Groups and classes

Organise students into groups, schedule the sessions each group attends, and understand exactly how class changes reach students.

A delivery says a subject runs at a campus between two dates. It does not yet say who comes when. That is what groups and classes are for.

A group is a batch or stream of students who study together, such as "Carpentry – Monday" or "Carpentry – Evening".
A class is one session: a date, a time, a room, a type, and usually a trainer. Each class is linked to the groups that attend it.

A student's group decides which of a delivery's classes are theirs. Two students in the same delivery can have completely different weekly timetables because they are in different groups.

Every group belongs to one program and one campus, and has a capacity: the number of seats it has. Students join a group at orientation, and from then on they receive that group's classes.

Groups are usually organised around when students attend: weekday groups, evening groups, weekend groups. A group follows its program's subjects around the whole loop, so "Carpentry – Monday" means Monday classes in every subject, not just one.

Create a group

Open RTO → Groups.
Add a group and choose its Program and Location.
Give it a clear Name. A name that says the program and pattern, such as "Carpentry – Monday", saves confusion later.
Set its Capacity. It must be at least 1, and it cannot be larger than your biggest classroom.

How seats are counted

At orientation, XPortal counts the students already in the group whose program is Pending, Active or Inactive. If that number has reached the capacity, the group shows as Full (0 seats left) and cannot be chosen. Students who have withdrawn or completed no longer take a seat.

Classes

Add a class

Open the subject's Academic Planning page, expand the delivery, and select Add Class. Fill in:

Field	Notes
Date	Must fall within the delivery's start and end dates.
Start Time and End Time	The end time must be after the start time.
Trainer	Optional. Leave it Unassigned if you don't know yet.
Classroom	A classroom at the delivery's campus.
Class Type	Theory, Workshop, Lab, Online, Hybrid or Assessment.
Notes	Optional. Students' copies of the class carry these notes too.
Groups	Tick every group that attends this session.

Select Save Class.

Which groups you can tick

The Groups list only offers groups that make sense for this delivery:

The group is at the same campus as the delivery.
The group's program includes this subject in its academic rules.
If the delivery is kept for chosen programs, the group's program is one of them.

If the list says No group at this location is in a program this delivery serves, create a group for the right program at this campus, or check the delivery's Programs ticks.

One class, several groups

A single class can be linked to several groups, including groups from different programs. If Carpentry and Plumbing students sit the same WHS session together, create one class and tick both groups. Both sets of students receive it, and there is only one session to manage.

XPortal will not let you create two identical sessions in the same delivery (same date, times, trainer, classroom and type). If you try, it asks you to edit the existing class and tick the extra group instead.

Add recurring classes

For a run that repeats, select Add Recurring on the delivery. It creates sessions inside the delivery's dates in one go. Choose how they repeat:

Every N Days, for example every 7 days.
Weekdays: pick the days of the week, such as Monday and Wednesday.
Day of Month, for example the 15th.
Custom Dates: pick each date yourself.

Then set the date range, times, trainer, classroom, class type and groups, just as for a single class.

XPortal tells you how many classes it created and how many it skipped. Dates outside the delivery's range, and sessions that already exist, are skipped. Existing sessions still gain any newly ticked groups.

Public holidays are not skipped for you

Recurring classes are created on every matching date. After creating them, delete any that fall on public holidays or campus closures.

How class changes reach students

This is where rolling intakes feel different. Once a student has been oriented into a group, their timetable is live. You manage classes in one place, the delivery, and XPortal keeps every student's copy in step.

You…	What happens to students in the group
Add a class and tick a group	Every oriented student in that group gets the class, if its date falls within their dates for that subject.
Tick an extra group on an existing class	Students in the newly ticked group get it, on the same date rule.
Untick a group from a class	Students in that group lose the class, unless it is in the past or they have attended it.
Delete a class	Every student loses the class, unless it is in the past or they have attended it. An attended copy stays in their record with its attendance.
Change the time, trainer, classroom, type or notes	Students' upcoming copies update to match. Past and attended copies keep what actually happened.
Move the class to another date	Upcoming copies move too. A student whose subject dates no longer cover the new date loses it. A group student whose dates now cover it gains it.
Open a class and save without changing anything	Nothing happens to students.

What never changes

Two rules protect students' history, and XPortal never breaks them:

A class a student attended is never removed or rewritten. Their attendance, and the session as it actually ran, stay exactly as recorded.
A class in the past is never removed or rewritten. Editing last week's class in the delivery does not change what students' records say happened.

Who does not receive new classes

A class only reaches students who are actually studying in the group right now:

Students not yet oriented. They receive everything relevant at orientation instead.
Students whose program is Withdrawn, Completed or Inactive.
Students who have a Credit Transfer or recognition of prior learning for that subject. They don't attend it.
Students whose own subject dates don't include the class date. For example, someone who joined a run on Wednesday doesn't get that run's Monday class.

Trainers and groups

Trainers are assigned to groups, not to individual classes or subjects:

Open People → Trainers.
On the trainer's row, select the Edit assignments button.
Tick the groups they teach, organised by program and campus.

A trainer then sees the students, attendance and assessments of their groups, and can work with the subjects in those groups' programs. The Trainer field on each class is separate. It records who runs that particular session and appears on students' timetables.