By: Elaine Jones, Product Manager
Introduction
Managing group members can be time-consuming, especially in courses with many groups. The new Manage Members page is designed to make that work easier, with simpler workflows for viewing, updating, and balancing group membership. It will be available to users who opt into the new Manage Groups experience.
The first improvements to the Manage Groups experience will be available in the July 2026 release. These updates were previously introduced in our High Impact Changes timeline Groups Management – A refresh of the manage groups page and increased numbers of groups per category - Brightspace
We are excited to announce that the Manage Members page will be available in the November (20.26.11) release. Please note that this release is subject to change, and any changes to timelines will be communicated via this blog post.
What Changes To Expect
The new Manage Members page replaces the current check box-grid workflow, which can be difficult to navigate, especially when a category contains many groups. This page may require extensive scrolling, making it hard to find the right learners and groups. It can be especially frustrating when there are multiple pages to navigate, and changes are not saved when moving between pages.
Figure: The current Enroll Users page.
After extensive research sessions with Brightspace users who manage groups, the new Manage Members page is designed with two different needs in mind – a learner-first focus, and a group-first focus.
For example:
- Learner-first focus – ensuring that all learners are members of a group, or adding or removing members from groups
- Group-first focus – ensuring that all groups have an equal number of members, or reassigning learners between groups
On the new Manage Members page, you will see two tabs, Groups and Learners, allowing you to more easily manage your groups, depending on the type of action you need to take. Additional bulk action options help you manage many members efficiently.
Managing By Group
On the Groups tab, you see a list of all groups in the category. For each group, the page shows the current member count and the maximum number of members allowed based on the group configuration. You can view the members currently assigned to each group. To remove a member, select the X beside their name.
Alternatively, if you want to add a learner to a specific group, select + to see a list of learners to add. With this view, you can easily complete actions with a group-first focus. For example, you can balance membership across groups or move members between groups more easily.
The page also shows whether each group is below or above the limit defined for the group category. This provides an at-a-glance indicator when members may be unbalanced across groups.
Figure: The new Groups tab on the Manage Members page.
Managing By Learner
On the Learners tab, you see a list of learners in your course who can be added to a group. This list includes each learner’s username and OrgDefinedId. You can also view the groups each learner is a member of. From this view, you can easily add a learner to groups or remove them from groups.
This view supports learner-first tasks, such as ensuring every learner is a member of at least one group or adding or removing a learner from groups.
Figure: The new Learners tab on the Manage Members page.
The Learners and Groups tabs also support bulk actions. You can add or remove multiple members from one or more groups. You can also update group memberships for multiple learners at once.
Figure: Bulk managing groups for multiple members.
Figure: Bulk managing group members.
What Comes Next?
We invite you to try the new Manage Members page as part of our broader improvements to the Groups tool. This page is available to users who opt into the new Manage Groups experience. This new experience is available to all users as part of the July 2026 release.
The new Manage Groups experience is off by default. Administrators can manage it using the configuration variable d2l.Tools.Groups.ManageGroupsOptIn. If the value is set ON (Opt-in), users accessing the Groups tool will be prompted to turn on the new experience. Users can also opt out later by using the toggle on the Manage Groups category page to turn the experience OFF. If the variable is set to ON, the new experience is enabled for all users and no opt-out option is available.