New Teams feature will help teachers chat with parents and guardians

An upcoming feature for Microsoft Teams will help teachers connect with parents and guardians of students. An entry on the Microsoft 365 roadmap states that “Parent connection in Teams for Education” is in development. The feature could arrive as soon as October 2021, but that date could change.

Parent connection in Microsoft Teams for Education utilizes automated systems that keep contact details up to date.

Here’s Microsoft’s description of the feature:

With Parent connection in Teams for Education, educators can easily connect and engage with the parents and guardians of their class using Teams chat. All parent and guardian data is provisioned using School Data Sync, saving educators and IT staff valuable time.

Support for School Data Sync (SDS) should make it easier for teachers to get in touch with parents and guardians. SDS is a free service in Office 365 for Education that gathers information from a school’s Student Information System (SIS). A Microsoft support document explains how SDS helps import and sync data automatically with Office 365.