Remove "Staff Notebook" from Microsoft Teams for Education
I am not sure if this is a bug or not but we are using Microsoft Teams educational licenses. We want to use the Teams for our internal staff departments first. For some reason the setup of teams includes extra educational features like it force creates a OneNote tab called "Staff Notebook" in the General channel of each team. the OneNote includes a lot of classroom type customization that we do not want/need. Our departments have their own OneNotes. I cannot delete Staff Notebook tab or even rename it. I can add and delete other OneNotes but we want a clean set of tabs. Does anyone have any suggestions for getting rid of this? Thanks.
Robert Derby
shared this idea
Hi everyone! If you do not want to use the OneNote Staff Notebook or any of the other default tabs across the various team types, we suggest creating an ‘Anyone’ team instead.
The ‘Anyone’ team will not include any add-ons by default and gives you the flexibility to use Teams however you would like. We understand that there are so many other ways you can use Teams that does not fit the Class/PLC/Staff team template. So ‘Anyone’ will be your best option!
More information on the different team types in Teams for Education can be found here: https://support.office.com/en-us/article/choose-a-team-type-to-collaborate-in-microsoft-teams-0a971053-d640-4555-9fd7-f785c2b99e67
Feel free to reply back here if you have additional feedback.
Thank you!
Justin
30 comments
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Anonymous
commented
There is a similar issue with the Class Team template which is used because it offers the Class Materials private folder, but you cannot delete the Class Notebook.
There are definitely use cases for the non-Anyone teams, but we still need to get rid of the bits that are not needed or are distracting.
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Josh Purcell
commented
Hey Justin,
Your most recent update with the suggestion to create an "Anyone" Team is superb and we're happy with this idea for the future. This does not however resolve the issue for teams that have already been created.
It is simply not plausible to expect administrators to delete and recreate each individual Team that they do not wish to have the Staff Notebook on. There must be a suitable method created to simply remove the Staff Notebook with no further disruption.
Please listen to the community here...
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Stéphane Chandonnet
commented
Thank you for the workaround but we need a solution for existing teams. It could be a way to get rid of he Staff Notebook tab or a way to move all existing conversations to a new team based on "Anyone".
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Ann D'Albergaria
commented
Thank you for the work around; your suggestion affects things created in the future. However, we need a way to get rid of the Staff Notebook tab that has already been created and in use for a year. We cannot simply create a new notebook and have two hanging around to confuse our users.
The larger your organization, the more important it is to minimize clutter. We would like to be able to delete the existing notebook. Please add this function soon! I've been hoping for this option for over a year!
Thank you. -
Richard
commented
How do we change one that was created incorrectly to "Anyone"?
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Iris zhu
commented
We've already created teams using "staff" and it is troublesome to delete them and create new ones using "anyone". Is it possible that we can have the option to delete "staff notebook" in existing teams.
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Jon Buhagiar
commented
Please allow for the option to remove Staff Notebook. Our staff do not teach and it has no value to certain departments at the college!
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Mikael L
commented
I also want to get rid of the Staff Notebook. This is basic functionality...
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Rik Holmes
commented
Agreed. Not all staff in Universities teach. It would be most useful to be able to keep or remove Staff Notebook as part of a policy to be applied to subsets of users - academics and/or support staff.
We also operate two tenancies, staff and student, so the Staff Notebook function is not much use in the staff tenancy, even for the academic staff. -
Sarah Lipsey
commented
Would be helpful to be able to change Team settings after setup - especially when you're trying to figure out how to use the tool. So many people pick Staff as the type of Notebook and then end up with stuff they don't need. Ability to change or remove notebook types seems like a reasonable fix.
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Rob
commented
Please be gone with this, we don't use this and don't need this. Instead let us use the anyone team and put in the onenote from the group!
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Astride
commented
I have found no way to remove this but have found if you choose the "Anyone" template instead of "Staff Members" template when creating your team it will not include the Staff Notebook. So I have been directing my users to use that template.
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Gillian
commented
Yes please - remove it. Not all staff in Universities teach. It's bad enough I can't add the (already created) Sharepoint OneNote as a tab (because that would pull everything together) - but not to be able to remove something I'll never use, just looks messy. I can't even move it along to the end of the tabs. Aaargh!! The great thing about Teams is that everything is joined-up and configurable - but it's not when you try to create smooth experience for the Team. :(
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Nerrida
commented
I'm finding it exceptionally frustrating that I can't remove a Class notebook created in teams. My students already have a OneNote (which, incidentally, can't be imported into teams) and having another one is messy and confusing.
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Brian
commented
Would like this to be an optional tab, but not set up by default for every team and channel.
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Anton O'Callaghan
commented
Use anyone Teams. Staff Teams are for supervisors to mentor staff. Staff Teams notebooks are structured in the same manner as class notes.
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Eliot Attridge
commented
Ditto this. I accidentally created a Staff OneNote. I cannot change this- I *should* be able to remove something if I have accidentally created it.
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Anonymous
commented
I want to be able to remove at best or hide at minimum the Staff Notebook channel
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Rob H
commented
Same here. Please Microsoft, there is no need to keep those tabs mandatory. Similar issue with renaming the first channel in your team: not possible. I guess it is poor programming rather than a philosophy. MS: you can do better!
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Sydney Lacey
commented
I am a specialist at a school district and support a large group of elementary schools. We have started using Teams for our school administrators. This notebook is unnecessary for us the way we are utilizing the platform. All of us already have our own personal OneNote notebooks, and now we each have a redundant one inside our Team's Staff Notebook. With no way to remove the tab from the General channel, I now feel like I have to do something with it. I suppose I could load it up with links to tutorials for how to utilize Team site features and perhaps use it as a sort of Table of Contents for the most important documents in our Team Channels but I would honestly be much happier if I could just delete it.