Tag Archives: Office365

10 Ways Microsoft Office 2016 Could Improve Your Productivity

Posted on




This article excerpt, by TechRepublic, originally appeared here: http://www.techrepublic.com/bl…/

On September 22, 2015, Microsoft released Office 2016 to the masses. At first glance, you may not notice much has changed since Office 2013. But when you look deeper, you will find some interesting and productivity-enhancing differences.

For years we’ve been promised wonderful benefits from cloud computing, and Microsoft Office 2016 is trying to deliver on those promises. It’s designed to meet our expectations of what a cloud-based, mobile-ready productivity suite can and should be. Only time will tell if Office 2016 actually delivers the goods, but the initial reviews are promising.

Here are 10 things Microsoft Office 2016 offers as it aspires to be the last productivity suite you are ever going to need.

1: Real-time co-authoring

Co-authoring has been around for a long time for many Office apps, but with Office 2016 that collaboration can now take place in real time. That means you will be able to see what your co-conspirators are doing in a Word document or PowerPoint presentation as they do it—and conversely they will be able to see what you are doing. It won’t even matter where you are or what device you are using.

2: OneNote notebook sharing

OneNote is one of the most useful applications available in Microsoft Office, and it is also one of the least appreciated. Office 2016 allows you to share a OneNote notebook with as many people as you want. And because OneNote works with text, images, worksheets, emails, and just about any other document type you can think of, it can be a great central resource for a team working on a project. That is, if they know to use it.

3: Simplified document sharing

Office 2016 simplifies sharing of documents by adding a Share button to the upper-right corner of your Office apps. Clicking that button will give you one-click access to share your document with anyone in your contacts list. You don’t even have to leave the document to do it. That does sound pretty simple.

4: Smart attachments

If you’re like me, you have to send email attachments just about every day. In previous versions of Office, adding attachments to an email required you to navigate to the location where the document was stored. You can still do that in Office 2016, but if the document in question was one you worked on recently, it will now show up in a list of shareable documents right there in Outlook. Essentially, Office 2016 keeps a universal recently worked on list for you.

5: Clutter for Outlook

Like most of us, you probably get a ton of email every day. Wading through the Outlook inbox to prioritize each email takes time and hampers your ability to be productive. Office 2016 adds a new category to your inbox triage toolbox, called Clutter. You can designate certain emails as low priority and they, and future similar emails, will be deposited automatically into a Clutter folder in Outlook. So now you have four categories for email: important, clutter, junk, and delete.

6: Better version history

Collaboration and creativity can be a messy process, with shared documents changing drastically over time. Office 2016 compensates for potentially lost ideas by keeping past versions of documents and making them available directly from Office applications under the History section of the File menu.

7: New chart types in Excel

The ability to visualize data with an Excel chart has always been a welcome and powerful capability. However, the list of available chart types found in previous versions of Excel needed an update. Office 2016 adds several new chart types to the templates list, including Waterfall, which is great chart if you like to track the stock market. Other new chart types include Treemap, Pareto, Histogram, Box and Whisker, and Sunburst.

8: Power BI

Between the release of Office 2013 and Office 2016, Microsoft spent a great amount of time and capital acquiring technologies that shore up its business intelligence and analytical applications. Power BI, a powerful analytics tool, now comes bundled with your Office 365 subscription. Knowing every little detail about how your business is running is essential information, and Power BI can bring it all together for you.

9: Delve

Delve is another new tool that comes with an Office 365 subscription. The best way to describe Delve is as a central location that gives you access to everything you have created, shared, or collaborated on using Office 2016. It is another recently worked on list, only this version of the list is stored in the cloud—so you can access it from anywhere with any device using the Office 365 Portal.

10: Purchase choices

Office 2016 is generally available only as a subscription. Even if you buy a boxed version of Office 2016, you are buying access to an annual subscription, with one exception. If you purchase the Office Home & Student 2016 box, you pay a one-time fee of $149.99 for just the basic Office apps.

Microsoft has definitely stacked the deck so that the best bang for the buck is a subscription to Office 365, which includes Office 2016 plus all the cloud services. Businesses should be looking at one of the Office 365 for Business subscriptions. It is also going to be your best deal.

Choosing Office 365 to Reduce the Stress of Starting a New Practice

Posted on


This article excerpt, by Dr. Vikram Gandhi, originally appeared here: http://bit.ly/11yXkhp
When I finished my three-year residency in Periodontics at Texas A&M Baylor College of Dentistry, I didn’t think I would purchase a dental practice and remodel a new office that same year. But that’s what happened. When I bought Firewheel Dental Implants and Periodontics in August 2013, it was in an older building and staff used snail mail to communicate with referring dental practices.
I wanted to modernize the practice and work in a paperless office, so when the opportunity came along, I took it. Making decisions about permits and dental equipment took a lot of my time, so I wasn’t thinking much about business technology. I used Gmail and that was about it. I was living at my brother’s house, and one day he heard me complaining about how difficult it was to find a contractor’s email. Then, when I told him how expensive it was to hire someone to build a website, he told me about Office 365.
I’m not really a technology person. I like working with my hands and meeting people. That’s why I chose dentistry. So for me, Office 365 is perfect. I have everything I need at my fingertips: email and the Office applications for collaboration as well as web design and development tools. Everything is easy to use and familiar, and it’s cloud-based so I don’t have to worry about servers in the office. I have a professional-looking email address that includes our company name. And compared to Gmail, it’s so much easier to organize my business correspondence using folders that I assign to different topics and vendors. I’m saving a lot of time not searching through my emails. Office 365 is HIPAA-compliant and has email encryption capabilities, so I can send emails that contain patient data to referring dentists without worrying about breaching confidentiality regulations.
But the biggest surprise for me was how easy it was to build my own website using SharePoint Online. I saved approximately $5,000 USD in web development fees. In basically one weekend, I built a website (www.dentalimplantsandperio.com) that matched my expectations. There’s lots of educational content, with videos that walk patients through the procedures and pre- and post-op instructions. I don’t want people to leave my website to learn what a periodontist does or what a gum graft looks like because if they go back to search the Internet, my competition could pop up. Now I’m busier with my practice, but it doesn’t take long to add a new page or a new tab. Right now, I’m looking into creating a page where patients can provide reviews of their experience at Firewheel.
I have five computers and laptops with the latest version of Office applications on all of them, thanks to Office 365 ProPlus. This comes in handy when I teach at the dental school every Wednesday afternoon. I can store all my PowerPoint presentations and lecture notes online in OneDrive for Business, and if I tweak my notes or make a change to the presentation during class, they are saved the next time I upload the files. Now I never have to figure out which device has the latest version of a document.
This is especially true with OneNote. No matter what device I pick up, it has all my notebooks up to date. One of the ways I use OneNote is for employee reviews. We go over the review together, they sign it at the end, and I email them the OneNote page. It’s as easy as that. There are so many ways that Office 365 has simplified the first year of my practice, but the most important thing is that I’ve been able to devote more time to building the business instead of worrying about technology. I can’t see running my practice without it.

Choosing Office 365 to Reduce the Stress of Starting a New Practice

Posted on


This article excerpt, by Dr. Vikram Gandhi, originally appeared here: http://bit.ly/11yXkhp
When I finished my three-year residency in Periodontics at Texas A&M Baylor College of Dentistry, I didn’t think I would purchase a dental practice and remodel a new office that same year. But that’s what happened. When I bought Firewheel Dental Implants and Periodontics in August 2013, it was in an older building and staff used snail mail to communicate with referring dental practices.
I wanted to modernize the practice and work in a paperless office, so when the opportunity came along, I took it. Making decisions about permits and dental equipment took a lot of my time, so I wasn’t thinking much about business technology. I used Gmail and that was about it. I was living at my brother’s house, and one day he heard me complaining about how difficult it was to find a contractor’s email. Then, when I told him how expensive it was to hire someone to build a website, he told me about Office 365.
I’m not really a technology person. I like working with my hands and meeting people. That’s why I chose dentistry. So for me, Office 365 is perfect. I have everything I need at my fingertips: email and the Office applications for collaboration as well as web design and development tools. Everything is easy to use and familiar, and it’s cloud-based so I don’t have to worry about servers in the office. I have a professional-looking email address that includes our company name. And compared to Gmail, it’s so much easier to organize my business correspondence using folders that I assign to different topics and vendors. I’m saving a lot of time not searching through my emails. Office 365 is HIPAA-compliant and has email encryption capabilities, so I can send emails that contain patient data to referring dentists without worrying about breaching confidentiality regulations.
But the biggest surprise for me was how easy it was to build my own website using SharePoint Online. I saved approximately $5,000 USD in web development fees. In basically one weekend, I built a website (www.dentalimplantsandperio.com) that matched my expectations. There’s lots of educational content, with videos that walk patients through the procedures and pre- and post-op instructions. I don’t want people to leave my website to learn what a periodontist does or what a gum graft looks like because if they go back to search the Internet, my competition could pop up. Now I’m busier with my practice, but it doesn’t take long to add a new page or a new tab. Right now, I’m looking into creating a page where patients can provide reviews of their experience at Firewheel.
I have five computers and laptops with the latest version of Office applications on all of them, thanks to Office 365 ProPlus. This comes in handy when I teach at the dental school every Wednesday afternoon. I can store all my PowerPoint presentations and lecture notes online in OneDrive for Business, and if I tweak my notes or make a change to the presentation during class, they are saved the next time I upload the files. Now I never have to figure out which device has the latest version of a document.
This is especially true with OneNote. No matter what device I pick up, it has all my notebooks up to date. One of the ways I use OneNote is for employee reviews. We go over the review together, they sign it at the end, and I email them the OneNote page. It’s as easy as that. There are so many ways that Office 365 has simplified the first year of my practice, but the most important thing is that I’ve been able to devote more time to building the business instead of worrying about technology. I can’t see running my practice without it.

Behind the Scenes on Goodyear’s Drive to the Cloud (Part 2)

Posted on



This article excerpt, by Jim McKinnon, originally appeared here: http://bit.ly/1D9RbbN
Jim McKinnon joined Goodyear as an IT intern for the company’s England subsidiary and spent the next four decades working his way up to vice president and CIO. McKinnon, who retires this month, isn’t ending his 40-year career on cruise control—instead he’s been in a pedal-to-the-metal drive to change IT at Goodyear.
The transition to Office 365 coincided with our move to a new world headquarters and an increasingly more collaborative company culture. We wanted IT to help enable that culture change. But updating the toolset doesn’t drive behavior modification. If you want projects to succeed, change management is very important.
At Goodyear, we have a mature, externally recognized project management process that delivers results. That process includes change management.
Our Office 365 change process began with executive sponsorship: essential support from the top to ensure proper governance. We established a steering committee of leaders from all business units, representing the key functions of human resources, communications, legal, project management, research and development, and engineering. We laid out the road map for detailed implementation. Very early, we had nearly 2,000 people involved—early adopters and change agents.
We also created a support network of approximately 100 IT professionals who provided online support 24 hours a day, seven days a week. From anywhere in the world, our employees could ask a question via live chat and someone would pop up and answer it.
There were a few bumps, but Microsoft was a good partner and helped us along the way.
So far, the new tools are already making a big difference. Some of them are simple changes: working in the same document instead of passing files around, accessing documents from the web, a significant increase in instant messaging instead of emailing, more sophisticated calendaring and booking of conference rooms. We are using Lync Online for video chat, and soon we will ramp up with Skype for Business. We are also developing plans for how to leverage Yammer more to support our collaboration agenda.
Change is not just about data, processes, and systems—it’s also about people. I take great pleasure in developing teams and individuals, and since I joined Goodyear, we’ve started an IT development program to focus on emerging talent, leadership, and employees with a high level of potential. I wanted to build a great global team top to bottom: a group that works as a team, partners well with the business, and has the respect of the business. I think we’ve done that.
We’ve supported a number of business objectives during my time here, but employees are saying the move to Office 365 is one of the most visible changes for IT and the business. It’s truly a global project—it touched all our office workers, and it’s foundational for the future. 

Behind the Scenes on Goodyear’s Drive to the Cloud (Part 1)

Posted on


This article excerpt, by Jim McKinnon, originally appeared here: http://bit.ly/1D9RbbN
Jim McKinnon joined Goodyear as an IT intern for the company’s England subsidiary and spent the next four decades working his way up to vice president and CIO. McKinnon, who retires this month, isn’t ending his 40-year career on cruise control—instead he’s been in a pedal-to-the-metal drive to change IT at Goodyear.
I grew up a working-class boy.
My father was a tire builder at Goodyear. There was no work after the war in Dundee, Scotland, so he went south to England. He married a local girl, raised a family, and instilled strong values and principles in his children. I started as an intern at Goodyear in the IT department, as an analyst/programmer. It was a great job. It’s still a great job. I’m really proud that I’ve gone from IT intern to chief information officer of the company.
I like driving change. That’s where my passion is.
I’ve been driving change my whole career—especially the last five years. Within our global IT organization, we’ve improved communications and project management and deployed new tools to support the business. Technology is fast, and you need to stay current.
When I started as CIO five years ago, we needed more tools for mobility, productivity, and collaboration. Our legacy tools—Lotus Notes, WebEx, and Microsoft Office 2003 and 2007—no longer met our needs. We were frustrated with the old capital model where you purchase a toolset, then upgrade and make another big purchase two or three years later. Office 365 gave us the ability to track our licenses along the way—it’s more transparent and much easier to control.
We have approximately 67,000 employees globally, and we manufacture in 50 facilities spanning 22 countries. Across this geography, we have about 30,000 Office 365 users, and more than 13,000 are using Office 365 ProPlus. It’s a very diverse workforce representing many languages and cultures. Our Office 365 users are located at manufacturing facilities, offices, warehouses, and retail stores; they may be mobile or working from home.
Integration, communication and collaboration were some of the big reasons we made the move to Office 365. Microsoft cybersecurity capabilities gave our team peace of mind about the decision to shift to the cloud.
Watch for Part 2 next week

GE Chooses Microsoft Office 365 for Employee Collaboration and Productivity

Posted on

Microsoft Corp. and General Electric (NYSE: GE) have signedan agreement to deliver Microsoft’s cloud productivity suite, Office 365, toGE’s more than 300,000 employees across 170 countries worldwide.

“As we deepen our investments in employee productivity,Microsoft’s innovative approach to collaboration made Office 365 our firstchoice for providing scalable productivity tools to our employees worldwide,”said Jamie Miller, senior vice president and CIO of GE.

GE’s IT organization, which is recognized as one of the moststrategic and forward-thinking among large enterprises worldwide, selectedOffice 365 based on Microsoft’s ability to deliver rich productivityexperiences at massive scale across devices and platforms, as well as itsability to rapidly and reliably deploy to GE’s large global employeepopulation. Specifically, Office 365 will provide several key benefits to GEand its employees, including these:

• A comprehensive and integrated set of productivitycapabilities including email, Skype for Business calling and meetings,real-time document co-authoring, and team collaboration

• Extensibility of the Office 365 platform, which willenable GE to enhance the capabilities of critical line-of-business applicationsby connecting to Office 365 through open APIs

• IT controls and security capabilities that enable GE toprovide employees with secured access to information and full productivitycapabilities on a multitude of devices, while adhering to corporate policies,industry regulations and legal requirements

“Microsoft and GE share many values in common—openness,transparency, data-driven intelligence and innovation—all of which are drivingforces behind Microsoft’s own mission to help people and organizations achievemore,” said John Case, corporate vice president of Microsoft Office. “As one ofthe most innovative companies in the world, GE understands what it takes tounleash the potential of its employees. We’re delighted GE has selected Office365 as the productivity and collaboration solution to empower its globalworkforce.”

Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”/@microsoft) is the leading platformand productivity company for the mobile-first, cloud-first world, and itsmission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet toachieve more.