How to control group composition beyond preferences.
Before generating, you specify how many groups to create and how large each group should be. The generation form has two inputs per group entry:
The total number of students across all group entries must match the number of students selected for generation. Clever Groups will tell you if the numbers don’t add up.
Each group entry also has an Add Category Entry button. Category entries let you set a target composition for that group size — for example, how many students of a given gender or ability level should appear in each group. See Categories below.
Use Add Group Entry to define groups of different sizes in the same generation run — for example, some groups of 3 and some groups of 4.
There is no upper limit on group size — you can generate a single group containing your entire team, or any other configuration. This is useful for allocating students to activities, rooms, or transport rather than small working groups.
A keep-apart pair is a pair of students who should never be placed in the same group. Clever Groups guarantees that these pairs are separated in all generation modes — Preference Groups, Demand Groups, and Random Groups all respect keep-apart pairs.
Go to the team page and open the Keep Apart section. Select two students from the dropdowns and click Add Pair. Repeat for as many pairs as you need.
Keep-apart pairs can also be included in the Excel import file. See the import template for the column layout by clicking Download Excel Example in the Teams menu.
There is no hard limit, but adding a very large number of keep-apart pairs can make it difficult or impossible for Clever Groups to find a valid solution — especially with small group sizes. If Clever Groups cannot satisfy all keep-apart constraints with the current group size settings, it will tell you.
Keep-apart pairs override preferences. If Student A lists Student B as a preference, but A and B are also a keep-apart pair, B will not be placed in A’s group. The preference is ignored in this case.
Categories let you balance groups by a characteristic of your choosing — for example, gender, ability level, reading group, or any other attribute you track.
Go to the team page and open the Categories section. Add each category value you want to use — for example, “Male” and “Female”, or “Stream A”, “Stream B”, “Stream C”. Categories must be created here before students can be assigned to them, and before importing via Excel with category assignments.
Once categories exist, assign each student to one. You can do this individually on the team page, or include the assignments in the Excel import. Students without a category assignment are treated as uncategorised and placed without category constraint.
Categories only take effect when you add category entries to your group entries at generation time. In the generation form, each group entry has an Add Category Entry button alongside the group size fields. A category entry sets a target composition for that group size — how many students of a given category should be in each group.
You can add multiple category entries per group entry to specify a more detailed target composition. If the numbers across your category entries don’t add up to the group size, the remaining spots are filled without category constraint.
Categories are a hard constraint at placement time. Clever Groups will only place students in positions that match your category targets — preference optimisation happens within those boundaries, picking the best preference match from the students who are eligible for each position. If your category numbers can’t be satisfied with the students and group sizes you’ve configured, Clever Groups will tell you.
Categories are completely optional. If you don’t assign categories or don’t add category entries at generation time, groups are formed based purely on preferences and keep-apart pairs.
Also see: Getting started guide • Understanding your results