Making sure we use Teams post Lockdown

[maxrebo]

So I`m consumed in all things Teams at the moment, putting a lot of work in very quickly to get us up and running (all be in 10 weeks late!) and I can't help but thinking when things get back to normal use of Teams will fall off a cliff and it won't be getting any use!.

 

I realise that a strategy from SLT would achieve this but I've never seen one of these in all the times I've been here!.

 

A few other schools have moved their shared areas to Onedrive and Sharepoint thus forcing staff to use more of these services, does anyone have any ideas of maintaining interest in Teams post lock down? or your plan with Teams for the future?

 

Thanks

Edited June 7, 2020 by maxrebo

[Roberto]

A strategy would be helpful yes, but the overall point for me is that to make people use something, make it useful. Can you replace your intranet / VLE (or whatever it’s called now) with SPO sites delivered via Teams? It would be relatively easy to manage O365 group membership based on classroom groups, and make the Team sites a content hub.

 

Can you efficiently deliver support via Teams? Does that make sense? Support articles in the wiki? Workflows to provision easily automated things at staff request?

 

Big Question: Does it make sense to your users to use Teams? If you’re one one site and you’re not already very dynamic about using online resources as an org, this absolutely will be an uphill battle if Senior Leadership don’t care... I have a rule about not caring about other people’s problems more than they do, it does eonders for your mental health!

[robyholmes]

We luckily have SLT backing but we're also making sure old staff areas are marked as read only once in Office 365 and making it clear they are being retired.

[maxrebo]

We luckily have SLT backing but we're also making sure old staff areas are marked as read only once in Office 365 and making it clear they are being retired.

Yeah I've thought that could be an option. Just on that, when users files are moved to the cloud, with Office files I can see how they would manage but how do they manage Photoshop files for instance?, do you give then access to an area locally so they can edit these?

[robyholmes]

Yeah I've thought that could be an option. Just on that, when users files are moved to the cloud, with Office files I can see how they would manage but how do they manage Photoshop files for instance?, do you give then access to an area locally so they can edit these?

For staff we sync departments teams using group policy and Onedrive. Staff and Students also have Onedrive synced. So you can simply save or open from file explorer. Onedrive then syncs it in to the cloud.

 

We're considering going Onedrive only for our Year 7s in September.

[maxrebo]

Thanks. What are you using to sync then between Explorer and Onedrive? or can you do this through GP now? (I recall you used to need thiid party software)

 

cheers

[robyholmes]

Thanks. What are you using to sync then between Explorer and Onedrive? or can you do this through GP now? (I recall you used to need thiid party software)

 

cheers

Yes you can sync using standard group policy. You need to get the library IDs from SharePoint which is a bit task. I used a Powershell script to get them for me. Then you put them in a Automatically sync these Sharepoint libraries. I put all mine in one policy applied to all staff but it only syncs ones staff have access too.

 

It takes up to 30 minutes to start syncing on a new login, so when your testing give it plenty of time.

[maxrebo]

Yes you can sync using standard group policy. You need to get the library IDs from SharePoint which is a bit task. I used a Powershell script to get them for me. Then you put them in a Automatically sync these Sharepoint libraries. I put all mine in one policy applied to all staff but it only syncs ones staff have access too.

 

It takes up to 30 minutes to start syncing on a new login, so when your testing give it plenty of time.

Thank you. Is there a guide to this anywhere online?

[robyholmes]

Thank you. Is there a guide to this anywhere online?

Have a look here:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/onedrive/use-group-policy#configure-team-site-libraries-to-sync-automatically

[FishCustard]

[...] the overall point for me is that to make people use something, make it useful. [...]

Big Question: Does it make sense to your users to use Teams? If you’re one one site and you’re not already very dynamic about using online resources as an org, this absolutely will be an uphill battle if Senior Leadership don’t care... I have a rule about not caring about other people’s problems more than they do, it does eonders for your mental health!

 

This is the key point - technology should make people's lives easier. No organisation should switch to Teams or OneDrive or anything "just because" or "because it's the new hotness" - if it can genuinely solve problems users are having, or make their lives easier, or make school business run more smoothly, or any number of reasons - fantastic, go for it.

 

If it's being done for any other reason, users will rightfully resist.

[mullet_man]

For staff we sync departments teams using group policy and Onedrive. Staff and Students also have Onedrive synced. So you can simply save or open from file explorer. Onedrive then syncs it in to the cloud.

 

We're considering going Onedrive only for our Year 7s in September.

 

I like the sound of this, but I haven’t tested if OneDrive can work with the random old software we have, could be a good excuse to get rid of them though. It does sound like we won’t be fully open come September in the traditional sense so a move to OD and Teams sounds interesting. Food for thought.