settings.

Sync MIS profile picture (learners) / Sync MIS profile picture (mentors)

Copies pupils' and/or staff photos from your MIS onto their Realsmart profile picture and their Google account photo, each weekday evening.

It only runs while Google Workspace sync is on and Live. It also needs your MIS to share photos with Realsmart through Wonde. If either is missing, no photos are copied, not even into Realsmart. See Get pupil and staff photos from the MIS.

Purge retention (days)

How long Realsmart keeps a suspended account before it's purged. If you leave it blank, it's 90 days.

The days are counted from the person's last sign-in, not from the day they were suspended. Each weekday evening:

A suspended user whose last sign-in was longer ago than this is scheduled to be purged at the next evening run. If they sign in before then, the purge is cancelled.
A user you deleted is purged at the next run, whatever this number is.
A suspended or deleted group that hasn't changed for this many days is deleted.

Purging is permanent:

The account is removed from Realsmart.
If your school syncs to Google, the person's Google account is not deleted. Realsmart renames it to username_purged_by_realsmart@yourdomain, removes its aliases and leaves it suspended. Any Google Classrooms they own are moved to another owner first.
While Google sync is off, in preview or frozen, the account is still removed from Realsmart, but its Google account is left as it is.

For the whole journey from leaving the MIS to being purged, see What happens to a leaver's account?

First provision date and Final provision date

These are the two dates of your provisioning window: the days your sync opens and freezes each year. They're the same dates the End of year page shows. Outside the window, MIS changes are held.

You can edit both dates here and Save sync keeps them, but a wrong date freezes or un-freezes your sync straight away. Manage the window from the End of year page instead, which shows what each change will do before you make it. See The provisioning window and the freeze.

The other cards on the Sync tab

Below MIS & provisioning, each card has its own guide and its own save:

Pre-admission — import accepted pupils before they start. See Import pre-admission students.
Pending mentors — give staff accounts before their start date. See Import pending mentors.
Teachers of groups — one group per pupil holding everyone who teaches them. See Teachers of groups.
Subject groups — groups for your MIS subjects. Turn on and Turn off apply straight away, after you confirm. See Provision subjects as groups.

Looking for a setting that used to be here?

The note at the bottom of the card says where things went:

Google sync (on or off) and the MIS sync master switch are on the Sync services tab of School settings — see Enable or disable sync services.
Organisation units, Classroom, the default mentor Google membership and Sync organisation profile are under Google Workspace in the sidebar — see Google Workspace settings, Google OU settings, Google Classroom settings and Google group settings.
Teacher and learner timetables and room booking are under Google Workspace → Calendar sync — see Google Calendar timetable sync.
Which job titles count as teaching staff is on the Teaching staff tab — see Choose who counts as teaching staff.

Was this guide helpful?

We read every response — it decides what we rewrite next.