Take pictures and insert them directly into your presentation, additional cloud storage partners, and more. See what's new here in February here
February has been another busy month for releases across our Office clients on Windows, Mac, iOS and Android. There are a number of exciting new capabilities in Outlook, Word, Excel and PowerPoint. In addition, we released the first cumulative feature update since the initial September release of the Office 2016 apps—otherwise known as the “Deferred Channel” build—for our commercial customers. Read on for the details.
Earlier this year we announced real-time co-authoring support for Word 2016 as part of the Office 2016 Preview. For the last several months, this feature has been available to preview users co-authoring Word documents stored on SharePoint Online. Today, we are pleased to announce that real-time co-authoring is also available as a first-look for Word documents stored on OneDrive as part of the latest Office 2016 Preview release.
Now when two or more users running the latest preview open the same Word document from OneDrive, they can co-author with others in real-time, which allows them to see the cursor location and text edits made by the other users automatically appear as they happen.
You are encouraged to try real-time co-authoring on OneDrive today. If you are receiving regular updates throughout the preview, you should have received this functionality as an update by 11 a.m. this morning.
To try out this feature, all you need is a Word document stored on OneDrive and two or more people running the latest preview. Make sure to give both users edit permissions so they can both edit the file. If this is the first time you’ve tried real-time co-authoring, you will see a prompt in the upper right corner of Word asking you if you’d like to automatically share your changes.
All you need to do is click Yes to join the experience. Once both authors have clicked Yes, you’ll see a flag representing the other author’s cursor position and then you will automatically see their edits come in.
Office 365 Groups: Quick tour of new user and admin experiences
Today we take a tour of all the recent updates to Office 365 Groups – spanning user, IT and developer experiences. Groups are pervasive in Office 365, providing self-service capabilities to accelerate collaboration – from conversations, calendar, files, to notes and planning. From an admin's perspective, this also means there is a need to create, modify and audit all activities; Groups in Azure AD provides these capabilities as well.
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New offers make it easier for small and midsized businesses to move to Office 365
Microsoft recently announced new FastTrak offers to make it easier for small to midsized businesses (SMBs) to move to Office 365 and experience the ability for your employees to access team files from anywhere, collaborate in real-time from any device and get enterprise-grade security that works as hard for you as for the largest organizations.
Customers with 50 to 149 seats of Office 365 enterprise and small business plans can take advantage of the customer success service Microsoft FastTrack. Previously available only to customers with 150 seats or more, FastTrack provides resources to ensure you get the most business value from your investment.
As a Microsoft Gold Partner, Managed Solution has the experience and a team of IT experts to help companies small and large get up and running with the right technology. In addition to extending FastTrack to more customers, Microsoft is expanding the FY16 Adoption Offer to include Office 365 small business plans and adding payouts for customer deployments of 50–149 seats. Contact us 800-307-0296 to see if you qualify.
Gartner recently analyzed cloud email usage among public companies of different sizes, industries and geographies to see how Microsoft Office 365 and Google Apps for Work are faring. The report states that more companies use Office 365 than Google Apps.
Today at the Municipal Information Systems Association of California (MISAC) meeting Sean Ferrel presented the latest business insights by Microsoft that are transforming the modern workplace
Managed Solution is the premier provider of IT support services and technology recommendations for the government sector. Founded in 2002, we enjoy a proud tradition of partnering with the IT staff of the many organizations we work with. We can even act as your IT team. For more information on government specific solutions contact Managed Solution at 800-220-4432 or fill out the contact form.
Cloud PBX with PSTN calling lets you connect your organization to the Public Switched Telephony Network (PSTN) and provides your users with a primary phone number in Skype for Business so they make and receive phone calls.
Users assigned phone numbers in Skype for Business Online can make and receive phone calls using Skype for Business IP phones, PCs and mobile devices. And, in case of emergencies, users can call 911 for help. To see how emergency calling works, see What are emergency locations and addresses?.
For PSTN calling, users can be assigned subscription-based plans for local (US domestic) calling only or local (US domestic) and international calling. See, Skype for Business Online licensing overview for details on licensing with PSTN calling.
IMPORTANT: At this time, PSTN calling is only available to organizations that have an Office 365 billing address that is based in the U.S.
Setting up PSTN calling for your users
IMPORTANT: For you to see the Voice option in the left navigation in the Skype for Business admin center, you must purchase at least one Enterprise E5 or Cloud PBX license and a voice calling plan.
Setting up PSTN calling is easy. There are five simple steps:
Purchase and assign an Enterprise E1, Enterprise E3, or Enterprise E5 license to your users. See, Assign or unassign licenses for Office 365 for business to assign your Office 365 licenses.IMPORTANT: You can use Skype for Business Online Standalone Plan 2 instead of an E1, E3, or E5 license but you can't use Skype for Business Online Standalone Plan 3.
Purchase and assign Skype for Business Online licenses to your users. See, Skype for Business Online licensing overview for more details on Skype for Business Online licensing options.If you are using an:
Enterprise E5 license for your users, you need to only purchase and assign a PSTN voice calling plan. Cloud PBX is included in the Enterprise E5 license.
Enterprise E1 or Enterprise E3 license for your users, you will need to purchase and assign a Skype for Business Cloud PBX add-on and then assign a PSTN voice calling plan to your users.
Get your phone numbersYou get the phone numbers for your users by either getting new phone numbers from Office 365 or use the phone numbers that you already have from your phone service provider or carrier.
Add emergency addresses and locations for your organizationBefore you can assign a phone numbers to users, you must have created at least one emergency address and if you need to, add an emergency location or locations. Emergency locations are associated to an emergency address to give a more exact location of a user within a building. See Add or remove an emergency address for your organization and Add or remove an emergency location for your organization to get details for adding emergency address and locations.
Assign a phone numbers to your usersThe last step is to assign phone numbers to users. While assigning a phone number to a user, you must associate an emergency address. See Assign, change or remove a phone number for a user to get details on assigning a phone number to a user.
What else do you need to know?
If you are going to use the existing phone numbers your already have, you will need to create a "port order". If you have 999 or fewer phone numbers, you can use the New Local Number Port Order wizard in the Skype for Business admin center. See Transfer phone numbers over to Skype for Business Online to get the details on transferring those phone numbers. If you have more than 999 phone numbers that you need to transfer, you will need submit a service request to get all of these phone numbers moved over to Office 365. See, Manually submit a port order request for details on doing this.
You can't transfer toll-free numbers or phone numbers used for data such as those phone numbers that are associated with a DSL line.
An emergency address is often referred to as a civic address, street address, or a physical address. It is the street or civic address of a place of business for your organization.
Emergency locations aren't validated, only emergency addresses are.
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.
Note takers rejoice! Take notes directly from a #Skype4B conversation by pressing Ctrl + N to open #OneNote. Conversation participants are automatically linked in the note for your reference.
