What Educators Can Learn About Automating Microsoft Teams

Posted on 10 September 2020

In our changing world, time is of the essence – and the ability to adapt quickly to changing government advice has never been more important. Thankfully, we’ve developed a new tool for Microsoft Teams to help educators move faster.

The beginning of a new academic year is here; schools are welcoming back young children (parents everywhere breathe a sigh of relief), colleges are back in action, and undergraduates are gearing up for universities to go back to business as usual. But with new rules and regulations constantly shifting, there’s no doubt that educators are feeling the pressure.

Now more than ever, there’s an urgent need to free up time, streamline processes, and communicate effectively. Forward-thinking educators are turning to Microsoft solutions to manage vital work quickly, from Microsoft Identity Manager to automate joiner, mover, leaver, processes, to Microsoft Teams for effective communication between staff and students alike.

 

Microsoft Teams for Education

Many educational establishments have yet to tap into the full potential of Microsoft Teams, unaware that managing the Teams lifecycle needn’t be complicated.

As many colleges and universities are finding, getting the most out of Microsoft Teams for Education requires an effective move towards automation. Creating and managing individual teams manually is incredibly time consuming and costly – and with the added pressures of adapting to a new way of teaching, there’s little time for long-winded processes or human errors.

In response to this surprisingly common challenge, we’ve developed Teams Connect – a fully-supported solution that automates Microsoft Teams lifecycle management.

 

About Teams Connect

Unlike traditional, manual processes (often including the creation and uploading of CSV files), Teams Connect takes a feed directly from the Student Records System, ensuring data is always current. The results are instantly tangible: staff can reclaim their time, decrease human error, and be confident that the information in Microsoft Teams is correct, while users know that they have access to the right teams at all times.

In particular, we’re really proud of how Teams Connect:

  • Automates Teams lifecycle management for Education
  • Reads data directly from your Student Records system
  • Allows you to create new teams based on live Student Record data
  • Is fully automated and fully supported, with UK-based support and 4 service hours included
  • Has no manual CSV exporting, processing, or uploading

 

Giving it a Go

Interested? We provide Teams Connect as a fully-supported service to universities and colleges, and includes initial configuration and UK-based support from us. We’ll work with you to understand your user lifecycle requirements, offering a consultation service where we explain the process, and answer any questions. Our experts will then introduce Teams Connect to your environment and configure the solution to meet your requirements.

We won’t leave you there, however, as our service goes beyond initial configuration. Once the solution is up and running, you can take advantage of our UK-based support. We offer up to 4 service hours for any configuration changes needed throughout the year – simply get in touch with our experts if an issue arises.

 

The Benefits

Teams Connect was specifically designed with educators in mind, allowing academic establishments to get the most out of Microsoft Teams, and fast. If your university or college is currently managing Microsoft Teams for Education via time consuming and costly manual processes, Teams Connect can help speed things up. Don’t worry if your establishment hasn’t yet implemented Teams; if you’re considering it, but are unsure of how to manage it without manual processes, Teams Connect can automate the lengthy processes that were previously holding you back, allowing you to embrace the solution with open arms.

Here’s some of the outcomes you can expect:

  • Fast implementation
  • An automated solution, supported by the experts
  • Considerable time savings for internal staff
  • Improved UX for staff and students
  • Successful automation of group and channel creation
  • Remote learning well and truly tackled

 

The constantly changing world of education has had to adapt more than ever in 2020, but the sector has definitely risen to the challenge. Colleges and universities have been able to meet staff and student safety demands by taking a creative approach, utilising new methods of work/study – and of course, by embracing the best tech for the job.

Microsoft Teams has had an exponential increase in popularity, especially in the forward-thinking education sector. But when it comes to Teams, getting the most out of the solution is a must, and there’s not a moment to lose. If there ever was a time to embrace automation and all its benefits, it’s now.

If you’d like to know more about how Teams Connect can speed up your organisation’s processes and save your internal staff precious time, just get in touch with our team of experts – they’re happy to help.

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