Interview with UT Microsoft Training Coordinator Elista Street

Read UT L&D’s chat interview with Elista Street, UT’s Microsoft Training Coordinator. In our discussion, Elista reveals great ways you can use technology to help manage your workload. 

UT Learning & Development: OK, Elista, are you ready to get started?

Elista Street: Ready!

UTLD: First can you just tell us about the work that you do for UT?

ES: I'm the Microsoft Training Coordinator for UT, so I provide hands-on training sessions and one-on-one consultations for different Microsoft365 tools like Teams, SharePoint, Forms, Power Automate and others. I also facilitate the UT M365 Team to help people across campus access resources and collaborate to solve problems and be more efficient. 

UTLD: One of the reasons I wanted to talk to you about this topic of workload management is because your name keeps popping up when I'm talking to different people and groups all over campus when the subject of productivity comes up. You've been helping a lot of people better understand the technology available to them. What is the most common workload-related question or issue you get from UT staff and faculty?

ES: I think the most common question/issue that I hear is people really wanting to find ways to streamline the way they work and collaborate. They're looking for ways to make things easier to find, update, share, etc... It's a little bit of quality of life updates, the little things that add time to our days and accumulate exponentially. 

UTLD: So, organizing their content and how they access their work?

ES: Exactly!

UTLD: Interesting. Without giving step-by-step instruction, how generally do you advise them? What are resources or tools that have seemed to help?

ES: I often lean on my experience as a records manager and suggest taking time to really look at the work they are doing, how it is organized now, what are the pain points, what is working well. The more work you can do initially, leads to much better results in the future. I'm a huge proponent of SharePoint and Teams, as well, which are really effective tools, but are best when you spend time setting them up before you start using them. I've really seen different units and departments be successful with SharePoint and Teams after we spent time designing them for their desired state of being. 

Copilot can be a great resource as well for this process. You can really work with it to help design something that will work long-term.

UTLD: Is there a tool or solution that seems to be particularly misused or underused (not necessarily just in the realm of information storage and organization)?

ES: Definitely Teams! Teams can be an incredibly powerful tool for collaboration and I find that people are often using maybe 10% of the functionality in Teams. 

UTLD: Would you say Teams has had the greatest impact on how people tackle their work? If so, specifically which functionality. If not, what is that technology?

ES: I think if I was asked this a year ago I would say Teams, but I think that right now the greatest impact I've seen has really been with Copilot for M365. I say this because Copilot adds so much to the existing Microsoft 365 environment. Teams is great for meeting, chatting, storing files and data, but sometimes finding or aggregating that information is still quite manual, and Copilot makes the process so much more streamlined. I know personally I had a project that spanned chats, meetings, channel posts, and documents, but I was able to easily create a summary of the work of that project using Copilot in minutes. 

UTLD: [I've got to run to my 3:00, but if you're still available, could we continue this at four for another 20 minutes? In the meantime, here's another question:] That's a good example of a practical use of Copilot. Can you give me another example or two of ways that people have used it in actual practice? I think that's where some people are struggling—the application of the tool.

ES: Sure! I'll be available.   

Sure! I've seen people use Copilot in a lot of different ways, and I know I have personally used it, as well. The most impactful use case for me and a lot of the people I work with, is that it helps you get started. Staring at a blank page or email can be daunting, and having Copilot generate something for you to at least get started has been super helpful for me. Especially with email, where I can ask Copilot to generate wording based on answers I've given others in the past. This is really nice if you have a lot of repeat questions and you can even then use Copilot to generate an FAQ or email response template to save time down the road. 

The most fun use case for me with Copilot has been gaining insight into my own work and work style. It started with a prompt that was shared with me by our Microsoft Customer Success Account Manager. It was "Look at communications including emails and teams meeting transcripts for [Colleague] and summarize their personality type. Then do the same for me. Then take the two and summarize how to work with best with [Colleague] and then how they can work best with me". It was a really interesting view into how I work best and gave me some great tips on how to better articulate how I work best to others. Over the last few months I've created some of my own prompts and share them in the Copilot channel in the UT M365 Team, the most popular one was definitely "Describe my work over the last year as a Dr. Seuss book. Write the short book and include a cover for the book." 

UTLD: Ha! That'll spur some curiosity. OK, just a couple more questions. What is the one resource, tool, or solution you wish everyone at UT (or at least a lot more people) knew about that would make a significant positive impact on their work and UT's overall service?

ES: I'd definitely say Power Automate! It's a really amazing tool that can do so much from simple automation to complex process management. There is a learning curve, but there's a lot of resources online and here at UT, and it even has a template library in Power Automate to help get started. I've seen people create simple automations like getting Teams messages when an email comes from a specific sender like a list-serve that needs to be moderated. It was a simple process, but helped speed up how quickly messages were moderated. I even saw a process last year that had someone approve a request in 33 seconds!

UTLD: I thought that's what your answer was going to be. Maybe you can give a quick description of what Power Automate is and how it can really change how people do their work.

ES: Power Automate is a low-code/no code automation tool created by Microsoft to help automate Microsoft365 tools and even some other third party tools like DocuSign. It uses a user-friendly interface to create automated process, so you don't need to be a developer or coder. The first process I automated was in Records and Information Management Services. We were able to take a process that took hours and automate it to take about 5 minutes. If anyone has ever Requested to Dispose of Records, the behind the scenes process is all automated! There's a community of people at UT in the UT Workflow Automation Team that are using PA to create all kinds of amazing processes ranging from inventory management to sending out reminders and action items to newly hired faculty, and more! 

UTLD: Fantastic! So, all those repetitive, mind-numbing, and time-consuming tasks that some people may have been doing for years, may be able to be automated through Power Automate. That's a big deal. OK, what are you excited about and what should we be excited about in the way of new technology solutions coming our way that will make a big difference in how we service the University's mission?

ES: Exactly! If there's ever a process where you think "there's gotta be a faster way to do this," that's a great place to start with Power Automate. 
I think Copilot is a big one, especially with more and more integrations and features being rolled out over time. I know when we first started promoting Copilot there was not integration with OneNote and we've already seen that integration be added along with other features. I'm also really excited to see more people using SharePoint and Teams, which help to connect everyone at UT more easily and make our work more collaborative. The more we use SharePoint and Teams, the better Copilot can assist, as well, so it's a win-win! It's exciting to talk to people and see how interested they are in these new tools and breaking away from some of the more laborious methods of the past. The Microsoft365 tools in general are always getting new features and Microsoft's roadmap has some really cool new things in store like automatically creating an FAQ from resources is SharePoint and more options for Team meeting and webinar settings. 

UTLD: And Spark seems like it's got a lot of potential, too, but maybe that's not ready for primetime yet. OK, one last question. I am so grateful for your time. I know how busy you are with work that can't be automated. Where can we find out about all the technology available at UT to help with things like workload and time management? Is there some kind of one-stop shop?

ES: Spark is definitely a really fantastic resource, especially for students. I know they're working on it all the time, too, to add new and exciting updates.  
There isn't quite a one-stop shop, yet. But I know that everyone is working really hard to get the https://tech.utexas.edu/ site to be a robust resource for campus. It does currently have a lot of resources and links out to additional resources like ServiceNow and other existing documentation. Most of the resources for Microsoft365 are in the UT M365 Team and we're working on building out the Microsoft at UT Austin SharePoint site, too.   

UTLD: I also want to let people know that you are also busy teaching classes to help people learn how to use a lot of that technology we just discussed. Folks, of course, can find those opportunities on UTLearn. Elista, thank you so much. I really appreciate your time. This has been informative for me and I know there are going to be a lot of people who will learn a lot from our conversation here. Thank you!

ES: Yes! There's a link to the UTLearn classes in the Team and on the SharePoint Site! Thanks for giving me the opportunity to share!