Skip to main content Skip to navigation

Where does the data for auto-generated groups come from?

WebGroups draws its data from Tabula. This pulls data at regular intervals (twice a day) from a number of sources. The sources that provide data for the auto-generated WebGroups are Tabula itself, the Student records application (SITS) and HR sources. It can take up to 48 hours for the data to reach WebGroups after it has been entered into one of these databases.

The original data source for each type of WebGroup is shown in the table below:

All university members in a department Combined from student and staff groups
All staff in a department Sourced from HR
All students on a course SITS
All students on a year of a course SITS
All students on a module SITS
Tutees per member of staff Tabula
Supervisees per member of staff Tabula
All undergraduates in a department SITS
All postgraduates in a department SITS


If you have a query about the membership of an automatically generated WebGroup, please contact the IT Services help desk: helpdesk at warwick dot ac dot uk

Which academic year is used?

During term time, groups are filled with the students for that year. Over summer the rules are a bit more complex as both finishing and newly starting students will both need access to resources. As a result there's a crossover period during which both academic years are contained in the group. During the months of July and August, both the previous and the upcoming academic years are included in WebGroups. From 1st September, or 60 days after the module's submission date, the previous year is dropped and only the new year is used—whichever date is later.

When and where are new auto-generated WebGroups created?

Upstream information must exist first before an auto-generated WebGroup will appear. New module-based WebGroups, for example, are generated no earlier than 1 September and are dependent on actual student registration. A module that has not been run previously will not auto-generate a WebGroup until at least one student has registered for it.

The naming convention for WebGroups based on modules that will be running in an upcoming academic year is departmentcode-modulecode. So for example, the WebGroup for History module HI123 would be hi-hi123. The WebGroup for the Chemistry module CH999 would be ch-ch999.

Go to WebGroups