Create Office 365 Groups From SIMS?

[Gongalong]

Hi folks,

 

Aside from Salamander and Ruler, are there are any other sync tools that will create Office 365 groups from SIMS classes? Someone has mentioned Capita make one, but I'm not finding it with google.

 

Thanks

[synaesthesia]

Would suggest the salamander one - the Capita one comes with SIMS Teacher App, and I don't think anyone sensible uses that any more Salamander SDS just creates the CSV files for you that Office 365 needs to import into Teams (something we'd be able to do easily if any of the fields made sense for us mortals!) and it's free. They do have a paid version which is proper live syncing etc

[Gongalong]

Looks like the Capita one is SIMS ID, which seems to be a whole SSO solution. We have RM Unify that already federates with O365 and syncs from our local AD, so we need something that will sit comfortably with that. A shame that the RM Sync Tool doesn't do this as part of the sync, but I'm checking with RM if they have any recommended solutions that work with their system.

[Gongalong]

Turns out the RM Unify sync already does it. Hooray! https://support.rm.com/TechnicalArticle.asp?cref=TEC5285553

[Jawloms]

I'm now about to try and sync my classes up to O365. I already use AzureAD to sync all the accounts up. Will Salamander conflict in any way? Does it really just create lots of classes populated with my kids and teachers? Sounds too good to be true!

[DannyG555]

Salamander will extract data from your MIS for whatever classes, form groups etc you want creating. It compiles this into a CSV and then uploads to school data sync. Be aware though in the past week Microsoft have recently changed what gets created automatically (due to recent load) so only the office 365 group will be automatically created from the sync and not the Team. This is easily overcome though as you have the option to generate the Team from the o365 group via the admin centre.

 

Salamander doesn't conflict with AD connect.

Edited April 3, 2020 by DannyG555

[Norphy]

I’m in the process of writing a PowerShell script at the moment that takes a SIMS report and generates Teams from it. It creates a team per class, tutor group, year and year subject (e.g Year 7 English). It updates the Team if someone gets removed or added to a class.

 

It’s fairly specific to our MAT and it relies on there being an anchor between SIMS and AD but once it’s complete, I’m willing to share it if people are interested.

[AndyC]

Has anyone had any success with Sims ID lite and SDS syncing correctly using the OneRoster API to create groups in O365. The issue I’m having is Group duplication and the duplicates not having any owners or members. We are syncing AD Azure to sync with 365 already and works well, but the groups are a problem with SDS and OneRoster.

[stevenlong1985]

BFC Networks - Your Office 365 Education Specialist

 

have tried this?

[AndyC]

No, but will have a look. Cheers appreciate any help on this.