RM Cloud Service Delivery can assist you with your MIS Sync installation and Google federation. For further information, please speak to your Sales representative on 01235 645 316 or email getintouch@rm.com, quoting this article.

As an establishment with RM Unify MIS Sync enabled, it is possible to sync your MIS teaching groups, year groups and registration groups from your MIS with Google Workspace for Education™ to create Google Groups. Teachers and admins can use these groups to share content and communicate with other users without needing to manually create the groups and manage membership in Google themselves.

After syncing the MIS groups to Google, RM Unify will set them up as follows:

Group type in RM Unify	Google Group owners* (these are the group admins with management rights for the group)	Google Group members (these can take part in discussions and collaborate in the group)
Year group	RM Unify admin(s) selected on the Group Sync Settings page	Students in the year
Registration group**	RM Unify admin(s) selected on the Group Sync Settings page	Students in the registration group as per the MIS
Teaching group†	RM Unify admin(s) selected on the Group Sync Settings page, plus the registered Teaching Staff on record in the MIS	Students in the class as per the MIS

* If the group is created by clicking the Action button in the Management Console, the logged in RM Unify user will also be set as a group owner.
** Might be known as 'Tutor group' in your MIS.
† Teaching groups are not extracted for the ScholarPack MIS.

Note: The RM Unify Management Console displays student membership of MIS groups. It does not display teacher membership of MIS groups.

Google Workspace for Education contains a number of apps for schools to use, including Gmail, Google Drive, Google Sites, etc. Groups can be used across these Google apps to enable content to be shared with multiple members of a group such as a class or a registration group. Groups can be created manually within Google, but it is much more efficient and secure to create and manage these groups from your MIS via an identity and access management system (IAM) like RM Unify. In either case, the groups are held within the Google Directory. RM Unify manages users (the members of these groups) in the Google Directory by creating, updating and deleting accounts according to changes made in your Active Directory or MIS.

RM Unify Group Sync for Google Groups works by syncing MIS group and membership into your Google domain. If the membership of a group changes in your MIS, e.g. a student moves in or out of a class, an overnight schedule automatically syncs those changes via RM Unify to Google. If you want to remove the group from Google, click the 'Delete Group from Google' option in the RM Unify Management Console.

If you wish to sync your school's year groups, registration groups and teaching groups from your MIS to Google, you must first sync your MIS with RM Unify. To set up MIS Sync:

1. Log on to RM Unify as an RM Unify administrator.
2. Click Management Console, Groups.
3. At the top of the page, click Settings, 'Set up groups sync to apps'.
4. On the 'Automatically Create MIS groups in Apps' page, under the heading Google Groups, select the MIS group types that you want to automatically create in Google.
   • If the groups are not selectable, you need to first enable the Google APIs to allow automatic group syncing:
     1. On the current window, click the 'Enable this in the Support Info section of App Details' link to be taken to a Google tile in the App Library.
     2. Under the Support Info section, in the ACTION REQUIRED box, click 'Click here'.
     3. Click Enable Google APIs.
     4. Log on to Google as a Google super admin, if prompted.
     5. On the 'RM Unify needs permission to' window, click Accept.
5. Enter a group 'name identifier' if required, to include in group names in Google (the default will be your school's DfE code).
6. Select which RM Unify admin users you want to additionally set as a group owner of new groups. Teaching staff members of teaching groups are automatically set as group owners.
7. Click Save.

Each night, new MIS groups of the selected type(s) will be automatically created in Google Workspace.

1. Log on to RM Unify as an administrator or teaching staff user.
2. Click Management Console, Groups.
3. Find the group* you wish to sync with Google and click Actions.
4. Click 'Create Group in Google'.
   Note: This menu option is not available on role groups or non-MIS year groups as these are already automatically created in Google.
5. Edit the group name if required and add a description (these will be visible in Google).
6. If you want the group content (conversation, files, etc.) to be visible to all the Google users in your organisation, then change the privacy setting to Public. Otherwise, it will default to Private, which means that just the group members can see the content.
7. Indicate the 'Required lifetime' of the group. This helps the Google admins to know how the groups are being used. There is no automatic deletion of groups.
8. Click OK.

* If you have enabled non-MIS year groups then your MIS year groups will be hidden from view in the Management Console. They will, however, get auto-created in Google if that option was selected during the 'To automatically send and create groups in Google' section above. To find out if you have enabled non-MIS year groups:

1. Click Management Console, Groups.
2. Click Settings, 'Set up year groups'.
3. Look for groups with a tick in the Enabled box.
4. If you want to view your MIS year groups in the Management Console, then clear all Enabled boxes and click Save.

It takes up to half an hour to send this group to Google Directory and for it to appear within the Google apps to use.

When RM Unify receives MIS group data, it creates groups using the following naming convention:

<MISGroupName> <NameIdentifier> <MISAcademicYearStart>, where MISGroupName and MISAcademicYearStart come from your MIS and NameIdentifier is set in the RM Unify Management Console.

Here are some examples of group name outcomes in RM Unify and Google:

MIS group type	MIS group name	Name identifier	Academic YearStart in MIS	Federated domain in Google*	RM Unify group name	Google group name	Google group email address
Year	13	1234567	01/09/25	federated.google.sch.uk	13	13[1234567][2025]	13.1234567.2025@federated.google.sch.uk
Teaching	2S/DT1	1234567	01/09/25	federated.google.sch.uk	2SDT1	2SDT1[1234567][2025]	2SDT1.1234567.2025@federated.google.sch.uk
Registration	5L	1234567	04/09/25	federated.google.sch.uk	5L	5L[1234567][2025]	5L.1234567.2025@federated.google.sch.uk
Teaching	Mon Ch	1234567	04/09/25	federated.google.sch.uk	Mon Ch	Mon-Ch[1234567][2025]	Mon-Ch.1234567.2025@federated.google.sch.uk

• New owners added directly to a Google group are retained, even on the next group sync or update from RM Unify.
• New members added directly to a Google group are removed on the next group sync or update from RM Unify - your MIS is the point of truth, so the membership there is what will be reflected in Google via RM Unify.

It is possible to add a group as a member of another Google group, but this would be done via the Google admin centre. Whilst that is possible, controlling group membership from the school's MIS (which must be kept up-to-date and accurate, by law) via RM Unify is more secure.