Gsuite Vs O365 - looking for opinions/feedback

[Duranis]

We are a primary school with around 400 pupils and currently using GSuite for staff and it is working just fine. Staff are fairly happy using it but they are only really using email, shared calendars and drive for file storage/sharing.

 

We are quietly preparing for if the schools have to be put into lockdown again and have the opportunity for setting up either GSuite or O365 as our online learning platform. The pretty hazy plan at this stage is to use whichever platform for setting and collecting work. The other schools within the new academy have all switched to O365 so that is something else worth keeping in mind.

 

My personal inclination would be to stick with GSuite but that is only because I have more experience with it and I believe staff will get on better using Google Classroom over Teams for setting and managing online learning.

 

I would be interested to hear anyone's experiences with them both, any pro's or con's I might have missed and any "gotcha's" I should be looking out for by going for one or the other?

[Primus]

If staff are using G Suite now then now is not the time to change platform.

 

My personal view is that G Suite is far easier to use and manage.

[paulkerton]

Stick with G Suite. The middle of a pandemic is not the time to switch.

 

Like Primus, I think G Suite is the better platform anyway.

[mthomas08]

We have both but I think Microsoft Teams is the biggest difference, the ability to link with onedrive, do virtual meetings, chat and share things much easier. More than one can edit a document (seeing it live and who is doing it), quick and easy to open things using the desktop apps.

[Duranis]

We have both but I think Microsoft Teams is the biggest difference, the ability to link with onedrive, do virtual meetings, chat and share things much easier. More than one can edit a document (seeing it live and who is doing it), quick and easy to open things using the desktop apps.

Thanks. Interestingly from my point of view I would have said almost exactly the same about Gsuite (with my limited experience of Teams). Is there anything specific you can say that makes Teams easier? I'm thinking it is very much a case that they are pretty much identical and it's down to personal preference. It would be good to pin down some definite differences between the two though.

[Duranis]

If staff are using G Suite now then now is not the time to change platform.

My personal view is that G Suite is far easier to use and manage.

 

Is there anything specific you can pin down for why you think Gsuite is easier to use/manage? I'm feeling the same way about it but I don't have a lot of experience with O365 and I'm struggling to come up with specifics of why one is better than the other that I can put to SLT. I think generally they seem the same but I'm just a lot more biased to what I already know.

[Primus]

We have both but I think Microsoft Teams is the biggest difference, the ability to link with onedrive, do virtual meetings, chat and share things much easier. More than one can edit a document (seeing it live and who is doing it), quick and easy to open things using the desktop apps.

 

All of which is just as easily or more easily done with G Suite.

[Primus]

Is there anything specific you can pin down for why you think Gsuite is easier to use/manage? I'm feeling the same way about it but I don't have a lot of experience with O365 and I'm struggling to come up with specifics of why one is better than the other that I can put to SLT. I think generally they seem the same but I'm just a lot more biased to what I already know.

 

I manage both G Suite and O365 across our schools - G Suite is very straightforward to manage. O365 just adds complexity on top of complexity and has so much functionality that is irrelevant to a school. Teams is very much a business product being shoehorned into education.

 

Locally schools that went G Suite saw huge uptake with staff and students with minimal CPD. Schools that went O365 have not seen huge uptake as the products are more complicated to use from an end user perspective.

[Duranis]

Thanks that's really useful. This was pretty much how I was feeling about it but didn't know if my lack of experience with O365 was just making bias.

[jmak]

The key thing is that this is the wrong time to switch.

 

In your position, I'd make a strong case around that. As a starting point, I'd mention:

 

1) All your existing files are in Google Drive. Staff would need to use those even if they create new lessons/homework tasks in Teams, so you'd quickly end up with confusion about where stuff is stirred and which is the correct version.

 

2) Your distribution lists/contacts are all in Gmail, so you'd have to recreate all of that

 

3) You'd need to create Office 365 accounts for everyone and set up SSO

 

4) You'd need to install additional software on all client machines which should be tested before it's released

 

5) You don't know how to support Teams (obviously make it clear that you'd be happy to learn, but there's a big learning curve)

 

6) You'd need to provide training for all staff

 

If all of the other schools in the MAT are O365, you'll probably end up going that way and it's quite usable nowadays. When I was planning a transition to cloud, I recommended G Suite, as I'd tested both and found it easier to implement, manage and use, but I was honest and said that other schools locally were using O365. On that basis we went O365. I managed fine and I think it's better now - although as ever MS seem to make the simplest things painful, including the normal nightmare that is licensing.

 

I'd still go back to the fact that it's not a simple switch. For it to succeed, it's needs a strategy, a proper plan, investment of time for you to support it, for staff to be trained and an understanding that any change like that costs time and energy and during the migration process, the organisation will be less efficient and there will be teething problems. It would need full backing from SLT. Now is not the time.

[paulkerton]

The other thing to note is that because G Suite is a native cloud product, that's how people work. They open a file in Drive, and it opens in the relevant editor.

The amount of times I've seen people use O365 by downloading the file they want to work on, save it locally, editing it and uploading it (or not uploading it and being confused as to why it's the old file).

 

But yes, like jmak has said. You're likely to move at some point as the rest of the Academy is already on 365, but it needs to be properly planned and strategised when it happens.

But definitely not right now.

[Ditto]

I have worked on both and would agree with the support of GSuite for many of the reasons given above. I would also add the online community for GSuite for Education is refreshing lively and very focused on learning. If you have time to get stuck in to that community, you will find many creative ways of getting the best out of the product, especially for remote learning.

[mavhc]

GSuite is better if you're not trying to deal with MSOffice documents.

 

Teams puts everything into one app, but they're still limited by weird legacy Office stuff, stupid activation, etc etc. Do I download, does it sync with onedrive, do I edit on the web? In GSuite that's not a question, there's 1 right way.

 

Classroom beats Teams for class work easily, as long as you use native GSuite documents. Teachers who try to attach Word files are doing it wrong.

 

MS's entire advantage is 40 years of Office documents you have lying around.

[yac2016]

I manage both G Suite and O365 across our schools - G Suite is very straightforward to manage. O365 just adds complexity on top of complexity and has so much functionality that is irrelevant to a school. Teams is very much a business product being shoehorned into education.

 

Locally schools that went G Suite saw huge uptake with staff and students with minimal CPD. Schools that went O365 have not seen huge uptake as the products are more complicated to use from an end user perspective.

 

This is pretty much spot on with our experience, stick with GSuite.

[edmokeski]

We've been using GSuite for six-ish years, now, so my impressions of MS may be slightly dated, but in my experience it's just faffier for teachers. More clicks/taps to achieve the same thing. As has been said above, MS products are full of irrelevant features and unnecessary complexity. The s/w just needs to get out of the way and let teachers teach, and Google has generally done that much better. The two top reasons I see schools go MS are legacy content and because MS is in the IT team's comfort zone (don't have to worry about setting up extra SSO etc. etc., all just works with what you were already using). If you're already running G Suite, I don't see any reason to switch.

That said, my kids' primary went G Suite for lockdown, and even the simplicity of Classroom was too much for some families. If you have any money for it, something like Seesaw or Showbie might work better in a primary environment. We're a secondary, and Classroom has been fantastic for us, especially over lockdown.

 

ps - When we first evaluated it, Teams was called MS Classroom. MS decided they couldn't make money off it, and re-pitched it for business as Teams while still marketing to schools. I'd generally rather be a product's primary audience than an also-ran.

[paulkerton]

We've been using GSuite for six-ish years, now, so my impressions of MS may be slightly dated, but in my experience it's just faffier for teachers. More clicks/taps to achieve the same thing. As has been said above, MS products are full of irrelevant features and unnecessary complexity. The s/w just needs to get out of the way and let teachers teach, and Google has generally done that much better. The two top reasons I see schools go MS are legacy content and because MS is in the IT team's comfort zone (don't have to worry about setting up extra SSO etc. etc., all just works with what you were already using). If you're already running G Suite, I don't see any reason to switch.

 

Oh yes. IT teams doing what's best for them and not their school (necessarily) is definitely a factor. For some, 365 might be a better idea but it's very much an offline suite for business being crowbarred into online use, and then crowbarred again into Education use. G Suite was developed from the ground up with Education in mind alongside it's Enterprise goals.

 

Also the beloved cry of "industry standard" all the way down to primary level. I get it with FE and HE (perhaps) but the idea a 4 year old of today will be using the same software when they're 21 or older can be easily dispelled when you put someone in front of Office 2020 and then stick them in front of a copy of Office 2003 and ask them to have at it. Plus, a lot of work never touches anything but Android these days, or an embedded OS with a custom interface. Or a web based product. So, its a very weak argument.

ps - When we first evaluated it, Teams was called MS Classroom. MS decided they couldn't make money off it, and re-pitched it for business as Teams while still marketing to schools. I'd generally rather be a product's primary audience than an also-ran.

Microsoft Classroom was their clone of Google Classroom that they ditched quickly and integrated some of it's features into Teams, which was it's clone of Slack.

Innovators indeed.

Edited September 24, 2020 by paulkerton

[Michael]

Use the best of both SSO all the way.

[Ditto]

Use the best of both SSO all the way.

Both shouldn't be written off, in secondary, but realise that it adds to the overheads considerably. Re "because MS is in the IT team's comfort zone". Yes, I've come across this, but more frequently been business systems manager/bursar and heads. One refused to even look at GSuite because they didn't like the Gmail interface. Another refused to use GMail, even though the school was 100% G Suite and had that as key part of their strategy and marketing. This particular one tried to set up his own synch to Outlook, and end up losing the vast majority of his emails - the exec head had to step in to get him to toe the line - even then he barely lasted a year!

[jthompson]

For the end user, the biggest point of difference between the two platforms is probably Classroom vs Teams. If your school is getting on with Classroom okay, stick with that. Personally, I find Teams to be a hot mess and a nightmare to get a sense of where you are (am I DMing, chatting to a group, or a group withing a channel, or on a SharePoint site within a group's team chat channel in their SharePoint files meeting group?). Classroom is hard to get lost in, tbh.

 

On the admin side, G Suite benefits from a much more consistent experience. MS has about 12 different paradigms going on. Both good platforms to have, undeniably, but if you're already used to G Suite, switching to MS is a very big undertaking for the IT team. Reason enough not to just now if you can avoid it, as others have advised. Perhaps get to know it if you can, to avail your school of it in the future.

 

Anecdotally, Gmail also seems to have far more effective spam and phish filtering.