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Seating view

Seating view overview

This article covers core seating-chart actions in Grouper's Seating view:

  • Open Seating and switch between class views.

  • Build and adjust seat layout.

  • Place students in seats using attributes or random shuffle.

  • Move students between seats with drag and drop.

  • Open student actions in the Seating view.

Seating view is currently in beta testing. It is evolving quickly, and workflows or controls may change as we improve it.

This article covers core Seating operations only.

  • For general grouping actions (formation, shuffle, rotate, saved groupings), see the Grouping basics support article.

  • For sharing and export options, see the Share and export groupings support article.

  • For presentation tools, see the Live mode support article.

Helpful links:

The Seating view

The Seating view is the best place to design a seating map and place students into specific seats.

To open Seating view:

  1. Open a class.

  2. Use View as near the top of the class page.

  3. Select Seating.

Seating control tabs

The right-hand control panel has two tabs in Seating view:

  • Students

  • Layout

Use Layout first to create and edit your seating map, then use Students to place students.

Layout tab

Use the Layout tab to create and edit your seating map.

Seating style

Choose one tile style:

  • Square

  • Hex

Organize by rows, columns, or tables

Use layout presets to quickly generate seat maps by:

  • Number of rows

  • Number of columns

  • Number of tables

Note:

  • The layout presets probably won't represent your exact classroom layout. You can customize your layout anytime.

Manually edit seats

You can manually adjust the layout by adding or removing individual tiles directly in Seating.

  • A green tile is an active seat and can hold a student.

  • A white tile is an inactive tile and cannot hold students.

  • Click a tile to toggle between inactive tile (white) and active seat (green).

  • Click and drag to turn many tiles on or off at once.

Important:

  • The layout must include enough active seats (green tiles) before Students mode can be used.

Students tab

Use the Students tab to place students in seats.

Shuffle students

Use Shuffle students to randomly place students in seats.

Note:

  • Shuffle only places students into active seats (green tiles).

  • If attributes are applied, Shuffle will still apply the attributes when reshuffling students.

Apply attributes

You can apply attributes to shape which students are placed near each other or spread out across the seating map.

  • Cluster (button with arrows pointing in) places students with similar selected attribute values closer together.

  • Spread (button with arrows pointing out) spreads out students with similar selected attribute values.

  • Hover over an attribute name in the right-hand control panel to see color-coded overlays on student avatars showing their attribute values.

For deeper attribute strategy (Spread/Cluster and grouping goals), see the Making groups with student data support article.

Seating students by grouping

You can also place students in seats according to a grouping by using the Grouping attribute.

A common workflow is:

  1. Open Groups view.

  2. Create a new grouping or select an existing grouping.

  3. Switch back to Seating view.

  4. In Apply attributes, find Grouping.

  5. Click the Cluster button next to Group

  6. Students in the same group will be placed next to or near each other.

Note:

  • You can also click Spread next to Grouping to spread students from the same group across the seating map.

  • This can be useful for instructional strategies such as the jigsaw method.

  • Hover over Grouping in the right-hand control panel to see color-coded overlays on student avatars showing their assigned group name.

Manual movement

You can drag and drop students to fine-tune seat assignments.

  • Students dragged into empty seats (green tiles) will be placed in those seats.

  • Students dragged into a seat occupied by another student will swap places with that student.

  • You can select multiple students with Command+click or Control+click.

  • You can also click and hold on an unavailable (white) tile, then drag over students to select them.

Tip:

  • Try using Shuffle or attributes first, then use drag and drop for final adjustments.

Do Not Group With and Study Buddies rules are also applied in the background during automatic placement.

Expected behavior:

  • Grouper separates Do Not Group With pairs automatically.

  • Grouper almost always places each student next to at least one selected Study buddy.

  • In highly constrained seating setups, perfect Do Not Group With separation or Study Buddies pairing may not always be possible.

  • Do Not Group With and Study Buddies are not listed in the Attributes section of the right-hand control panel.

  • Don't worry — those rules will still be followed.

Do Not Group With proximity warnings

If a Do Not Group With pair ends up too close together in Seating, you may see yellow or red boxes/lines around the two seats and between them.

  • Yellow means the two students are getting close together.

  • Red means the two students are very close together.

Note:

  • You are most likely to see these warnings while manually dragging students.

Student actions in Seating

From Seating, you can open student actions and update student-level information.

To access student actions in the Seating:

  • Hover over a student

  • Click on the three-dot menu to the upper-right of the student.

Student actions menu items include:

  • Mark absent

  • Do not group with

  • Edit student

Note:

  • Absent students are included in the seating arrangement.

  • This differs from the Grouping view, where students can be removed from the grouping altogether.

Important notes

  • Seating is optimized for seating and placement workflows.

  • Grouping creation, grouping history, and sharing/export workflows are handled in Groups view.

  • You can click Go live from Seating view to open the Seating display in Live mode. This is useful for projecting the current seating chart for your class.

  • You can click Share from the Seating view to create a print-friendly PDF of the seating chart or paste an image of the seating chart into other tools.

  • Seating behavior may change as beta improvements are released.

Feedback

If you have Seating feedback, please report it through either channel:

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