Interview with a SharePoint Expert and Wiki Ninja - Arleta Wanat
Welcome to another interview with a Wiki Ninja!
This week's interview is with the long overdue...
Here are some of Arleta's stats:
- 86 Wiki articles!
- Wiki Author in English and Polish!
- 1,104 Wiki Edits
- 766 Wiki Comments
- 144 Gallery Contributions!
- 24,914 Gallery Item Downloads!
Arleta has headlined so many of our weekly contribution awards and Guru Awards; it's about time! Let's get to the interview!
Who are you, where are you, and what do you do? What are your specialty technologies?
I am a Subject Matter Expert specializing in SharePoint. Powershell is something I discovered when I started working as an engineer and immediately fell in love with. Since then I went through multiple modules, scripting and started creating my own modules and solutions. Personally, I am from Poland, I studied at the universities in Austria and Poland, and currently I am working in Bulgaria, only four hours away from the warm and beautiful Black Sea.
What are your big projects right now?
I have MCSA and I am working towards both MCSE and MCSD certifications, but it's a long journey. I also plan on further developing my custom SharePoint Online Module in the winter months when the warm Black Sea is not so warm and tempting anymore. :)
On what Wiki articles do you spend most of your time?
I am currently working on a Content Types in Powershell series. Each of the articles took about 1 month to write and tens of updates. The articles include Add, Edit, Get and obviously Common Errors as a by-product. My research involves thousands of tests on several tenants to verify the behaviour and I try to repeat some of the tests in intervals. I also closely monitor the content of the existing ones to apply any new updates and add any minute details that came to my attention later. Some of the tests and fixes are also posted in the TechNet Gallery - altogether almost 50 scripts on content types alone! It all takes a lot of my free time, but I receive some very encouraging positive feedback confirmed by the number of hits those articles are getting, and plan to finish the series with a Remove article.
What are your favorite Wiki articles you’ve contributed?
All of them! :) Each article is usually connected to some background story of a struggle to solve an issue and carries emotional value of a solution relief you get after hours of troubleshooting. I especially enjoyed those that leveraged the power of my custom SharePoint Online Module: Manage SharePoint Online Access Requests and Working with multiple items using Powershell. The site mailbox articles were and still are particularly useful and saved me a lot of work: Remove a stuck site mailbox and create a new one and Retrieve all site mailboxes, . The topic is very interesting as it takes from both Exchange and SharePoint features, so I also translated the article into Polish and German. I am thinking about French and Portuguese version but I would definitely need some help there.
Outside the Microsoft Store:
What are your top 5 favorite Wiki articles?
It's hard to pick only five. I frequently check Wiki for new ideas, issues and discoveries that other contributors share. It's an invaluable source of most up-date information on the product. When it comes to new releases and updates, the information here on how to use it, common bugs, and already tested fixes(!) often precede the official kb articles. A good example of that is Delve article started 26 Oct 2014. Other articles which helped me multiple times were contributions from Geetanjali Arora:
SharePoint Online : Working with People Search and User Profiles
SharePoint Online : Export User Profile Properties using CSOM
The articles are clear and precise, packed with useful information and a very good read at the same time. And they are just a drop in the sea of goodness that TechNet Wiki is.
What are the top areas that need more attention and development on TechNet Wiki?
Save button. It is a destroyer of many an update and cause for many hours of futile work. I try to copy-paste the content some place safe before saving, but whenever caught unaware, I can lose my update.
Same goes for trying to make a quick update - when a typo catches your eye and you want just to correct the spelling or when I am trying to save the article between my game sessions on the weekends and need to make it quickly before engaging back to killing my enemies. The save button requires up to 8 times to be pushed to work and is a source of additional viciousness against my virtual enemies.
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Thank you Arleta for all your wonderful and valuable contributions! I'm sorry it's taken us/me this long to interview you!
Everyone, please join me in thanking Arleta for all these amazing articles!
Remember to Wiki While you Work,
- Ninja Ed
Comments
- Anonymous
October 19, 2015
Is it just me, or does Arleta help make TechNet Wiki look cool? =^) - Anonymous
October 19, 2015
This is my favorite quote: "Same goes for trying to make a quick update - when a typo catches your eye and you want just to correct the spelling or when I am trying to save the article between my game sessions on the weekends and need to make it quickly before engaging back to killing my enemies."
Wow. I pity your enemies! =^) - Anonymous
October 19, 2015
Nice meeting you Arleta. I have read most of your articles and liked them. Very detailed and well explained articles.
Thanks Ed. - Anonymous
October 19, 2015
Nice knowing you, Arleta! - Anonymous
October 19, 2015
Nice Work. Looking great
Thanks,
Dan,
https://techsupportphonenumber.net/microsoft-surface-technical-support.html - Anonymous
October 20, 2015
The comment has been removed - Anonymous
October 20, 2015
Arleta. Excellent work in Microsoft community. I like the pictures. :) - Anonymous
October 20, 2015
Kudos! - Anonymous
October 20, 2015
Nice to meet you Arleta - keep up the great work! - Anonymous
October 21, 2015
Gratuluję - Anonymous
October 21, 2015
Excellent work Arleta! You are so clever and so devoted :-)
Nice pics by the way ;-) - Anonymous
October 21, 2015
Thank you very much everybody! It is great to be a part of such amazing and vibrant Community. - Anonymous
October 21, 2015
@Danish Thanks for all the edits and formats on the articles. It was great meeting you here:http://blogs.technet.com/b/wikininjas/archive/2015/08/24/interview-with-a-guru-champion-sharepoint-developer-and-wiki-ninja-danish-islam.aspx :)
@Andy Thank you for the recent English correction. I will apply your suggestions to other articles as well. - Anonymous
October 21, 2015
Andy, that's our goal! Free up a lot more time for killing enemies! Arleta cracked me up with that answer. =^) - Anonymous
October 21, 2015
Nice knowing you Arleta. Great interview. You are doing an amazing work in the community. Keep up the good work.
Thanks for the mention. I am glad if the articles could help in any way. Thanks again. - Anonymous
October 26, 2015
I did not knew that we have such a Ninja in Bulgaria. I am a fan of you SPO scripts :)
Nazdrave,
Ivan - Anonymous
October 26, 2015
Благодаря, Иване. Ти също ли си в България? Много ми харесват твоите скриптове:
https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/office/Script-to-Write-and-Get-d9a762bb#content. - Anonymous
October 26, 2015
Здравей Арлета, да аз съм от България и живея тук. Много ти Благодаря! Опитвам се, но ми е по-комфортно в SharePoint on-prem :) - Anonymous
October 27, 2015
Arleta, Nice to meet you !!!
One part of my family is of Polish origin (they fled the "Great War")... but history of the escape is beautiful!!! =^)
If you are interested... I can translate some articles from English to Portuguese... or I can review your translation into Portuguese...
Well, I'm available to help you... Send an email to "durval at msn.com" - Anonymous
October 29, 2015
Otimo! Muito obrigada! - Anonymous
September 13, 2016
Great interview and Great stats!!!!.keep up the spirit and thanks for sharing your knowledge!!- Anonymous
October 22, 2018
Thanks, @Prashanth Jayaram :)
- Anonymous