Office 365 Plans

Last year we announced our move to Office 365 and the transition away from iWorks.  Within the IT department we’ve been working on setting up accounts and are announcing that everyone can log into Office 365 using your regular password and your email address without “staff”.  For example, instead of signing on as Brianlockwood@staff.nanjing-school.com, I would use Brianlockwood@nanjing-school.com

Why move to 365

We are doing this because of Apple’s poor backward compatibility support and their lack of online collaboration. Apple has minimal online collaboration features in iCloud, which only offers an individual level. They also do not provide support using our school email accounts, and we hope to have an integrated system.

Known Issues

Please note we are discovering issues, especially while trying to transfer files from iWorks.  We know Pages files are difficult to import. We’ve found that most issues happen with documents containing tables.  In most cases creating the file from scratch has been the best solution.

Our Goal

Next year our goal is to use Office as our core tool. All computers for the 2015-16 year will have Office software. Apple’s iWorks software will remain on your computers, allowing sufficient time to transition your documents. Beyond 2016, iWorks will not be part of the school’s software image.

Office Transition Time Line

  • 2008-14 iWorks Core Tool
  • 2014-15 Learning Office
  • 2015-16 Office becomes school’s Core Tool
  • 2016-17 iWorks not part of school software image