Groups

Overview

Groups let you organize employees into reusable sets for approvals, Spend Programs, and policies. On all Ramp plans, you can create groups and manually add or remove members. With Ramp Plus or Enterprise, you can define dynamic membership rules — like "everyone in the Finance department" or "all employees in New York" — and Ramp keeps the membership current automatically.

What you can do with groups

• Approval workflows — route approvals to the right people automatically
• Spend Programs and auto-issued funds — assign budgets to a dynamic set of employees
• Submission and travel policies — apply policies to groups of employees without manual updates
• Org-based organization — mirror your real org structure inside Ramp

Creating a group

Groups are created from People > Groups > Create group.

You can also create a group directly from the People table by selecting multiple employees and clicking Create group from the bulk actions bar.

When creating a group, you define:

1. Group name — use a clear, descriptive name (for example, "Finance - East Coast" or "Engineering Managers").
2. Membership rules — one or more conditions based on employee attributes (department, location, role, custom fields, etc.).
3. Manual overrides — optionally add "Always Include" or "Always Exclude" rules for specific employees who should be in or out of the group regardless of dynamic rules.

You can also upload a CSV of employee email addresses to bulk-add members to a group (up to 1,000 emails per upload).

Managing group members

Click any group to open the group drawer, which has two tabs:

Overview tab

• View all current group members with their match reason ("Rule matched" or "Manually included").
• Search members — use the search bar to find specific members.
• Exclude a member — hover over any member and click Exclude to remove them from the group.

Usages tab

• See everywhere this group is currently referenced across your policies — including Spend Programs, approval policies, submission policies, travel policies, and more.
• Helpful for understanding the impact before editing or deleting a group.

Membership rules

When editing a group, rules are organized into two sections:

• Rules — dynamic conditions based on employee attributes (department, location, role, custom fields). Membership updates automatically as employee data changes.
• Overrides — manual "Always Include" or "Always Exclude" entries for specific employees. These persist even when dynamic rules change.

Use the Add rule button to add either a dynamic rule or a manual override.

Membership behavior

• Automatic inclusion: Employees are added when their profile matches all of the group's rules.
• Automatic removal: Employees are removed if they no longer meet the criteria, or if they are terminated.
• New hires: Added automatically when their profile data matches the rules.
• Manual overrides: Persist even when rules change — use sparingly for edge cases.

When does membership update?

Membership recalculates roughly every 8 hours on a schedule. It also updates immediately when an admin opens the group details or edits the group's rules. It does not update instantly when an employee's data changes — if a team member's department was just updated but they are still showing in the old group, open the group to trigger a refresh or wait for the next scheduled update.

Deleting a group

To delete a group, open the group and select Delete group from the menu in the header. A group cannot be deleted if it is currently used in an active approval policy — remove the group from all policies first.

Plan availability

• All plans: Create groups and manually add or remove members (static groups).
• Plus / Enterprise: Dynamic rules engine — automatically update membership based on employee attributes.
• Custom fields as rule criteria: Requires Plus (Custom User Fields is a Plus feature).

Frequently asked questions

Can I manually add someone who does not meet the rules?

Yes — use the "Always Include" override when editing the group.

Can I bulk-add members to a group?

Yes — use the CSV upload option to add members by email address (up to 1,000 per upload).

Can I edit group rules after the group is created?

Yes. Editing rules immediately recalculates membership.

Do overlapping group memberships cause duplicate spend?

No. If a user belongs to multiple groups assigned to the same Spend Program, they receive the fund once.

Why is an employee not showing up in a group?

1. Check that their profile fields match all of the group's rules.
2. Check whether there is a manual exclusion override on that employee.
3. If their data was recently updated, it can take up to 8 hours to reflect — or open the group to trigger an immediate refresh.
4. Check HRIS sync status if applicable.

Why was an employee unexpectedly removed from a group?

They no longer meet the group's rules, they were terminated, or an admin manually excluded them.

How do I find where a group is used?

Open the group and check the Usages tab to see all policies and programs referencing it.