Hey, Andrew here… I’m excited to share and give you a tour of the Voitanos community on Discord!
If you aren’t familiar with Discord, I’ll explain what it is, how join, and start getting use out of it! Make sure you check out the accompanying video that goes with this post. It contains specific chapters you can jump to and see ↗️ how to use it, ↗️ how to join & get through the initial onboarding process, and ↗️ how to link your Voitanos account to your Discord account to gain access to exclusive student-only channels.
Why you should join the Voitanos Discord server
What is it?
Discord is a chat application that gained popularity among gamers and has become popular among developers. The Voitanos community on Discord is a community of people who want to make connections, share ideas, learn, and help others full stack developers in the Microsoft 365 & Microsoft Azure space!
Make connections & friends
We’re better when we work together.
Discord allows us to have meaningful and nuanced conversations about building solutions for Microsoft 365 & Microsoft Azure. If you want to ask questions or provide your own opinions, our Discord community is for you!
This community is focused on Microsoft 365 & Microsoft Azure developer topics primarily.
Looking for something or want to pull the humble bragging card out and share what you’ve created? We’ve got channels fro that too!
Share ideas & solve problems
The Voitanos community on Discord is a fantastic place to get and provide feedback on fun and interesting ideas. Maybe you’re stuck on a problem, or maybe you have an approach you want to run by some peers?
Or maybe you want to organize a meetup, discuss an upcoming/current conference, or chat about a virtual event… this is the perfect place for it!
Discord experience once you've verified your account
Similar to Slack & Microsoft Teams, but better!
Similar to Slack & Microsoft Teams, topics are organized in channels where you can post text, images, links, and even start threaded conversations.
And just like Slack and Microsoft Teams, Discord offers a web client or native clients for all popular desktop and mobile platforms.
Unlike Microsoft Teams, there’s no added complexity with guest accounts and multiple tenants - it’s more like Slack in that sense where you can join multiple Discord servers (aka: guilds) and jump between them without reloading the client.
Unlike Slack, you have a single Discord account that you can join to one or more servers… no need for multiple Slack logins to each Slack Team you join to.
Get access to student-exclusive channels
Developers enrolled in our courses also get access to channels that are exclusively available to students of the course.
This incudes channels to ask questions about specific lessons and interact with fellow students.
I (Andrew Connell), the author & instructor of the courses, regularly monitors these exclusive student-only channels. Literally… I have time blocked on my calendar at least three times a week where I review all questions students have asked & offer my thoughts.
🤔 What About the Private Facebook Mastermind Community for Students?
Maybe you’ve heard about the private mastermind Facebook community/group? It’s one of the benefits students get! These exclusive student-only channels in the Voitanos community on Discord replaced the Facebook group in June 2022.
The Facebook community & new community on Discord will co-exist through July 2022.
New to Discord?
If you’re new to Discord, there’s a lot to like! There’s plenty of videos online from people showing how to use Discord, so I’m not going to rehash that. Instead… I’d head over to YouTube and search for some of the in-depth user reviews.
However, I did give my quick “here’s how to get around” demo in the video associated with this post as I think many of the people reading this have experience with Microsoft Teams and Slack than with Discord. Some concepts are a little different from what you’re used to, like threading and replying to messages. Use this link to jump to the specific part of the video for my Discord demo.
Join the Voitanos community on Discord
Want to try it out? Join us! The process is simple and explained on the Discord page on our site. Simply click an invite link and join the Voitanos Discord server. Like so many other sites, if you aren’t already signed in to Discord, or don’t have an account, you’ll take care of those things first and then get added.
Once you’ve joined, you’ll need to do two quick things: read & accept the terms & conditions, then verify your account be reacting to an existing message. Use this link to jump to the specific part of the video to see the process.
Connect your Voitanos account to your Discord account
After joining the Voitanos community on Discord, if you’ve enrolled in one of my courses, you can connect your Voitanos account to your Discord account.
You absolutely want to do this because some courses have a mastermind Q/A channel that’s only available to certain courses or course bundles!
The process is simple & explained on the Discord page on our site.
Connecting your accounts is easy! Simply sign in to your Voitanos course library, select the course, and select the Connect to Discord button on the chapter index page. After authorizing the Voitanos Discord app to act on your behalf, you’ll see (within a few seconds) additional channels appear in your Discord app! Use this link to jump to the specific part of the video to see a demo of the process.
But I’m not a student of a course, is there something for me?
Of course!
While students of my courses get the most benefit from the Voitanos community on Discord, there’s something for all developers who focus on Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Azure!
You’ll find channels to talk about conferences, meetups, watch parties, Microsoft 365 & Microsoft Azure features, and channels to share things you built or pitch ideas for projects!
Microsoft MVP, Full-Stack Developer & Chief Course Artisan - Voitanos LLC.
Andrew Connell is a full stack developer who focuses on Microsoft Azure & Microsoft 365. He’s a 20+ year recipient of Microsoft’s MVP award and has helped thousands of developers through the various courses he’s authored & taught. Whether it’s an introduction to the entire ecosystem, or a deep dive into a specific software, his resources, tools, and support help web developers become experts in the Microsoft 365 ecosystem, so they can become irreplaceable in their organization.
