During the pandemic, I’ve been fine-tuning my personal technology stack the whole time. My personal attitude about apps is that the application work for me, I don’t work for the application. So while I’m the first person to experiment with a new application, it needs to be easy to use.
Here’s how my current pandemic tech stack looks:
Continue reading “My COVID-19 Tech Stack: It’s all about Communications and Collaboration”
I wish I would have written down when my state shutdown because of COVID-19. While I remain thankful that I have a job and career that lets me work from home, It’s getting harder to track the days. I’m setting more reminders, referring to my calendar more, and at peace knowing that I can always ask Alexa what’s the date and time when I wake up.
Anyhow, I blew off this blog last week but for excellent reason. Work got busy. I also had a pitch hit in a new market and had to get writing. Then I had a TechTarget deadline for SearchCloudComputing. Writing is one thing that takes my mind off of being stuck at home because of COVID-19.
Here’s how my Monday went:
Along the way, my Pandemic beard is really growing in after a few weeks of not shaving. If only I could grow a man bun too, but I think that’s too much to hope for at my age. #JustKidding
How did Monday treat you?
As week 5 of self-isolation trudges on, I’m finding a new pace to get work done and to keep moving forward. Last night, I mustered up the motivation to work out with my new kettlebells and plan to up my exercise game yet again today.
Here’s what else I have going on:
Tonight, the plan includes getting back to writing for an upcoming TechTarget article and spending more time with my kettlebells.
How goes your self-isolation?
Friday normally represents a changing of gears for me. It’s the end of the workweek. It’s a day off from the gym so my evening is free to fun and other pursuits. I look forward to Saturday morning when I can go to the gym and then go work on personal projects. Well, my gym is still closed but I’ll be writing a new article for TechTarget tomorrow.
Lessons learned during the last two weeks:
What are some things you’ve learned during the last two weeks?
I’ve been following the rise of Microsoft Teams for some time now as the collaboration tools geek that I can sometimes be. The third-party integrations coming available in Microsoft Teams continue to get interesting — throwing away the old Microsoft rule of a 100% Microsoft stack — by enabling integration with third-party SaaS and other applications. I’m especially happy to see the Teams integration with Atlassian Confluence Cloud.
Microsoft Teams uses an app model for easy integration with Atlassian Confluence Cloud. The app store model is well known so while Teams doesn’t break any new ground here, I did find the store to be responsive and easy to use.
I’ve long been on record that collaboration and group chat applications need to be open to the end users instead of being locked down with service desk tickets being the only key to unlocking them. When administrators give users the appropriate Teams and Confluence privileges, it’s a real easy install and integration.
Click on Store from the sidebar of the Teams application. The Store appears. Search for Confluence and Confluence Cloud selection appears on your screen.
Select a Team in which to add Confluence Cloud integration from the Add to a Team: drop-down list. Click Install.
Now select the channel where you want to use Confluence Cloud. Click Setup. You only have to do the setup once for Confluence Cloud to be available to authorized users across your other Teams and Channels.
Next, follow the prompts from the Confluence Cloud dialog box. You can now add a reference to a Confluence page residing on your Confluence Cloud. Here’s an example:
When you click on View in Confluence, you are taken directly into Confluence to the page or File list.
The integration between Teams and Confluence is a smart move. It shows a Microsoft that looks beyond its own technology stack by offering their enterprise customers the tools they need to get the job done. Confluence Cloud is a favorite of DevOps teams because it offers authoring tools that SharePoint just can’t touch.
I’m also a proponent of project teams choosing and managing their own collaboration platforms. Using Microsoft Teams makes that easy because while the company itself may use SharePoint as their standard collaboration platform, their DevOps team can still link to Atlassian Confluence — their preferred collaboration platform — to get their work done.
Personally, I like the thought of using this app to send links to documents or pages to busy executives and others who might shy away from using Confluence.
Why will you be integrating Confluence Cloud with Microsoft Teams?
I’m a technical writer and content development manager living and working in Northern Virginia. Over my career, I’ve written bylined articles for ITSearchOperations, DevOps Agenda, Mobile Business Insights, CNET TechRepublic, and others. My areas of interest include cloud computing, DevOps, enterprise mobility, and collaboration tools. Follow me on Twitter: @willkelly.
