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
If you want to have a chat about this, happy to setup a call, just provide your contact details here: Contact us
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.
After a bit of playing around got it working with PS created Teams.
Create SDS profile, upload all files with but leave studentenrollment.csv teacherroster.csv section.csv files empty except for header.
Teams created in PS with EDU_Class template will work for parent emails.
That’s interesting, glad you managed to get it working! You could also add guardians using PowerShell Graph API calls. I believe this is possible by using some of the PowerShell on the SDS PowerShell GitHub site – same method as deleting parents – https://github.com/OfficeDev/O365-EDU-Tools/blob/master/SDS%20Scripts/Reset-Guardians.ps1.
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.
Could anyone know how to check to see if parents / guardians have actually been imported successfully?
Yes, login to the SDS admin interface, select a student and you should see their guardian details appear.
Does the email only contain information about assignments or can you include meeting attendance?
Hi Sephen,
It is just assignment information as shown in the screenshot.
Thanks,
Tony
I know the digests have been sent, can as admin we see what has been sent to parents?
No, they can’t. Even Microsoft cannot see this (as far as I’m aware). As long as the email address is correct and the type is “Parent” and the assignment digest is turned on at a tenant and class level, then it will send.
As far as I can work out, the email sent to parents states whether the work has been ‘turned in’ or not. However, it is possible for a pupil to click ‘submit’ on an Assignment and actually hand nothing in. This then shows as ‘turned in’ on the parental email so the parent then thinks that all of the work has been done when it hasn’t. Is there a way of stopping this/changing the settings?
Hi Hannah,
That is correct. There isn’t really any way around that. Even if you could force submitting a document (which you can’t), the student could always submit a blank document (I’m sure they could find a way). In addition to that, some assignments might be tasks requiring no document submission such as reading a book.
I guess in this situation, it requires teacher intervention to contact the parent (which I believe is coming to Teams in the future). If you can think of a solution, it’s worth adding it to the Microsoft user voice site for consideration.
Thanks,
Tony
Do you know if there is a way to change the address these are sent from?
There is no way to change the address this email is from. There will be some updates on parental engagement from Microsoft in the coming months, we will share when we know more!