MOCA on my own – Microsoft Modern Collaboration Architecture?

MOCA series 1 of 5

🤔😯🤓Have you ever felt confused about which Microsoft 365, or other digital tools for that matter, to use in different contexts and situations? Then you’re not alone, and you don’t have to continue being confused – help is at hand! 💡🥰

🚀The developments and updates for platforms such as Microsoft 365 have been frequent, and many, the last couple of years! From using “only” SharePoint and Outlook to moving into Office 365, and now the full magical box of Microsoft 365, in a few years, gives a ton of possibilities. Although many possibilities is great and can make a huge difference for people using it and the company as a whole, it can also be confusing to understand which app to use for what and when.

🤗Microsoft listens to their customers and they have created MOCA – Microsoft Modern Collaboration Architecture, which can be a good guide and a helping tool for a company to decide on which apps and services to use for what, and perhaps most importantly; why?

I am going to write a series of blog looking at the different context and what to think about when choosing apps and tools for these. This MOCA-blog is a series of 5:

• MOCA on my own
• MOCA in a team
• MOCA in a Community
• MOCA for the organization
• MOCA for business

Context is key

🤔When deciding on tool (Apps and services) the context you are using it for is an important key. This could be a given, and even if it might be obvious for some, it is not as obvious for others.

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If I am going to remove some weed from my flower bed, I don’t have to use the shovel I use for removing snow, I can use a tiny one that is meant for flower beds. The same principle goes for modern collaboration and communication; first decide what you want to do, then decide on tools.

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When I work on my own

Working on my own can be many things, in this context we will focus on collaboration and communication as part of my every day work, working more or less with digital tools during my workday.

Company decisions

The tools I choose is depending on what tools my company has made available for me and how they are guiding me to use them.

Typical situations where I work on my own and which tools I would naturally choose:

I am	Using	To	For achieving
Having an idea I want to share with a colleague, about a project	(A) Private chat in Teams or	Share my thoughts and information	that we have a shared space to discuss the idea and information and to ensure that everyone in the dialogue have the same information
Having an idea I want to share with a colleague, about a project	(B) Shared channel in Project Portfolio team in Teams	Share my thoughts and information	that we have a shared space to discuss the idea and information and to ensure that everyone in the dialogue have the same information
Having an idea I want to share with a colleague, about a project	(A) Share a document or a folder with documents via private chat and my OneDrive with a colleague or a few colleagues	Work on our project business case together	To avoid having many different versions of the same document and work on the document together
Having an idea I want to share with a colleague, about a project	(B) Share a document or a folder with documents via shared channel conversation and Files document folder (in the Project Portfolio team in Teams with a colleague or a few colleagues	Work on our project business case together	To avoid having many different versions of the same document and work on the document together
Having an idea I want to share with a colleague, about a project	My personal OneNote (When project business case is approved I move the sheets from my private notebook to a shared notebook associated with the project team in Teams)	Make notes during the work process	To make sure I don’t forget important things to consider, and start preparing information and structure for when our project gets approved

Which Microsoft apps do I use when working on my own?

Microsoft 365 consists of many different apps, and several can be used for similar activities. For example Microsoft To-Do, Planner, SharePoint lists, OneNote and Outlook tasks are useful for managing tasks and activities, however, they work best for certain contexts respectively.

Here is my recommendation for which Microsoft 365 app to use for what:

Microsoft 365 app	Why is it a good idea to use it?
Microsoft Teams	For private conversations that does not need to be logged, e.g. clarifications regarding time for meeting, when to meet for lunch, ad-hoc conversations with one or with a few
Microsoft To-Do	My personal task dashboard, integrated with Planner and Outlook, flagged emails, activities from Teams channel conversations, etc. Available both via Microsoft Teams menu and via client desktop, pads and smartphones
OneNote	There are both personal and shared OneNotes. The personal OneNote is my personal notebook and only I can see the notes. This replaces my paper notebook, and is much safer and easily accessible notes (I can even snip images via OneNote)
OneDrive	My personal repository, my digital cupboard in the office. It is only for me to share my drafts, ideas, ad-hoc sharing, and it is connected to me as a user. Business critical documents should not be stored in OneDrive, but in shared repositories.
Outlook	We can invite to meetings via Teams, still you can still use Outlook to invite for meeting and events, as well as external communication. It is recommended to keep all internal communication in Teams. I will get back to this in the blog about MOCA in a team.

💡Do you want to learn about MOCA – Microsoft Modern Collaboration Architecture?✨

Check out these resources:

• Enabling Modern Collaboration – Microsoft Adoption
• Check out a Day in the life examples in this Microsoft Teams Adoption Guide + Day in the Life guides – Microsoft Adoption
• Microsoft Teams – Microsoft Adoption
• My presentation at CloudWay Next Gen Microsoft 365 Operations: Drive successful collaboration for Hybrid Work

I hope this blog was at help for you. Please feel free to agree or disagree with my recommendations and leave a comment if you want. Thank you for reading my blog! 🥰

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Ask me a question!

You can also contact me directly either via SoMe and/or via my employers contact form on our web page: Workshops – Cloudway.

💡🥰PS! This blog is my personal opinions and sharing. I am working in a fantastic team in CloudWay and we are running great workshops covering these topics. We can help you, and your partners, to remove blockers on your way to the cloud! We love to share what we know – to help everyone having secure productivity in the cloud!