Department's Team
On this page, I explain how to configure the Team of a Department, monitor the current progress of students and arrange documents' flows.
Team's Creation
I enter the main window of Teams and click the rectangle "Join or create a team" indicated on the picture above.
Team's Creation
I press "Create a team."
Team's Creation
I choose the circled icon of a PLC (Professional Learning Community). PLC teams on the first glance have fewer options than Class teams. In fact, they have more. Class notebooks are not important for teachers in their class. There is a service in Microsoft Education A3 called Dataverse for Teams. It is a cloud environment of any PLC team, which is a collection of related tables integrated with Power Automate and Power apps.
Team's Creation
This form has three fields. The first field is used for the name of the team. Notice, please, that you cannot change it later. The reason is that together with a team the system creates automatically the group of Office 365, the SharePoint site and some other connections. Therefore, thoroughly choose the name. The middle field is for information only and may be left blank. The default value for any PLC team is "private." Leave it unchanged.
Team's Creation
It is possible to add members of the team later, but if you have a staff list at hand, then you can do this now. In my case, I pressed button "Skip."
Team's Creation
My PLC team is created. You may notice that there is no Class Notebook tab in it.
Team's Creation
To add members I click ellipsis (see 1) and then press "Add members" (see 2).
Team's Creation
I enter the Last Name of a member and choose the correct person from the list suggested by the system. Then I click the check mark (see 2) and assign the required role for this person. By default, the team creator is automatically its owner, and you shouldn't include yourself as a member or owner. Assuming that I am a dean, I assign the owner's role to some of my secretaries and to an IT expert, which will help me to develop my team. Other teachers are just members.
Team's Creation
To open the corresponding SharePoint site to this team I press ellipsis and "Open SharePoint" (see 2).
Team's Creation
I see the documents page which includes the same files as the files in Team's tab.
Team's Creation
For a confidential work, I can create a private channel, say "Work," and include in it only those members, who can work on a required document. For a collective work of all members, I can create a public channel. Then all members and only they will have access to documents inside it. To do this, I press the ellipsis to the right of Team's name and press "Add channel."
Team's Creation
This channel is related to the sub site "Microsoft Lists - Work."
Team's Creation
Microsoft developed a number of templates for SharePoint sites, which can be found here: https://lookbook.microsoft.com/ . For this particular site Microsoft recommends this one: https://lookbook.microsoft.com/details/eb5d4741-e2f4-44f1-954b-e7d598585c63 .
Current Grades of Students
On page "Grades Books for Departments," I explain how one can arrange Microsoft Lists with students' grades. If the Dean owns A5 license, then she, or he can get graphical reports in Power BI Pro on the weekly basis.
Document Flow (Save Emails)
There is a wrong opinion that Microsoft 365 Education A3 does not provide a document management system. The reason for such an opinion is that one cannot find a module inside this system with such a name. The modern approach adopted by Microsoft says that instead users can use its separate modules, which together do this job. This approach looks great by a number of reasons. The first one is that customers always operate with the latest version of Office 365. The second reason is that users can gradually study these small modules and include them in their daily work. Usually, any document management system includes the following features: document's distribution, documents approval, collective work on documents, organization of archives. I begin from the two simplest actions. To do this, I open desktop Office and press icon "Power Automate."
Document Flow (Save Emails)
It is the simplest and a very popular flow. I just press "Try it" and it is ready. It remains to save it. After that I send an email with two attachments.
Document Flow (Save Emails)
To find the new flow I press "My flows."
Document Flow (Save Emails)
To see the history of actions, I click on the left circle (see 1), then on ellipsis, and, finally on "Run history."
Document Flow (Save Emails)
If you press "Edit' button instead of 'Run history," then you get the window with the boxes of the flow. To open the above detailed window, just click on the flow's first box. The field "From" allows you to restrict saving the attachments only for emails from a specified address.
Document Flow (Save Emails)
When somebody runs this flow for the first time and sends an email with attachments to her/his corporative address, the system creates a directory on the OneDrive of the flow owner (see above).
Document Flow (Save Emails)
All attachments can be found in this directory. The Dean/Director can sort them in the order "from new to older." Then it is easy to decide what to do with them. Rector/Faculty office usually sends documents via corporative Outlook. Therefore, this flow is the easiest way to sort them. This operation saves from five to ten seconds on each attachment. One may think that this option is not useful. However, if you take into account that it should be performed on the daily basis many times, you, most likely, change your opinion.
Get a Push Notification
The second popular flow sends push notifications when you receive an email from your boss. Just click "Try it" and the flow is ready! The system finds your boss automatically.
Document Flow (Collective Work)
At the end of a semester, we submit reports to the Director and fill an Excel table describing the results. If one does this by email, then it takes a lot of time. Instead, the Director or Secretary creates a directory in the "Files" tab of the team. To create it, one should just press "+ Create" button (see 1), and type the name of the directory in the drop-down menu. By default, this directory is available for editing to every teacher. They just drag and place their reports in this directory. Finally, they edit the excel file to be sent to higher authorities. It is useful to create a similar directory for the templates. Then teachers can prepare their requests easily.
Document Flow (Approvals)
In January of 2021, Microsoft launched application "Approvals." It replaced
custom-made approvals with Power Automate. To install "Approvals" in Teams, one should press ellipses on the left pane (see above), and choose the icon "Approvals."
Document Flow (Approvals)
One can easily start "Approvals" by pressing the indicated icon.
Document Flow (Approvals)
I press the check mark and in the drop-down menu "Base." You may notice that there is the second option "eSign." Microsoft allows one to incorporate electronic signatures from different companies, including "Adobe Sign." The price of one license A3 is $3.25 per user per month, whereas one license of "Adobe Sign" is $10, which exceeds the price even for one A5 license. However, one can easily sign documents in the base option with a mouse. Field 3 is used for the name of the approval. Field 4 is used for the accounts of those users, who must approve the document. The limit is ten users.
Document Flow (Approvals)
If you want that those who must approve could sign the document with the mouse you should place the document onto your OneDrive. The reason for this is the following. When one share a file in OneDrive, the default permissions are "write" and "read."
Document Flow (Approvals)
File's Location
If you want that those who must approve could sign the document with the mouse you should place the document onto your OneDrive. The reason for this is the following. When one share a file in OneDrive, the default permissions are "write" and "read."
Choose the File
I search my file
Submit
I press icon "Send"
Document Flow (Approvals)
The request on approval is shown in the "Publications" tab as well as in "Actions" at the top of the left pane in Teams.
Document Flow (Approvals)
To open "Approvals" I use here "Actions."
Document Flow (Approvals)
Add a description here.
Document Flow (Approvals)
I press "Editing" and then "Open in Desktop App."
Document Flow (Approvals)
Only desktop version includes "Draw" tab. I press it.
Document Flow (Approvals)
In the drop-down menu I choose the color for the pen.
Document Flow (Approvals)
I sign the document with the mouse.
Document Flow (Approvals)
I press "Approve."
Document Flow (Approvals)
To see the status of approval, I press this button.
Document Flow (Approvals)
This list shows who approved and who didn't.
Document Flow (Approvals)
I press "Continue here."
Document Flow (Approvals)
To configure approvals' templates, I open "Approvals" through the left pane.
Document Flow (Approvals)
I press ellipsis and then "Manage templates."
Document Flow (Approvals)
I press "+ Create a template."
Document Flow (Approvals)
This window lists app possible templates.
Document Flow (Approvals)
To configure a template I choose the team.
Document Flow (Approvals)
This is the template for a vacation request. On Power Automate Page you find a number of flows, which can be used to distribute documents for teachers. In case the Director/Dean sends documents for approval regularly, he or she may create a special directory. If one drops a document in it, the approval starts automatic.
Document Flow (Fast Approval)
This ready flow allows one to approve documents in seconds(!). This method works if the set of approvers is fixed. For instance, you should approve the Syllabuses of your courses. I open "Power Automate" through my desktop Office 365. Then I press "Templates" on the left pane and in the search field type "Start an approval in Teams when a file is added to a SharePoint folder."
Document Flow (Fast Approval)
It is the top part of the flow blank.
Document Flow (Fast Approval)
It is the bottom part of the blank. I wait until all connecters are confirmed. I press "Continue."
Document Flow (Fast Approval)
I must fill this form in. Before doing this I must create a special document library in the SharePoint site for the Team. It is a PLC team "Exams" this time.
Document Flow (Fast Approval)
I open the SharePoint site and go to the "Home" page. Then I click Add an app."
Document Flow (Fast Approval)
Add a I click the icon of "Document Library" (see 1), name it as "My Documents."
Document Flow (Fast Approval)
Add a I return back to the "Home" page, click on "Site contents," and enter "My Documents."
Document Flow (Fast Approval)
By pressing "+ New" I open the drop-down window and click "Folder" to create folder "Approvals."
Document Flow (Fast Approval)
So, I created folder "Approvals."
Document Flow (Fast Approval)
Document Flow (Fast Approval)
I press "Create" button. this is the first box of this flow. I put a test file in folder "Approvals." As an approver I get an email, see below.
Document Flow (Fast Approval)
To open the file, I click on the link. I click "Approve" to approve the file.
Document Flow (Fast Approval)
Since it was me, who submitted the file, I got this email when it was approved.
Document Flow (Fast Approval)
The same message arrived to Power Automate chat.
Document Flow (Fast Approval)
The approval is also included in the main window of "Approvals."
Document Flow ( Kaizala Pro and Power Automate)
A Director got an email from the Head Office. The attachment is saved automatically in the folder for attachments.
Document Flow ( Kaizala Pro and Power Automate)
The attachment was copied to the special folder created by another flow.
Document Flow ( Kaizala Pro and Power Automate)
I create a new row in the list.
Document Flow ( Kaizala Pro and Power Automate)
I include as attachments the picture below and the document and press "Save."
Document Flow ( Kaizala Pro and Power Automate)
Add a In a few seconds each teacher receives the following message to the group of this team.
Document Flow ( Kaizala Pro and Power Automate)
Notice, that everything in this task is automatic.