MS Teams and SIMS ID

[petben]

Hello, we like lots of schools are rush launching Teams, SIMS ID sync seems sensible if we are creating 100's of teaching group Teams, but for the minute we are just creating staff department groups manually (e.g. A Maths Team containing all the Maths teachers). The setup of the SIMS ID link looks fairly involved, I am tempted to leave this until SLT decide to launch Teams to students.

 

Does the SIMS link even create teams for staff department groups?

[robyholmes]

Hello, we like lots of schools are rush launching Teams, SIMS ID sync seems sensible if we are creating 100's of teaching group Teams, but for the minute we are just creating staff department groups manually (e.g. A Maths Team containing all the Maths teachers). The setup of the SIMS ID link looks fairly involved, I am tempted to leave this until SLT decide to launch Teams to students.

 

Does the SIMS link even create teams for staff department groups?

 

We don't use the SIMS ID Link system (Was told we needed a licence for this so gave up). However we do take CSV files from SIMS and use Microsoft SDS to create teams. In our setup it doesn't bring any staff departments in. We manage those manually in Office 365.

[MicrodigitUK]

We don’t use SIMS ID link but do use a 3rd party tool to create teams for staff department groups called Cloud Design Box. I would thoroughly recommend it to assist in automating SharePoint and Teams admin tasks linked to SIMS data. https://www.clouddesignbox.co.uk/ Edited April 20, 2020 by MicrodigitUK

[supportman]

We use ruler.co.uk to do this via SDS.

[AJWhite1970]

+1 for ruler connect, now found here:-

 

https://locker.co.uk

[petben]

Ok is ruler connect better than the sims id? I’ve just read MS now don’t offer auto team creation due to demand and even their long term vision is teachers populate their own teams! What a dumb idea.

 

What’s the recommended procedure now for IT to create and populate the Teams?

[MicrodigitUK]

Ok is ruler connect better than the sims id? I’ve just read MS now don’t offer auto team creation due to demand and even their long term vision is teachers populate their own teams! What a dumb idea.

 

What’s the recommended procedure now for IT to create and populate the Teams?

 

The 3rd party companies can still force populate the Teams on top of the SDS profiles.

 

Be that:

Salamander

Cloud Design Box

Ruler

 

I however Doubt SIMS ID (being a Capita thing) can yet as it just uses SDS and not the MS graph APIs/Teams Powershell.

[MkII]

Ok is ruler connect better than the sims id? I’ve just read MS now don’t offer auto team creation due to demand and even their long term vision is teachers populate their own teams! What a dumb idea.

 

What’s the recommended procedure now for IT to create and populate the Teams?

The newest SDS currently creates the teams and populates them but doesn't make them live for staff to see them until you manually do it, to save resources with lots of teams that may never be used.

[petben]

Thanks, I spoke to ruler, £1000/yr. I’m concerned we may never use teams again after the school opens again. So 2 more Qs

- is sims id a paid for license?

- what is the manual process to make the created Teams live for staff as suggested by mkll?

[supportman]

Thanks, I spoke to ruler, £1000/yr. I’m concerned we may never use teams again after the school opens again. So 2 more Qs

- is sims id a paid for license?

- what is the manual process to make the created Teams live for staff as suggested by mkll?

 

We use Ruler and its invaluable for auto creating class distribution lists each year, pushing timetables to student and teacher outlook calendars and of course the automatic SDS link. Its well worth the price in my opinion.

 

As for not using Teams again, I would be very surprised! All our staff use it daily in school since we introduced it about 16 months ago. It just works very well for storing files and discussions in classes as well as setting their homework.

 

Can't commend on the Sims ID, I avoid anything by Capita, they are a mess these days.

[petben]

Thanks, I forgot about the timetable to outlook, that's pretty cool. do you know if the groups it creates in Office365 can be synced to onsite AD? We use some permissions based on classes and hence AD groups (Adobe licenses for Photography/Graphics students for example).

 

do you also use Ruler to auto create new AD and 365 users once they appear in SIMS?

 

Thanks

[rpwillis]

The newest SDS currently creates the teams and populates them but doesn't make them live for staff to see them until you manually do it, to save resources with lots of teams that may never be used.

 

It's slightly more nuanced than that. The Office 365 groups are created, but teams are not created until the staff manually create them. They then need to Activate them as well, before the students get access.

[rpwillis]

- what is the manual process to make the created Teams live for staff as suggested by mkll?

 

This is documented at https://support.office.com/en-us/article/create-a-class-team-in-microsoft-teams-fae422eb-58b7-4431-9ff2-a4b9b6ae7c5b?ui=en-US&rs=en-US&ad=US#ID0EADAAA=Create_a_team_from_an_existing_group.

 

Microsoft now have added the new process, so a staff member will click on Create Team, and then get an option to "Create team from a group". This will then display a list of their classes, as synchronised by SDS, to populate the team from. This will also ensure that changes to the group, managed by SDS, will synchronise to the team.