A look at incorporating Microsoft Teams into a higher-ed environment.

1. Collaboration, & You!
Microsoft Teams

2. Eric Sembrat
Web Manager, Georgia Tech
• Georgia Tech Drupal Users Group
Lead
• USG Web Tech Day Founder & Lead
• WPCampus / WPCampus Online
Team Member
• DrupalCon North America Track
Team Global
• I also do web development.

3. Hi, my name is Eric, and I enjoy:
community
building

5. Tech & Community
We’re Slacking
• Slack has been the go-to chat service
meant to supplant message boards,
mailing lists, and chat clients for
general broad communities of
practice.
• Atlanta actually has a web dev-focused
Slack instance:
• https://tech404.io/
• So does higher-ed (kinda):
• http://cuwebd.ning.com/

6. But what about institutions?
Slack can get out of control quick.
• Unless your institution picks up an
Enterprise license for Slack, each
instance is:
• Separated / gate-walled
• Individually managed / owned
• Private / no consistent sign-up
• Independent
• Left to only one integration
• Chats expire after 10,000 messages

7. Welp.
There’s got to be a better way.
• If you’re a Microsoft email campus, you
already have a product in your back
pocket.

8. Teams
At Georgia Tech

9. Setting the Stage
Introducing the Georgia Tech Drupal Users Group.
• Georgia Tech manages a 800+ person
listserv for web development questions
mainly catering to the Drupal content
management system.
• Started in 2009’ish
• Two email lists:
• drupal@lists.gatech.edu
• lod@lists.gatech.edu
• The limitations of a list-serv.

10. Community Building
First step - bring folks together around data.
• Drupal Users Group started a website
for centralizing campus knowledge and
best practices, centralizing common
questions and issues to a permanent
place.
• However, the scope of a website
quickly grew:
• Document management
• Video presentation hosting
• Repositories
• Directories
• Help Desk event management

11. What’s missing in this?
800 folks, but no place to chat.
• However, off-topic and general chat
was limited to in-person.
• More importantly, Drupal isn’t the best
place for more intranet-related matters.
• Neither is a list-serv.
• Slack looked interesting, but…
• Retention of logs?
• FOIA requests?
• Transparency?

12. Enter Teams
Two birds, one stone.
• Microsoft Teams was originally
visioned to supplement a leadership
discussion listserv.
• Encourages more discussion, less
walls-of-text.
• Also a perfect gateway for support
emails lasting more than 5 messages.
• Why get email spammed, when you
can thread support questions?
• However, we found we could do a lot
with Microsoft Teams and our
complementary tools to our email
product to streamline work.

13. Teams
A glance inside.

19. Enter: A Diagram
Our Infrastructure
Ye Olde ListServ (drupal@lists.gatech.edu)
Website
Documentation
Front-Facing
Events
Call to Actions
Microsoft Teams
General Chat
Long-form
Support
Planning
Discussion
Project
Management
Data Collection /
Forms
Workflow
Video Calls
Remote / Virtual
Support Sessions
Test Bed for New
Ideas
Discussion
Experimental
Ideas
Logistics

20. Enter: A Diagram
Our Infrastructure
Ye Olde ListServ (drupal@lists.gatech.edu)
Website
Documentation
Front-Facing
Events
Call to Actions
Microsoft Teams
General Chat
Long-form
Support
Planning
Discussion
Project
Management
Data Collection /
Forms
Workflow
Video Calls
Remote / Virtual
Support Sessions
Test Bed for New
Ideas
Discussion
Experimental
Ideas
Logistics
Teams + Listserv
Teams + O365
Integrations
Teams + Flow +
Forms

21. Our Players
Which O365 products meet the needs?

22. Our Players
Which O365 products meet the needs?
Teams
Group
SharePoint / OneDrive
Lync / Skype for Business

23. Our Players
Which O365 products meet the needs?
Teams
Forms
Flow
Planner
Office Toolset

24. Enter: A Diagram
Our Infrastructure
Ye Olde ListServ (drupal@lists.gatech.edu)
Website
Documentation
Front-Facing
Events
Call to Actions
Microsoft Teams
General Chat
Long-form
Support
Planning
Discussion
Project
Management
Data Collection /
Forms
Workflow
Video Calls
Remote / Virtual
Support Sessions
Test Bed for New
Ideas
Discussion
Experimental
Ideas
Logistics
Teams + Listserv
Teams + O365
Integrations
Teams + Flow +
Forms

25. Enter: A Diagram
Our Infrastructure
Microsoft Teams
Project Management
Data Collection / Forms
Workflow
Logistics

26. Enter: A Diagram
Our Infrastructure
Microsoft Teams
Project Management
Data Collection / Forms
Workflow
Logistics
Planner
Flow
Forms

27. Planner
Trello who?
• Planner is the Trello equivalent task
management tool.
• If you’re looking for true project
management and forecasting, this
ain’t it.

35. Planner
What’s it missing?
• Task percentages.
• In-app attachments (why?!)
• Mentions in-task if associated with a
group
• Flexible/extendible checkboxes
• Subtasks? Task relationships?

36. Enter: A Diagram
Our Infrastructure
Microsoft Teams
Project Management
Data Collection / Forms
Workflow
Logistics
Planner
Flow
Forms

37. Forms
SurveyMonkey be gone!
• Pretty self explanatory.

41. Enter: A Diagram
Our Infrastructure
Microsoft Teams
Project Management
Data Collection / Forms
Workflow
Logistics
Planner
Flow
Forms

42. Flow
IFTTT, Rules, Workflow - the sausage factory.
• Flow is the logic processor for events
(triggers) that processes checks
(conditionals) and actions (actions).
• If you have ever put together a IFTTT
or a Rule in Drupal, or design
workflows, the process is similar.

43. Flow 101
If you’re new to conditional logic.
ON ACTION: ‘User submits form {X}’
CONDITION: ‘IF {form field Y} equals {value Z}
IF YES; {ACTION HERE}
IF NO; {ACTION HERE}

44. Flow 101
If you’re new to conditional logic.
ON ACTION: ‘User submits form {X}’
CONDITION: ‘IF {form field Y} equals {value Z}
IF YES; {ACTION HERE}
IF NO; {ACTION HERE}

46. Remember This?

54. Flow
What’s it missing?
• A lot of actions to act on.
• Quality-of-Life improvements on the
UI.

55. A Step back.
The 30,000 view of Teams.

56. Our Mindset
Teams as a Connector.
• Teams connects our users and allows
for a channel-based discussion
method for collaboration, support,
logistics, and planning.
• Our goal is to:
• Break down silos.
• Break down communication
barriers.
• Build up a One Georgia Tech
mindset and positive user
interaction.
• Less passive-aggressive, more
communicative.

57. Our current infrastructure
What we leverage Teams for:
• Video calls (quality and functionality a
definite work in progress).
• Analytics / Check In
• Planning / Logistics / Task
Management
• Repository for eBooks / Physical
Books
• Notifications for GitHub Enterprise
group
• Conference, a11y, Drupal 8 planning
• Virtual help-desk / assistance
• Education initiatives

58. Live Demo
CH-CH-CHECK IT.

59. Feedback? Questions?
Thanks!