Idiot's guide to Office 365?

[speckytecky]

After much effort myself and failure, I have bitten the bullet and opted for a paid for migration from our Grid provided e-mail system to Office 365. After considerable delays it's about to happen. My SLT now want me to carry out training on what the changes will mean - gulp! Anyone have an useful pointers for me please. I currently have an A2 account set up but apart from the Admin side of things haven't made much use of it - in particular I haven't been able to import my folders and messages to Outlook so don't even know what difference that's going to make.

[snagrat]

What system you moving from? Any system should allow you to migrate email to Office 365.

 

Also be careful with SWGfL doing it (assuming they are) Ensure it is working correctly when they say they have completed it. I have fixed many botched SWGfL migrations!

[witch]

Are you talking about the email changes? If so, they will just log on to Office 365 - changing their password the first time- and then be able to see their emails easily without needing to log in again or anything.

If you are talking about the changes re Office use, cloud stuff, collaboration and the like then that is a bit more challenging. I was pointed towards this:

Help your users get started using Office 365 - Office 365 Community Blog - Microsoft Office 365 Community - Microsoft Office 365 Community

which gives lots of info you might find useful.

As for migrating from SWGfL - I have finally managed to do all the accounts - save the HT, DH and office accounts (in case I should inadvertently use their password to access their emails - trust me then? Not so much) and the migration seems fine so far

[speckytecky]

Thanks @snagrat Ouch - you are right it's going to be a SWGfL job, that's not good to read. When you say you have had to fix - what's that involved?

 

What system you moving from? Any system should allow you to migrate email to Office 365.

 

Also be careful with SWGfL doing it (assuming they are) Ensure it is working correctly when they say they have completed it. I have fixed many botched SWGfL migrations!

[speckytecky]

Thanks @witch - a superbly useful answer as ever, can't say I'm looking forward to the next couple of weeks as everything leading up to it and what I have read leave me feeling at best 'anxious' gulp!

 

Are you talking about the email changes? If so, they will just log on to Office 365 - changing their password the first time- and then be able to see their emails easily without needing to log in again or anything.

If you are talking about the changes re Office use, cloud stuff, collaboration and the like then that is a bit more challenging. I was pointed towards this:

Help your users get started using Office 365 - Office 365 Community Blog - Microsoft Office 365 Community - Microsoft Office 365 Community

which gives lots of info you might find useful.

As for migrating from SWGfL - I have finally managed to do all the accounts - save the HT, DH and office accounts (in case I should inadvertently use their password to access their emails - trust me then? Not so much) and the migration seems fine so far

[snagrat]

One of the main problems is they forget to disable the EasyMail service. This means anyone that emails your domain from another EasyMail account (another school for example) that email goes to your old EasyMail, not to office 365. It may end up in Office 365 if the have a batch migration running but will be delayed.

 

Once migrates get anther EasyMail school to mail you, or login to oldmail.domain.sch.uk as yourself and try to email another member of staff.

 

Hopefully things will go smoothly for you

[Leeoakley]

You need to come up with some short punchy sessions.

 

Think of what the users will face:

 

Sounds stupid, but start from where the users will begin. What I mean by that is that I'm a user at your school, I arrive in the morning and fire up my PC......what do I do? Just come up with a brief overview (30mins tops) that you can cover on mass and produce some handouts.

 

From here on in its about creating a set of courses that cover the main areas of Office 365, and the apps within it. Think carefully about what you want the staff to be doing with the product and what areas of "best practice" you want the staff to adhere to.

 

For the follow on sessions get the staff in front of a computer and guide them through the content with you demoing on a whiteboard.

 

If this is the first time you have done this, it will be as much a test for you, as training for the staff. Just keep it light hearted and get everyone working on the product. Ditch any thoughts of PowerPoint for the hands on sessions, you will bore the hell out of everyone (and probably yourself).

 

Where possible, try to group the staff so you don't have huge ability gaps within a class. This will help keep your tempo on the sessions at an even pace.

 

I have a load of outlines for training in office365, If it will help I can email these to you. May give you a starting point

 

I hope this is the kind of thing you are looking for?

 

GOOD LUCK!!!

[edutech4schools]

When I moved all my schools to Google Apps for Ed I printed out some very basic instructions 'This is how you access your email' info and some 'What can you do' cards. The staff then new what was possible with the new system and grabbed me if they wanted something specific.

 

Some staff already used this at home so needed very little help and some wanted me to show them everything.

[zag]

We moved to Office 365 a few years ago.

 

No training was required really. All teachers continued to use the desktop outlook client and all students just logged into the new webmail with no troubles.

 

Not many people use the other parts of O365.

[psydii]

 

No training was required really. All teachers [only use exchange online via the locally installed Outlook].

 

Not many people use the other parts of O365.

 

Here's how I read that:

 

No training leads to massive underuse of a powerful and transformative tool.

[jbailey]

True, but I have have found lots of training can still lead to massive underuse of transformative technology

[speckytecky]

Yep - just rolling out the Adobe FTE offer but so far squat feedback from either staff or students. They just haven't noticed. The only time they seem to notice something is when a convenient short cut disappears from their desktop or their USB connected printer fails to come up as 'default' because I've deliberately set a cheaper per copy central printer as default!