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Groups let you assign project roles to multiple users simultaneously. Instead of adding each person to a project individually, you add a group — and every member of that group inherits the group’s role in that project.

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How groups work

When you add a group to a project with a specific role:
  • Every user who is a member of that group automatically becomes a member of the project with the inherited role.
  • When you add a new user to the group, they immediately gain membership in all projects the group belongs to.
  • When you remove a user from the group, their inherited memberships are revoked. If they had a direct membership in the same project, that is preserved.
Group membership is managed through a join table (groups_users). Adding or removing a user triggers automatic propagation of MemberRole records for all projects the group belongs to.

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Creating a group

1

Open the Groups list

Go to Administration → Groups and click New group.
2

Enter a name

The group name (Name field, stored as lastname in the database) must be unique. Maximum 255 characters.
3

Add users

On the group’s edit page, select users from the Users list and add them to the group. You can add or remove users at any time.
4

Save

Click Create. The group is now available for assignment as a project member.

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Adding users to a group

You can add users to a group from two places:
  1. Go to Administration → Groups and click the group name.
  2. In the Users tab, select users and click Add.

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Assigning a group as a project member

Groups are assigned to projects the same way individual users are:
  1. Open the project and go to Settings → Members.
  2. Click New member.
  3. In the Principal selector, choose the group from the list.
  4. Select one or more roles.
  5. Click Add.
All current and future members of the group inherit the selected roles in the project.

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Group permissions

Groups do not have their own permissions. A group’s effective permissions in a project come entirely from the roles assigned when the group is added as a project member.

Role determines permissions

The role assigned to a group when it is added to a project determines what group members can do in that project.

Multiple roles

You can assign multiple roles to a group in the same project. A user inherits the combined permissions of all roles.
Use groups to reflect your organizational structure — for example, “Backend developers”, “QA team”, or “Project managers” — and assign those groups to projects with appropriate roles. This makes access management much easier as people join or leave teams.

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Built-in groups

Redmine has two built-in virtual groups that cannot be edited:
GroupPurpose
Non memberRepresents any authenticated user who is not a member of a project. Controls access to public projects for logged-in non-members.
AnonymousRepresents unauthenticated visitors. Controls what anonymous users can see on public projects.
Permissions for these groups are configured in Administration → Roles and permissions under the non-member and anonymous roles.

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Deleting a group

Deleting a group removes it from all project memberships. Any issues previously assigned to the group have their assigned_to_id cleared. Users who were members of the group lose any roles they inherited from it.
Deleting a group cannot be undone. Users who had access to projects only through that group will immediately lose access.

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