Microsoft SDS - Weekly Digest Email

[midweek]

Hi All

 

We've recently set up Microsoft SDS using SalamanderSoft (who were great) but I've been told that the weekly digest email for parents only includes Teams created using the SDS process.

I just wanted to see what people's experience is on here.

I would have assumed if we have the parent/guardian sync running and correct then if we turn on the weekly digest option in a Team it shouldn't matter if it's created in the SDS process or created manually after the fact.

Basically we have some classes that go over 2 years and the teachers don't want this archived in the middle so they will create and manage it manually. We would still want weekly assignment emails sent for these though.

 

Is this not possible?

 

Ta

[MartinT]

After initial trials, we use Cloud Design Box to create all of our Teams. Staff cannot create their own without going through us. So all current Teams (4,289 right now) show in Microsoft SDS. Some class Teams are not archived for the duration of that study (usually 2 years max) but there isn't a penalty for it.

[midweek]

Thanks MartinT. Sadly we don't have Cloud Design Box and it would be my head if I stopped staff being able to manually create Teams (they are up in arms about the automatically created class Teams as it is!).

[supportman]

Thanks MartinT. Sadly we don't have Cloud Design Box and it would be my head if I stopped staff being able to manually create Teams (they are up in arms about the automatically created class Teams as it is!).

 

We found it easier just to allow staff to create teams for their classes without SDS. Just gives them more responsibility.

 

We do enforce naming conventions though.

[midweek]

We found it easier just to allow staff to create teams for their classes without SDS. Just gives them more responsibility.

 

We do enforce naming conventions though.

 

Do you have a weekly parent email showing the assignments?

[supportman]

Do you have a weekly parent email showing the assignments?

No we've never done that, our students are pretty self sufficient.

 

EDIT: But we moved to manual exactly for the 2 year subject reason.

Edited June 3, 2024 by supportman

[MartinT]

Assignments to parents have not been approved yet, but I feel it's only a matter of time. Our MSP Portal can display Teams assignments, so it'll be easy enough to turn on.

[midweek]

Yeah I think we'll be going to a mix of automatically created class teams and some manual for the 2 year courses. It looks like the digest email will work for both from a bit of basic testing I've done.

 

The assignments email was the driver for this as a rival school has just set it up and we need to keep up with the Joneses.