Primary School 365 file migration

[steveg]

Just wondering how anyone who has migrated all their data to 365 has structured it, and what do you primarily use for access SharePoint / teams etc?

 

We currently use windows servers / file shares and 365 for email. All staff are familiar with Teams thanks to Covid, and we do share some files on a couple of teams when multiple editors are needed, or where access from ipads is needed easily for example our site team work from ipads.

 

Current clients devices are a 50/50 mix of ipads and windows devices. Ipads will likely slowly dwindle in favour of Chromebooks once testing is complete.

 

Current structure is a big staff drive with folders for each keystage, and then sub divided into year groups, then classes. (That makes it sound a lot better than it is, it's a big mess and will be sorted before migration) We then have an office drive for admin, and SLT have their own secure folder. Pupils have a shared public drive with sub folders for each class and then pupil.

[djm968]

At a new School recently, the 1st step I found really difficult was trying to explain the difference between SharePoint and Teams. After a few months they'd got themselves in a bit of a mess so I've gone back to basics and created two sites. Curriculum and Admin, they are now moving files to folders inside these two sites. I will sort group permissions out, after think they've moved what they need, to where they want it.

[steveg]

At a new School recently, the 1st step I found really difficult was trying to explain the difference between SharePoint and Teams. After a few months they'd got themselves in a bit of a mess so I've gone back to basics and created two sites. Curriculum and Admin, they are now moving files to folders inside these two sites. I will sort group permissions out, after think they've moved what they need, to where they want it.

 

That's one way I was considering doing it, probably predominantly accessing it all through teams, but I'm wondering if it will work slightly better by having say a KS1, KS2, EYFS and Whole school team? Or does this just make it more complicated. Would like to try and get it right first time!

[ITJAY2023]

We use Teams channels as the staff communicate within them so a Staff Team, Year 1 - 6 class team and EYFS. The teams site auto generate there own SharePoint sites and then any room you create within that team is a folder auto created on SharePoint. We then have a GPO / Configuration Profile which automatically maps the document library to OneDrive so users have a choice of accessing sharepoint files either via file explorer or teams

[steveg]

We use Teams channels as the staff communicate within them so a Staff Team, Year 1 - 6 class team and EYFS. The teams site auto generate there own SharePoint sites and then any room you create within that team is a folder auto created on SharePoint. We then have a GPO / Configuration Profile which automatically maps the document library to OneDrive so users have a choice of accessing sharepoint files either via file explorer or teams

 

How do they see the different teams they are in from within onedrive? I've got onedrive setup on my pc at the moment and within that shortcuts to a couple of teams I'm in, so I can browse the files in explorer, would they have to add these shortcuts themselves?

 

Also can I check, if they open a file going the explorer route does this lock the file and stop multiple people editing it? Seems to happen on mine, but not sure if this is by design or if something has gone wrong, I have 365 desktop apps installed and signed in.

[ITJAY2023]

So instead of creating shortcuts from the teams to OneDrive go to the files tab on whatever team you want, press 'open in sharepoint' on the top bar which will redirect you to the web page of SharePoint and then press Sync to sync the document library.

 

I'm presuming you've got Azure AD Connect on your DC which allows for SSO for all M365 Apps, also you can automate the Sync process via GPO so that you can sync whatever document library you want to whatever OU.

 

No if they open the file via explorer it'll open it in Autosave live mode just like Teams, as long as they have the latest Office and not Office 2016.

 

So for example if Employee A and B both have the document library synced and open a word document via Explorer then they will both see each other live editing

[jmak]

So instead of creating shortcuts from the teams to OneDrive go to the files tab on whatever team you want, press 'open in sharepoint' on the top bar which will redirect you to the web page of SharePoint and then press Sync to sync the document library.

 

I'm presuming you've got Azure AD Connect on your DC which allows for SSO for all M365 Apps, also you can automate the Sync process via GPO so that you can sync whatever document library you want to whatever OU.

 

No if they open the file via explorer it'll open it in Autosave live mode just like Teams, as long as they have the latest Office and not Office 2016.

 

So for example if Employee A and B both have the document library synced and open a word document via Explorer then they will both see each other live editing

I've done it this way for years, but found it's more problematic now. We've had quite a few issues with synchronisation. Microsoft now recommend that you create a link in OneDrive to the SharePoint folder or document library. This is really annoying as I've spent ages teaching users that OneDrive is for personal stuff (like your old home drive) and SharePoint is the replacement for the file server.

 

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/sharepoint-sync

 

We've started to try and persuade people to use the open/save in the context menu in the office apps and to use the web interface for viewing find in SharePoint. It's the synchronisation that's been poor, not the presentation in File Explorer

[ITJAY2023]

I've done it this way for years, but found it's more problematic now. We've had quite a few issues with synchronisation. Microsoft now recommend that you create a link in OneDrive to the SharePoint folder or document library. This is really annoying as I've spent ages teaching users that OneDrive is for personal stuff (like your old home drive) and SharePoint is the replacement for the file server.

 

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/sharepoint-sync

 

We've started to try and persuade people to use the open/save in the context menu in the office apps and to use the web interface for viewing find in SharePoint. It's the synchronisation that's been poor, not the presentation in File Explorer

 

Same here, I didn't realise there pushing shortcuts and not the sync method

 

Like you said your personal OneDrive is like your home drive... cant wait to go back to them and go 'Hey, you know how I said this one thing? Well...'

 

Syncing issues are fun plus the bloody Desktop Shortcuts which always seem to duplicate