Interested in learning the SharePoint Framework (SPFx), but not ready to spend $500 or $1000 on my Mastering the SharePoint Framework bundles? I’ve got some big news for you today, but first, let me explain how I got here… or, just skip to the news.
1:1 Interviews are so Insightful - 🙏 THANK YOU!
I recently put out an open call to my newsletter for anyone to book a brief, 15-minute 1:1 call with me to discuss the tech you’re working on these days. I spoke with more than 50 of you, and what I learned is hard to put into words… THANK YOU!
While many people think of me as a SharePoint Framework developer, my interests are much more diverse. As I look to what’s next for Voitanos, I wanted to hear what you were interested in… that’s where those interviews came into play.
I had ideas on areas where I wanted to focus my upcoming articles, videos, and courses on, but I wanted to find out what you were interested in. While it was encouraging to hear many of you were interested in areas I was also interested in investing more effort into, the real value was in two other learnings.
🛤️ [Re-]Aligning Priorities
After compiling feedback on what you were interested in, struggling with, and are hungry for, I noticed your priorities were slightly different than mine. For the most part, we agreed on the top topics around Microsoft 365 & Microsoft Azure for full stack developers, but what was most important to you was a bit different than what was most important to me.
Sure, while I want to work on articles/videos/courses that I’m interested in, it’s important to prioritize what will have the biggest and best impact.
🦮 Identifying Blind Spots
The other big thing you helped me with was identifying a few blind spots. There were a few topics that the majority of you shared that weren’t on my existing list. They aren’t areas I’m not interested in… in fact, I am interested in them… but I didn’t think others would be.
So, taking what you shared & what I learned from you, I’m making a few changes in my priorities that you’ll see in the coming months. To those of you who joined me and gave me 15-minutes of your time earlier this month, THANK YOU! 🙏
Launching 🚀 Smaller SPFx Courses
Since launching my Mastering the SharePoint Framework bundles in 2017, thousands of web developers have trusted me to learn the SPFx.
But it’s an investment - the Ultimate bundle course is over 41 hours long spanning 32 chapters & 239 lessons. It’s not just an investment in time as the price can be unattainable for some web developers.
So today, based on your feedback, I’m trying something new! 😱
Today, I launched three (3) new courses on specific component types you can create with the SPFx!
New SharePoint Framework Courses
- Building SPFx Web Parts & Property Panes ($65) gets you started creating & customizing the most popular type of extensibility option for SharePoint pages.
- Building SPFx Extensions ($75) will show you how to build application customizers, field customizers, list view command sets and the newest type of extension: list form customizers!
- Building SPFx Adaptive Card Extensions ($75) shows you how to extend Viva Connections & Viva Home dashboards by creating ACEs using the SPFx.
All three courses…
- are between 5-7 hours long
- are priced at $65 or $75
- contain the same content you’ll find in my Mastering the SharePoint Framework course
I took a few select chapters from my Mastering the SharePoint Framework and repackaged them into these smaller courses. It’s the exact same content (except for the introductory video explaining the course).
🤔 Can you upgrade to a Mastering the SPFx bundle in the future?
SURE! I’ll apply a credit towards your upgrade based on your smaller course enrollment.
♻️ Voitanos.io Updates
When I launched these three new courses, I also rolled out a lot of improvements to the Voitanos.io website. While the home page and a few of the rollup pages changed, the big change was to the pages dedicated for each course. For example, every course now has the following:
✅ Complete syllabus (more more PDF!) of all chapters & lessons, including the lesson length, listed on the site:
Complete course syllabus, including all chapters & lessons listed with their descriptions
✅ Dynamic course stats - know what you’re getting with your enrollment:
Detailed Course Statistics
Quickly see how much content a course contains
I’ve got a few more things planned to improve on these changes. For example, improving the site search to more easily find what course covers specific topics, down to the chapter & lesson. Yes, I hear your feedback! 😉
Reminder: ☝️⏰ MS-600 Retirement Friday - March 31, 2023
At the end of this week, Friday - March 31, 2023, Microsoft is retiring the MS-600 exam. That means this is the last week to pass the exam and get certified as a Microsoft 365 Teams Application Developer, at least until Microsoft comes up with an alternative path to certification (still no word on that).
You can review how we’re handling this with our MS-600 exam prep course in our FAQ and our announcement post.
Reminder: ☝️💬 Moving In-Lesson Questions to Discord
In addition, I’m moving all in-lesson questions and comments to Discord.
On Friday, I’m retiring the Disqus-based lesson comments in favor of our dedicated lesson-questions channels in the Voitanos Community on Discord. This change is a more secure commenting solution as the Disqus-based solution injected unnecessary script on the page and at times, promoted questionable content.
Lesson Question Channels in the Voitanos Community on Discord
A benefit to this move is that your peers in the course will be able to see your questions and offer their thoughts. Previously, I was the only one who’d get notifications for comments/questions left in lessons, so you were only getting one opinion. Your peers have great insights as well, so you’ll benefit from the Voitanos community web developers!