The Office 365 Teamwork Champion’s community is Open!

Community Manager

Jul 09, 2018

What do Champions have in common?

You’re the Go-To person in your organization for Office 365, among other things. Curious by nature and ready to help, you’re motivated by learning new things and ready to lead. You believe that technology can transform the way people work.

We’re here to connect you with other Champions that share your passion for working better together! You’ll meet like-minded passionate thought leaders—so you can share and learn from each other. If you are finding this page from our main Driving Adoption blog you can join the program at https://aka.ms/O365Champions.

The Office 365 Champion Program will bring you the latest updates and Microsoft insider views. You’ll get exclusive access to Microsoft product experts, and pre-release tools and resources you can use to be a Champion with your peers at work.

What you’ll get:

The latest in community topics, latest news, tips, and resources, including a monthly email recap. (Please note that at this time, all program communications will be in English)
Ongoing peer networking and sharing with other Champions, in forums such as community calls, and invitations to connect and share in online meetups.
Microsoft partnerships and participation at premier events and industry meetups.
Access to Microsoft SMEs and unique Office 365 training and content.

Looking ahead

We hope you join our community and look forward to getting to know you better! We will highlight a variety of products here as we prepare to launch new resources. For now, here are some existing Microsoft Teams resources to check out:

Moving from Skype for Business to Microsoft Teams. If you’re anxious about this, you’re not alone. Here’s guidance for how to get started on your Microsoft Teams journey. Learn how technical and organizational readiness will help align Microsoft Teams to your business objectives. It takes a solid foundation, preparation, and an optimized environment.
Driving adoption. If you’re wondering how to effectively move the needle on adoption, check out this overview page that can help you make the most of Microsoft Teams. We will be enhancing this with additional materials and you will hear about those new tools in our upcoming community calls.
Security and compliance. You want the brass tacks of security and compliance in Microsoft Teams. Our overview describes important functions like auditing and reporting, eDiscovery options, and retention policies.

Not a lot of time? We’ve got short, snackable videos in our Coffee in the Cloud YouTube channel. They highlight new features, tips and tricks, and provide up to date usage guidance and best practices.

Published Jul 09, 2018

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Karuana_Gatimu_MSFT

Community Manager

Joined November 02, 2016

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35 Comments

John Wynne
Silver Contributor
Aug 07, 2018
Pleased to receive the Welcoming Email today. Look forward to sharing with other Champions here!
Anonymous
Aug 07, 2018
Hello all!

(Note to those who haven't received their Welcome email: I had to bust mine out of quarantine.)

I'm the Manager of Online Communities at a training company in the US. I run a Yammer home network for our employees--we're still under 300!--and a Yammer External Network for our customers (which are in the 30,000s, not that all of them are in yet). Internally and externally, we use Yammer as a professional development & support network. We're learning so much from our customers just by having this platform.

I have also taken on building my department's Team Site on SharePoint. The experience of learning SharePoint from the ground up has been awesome. We're on classic, and I had a lot of fun customizing the CSS for some aspects, developing cohesive Promoted Links, and so on.

Then I latched on to that recent update that allows modern Pages to be used in a classic site. I lost my customized CSS, but I really love the look and feel of modern, especially the Hero and Yammer web parts. I am indebted to Deleted for her SharePoint & more expertise.

The one thing that modern doesn't provide is a good In/Out type of Calendar (see this thread here).

If you want to talk or wrangle through SharePoint, Yammer, community management, adoption...I am here! I'm eager to keep learning as well.
AndyHollUK
Brass Contributor
Aug 07, 2018
Good morning all, I'm a Project Manager working for a Medical Regulator in the UK, I'm currently working on our upgrade from Windows 7 and Office 2010 to Windows 10 and Office 365. If you've already implemented Windows 10 and Office 365 I'd be really interested in hearing your experiences and lesson's learnt - particularly on how Office 365 services were introduced to the organistation. If you're on at the start of the journey I'm happy to share my experiences and lessons learnt!
- John Wynne
  Silver Contributor
  Aug 13, 2018
  Andy, you are in a great place to start your journey here on the Tech Community. Everyday a huge amount of, in my view, consulting level information and all free! My starting tips:
  It’s a marathon not a sprint (well maybe a project one or two!)
  As you realise by being here get your champions on board early
  Make use of every resource in Microsoft 365 especially Fast Track
  On Office 365 workloads, pick your battles, don’t launch everything day one
  Reach out, everyone here is friendly!
  Good luck.
  - AndyHollUK
    Brass Contributor
    Aug 13, 2018
    Thanks John
- Ville Engholm
  Copper Contributor
  Aug 07, 2018
  Hi Andy!
  We've been migrating hundreds of thousands of accounts to the cloud for the past 4 years. A few typical lessons to be learned:
  * Office 365 consists of many services and products! It's hard to say you're just going to implement it in one step.
  * Find your ambassadors/champions/super users. They'll be really important as you want to transition from old ways of working, not just change a product.
  * When it comes to Windows 10, remember to not just change the OS and keep everything else around. Consider Autopilot and to manage your devices through Intune.
  * Do it right from the beginning! The licenses you choose makes all the difference in the world! Consider Microsoft 365 licenses and remember to not just look for one kind (some users might be fine with F1 licenses, others should have the E5). And please don't forget about EM+S! Considering MFA? You will want to have CA for that which comes with EM+S.
  - AndyHollUK
    Brass Contributor
    Aug 13, 2018
    Thanks Ville,
    
    This is reassuring as I think we are actively working on or considering everything on your list!
    
    Much appreciated!
    
    Andy
Raphael Alves Medeiros
Copper Contributor
Jul 24, 2018
Hello,

I did the sign up but, didnt receive anything kind of email or information about my sign up.
Its normal or take sometimes to start?
- Ville Engholm
  Copper Contributor
  Aug 07, 2018
  It did take a few days for me to receive the welcoming email. You should have gotten it by now though.
- null null
  Copper Contributor
  Aug 03, 2018
  I am in the same situation - I haven't received any communication that the sign-up was successful.
  - Steve Palmo
    Brass Contributor
    Aug 25, 2018
    I got an email on Aug 23rd 9:01pm EST, titled "Welcome to Microsoft Office 365 Champions"
    from this email Office 365 Champions Program <office365champions@email.office.com>
Martina Grom
MVP
Jul 19, 2018
is the program limited to certain countries? Currently there are only a few listed.

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The Office 365 Teamwork Champion’s community is Open!