Admin Help: Setting up Staff Directories on SchoolBlocks

SchoolBlocks uses Google Groups and Organization Units to populate the staff directories on school and district websites. Some school districts sync Active Directory Groups into G-Suite via one of two containers, Organization Units or Google Groups. These containers then sync to the website’s staff directories each night at midnight.

OU’s or custom groups for the website can be easily configured to each site’s staff directory. Google Groups are preferred because a user’s Google account can exist in multiple groups at a time. This is beneficial for teachers who work at multiple campuses. They can have a profile card in multiple staff directories. Keep in mind that if a teacher works at multiple campuses, the staff card inherits the configuration settings from the school that the teacher first sets up their staff card. 

After you’ve installed the SchoolBlocks permissions package in your Google Admin console ( instruction video), navigate to the district site’s configuration setting. Click on your name, where you login, the "Configuration" and click on ‘Authenticate with Google’ on the left menu.  This is where you can configure Groups or OU’s to sync to your site’s staff directories.

Next, click ‘Authenticate with Google’ and scroll down to find a list of Organizations and Permission Groups. If you need help setting up Google groups or OUs, please refer to this article here.  There are two types of permissions in this setting. "SchoolBlocks Admins" grants a single or combination of Groups or OU's full admin permissions to the website. The Staff and Teachers groups allow a single or combination of Groups or OU's to be synced up to each site’s staff directory.

Guidelines

1. Each site (school or district) has its own staff directory. Access the directory by adding /staff after a school or district site’s URL.
   1. Example: http://www.dakota-prairie.k12.nd.us/staff
2. The permission groups in the ‘Authenticate with Google’ setting in the district site’s configuration settings provide a drop down menu for ‘staff’ at the district site and ‘teachers’ and ‘staff’ at each school’s site.
3. The ‘SchoolBlocks Admins’ option grants full admin permissions to the applied site. This option does not populate a site’s staff directory. District site admins will have admin access to all the sites in the system. Admins at just a school site will have permissions to just that site.
4. District websites allow one or more Groups or OU's to populate the district site’s staff directory. This is the ‘Staff’ drop down menu option.
5. School websites allow and combination of groups or OUs to populate each school’s staff directory. These are the ‘Staff and Teachers’ drop down options. The ‘Teachers’ and ‘Staff’ options sync Groups or OUs to one directory without separating the two types of users. 
6. District staff directories ideally display a single group that contains district office staff members. Each staff member can be manually displayed into a staff block within a department site. See this video for instructions.