Google Classroom to Office 365 Education

[swpmre]

Hi all,

We have been a Google Classroom / Workspace education provider for many years - Adult Education. We are having some pressure from senior management to move toward a Office 365 for Education environment. There are many reasons to not do this - but I would like to give my managers some ideas of costs/outlay required to make a transition.

 

Management seem to think it will be completely free. But I am not sure as I think we would have to pay for teaching and non-teaching staff.

 

We have several thousands of students through the year, on short courses, and a few hundred teachers.

 

I cannot find a simple rough guide anywhere, and I don't want to approach our reseller yet.

 

Anything back of an envelope to help me get an idea?

[PotNoodleTech]

Sounds like your gonna be moving from a system that works perfectly and is easy to manage, to a Microsoft system.

 

Factor in double the tech support requirement and see how free it is.

[ThatBoringBloke]

There's a free web based version Office 365 A1 that all eligible academic institutions can access. This is web based and only offeres limited funcationality. If you want more than the basic Web based Word, Excel, Powerpoint and Email then you're going to have to pay.

 

Google works, its easy to manage and it's free! Fundamentals is anyway.

 

I'd be asking 'management' what features they feel Microsoft can offer that would make them want to change.

Edited February 14, 2024 by ThatBoringBloke

[KK20]

This is not a small undertaking. I assume you have no presence in 365 at the moment. I also assume that by "free" the management will be expecting you and your team to perform the migration. The first thing I would do is compare teams to google education, the two are not the same and this might be enough to torpedo the idea. The second is decide what devices you are running on, remembering that mobile apps are not as feature rich as desktop apps (we use a mix of ipads and surface go's and there is a marked difference between the two). Free A1 licensing will have enough for your browser based online functionality but no app based installations. If you have a fleet of chromebooks then you can continue to coexist and still use google admin to "MDM" your chromebooks.