The Office 365 Teamwork Champion’s community is Open!
Published Jul 09 2018 10:50 AM 17.5K Views
Microsoft

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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. 
35 Comments
is the program limited to certain countries? Currently there are only a few listed.
Copper Contributor

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?

Copper Contributor

I am in the same situation - I haven't received any communication that the sign-up was successful.  

Copper Contributor
It did take a few days for me to receive the welcoming email. You should have gotten it by now though.
Brass Contributor
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!
Copper Contributor
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.
Deleted
Not applicable

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. 

Silver Contributor
Pleased to receive the Welcoming Email today. Look forward to sharing with other Champions here!
Brass Contributor

Glad to be here!  Got my email last night.

 

I'm a Server Engineer at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, WI.  I'm definitely the 'Microsoft Fanboy' on the team.

 

I'm very excited to be here!  I've been interested in Office 365 and its services pretty much since its inception.  I remember working with BPOS for a few consulting clients back in the day.

 

Can't wait to see what's new!

 

- Michael

Deleted
Not applicable
Pleased to receive the Welcoming Email yesterday. Look forward to collaborating with the community here!
Copper Contributor

Just received my welcome email, I am excited to be here and see all that is coming!!

Thanks

Suzanne

Brass Contributor
Just got my invite! Happy to join the group, thank you and looking forward to share best practices and experiences.
Copper Contributor
Excited to be here! looking forward to sharing/collaborating with others.
Iron Contributor
This is so exiting!! Looking forward to the first community connect :)
Brass Contributor

Thanks Ville,

 

This is reassuring as I think we are actively working on or considering everything on your list!

 

Much appreciated!

 

Andy

Silver Contributor

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.

Brass Contributor

Thanks John

Brass Contributor

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>

 

 
Copper Contributor
Thanks. just joined :)
Iron Contributor
I just joined too...a little late but I made it!
Copper Contributor

It is grea to be part of the champions community.

 

I am one of the responsible persons in our company to adopt and drive the change to Office 365.

As this topic brings along very interesting challenges I'd like to know how other champions went on about certain topics.

E.g. How did you tackle the issue that arises who can create O365 groups or Teams?

How did you go about explaining users where the data is store, what happens when it is deleted or archived?

 

 

 

Copper Contributor

I'm excited to join this program.  @Karuana Gatimu, thank you for telling me about it at the SPTechcon.  As our sole training staff member here in the City of Santa Monica IS Department, I'm excited to find a community to leverage, rather than feeling like I'm out there alone.

Brass Contributor
Excited to join! I heard about this community on your session with the MS Cloud IT PRO Podcast.
Copper Contributor
Very excited to join this space with so many likeminded folks :)
I also joined the community. Very curious what we can learn from each other!
Copper Contributor

So great to see all of the change management tools and tips coming out now... Looking forward to leveraging the most appropriate parts to help my organisation, not just for those that are just about to make the transition, but also the hundreds that have been on O365 for years and need an update on all the newest features (got to love a merger). 

Copper Contributor

So great to see all of the change management tools and tips coming out now... Looking forward to leveraging the most appropriate parts to help my organisation, not just for those that are just about to make the transition, but also the hundreds that have been on Office 365 for years and need an update on all the newest features (got to love a merger). 

Deleted
Not applicable

Hi @Karuana Gatimu

 

As @Martina Grom asked, is there any limitations for some countries?


I'm currently in France and I'm not able to join the program. :(

The organization I'm in is a company implemented also in UK / BE I tried to sign up to those countries, with no success.

Could anyone help me (and maybe others in same situation?). I look forward to join this program and get insights :)

 

Many thanks for your time & help 

Copper Contributor

During Ignite 2018, I was told that you are going to launch gamification for O365 adoption, where one can earn points by hosting internal training, office hours, and help users in Teams Yammer Group. When is this coming?!

Copper Contributor

Has anyone created a scoring system or app when Gamifying Teams? Our scenario goes like this. > Send out weekly challenges to Teams Champions > Two types of challenges 1. Individual effort and 2. Group effort > score the two types of challenges >Rinse and repeat

 

I've tried using Planner. But, it seems cumbersome for the collective members. I've been told PowerApps/Flow Buttons might work.

 

Hopefully someone in this community has solved for this. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

@Karuana Gatimu 

Steel Contributor
This sounds like a great idea to encourage champions and guide at the same time. You could build something with PowerApps and Flow to show a list of challenges, individual progress and how each person is rating. Out of interest, how do you measure success, do champions rate themselves or is there a review?
Copper Contributor

@Karuana Gatimu 

 

Are you ready to join us

Copper Contributor
Yes sure thanks
Copper Contributor

Hi @Alan Marshall 

 

To answer you question on measuring success. We work with the customer during a persona mapping workshop to define what success looks like for them. My company is a collaboration provider. In addition to helping with transitioning to Teams an all it's robust capabilities. i.e. Channels, Tabs, Bots/Apps, Security, Groups, SharePoint/OneDrive...etc. We also provide telephony services. So success might be; how do we help with using Teams as a phone system. Desktop and mobile apps, desk phones, meeting room devices. The metrics are tailored to utilization/adoption rates and satisfaction of the employees using the services.

 

For reporting:

In addition surveys, forms...Etc. we use the Teams reporting metrics in the Admin center. We also have in-house reporting tools. They help us understand usage patterns, which devices (Phones, Headsets, PC) are having issues, which locations have network issues. (LAN/WiFi hot-spots)

All factors that play roles in proper adoption and perception.

 

We try to set successful KPI's and measurements in the beginning. But, through the Champions program and activities we are able to lock in those KPI's before going to the broader user base.

 

I hope this helps.

Copper Contributor

@Karuana Gatimu 

Hello. Does anyone have a job description that you give to folks who volunteer for your Champions program? I'd love to see some examples. Thank you!

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