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Groups are collections of employees in Windmill. You can create groups manually or choose which groups to sync from Google Workspace, Microsoft (Outlook), Salesforce, Slack, and your HRIS. Use groups to send pulse surveys and organize performance review cycles.

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Why use groups

Groups help you organize and target employees in Windmill: Pulse surveys Send surveys to specific groups instead of your entire organization. This lets you gather feedback from specific teams or cohorts. Performance reviews Choose which groups participate in review cycles. This is helpful when rolling out reviews to specific teams. Groups provide a flexible way to organize employees beyond your reporting structure. You can create groups for cross-functional teams, committees, locations, or any other grouping that’s useful for your organization.

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Creating groups manually

You can create groups manually in Windmill:
1

Go to Settings > Groups

Navigate to the groups tab under account settings.
2

Enter a name for the group

Give your group a descriptive name like “Customer Success” or “Engineering”. Click Create Group to continue.
3

Click Add members

Begin selecting employees to add to the group.
4

Select the employees you want to add

Choose which employees should be in this group.
Your group is immediately available throughout Windmill. You can use it in pulse surveys, performance reviews, and filtering.

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Archiving a group

1

Go to Settings > Groups

Navigate to the groups tab under account settings.
2

Click on the group name

Open the group you want to archive.
Archived groups no longer appear in group selectors throughout Windmill, but their historical data is preserved. You can unarchive a group at any time if you need to use it again.
Archive groups you no longer need instead of deleting them. This preserves historical data while keeping your active groups list clean.

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Syncing groups from integrations

Your connected systems—Google Workspace, Microsoft (Outlook), Salesforce, Slack, and your HRIS—often already have groups defined. Rather than syncing all of them into Windmill, you choose which groups you want to sync. This keeps your Groups list focused on the groups you actually use. Syncing is one-way: groups flow from your source systems into Windmill. Groups you create in Windmill are not synced back to those systems.

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Choosing which groups to sync

Groups available from your connected systems appear in the Available to sync tab, where you can turn on syncing for the ones you want.
1

Go to Settings > Groups

Navigate to the groups tab under account settings.
2

Open the Available to sync tab

This tab lists every group Windmill can pull in from your connected systems, like Google Workspace, Microsoft (Outlook), Salesforce, Slack, and your HRIS.
3

Select the groups you want to sync

Find the group you’d like to bring into Windmill and select it. You can select several groups at once to sync them in bulk.
4

Click Sync group

Windmill starts syncing your selection. Synced groups now appear in your Groups tab, each labeled with the system it came from.
Only the groups you turn on are synced. The rest stay in the Available to sync tab until you choose to sync them.

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What stays in sync

Once you’ve turned on syncing for a group, Windmill keeps it up to date automatically:
  • Group names
  • Group membership (who’s in each group)
  • Changes to membership when people join or leave groups
Changes in your external systems typically appear in Windmill within a few hours.

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Supported integrations

  • Google Workspace - Distribution lists, security groups, and other Google groups from your Google Workspace directory
  • Microsoft (Outlook) - Microsoft 365 groups from your directory, including Teams, security groups, and distribution groups
  • Salesforce - Salesforce public groups and roles
  • Slack - Slack user groups (not channels)
  • HRIS - Teams, departments, and cost centers from your HR system integration
You cannot manually edit membership for groups synced from integrations. If you need to change who’s in a synced group, make the change in the source system (Google Workspace, Microsoft, Salesforce, Slack, or your HRIS). The change will sync to Windmill automatically.

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Using groups

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In pulse surveys

When creating a pulse survey, you can target specific groups instead of your entire organization:
1

Go to Pulse > Create survey

Start creating a new pulse survey.
2

In the Audience section, select Specific groups

Choose to target specific groups instead of your entire organization.
3

Choose one or more groups to receive the survey

Select which groups should receive the survey.
4

Continue setting up your survey as normal

Complete the rest of your survey setup.
Windy will send the survey only to members of the selected groups. This is helpful for:
  • Team-specific check-ins
  • Onboarding cohorts
  • Cross-functional initiatives
You can select multiple groups if you want to survey several teams at once.

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In performance reviews

When setting up a performance review cycle, you can use groups to control who participates:
1

Go to Performance > Cycles > Create new cycle

Start creating a new performance review cycle.
2

In the Participants section, select Specific groups

Choose to limit participants to specific groups.
3

Choose which groups should participate in the review cycle

Select the groups that should be included in the review.
4

Continue setting up your cycle as normal

Complete the rest of your review cycle setup.
This is useful when:
  • Rolling out reviews to specific teams first
  • Running different review processes for different teams
  • Piloting a new review format with a subset of your organization

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Groups and permissions

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Creating and managing groups

Only Admins and HR Admins can create and manage groups in Windmill.

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Viewing groups

All team members can see which groups exist, but only Admins and HR Admins can edit group membership or settings.

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Synced groups

Groups synced from Google Workspace, Microsoft (Outlook), Salesforce, Slack, or your HRIS can only be modified in the source system. Admins cannot manually edit these groups in Windmill.

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FAQs

Yes. Employees can belong to as many groups as you need. This is helpful for cross-functional teams, committees, and other overlapping groupings.
When an employee is archived, they’re automatically removed from all groups. For manually created groups, this happens immediately when you archive them. For integrated groups, they’re removed when the next sync runs.
You should archive groups instead of deleting them. Archiving preserves historical data (like which groups were targeted in past surveys) while removing the group from active use.
Groups synced from integrations are read-only in Windmill to prevent conflicts with the source system. If you edit a synced group manually, your changes would be overwritten on the next sync. Make changes in the source system instead, and they’ll sync to Windmill automatically.
No. Group syncing is one-way only—from your connected systems into Windmill. Groups you create manually in Windmill exist only in Windmill and are not synced back to Google Workspace, Microsoft (Outlook), Salesforce, Slack, or your HRIS.
In the Groups tab, each group shows its source. Manually created groups are labeled accordingly, while synced groups show the system they came from (Google Workspace, Microsoft, Salesforce, Slack, or your HRIS). You’ll also see a notice that the group is read-only when you view its details.
Groups from your connected systems aren’t synced until you turn them on. Open the Available to sync tab in Settings > Groups, find the group, select it, and click Sync group. It will then appear in your Groups tab.
Yes, but we don’t recommend it. This can be confusing for other admins. If you need a group similar to a synced group, give it a distinct name (like “Customer Success Team” vs “Customer Success”).