---
title: "What are groups?"
slug: "what-are-groups"
tags: ["Totara Learn", "Content Creator", "Explainer", "Reference"]
updated: 2026-08-13T16:01:25Z
published: 2026-08-13T16:01:25Z
canonical: "totara.help/what-are-groups"
---

> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://totara.help/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# What are groups?

Groups are a way to collect a number of users together into a single group within a course. You can use groups at either the course or activity level.

For example, you might want to split your cohort of learners into smaller groups for a forum activity instead of having all learners share a single forum.

When you have courses with really large numbers of learners, you may even want to [create groupings](/totara-20/docs/create-groupings) of groups.

## Groups page

To access the groups interface you need to access the course or activity for which you want to set up groups, then in the **Administration** block navigate to *Course administration > Users > Groups*.

The table may be filtered to display particular groupings or groups.

## Group modes

You can use **Group modes** to determine whether users are split into groups, and whether members of different groups and see and interact with other groups.

You can set the **Group mode** option at the course level by going to the course, then *Administration > Course administration > Edit settings*. Alternatively you can configure this setting for an individual activity or resource by clicking **Edit settings** on the activity (with **Turn editing on** selected), then using the **Group mode** setting in the [**Common module settings**](/totara-20/docs/common-module-settings) section.

| **Option** | **Description** | **Notes** |
| --- | --- | --- |
| **No groups** | Groups are not used. All users will complete the course as a single community. | Groupings will not be available if you select this setting. |
| **Separate groups** | If the group mode is set to **Separate groups**, students will only see the activities they have been assigned to. Group members can only see and interact with their own group's content, for example Learners in group A would not see a forum activity assigned to group B. | Trainers will see the name of the grouping in brackets after the activity name on the course page. A count of activities assigned to each grouping is kept on the groupings page. |
| **Visible groups** | Group members can see content from other groups but can only interact with their own group's content. For example, learners in group A would be able to view a forum activity assigned to group B, but would not be able to post or comment in the forum. | - |

If you set up the group mode at the course level then this will be applied as default to all activities, but can be changed within an activity (unless **Force group mode** is set to **Yes**). If you enable groups only on individual activities then they will only affect those activities.

Join the [Totara Community](https://totara.community/) for more resources to help you get the most out of Totara.

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