Check out MVP Ragnar Heil’s Microsoft Team’s interview.
Tell us a little bit about yourself and your Role
In my role as Partner Account Manager EMEA Central at Quest I am passionate about increasing revenue and building new business models for my partners around migrations to Modern Workplace, Security, Governance and Compliance. I live with my wife and 3 kids in Central Germany. Before I joined Quest I worked 11 years at Microsoft. I have founded with three handful of people the Working Out Loud Community in Germany. which is currently transforming many large Enterprises.
Where do you look for professional inspiration?
Short answer: on Social Media! Everyday and I mostly use Blogs, YouTube, Podcasts, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Newsletters and of course – in Conferences like ESPC
In your opinion what is the most exciting thing about working with Microsoft Teams?
Communication and Collaboration with externals like customers, partners and vendors. That´s a game changer in my personal productivity where I move away from phone calls and emails with attachments, develop a more advanced working culture which is full of trust, authenticity and agility.
What is your favourite feature of Microsoft Teams and why?
SharePoint integration works seamless and offers impressive values like document management features, compliance with sensitivity labels and rich lists experience. Now full SharePoint websites can be embedded which lets me stay longer in Teams than in the past.
What are the biggest challenges you face working with Microsoft Teams?
Collaboration when on a call, especially when I need to change tenants, so I am working with different browsers. I also often need to share documents with externals in a chat which is not possible, so I need to upload to OneDrive and share an URL.
What are your Top 3 Microsoft Teams Tips?
1) Use chats on external tenants to increase collaboration speed with your customers and partners.
2) Predefined Focus time and special focus settings helps you to get things better done in Teams.
3) I am using a lot of PowerAutomate flows to push business relevant information into my Teams which I would forget or ignore.
1) Learn from the Community and Microsoft News
2) Listen to what customers want to achieve with Teams in their industry
3) Share your expertise with your community and learn from their feedback.
What in your opinion has been the biggest advance in Microsoft Teams in the past 18 months?
Enabling access to external users, improving speed of switching between different tenants, Rooms System Program and richer SharePoint pages and list experience. Broadcasting has also improved with Live captions, translation and transcription in live events which is crucial for inclusion.
With a wide array of Communication and Collaboration platforms available, why Microsoft Teams?
There is no other communication and collaboration tool which is so tightly embedded into Office 365 like Teams. That saves so much money which could be used to support business departments and their market needs better.
How did you become a MVP?
I was blogging on a weekly level about SharePoint and Office 365, talked on many different conferences, wrote books and articles, organized local meetups and events. I was very well connected and found a good number of supporters for my nominations.
Do you have suggestions for other community members who hope to become MVP’s?
Ask yourself every morning: what can I do today to help and support others and grow and develop the community. Invest in organizing conferences and regional meetups, reach your target group on several Social Media Channels, share content of your community and create new content with extra value: on YouTube, Podcast, Conference Talks or Blogposts.
About Ragnar
Before Ragnar Heil joined Quest as EMEA Channel Account Manager, he worked at Metalogix and Microsoft in several roles such as SharePoint Senior Consultant, Office 365 Customer Success Manager, and Partner Channel Lead for Office 365 E5. Microsoft has awarded him as MVP for Office Apps + Services. He has published several books and articles about Systems Thinking, Social Intranets and Digital Business. He is a founding member of Working Out Loud Community in Germany and passionate about New Ways of Working and improving Business Collaboration + Productivity.” Check out: www.ragnarheil.de
