Rolling out office 365 and emails

[technoguy414]

The school just got Office 365 and the faculty has accounts and emails for some time now. Now we want to introduce student email addresses. This would be a new roll out, so no old data to migrate over for students, and no current email for students. Students are a new subdomain @students.school.edu

 

The question is, what is the best way to roll out the email addresses to students? I only know how to do option A

 

Option A

A1) Create the student email accounts

A2) Email the students their new account email passwords to their personal email address

 

Option B (is this even possible)

B1) Have users goto a MS link to signup (how to verify they are an actual student?)

[snagrat]

Easiest way would be to setup AAD Connect so AD is synced to Office 365.

 

Students would then use same username and password for email as they do for computer logins

[Katy]

Easiest way would be to setup AAD Connect so AD is synced to Office 365.

 

Students would then use same username and password for email as they do for computer logins

If you do this (which is also how I'd do it) you need to make sure all the student user account UPNs in AD match their new email address, otherwise it's "log on as student@school-ad-domain, but that isn't your email address which is [email protected]"

[technoguy414]

Easiest way would be to setup AAD Connect so AD is synced to Office 365.

 

Students would then use same username and password for email as they do for computer logins

 

Thank you for the feedback.

 

The thing is the students do not have AD accounts, so there would be nothing to sync with.

 

I was going to do an import, CSV, of the users first, last and then email [email protected] from there the accounts are created, AD and office, and then I have to share the account pass to each one. this way seems very complicated

[snagrat]

You could set their passwords to be the same and to be changed at first login?

[MatthewL]

Create accounts in AD, surprised you don't already have these so how do they use the computer?

 

Sync users from AD, set password all the same and change on login, simplest way.

[Roberto]

Create accounts in AD, surprised you don't already have these so how do they use the computer?

 

Sync users from AD, set password all the same and change on login, simplest way.

 

It only seems simple to you because this is what you’re used to. Using Azure AD without on-prem AD is a perfectly valid scenario, and setting up AD from scratch if you don’t need it is hardly ‘simple’.

 

Techno guy, have you seen the article on Azure AD csv account creation? You can set a password there for each account and do a fair bit there which is your best bet, then use a mailmerge of the data from that csv to notify the students as a bulk operation again. Might save you some stress. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/users-groups-roles/users-bulk-add

Edited January 2, 2020 by Roberto
Accidentally a word

[technoguy414]

Create accounts in AD, surprised you don't already have these so how do they use the computer?

 

Sync users from AD, set password all the same and change on login, simplest way.

 

Things were done differently, and I recently took over management of their IT.

 

So really what we are doing here is introducing NEW email address/accounts for students, under the office 365 subdomain. There is no preexisting AD with the student data.

[technoguy414]

It only seems simple to you because this is what you’re used to. Using Azure AD without on-prem AD is a perfectly valid scenario, and setting up AD from scratch if you don’t need it is hardly ‘simple’.

 

Techno guy, have you seen the article on Azure AD csv account creation? You can set a password there for each account and do a fair bit there which is your best bet, then use a mailmerge of the data from that csv to notify the students as a bulk operation again. Might save you some stress. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/users-groups-roles/users-bulk-add

 

Roberto, this article is great! Thank you. I would bulk create as mentioned here, then once they are in, put them in the proper AD group (which drives licensing, so student a1). The question now is, how to effectively get the passwords to the users? I thought we could have them self-sign in and authenticate with their email or student ID??

 

After bulk import, we would ensure the ad user had a field for student id/birthday filled, so they could auth that way, and then receive/set pass. Is that possible?

[Roberto]

Roberto, this article is great! Thank you. I would bulk create as mentioned here, then once they are in, put them in the proper AD group (which drives licensing, so student a1). The question now is, how to effectively get the passwords to the users? I thought we could have them self-sign in and authenticate with their email or student ID??

 

After bulk import, we would ensure the ad user had a field for student id/birthday filled, so they could auth that way, and then receive/set pass. Is that possible?

 

Not sure, you'd want to test this but you could try filling in the alternate email with their personal email and then using that to notify them?

 

You can (and absolutely should!) configure self-service password reset and MFA to manage the password process for the future but getting the initial password into their hands is always going to be a pain in the neck unless you can give them a formula to follow (e.g. "your password is the name of the street you live on, plus your DOB in mmddyy format, e.g Washington082098"). I've had mixed success with that when I've worked in education in the past, with older students - senior high school age or thereabouts, but you will still need a service desk support setup to deal with those people who can't or won't figure out their proper password from the clues in this kind of system.