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Importing and Exporting Groups

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It is possible to export groups from Blackboard Learning Ultra and original, it is also possible to import groups to Blackboard Ultra from other Ultra courses or original courses. Please read this guidance as there may be some caveats.

Please note: All Groups are in Group Sets in Ultra. A Group Set can contain one or many groups.

Export Groups

Exporting a group allows you to save a copy of the group set (names, descriptions and number of groups) and the membership of those groups. You can export groups to other Blackboard courses and use them as a fresh set to enrol students to, or you can export both groups and group members, however there would need to be the same student enrolments on the course you are importing to in order to retain membership.

  1. Locate existing group and use the dot menu to select Export
screenshot of three dots menu on a Group set in the Groups page
  1. Choose which fields you want to export, group sets, members (or both)
  2. Click Export file
screenshot of Export Groups panel
  1. A success banner will appear explaining that you will receive an email when export is complete
  2. On receipt of the email, follow the link back to groups page
screenshot of export group email
  1. On the groups page use the dot menu to select Export again, once in the export from groups panel open the Export tab, the groups will be listed there.
screenshot of Export tab
  1. Download the file for the group to your local device (it will be a .zip file)
  2. Unzip the file which contains .csv spreadsheets, with one being the groups and the other being members (if doing both)
  3. Next steps will be going to a Blackboard course and importing.

Import a Group Set and Membership

The import Group function can be use to import groups that have been exported from another course. It is also possible to download template csv files for group sets and group memberships, populate these with your group set information in excel and then import into Blackboard.

There are two main steps to Importing a group set into a Blackboard:

  • Import the Group Set
  • Import the Group Members

Import the Group Set

  1. Click import group set
screenshot of Groups page with Import Group set link
  1. The Import Group Sets panel will open.
    • If you have the Group Set csv file ready (i.e. exported it form another course) select upload file (a) and choose a groups.csv file from your local device.
    • If you do not have a csv file ready, download the Group Sets template (b) add the group sets information in accordance to the template formatting, then save the file as a csv and upload the file (a).
  1. You will be emailed when the groups are imported, follow the link in the email or refresh the page if still on Blackboard
  2. Open the imported group and make any edits as required, such as change the group set title.

Import group membership

Once you have imported the group set or created a group set on the Blackboard course you can import members to that group set.

  1. Open your new group set and click on the import group members icon in the top right-hand corner of the group page.
screenshot of imported group
  1. The import Groups or Members panel will open. Click assign members tab:
    • If you have a group membership csv file ready use the Upload file button (a) to upload the membership file
    • If you have not created the membership file, download the membership template (b), add members in excel (please note you will need the student usernames), then upload the csv file here.
  1. You will be emailed when membership is imported, follow the link in the email or refresh the page
  2. Save your groups

Guide last updated on October 23, 2025

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