Sync Groups

What is the Group Syncs page?

The Group Syncs page lets you review and fix group membership and settings across your entire site at once. It's in Administration → Groups and has five tools:

1. Resync all groups — fixes parent-child group membership mismatches
2. Action status — turns group availability in tasks on or off site-wide
3. Content status — turns group availability for content on or off site-wide
4. Hibernation date — pauses all groups (or reactivates them)
5. Expiry date — expires all groups (or reactivates them)

Because these changes affect every group on your site at once, double-check before you apply and warn other admins. There's no single-click undo — you must run the reverse action or restore from an export.

Before you start

• Update System information role permission
• Access to the Administration area

Resync all groups

What it does: Checks whether every member of a sub-group is also in the parent group above it. If not, it shows you who to add or remove.

Common use case: After moving sub-groups around, or when members are added to a child group but don't appear in the parent.

How to resync

1. Open Administration → Group syncs
2. In the Resync all groups section, click Review changes
   
3. The page lists each group with additions and removals that would happen:
   • If in sync: "Your groups are in sync"
   • If issues exist: lists members to add to parents and members to remove
4. (Optional) Click Export to save the review (Excel or CSV) — keep this in case you need to manually re-add members
5. Tick Process additions to add members to parent groups where they're missing
6. Tick Process deletions to remove members from parent groups where they're orphaned
7. Choose how deletions should be handled (explained next to each option)
8. Click Update
9. Each membership change is logged in that person's audit trail

Audit trail: Yes — each membership change is logged per person

Undo: No direct undo. Re-running Resync will not restore deleted members. Use your export to manually re-add if needed.

Action status (turn task availability on/off)

What it does: Sets whether groups appear when someone chooses who's responsible for a task.

Effect on members: None — members stay in the group.

How to change Action status

1. Open Administration → Group syncs
2. Scroll to Groups have 2 settings for determining when they can be used
   
3. In the Action dropdown, choose your option
4. Click Apply
5. The change applies to every group, including admin-only groups and groups you don't have access to

Audit trail: ✗ No — keep your own record before running

Undo: Run the opposite action (e.g., after "Stop all groups...", run "Make all groups...")

Content status (turn content visibility on/off)

What it does: Sets whether groups can be picked to see notes, documents, and other content.

Effect on members: None — members stay in the group.

How to change Content status

1. Open Administration → Group syncs
2. Scroll to Groups have 2 settings for determining when they can be used
   
3. In the Content dropdown, choose your option
4. Click Apply
5. The change applies to every group, including admin-only groups and groups you don't have access to

Audit trail: No — keep your own record before running

Undo: Run the opposite action (e.g., after "Stop all groups...", run "Make all groups...")

Hibernation date (pause all groups)

What it does: Sets whether all groups are hibernated (paused) or active.

Effect on members: Members stay attached. While hibernated, no new members can be added. The group still appears in reports.

How to hibernate or reactivate

1. Open Administration → Group syncs
2. Scroll to Groups have 2 dates to help reduce the list of groups to just those that are active groups
   
3. In the Hibernation dropdown, choose your option
4. Click Apply
5. Confirm in the prompt that appears
6. The confirmation tells you how many groups were changed

Audit trail: ✗ No — keep your own record before running

Undo: Choose the opposite option and click Apply again

Expiry date (expire or reactivate all groups)

What it does: Sets whether all groups are expired or active.

Effect on members: Members stay attached. While expired, the group drops out of reports and contact lists.

How to expire or reactivate

1. Open Administration → Group syncs
2. Scroll to Groups have 2 dates to help reduce the list of groups to just those that are active groups
   
3. In the Expiry dropdown, choose your option
4. Click Apply
5. Confirm in the prompt that appears
6. The confirmation tells you how many groups were changed

Audit trail: ✗ No — keep your own record before running

Undo: Choose the opposite option and click Apply again

Before you run any sync or bulk action

1. Pick a time when other admins aren't doing group work
2. Export first — for Resync, export the review. For the other actions, take a Groups report export or group settings export from Reports
3. Test on one group first (using the individual group edit page) if you're unsure of the effect
4. Tell your team — a heads-up prevents confused messages later