Google Workspace - O365

[DDR5]

Sorry if this has been posted about before - I dare say it has!

 

I support a primary school that have been using Google Workspace for years - in fact all schools that I support use Google Workspace - but this one use it well. They have around 300 Chromebooks for pupils, Staff use Shared Drives, Google Classroom for lessons and they really like it. 

The school have a fairly basic network - on-prem/Virtual servers for AD, GPO, SIMS.net/FMS etc and all works well. We have Smoothwall on prem that authenticates AD and Cloud that is linked the their Google domain.

 

They have recently joined an academy (for reasons nobody really knows) and the other 8 schools look to be 365 schools. I'm pretty sure that once we're fully in, they'll want us to move to 365 too.

 

So, if this does happen, from my point of having not much experience with 365, what would the migration look like? Can we keep everything on-prem but just use 365 for email/sharepoint etc? What licenses would we need for that? Could we keep using the Chromebooks? Like I say, I don't have much experience with 365 as never had to, so just wondering what the steps would be and how it would work! At the moment they pay nothing for Google Workspace, would they need to pay for licenses, and if so what and how many etc.

 

Thanks

[PotNoodleTech]

Moving from fully ingrained Google/Chromebook to office is gonna be a backwards step for the teaching and learning.

 

Oh well I guess someon else decided that it was worth taking the hit to become academised?

[DDR5]

Nobody really understands the reason to join this academy - I'm sure the SLT have their reasons...

 

Nothing has been decided yet but I know that all other schools, including the school where the 'head office', all use 365. I don't want to move but I'm guessing we won't have a choice. 

 

I'm just trying to get my head around what would need to be done if it does happen. 

[SPM99]

If the school are happy get them to say so. Annoys me all this Google OR 365 stuff. 

[Rob_D]

You could probably replicate everything you have from free Google with the A1 licenses. Although the trust may want you to have additional features like MFA then you'd need P1 or A3 licenses for (1 per staff user).

 

There's no reason you couldn't keep using the Chromebooks as you do now. (You'd probably just need to maintain your google accounts alongside your MS ones - we do this, it's not that hard, they just both sync from AD)

 

If it happens and if they want you to move, then lean on the other schools in the trust or the trust's central IT team to help with the migration setup and training (it's the least they can do if they want you to move).

[DDR5]

I spent a while getting my head around SSO/SAML and I think this may be a solution (for now) - it just enables the school to carry on working exactly as they are now but with the benefit of having access to 365 apps under the A1 license.

 

Seems to work well - just need to get my head around administering 365 which is probably a good thing as I dare say I'll be using it a lot more in the near future.

[DDR5]

Just to add to this, it does seem to work well so far. The school now has Google Workspace and 365 (A1) using the same account. Is there any reason this wouldn't work with other schools in the Trust that are solely 365?

[pete]

^ It'll work fine but I'd recommend you and each headteacher sit down to discuss setting expectations for staff around "your employer should be able to readily access things that they're paying you to create".

 

That might lead to a "your personal (lesson resource) stuff can be where you like, but the dept development plan needs to be in location X on platform Y".

 

Headteachers get grumpy if they have to faff about playing the "where did Bob save the latest version of Z?" game if it's not in the expected location and without setting down the ground rules at the start it can lead to "Bob ruined it for everyone".