In March of this year, I made a promise to myself to be more deliberate with this newsletter. I wanted it to have a consistent publishing schedule and be a resource, rather than just a way to share news and updates about my course offerings and promotions.

So, for the past five months, I have been publishing a new issue of my newsletter with insights and news every other Tuesday like clockwork. This issue marks a milestone for a couple of different reasons.

I'm happy with this consistency and change in the content to deliver on the promise I made to myself.

But this issue is going to be a little different… I’ll explain that in a minute. In this issue I’m going to cover:

• Moving to a new email service provider
• ♻️ Giving the newsletter a name
• 🤝 Launching a referral program (with perks)
• ✌️ A personal note
• 🍿 Click Worthy Things
• 🏆 My Picks

Move to a New Provider

Last week, I moved to a new email service provider (ConvertKit) that is much easier to work with and allows me to leverage some cool features and incorporate them into my newsletter.

I’ll come back to one of those features in a minute.

Another thing I decided to do was to give my newsletter a name.

Prior to today, I had referred to it as either "Andrew Connell's Voitanos newsletter" or "The Voitanos Newsletter by Andrew Connell". But, neither of those tells you what it’s about or what you can expect from it.

After going through a naming exercise and evaluating a lot of options, I decided to name it "The Full Stack Developer's Microsoft 365 Playbook".

This name more accurately defines who the newsletter is for and what you can expect from it.

I'm using the term "full stack" because it encompasses developers who work on client-side technologies like React, web-based technologies, and server-side technologies like building APIs, using cloud technologies like Microsoft Azure.

This name also excludes the audience of no-code and low-code developers. I don't have anything against low/no-code developers, but they aren’t my target audience.

🔌 Connecting with More Developers

I want to grow the newsletter to reach more developers, just like 🫵 you. The best way to do this is a referral program.

As a subscriber to this list, you're in the best position to help me grow & reach more developers!

While I can ask you to just share it with your friends and colleagues, I want to give you a reason to do so, and reward you for doing it!

Check the scorecard at the bottom of all the emails I send you, you'll find a unique link to share with your friends, and colleagues, or on social media (☝️ Twitter/X & LinkedIn are the most effective ways to do this).

Every person that you refer who signs up for the newsletter is tracked using your unique sharing link. Referrals can be used to get discounts & free courses!

For example, if you refer one person, I'll give you $20 off one of my component-focused SharePoint Framework (SPFx) courses. Get more people to sign up using your referral codes and earn perks like $200-$400 off my Mastering the SharePoint Framework course bundles.

Or even, for those of you who really want to get a lot of people on the list, I'll give you a free lifetime license to my Mastering the SharePoint Framework Ultimate Bundle, a $1,000 value!

Other perks include an invitation to our monthly office hours which are usually only reserved for Mastering SPFx Ultimate Bundle subscribers. If you're already a customer, there are opportunities for free coaching calls where I can work with you on your existing project and the challenges that you have.

Take a look at the referral program in the scorecard at the end of this email. It includes a link in the scorecard where you can learn more about all the different perks that are available to you and how to achieve them.

Learn more about the referral program including all the perks available. Get your friends to sign up, and earn discounts on my courses!

🤗 Personal Note

This is going to be the first time my revitalized newsletter is going to drop the ball and not include some Microsoft 365 developer news. I tried, but I need to focus on something else this week.

Starting January 1, 2023, life threw a lot at me… like A LOT… from challenges with my business to significant personal issues. I’m going to save you the details & keep most things private, except one.

I had an idea, a plan, and a rough draft of my newsletter written, but it’s not finished.

Today, Tuesday, September 5, when this newsletter goes out, I’ll be on my way with my wife & son to move him into his first college dorm as he starts his freshman year. I planned to write my newsletter late last week, but I didn’t anticipate two things: I didn’t anticipate how long it would take to get him packed up to move out. It’s not that it took a lot of time, it’s just that we’ve been spending more time together as a family, talking, looking at pictures… good stuff. I want to just enjoy this time we have before my son moves out.

For those who’ve done this with your kid(s), you know what I’m talking about. For those who haven’t moved a child off to college, I’m going to sound like my parents now: cherish the time you have, it goes by so fast. 😢 Don’t get me wrong, it’s a happy+sad, but it's still hard.

So, no “high-value insights on Microsoft 365 topics for developers” this week. For me, I need to spend my time elsewhere. I can’t get this time back, but the topic I planned to share can come later. Thanks for understanding. ✌️

🍿 Click Worthy Things

This week the news and links are all about Microsoft Teams development.

🧰 MVP Markus Moeller published an article showing how you can use the Microsoft Teams Toolkit for Visual Studio to create a tab that uses SSO and Microsoft Graph using .NET & Blazor.

🤖 Microsoft added a new AI chatbot template to the Teams Toolkit for Visual Studio Code.

💳 Released as a public preview, you can now leverage meeting recordings and transcripts from your custom apps using new APIs. These are metered APIs that you’ll have to pay for (recordings cost $0.03/minute & transcriptions are $0.024/minute), but now you can leverage them within your custom solutions. For instance, you can generate a summary of the meeting including generating notes, action items, and extracting questions and clips from the meeting among other things.

🔐 Also released to public preview are resource-specific consent (RSC) permissions for notification APIs which include the activity feed that your custom apps can use to send user notifications.

🏆 My Picks

👩‍🚀 Did you know NASA had a special room at the base of the Apollo launch tower for workers to evacuate in the event of an imminent explosion? The rubber room) still exists today but is only accessible by a few people. Check out this short video documentary about it!

🧱 Some people do amazing things with LEGO… like build a 3-axis styrofoam cutter. 👎