Microsoft’s School Data Sync solution now generally available

Users can import information from Student Information Systems into Office 365

Toby Ingleton | 24 January 2017

School Data Sync, Microsoft’s online classroom automation solution which help schools create online classrooms in Office 365, is now generally available.

With the School Data Sync solution, IT teams can import user profiles and rosters from their Student Information System into Office 365, and then easily keep them up to date.

Keeping such records current can be a time-consuming task for school administration teams. School Data Sync however makes it easier for IT admins to create online classrooms, and teachers can then use these online classrooms from the first day of term.

Student Information Systems can be easily integrated thanks to Office 365 being a single platform. School Data Sync users can also take advantage of partner applications such as Microsoft Classroom Preview, OneNote Class Notebooks and Office 365 Groups and Sites.

Schools in Riverview School District in Washington State, US, are already harnessing the power of School Data Sync and Office 365.

The district wanted to deploy the ClassPolicy app from Microsoft partner AssistX, and decided to integrate its existing Student Information System with the app through School Data Sync.

“With Microsoft School Data Sync, teachers have more time to develop a one-to-one relationship with a student and customise learning,” said Christopher Collins, IT operations manager at Riverview School District. “What took 16 hours of manual data mining was reduced to four initial hours of working with ClassPolicy and getting School Data Sync running – after that everything was synchronised and ready, taking no time at all. The fact that ClassPolicy and Microsoft Classroom work so well together is a testament to the effectiveness of both.”

Bob Chung, president of AssistX, said: “Being able to integrate School Data Sync with the school’s Student Information System is huge for us. We wanted accurate roster data, and School Data Sync does the heavy lifting. Now teachers at Riverview don’t have to spend hours manually creating rosters, and with School Data Sync, they get automatic rosters and nightly updates.”