What can I do to prepare?

There's no need for you to move any emails, calendar invites or files yourself - we will do this all for you so that all your content is automatically available in Microsoft 365 when you start using it on Monday 17 April. However, there are some things we recommend you do to prepare for the change.

We recommend that you use OneDrive for online submissions from now onwards. You can login using your email address and your usual password. All students and staff have access to OneDrive, and starting to use this now will make the move easier in April.  

If you have any Google Forms that you want to keep, you will need to recreate these in Microsoft Forms. Any responses you've received to your Google Forms will be moved to OneDrive for you as a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, but the forms themselves will no longer be available so we recommend recreating these in advance.

If you use complex spreadsheets in Google Sheets, we recommend moving these to OneDrive prior to Monday 17 April, to ensure that you can achieve the results you need in OneDrive before losing access to Google.

  • Avoid hard-coded URLs including links to other documents in cells / formulas restricts you if these files ever move.
  • To preserve pivot tables download the Google Sheet to your PC, then upload it to OneDrive.
  • Make yourself aware of functions in Google Sheets that are not available in Microsoft Excel, as there might be workarounds you need to put in place in Excel to achieve the results you need:
    • Special Google Sheets functions: ARRAYFORMULA; GOOGLEFINANCE; IMAGE; QUERY; SPARKLINE
    • Sorting and filtering functions: FILTER; UNIQUE; CONTUNIQUE; SORT
    • Some Google Sheets functions that JOIN and SPLIT cells
    • Functions to import data from the web: IMPORTRANGE; IMPORTHTML; IMPORTDATA

Multi Factor Authentication (MFA) will be switched on as part of the migration to Microsoft 365. If you want to get prepared for this, you can download the Microsoft Authenticator app on your mobile phone, so that you’re ready to set up MFA after migration. You can also recieve authentication via text message if you'd rather do this than get the app.

Files shared with you in Google: Any files you own on Google Drive will be moved across to OneDrive. However, if you use files in Google Drive that you do not own and have been shared with you by someone else, these will not move and you will need to request access again after migration.

Email Labels: These do not exist in Microsoft Outlook, and instead will appear as folders in your inbox.

Google Photos: It is not possible for us to move Google Photos to Microsoft 365 for you, so if you wish to keep these you will need to either move them to a folder in Google Drive (so they can be migrated), or export them to your own personal device.

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