If you haven’t read What is a CRM? Part 1, I highly recommend reading it before proceeding.
Sales - Social Selling: A CRM, such as Microsoft Dynamics CRM, can be used as a social selling tool. Microsoft partnered with InsideView to create Microsoft Insights, a social insight tool that directly integrates within Microsoft Dynamics CRM to provide users with instant additional information regarding leads, contacts or accounts from directly within Microsoft Dynamics CRM. This additional information is derived from Microsoft Insights scraping publicly accessible social and business profiles regarding leads and contacts and aggregating the data. Currently, Microsoft Insights is free for Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online.
According to InsideView, Microsoft Insights can do the following:
1. Identify Your Buyer
Instantly qualify prospects with high quality company data
Expand on previous wins by looking for similar companies
Identify decision makers in an account by functional area or title
2. Understand your buyer
Save hours of research time with up-to-the-minute company news and social media buzz at your fingertips
Increase your win rate by tailoring your pitch to immediate customer needs
3. Engage your buyer
Start a conversation with a target buyer by noting mutual acquaintances, past employers you have in common or schools you both attended
Get a warm introduction into an account by leveraging your professional network and those of your colleagues
Marketing - Big Data Repository: As mentioned on the first line of What is a CRM? Part 1, A CRM is simply a glorified database. This means if a CRM is implemented and used correctly, it can collect a vast amount of data in a short space of time. In a world where there are more mobile devices than people, more and more data is being collected in some form, and with big data comes big opportunity. There may not be a need right now for a full-time analyst at your company, but what about in the near future? An analyst is only as good as the data available. Wouldn’t it be beneficial to have legacy data available for when the inevitable moment arrives when your business needs an analyst? As Arthur Conan Doyle once said “Data! data! data! I can’t make bricks without clay”.
About the author:
Ben has worked at Managed Solution for over two years and is currently working on CRM customization and administration, Microsoft SharePoint integration and customization as well as Business Intelligence analytics including SQL reporting. Ben is a Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist, Microsoft Certified Professional, Microsoft Specialist and has six Dynamic CRM certifications.
In Brazil, Nadella met Lívia and Cecília, two young girls with cerebral palsy who bowl on Xbox as part of an innovative Kinect-enabled therapy at an institute managed by AACD, a nonprofit that helps children with disabilities.
How technology is transforming and empowering Latin America one person and organization at a time
By Vanessa Ho, Microsoft News Center Staff, as written on Microsoft.com
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella visited Latin America last week to learn and see first-hand how technology is transforming thousands of lives in the region, with new job skills, entrepreneurial opportunities, innovative services and stronger, digitally inclusive societies.
Nadella met with developers, students, startups and community and business leaders in Chile, Brazil, Colombia and Mexico, where he reinforced Microsoft’s commitment to foster innovation, create opportunities and help businesses grow in Latin America.
“Innovation … will come from every corner of the planet, [including] Latin America,” Nadella said during his stop in Chile.
A presence in Latin America for nearly 30 years, Microsoft has helped create more than one million jobs in the region, supported more than 5,000 new startups and donated more than $441 million in software and cash to nonprofits. More than 100,000 companies use the Microsoft cloud, and the use of Office 365, Microsoft Azure and Dynamics CRM Online tools has helped create triple-digit growth—a sign of a thriving digital transformation in the region.
As part of its commitment to young people, Microsoft’s YouthSpark initiative has benefitted 49 million Latin American youths and its Imagine Cup contest has inspired students globally, including in Brazil with two winning teams.
During his visit, Nadella emphasized how technology, including the Microsoft Azure cloud platform, can empower businesses, startups and organizations in Latin America to transform. For example, Azure supports an online taxpayer service in Mexico, the first service of its kind in the country. It helps issue electronic invoices, provides direct customer support to taxpayers who need to check, cancel or download electronic invoices, and provides reception services to more than 85 authorized certification providers. In Brazil, Azure and Office 365 will play key roles in the Rio 2016 Games, with rich platforms and immersive fan experiences. Microsoft Translator is also helping to preserve Yucatec Maya and Querétaro Otomi, threatened indigenous languages in the region.
“I want us as a company to stand for our customers’ success,” Nadella said. “Because if I think about the identity of Microsoft, it is centered around providing digital technology to others who are going to do magical things.”
For a closer look at some of the people Nadella met during his visit and how Microsoft is helping their countries view the photo slideshow.
The Managed Solution team enjoyed learning more about Windows 10 and Cloud advanced workloads from Microsoft business leaders and technology specialists at the Microsoft Partner Briefings in the West today.
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Managed Solution’s In The TechKnow is a Web Tech Series featuring how-to video tutorials on technology.
This series is presented by Jennell Mott, Business Operations Manager, and provides a resource for quick technical tips and fixes. You don’t need to be a technical guru to brush up on tech tips!
Don’t see the technology that you would like to learn? Submit a suggestion to inthetechknow@managedsolution.com and we will be sure to cover it in our upcoming webcast series.
Today’s release of Office 2016 marks almost three years since the last major version of Microsoft’s productivity apps. More than 1.2 billion people use Office, for everything from simple word processing and personal finances, to powerful number crunching at large enterprises. It’s as ubiquitous as Windows itself, and before today’s new update it was already packed full with features. So, do you really need the latest version?
Microsoft believes that you do — but more importantly, it wants you to get on the new way of thinking about Microsoft software: constantly updated, available in the cloud, and getting new features all the time. But that vision will take time to pan out. Right now you should make your choice to switch based on whether or not you really want the new features.
Microsoft has been slowly refining Office over the past few versions, and the 2016 release takes that a step further. While Office 2013 focused on storing your documents in the cloud and introducing some touch improvements, Office 2016 is really designed to make sharing a lot easier across all your devices. Office is no longer restricted to your desktop PC or laptop, it’s everywhere. I can create an Office document from my PC and then edit on my phone or tablet, and not have to worry about moving the file manually onto those devices. Never before has this been so seamless, and Office 2016 embraces the cloud fully.
Office 2016 is all about the cloud
When you first start up any of the latest Office apps you’ll be hard pressed to actually find what’s new. For example, Excel only has one notable change: six new chart types. There are a few visual changes and tweaks and a new gray theme that matches the dark look of Windows 10 very well. Other than that, all the features of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint are in largely the same place as they’ve always been. Office 2007 was the last major change to the look and feel of Office thanks to the Ribbon UI, and Microsoft hasn’t made any drastic changes in Office 2010. If you’re used to working in Office, then the 2016 version won’t break your workflow.
But there are new features to be found, and the best of them happen to be in Office’s most popular app, Word. If you’re creating a résumé or an angry letter of complaint, then it’s the tool of choice. Microsoft has made Word a little more intelligent this time around, with some new features that are helpful, rather than flashy additions you never use again. Clippy hasn’t returned to haunt your documents, but the new Tell Me feature makes use of the helpful parts of Clippy to act as an assistant without the annoying distractions. Tell Me lets you simply search for the feature or task you’re looking for and it brings the option up. If you’re struggling to find how to insert a chart, just search for "how do I insert a chart" or something equally relevant, and the option is immediately revealed. I used it a few times when the vast array of features and options in Office got overwhelming, so it’s a minor but welcome addition.
Microsoft is also making more use of Bing in Office 2016. A smart lookup feature lets you search for items in documents or emails to fact check or find the meaning of a phrase. Previous versions of Office have had similar functionality, but this feels a little more refined and easy to use. I still reach to my browser and Google stuff though, so I doubt this will be helpful for most people.
Word's real-time co-authoring is a solid addition
But the biggest addition in Word is real-time co-authoring. For the first time in a desktop version of Word, you can now see what others are typing in real time when multiple people are editing a document stored on one of Microsoft’s cloud services. This has been previously reserved only for web versions of Office, and used widely on Google Docs. It makes a big difference being able to see what a co-worker is changing in a document, with the ability to quickly message them on Skype to advise them not to make a particular change before they’ve wasted time doing it.
If you’re used to the web version or Google Docs then there’s a slight difference with Word’s implementation. If you’re working with a co-worker on a document then you can’t both edit the same line as it locks the other person out. I usually like fooling around with Docs online when multiple people are editing, but this locking prevented me from playing the fool. That’s probably a good thing for my co-workers, though. I now can’t imagine going back to a version of Office without this live editing, and I’m hoping future versions bring this feature to other office apps (it’s only available in Word right now).
Alongside the big real-time editing addition, Office 2016 also includes a new version history side panel. If you’ve ever been working on a document that multiple people edit then you’ve probably come across the situation where someone totally screws up everyone’s hard work. Version history is now easy to access, and you can quickly restore an old version in seconds.
It often feels like I use email every hour of every day, and nothing has really stemmed the flow of messages over the years. Microsoft has been tweaking Outlook to keep it modern over the years, but even in Office 2016 it still feels a little out of date. Outlook 2016 is primarily aimed at Exchange ActiveSync compatible services like Outlook.com or Office 365, but if you use Google Apps or Gmail then you’ll just get basic IMAP email support and no ability to bring in contacts (CardDAV) or calendar items (CalDAV). Microsoft has moved to support these protocols in the built-in mail app for Windows 10 in a seamless way, but they’re bizarrely missing in the messy setup options for Outlook 2016. Basically, Outlook 2016 is great for Exchange users and terrible for everybody else.
Thankfully, there are some interesting additions to Outlook 2016 that make email less daunting. Microsoft has added a clever way to manage attachments in Outlook. If you’ve used a OneDrive document recently, then you can attach it without ever seeing a file dialog. It’s simply available from a recents dropdown when you go to attach a document. The clever trick here is that if the document is stored on OneDrive or other Microsoft cloud services then it won’t be attached to the email, and a link will be sent instead. This is a trick that Google and Dropbox have both toyed with, but it feels more natural in Outlook. For Office shops, it saves precious storage space for recipients, but also makes it easier to use the sharing and collaboration features Microsoft has created.
Outlook needs to go beyond Exchange support
Microsoft is also adding an email organization tool called Clutter. It prioritizes your email and clears low priority messages into a separate folder. I’m not generally a fan of this type of automatic triage of my email, and Microsoft’s Outlook for iOS has a similar Focused Inbox feature. If you like having an email app organize your messages for you, both seem to do decent jobs of it — except that they don’t talk to each other at all about what email is going where. It feels like both of these features should be linked, but they’re separate implementations of email management right now.
Email isn’t the only form of communication in Office 2016. If you’re using the apps at work then you’ll likely start using Skype for Business (formerly known as Lync). Much like regular Skype, you can do voice or video calls and screen sharing in addition to the traditional Lync features like calendar scheduling. The only thing that’s really missing is a good group chat tool. Skype for Business has the ability to create group chats, but it feels like an add-on rather than a core feature. At The Verge we use Slack, and Microsoft has nothing in Office 2016 that comes close to matching either its simplicity or its usefulness. I found myself longing for the distraction of Slack when working on documents. I’m so used to jumping into our chat channel in Slack, and not having that when you’re working remotely feels a little isolating.
One of the new apps to really embrace the idea of sharing and cloud-powered documents is Sway. It’s a new addition to the Office lineup, and it’s the most impressive change to this latest version of Office. In its most basic form, Sway allows anyone to create a beautiful website from just images and text without any effort. I’ve created fun websites for my vacation photos on several occasions, and Sway makes it very easy to create something pretty in minutes. It’s all web-based too, so you don’t actually need an application to access Sway. You can insert pictures, videos, tweets, and charts so there are plenty of options. It’s an interesting blend of Word and PowerPoint that creates an interactive webpage as the end result. You don’t even need Office to try it out — it’s all available online, free of charge.
Sway
Overall, the Office 2016 desktop apps don’t really present many compelling additions by themselves. Most of the changes are minor compared to what we got in Office 2013 three years ago. Microsoft hasn’t attempted to combine touch, typing, and inking into a single app this time around. Instead, there are separate Windows 10 "mobile" apps that are designed for tablets and phones. It seems a bit crazy to have two versions of the same app, but it’s largely because these desktop apps are already powerful and it will take some time to transition all of those features into the touch-friendly versions.
Sway is the most interesting addition to Office 2016
What’s really interesting about this latest version of Office is the Office 365 subscription and the ability to work on documents on my Windows PC, Mac, iPhone, and Android tablet. If you just look at the relatively sparse upgrades to the desktop apps, it hardly seems worth the upgrade. But if you consider that a subscription to Office 365 puts you on a permanent upgrade track and lets you use Office on basically any device you can think of, the calculus gets much more interesting. Office 365 can cost anywhere from $5 to $12.50 per month, so each business and consumer will need to do some math before subscribing.
The real value comes with the other apps that are available to you with an Office 365 subscription. Lightweight mobile versions for Windows 10 are a favorite of mine as they’re so quick to load and have most of the basic editing features you need. These same apps are nearly identical to the ones found on Android tablets and the iPad. Editing documents on these apps is basic, but it’s enough if all you need to do is a few sums in Excel or letters in Word. Anything more and you can pick up the desktop apps on Windows and Mac as part of Office 365. I’ve found that the recent tab is familiar on all Office apps across multiple platforms, so I don’t even have to worry about which folder on OneDrive I stored a document as it’s always there in the list to open straight away.
What Office 2016 really represents is the future of how Microsoft will deliver software. Don’t expect major big releases every three years anymore. Much like Windows 10, Office is moving to an era where there are minor improvements on a regular basis, with a focus on sharing and cloud features. If you’re using Office at work, the 2016 release will really tie these together nicely, and at home there’s OneDrive and Office apps for all your devices. By focusing less on improving the already full featured desktop Office apps for 2016, it feels like Microsoft has spent most of its time making sure Office works well everywhere you want to use it. We’re going to see a lot more of that in the future, and I welcome the change of focus.
Microsoft's Office suite is finally everywhere
For the past 20 years, Office has been ubiquitous. It’s been like the air that business people breathe: everywhere, necessary, sometimes fresh and sometimes a little stale. But in that time, the web and mobile devices from Apple and Android have also become ubiquitous. With Office 2016 and Office 365, the everywhere Office suite is finally everywhere again, instead of just living on Windows PCs. Being everywhere is great.
As written on Microsoft.com on September 8, 2015 by Takeshi Numoto - Corporate Vice President, Cloud and Enterprise Marketing, Microsoft
I’m pleased to announce today that Microsoft has acquired Adallom, an innovator in cloud security and a leader in helping customers protect their critical assets across cloud applications. This acquisition is the latest example of Microsoft’s commitment to delivering innovative identity and security capabilities to our customers, across both on-premises and multiple clouds.
With more frequent and advanced cybersecurity attacks continuing to make headlines, customer concerns around security remain top of mind. These concerns pose real challenges for IT, who are charged with protecting company data in this rapidly evolving mobile-first, cloud-first world. In this world, identity is a critical control plane for managing and protecting access to applications and data.
Adallom expands on Microsoft’s existing identity assets, and delivers a cloud access security broker, to give customers visibility and control over application access as well as their critical company data stored across cloud services. Adallom works with popular cloud applications including Salesforce, Box, Dropbox, ServiceNow, Ariba, and of course Office 365. As a cloud-delivered, security-as-a-service solution, Adallom will complement existing offerings that Microsoft makes available today as part of Office 365 and the Enterprise Mobility Suite (EMS), including our recent Microsoft Advanced Threat Analytics release.
Adallom, cofounded in 2012 by Assaf Rappaport, Ami Luttwak and Roy Reznik, has assembled a world-class team with a dedicated focus on making it easier to enhance data security in the cloud. The team will continue to evolve, build technology, sell solutions and work with customers as we complete the integration into Microsoft.
Once again, we are thrilled to welcome the Adallom team into the Microsoft family. Advanced threats and cybercrime will persist in this mobile-first, cloud-first era, but at Microsoft we remain committed to helping our customers protect their data with new and innovative identity and security capabilities. We encourage our customers to evaluate and use this offering starting today, to learn more visit http://www.adallom.com.
Microsoft is still working on the new Universal Skype experiences for Windows 10
Earlier this year, Microsoft revealed that the company is working on a new, universal Skype experience for Windows 10 and Windows 10 Mobile. Microsoft announced that the company will be delivering the new Universal Skype experiences for Windows 10 “later this summer” as a preview. So, summer has just ended – where’s the new Universal Skype experiences? Well, it seems like the folks over at Redmond are still working on the new experiences.
We’ve reached out to Microsoft asking for an update on the Universal Skype experience, and a Microsoft spokesperson told us:
“We want to make sure Skype built into Windows 10 is the best experience possible, so we’re taking some more time to make sure it’s ready for users. In the meantime, you can continue to use Skype for Windows desktop, Skype for Windows Phone and Skype for Web on Edge.”
Microsoft YouthSpark expands youth programs for computer science education
by Suzanne Choney, Microsoft News Center Staff as written on Microsoft.com
It gave Victoria Tran confidence and a possible career path. It’s giving Joey Cannon the opportunity he has long wanted. They’re among the high school students around the country benefitting from computer science education, something in short supply around the world, and in the U.S., where less than a quarter of high schools teach it.
On Wednesday, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella announced an expansion of the YouthSpark program to increase access to computer science education for all youth worldwide, and especially for those from under-represented backgrounds, with a $75 million commitment in community investments over the next three years.
In the U.S., where the TEALS (Technology Education and Literacy in Schools) program brings computer science education to high school students and teachers, this flagship program of YouthSpark will increase mightily, going from 131 schools in 18 states to nearly 700 schools in 33 states in the next three years.
“If we are going to solve tomorrow’s global challenges, we must come together today to inspire young people everywhere with the promise of technology,” said Nadella. “We can’t leave anyone out.”
Excerpts from an interview conducted by computer science students, as part of Microsoft YouthSpark’s support of Roadtrip Nation.
YouthSpark is a global initiative to increase access for all youth to learn computer science, empowering them to achieve more for themselves, their families and their communities.
With the TEALS program, tech industry volunteers are needed to team-teach computer science to 30,000 students, a message Nadella shared during the annual Dreamforce conference hosted by Salesforce, where he called upon thousands of tech professionals to serve as TEALS volunteers.
Those TEALS volunteers create a ripple effect – you could even call it a tidal wave, really – with what they do. They teach not only students, but prep teachers as well to go on to lead their own computer science classes in subsequent years.
Since the program began in 2009, “We’ve had an amazing response from schools and teachers, as well as volunteers from across the industry, without which none of this would be possible,” says Kevin Wang, the very first volunteer, and the founder of TEALS who works for Microsoft.
Boston technology teacher Ingrid Roche says TEALS volunteers are superb. “Either that, or they’re magically phenomenal,” she says. “They have a ton of knowledge, and they are able to share it with me and the students without being condescending in any way, or judgmental.”
Roche teaches at the Boston Latin Academy, part of Boston Public Schools. The school has about 1,700 students in grades 7-12. The student population reflects the area’s diversity – including students who are black, white, Latino and Asian.
TEALS volunteers, Roche says, “have a sensitivity” to students from different backgrounds.
“That’s really helpful with TEALS having that on their radar,” Roche says. “If it’s always the student who went to computing summer camp raising his hand in class every single time, if he always gets called on – he’s going to get better, and the others won’t.”
By taking a TEALS class, Victoria Tran of San Francisco, and the daughter of Vietnamese immigrants, learned about career paths she might not otherwise have considered – or been self-assured enough to try.
“I’m getting better and better. I feel more confident in my abilities. I’ve never been so sure of myself and what I can do,” says Tran, who is contemplating majoring in computer science or electrical engineering in college.
In the state of Washington, TEALS is in its second year at the public International School in Bellevue, where teacher Janet Roberts has been working with TEALS volunteers to teach computer science.
“I have some ancient programming experience in Fortran, and without the expertise of the TEALS people, it would have been very difficult to launch this course,” says Roberts, who also teaches math.
The TEALS volunteers, Roberts says, “have been amazing, dedicated and patient” in working with both her and the students. Last year, there were two classes in AP Computer Science offered, with 55 students in both classes at the high school, which has about 300 students.
Joey Cannon, 18, took the TEALS class last year at the International School and is helping with it this year as a teacher’s assistant.
Without the TEALS program, he says, the school’s AP Computer Science class “wouldn’t be possible,” Joey says. “Even if we just had one teacher who knew all of it really well, it would have been hard for them to be able to provide all the help that students needed.”
Making computer science education the rule and not the exception is achievable, but it takes everyone’s help.
Says TEALS founder Wang: “We need to get to a point where computer science classes are offered alongside other classes like biology, chemistry and physics. We have a long road ahead of us. Microsoft is sort of seeding this investment, but in order for this problem to be solved, we’ve got to have everybody joining us.
“You can think of this is as a movement, and Microsoft is supporting a movement,” Wang says. TEALS “is really there to help our local schools, all of our local schools, wherever they may be, to prepare our kids to make sure they’re ready for what comes next, no matter what they do with their lives.”
Microsoft extends this commitment to the workplace as well through its Explore Microsoft 12-week summer internship program, specifically designed for college students. Explore Microsoft offers a rotational experience that enables the students to gain experience in different software engineering roles.
That’s where Chuma Kabaghe, a native of Zambia attending the University of Illinois, got her start.
“The Explore program exposed me to the three core technology disciplines at Microsoft. I also learned about various areas in the technology sector,” said Kabaghe. “The Explore program allowed me to see what is possible and gave me an opportunity to prove to myself that I really do have what it takes to be a successful software engineer.”
And she does. Kabaghe has now joined Microsoft in that role.
Lead image: Victoria Tran at a TEALS coding event in San Francisco.
In Brazil, Nadella met Lívia and Cecília, two young girls with cerebral palsy who bowl on Xbox as part of an innovative Kinect-enabled therapy at an institute managed by AACD, a nonprofit that helps children with disabilities. 
