Technology has become a major part of how Schools, Colleges and Universities operate, but with increasing pressure on budgets the challenge is making sure that the technology you already have is being used effectively, rather than simply adding another platform or another monthly cost.

For many education organisations Microsoft 365 is already at the heart of their day-to-day operations, with staff using applications such as Teams, Outlook, Word and SharePoint. However, there are a growing number of ways that the Microsoft environment can also be used to improve communications, automate processes and bring together systems which may previously have been completely separate.

Using Microsoft Teams for More Than Meetings

Most organisations are now familiar with Teams for meetings and collaboration, but Teams can also be used as the main telephone platform, allowing users to make and receive external calls using the same application that they are already using internally.

For education there are a number of benefits to this, particularly where staff are working across different campuses, from home or between different locations. Rather than providing a traditional telephone at every desk, users can take their telephone number with them and make and receive calls using their computer, Teams handset or mobile device.

Importantly, moving to Teams doesn’t have to mean replacing everything you already have.

Many Colleges and Universities have invested heavily in telephone systems from manufacturers such as Cisco, Mitel, Avaya and Unify which may still perform perfectly well. By linking these platforms to Teams it is possible to migrate users gradually, moving the users who will benefit most first while retaining specialist services such as Contact Centres, analogue devices or other users on the existing platform.

We have used this approach with education customers ranging from College Groups to large Universities, allowing Microsoft Teams and existing telephone platforms to operate together while users are migrated at a speed that works for the organisation.

Bringing Multiple Sites and Systems Together

One of the other challenges within education is the number of different systems that can develop over time. This is particularly common with College Groups and Multi-Academy Trusts where organisations have merged, expanded or taken responsibility for additional sites.

It isn’t unusual to find different telephone systems, Microsoft Tenancies and number ranges operating across different locations, which can make support more complicated and also means that each site can end up paying separately for services which could potentially be shared.

Teams provides an opportunity to bring these services together, while still allowing individual sites to retain the things they need. Rather than approaching this as a large replacement project, existing systems can be connected into a common solution and then rationalised over time as contracts expire or equipment reaches the end of its useful life.

This can reduce costs, but just as importantly it can make the overall environment much easier to manage.

Coping with Clearing and Enrolment

Universities and Colleges also have some unusual requirements when it comes to communications, as demand isn’t necessarily consistent throughout the year.

Clearing is probably the most obvious example, with Universities potentially receiving very large numbers of calls over a relatively short period. Colleges can experience similar peaks around enrolment, while Schools may have busy periods associated with admissions and the start of term.

Traditionally this could mean designing a telephone system with enough capacity to deal with the busiest day of the year, even though much of that capacity isn’t required for the rest of it.

Cloud-based services make it much easier to increase capacity when it is required, with additional channels and resources being made available for these peak periods. This allows an education organisation to design its communications around normal demand while still having the capacity available when something such as Clearing creates a sudden increase in calls.

Bringing Voice, Email, Web Chat and WhatsApp Together

Of course, telephone calls are only one of the ways students and parents communicate.

Some people will want to call, while others would prefer to use email, web chat or WhatsApp. The problem for the organisation is that these can easily become completely separate channels, requiring staff to monitor several different systems and making it more difficult to provide a consistent service.

These channels can now be brought together, allowing enquiries to be routed to the most appropriate person or team irrespective of how the student or parent originally contacted the organisation.

Skills-based routing can then be used to make sure that calls and messages are directed to someone with the appropriate knowledge, rather than simply sending everything to a general queue and relying on somebody to transfer the enquiry afterwards.

For larger education organisations this can be particularly useful for services such as admissions, accommodation, IT support, finance and student services, where a relatively small number of specialist teams may be dealing with enquiries from thousands of people.

Where Does AI Fit In?

It is almost impossible to talk about Microsoft at the moment without mentioning AI and Copilot, but for education the important question is probably not whether AI can be used, but where it can genuinely save staff time or provide a better service.

There are a number of fairly straightforward applications. Copilot can help users summarise information, prepare documents and emails, analyse information and find relevant content across the Microsoft environment. Microsoft is also increasingly introducing Agents which can be used to automate particular tasks or provide access to specific information.

Within a communications environment conversational AI can also help deal with simple and repetitive enquiries. A prospective student asking when an Open Day is being held doesn’t necessarily need to wait for somebody in Admissions to become available if the information can be provided automatically.

The important thing is knowing where automation stops. A complicated admissions question, safeguarding issue or sensitive student enquiry still requires a person, so the most useful application of AI is often dealing with the routine work and allowing staff to spend more time dealing with the enquiries where their experience and judgement are actually required.

Automating Some of the Administration

Microsoft’s Power Platform can also be used alongside Microsoft 365 to automate some of the administrative processes which exist within every education organisation.

A process which currently involves somebody completing a form, emailing it to another member of staff, waiting for approval and then manually updating a spreadsheet can potentially be turned into a workflow using Forms, SharePoint and Power Automate.

This doesn’t necessarily sound particularly exciting, but multiply a ten-minute manual process by hundreds or thousands of transactions over an academic year and it starts to become much more significant.

Power BI can then provide reporting across the information being collected, meaning that rather than manually creating reports each month, management teams can have access to current information and trends whenever they need them.

Security and Governance

With education organisations holding significant amounts of personal and sensitive information, any move towards greater use of Microsoft 365, Cloud services and AI also needs to consider security and governance.

This becomes particularly important with Copilot and AI Agents because the quality and security of the result depends in part on the information they can access. If users have inappropriate access to documents within SharePoint or Microsoft 365, introducing AI doesn’t fix the underlying permissions problem.

Before expanding the use of AI it therefore makes sense to review permissions, data policies and the way information is structured. Microsoft provides tools including Purview and administrative controls for Copilot and Agents, but these still need to be configured around the organisation’s own requirements.

For Schools and Colleges in particular, this needs to be considered as part of the overall implementation rather than something added afterwards.

Making the Most of What You Already Have

Perhaps the biggest opportunity for education isn’t replacing everything with Microsoft, but making better use of Microsoft alongside the systems that are already there.

If an existing Cisco, Mitel, Avaya, Unify or 3CX system still has a useful role, there may be no reason to replace it immediately. Connecting it to Teams can allow users to move gradually while existing investments continue to be used. Equally, if Microsoft 365 is already licensed across the organisation, there may be opportunities to use Teams, SharePoint, Power Automate, Power BI and Copilot to replace processes which currently rely on separate applications or manual administration.

Every School, College and University will be different, so there isn’t a single Microsoft solution which is right for everybody. The starting point should really be to look at how people currently work, where money and time are being spent and which processes cause the most frustration, before deciding which technology can actually improve them.

At Becketts we already work with Schools, Colleges and Universities using Microsoft Teams alongside a range of existing communications platforms, helping them migrate at their own speed rather than forcing everything into a single large-scale replacement project.

If you are looking at Microsoft Teams, Teams Voice, Contact Centre, AI or simply trying to understand how you can get more from the Microsoft technology you already have, please get in touch and we’ll be happy to go through the options.