Tagged: Adoption and Training

Microsoft 365 Adoption – Modern Collaboration Architecture (MOCA)

In this post I like to describe the Modern Collaboration Architecture (MOCA) and how it can help to embrace adoption of Microsoft 365 services for collaboration.

Source: https://pixabay.com/illustrations/tech-circle-technology-abstract-3041437/

What’s MOCA?

Can I drink it? No, it’s not mocca, the coffee which you might have heard of. Sorry, it does not mean that coffee boosts user adoption. MOCA is short for Modern Collaboration Architecture and it is intended to support in the question “Which tool when” based on Microsoft 365. MOCA is thought to be one part of a Modern Collaboration Practice in the business transformation to change the culture and mindset towards a digital business and organization. The Modern Collaboration Practice consists of four components:

  • Attention | “Helping employees manage their attention”
  • MOCA | “Using the right tool for the right job”
  • Communications | “How communications flow in an organization”
  • Customers | “Customer stories”

MOCA describes the dynamic of how we collaborate as individual, as part of a team, as part of a community and as part of an organization. The whitepaper explains this in more detail. Although MOCA points out what tool you can use when but it also says that this is not enough. On the contrary, it might cause an information overload for users just because there is so much (irrelevant) information and tools available.

To improve productivity the right tool must be available but also the mindset and culture in an organization must be ready for this. All the Microsoft 365 collaboration services and tools will definitely not solve all problems by itself, no, it provides the tool-set for users to be more productive and deliver business outcomes but to achieve this goal a organization must endeavor a cultural change towards a modern and digital organization.

Conclusion, opinion and summary

To sum it up, MOCA is a guiding approach for Microsoft 365 collaboration to learn “what use when” but it is incomplete. It’s supportive but the organizational change process must be triggered and initiated as well. The latter is something which is a long term goal and journey, which you probably heard before many times if not already working on it.

Additional resources

Enable or disable Microsoft 365 communication to users

In this post I describe how you can enable, configure or disable direct end user communication by Microsoft 365. Microsoft 365 provides a bit hidden service supporting user adoption and training. It’s called “Microsoft communication to users” and can be found in the Microsoft 365 admin center. By default it’s on but not sending out mails because it is not defined by default what kind of training mails should be send out to users.

In the following screenshots I’ll show you where you can enable, configure or disable the service.

First you’ll need to go to https://admin.microsoft.com and open the settings area in the left-hand navigation pane, as depicted below.
There you can navigate to

  1. Org settings
  2. Services
  3. Microsoft communication to users
Screenshot – Microsoft communication to users

At this page you can decide how to proceed, to leave it enabled and configure it (7) or disable it by ticking off the box (6).

In case you want to enable it you can configure what’s relevant for your users.

Screenshot – Microsoft 365 training topic selection

You can choose several training topics:

  • Microsoft Office 365
  • Microsoft Office apps
  • New Office 365 training
  • Outlook anywhere
  • OneDrive
  • Microsoft Teams
Screenshot – Audience and approval process

After you’ve selected what topics are of interest you’ll get asked if you want to get a preview mail for approval before mails will be send to users. To approve end user mails each time with this approval mail process you need to tick the checkbox below the audience type.

Screenshot – Definition of recipients

Further, you can select who should receive the communication. At this stage you can select certain users or a group.

What if there are certain users which might not want to receive this communication?

Users can unsubscribe if they don’t want to receive the contents.

Conclusion, opinion and summary

The idea behind this is good. However, often companies create and provide their own customized content or user trainings which allows users to easily find what’s provided for them. At least that’s my experience. More and more companies establish a change management practice and have internal/external staff which take care of user training and adoption. Some organizations, they have already internal platforms for training purposes, not only for Microsoft 365. That’s why they tend to provide contents on an existing learning platforms and way instead of pushing out standardized mails directly from the vendor. The latter could also conflict with org wide settings, let’s say, something is not turned on in an org’s tenant and users get training content regarding this, it might cause irritations. Therefore, it’s relevant that you elaborate if you can use “Microsoft communication for users” or if it might collide with your existing learning concepts. In case there is no learning/adoption/training concept, you could consider “Microsoft communication for users” as an option to educate your users regarding Microsoft 365 related topics.

Additional resources

Heller Hintergrund für Mails bei schwarzem Microsoft Outlook Design

In diesem Beitrag gebe ich einen kleinen und praktischen Anwender Tipp für Microsoft Outlook. Ich beschreibe nachstehend wie man seine Ansicht mit einem schwarzen oder dunklen Microsoft Outlook so anpasst, dass die Mails mit weißem Hintergrund geschrieben und gelesen werden können.

Hintergrund

Wenn ich mein Microsoft Office App Design auf schwarz eingestellt habe, dann ist alles schwarz. Das betrifft auch Mails mit normalerweise weißem Hintergrund. Für viele ist das konsequent und auch so gewollt. Ich muss zugeben, dass es mir persönlich besser gefällt, wenn ich trotz schwarzem Office-Design meine Mails auf weißem Hintergrund lesen und auch verfassen kann. Zudem bekomme ich öfters Mails im HTML-Format und diese werden im dunklen/schwarzen Office-Design im Outlook nicht immer ideal angezeigt. Auch umgekehrt, wenn ich im schwarzen Design eine Mail verfasse und farblich etwas hervorhebe, kommt dies beim Empfänger, der wiederum einen weißen Hintergrund hat, visuell anders raus.

Die Ansicht und das Office-Design sind letztlich Geschmackssache, daher gibt’s ja die Möglichkeit je Gusto eine andere Einstellung für sein Office festzulegen.

Microsoft Outlook – Mail Fenster alles schwarz

Lösung

Wer vielleicht, wie ich, seine Mails ebenfalls trotz schwarzem Office-Design gerne mit weißem Hintergrund liest oder schreibt, der oder die kann das in den Outlook-Optionen an folgender Stelle einstellen.

  1. Outlook Optionen öffnen
  2. Bereich Allgemein öffnen und zu “Microsoft Office Kopie personalisieren” scrollen
  3. und beim Office-Design “Schwarz” den dahinter verfügbaren Haken für “Die Hintergrundfarbe der Nachricht nie ändern” setzen
Microsoft Outlook-Optionen
Microsoft Outlook – Mail Fenster schwarz mit weißem Inhalts-Hintergrund

Deliver learning contents to your users with Microsoft 365 learning pathways

In this post I describe what Microsoft 365 learning pathways is and how it can help your company to increase your Microsoft 365 user adoption and productivity.

Source: https://pixabay.com/de/illustrations/lernen-hinweis-schule-betreff-3245793/

What’s Microsoft 365 learning pathways?

Learning pathways is a service by Microsoft which offers steadily updated and rich learning content delivery which you can add in your Microsoft 365 tenant. You can implemented for your tenant by using the SharePoint Online Provisioning Service. The goal is to increase your user’s productivity by showing them how to use and adopt available Microsoft 365 services.

Can I provide customized content to my users?

Yes, you can provide customized and tailored contents to be consumed on users’ demand.

How does the user get the learning contents?

By default, it’s a SharePoint Online communication site where users can access contents. Instead, you can also just manually install the Microsoft 365 learning pathways web part into a existing SharePoint Online site to integrated it there.

Can I integrate it into my Teams?

It’s a SharePoint Online site, so there are plenty of options!!!
And of course you can integrate it in Teams.

For example, you could
a) add the SharePoint Online site into a certain Teams Team as a tab or
b) add it as an app in the left navigation rail.

What about multi-language support?

Multi-language support is planned for (Jan) 2020.

What if I do not have people + time to provide customized contents for our users?

There are Microsoft partners out there which can help you to deliver what you need. Please be aware that Teams is no fixed app which never changes, on the contrary, that’s why it is significant that you or your partner updates your customized contents as needed and as Microsoft Teams changes.

Conclusion, opinion and summary

Microsoft 365 learning pathways is ideal to drive user adoption within your company. It provides your users learning contents to increase adoption and finally productivity due to knowing how things work in Microsoft 365.

Additional resources

Microsoft Teams Adoption Resources

In this post I want to emphasize the importance, again, of adoption and training and point out where the central adoption hub for Microsoft Teams is.

Source: https://pixabay.com/de/illustrations/lernen-hinweis-schule-betreff-3245793/

Conclusion, opinion and summary

In my opinion and based on what I see, Microsoft invests heavily in Microsoft Teams and a required adoption practice and material. If you use or plan to use Microsoft 365/Office365 and Teams you might only know some features and capabilities. That’s why it is so important that you learn and know what you don’t use and might could use to make your job and business more valuable, e.g. discover what you can do with certain tools, services and apps might bring up ideas on new business models in the digital era. Or it just helps to digitize and automate some as-is paper-based processes to get things done faster, be more productive and forget about repeatable, boring and required tasks because you’ve just automated them. Wow, now you can focus on what’s more important at your job and drives value for your job role and business. But how?

Well, you need to know what’s there. Moreover, your co-workers need to know. That’s why you must steadily inform them on what’s there, what’s new and how it works. Long story short, adoption is key to success.

For Teams you can find lots of resources on the adoption hub “Adopt Microsoft Teams”.

Additional resources

Microsoft Teams Adoption Flipbook

Due to the fact that you need a proper change management to rocket your Microsoft Teams adoption within your enterprise, don’t forget about to check out on available adoption material for Microsoft Teams.

Source: https://pixabay.com/de/illustrations/herunterladen-wolke-icon-netzwerk-2013195/

Microsoft gives you a Teams Adoption Flipbook. It’s a toolkit for enabling users with Microsoft Teams in your enterprise. The goal is not to replace any existing technology with a new technology!!!

It’s about people and how Microsoft Teams can empower them to reach their targets, both, professional and personal ones. E.g. if an sales analyst needs to get his report review done on time but also has to cope with some personal things during afternoon he/she needs a solution to get this done, both, at work and at home. Therefore the flip book points you to resources how you can design a modern workplace to provide your employees with the right solution and do it the way that people adopt the solution because cause the recognize the added value it delivers to get their job done.

Remember, it’s about enabling people getting things done. We experience a cultural change, we have several generations in the workforce, different “work styles”, how we work, therefore different capabilities are needed and must be provided to satisfy the users needs. This change must not end up with employees fearing or rejecting this change, so plan for change to make a transition from legacy to new for your users as smooth as possible. The adoption resources from Microsoft support you with this but its and permanent endeavor, not just a one time investment and project, to be clear.

Additional resources

How to gain insights on Microsoft 365 adoption?

In this post I describe where you can start to get more details (figures!) about the Microsoft (Office) 365 adoption at your company.

There are many different ways to gain insights. But if you rolled out different Office 365 services at your company there’s already quite a lot of valuable data. Where? Well, you know all the admin dashboards in the different Office 365 admin centers, right? So, these dashboards are good start to see what’s adopted but what about a more holistic view?

Source: https://pixabay.com/illustrations/statistics-graph-chart-data-3411473/

Of course you, could build a new dashboard in PowerBI by attaching different data sources, Graph API etc. But why not utilizing available tools? Is there any?

Microsoft 365 usage analytics

Yes, there is and it delivers you the following information:

  • Adoption overview report
  • Product usage report
  • Storage used report
  • Communication report
  • Collaboration report
  • Office activation report
  • Access from anywhere report
  • Individual service usage reports
  • Individual service user activity reports

What do have to do for this?

There is not much to do.

  1. Enable Microsoft 365 usage analytics [see link at the bottom]
  2. Navigate and utilize the reports in Microsoft 365 usage analytics [see link at the bottom]
  3. Read the reports
  4. Apply measures to drive adoption in the spaces where it is required
  5. Review monthly
  6. Go back to 3. [infinite loop / continuous [adoption] improvement process –> learning never ends ;-)]

Conclusion, opinion and summary

Before you start to build your own reports you might want to start with what’s available at your fingertips! I had the chance to test and it’s ready within minutes. So, you can view report data. What you finally need to do is to check what information you receive and conclude your next steps to drive adoption in weak areas by adequate measures, e.g. awareness campaign, training/education or other means of communications to drive adoption of Office 365 services within your company (as needed).

Additional resources

Microsoft modern communications webinar series

Microsoft initiated a webinar series by Microsoft communication leaders and HR to share insights and challenges regarding modern communication and cultural transformation. There are several webinars from May, 16 to June, 26, 2019. The contents are, for instance, communicating better, storytelling, empower employees, effective internal communication, employee feedback and optimized communication on employee feedback.

Additional Resources

Where can I get OneDrive for Business adoption guidiance material?

Rolling out and adopting Micrsoft OneDrive for Business (ODFB) is a great opportunity to get rid of your legacy onprem file servers, shares, local device saved data and roaming profiles etc.

ODFB enables you to access your files from a versatile set of endpoints (PC/Mac/common Browsers/iOS/Android) and keep your data safe and in sync. You can also share certain files with others as needed. However, ODFB is one part for storing data. It is primarily for your documents. Working requires also other options for data collaboration, distribution and sharing therefore you might want to consider SharePoint Online as backend for storing files within your company, department or team.

To start and abandon your legacy file repository you can find supportiv guidiance and details for ODFB, e.g.  

  • Usage Scenarios for OneDrive
  • Guidance on how OneDrive can be utiliized
  • Use Cases
  • Success measuring  options
  • Planning communication
  • …

https://resources.techcommunity.microsoft.com/resources/onedrive-adoption/