Microsoft 365 Learning Resources
Leadership Through Data | Australasia
Practical Based Information and Records Management Training in Australasia.
How often have you been told that you can learn everything you need from Microsoft, and you don't need training? According to our customers, it happens a lot.
Last week we got together with Erica Toelle to discuss just what you could get from Microsoft - so that we can all understand the difference. Erica is the Senior Product Marketing Manager for Records Management and Information Governance at Microsoft - so there's no one better to answer the question.
Fact is, Microsoft do provide a lot of information, and if you have the time and energy to find and make sense of it, and do practical exercises with it you can likely get what you want from Microsoft and the blogosphere - if you have the time.
The core difference is that our training is very focused and you'll learn the tools in a short period of time. We think our training will help most people make sense of what they need better and faster - but it does come at a cost. We've provided a short (slightly biased, it's unavoidable) analysis of both below - and a set of links to the Microsoft training that will help you get started if that's the route you choose.
There are four core differences -?
Training material organisation
We provide courses, webinars and workshops developed by information and records managers specifically for the needs of information and records managers. The offering is purposely focused on developing your capability to achieve specific outcomes - ie. manage records, protect information, secure teams etc. They are instructor led and put you in the room with an expert working through a focused curriculum of practical exercises designed to develop your skills - so that you know what is available and how to use it in a specific context.
The structure of Microsoft training material is purposefully broad. They are catering for everyone, everywhere doing everything with their products. Their breadth of coverage is total (as far as I know) so you can find a document and often a video of literally every feature of every Microsoft product.
The content is generally well organised - but suffers from the problem of sheer volume, a non-specific audience and products that evolve over time. Google (or Bing) is definitely your best friend for finding content on a specific feature.
Here's a link ot the Microsoft Records Management documentation - https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/compliance/manage-information-governance?view=o365-worldwide
There are a couple of tools that structure Microsoft's content in particularly useful ways that are worthy of a specific mention -?
1. Deployment guides
2. Learning paths.
Both help you see how features of the Microsoft stack can be used to achieve specific outcomes in specific contexts - and some links are below.
The Microsoft Information Governance Deployment Guide - https://aka.ms/MIG/Deployment
The Microsoft learning path link where you can find the records management track - https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/learn/
It's also worth mentioning the blogosphere, and a set of webinars run by Erica and others from Microsoft. If you have the time and energy to read and watch them them, there's great content - links are below.
The Microsoft Information Governance Webinars - https://aka.ms/mig/webinars
The Microsoft Information Governance Blog - https://aka.ms/MIG/Blog
Localisation
Our training courses are localised and are run by experts in the local jurisdiction. We design them to reflect information and records management in specific parts of the world - and this is checked by experts (thanks to Sonya Sherman, Suzanna Mai and Michael Upton among others). There is different legislation, different expectations about what records are and how they are created and bars of different heights that need jumping - and we cater for this.
Microsoft cover the whole world. This just means that they will tell you how to achieve specific objectives in their training, and leave the localisation to you - which means that you need to understand what you're trying to achieve so that you can understand how the toolset can be used to achieve it. The documentation also sometimes provides advice based on a specific jurisdiction - so you have to apply your own knowledge to make sure it's applied in a manner that's right for you.
Learning styles catered for
Research on learning styles tells us that specific types of learning have different levels of effectiveness when it comes to the retention of learning material. In general, we consider these to be either "passive" or "active" - passive being exactly what it sounds like, and active forcing participants to actively participate in the learning process so that they improve their retention.?
Retention rates associated with the different learning styles are approximately as follows -?
Our training is practical based. We focus on helping people gain awareness of a topic, and then help them apply it immediately - either through group discussion or practical exercises because it is only through effortful application that knowledge is embedded
In a nutshell, our training focuses on -?
Most of what Microsoft provide is either -?
The point is that we've designed our courses to focus more on retention because we're not trying to scale as far as Microsoft are. We're really here for the ANZ records management community, Microsoft has to be here for everyone.
Cost
We couldn't discuss this without being really clear that all of our courses come at a cost.
Microsoft's courseware is free - unless you choose one of their other service providers, and all their documentation is free - which means that there will be times when it's the best you can get. It's also great in a pinch - and I use it every day.
Conclusion
Us and Microsoft - we're both designed with different things in mind, but have the same overall goal - to help you make use of what they've built.
Our courses are build around learning styles and are fast, specific and tailored to the information and records management community in Australia and New Zealand - but they come at a cost.
Microsoft's courseware is always there for you, covers absolutely everything, can answer specific questions in a pinch and won't cost you - except for the time. You'll also need to bring your domain expertise to ensure that you build things using their functionality that are right for your organisation, and do enough digging to find the gaps for yourself.
Whichever you choose, we hope you'll check out our courses at - https://www.leadershipthroughdata.com.au/all-courses/
Other resources -?
Erica's good egg, and she's written a book - Microsoft 365 compliance - you should check it out - HERE
Microsoft 365 Security & Compliance User Group (London, United Kingdom) | Meetup https://www.meetup.com/m365sandcug/?
Sharepoint Maven's BLog -?SharePoint best practices, tips and tricks | SharePoint Maven https://sharepointmaven.com/blog-sharepoint-best-practices/?
Joanne Klein's Blog - https://joannecklein.com/