The workspace explosion

How we can avoid it with life cycle management

In the cross-linked organization, everyone and everything is connected with each other. Employees participate and shape in a wide variety of constellations. New teams, workgroups or communities of purpose are formed every day.

They organize themselves digitally, independently, in virtual workspaces that can be opened quickly and easily with a click.

And when the team is finished with the project, the workgroup dissolves or the community of purpose has fulfilled its purpose, then...

...the digital workspaces are left behind. Many have the potential to become productivity hogs. If it weren't for the functionality of lifecycle management (LCM).

Workspaces have a lifecycle

Our Modern Work solution for Microsoft 365 enables decentralized self-organization for employees and teams. Depending on the situation, standardized, virtual workspaces - in Microsoft Teams or SharePoint - can be created for teamwork.

As Microsoft 365 gets adoption throughout the organization, the number of workspaces increases. Many are used for just a short time, some are created for testing purposes only, and others serve a longer-term purpose.

All workspaces have a lifecycle. In MondayCoffee's Modern Work solution CoffeeNet 365, lifecycle management of workspaces is already integrated to reduce the risk of losing overview and productivity.

Open with a click, close automatically

Microsoft Teams workspaces can be archived manually (which no one does), but there is no automatic mechanism available. Moreover, the associated SharePoint sites remain unaffected.

The LCM of CoffeeNet 365 enables the archiving of Microsoft Teams workspaces AND associated SharePoint sites at the same time to ensure overview and orientation:

• Archived workspaces have corresponding labels in Microsoft Teams and in SharePoint. That way, users immediately understand that an archived workspace no longer functions the same as it did before, in its "active" state.

• Functionally, this means that users have read-only rights in the archived workspace.

• Optionally, archived workspaces can also be hidden from M365 search so that users have less need to search irrelevant items.

Friendly Reminder

CoffeeNet 365's LCM works with automations to reliably remind workspace owners that they should archive or delete virtual spaces according to predefined criteria:

• So-called LCM policies (automatic guidelines) determine after how many days of inactivity workspace archiving should take place. This ensures automatic sorting out of unused workspaces and relieves their owners.

• LCM policies can also be based on more sophisticated criteria, e.g. based on a date field defined in the workspace (e.g. 1 year after the "project end date").

• CoffeeNet 365's LCM also allows multi-level actions, e.g. deletion 2 years after the workspace has been archived. There are countless options available.

• In case workspace owners do not respond to the request to archive, this is taken care of: a time-delayed escalation ensures that necessary action will be taken, e.g. if the owner has left the organization meanwhile.

For more productivity

Complexity and fast pace will continue to shape our working world. At MondayCoffee we want to make working life as easy as possible for employees. Our feature LCM pays off on our promise - with the following benefits:

• Increased user productivity when dealing with many workspaces, as those that are inactive are automatically archived or deleted.

• Valuable additions to existing Microsoft functionality - at no additional licensing cost - for a more comprehensive, multi-level and versatile LCM of Teams Workspaces and SharePoint Sites.

Would you like to learn more about this topic or our Modern Work Solution? We look forward to hearing from you.

Get in touch

Contact: LCM

Setting the course for Modern Work

If we were to ask people of different generations about the way they worked then and now, the statements could not be more different. The world of work has changed fundamentally.

People spend 80% of their time working together. Remote work and hybrid work have finally taken hold with Corona.

Traditional organizational models are reaching their limits in our fast-paced world, as are many employees struggling with data overload and continuous distraction.

Two questions get asked:

• How can management establish an organization that is reliable and efficient, yet fast and agile to operate successfully in a fast-paced environment?

• How do they ensure employee satisfaction and well-being in the process?

The immediate answer: Digital transformation. Technology.

Our answer: A new way of working.

Studies show a productivity increase potential of 20-25% through the use of collaboration tools. However, only those companies that adapt their way of working, encourage open communication and knowledge sharing, and bring a networked organization to life will be able to realize the potential.

7 GOLDEN RULES OF A MODERN WAY OF WORKING

Over the past 20 years, we have had the privilege of accompanying a number of companies on their journey towards a more modern way of working. The following 7 golden rules for a modern way of working have emerged:

1. Networked organization instead of rigid silos

2. Hybrid collaboration culture

3. Scalable collaboration standards

4. Reduction of redundant information

5. Open communication as default

6. (Pro-)active knowledge exchange

7. Increased autonomy of employees

FROM THE RULES TO ADOPTION

How do you create the right conditions for these rules to be applied? How do you get employees to want to comply with them?

We have developed our own Modern Work solution for this purpose.

It focuses on employees and their work scenarios. In dialog with them, we want to understand how they work today - as individual workers, in departments, in teams, on projects or in work groups. With our out-of-the-box modern workplace solution and best-practice configuration of Microsoft 365 technologies, we then demonstrate directly how their work steps and work processes can be digitized and made more efficient as individual workers or in collaboration with others. Most importantly, we let them personally experience how a more modern way of working can simplify everyday work. More independence. Faster knowledge retrieval. Easier communication. Users don't have to focus on the tools, it is about the new way of working.

ORGANIZATION-WIDE SCALING OF MODERN COLLABORATION

We store and configure the individual work scenarios as corporate standards and on the basis of best-practice templates in our Modern Work solution. This enables the organization-wide scaling of long-term orderly and structured collaboration with Microsoft 365, while ensuring the necessary governance and security in a networked organization.

We were recently awarded by Microsoft for our expertise on the topic of 'Adoption & Change Management'.

Would you like to better understand the potential of a modern way of working in your organization? Our experts are looking forward to an exchange with you.

Get in touch

New Form

The importance of never standing still: MondayCoffee meets Fluid Framework

For our SharePoint Master and long-term employee Oliver Zeiser, trying out new technologies and the continuous development of our modern workplace solution CoffeeNet are part of his daily business. Together with Oliver and his team, we want to make sure that our solutions also remain modern for our customers.

In this blog post, Oliver talks about what it means to be at the forefront of technology behind the scenes. And he does so using the most recent example of Microsoft's Fluid Framework for real-time collaboration. A first-hand report for anyone who wants to take a deeper look into Microsoft's technological developments.

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Blog post by Oliver Zeiser, SharePoint Master at MondayCoffee

When I started in 2013 to leave the on-premises world step by step and to develop our modern cloud-based workplace solution CoffeeNet for SharePoint Online, I went into it with a fair amount of doubt myself. Today I know that it was the right decision. Focusing on the right technologies at an early stage pays off in the long run.

Eight years later, working with the latest technologies is by no means easier, but it has become my daily business. In this new, rapidly changing cloud age, nothing is worth more than being able to make real experiences with the latest technologies and to bring them into our products. A current example is the Microsoft Fluid Framework.

“Investing in the right technologies at an early stage pays off in the long run.”

THE MICROSOFT FLUID FRAMEWORK - FROM VISION TO REALITY 

On May 6, 2019, Microsoft introduced the Fluid Framework at the Build Conference as a new framework for real-time collaboration. Of course, at that moment, the Fluid Framework was not a finished product, but rather a vision.

Definition Fluid Framework: “First, experiences powered by the Fluid Framework will support multi-person co-authoring on web and document content at a speed and scale not yet achieved in the industry.”

For us, however, the vision quickly became reality: we have been dealing with the topic since May 2019 and made an early effort to be able to gather initial personal experiences with it.

Hence, back in October 2019, we traveled to Redmond to gather hands-on experience, build prototypes, and provide feedback on-site at Microsoft with the Fluid Framework developers and the SharePoint Framework team. During our stay at Microsoft, we quickly understood what the Fluid Framework is about and what differentiates it from classic real-time frameworks like SignalR and WebSockets.

FLUID FRAMEWORK VERSUS CLASSIC REALTIME FRAMEWORKS

SignalR and WebSockets are often used to run so-called last-write-wins data structures. For example, a message is sent over a WebSocket that updates a value in a map on the client. So, for example, in many simple WebSocket scenarios, this message is a notification such as, "You have mail."

Fluid is about managing state, not transmitting messages. While last-write-wins data structures are included in Fluid, some data structures require more complex state management. Strings and sequences are not last-write-wins.

How would a last-write-wins algorithm handle two users processing a string at the same time?

Initial state: "Hello world"

Alice adds "!" to the end

Bob adds "?" at the end

There might be some strange behavior that results in "Hello world?" or "Hello world!".

Fluid orders Bob's change and Alice's change through the Fluid service. The merge tree data structure then has a reproducible merge algorithm for applying these ordered changes. Ultimately, the string would be "Hello world?!".

Although simple examples are easy to implement, especially last-write wins, more complex examples are challenging. OT (Operational Transformation) & CRDTs (conflict-free replicated data type) are two existing ways to handle state replication. Much of the initial value proposition of Fluid is to manage complex state for developers.

DEVELOPMENT OF PROTOTYPES TOGETHER WITH MICROSOFT

On September 8, 2020, almost a year later, Microsoft released an initial open source version of the Fluid Framework. See the release here.

But what many didn't know at the time: that this was just the beginning. The real work was going on behind the scenes. Microsoft had continued to work on the issue of integrating the Fluid Framework directly into Microsoft 365 as a service.

As developers and operators of CoffeeNet 365 (a cloud service for Microsoft 365), we know how much effort is required to run such services.

For this reason, we decided to take the path together with Microsoft at an early stage and to build our apps on the Fluid Framework, which uses Microsoft's backend service directly as a service in M365. 

Working closely with Microsoft, we developed the first apps and prototypes in a private preview program. And today, in May 2021, we finally get to write about it.

THE FLUID FRAMEWORK WILL SUSTAINABLY CHANGE WORK AS WE KNOW IT TODAY

It has been hard for us to hold back our enthusiasm the whole time, because the Fluid Framework will change work as we know it today. We at MondayCoffee have been involved from the beginning and have shown once again that we not only have a very good intuition for forward-looking technologies, but that we can offer a huge added value to our customers through our close cooperation with Microsoft and many of their developers from Redmond.

“Working closely with Microsoft and many of their developers from Redmond, we are able to offer our customers a huge added value. ”

MondayCoffee Meeting App mit Collaborative-Real-Time Meeting Minutes

On the day Microsoft announces the next stage for the Fluid Framework, we have already mastered it and can support our customers with first apps and most importantly already with real experience and best practices.

As a developer and architect of CoffeeNet 365 and as a technology enthusiast in general, I really enjoy building the bridge between MondayCoffee, Microsoft and our customers and being able to work at the forefront of technology. Even if the price is sometimes having to hold back your enthusiasm until the topics are allowed to be made public. That's why I'm even more excited that our app was introduced at Microsoft Build Conference 2021.

You'll be hearing a lot more from us on this topic in the future. Unfortunately, we can't reveal everything now either. But you can stay curious. We at MondayCoffee are already taking the next step and the one after with Microsoft for our customers.

Do not let the push for digitization fizzle out

With the Corona crisis, the digitalization of the world of work is experiencing a boost. Many employees had to use different tools in a very short time to ensure continued communication and collaboration within the company. Microsoft Teams, for example, registered 2.7 billion meeting minutes in one day. 

But what happens when we return to the office? How do we make sure that we use this digitization push to fully digitize the way we work? 

3 THINGS YOU SHOULD PAY ATTENTION TO: 

Look at it from a broader perspective 

During this crisis, Microsoft Teams is for many what WhatsApp is for us in our private life. A tool that allows me to communicate directly with many participants via chat, call or video and to hold online meetings. But a digital way of working goes beyond communication. Topics such as structured digital document storage, uniform cross-departmental collaboration or a sustainable exchange of knowledge are just as much a part of it. Our recommendation: open the perspective, deepen the understanding of the different digital work scenarios in order to establish a structured, digital way of working.  

Automate the usage of tools in a controlled way 

Microsoft offers a variety of tools to work more productively. Everyone knows Microsoft Teams by now and this momentum should also be used to get one step closer to the digital workplace. However, before employees set out on their own to navigate through the jungle of different Microsoft technologies, we recommend that you take this into your own hands for the entire organization and understand where which technologies should be used in a controlled manner, based on concrete digital work scenarios and use cases. We have solved this with our Modern-Workplace-Solution in such a way that, depending on the defined work scenario or use case, the Microsoft technologies are automatically configured in the background and the employee does not have to worry about the choice of technologies, but can concentrate on his tasks. 

Accompany employees and teams 

During the crisis, many employees were and are forced to quickly familiarize themselves with digital tools. Some have certainly recognized the advantages of a digital way of working and are motivated to move on towards the digital workplace. They need to be accompanied on this path - especially those who still have trouble getting rid of old habits. We recommend that companies seek the exchange with employees, collect their feedback on their current experiences in the digital home office and use the momentum to establish a digital way of working together with them.   

We have been helping companies for some time now to establish a digital way of working in their organization - with our Modern Workplace Solution for Microsoft 365.  

If you are interested in an exchange of experiences, we would be pleased to hear from you.  

Get in touch

Get in touch

BÜHLER GROUP: Creating a future-oriented working environment for a digitally efficient organization

Bühler is an internationally active Swiss technology group. As a global company with 13,000 employees in 140 countries, Bühler needed a single platform for information, communication, and collaboration among its workforce and with external stakeholders.

MondayCoffee's cloud software, which intelligently combines Microsoft's most important technologies on a user-friendly and standardized platform, enabled the company to access, share and distribute all relevant information and knowledge - anywhere and anytime. Global teams can work more efficiently and improve collaboration with customers, partners and suppliers. Bühler has created a future-proof working environment for a digitally efficient organization.