In Broadcast, you can create customisable school groups to publish files efficiently to the specific audience you define.
This is especially useful because it saves time, reduces admin and duplication. It also makes it much easier to repeat regular distributions. Once your groups are set up, you can reuse or edit them whenever needed.
To get started, you can build a group in one of three ways: create it manually, copy an existing Broadcast or Nexus group, or import a school list from a CSV.
For more information on how Broadcast cleverly uses rules to match your target schools, check out this help guide.
Accessing Broadcast Groups
From your Broadcast homepage, click Broadcast Admin.
- Select Manage Groups
Any existing groups will appear in the Group Name list. If none exist, the list will be empty.
Creating a New Group
There are three ways you can create a new group.
- Manual creation.
- Copy from an existing group in Broadcast or Nexus.
- Importing a .csv file.
Tip: If multiple teams use Broadcast, adding a short prefix to group names makes sorting and searching much easier, for example, FIN – [Group Name] instead of Finance – [Group Name].
Creating a Group Manually
-
To create a group manually, or 'from scratch', click New Broadcast Group and enter a group name and a description.
Example:
PrimarySchools
Click Save.
Once the group is created, you can then start to add schools. You can use the smart filters to narrow your search by school phase, or search for schools on name, URN or DfE number. To add a school:
Click the tick box alongside the school
To remove schools from the group:
Untick the school in the Schools In Group list and click Save Group.
Quick actions: To add all schools to a group, click the master tickbox alongside 'School Name'.
As schools are added, the counter in the top-right corner will update to show how many schools are currently in the group.
When you're done, click Save Group.
Note: We automatically hide closed schools to keep your list as current as possible. If you need to see closed schools tick Include closed schools. This is useful if you need to identify closed schools in order to remove them from your group and replace them with the new version.
Copying from Existing Groups
You can also quickly create a group as a copy of an existing group. This functionality allows you to clone both existing Broadcast groups but also Nexus groups, which you may have set up separately for data analysis or reporting purposes, saving you from manually creating them again! To do this:
- Click New Broadcast Group.
- Enter a Name, and (optionally) a Description.
-
Select Copy from existing group.
- Click Choose groups.
-
Select the group you want to copy from:
Broadcast Groups – Displays a dropdown containing all existing Broadcast groups in the system.
Nexus Groups – Displays a dropdown containing all existing Nexus groups in the system.
- Click Create new group.
Copying groups is particularly useful if you change groups year on year. You can copy that group and update the year in the new group's name, which gets you the bulk of that new year's group, then allows you to only need minor edits thereafter.
Tip: When creating Broadcast groups based on specific criteria (tags, grades etc), rather than manually adding these to a Broadcast group from an external source, you can create a dynamic group in Nexus via Admin > School Groups, then in Broadcast, create a new copy of your Nexus group. Turning a lengthy administrative task into just a few clicks!
Note: If you select to copy from a Nexus dynamic group, at the point you confirm, your new Broadcast group will include only the schools that are in that dynamic group at the time.
When you’re happy with the list, click Save Group.
Note: Groups with more than 200 schools in may affect performance when sending many files with complex rules.
Importing a Group From a CSV
If you already have a list of schools outside of Broadcast, this function allows you to create a group by importing them from a CSV file. This is useful if you’re working from an external list, or if you’ve exported a group from the system, and want to re-import it. To create a group from a CSV.
- Click New Broadcast Group.
- Enter a Name, and (optionally) a Description.
- Under How would you like to add schools to your new group?, select Import (From a CSV file).
- Click Choose File.
You’ll be taken to the Import Schools page.
- Click Download CSV Template to download a blank template.
- Complete the template with your school list.
- Upload your completed CSV using the upload area (drag and drop, or browse your computer), then click Import & Add to Group.
Your CSV should then process and you'll be taken to a new page. However, if you upload a corrupt/invalid file. You'll receive an immediate error message.
CSV format requirements:
If you see an error when uploading your CSV, the most common cause is that the column headers don’t match the expected structure of the template. Your CSV must be in the format:
- School Name
- DfE Number (4-digit)
- URN
A few important notes:
School Name is required, even if you’re also providing URNs or DfE numbers. This is to help you easily review and spot schools that shouldn’t be included.
You only need to provide either a URN or a DfE number for each school (you don’t need both). If you provide both, they must match the correct school.
Tip: Need to merge multiple groups together? Save yourself the manual work! Export each group as a CSV, combine them into a single spreadsheet, then import the new combined file using Create Group > CSV Import.
Validation Checks
Providing your file structure was accepted, the file will run through validation checks when creating the group. Once done, your group will be created and a confirmation count will be displayed.
If your file is imported successfully, click Finish & See Your Group to review the group's contents.
If the import is partially successful, a red message will explain why only some schools were added. Common reasons include:
- URN and DfE number mismatch: they refer to different schools.
- Duplicate: the DfE number or URN appears more than once in the import file.
- School not found: could not find a school with this URN or DfE number.
- Missing identifiers: either URN or DfE number must be provided.
You can also export a CSV containing additional information about any schools that weren’t uploaded.
Note: You can fix any issues individually, but you can also export the error CSV, as it's in the same structure as the template, correct any errors directly within the file and recreate the group by importing the CSV again.
Editing Broadcast Groups
If you need to make changes to a group you’ve already created, you can edit it at any time from the Manage Broadcast Groups page.
To edit a group:
- From your Broadcast homepage, click Broadcast Admin.
- Select Manage Groups.
- Find the group you want to update.
- Click the group name directly, or click the three dots alongside the group and select Edit.
Make any changes needed:
- Tick a school to add it to the group.
- Untick a school to remove it from the group.
- Edit the Group Name or Description at the top of the page.
- When you’re happy with your changes, click Save Group.
Additional options:
- Click Delete to remove the group completely.
- Click Export Schools as CSV to download a CSV list of the schools currently in the group.
Sending a File to Your Group
To distribute a file to a Broadcast Group:
Follow the steps in the Uploading and Publishing Files guide.
Ensure the start of your file or folder name matches the group name, followed by an underscore (_).
Example: For the group
AcademyGroup, a file namedAcademyGroup_Finance Sheet 2019uploaded to the Finance folder will be sent to all schools in that group.
After publishing, check the School View to confirm correct distribution:
Schools in the group will see the file in the appropriate folder.
Schools not in the group will not see the folder or file.