# Groups

> Organise members into squads, teams and committees, then use those groups to target emails, grant permissions, share files, and control who can book or buy.

Canonical: https://www.clubpal.app/docs/membership/member-groups
Section: Membership

Groups let you organise members into squads, teams, committees or any other cohort your club needs, and then use those groups to do real work: target an email, grant a set of permissions, share a folder of files, or restrict who can book a session or buy a product.

A group is a record in its own right, managed at **Admin > Membership > Groups**. It has a name, an optional description, the permissions it grants, and a list of members.

> **Note**
>
> Groups used to be free text typed onto a member's profile, which meant renaming one quietly detached it from everything that referenced it. That is no longer the case. Renaming a group is now safe, and everything that uses it keeps working.

## What you can use groups for

| Use | Where |
|---|---|
| Target an email at a whole cohort | Groups appear in the **To** field on [Compose](https://www.clubpal.app/docs/emails/composing) and Quick Compose |
| Filter and export the member list | **Group** filter at **Admin > Membership > Members** |
| Grant admin permissions to a set of people | The **Granted Permissions** section on the group itself |
| Share files and folders | **Group** recipient type in [File sharing](https://www.clubpal.app/docs/file-manager/sharing) |
| Restrict who can book or buy | **Required groups** in [Eligibility rules](https://www.clubpal.app/docs/general/eligibility-rules#required-groups-sessions-products-and-events) on sessions, products and events |
| Assign membership automatically | The **Groups** setting on a [membership package](https://www.clubpal.app/docs/membership/membership-packages) |
| Decide who is in a chat channel | The **Sources** section of a [chat channel](https://www.clubpal.app/docs/chat/channels) |

## The Groups page

Go to **Admin > Membership > Groups** to see every group in your club.

![The Groups page listing each group with its description, member count and granted permissions](https://www.clubpal.app/img/docs/groups-list.png)

*Admin > Membership > Groups, showing member counts and the permissions each group grants.*

The list shows:

- **Name** and **Description**.
- **Members**: how many members are currently in the group. This count refreshes every few minutes, so open a group if you need its exact membership right now.
- **Grants**: how many permissions the group hands to its members. Hover the badge to see which ones.

Archived groups are hidden by default. Use **Show archived** to include them.

You need the **Manage Membership** permission to reach this page.

## Create a group

1. Go to **Admin > Membership > Groups**.
2. Click **New Group**.
3. Enter a **Name**, for example `Committee` or `Junior Squad`.
4. Optionally add a **Description** to explain what the group is for. It is only shown to administrators.
5. Click **Save**.

Group names must be unique within your club, ignoring case. Trying to create `Coaches` when `coaches` already exists is rejected with an error rather than creating a near-duplicate.

You can also create a group without visiting this page: type a new name into the group field on a member's profile and it is created and assigned in one step.

## Add and remove members

Open a group and use the **Members** section.

![The Members section of a group, with the search box for adding members and the current roster listed below](https://www.clubpal.app/img/docs/group-members.png)

*Add several members at once from the search box, or remove one from the roster below.*

**To add members:** search for them in the box, select as many as you want, then click **Add**. Adding someone who is already in the group changes nothing, so you do not need to check first.

**To remove a member:** click **Remove** on their row and confirm. This only takes them out of this group; nothing else on their profile changes.

Both actions apply immediately without reloading the page, so you can make a run of changes in one sitting, which is what swapping over a committee after an AGM usually involves.

### From a member's profile

You can also manage a single member's groups from their profile. Go to their **Edit Profile** page and use the groups field, which lists your existing groups and lets you type a new one.

![Edit groups](https://www.clubpal.app/img/docs/add-groups.gif)

The groups a member belongs to are shown at the top of their member page in the admin area.

![A member profile header showing the member's groups listed under their details](https://www.clubpal.app/img/docs/member-groups-header.png)

*A member's groups appear in their profile header.*

You can also work the other way around and list everyone in a group. On **Admin > Membership > Members**, open **Filter** and choose a **Group**. From there you can export the filtered list or email it.

![The members list filtered down to the three members of the Junior Squad group](https://www.clubpal.app/img/docs/members-filtered-by-group.png)

*The member list filtered to one group, ready to export or email.*

## Grant permissions through a group

A group can carry permissions. Every member of the group is granted them for as long as they remain in it, on top of any permissions granted to them individually. Take someone out of the group and the access goes with them.

![The Granted Permissions section of a group with several permissions ticked](https://www.clubpal.app/img/docs/group-permissions.png)

*Permissions ticked here are granted to every member of the group.*

1. Open the group.
2. In **Granted Permissions**, tick the permissions the group should confer.
3. Click **Save**.

This is usually a better fit than granting permissions one member at a time. A `Committee` group that grants **Manage Emails** and **View Members** keeps the club's access correct as people join and leave the committee, without anyone having to remember which individual permissions to revoke.

Two rules apply, and both are enforced when you save rather than only hidden in the interface:

- **System Administrator can never be granted by a group.** It is not offered in the list, and a group carrying it is refused.
- **You can only grant permissions you hold yourself.** The list only offers permissions on your own account, so you cannot use a group to hand out access you do not have.

See [Permissions](https://www.clubpal.app/docs/general/permissions) for what each permission allows.

## Rename a group

Open the group, change the **Name**, and click **Save**.

Renaming is safe. Members, membership packages, eligibility rules, file shares and [chat channels](https://www.clubpal.app/docs/chat/channels) all keep pointing at the same group, and they immediately start showing the new name. There is nothing to re-save afterwards.

## Archive or delete a group

Both options are on the group's own page. They behave very differently.

### Archive

Turn on the **Archived** switch and save.

An archived group keeps its members and continues to grant whatever it grants. What changes is that it stops appearing in the pickers used to assign new membership, so nobody adds to it by accident. It is the right choice for a squad that has finished its season, or a committee you may want back next year.

Archived groups are hidden from the Groups list until you click **Show archived**.

### Delete

Use **Delete group**, in the **Delete this group** section at the bottom of the page. You are asked to confirm, and the confirmation names the group along with how many members and permissions it will affect.

![The delete confirmation dialog listing the members, permissions, packages, rules and file shares that deleting will affect](https://www.clubpal.app/img/docs/group-delete-confirm.png)

*The confirmation spells out everything the delete will touch.*

Deleting removes the group everywhere it is used, in one go:

- Every member in the group has it removed from their profile.
- It is removed from any membership package that assigns it, and from memberships already issued by that package.
- Any file or folder share addressed to the group is removed.
- It is removed from every **Required groups** eligibility rule that names it, on a session, a membership package, a store product, an event, a pass or a facility.

> **Warning**
>
> Deleting cannot be undone, and taking a group out of an eligibility rule means whatever that rule guarded is no longer restricted by it. If a session was open only to `Coaches` and you delete that group, the session becomes open to everyone. The same goes for a product, an event, a pass or a facility. Archive instead if you only want the group out of the way.

#### Groups a chat channel depends on

A [chat channel](https://www.clubpal.app/docs/chat/channels) draws its members from the groups it is sourced from, and deleting a group does not take it out of those channels. Rather than let that happen quietly, ClubPal stops and tells you.

If any channel is sourced from the group, the delete section is replaced by a warning naming those channels, with two choices:

- **Archive instead**, which is what the warning recommends. An archived group keeps its members, so channels sourced from it carry on working.
- **Delete anyway**, if you are sure. The channel keeps running but loses everyone who was in it only through that group, and the Channels page flags it with a **Source group deleted** badge.

## Assign groups from a membership package

A membership package can put members into groups automatically. Open the package at **Admin > Membership > Packages** and use the **Groups** setting.

- Groups listed here are added to a member's profile when they purchase or renew the package. Existing groups are never removed at that point.
- **Apply Groups to Members** on the package page adds the package's groups to everyone who already holds an active membership on it, so you do not have to wait for renewals to catch up. It only adds, so running it twice is harmless.
- **Remove groups on expiry** controls what happens at the other end. With it on, the groups the package assigned are taken off the member when the membership expires. With it off, they keep them.

Archived groups are not offered when setting this up, so a retired group cannot be attached to a live package by mistake.

See [Editing a membership](https://www.clubpal.app/docs/membership/editing-a-membership) for how groups move when a member is switched between packages.

## Restrict access with groups

Groups are one of the rule types available in [Eligibility rules](https://www.clubpal.app/docs/general/eligibility-rules). Add a **Required groups** rule to a session, store product or event, select one or more groups, and only members in at least one of them can book or buy.

Typical uses:

- A coaches-only training session.
- A squad kit item in the store that only that squad should see.
- A committee dinner ticket on the events calendar.

## Tips

- Name groups after what they are, not what they are for. `Junior Squad` survives a change of policy; `Can Book Tuesdays` does not.
- Prefer archiving to deleting. Archiving is reversible and keeps your history intact.
- Use a package's **Groups** setting for anything that follows membership, and manage the group by hand only for cohorts that do not map to a package.
- If you need a group to grant admin access, grant it on the group rather than on each member. It is one place to audit and one place to revoke.

## See also

- [Eligibility rules](https://www.clubpal.app/docs/general/eligibility-rules): restrict bookings and purchases by group, age, gender, profile field, membership or qualification
- [Permissions](https://www.clubpal.app/docs/general/permissions): what each permission allows
- [File sharing](https://www.clubpal.app/docs/file-manager/sharing): share files and folders with a group
- [Chat channels](https://www.clubpal.app/docs/chat/channels): give a group a chat room of its own
- [Composing emails](https://www.clubpal.app/docs/emails/composing): target a group from the **To** field
- [Membership packages](https://www.clubpal.app/docs/membership/membership-packages): assign groups automatically with membership
- [Member qualifications](https://www.clubpal.app/docs/membership/member-qualifications): record certifications and coaching badges for members