It has been a couple months since I last posted here, so sharing an update on things I’ve been working on the past few months.

Microsoft Graph connectors

Starting in December 2020 I’ve taken on the role of subject matter expert (SME) for Graph connectors on my team. For those not aware, Graph connectors allow customers and partners to ingest external data (outside of Microsoft 365) into Microsoft Graph so that that data can participate in Microsoft 365 experiences such as search, intelligent discovery, eDiscovery, and more. The end goal is to increase discoverability and drive engagement to that content no matter where a user may be.

I’ve been working very closely with a number of customers and partners to get them started developing connectors and support their efforts as it relates to a few other larger picture integrations. This will continue to be one of my main focus areas going forward. If you’d like to get started with Graph connectors take a look at the developer documentation or try out the Postman collection.

Developer Documentation
https://aka.ms/graphconnectorsapi

Graph Connectors Postman Collection
https://aka.ms/graphconnectorspostman

Personally I’m looking forward to the future of Graph connectors and seeing how our customers and partners leverage them in their own environments.

Microsoft Graph Mailbag blog series

In December 2020 myself and a handful of other folks at Microsoft started the Microsoft Graph Mailbag blog series. This is a twice a month (2nd and 4th Tuesday) opportunity to share lessons learned, interesting solutions, or additional highlight of announcements related to Microsoft Graph. So far a variety of authors have published on topics ranging from Microsoft Graph Toolkit to Graph Explorer to Azure Functions + Microsoft Graph and beyond.

Ever since leading the 30 Days of Microsoft Graph blog series back in 2018 I’ve enjoyed establishing a platform for other people to share their knowledge more broadly. We have a few upcoming posts that I’m particularly interested in sharing out publicly.

On a related note, I recently recorded a podcast with Jeremy Thake and Paul Schaeflein on the Microsoft 365 Developer Podcast where we discussed the Microsoft Graph Mailbag blog series, our Graph CPx team, and more. Look for that episode to release within the next week or so.

Onboarding Graph CPx Team Members

As mentioned in my post “A New Role with Microsoft Graph Team” last May, I’ve taken a new role at Microsoft on the Microsoft Graph Customer and Partner Experience (CPx) team. This team was started from scratch with myself and my manager Jeremy Thake. Over the past ~year we have onboarded Fabian Williams, Sébastien Levert, and Nik Charlebois. Additionally Gladys Alvarez has joined us as a LEAP apprentice for ~3 months to work on a special project. We have 1 more person planned to onboard in April and another open position (at the time of writing, see link below).

Senior CPX Program Manager
https://careers.microsoft.com/us/en/job/1009801/Senior-CPX-Program-Manager

Each week I spend time ensuring everyone is adjusting to Microsoft / our team as best as possible. This includes formalizing / standardizing processes, 1:1 chats, team retrospectives, etc. Additionally we’ve shared out responsibilities for hosting the Microsoft Graph community call (1st Tues of each month at 9am PT) and other regular activities on our team. Overall this has been a rewarding experience to start on a new team and help establish / build out what we are capable of delivering.

Reading Books

If you’ve known my reading habits in the past then you’ll know that I generally didn’t get (or more accurately “make”) much time to read books except during time off from work (summer vacation or time off in December). At those times I would plunge into a book or two and read through them in a few days.

In the past year though I’ve gotten a number of recommendations for business, finance, and other genres of books. The strong majority of these books have been immensely helpful for my day-to-day work, personal / family planning, and more. I set a goal for myself in 2021 to read at least 2 books by the end of the year. March is not even over and I’m already on my 4th book for the year… so I guess you could say the pace of reading (and on a more regular basis) has picked up.

If you’re interested in seeing which books I’ve been reading lately you can take a look at my Good Reads list. I try to keep it updated on a weekly basis. If you have any recommendations please share in the comments or via Good Reads.

https://www.goodreads.com/briantjackett

Conclusion

Today’s post was not a technical one. More for me to share out things that have been keeping me busy the past few months. Hopefully you are doing well and I’ll see you around online.

-Frog Out