Most people understand the core capabilities in Micrfosoft Office and Office 365: they can log in, access email, upload documents, join in discussions. But are there features that go largely unused, but which can help you unlock personal or team productivity? This presentation walks through the Top 20 Office and Office 365 productivity features that can help your end users get the most out of the and related Microsoft Office functionality.
Top 20 Office and Office 365 Productivity Features You Need to Know
1. Top 20 Office and Office 365
Productivity Features
You Need to Know
Christian Buckley
Founder & CEO of CollabTalk LLC
Office Server and Services MVP
2. Christian Buckley
Founder of CollabTalk LLC
Office Servers and Services MVP
cbuck@collabtalk.com
www.buckleyplanet.com
@buckleyplanet
3. CollabTalk.com
CollabTalk provides academic research and community-driven
conversations around key tools and trends in the enterprise
collaboration, social, and business intelligence ecosystem, allowing
you to stay on top of these changes -- and ahead of the game.
Our latest research project:
The State of Hybrid SharePoint
http://hybrid-sp.collabtalk.com/
5. • Worldwide spending on public IT
cloud services will grow
• from $47.4 billion in 2013
• to more than $107 billion in 2017
http://www.eweek.com/small-business/public-it-cloud-services-
spending-to-reach-108-billion-by-2017-idc.html
6. • Over the next several years,
the primary driver for cloud
adoption will shift from
economics to innovation as
leading-edge companies
invest in cloud services as
the foundation for new
competitive offerings.
Frank Gens, Senior Vice President
and Chief Analyst at IDC
12. Power BI
Microsoft Power BI transforms your company's data into rich visuals for you
to collect and organize so you can focus on what matters to you. Stay in
the know, spot trends as they happen, and push your business further.
Resources
• The Office 365 content pack enables you to use the powerful reporting and analytics
capabilities of Power BI to analyze and create interactive dashboards.
http://bit.ly/1NGR78P
• Microsoft Power BI Blog https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/
• The White Pages (MVP John White’s blog) http://whitepages.unlimitedviz.com/
14. Delve
Microsoft Delve is a data visualization and discovery tool that incorporates
elements of social networking and machine learning with the search
capability of the Microsoft Office 365 Suite. It is a cloud-based service offered
through the Office 365 suite to help users find and discover pertinent
information across Office 365.
Resources:
• What is Office Delve? http://bit.ly/1zEwMHk
• Welcome to Delve http://bit.ly/1F3KkDa
• Making Sense of Office Graph and Delve (buckleyplanet) http://bit.ly/1HlFLkX
• A revamped Microsoft Delve looks like a corporate mashup of Facebook and LinkedIn
http://bit.ly/291Ddjf
16. Sway
Helps gather, format, and share your ideas, stories, and presentations
on an interactive, web-based canvas that looks great on virtually any
screen.
Resources:
• Your Sway home page https://sway.com/my
• Getting started with Sway (Microsoft) http://bit.ly/1MDywbc
22. • Connects to your enterprise applications, quick task tiles,
and a user's My apps page
• Integrate with Azure AD to make visible on user’s apps page
Resources:
• Pin your own sites and apps (Microsoft) http://bit.ly/1TDFJOf
App launcher extensibility
25. Skype integration with Office & OneDrive
Resources:
Skype for Business product page (Microsoft)
https://products.office.com/en/skype-for-business/
Office 365 enterprise users get Skype for Business meeting, conferencing,
and calling features (VentureBeat) http://bit.ly/1RgIti9
Skype vs. Skype for Business: Who can stick with the free app, who needs
to upgrade (PCWorld) http://bit.ly/1FdhgpR
28. Microsoft Stream
Engage and inspire your workforce. Securely upload and share videos from
across your organization to improve communication, participation, and
learning. Features end user tagging and discovery capability, allowing
anyone in an organization to share and consume video content. To be
integrated into Office 365 Video.
Resources
• Microsoft Stream website https://stream.microsoft.com/en-us/
• Official Microsoft blog http://bit.ly/2qQcMnK
• Microsoft Stream 101 http://www.windowscentral.com/microsoft-stream-intro
• Microsoft Stream: The future of secure business video http://tek.io/2rbjNm2
29. One utility that I love:
Tagging for status
change alert in Skype
31. Microsoft To-Do app for task management
Available in Preview, displacing Wunderlist over next few months
Helps you to identify and maintain tasks across devices
Intelligent suggestions for your day, based on you’re activities
Integrations with Office and Outlook
Built entirely in the cloud
Resources:
Office blog http://bit.ly/2oph8jH
Overview video http://bit.ly/2ovyY3H
Getting started (Microsoft) http://bit.ly/1RZv7I8
32. Calendar peek
Resources:
Keep a calendar and your appointments
and meetings always in view (Microsoft)
http://bit.ly/1PWIczj
34. Docs.com
Cloud site on which you can create a visually appealing online portfolio
that can include OneNote notebooks, Word documents, Excel workbooks,
PowerPoint slide decks, interactive Sways, PDFs and a host of web
content. Docs.com retains all your Office documents’ rich formatting,
animations and formulas and can be easily shared with to the world.
Resources:
• Docs.com Blog https://blog.docs.com/
• Frequently Asked Questions about Docs.com http://bit.ly/290RK02
• Docs.com, an educator’s wonder tool http://bit.ly/28YsByg
• Microsoft pulls then revives Docs.com search after complaints of exposed
sensitive files http://zd.net/2npz0gf
37. Auto-Save in Word
People dread losing their work due to a system crash. By auto-saving what you're working on
every minute or two, you get an extra level of protection.
Select File - Options - Save and reduce the
default Save AutoRecover information from
10 minutes to 1 or 2 minutes.
http://bit.ly/2nyKICj
38. Move Your Word Auto Recovery Folder To The Cloud
If Word ever crashes or you experience a system crash while you have a document open, you
can likely recover most if not all of your document through the auto-recovery copy that the
app saves regularly. But if you're looking to be extra safe, you should consider changing the
Word auto recovery folder's location to a cloud drive.
You can use just about any service that has a desktop app and syncs files to the cloud.
Dropbox, OneDrive, and Google Drive are all options. Here's how:
http://bit.ly/1PQB7Su
39. Customize the Recent Documents List
Word shows you a useful list of recently opened documents when you click on the File tab, then
choose Open from the menu at the left. If you have a document or several that you regularly open
and close throughout your working day, you can pin those documents to the top of the Recent
Documents list to make opening them much quicker.
Simply right click the document you want to
pin and choose 'Pin to list', or click on the
pin to the right of the name of the document
you want to choose.
40. Use Outline View In Word To Reorder
Headings In A Large Document
If you're looking to copy a section from one
document to another, this is possibly one of the
easiest ways to do it.
Word's outline view has a tool that lets you select
headings and move them up/down in the
document.
http://bit.ly/1PQB7Su
41. Create A Master Document And
Add Subdocuments In Word 2016
MS Word has long had a really useful feature that allows users to manage large documents and their
subsections that they're collaborating on by separating sections into different files. The subsections or
subdocuments make it easy to update and export parts of a large document. The feature isn't just great
for large documents but also for smaller ones that have many seemingly independent sections.
Identify a document as the Master Document and then identify the subdocuments. Subdocuments can be
split or merged with other subdocuments, or you can add a different document as a subdocument.
http://bit.ly/2nEdG4e
42. Turn notes into calendar items
You can use Microsoft's note-taking tool, OneNote, inside of
Microsoft Outlook.
So, if you write a to-do list in OneNote, you can easily convert it
to a bunch of tasks with deadlines and reminders on your
calendar.
You can add automatically add calendar meeting details like
date, location, topic, agenda and attendees, to your notes. Then
you can email the meetings notes to you team using the “Email
Page” button.
http://read.bi/2nyM6Vv
43. Create a Search Folder in Outlook
A Search Folder is a powerful way to triage your
messages and bring some sanity to your inbox.
For instance, you can create a search folder for
mail you want to follow up, or flag messages from
specific people, groups or list.
Click the Folder tab then click New Search
Folder then choose the type of Search Folder you
want to create from within one of the groups.
Select the mail folder and click OK. A search folder
is created in the Navigation Pane. Any messages I
choose to follow up will be available there when I
need them.
http://bit.ly/2oTxroS
44. Configure your AutoCorrect
Speed up your writing with AutoCorrect. If you
frequently misspell the same words, add them
to your AutoCorrect dictionary. Choose Tools >
AutoCorrect, and add entries to automatically
fix your terrible typing habits.
You can also add to your AutoCorrect dictionary
from Word’s automatic spellcheck. Control-Click
a misspelled word, and use the context menu to
add its replacement to AutoCorrect.
http://bit.ly/2nDSKL3
47. Delay Sending Emails In Outlook With A
Rule So You Can Undo Send
Gmail has a built-in feature that lets you 'undo' an
email that you've sent. It's there to help you avoid last
minute email accidents such as forgetting to attach a
file. It gives you a brief window in which you can stop
a sent message from being delivered. It's widely
reported that this feature has saved lives.
In Outlook and would like a similar feature on the
desktop app, you can set it up yourself with an
Outlook rule.
Here's how: http://bit.ly/2o4wlJQ
48. Find Which Slide In Your PowerPoint
Presentation Is The Largest In Size
If the size of a presentation file ever becomes a problem, either when emailing it, or when sharing it via
a cloud file sharing service, you will either have to find an alternative method to send the file or you will
have to cut it down to size. Here's how you can check which slide in a presentation is the largest in size
and cut back where it really matters.
http://bit.ly/2owKKz8
49. Limit desktop notifications to
only the most important emails
It's terribly distracting to constantly be told "you've
got mail!" but you still want to get notified for the
most important alerts. In Outlook, set desktop
notifications only for those VIP messages.
Simply right click on an annoying message, and
create a new rule.
50. Get emails that aren't sent directly
to you OUT of your inbox
In an old post, Scott Hanselman details his GTD organization method for Outlook. One of
the best tips is to use a special "Inbox – CC" folder to gather all the emails that aren't sent
directly to you. That way, your inbox is focused on only the most important emails.
To set this up, go to Rules > New Rules…. Then click the "Advanced Options" button. In
the Rules Wizard, select "where my name is not in the To box" and then in the next screen,
"move it to the specified folder."
Alternatively, set up a VIP email folder and move "emails sent only to me" into that special
folder.
http://bit.ly/2owlCsJ
51. #30 – Some Possibly Useful Keyboard Shortcuts
Keyboard shortcuts for Microsoft Word on Windows http://bit.ly/2n6tQqW
Keyboard shortcuts in Word for Mac http://bit.ly/2nRUEIB
Excel keyboard shortcuts and function keys for Windows http://bit.ly/2owkm90
Keyboard shortcuts in Excel 2016 for Mac http://bit.ly/2nE9ulh
Keyboard shortcuts in OneNote for Windows 10 http://bit.ly/2oDGKty
Keyboard shortcuts in SharePoint Online http://bit.ly/2nSfAiU
Keyboard shortcuts in Outlook on the web http://bit.ly/2o4Ckyn
Keyboard shortcuts for Skype for Business http://bit.ly/2nWelAZ
Keyboard shortcuts for Office Delve http://bit.ly/2nWfGYi
Keyboard shortcuts for OneDrive http://bit.ly/2nE19xJ
Keyboard shortcuts for Yammer http://bit.ly/2owoxS3
Keyboard shortcuts in PowerPoint Online http://bit.ly/2nSbo2J
Keyboard shortcuts in PowerPoint 2016 for Mac http://bit.ly/2n6kziw
Microsoft Teams keyboard shortcuts http://bit.ly/2n6kUlB
He goes on to say “The emergence of cloud as the core for new 'business as a service' offerings will accelerate cloud adoption and dramatically raise the cloud model's strategic value beyond CIOs to CXOs of all types."
You see what I did there? I jumped right to where I said you should not jump. But after all, I don’t know the specifics of your organizations, or the maturity level of your collaboration efforts to know which pieces to suggest. Technology can be a crutch – because its easier to stand here and talk about tech than it is to get at the root of the problems within any organization, which are inevitably people and cultural issues that keep you moving forward with your strategy.
Having said that, there are tools that can move you in the right direction
Share your work with the world
Publish unlimited PowerPoint, Word, Excel, Office Mix, and PDF documents, as well as Sways, for free – always with rich formatting intact.
Office Lens now converts pictures of paper documents to PDF files—Go paperless! The Office Lens app for Windows Phone makes pictures of whiteboards and docs readable and saves them to OneNote. Now you can use Office Lens to take a picture of a document save it as a PDF file. The file is automatically saved to your OneDrive, so you can access and search it on any device. It’s like having a scanner in your pocket.
Office Mix authoring now easier for first-time users—Getting started with Office Mix, the free add-in for PowerPoint, just got easier for new users. Step-by-step instructions guide you through creating your first mix recording in two minutes or less. And the new Create an Office Mix template links you to examples and tutorials. For experienced users, publishing Office Mix presentations is now easier.
Sharing Office Mixes on social networks and improved embedding available—When you play a public Office Mix with audio or video, you can now pause the mix to see options to share to your favorite social network, including Twitter. And added support for two of the most popular embed formats on the web, embed.ly and oEmbed, means you can embed a mix in your blog or website.