You have signed up for RM Unify and are wondering, "What now..?".

In summary, the main steps to getting set up are: 

1. Provision your RM Unify users.
2. Connect your MIS.
3. Federate a Microsoft® 365™ or Google Workspace domain, or both!

Once complete, you have a number of other important and time-saving features to enable, including: Microsoft 365 Group Sync; Google Classroom Sync; Device Single Sign-On (DSSO) for Windows and/or Chromebook devices; Personal Launch Pads; Multi Factor Authentication and an App Library of educational and productivity apps.

How do you want to create your RM Unify users?

• From your MIS, using MIS Sync in 'Create mode' - TEC5427652. You may also optionally choose to use this in conjunction with Network Provisioning* to have a complete 'MIS to RM Unify to Network' user provisioning solution
• From your network, using AD Sync - DWN3182456
• From your network, using the CSV Extraction Tool - DWN3182515
• Via a manually created CSV file - TEC3274284
• Manual creation via the Management Console (Users, Actions, 'Create user')

MIS Sync in 'Create mode' and AD Sync are mutually exclusive; you cannot have both provisioning methods enabled at the same time.

Would you like RM to handle this part for you? Please call your Sales representative on 01235 645 316 for more details on this service.

You may choose to use your RM Unify accounts to provision your network (CC4 or vanilla Windows) accounts.

• RM Unify Network Provisioning - TEC5797903

The RM Installations team can install this for CC4 networks, or you can choose to install it yourself. For vanilla networks the installation must be performed by RM. Please call your Sales representative on 01235 645 316 for more details on this service.

Enabling data sync from your MIS allows you to benefit from:

• Enriched user data such as year group, registration group, MIS ID and UPN
• Simplified user management using teaching groups
• The ability to push year, registration and teaching groups to Microsoft 365 (as Microsoft 365 Groups or Microsoft 365 Classes to be used with Teams) or Google Workspace (as Google Classes)
• Making this MIS data available to apps and thereby giving your establishment a wider choice of apps
• The Parent Management functionality to create parent accounts in RM Unify

Create mode or Link mode?
There is a key decision that you need to make on how RM Unify should process your MIS data:

• Use MIS data to automatically drive your user management - creation, modification and deletion of users; we call this Create mode. And if you have already chosen Network Provisioning then you will most certainly have this mode enabled.
• Use your AD or a CSV to drive user management but enrich the user data with information from your MIS; we call this Link mode.

Grace periods and restoring users
One extremely useful feature of choosing Create mode is that, whilst all MIS-managed users are automatically deprovisioned when they leave school (removing access to systems, and securing your school's data), in some circumstances those users may actually need to temporarily retain access to their school email. For example, a year 13 pupil's school email may be the one registered with UCAS for correspondence about university applications.

Applying the standard RM Unify 60-day grace period to a user (from the Management Console > Actions > 'Assign grace period') extends their access quickly and easily. Once the grace period expires, the users will be safely deprovisioned, ensuring that users retain access to school systems no longer than is required.

Regardless of which mode you select, you will still get the benefits highlighted in the section above, and in both cases you can continue to manually create users for those people that will never appear in your MIS or AD.

• RM Unify MIS Sync - TEC5427652

The RM Installations team can assist you with the installation of MIS Sync where your MIS is one of the following: SIMS, iSAMS, WCBS (on-premise), Bromcom, or Facility CMIS. Please speak to you Sales representative for more information on 01235 645 316.

Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace are free of charge for qualifying educational establishments. So you could certainly install one of these impressive cloud apps, but why not take advantage of RM Unify's unique ability to federate both services to your establishment? You can choose Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace as your email provider, whilst reaping the benefits of both services to improve teaching, learning, and overall productivity and management of your establishment, devices and users.

• Supported configurations when federating both M365 and Google Workspace - TEC4945314
• Federating Microsoft 365 - DWN3332757
• Microsoft 365 with RM Unify FAQs - NWS3442877
• Federating Google Workspace - TEC3306517
• Google Workspace with RM Unify FAQs - TEC5782172

Federating either Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, or both, can be a complex process where your domain is already in use, with active user accounts, mailboxes, OneDrive data, SharePoint data, etc. RM can assist you with your move to an RM Unify federation. Please speak to you Sales representative for more information on 01235 645 316.

If you are part of a trust (or simply a group) of schools sharing an IT support provider, RM Unify can be set up in a way that makes it very easy for the provider to manage all the establishments' users and applications from a single login.

The Manage Other Establishments feature can be used to 'masquerade' into another establishments' Management Console, in order to perform the required tasks, without having to maintain multiple admin accounts at each of those establishments. 

• Manage Other Establishments - TEC6551629

Where you have chosen either RM Unify AD Sync or Network Provisioning, your users will be able to automatically sign in to RM Unify and all connected apps (including Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace), as soon as they log on to their Windows domain-joined device, or Chromebook.

• Enable single sign-on (SSO) for domain-joined Windows devices - TEC4668878
• For Chromebooks - SSO is already enabled and simply requires either AD Sync or Network Provisioning to synchronise your network passwords to Google Workspace. This allows your users to access all network and cloud resources with a single set of credentials
• For Windows 10/11 SE devices - RM Unify Entra ID SSO is enabled by default for all the establishments - TEC4668878. It allows users to single sign on to RM Unify when signed into a Windows device with their RM Unify managed Microsoft 365 account
• The browsers compatible with Entra ID SSO are Microsoft Edge, Internet Explorer and Google Chrome

Multi Factor Authentication (MFA) is a process to allow RM Unify to verify a user's identity with more certainty than by using just a password. By enabling MFA for your chosen apps, you can be reassured that your apps and data are as secure as possible.

• Enabling RM Unify MFA - TEC5941143
• So your users don't need to respond to MFA whilst in-school, you can configure trusted IP addresses - TEC8637174

It is also possible to enforce MFA for your RM Unify Super Admin users when accessing the Management Console for even greater security. And if you already have MFA enabled in your Microsoft 365 tenant, RM Unify can detect this and handle it intelligently.

As well as the default, role-based Launch Pad, it is also possible to enable an additional Personal Launch Pad for all your users. This allows your users greater flexibility to configure, order and create tiles that fit the way they work, teach and learn.

1. Logged on to the Management Console as an RM Unify Super Admin, select Launch Pads from the left-hand side menu.
2. Click the Settings button, tick the Enable Personal Launch Pads box and click Save.

When your users log on, they see the default role-based Launch Pad, but will also see an icon  indicating that they also have access to their My Launch Pad. From here, they can add any app which has been made available to them in the App Library by the administrator. They can also create their own link tiles, complete with title and image, essentially tile-based shortcuts to their favourite websites. Once a Personal Launch Pad is populated with apps and tiles, it will become the default Launch Pad shown when a user logs on.

Custom Launch Pads, used in conjunction with MIS Sync, allow you to deliver Launch Pads with curated apps and tiles and then assign those to your student year groups.
For example, rather than having all students in your school being assigned the Student Launch Pad and all receiving the same apps and tiles, you could create a Key Stage 1 Launch Pad assigned to Year 1 and 2 and then a Key Stage 2 Launch Pad assigned to Key Stages 3-6.

1. Log on to the Management Console as a Super Admin and click Launch Pads.
2. Click Actions, Create.
3. Give your Launch Pad a name and choose the year groups you wish to be assigned the new Launch Pad.
4. When you go to install an app for your users, you will see the new Launch Pad as an additional option.

Note: Student user accounts created via MIS Sync in Create mode will already have their year of entry (year group) data synced to RM Unify. For student accounts in Link mode, they must be linked to their MIS records.

RM Unify is going to be a part of the way your establishment works, so make it look the part by adding some of your official branding. A background image (maybe a photograph of the premises, or simply a block of co-ordinated colour) can underlay all your Launch Pads. You can then also add the school, college or academy logo to all your users' profiles.

1. Logged on to the Management Console as an RM Unify Super Admin, select Branding from the left-hand side menu.
2. Click each Set button and follow the instructions to upload images for the background and logo.

Release yourself from the burden of spending hours each week resetting passwords for users. To begin with, all Teaching and Non-Teaching Staff users have access rights to reset the password of any student user:

1. Once logged in as a staff user, click the Management Console link in the top taskbar.
2. Browse to or search for the student, click Actions, Change Password.

Additionally, those staff users who have been assigned the Password Admin right (from the Management Console > Actions > 'Grant Password Admin rights') can also reset other staff user passwords.

If you choose to provision your RM Unify accounts using MIS Sync in 'Create mode' (with or without Network Provisioning), then your users can configure their accounts with their chosen password recovery email address, lessening the burden on your administrators if they forget or need to reset their password.

1. When logged on to RM Unify, on the top-right side, the user needs to click the Profile Settings icon.
2. Select My Profile, then Password Recovery.
3. Enter an email address that you can access outside of RM Unify (e.g. @gmail.com, @outlook.com, etc.).
4. Check your mailbox and respond to the confirmation email to complete the setup.

Manually-provisioned and CSV-provisioned accounts can also self-serve password resets, but AD Sync provisioned accounts must reset their passwords via the local (AD) network.

Logged on to RM Unify, it's possible to access Help by simply clicking the  icon at the top of any page:

• RM Support Portal - To access the RM Knowledge Library of technical articles, guides and installation notes; My Support Calls (or Support Online as it is sometimes referred to) to log and update support calls
• Service Status - the RM Unify Service Status page, where you can also subscribe to updates via email or text
• Ideas - To post your own suggestions for the RM Unify roadmap
• Blog - Check in for information about RM Unify release updates, upcoming changes and issues and best practice advice