Google Workspace Student account management

[Rundc]

Hi all,

 

First time here and new network manager for a MAT, with no handover and 0 processes in place, it's been a fun month or so

 

Anyway, Im strating from scratch with student account in google, so far I've got as far as i'll be given a bunch of student names from the MIS and expected to generate accounts based on first initial surname, which is fine, i can do this via the bulk upload.

 

I haven't played around yet but wondering how people manage ensuring the user names are unique where you have students with the same surname and first initial, in the list i get from each school i can run this, however there may well be accounts in google with the same username already, do you just uploaded and review status after?

 

Also new to google workspace!

 

Any help greatly appreciated

[robjduk]

Hello,

You can indeed upload to Google with bulk CSV and it uses email address as login name so that's how you keep everything unique. Saying that the best way to manage this is with the Active Directory Sync which it just manages it all for you and keeps in sync with AD. If you want to be fancy, you can look at systems like Locker which sync Google with your MIS but that's down the line.

Setting up Google directory sync is easy and just sits on your DC's however introducing it when there is an existing setup needs a little care to ensure things are not overwritten. If you are stuck, I have a good third party I can give you to talk to if you PM me.

[jthompson]

Have a search for threads on here about student username conventions/formats. There's a balance to be struck between usability (i.e. not too complex), uniqueness (avoiding clashes) and not exposing too much information if the accounts are to be used around the Intenet (i.e. not giving away a pupil's school, year group full name and midle initaals).

 

Having some kind of cohort element in usernames will massively reduce the scope for username clashes if you're combining that with lastname and first initial, without being cumbersome for end users.

 

We also include a couple of digits from the pupil's admission number. That reduces the scope for username clashes to near zero, and has the added benefit of preventing staff from 'guessing' at email addresses: they have to work from the email directory.

[mavhc]

Step 1: sync to AD, work out username problem there

Step 2: sync AD to GW and M365

Step 3: sync passwords too

 

Small school, add a 1,2,3 to the end

Medium school add a year to the start, 12JSmith, 11JSmith

Large school, add other initials/numbers as well

[Rundc]

Thanks for the tips, unfortunately students don’t have an account in AD

[Alex0x7F]

15JBloggs etc. for the naming format here. I use Locker to sync ScholarPack MIS to G Suite, very handy interface to sync accounts for new starters, mid term leavers, summer roll up.

[Ditto]

Just on Workspace, in your spare time (I know - haha!), this course is highly recommended https://www.coursera.org/learn/introduction-google-workspace and the others that are related. In terms of the Google apps, if you want to get to grips more with those try https://www.coursera.org/specializations/getting-started-with-google-workspace - it would be good if you could get a teacher to volunteer to be a specialist lead on this part, plus than can certificate as part of CPD. Edited September 7, 2022 by Ditto

[mavhc]

Thanks for the tips, unfortunately students don’t have an account in AD

 

How do they log in?

[Rundc]

How do they log in?

Chromebooks

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

Just on Workspace, in your spare time (I know - haha!), this course is highly recommended https://www.coursera.org/learn/introduction-google-workspace and the others that are related. In terms of the Google apps, if you want to get to grips more with those try https://www.coursera.org/specializations/getting-started-with-google-workspace - it would be good if you could get a teacher to volunteer to be a specialist lead on this part, plus than can certificate as part of CPD.

 

Thanks, I’ll take a look at these

[mavhc]

Chromebooks

 

Staff are still on Windows? How do they sign in to Google?

[Rundc]

Staff are still on Windows? How do they sign in to Google?

 

At the minute they have a separate AD and Google account, a project I’ve arrived in the middle of is updating the AD UPNs to match their Google user name with the idea of syncing the counts via GCDS

[mavhc]

At the minute they have a separate AD and Google account, a project I’ve arrived in the middle of is updating the AD UPNs to match their Google user name with the idea of syncing the counts via GCDS

 

The main thing is to have one source of truth, and sync everything from there.

 

You could pay Google and have Sign In With Google In Windows, but that's really for people without Domains.

 

I suggest syncing everyone to AD, and syncing AD to Google. Don't need to tell students they have AD accounts after all.

[TwistedHelixis]

I know Arbor (MIS) has an option to sync with Google built in. If you are using SIMS, I believe there are options, perhaps Wonde does this.

[Sonic007]

We export out of Sims. (First Name, Surname) and then put in their Email addresses and organisational unit.

Easy enough to do in Excel as you start typing one and then it does the rest for you. We set same password for all and then they can change if needed.

 

Students have inital of their first name followed by their surname and the year they started in Year1.

 

So a year1 student this year would be:

 

[email protected]

 

Each year group is in its own organisational unit. We have: Pupils>YearGroup>

[pacapps]

We use Wonde for synching SIMS with Google.

 

I didnt set up our Google accounts so not 100% sure on the process but I can confirm that it seems to work just fine.

[Rundc]

The main thing is to have one source of truth, and sync everything from there.

 

You could pay Google and have Sign In With Google In Windows, but that's really for people without Domains.

 

I suggest syncing everyone to AD, and syncing AD to Google. Don't need to tell students they have AD accounts after all.

 

I think that’s the goal, sync AD to Google!

 

We’ve just moved from SIMS and the previous NM had a manual process, I’ve got a a call on Monday with Arbor and going to see what they can offer