One course can reach hundreds of learners at once, and a cohort is how you define that audience. A cohort is a named group of learners you can enroll in a schedule as a batch instead of one at a time, then review as a group in analytics. This guide covers creating a cohort, filling it with whichever of the three methods suits the learner data you already have, and keeping it current as your audience changes.

Select Learners under PEOPLE in the left navigation, then select the Cohorts tab.

The tab lists every cohort your team already has, so check it before creating a new one. Reusing an existing cohort beats maintaining two copies of the same audience.

Then select Create cohort in the top right to start a cohort.

Cohorts can multiply fast, so a consistent naming convention keeps them findable months from now. We recommend combining the organization name, the group type, and the date, like "Sales Reps 2026-06-10 Roster".

In the Create a new cohort window:

You use one of those three options, not all three. Pick the one that matches the learner data you already have.

Each option has its own section below, and you only need to read yours. You can also select Or continue without adding learners for now, which creates the cohort empty so you can fill it later.

Upload a CSV or Excel file to add learners to the cohort. Your organization’s settings determine which columns are required. If your organization allows it, account emails can match existing learners without delivery-address columns; see Managing Organization Settings for the requirements.

Select Download a template CSV file in the upload step to start from a file that already has the columns in place, then replace the sample rows with your own. Arist accepts CSV and Excel files up to 50 MB.

Use the learner’s existing account email so Arist can match the row to their record. Slack delivery addresses come from the Slack integration and cannot be imported from a file.

Add as many other columns as you find useful. Beyond the three above, the template also carries first name, last name, timezone, and language, and any column of your own becomes learner metadata on each learner's profile. That metadata personalizes delivery, like sending course content in a learner's preferred language, and dynamic rules read it later.

When your organization uses teams, check the team selector before you import, because the team you have selected decides where these learners land. With a team other than the Default team selected, everyone in the file joins that team as well as the cohort, both the learners already in Arist and the ones the file creates. With the Default team selected, the file fills the cohort and leaves team membership alone. A learner somebody has taken off the selected team stays off it either way.

If you have not chosen a team yet, the import stops and asks you to select one first, rather than guessing which team you meant. Once it finishes, you may see a message naming learners who were outside your teams and are now visible to you and to everyone on that team. That is the membership above being reported back to you.

When you upload the file, a short guided flow walks you through the rest, in four steps: Choose file, Preview, Map columns, Import. Nothing is imported until the final step, so you see your data the way Arist read it first.

The preview comes right after the upload.

Check that the rows look right, make sure First row contains column names matches your file, and select Continue.

Next comes Map columns, where Arist suggests a match between each of your column headers and its own learner fields, so you confirm the mapping rather than build it.

A green check marks each matched column, and any column can be reassigned from its dropdown. Anything you leave unmapped is not imported, so glance down the list before you continue. Complete the import and the cohort is ready.

When the learners you need are already in Arist from an earlier upload, the Add learners step gives you a picker to choose them.

Open the Select one or more learners dropdown, choose everyone you want in the cohort, then select Confirm. This suits smaller groups, pilot audiences, and test cohorts, where picking by hand is quicker than preparing a file. Back returns you to the cohort details if you want to adjust the name or preferred timezone first. To see who is already in your workspace before you start, check the Learners page, covered in Viewing and Managing Learners.

You can also start from the Learners page: select the learners you want, open More actions, and select Create cohort. See Viewing and Managing Learners for the steps.

From Team settings → Learners, Create cohort appears directly on the selection bar. See Managing Team Settings for that route.

A dynamic cohort manages its own membership, so nobody has to re-upload a roster every time your organization changes. Rules match against learner data you already hold in Arist. They read built-in fields like first name, last name, email, and language, plus any learner metadata you have added, including the extra columns from a file upload.

Rules work without an integration, and they are easiest to keep current with one. When your HCM or HRIS system is connected to Arist, the cohort follows records that system already keeps up to date, so there is no upload to repeat and no spreadsheet to re-check.

Above the rule builder, Add from a template fills in a complete rule for a common group.

Each template matches one of these fields, and the button names yours when it is not the first name listed, as in By department (Business unit).

Templates add to your existing rules, and picking the same one twice does not add it again. New hires pre-fills Hire date, is newer than, 30, days ago.

Membership then stays current on its own. As learner data changes, newly matching learners are added and learners who no longer match drop out, with no re-upload from you.

Search by name, or select the plus button beside the search box to filter by Type, Created by, or Last activity. Each active filter appears as a chip. Select a chip to change its values, remove it individually, or select Clear all to remove every filter.

Read the list columns to check each cohort. Learners counts the learners in the cohort, Schedules shows how many sends it is enrolled in, Delivery methods names the ways this cohort's learners receive their courses, and Last edited shows how fresh it is. A cohort with zero schedules and an old edit date is a candidate to clean up.

An empty Delivery methods cell means the cohort has no members yet, because the methods come from the learners in it. Add learners and the cell fills in.

When your organization uses teams, Learners counts only the learners on the team you have selected. A cohort's own learner list shows that team's members alone. A cohort built across several teams therefore shows a smaller count from inside any one of them.

This applies to every role, Org Admins included. Select the Default team to see the whole organization again.

Use the three-dot menu at the end of a cohort's row to manage, analyze, duplicate, or delete that cohort.

Selecting Manage opens the cohort so you can edit its learners, Analyze opens its analytics, Duplicate copies it, and Delete removes it.

Selecting Delete removes the cohort and its membership list, and nothing else. The learners stay in your organization and in their other cohorts, and enrollments are untouched, so course history, responses, and completion data all survive. Past sends still report by cohort in analytics, where the name now reads with the word deleted after it.

Check the Schedules column first. A future or recurring schedule pointing at the cohort keeps that link and loses its members, so it enrolls nobody: point those sends elsewhere before you delete. A deleted dynamic cohort also stops re-syncing, and its name becomes free for a new cohort to use.

The list loads 100 cohorts at a time, so in a large organization use the search bar rather than scrolling.