Configure your Figma Education organization

This article describes Step 7 when setting up Figma for your school →

Log in to figma.com with your admin email and you'll see your organization alongside the respective administrator features. From the file browser, click Admin. From here, you can see tabs for Dashboard, Workspaces, a list of all Teams created, all Members of the organization, Activity, Resources, and Settings.

Administrator capabilities

• View a Help Center collection with all articles relevant for administrators →
• This Figma file is a resource library with helpful links for admins →
• Learn how to view and export activity logs →

Recommended account settings

We recommend you review some of the default settings configured on your district’s Organization account. Below we will discuss common changes:

• Team management: Choose who can create teams in your organization. While many districts allow all users to create their own teams, some districts choose to limit that permission to administrators only.
• External Access:
  • Guest Management: By default, external users can join your organization by invitation. We recommend disabling guest access by selecting the option that No external users can join your organization.
  • Access to external content: By default, users have access to content outside your organization. We recommend disabling access to content outside your organization.
  • Public Sharing: By default, public link sharing is disabled. You can choose to enable public sharing by toggling on the option to Allow links to be shared with anyone.
  • Open sessions: By default open sessions are enabled. You can disable open sessions toggling off the option to allow anyone to edit and interact with a FigJam file for 24 hours.
• Other
  • Cursor Chat: By default cursor chat is enabled. If you choose to disable this feature you can toggle off cursor chat for all files in your organization.

Organization structures

There are a variety of options for organization structure based on your administrative needs. By default, the organization members and teams across sites are all administered by the Organization admin(s). If the Organization admin wants to delegate administrative controls to learning sites, they can create workspaces. Within the workspace structure the designated workspace admins will have administrative control over the teams and users within their group.

The diagram below is a sample of an organization employing a hybrid structure, where the school site on the left utilizes workspaces and the rest adhere to the default team ownership structure:

Workspaces

Workspaces are an optional feature of Figma’s Enterprise plan. Workspaces let admins divide users into designated groups, and delegate administration of those groups to other users. Within the workspace structure, the designated workspace admins will have administrative control over the teams and users within their group.

Learn more about launching and managing workspaces in an organization. 

Teams

Set up teams

You can think of a team as a classroom. It is a place to organize collaborative Figma and FigJam projects and files used by both students and teachers. Admins can take two different approaches to setting up teams with their organization:

Option 1: Team creation by admins

If an admin wants to have more control over the teams that are created, they can choose to create all of the teams and then re-assign ownership to teachers once they have joined. The benefits of this approach are that Admins can apply more consistency (eg. naming structure) as well as more easily monitor new team creation.

1. Click on your organization account name (ie. Milpitas Unified School District) on the left side panel of the file browser. This will bring up an overview of the organization account.
2. Click All teams > + Team in the top right corner.
3. Add an existing class section name.
4. From the Who can access dropdown, select Only those invited and give them Edit access.
5. Once the team is created, click the team name on the left side panel.
6. Add the teacher who you want to designate as the owner of the team by clicking Invite. Add teacher via email > click [ICON] and set to admin access.
7. Once the teacher has joined the team, you can transfer ownership of the team to them. Open the team and click Invite.
8. Click the arrow next to their team permissions and select Owner from the options.
9. Figma will ask you to confirm the transfer.
10. Repeat for any teams you created but want to transfer to teachers.

Learn more about creating teams in an organization →

Option 2: Team creation by teachers

Alternatively, if admins don’t want to be involved in the team creation process, they can have teachers set up their own teams. Teachers should set up a Figma team for Only those invited, or one for each of their classes depending on how they want to configure their set up.

1. From the file browser, click All teams.
2. Click the + Team button in the top right corner.
3. Enter a name for the team, set the access and permissions, and click Next.
4. Enter the names of people you’d like to invite to the team (optional).
5. Press Create team.
6. Once the team is created, click on the team on the left side panel.
7. Add students to the team by clicking Invite. Add students via email and give them can edit access.

Notes on teams

• It is not recommended that students create their own teams. However, admins can track which teams are being created in the organization, and by whom.
• If a teacher wants to have group projects where students work together, they should use Projects within the teams and have students join those. No need to make a team for every project.
• It is possible for students to create hidden teams whose contents are not accessible by teachers or admins. At this time, admins will not be able to remove these teams, but will be able to see who creates them within the org and discourage them / warn users. Students should instead take advantage of drafts for their personal work, and the teams created their classes for collaborating with their peers and teachers. Learn how to manage who can create teams →

Teams are how Figma allows teachers or administrators to build groups or classes of students. Teams allow for more streamlined access to shared files and collaborative activities.
From the Teams tab, admins can create new teams, review owners, project and member counts, as well as reassign organization access or workspace membership. On the more options menu, administrators can view specific details or reassign ownership of the team.

We recommend each teacher set up a team for Only those invited for each of their classes and invite their student to the team via email.

Learn how to manage teams in an organization →

Members

The People tab shows all members of your organization, their last activity date, seat type, and any workspace assignments they have.

From the People tab, admins can select individual members to upgrade or change their seat type. On the more options menu, administrators can get more insights into the activity of a particular member.

Learn more about viewing members and guests →

Get familiar with your organization

Learn how to get started with a Figma organization →

Learn how to manage your Figma organization →

Learn how to manage free and paid seats in an organization →

Everything you need to know about Figma organizations →

Next step: Start to use Figma in class →