OneNote and SIMS FAQ

Do I need to use SIMS ID to provision My Office 365 accounts

No. You do not need to use SIMS ID to provision you office accounts, however, you will need to have your staff and students in SIMS ID so their data is available to OneNote. You will only need to issue SIMS ID logins to staff members who writing back to SIMS through OneNote. If you do not use SIMS ID for account provisioning you are recommended to periodically use the Office365 self-onboarding function within SIMS ID to align users, this will make the interactions between SIMS, OneNote, Office 365 and Microsoft SDS more consistent.

What is the benefit of using SIMS ID to Provision Office 365 Accounts for OneNote write-back.

Using SIMS ID to provision Office 365 ensures that when you are using OneNote write back that the groups within Office and the classes within SIMS are aligned. It also means that automatic matching of Office365 students to SIMS Student records for Assessment Writeback to SIMS is possible. Using SIMS ID to manage accounts in Office 365 ensures there is no mismatch between the data made available to OneNote and the data in Office365.

If I use SIMS ID to provision Office 365 accounts do I have to federate my domain?

No, but you will then need to distribute you users Usernames and Passwords using the features inside your Office 365 tenancy. We would always recommend federating as this will mean a single username and password is used for Office365, SIMS ID and other SIMS online services. Is OneNote integration set up for all SIMS Schools? No, each school will need to activate the service inside SIMS ID, this ensures that the school is always in control of what data is being exchanged. On enabling the service you will be informed what data is transferred and will be asked to agree to this transfer. you can revoke this permission at any time in the future.

Do I need to have classes set up in SIMS?

Yes. OneNote uses Class, Class membership and Class Supervisor (teacher) data from within SIMS. If this data is not present then OneNote will not know what classes (and students) the teacher should have access too and will not be able to write assessment data back to SIMS.

Should I use OneNote for desktop, the Windows 10 OneNote application or OneNote online?

In many ways the choice is yours, you can switch between the styles of OneNote as you decide if you are using a personal device or a network device that you log into (dependent on how your network manages profiles). If you use a shared machine, that you do not log into with individual logins, then we advise that OneNote online is used. This is because the devices caches the login details for the first user.

Class notebook can be shared with a teacher who is not assigned to the class in SIMS. However, when they come to manage the notebook, they find the course as they are not assigned to the class in SIMS

This is correct Microsoft OneNote behaviour there are a large number of reasons that a notebook could be shared. Assessment grading can only be undertaken for classes and student the grading teacher is assigned to in SIMS.

Students can be assigned to Class Notebooks as Teachers.

This is correct Microsoft OneNote behaviour. Students can be assigned as teachers to support peer and flip learning scenarios. Assessment grading can only be undertaken for classes and student the grading teacher is assigned to in SIMS. This means that students will not be able to retrieve or input other students assessment grades.