Groups are exactly as the name suggests - collections of students who may have similar needs. Students in the same group can have their college application settings, tasks, learning content, and communications all standardized and set up in just a few clicks. 

Counselors can assign multiple groups to a single student -- so for instance Johnny could receive content that relates to him as a Student Athlete, Scholarship Seeker, and someone interested in European colleges.

There are a number of reasons groups are useful inside Cialfo. The top reason is bulk messaging / broadcast

Groups can also be used to filter students for communication purposes, so you're not having to constantly rebuild email lists from scratch.

If you like to know how to use the broadcast function, click here!

When creating a group, Click the chevron on the top right corner and click Groups. Next click on Create Group.

On the create group's screen the only required field is Group Name, but several other fields are recommended and configurable too. You can decide whether all students in your group will automatically start out with similar settings for:

Select a Degree type to make our database of schools visible to your students. You can now choose from a range of degree types:

Select one or more Application Regions if you know your students are interested in particular countries.

Note: School Research is dependent on your selections; no schools appear in the research section until at least one application region has been selected.

Indicate a number of included Schools if you would like to place a hard limit on the number of applications your students can create / submit. While this is not relevant to all contexts, some schools do enforce a limit.

Once you are happy with the group details, scroll down to click on Create Group that is at the bottom right corner of the page.

You, as an admin, can view a group that has already been created by clicking on the Groups button in the left main menu. 

Once you have selected a group to view you will see the Group Details page and you can edit details and deactivate a group. 

When you edit a group (e.g. by changing application regions, degree types, or more) Cialfo saves these changes under a new revision. 

Note: Updating students to the latest revision of a group can cause data loss (this will happen in those circumstances where you remove a degree type in the new revision), so your students will keep their existing revision until you update them. Inactive students cannot be updated to the latest revision. 

Click on Save details after necessary changes are made 

A counselor can bulk assign students to a group from the Students page. 

To select the students you want to add to a group, check mark all the students or apply filters such as current grade, application region, applying school, etc. 

Click on Bulk Actions followed by Assign Group and a new right hand menu will appear.

On this right hand menu, select one or more groups you would like to assign to the selected students and click on Assign Selected.

Select Students from the main menu on the left and click on a student's name whose group you would like to update/edit/change.

Under Profiles, select Application details from the top blue navigation bar.

To remove a group assigned to your student, click on the trash icon. Your group will still apply to other students who are assigned to it. However, the student whose profile you are on will no longer be assigned to the group.

To add a new group or edit a current group, click on the blue 'Add & Edit' icon.

Scroll down to Save changes before exiting.