'How to' M365 (and more) at your fingertips
Bring training closer to your people. Get to know VisualSP's "Adopt365" browser extension, the Microsoft 365 Learning Pathways solution, and Viva Learning.
Skill building and training are essential for organizational success. If you’re investing in Microsoft 365, your training catalog should be a mix of custom learning and standard Microsoft help content. Side-by-side. Put your organization’s culture advocacy next to how to craft a useful Copilot prompt. Put a walk thru of a custom sales app next to how to create a task in Planner. Put a sales keynote next to how to use “Add to OneDrive.” We all are of many minds at work. I say, feed them all.
The training mantra: “Get in. Get skilled. Get out.”
Good training services bring it all together. They bring the training at your fingertips - fast skills, less friction. And some have the contextual awareness of the app/service you’re using right there and then. Less tabbing, more learning.
Let’s dive into three examples that take a good approach. I’m sure there are a number of others. It’s a big category. All of the below take little investment to get started. Take less time than most to implement and maintain. And work well from an end user experience, imo.
Have you tried the VisualSP’s 🆓 “Adopt365” browser extension?
VisualSP offers inline, contextual help for end users. Their free product is called “Adopt365” - a browser extension. Once installed, it surfaces Microsoft Learn and Microsoft Support content using AI and contextual awareness of the application you're using.
As you can see in the screenshot below, the interface makes it easy to navigate and read “Help” assets for Microsoft 365, Copilot, and Dynamics 365. While I was setting up the screenshot, I was in SharePoint working on a page. Take a look at the right-side Adopt365 pane: You can see it knows I’m in SharePoint. I can search and refine. And I can ask Vic, their inline AI assistant, to refine down and find ‘how to’ content using natural language.
And when the Adopt365 pane is closed, it’s represented by a small, always-there, moveable tab; in the above example, it’s the tab where it says, “SharePoint Help”. And if I was in Outlook, it would say “Outlook Help” and be loaded with kinetic Outlook help energy.
Try their free “Adopt365” browser extension: Edge and/or Chrome.
How to take it further | It’s easy to install the free version and there is clear value for the upsell to their Digital Adoption Platform to add in-app notifications, custom walkthroughs, add custom training videos, track analytics, and more.
Microsoft 365 Learning Pathways
At its core, it gives you a central training center that you can grow and take as far as you like.
Admittedly, this one takes a little more to set up and is easier than it’s ever been to set up. And it’s worth it. Let’s break it down.
Microsoft 365 Learning Pathways is a free and customizable on-demand training solution designed to support custom training to increase the skills of people using Microsoft 365 services in your organization. By providing structured, customizable learning playlists, you improve adoption, foster innovation, and ensure everyone is in the know through times of change.
Learn more about Microsoft 365 Learning Pathways.
How to take it further | Out of the box, the focus is on Microsoft product training. Now, go further: Customize it with your own training materials. Build your own learning playlists. Add context around your training. Share the site and share individual training offerings, linked within your internal comms.
Microsoft Viva Learning
Similar to Microsoft 365 Learning Pathways, out of the box you get the full library of Microsoft Learn and Microsoft 365 trainings plus 300+ courses from LinkedIn Learning. And it installs as a native app within Microsoft Teams. There is an element that comes for free and more that you can get with additional licensing (see below).
How Microsoft pitches it: “Microsoft Viva Learning empowers employees to make learning a natural part of the day by bringing learning into the flow of work within the tools and platforms they already use. Discover, share, and track learning across various sources from a center of learning in Microsoft Teams.” (Microsoft Learn)
Learn more about Viva Learning.
How to take it further | With additional licensing, Viva Learning can aggregate content from multiple 3rd-party systems — like SAP SuccessFactors, Coursera, and Pluralsight — and you get learning adoption reports, content featuring, and learning academy curation.
In the end…
Skills grow fastest when the help you need lives where your work happens — in Microsoft speak, “training in the flow of work.” With a smart mix of custom guidance and built‑in content, you can lay the foundation for you and your colleagues to get skilled and stay productive.
No matter what, offer training rather than let people sift in the darkness of not knowing what they should know; what you need them to know, to do what they do better, with guidance, with confidence, with the tools they and you need to be successful.
Thanks for reading and sharing,
Mark “wait… how do I do that again” Kashman 🧔🏻♂️