Create and manage Groups in D2L Brightspace

Try the new Manage Groups experience

Starting with the July 2026 release, instructors can try out the new Manage Groups experience in their courses. 

From the Groups tool, expand the fly-down menu and select ‘Turn it on’ to try out the new Manage Groups experience. Opt in or opt out at any time within your course.

Note: To leave on the legacy experience, select 'Leave it off'. To turn off the new experience and return to the legacy experience, select 'Turn it off'. 

When using the new experience, one change is a new ‘Group Category’ page that displays all group categories on a single page. This page helps an instructor review a category's enrollment type, number of groups, and associated group discussions and group assignments.

Create a new set of groups (by creating a category)

For your course groups, you might have a different category for Assignments, Seminars, and Projects. With each category, there may be a set of groups or even a number of students per group. To create a new set of groups, create the category.

1. From the Other Tools menu in the course navigation bar, select Groups.
2. Select New Category or Create Category (when using the new Manage Groups experience). 
3. Enter a Category Name.
4. Select an Enrollment Type for the groups.
   • Select # of Groups - No Auto Enrollments to specify the number of groups and manually enroll students in each group. 
   • Select Groups of # to automatically place students in groups of a specified maximum size. More groups are automatically created when they are needed to accommodate additional student enrollments in your course classlist. 
   • Select # of Groups to specify the number of groups.
   • Select Groups of # - Self Enrollment to allow students to choose their own groups when you know how many students (maximum) you want in each group.
   • Select # of Groups - Self Enrollment to allow students to choose their own groups when you know how many groups (maximum) you want to make available to students.
   • Select # of Groups, Capacity of # - Self Enrollment to allow students to choose their own groups when you know how many students (maximum) you want in each group and how many groups (maximum) you want to make available to students.
   • Select Single user, member-specific groups to automatically create groups where a student is enrolled in their own group where the first name and last name of the student is the name of the group.
5. Depending on the Enrollment Type, choose from these optional settings: 
   • Select Auto-Enroll New Users to automatically enroll students to groups. Otherwise, manually enroll students into the groups.
   • Select Randomize users in groups to randomly place students in groups. Otherwise, students are placed alphabetically in groups based on the course classlist.
6. To set up discussion areas and assignments for the group:
   • Select the Set up discussion areas check box and select a forum and topic to create group discussions for students to share ideas and materials in their group. Learn more in articles about Creating group discussions.
   • Select the Set up assignments check box and select an assignment type to create group assignments for students to complete, where other members can review the same submissions. Learn more in the article Creating group assignments.
7. Select Save to return to the Manage Groups page.

Add a group to an existing category

To create a new group to an existing set of groups, you create the group within the category. For example, you may have a category for Group Discussions and you'd like to add another group to help .

1. From the Other Tools menu in the course navigation bar, select Groups.
2. Optional step: If using the legacy Manage Groups experience, select the category from the View Categories menu.
3. Select Add Group from the menu of the category's name.
4. Enter or change the group name in the Name field.
5. Enter or change the group code in the Code field. 
6. Select Save to return to the Manage Groups page.

Review a category's group details

How can I review and manage the groups in a specific category?

You can access a detailed page with all the groups in a category. The detailed page provides actions to review, edit, and add groups. There are also links to access each group's assignments and discussions. 

To access the detailed page about all the groups in the category, it depends on whether you are currently using the legacy or new Manage Groups experience in the Groups tool.

• When using the legacy Manage Groups experience, select the category from the View Categories menu. The page displays the details about all groups in the selected category. 
  
• When using the new Manage Groups experience, select the name of the group category under the Category Name column. The page displays the details about all groups in the selected category.
  
  Note: There is currently a blank column for group Lockers. We do not use the Lockers tool in D2L Brightspace, so you can ignore this Lockers column.
  

What happens if I move a student's enrollment to a different group

Even though the student is removed from the original group, they can still access the original group’s restricted course materials.  The student was a member of a group that was permitted to access to group-restricted course materials, such as a discussion topic.

• Discussion posts remain in the old group and do not count towards a student’s grade if the topic is associated with a grade item. The student must satisfy the discussion post requirements in the new group.
• Assignment submissions submitted for the old group remain with the old group. The student receives the grade achieved by the new group on any group assignments.
• Group restricted course materials remain accessible for the student.
• Conditional release based on a group are affected. Release Condition must be deleted and re-created in order for it be reset as a restriction on the item. If a student is added to the group, they get access without re-creating the condition, but they don’t automatically lose access to the original group restriction.

What happens if I delete a group or an entire category of groups

After deleting a group

• If you have selected Auto-Enroll New Users, students are automatically distributed in the remaining groups.
• If groups are set up for manual enrollment, you must add students to the remaining groups using the Enroll Users or Manage Members page.
• Group discussions remain available for reference. You can delete them from the Discussions tool.
• Group assignment folders and the files they contain are deleted.

After deleting an entire group category

• Students are no longer enrolled in groups, because they do not exist.
• Group discussions remain available for reference. You can delete them from the Discussions tool.
• Group assignment submission folders and the files they contain are deleted.

Self Enrollment groups

Self enrollment allows students to enroll in groups on their own. Use this option when you want students to have the freedom to choose their own group members, or to be a part of a group on a topic that interests them. Students sign up until the individual groups are full. Once a group is full, you can manually enroll students to a group that is capped to override it.

Students can self-enroll in groups by selecting the Join Group link beside the category name. If a group is full, the Members column displays the total number of group members with “(Full)” text beside it. Students cannot self-enroll in more than one group in a category, but as an instructor you can manually enroll the student in a full group

Learn more about how a student self-enrolls in a group in the student article, Access your class Groups in my D2L Brightspace.