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OneNote Staff Notebook-enterprise level, not educator license

Anonymous
2025-01-10T18:32:52+00:00

I have searched all corners of the internet and cannot find the answer. For context, I work for a company that utilizes an M365 Enterprise license. We are not educators but have a need for something similar to Class Notebooks in OneNote--which led me to Staff Notebooks. We have a leader and their team that are using a Staff Notebook in OneNote for their weekly reporting, collaboration, etc. The notebook is set up with each member's private space. However, members DO NOT have the option to add pages to their own sections. They can only use the pages distributed by the leader.

This seems like a basic feature, as the members should be able to create pages within their own space. As a former teacher, I can see how the Staff and Class Notebooks would be helpful, but this seems to be a huge oversight. If the point is to allow for collaboration between the member and leader--it shouldn't just be solely on the leader to push out/distribute pages TO the member's private spaces, but they should be able to at least CREATE (if not delete) pages within their own section.

For additional context--I cannot add the Staff Notebook to a Teams channel as the following error message pops up--> [We don't support adding class or staff notebooks at the moment. https://aka.ms/TeamsOneNoteImport]

Additional context--This has been tested on both the desktop AND browser versions.

The Staff Notebook is a perfect solution for our leader's needs and we'd have wider use for it worked as it should. Can anyone help???

Microsoft 365 and Office | OneNote | For business | Other

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Anonymous
2025-01-11T11:53:44+00:00

Dear HZ511,

Thank you for reaching out and providing detailed context about your use case and challenges with the OneNote Staff Notebook under the M365 Enterprise license. I understand how important it is for your team members to be able to create pages within their private sections for effective collaboration.

Addressing Member Page Creation in Private Sections

1. Remove the student from the section and re-add them: This can sometimes refresh the permissions and allow the student to see their section.

2. Manually grant permission to the student: Ensure that the student has the necessary permissions to access the section.

  • First, find the Notebook in OneNote Online and click to open the file location.

  • Create a new folder at this location and name it test.
  • Copy the notebook name
  • Open the test folder, find the name of test at the end of the URL bar, and replace it with the notebook name you copied
  • Press Enter to enter the partition under the notebook.

  • Find the user section group from here and click "Manage access" to check user permissions.
    If they do not have enough permissions, please click "Share" to grant "Edit" access to them. And then check if the issue can be resolved.

Teams Integration

Regarding the error message when trying to add the Staff Notebook to a Teams channel, this behavior is currently expected. Staff and Class Notebooks cannot be directly added to Teams as tabs. The error message directs users to this link, which provides additional guidance. As an alternative, you can share the Staff Notebook link directly with members or incorporate it into a Team via a general OneNote tab pointing to a non-Staff Notebook for wider use.

Thank you for your time and patience, and we hope you have a great day!

Best regards,

Community Moderator | Sophia

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  1. Anonymous
    2025-01-16T23:34:28+00:00

    I recently changed my employment from educational (A5) to enterprise (E5). It had never occurred to me that the Staff Notebook was only available with an educational license. It would be so helpful either within MS Teams or even just directly in OneNote to have the Staff Notebook available for those with enterprise licensing. This seems to be a significant oversight from MS. I really hope they make Staff Notebook available to enterprise customers asap.

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  2. Anonymous
    2025-04-14T18:50:18+00:00

    HZ511 are you saying you created a Staff Notebook without an Education Faculty account?

    How did you do this?

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