The importance of collaboration in today’s sale process
In today’s world, where buyers are more informed when they engage with your company, salespeople need to be able to answer tough questions. They need instant access to the collective knowledge of the organization – which may be held by people or documents.
Sharing the knowledge of the organization
Organizations that are able to put the knowledge of the organization in their sales team’s hands will ultimately position themselves to outsmart and outpace the competition. By creating compelling content – as a team – they will improve customer interactions to build relationships and close deals faster.
Through Microsoft Dynamics CRM and cloud-based technology, sales teams can have the tools to be prepared and insightful from the moment they engage with buyers.
Find out more about connecting your people to social channels, inside and outside the organization. Help your salespeople to respond in the new age of selling with the full support of the organization behind them.
Managed Solution will partner with your organization, align goals, and deploy Microsoft Dynamics CRM hand-in-hand, ensuring we create a solution specific to your unique business needs. We have developed a proven deployment and migration strategy for our clients deploying Microsoft Dynamics CRM to make sure that your transition is simple, smooth, and stable.
For information on deploying Microsoft Dynamics CRM in your organization, please call us at 800-257-0691 or fill out the contact form below and an expert will contact you shortly.
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Are my documents safe in Office Delve?
Yes, your documents are safe. Delve never changes any permissions. Only you can see your private documents in Delve.
Also, other people can't see your private activities, such as what documents you've read, what emails you've sent and received, or what Lync conversations you've been in. Other people can see that you've modified a document, but only if they have access to the same document.
What you see in Delve is different from what other people see. You can see your private documents and other documents that you have access to. Other people can see their documents and documents that they have access to.
Who can see my documents?
You're always in control. Only you can see your private documents in Delve, unless you decide to share them. Your private documents are marked with a padlock and the text. Only you can see this.
NOTE: The padlock on the card is currently only available if your organization has opted in to the First release program.
You can see who has access to a specific document from within Delve, and you can also share the document with others.
Click the Who can see this? button on the content card:
You can also stop sharing a document to prevent people from seeing it.
Who can see attachments?
When you or others share a document as an attachment in email, only people in the email conversation will see that document in Delve.
Attachments are marked with a paper clip on the content card.
Who can see the documents on a board?
Boards are open to everyone in your organization. You and others can see, add documents to, remove documents from, or follow any board in Delve.
However, if a board has documents that you don't have access to, those documents will not show up for you. If you create a board and add documents that only you or a few people have access to, no one else will see the documents, but they can see the board name.
To make Delve a great experience for everyone in your network, it's important that you and your colleagues store and share your documents where Delve can get to them: in OneDrive for Business or in Sites in Office 365.
If you want to keep a document private, store it in OneDrive for Business and choose not to share it. These documents will not show up in Delve for other users. Your private documents are marked with a padlock and the text Only you can see this.
Documents that aren't shared, are marked with a padlock and the text Only you in the Sharing column in OneDrive for Business.
If you want, you can always share the document with others later.
My private document has 7 views in Delve – does that mean that 7 people viewed it?
No. If your document is stored in OneDrive for Business and you haven’t shared it with other people, or if it's stored in another private location, only you can see the document in Delve. 7 views for a private document means that you opened it 7 times.
NOTE:If your organization has opted in to the First release program, you'll see the padlock icon and no view counts on private documents.
Can other people see what documents I’ve viewed?
No, no-one can see which documents you’ve opened and viewed in Delve.
If you’ve made changes to a document, other people can see that you modified the document, but only if they have access to the same document.
Can I turn off Delve?
If your organization uses Delve, you can’t turn off Delve completely, but you can choose to not share your activity. You will still be able to use Delve to see other users' profile information.
What does it mean to "share my activity"?
The Office Graph – the “brains” behind Delve - collects and analyses signals that you and your colleagues send when you work in Office 365. For example, when you and a colleague modify or view the same document, it’s a signal that you’re likely to be working together. Other signals are who you've shared a document with, which distribution groups you're a member of, who your manager is, and who has the same manager as you. Delve uses the signals to show you and others the documents that are likely to be relevant to you. These signals are what we call public activities, and it's these activities you share with others when you use Delve.
Other activities are private, and are never shared. Examples of private activities are what documents you’ve read, what emails you’ve sent and received, or what Lync conversations you’ve been in.
Remember that Delve never changes any permissions. You and your colleagues only see documents that you already have access to. Only you can see your private documents in Delve.
What happens if I choose to not share my activity?
If you choose to not share your activity, other people will not see any documents when they go to your page in Delve, but they can still see your profile information, such as your name, and contact information.
Your activities will not be used to personalize Delve for others. Your documents can still appear in Delve (in other places than your person page) for people who have permissions to view them, just like these people would find your documents if they searched for them in SharePoint Online.
If you choose to not share your activity, you will not be able to see other people’s activities or documents in Delve, but you can still see their profile information.
To turn off sharing
In Delve, go to Settings
Select Sharing activity > Don’t share my activity.
Click OK to save the changes.
NOTE: It can take up to a week for all changes to take effect.
What happens if others have Delve and I don’t?
Delve users in your organization who already have access to your documents in Office 365, can see your documents in their Delve, even if you don't have Delve yourself.
If you want to prevent your documents from showing up on your person page in Delve for other Delve users, you can choose to not share your activity. If you don't have Delve, you can do this from your Profile page in Office 365:
To go to your Profile page, select your picture in the Office 365 header, and then select About me.
On your profile page, select Settings.
Select Sharing activity > Don’t share my activity.
Click OK to save the changes.
NOTE:It can take up to a week for all changes to take effect.
As written on nhlearninggroup.com
Definitely for the arithmophobic. Thanks to the Live Charts feature in Excel, you can give them an instant makeover with colorful charts. In older versions of Excel, charting was one of the more difficult tasks. It wasn’t only about the time it took, but also about the right chart type that fit the data. Excel 2013 makes it easy as a click with Live Charts. Excel uses a special algorithms to show the chart types you can use based on the data.
Select the data to chart and click Insert — Recommended Chart to see options such as line, bar, and pie charts that Excel feels is right for your data. Click each chart to preview what your data will look like. Pick the right chart and Excel inserts the chart with some page elements to work with styles, colors, and the chart data. Do note: Not every chart type is recommended. Specialized chart types are available from the Insert Chart button on the Ribbon..
From PDF to editable Word documents
One of the best features of PDFs are that they are not editable as a default. It’s also an irksome feature if you want to take information out of it. A whole industry of tools exist that help you be more productive with PDF files. Don’t disregard the new PDF Reflow feature in MS Word 2013. Making it uncomplicated – open a PDF with Word 2013 and it will behave like a normal Word document. You can reuse the content without too much effort. Now, all that rich data locked in PDF files is ripe for picking.
Word creates a copy and opens it as a normal document as you would any other from File – Open. Make any changes - the original PDF is left intact. The conversions are not always perfect, but this is a very handy feature.
Use Share Link As A Quick Presentation Tool
Microsoft Office 2013 brings new collaborative features for Word and PowerPoint which piggyback on a Microsoft Account. With the Office Presentation Service your collaborators do not even need the Office suite at their end. A web browser does the job with the help of the Office web app. Work on your document and begin sharing from File — Share — Present Online. From here, select Office Presentation Service and click Present Online. A share link is created. Send it via Skype, email, or any other online medium. Start your presentation and the recipients get to view it on their browsers when they click on the shared link. Share notes and your team members can follow you through the document. They can also watch the presentation independently. The presenter controls the presentation from this special menu bar.
Refer Wikipedia Within Word
The official Wikipedia app is a quick resource for general research. With the Wikipedia app inside Word. Go to Insert – Apps for Office– Wikipedia. You might have to search for it among the featured apps. The app also allows you to insert a section of a text or an image. Select the text or hover over the image. Click on the insert symbol to insert it into the body of your Word document. The source link is automatically included with the insert. The Wikipedia app can also be used to research something on the side-pane by simply selecting something in your document. Nice.
Use Your Ears with Assistive Technologies
With the Office suite, you can take advantage of the built-in screen reader (Narrator) to read and create Word documents, PowerPoint slides, Excel spreadsheets, OneNote notebooks, and Outlook email. Microsoft Support recommends that you become familiar with shortcut keys as well. For example, you can use voice to record your comments on PowerPoint slides or a Word document. If you are short on time, use the Narrator to have it read aloud Outlook emails or a Word doc. Microsoft Office 2013 also comes with an audio-enabled Mini Translator that can take a selected foreign phrase and read aloud its pronunciation. Select a foreign word. Click onReview – Translate – Mini Translator. Hit the Play button.
Go Easy on the Eyes with Read Mode
If you have a touch enabled computer, Office 2013 was designed for productivity with fingers. The Ribbon menu was restyled and made more functional. I will ask you to do one thing if you are still deciding to come aboard (c’mon, it’s been a year now!). Go to View – Read Mode. That’s a bonus point for a distraction free reading experience.
It auto-resizes the document to the full screen and is completely uncluttered. Click on View to see options for tweaking this mode. For instance, the color modes that make it easier on the eyes. You can get rid of the toolbar for a full-screen experience.
Save Time With a Copy
Don’t go hunting for the document to copy. The shortcut for creating a copy of an Office document is not very apparent but it is a huge time saver if you want to work on a copy while keeping the original intact. Click on File – Open – Recent Documents. If the document was opened recently, the filename will be displayed. Right-click on the filename and select Open a copy. Any changes that you make are saved to the copy. You can then save it at any location. This tiny step is a time saver because you are spared from browsing to its location and manually creating a copy to work on.
Work Anywhere With Documents Online
Save your Office documents online via the Microsoft account. Microsoft has the sister suite ofweb apps for Word, Excel, OneNote, and PowerPoint. Word, Excel, and PowerPoint save the last location where you left off work before saving– to the letter, cell, or slide. Pick up where you left off working on a different device while away from your main computer. You can also continue your work on Mobile apps for Office.
Don't Cut and Paste Anymore
There’s this quicker way that uses lesser key presses. Using Cut-Paste (Ctrl-x Ctrl-v) to move text from one place on the page to another within a Word document is fine. But try this. Select any block of text. Press F2. You will notice that the status bar (at the bottom of your screen) says Move to where. Place the cursor at the location where you wish to move the block of text. Press Enter and the selection will be moved.
Searching for Data in Excel
When you search for data, you can use ? to represent any single character or * to represent a series of characters. Example if your data has all the states, you could type “*Dakota” and it will pull up both North and South Dakota data.
Auto Filter in Excel
Too much data to go through? Use AutoFilter to find values, show or hide values, in one or more columns of data. You can filter based on choices you make from a list, search to find the data that you want to see. When you filter data, entire rows are hidden if values in one or more columns don't meet the filtering criteria. Click the Data Tab- Filter to activate.
Save and Auto Recover in Word 2013
It will happen! A computer crash, power goes out or you just close without saving. To avoid losing all your work when this happens, make sure AutoRecover and AutoSave are turned on. Simply click on the File Tab- Options- Save and make sure the SAVE AUTORECOVER INFORMATION IS SELECTED and you can select the number of minutes from 0-120.
Calendar Views in Outlook 2013
Managing and Viewing multiple calendars? By default, calendar groups appear side by side. To make the calendars overlap, click the View in Overlay Mode arrow on the tab of each calendar you want to overlap. In Microsoft 2013 there is a world of cool new things to discover. However, a favorite new feature in Outlook 2013 is located below the Navigation pane where you can have mail, calendar, contacts, tasks and notes.
Extended Clipboard in Microsoft Work 2013
Microsoft Word has a useful "Spike" feature that allows you to cut text and images from multiple locations in a document and paste them all at once to a different location. To use this feature, select the text, images or other objects in your document that would like to move and press "CTRL +F3" to move that selection to the Spike. You can to that same spike using the same key combo shortcut.
Adding Video to Microsoft PowerPoint 2013
Ask any teacher, and they'll tell you nothing captures your audience more than a movie. To add a movie to your PowerPoint Presentation, click "Insert" on the Ribbon. You will see a button for "Video" on the right side of the ribbon. Using the drop-down menu, you can insert a video from YouTube, Facebook or your OneDrive account, or any other video embedding website.
Refreshing the Same Query in Access 2013
You may use a report or query with the help of parameters as a filter tool. With this one report of query you filter different departments or dates you need to print multiple reports for different purposes. You may only need your mouse click to click the refresh button to prompt for a new parameter window. You can work much faster by staying on the keyboard and creating a smoother workflow. After running your first query or report stay in the same view (don't switch back to design). Press "SHIFT + F9" to run the report again with a new parameter.
Copy and Paste Tricks in Word 2013
When you copy a passage of text from the web to Word, styles and formatting are retained. However, there's an easy way to remove this styling from any block fo text in Word - just select the text you copied and press "Ctrl+Space Bar". The rich text will be transformed to plain text. Additionally, you can move text in Word without the traditional "Ctrl+X, Ctrl+V" shortcut. Highlight any block of text, press "F2", and place the cursor at the spot where you wish to move that text. Press "Enter" and the selection will be moved! Test it out with this paragraph!
PowerPoint Presentation Tricks
While you are conducting a PowerPoint presentation, if something comes up that you don't want to be seen at that point without having to stop the slideshow, hit the letter 'B' on your keyboard. This will blackout the screen without losing your place. Hit 'B' again, and you'll be back in business. Another cool trick... while in presentation mode, hold 'Ctrl+P' and you will change your pointer into a pen that can write or draw. Hit the 'Esc' key and you will change back to your pointer!
Custom Views in Outlook 2013
In Microsoft 2013 there is a world of cool new things to discover. However, a favorite new feature in Outlook 2013 is located below the Navigation pane where you can have mail, calendar, contacts, tasks and notes.
While working in your inbox, to view your calendar without leaving your inbox, right-click on the calendar and select open new window. You will now be able to stay in your inbox and open your calendar at the same time. You can now actively work in your calendar and read your emails. Tada!
Visually Represent Your Data in Excel
Here is a great Excel trick for all of us out there that like visual representations of our data. You can use this trick with Excel 97-2013. Whenever you have a table of data and want to create a chart, here is what you do. Click in a cell within the table you want to chart. Press the Key on the top row of your keyboard, and say "WOW"! Now you have a new chart of your data on a new worksheet named "Chart 1". Your original table is still on the original worksheet!
Navigate Excel Workbooks Easily
Here's a little-known trick that will allow you to quickly and easily navigate to a specific worksheet in Excel workbooks that contain more than one (Sheet1, Sheet2, etc.). You can display a pop-up list of all worksheet names in your workbook by right-clicking one of the navigation arrows to the left of the worksheet tabs that are located at the bottom of the screen. Simply select a sheet from the list, and you're there in a flash![/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
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The greatest science fiction relies on talented writers to leverage amazing imaginations based on real-world inventions, and we’ve got that covered.
Future Visions: Original Science Fiction Stories Inspired by Microsoft is an anthology of short stories written by some of today’s greatest science fiction authors. The contributing authors were inspired by inside access to leading-edge work, including in-person visits to Microsoft’s research labs.
These visionary stories explore prediction science, quantum computing, real-time translation, machine learning, and much more.
With the new Get & Transform capabilities in Excel 2016, you can now import, transform and combine data from different sources—thanks to the integrated Power Query technology in Excel. Today we are going to focus on one of the most useful capabilities that Get & Transform offers—the ability to unpivot to transform ANY table in your workbook to make it ready for powerful analysis using PivotTables and PivotCharts.
Transform a static table into a PivotTable ready for deep analysis.
Let’s start with a common scenario. You have an Excel workbook that is dedicated for manual data entry to record the hours you put in for each relevant project:
But analyzing this data is not easy and sometimes you wish you could easily create charts on this data, or even better—PivotCharts.
Here is a common, yet challenging scenario—challenging, because it would take a lot of effort to get to the point you can gain insights from this data in the current format. Fortunately, through the new Get & Transform section in the Data tab of Excel 2016, the challenge is over.
Simply select any cell inside an existing table or range and in the Get & Transform section, click From Table.
You will see a preview of your data inside the Query Editor window. From this window, you can start transforming your data in powerful, yet simple ways. Each change you make is recorded as a transformation step that is saved with your workbook. All the steps are kept as a sequence that can be performed again and again each time you refresh your data.
In the Query Editor, you will usually need the help of the Unpivot transformation to change your table into a format that can be used by PivotTable.
In the example below, I can select the first column that includes project names and click Unpivot Other Columns to transform my data from columns of Project Name / 2010 / 2011 / 2012… to the desired column structure of Project / Year / Duration.
And here are the results in the Query Editor:
I can now rename the columns to Project, Year and Duration inside the Query Editor and then load the data into a PivotTable or PivotChart.
Learn More:
If you are familiar with the Unpivot functionality and want to test your skills, read this post. Even simple tables such as a class schedule may require some cunning approach.
The most common scenario includes nested tables with hierarchical date information such as years, quarters and months. Read here how to transform these tables.
And if you wish to apply your magic on ANY nested table, read this post that will first show you how to unpivot three levels of nested rows and columns. It is so simple.
On many occasions your data contains comma-separated values, like a table of events in which all participants are listed on a single column. You can learn here how to split such data and unpivot it.
Finally, you can learn here how to transform and unpivot all these challenging tables in Power BI Desktop, and build amazing dashboards in Power BI.
Astronauts receive Hololens in space today, uses revealed
Recently it was revealed that Microsoft teamed up with NASA to send it’s HoloLens wearable into space. Today that became a reality, with two lone astronauts receiving over 7,700 pounds of supplies, including food, science experiments, and two Microsoft HoloLens headsets.
Astronauts Scott Kelly and Mikhail Kornienko are spending over a year aboard the International Space Station in a scientific experiment detailing exactly how long missions in space can affect the human body.
In a live interview earlier today, the guys over at Popular Science got to ask exactly what uses the HoloLens could have for them as they finish their year long mission in space. According to Scott Kelly:
You know I actually got the opportunity to try that out before I launched, and it seems like there are certain capabilities that would be good for us onboard the space station. One would be, you know right now we look at the computer or an iPad to look at procedures. And if you could have a procedure right in your field-of-view, something that was command-able with your voice, you know where you could scroll through the different steps, that would be helpful. It also has this capability where somebody on the ground perhaps could be looking basically at what you’re looking at, and be able to write in your field of view. So let’s say we’re working on a piece of hardware, and we’re not that familiar with it, but we have an expert on the ground, you know that person could basically see what we’re seeing and make annotations, point to things, and kind of lead us through a particular activity. You know that’s one of the many capabilities of that, or similar hardware, that we’re excited about.
These are features that we know the HoloLens to have, in addition to many, many more. Now all we need is to get them to swap that iPad out for a Surface Pro 4 for a complete Microsoft experience.
All Map enthusiasts, we have a special treat for you this week. You are going to love it! Some of you might have seen this already in our demos but this week you can touch it and feel it with your own hands (I mean your own data 🙂
Today digital map has become integral part of everyday life. Most organizations have data with geo attributes in some form or other and the need to understand geographical significance of data has been on the rise.
The combination of aggregating information with location and presenting them in a small space allows Map visualizations to present the big picture out of sea of data. They help you find the theme and outliers at a quick glance. While a 2D map can help achieve this goal to some extent, when it comes to multiple attributes and widespread data, they fell short.
A 3D Map makes this experience more immersive and magical. They provide the sense of connection to the data with the physical world. This, combined with our spatial ability, brings a new perspective to the data when we present them as 3D objects.
GlobeMap brings this magical map exploration experience to Power BI. To use, simply import the Globe Map from the Visuals gallery to your Power BI report and use it with a location data type. The location could be an address, city, county , state/province or country/region. On this 3D map, you can project a measure as the height of the bar. The 3D bars reduce the clutter of overlapping bubbles and allow you to get instant insight. GlobeMap also allows you to rotate the Globe and see it from different angles. But we didn’t just stop here. We added one more goody to this visual. The icing on the cake is the added benefit of heat map in this visual. You can use a second measure for heat intensity and draw immediate attention to the right areas.
For many mapping solutions, some location names may be ambiguous, when considered in the context of multiple countries or regions. You can increase the accuracy of geo-coding of such location names by concatenating the city, state and country. For example, instead of using just ‘Bellevue,’ as the location you can provide it as ‘Bellevue, WA, USA'.
NOTE: This Globe Map custom visual is not the same as Power Map for Excel (called 3D Maps in Excel 2016). Power Map is a 3D data visualization tool for Excel that lets you plot geographic and temporal data visually, analyze that data in 3D, and create cinematic tours to share with others in Excel. Globe Map is a custom visual for use within Power BI reports.
Making mobile phones the authentication hubs for smart homes
Each year, the National Institute of Standards and Technology funds pilot projects to advance the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace. The pilots address barriers to the identity ecosystem and seed the marketplace with “NSTIC-aligned” solutions to enhance privacy, security and convenience in online transactions.
This year, Galois, a computer science research and development company, received a $1.86 million grant to build a user-centric personal data storage system that enables next-generation IoT capabilities without sacrificing privacy. As part of the pilot, Galois will work with partners to integrate its secure system into an Internet of Things-enabled smart home and develop just-in-time transit ticketing on smart phones.
Galois’ authentication and mobile security subsidiary, Tozny, serves as the technical lead for the pilot programs and will build the data storage and sharing platform by tackling one of the weakest links in cybersecurity today: the password. Tozny’s solution replaces the username and password with something people use for almost everything: the smartphone, or wearable device.
Tozny is working with IOTAS, a developer of a home automation platform that integrates preinstalled hardware (light switches, outlets and sensors) with software to create a unique experience in which users learn from and interact with their homes.
Together, the companies are working to help users to log in to the IoT management console installed in their apartments without a password. Tozny is providing cryptographic authentication that is based on mobile phones.
“This is actually a really good idea because people who have tried to deploy authentication devices for smart homes have had a lot of trouble getting them to work, and they’re kind of expensive,” said Isaac Potoczny-Jones, computer security research lead at Galois.“Since a mobile phone can do cryptography, and because we can build beautiful and easy-to-use interfaces on mobile phones, we decided that that would be a much better way to log into a lot of systems -- and it’s easier to use than passwords,” Potoczny-Jones said.
IOTAS is already operating a smart-home pilot in apartment units in Portland, Ore., and San Francisco. IOTAS and Tozny will work to add transparent but privacy-preserving authentication and encryption to this pilot.
Secure mobile transit ticketing
GlobeSherpa, an Oregon-based company that provides a secure mobile ticketing platform for transit systems, is working with Tozny to develop a password-free authentication system that allows users to buy and display tickets on their mobile phones.
“With this you can use your phone to both buy and display tickets, and you don’t have to interface with these often-broken vending machines,” Potoczny-Jones said.
SRI International is also contributing to this project with a biometric authentication solution that will use a person’s walking gait as the biometric. This technology will work with the bus platform to ensure that the person holding the phone and showing the ticket is who he says he is.
“You’re walking up to the bus platform, get your phone, buy your ticket, and the phone has already has a pretty high confidence that you are who you claim to be because it was just observing your walking pattern,” Potoczny-Jones said. “It’s passive, it’s behind the scenes and it’s extremely fast and accurate as well.”
“Anything that you collect that’s behind the scenes or passive needs to have really strong privacy controls built into it,” Potoczny-Jones said. “So we’re very happy with the way these technologies are coming together to provide secure login, privacy controls and really advanced biometric technology.”
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