It’s the update that schools have been waiting for. Today Microsoft announced parental access to Microsoft Teams assignments through a regular email digest. This update enables the school to emphasise the importance of homework and provide parents with all the information they need to fully support their children at home.
Below is a preview (real experience may differ) and details are still being released on how this will work
I expect that the teacher will need to enable this option in each class (so that parents don’t get empty updates or lack of content).
School Data Sync (SDS) will now support student contacts as a new CSV upload file. If you manage SDS yourself, this means there will be a new CSV to create and upload. Third party SDS sync providers will soon be able to support this. Parental contacts are optional so no need to rush and upload these. It might be worth waiting a few months to test this before rolling out to all classes and parents (it will give Microsoft time to fix any bugs) and it will give the school chance to cleanse parental data in the school MIS.
Update 26/02/2019: we are just waiting for Microsoft to complete the roll-out of this feature which should be in the next few weeks
Update 01/11/2019: This is finally live – sync your guardians using school data sync.
You can find out more about how we can enhance Office 365 so that it’s really easy for teachers and students to navigate and use. We also focus on user adoption by providing training needs analysis, onsite training workshops and tailored roll-out plans to increase user engagement and get your school off to a flying start. Visit the Cloud Design Box website to find out more.
Hi, Is there another update for this? Is this something we can now do?
Many thanks
Liz.
Hi Liz,
We are still waiting for Microsoft to enable this feature. I spoke to them last week about this and they expect it to be released this quarter as part of the next major release.
In preparation for this, you will need to be enabling guardian sync in SDS and uploading the contact details.
Thanks,
Tony
Hello, is that option is available now?
Hi Robert,
Yes it is live now!
Microsoft Documentation
Thanks,
Tony
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Do you know if there is an option to change the time these e-mails are sent – 8am on a Sunday morning isn’t ideal. We already buy into CDB to manage out data sync. Thank you.
Hi Beverley,
Thank you for your message, you can always log any queries with your IT team who can discuss them with us directly.
The parental digest email that Microsoft send out currently goes out on a Sunday morning once a week, there are no options in Office 365 to change this. I would recommend putting your suggestion to Microsoft on their UserVoice website to be considered for future development.
Thanks,
Tony
Hello,
To assign parent/Guardian email to a student account, SDS is mandatory ?
I don’t use SDS, I make all my admin operations using PowerShell …
Where can I found a sample Power Script Sample to assign Parent/Guardian to a student account ?
This is only available with SDS profiles as far as I’m aware.
Is it posibile to just use the 2 parent and guardian files in SDS to link to Teams created in PS?
Teams created by powershell do not have properties to link to the school, students or teachers so it is unlikely that would work.
What type of email is sent out? is there a global report?
There is an image of the email in this blog post. It is a weekly email digest to each guardian.