This guide has been created to discuss some Frequently Asked Questions regarding Office 365 Integration with Bromcom.
Access: The minimum permission required to access Office 365 Integration is found in the Setup Module of Config>Setup>Roles & Permissions.
User Provisioning
Q – Will All Students and Staff be synced, including Leavers?
A – The Staff/Students need to be active (current) on Bromcom and then synced to appear in Teams. Once you have created a Student/Staff on Bromcom, the systems will need to be synced for them to appear in Teams. This works the same with Leaver Students, once a current Student is processed as a leaver on Bromcom, they will still appear on Teams until the systems are synced again.
Q – Photos in Bromcom do not match the photos on Office 365
A – the photo sync runs from the MIS to Office 365 and will only run if the photo has be changed in the MIS. Changing photos in Office 365 will not change Bromcom.
Q – Why has my user not been matched, and says ‘no match found’?
A – it is most likely that the email address in tenant is different to what is set in the MIS, or it is not set to use a work email.
Q – Why does the user account in O365 have an appending 1 in the email address, after the sync has run (or been simulated)?
A – there are two possible reasons for this. The email address is what is used to match the MIS user account to the one in your tenant, and it needs to be unique.
(i) If an account already exists with that email address it will append a 1 to the new account. You will need to run the user sync in ‘sync only’ mode first, to sync all the existing users in your your tenant, before turning on the full user creation provisioning.
(ii) The other reason could be that you have two people with the same first and last name and, depending on how you have the email address formatted, it will need to append the 1 to create the unique email.
Groups and Classroom Provisioning
Q – What is the difference between Groups and Classrooms? When would you select teaching class under the group provisioning and when would you set them under the classroom provisioning?
A – Group and classroom provisions are independent and not linked any shape or form. Group Provisioning generates Office 365 groups, and Classroom Provisioning generates a Classroom which is basically Teams Group under Education license. If you do not have education license then “Classroom Provision” will fail.
Q – Why are there no members in my Groups or Classes?
A – For members to be assigned to Groups and Classes you need have run the user sync first.
Q – Is the Name/Label that a Group has in Bromcom used to label the Groups in Teams (i.e Class 1)?
A – For Groups – Yes.
For Classes – this depends on the Classroom Provisioning settings and how the Class looks on Bromcom. A Class called 7X on Bromcom will show on the Admin Console in Office as 7X when there is no Classroom Provisioning enabled. If you enable Classroom Provisioning, you will also have the option to include the Academic Year and/or School ID for the Class Name. This will help to differentiate Classes with the same name from different Academic Years or across multiple Schools.
Q – Why can’t I see my Classroom Teams Groups?
A – need to have Classroom Provisioning ticked, as this creates the Teams groups.
Q – Can a School Integrate Staff and Students but only have the Calendars visible by Staff?
A – There are two options for this, either switch Shared Calendar off in the Office 365 Configuration on Bromcom. Or don’t sync the Student Calendars at all but bear in mind that this will affect Students seeing their Calendar/Diary Events.
Q – What happens to the Teams groups Schools have when the year ends? Do the classes rollover/promote?
A – The Teams Groups are archived when they meet the End Date, but still accessible on the Admin Console of Office. So if needed, the Office Administrator can look back through them. Once the End Date for a Group on Bromcom is reached, the systems will sync and it will be archived on Office.
Q – What happens if you don’t End Date and Archive current Classes? Will there be clashes?
A – There is a high chance that syncing new Classes before the current ones are archived will create duplicates. Members would not necessarily be in both but the the recommendation to avoid clashes, would be to End Date the current Classes first before syncing.
Q – Why is the column showing class owners blank?
A – owner data is not returned from the tenant and Bromcom intends to remove this column from this page.
Q – What happens to the resources and Homework when you sync with Bromcom?
A – Homework set within the MIS is not visible on Teams as it cannot be merged/synced. For Resources to be visible, it needs to be created and exist in Teams.
Schools can do a Classroom (Teams) Sync then enable the integration between MCAS and Office365, so parents can see all assignments assigned to students via MCAS. Please see guide: How to set up Homework Config.
Historic Resources are archived on Teams meaning they can be accessed and made visible if needed.
Q – Can I view Homework in the MIS if it was created in Teams?
There is a tick box found within Classroom Provisioning Configurations called Show Assignments in Teacher Dashboard and Learning Resources. Once this is ticked, you can use the Analysis feature within Modules>Student Portal>Learning Resources to view/find/analyse Homework in the MIS that was created within Teams.
This is a one way sync, meaning Homework set in the MIS cannot be viewed in Teams. See: How to use Homework Analysis
Calendar Provisioning
Q – Will all Events on Bromcom sync across if I use the Calendar Sync settings?
A – This comes down to which Calendar events are ticked and how these are setup in Bromcom beforehand. Within Bromcom, if every Staff member can see Diary or School Holiday Calendar events then it would be recommended to sync those across too. Please note we only sync the next 30 days of calendar events.
End of Year
Q – When classes are no longer in session, will the system automatically tidy them up from our tenancy?
A – Any class or groups that have an end of this academic year e.g 21/22 will get archived in your tenancy. We don’t delete any of the classes or groups.
Q – In KS4 and KS5 we would like to roll Teams over to the next academic year where possible (i.e Year 10 into Year 11 and Year 12 into Year 13) this is to ensure the continuity during GCSE and A’ Level.
A – If you want a class or group to roll over into the next academic year you will need to make sure there is no ‘End date’ on the class or group. As the group will have moved you will all need to change the ‘Year group’ year in the class details to now reflect it’s a year 11 instead of a year 10.