Tell us a little bit about yourself and your Role  

I am an MVP for Office Apps and Services. I mostly focus on compliance.

Where do you look for professional inspiration?

I like to hear about everyday people doing extraordinary things. That is one of the reasons I love Microsoft Teams – it gives people the tools they need to bring people together toward a goal.

In your opinion, what is the most exciting thing about working with Microsoft Teams?

I like it when a solution helps people to better accomplish the mission of their organization, either through freeing up time from mundane tasks or making collaboration more efficient.

What is your favorite feature of Microsoft Teams and why?

I like how the Office 365 compliance features are integrated with Teams so that people aren’t blocked from using it because it is not compliant.

What are the biggest challenges you face working with Microsoft Teams?

A lack of knowledge about the compliance features that are available.

How would you tackle it/them?  

I tackle this through education about what is available and how compliance features meet the needs or regulatory or corporate policies.

What are your Top 3 Microsoft Teams Tips?

• Involve compliance and/or legal when planning a rollout to ensure you are meeting compliance policies.
• Plan for retention, data protection, and eDiscovery.
• Use Communication Compliance to enforce corporate policies, manage risk in communications, & identify compliance violations

In addition to the obvious ones, like organizational change management and an understanding of collaboration, be familiar with the compliance features and how to use them.

What in your opinion has been the biggest advance in Microsoft Teams in the past 18 months?

Live events with Live captions, translation and transcription. These features help to make content accessible to everyone in your organization.

With a wide array of Communication and Collaboration platforms available, why Microsoft Teams?  

Microsoft Teams has advanced compliance capabilities which ensure you meet the needs or regulatory or corporate policies

How did you become a MVP?

I have no idea. I like to help people – it makes me feel happy.

Do you have any suggestions for other community members who hope to become MVP’s?       

Just focus on helping people.

About Erica:

Erica Toelle is a Microsoft MVP in Office Apps and Services. She is an internationally recognized speaker on Compliance, Office 365, and SharePoint. Erica has been working with customers to deploy these solutions since 2004 and has been hired as an expert by over 30 Fortune 500 companies, several Microsoft Product Teams, and Microsoft IT.