Monday Nov 14, 2011
Support your school district’s Office 2010 migration
By: Robert Hodges
Part 3: Support your school district’s Office 2010 migration with Office 2010 Training in KeyStone OnDemand
In Part 1, I spoke a little about Office 2010 Training as a key element for a successful Office 2010 Migration. Part 2 focused on helpdesk and support integration to provide support for those common day-to-day problems, even including custom “how to” training for the unique challenges you face in your district or school. Today, I wanted to wrap up with some overall best practices for your Office 2010 migration support.
Best practices for Office 2010 migration support:
1. To maintain productivity and avoid overloading your support teams, it is critical to include an effective Office 2010 Training program (like KeyStone OnDemand) in your rollout. Not only will you increase productivity with Office 2010’s powerful tools, but you will see a drastic reduction in end-user support. An effective training program must provide real-time results to educators, allowing them to get the answers they need when they need them. In addition, it should provide comprehensive coverage, tracking all progress and results for continuing education and professional development.
2. Communication is a big part of change management. It’s a good idea to develop a rollout plan that includes emails and/or other communication to help educators see the value in why you are migrating. Explain the benefits of moving to Office 2010, talk about the time-saving new features, and show them how easy it is to learn to use the new features available to them. Ironically, educators can be one of the toughest crowds when it comes to training... make sure you show them the value of both the new software (e.g. Office 2010) and the training from the beginning to mitigate this challenge. KeyStone OnDemand includes a workflow feature for automated follow up so you can set up a communication plan and schedule it all at once. In addition, KeyStone provides a number of services, including kick-off webinars, to assist you with adoption.
3. One size does not fit everyone. The ability to address the ongoing day-to-day challenges unique to your environment will both reduce your overall support burden and increase adoption of the training, allowing your teams more time to focus on critical support and giving educators more time to spend with students. With KeyStone OnDemand, you can easily capture and share articles and videos. Whether a a quick “how to...” or a complete custom course for professional development, you can create custom content and share it district-wide. Build your own knowledge base and share best practices.
Best of luck with your Office 2010 migration. Whether you are in full swing or planning a future roll out, give us a call anytime with questions and we’ll be happy to help.
