There have been many different versions of Microsoft Office released for an equally large number of different operating systems. One of the latest versions is Office 365, the cloud based version of Office aimed at small businesses which replaces Office Live Small Business. It has proven to be a solid product. There is one issue however that businesses need to overcome before they fully migrate to the cloud.

With the release of Microsoft Office 365 last year, Microsoft said that they would not be supporting Office Live Small Business (OLSB) and users would have to migrate over to Office 365. If your company used OLSB, you already know that your website was taken offline and all data was inaccessible as of April 30.

Microsoft hasn’t left businesses without a solution, they offer OLSB users a six-month free trial to Office 365. The major problem with many cloud services emerged at this point however, businesses had to get their data off OLSB and onto Office 365, not an easy feat, especially for small business owners lacking the required technical know-how.

If a small business owner chose to do the migration themselves, Microsoft had a 21 page help walkthrough for the migration process. Any migration is a daunting when you also have to focus on running a business, one with a 21 page document can be downright dreadful.

We’re not saying you shouldn’t use Office 365, it’s a great office suite for small businesses that offers many improvements over OLSB and many businesses have been happy they switched over. The issue is that when it comes to your business and its documents, the migration needs to be done right the first time, no mistakes. How do you ensure this? By contacting us, we will be able to help with your migration, and have you up and running an a newer and better system in no time.

One of the most common pieces of software found on nearly every computer is the office suite. Microsoft is arguably the most popular office suite out there and their cloud office suite, Office 365, is a viable option for small business owners looking to save money. One of the integral parts of Office 365 is Word, which has many useful features including the ability to make templates.

Believe it or not, everytime you start a new blank document, you’re actually using a template. Word offers a number of pre made templates to choose from, but they’re not really designed for business users. Instead, you can create your own custom templates. Here’s how.

How to create a template based off a current document If you’ve created a document and would like all other similar documents to have the same layout and styling, you can turn the document into a template by:

1. Opening the document in a new window. Be sure that you’ve saved the changes to the final document.
2. Making changes to the document so that in the future, you can easily add missing information. Note: don’t save the document, as any changes will be made to the original version.
3. Clicking File followed by Save As. Be sure to save the document in the Documents subfolder of the Libraries directory. This can be found on the left side of the Save As window.
4. Naming the document as you like. It’s a good idea, but not necessary, to put template in the title.
5. Selecting Word Template from the Save as type field.

Your template will show up as a selectable template when you start a new Word document. Click on My templates to access it. Be aware that whatever you have in the document when you create the template will be in every new document you open using the template.

If you realize you’ve made a mistake, open the template, make the changes and select Save As. Instead of entering a new file name, locate the original template, and click on it. Word will automatically apply the name of what you’ve clicked. Press Save and confirm the overwrite. You can use this method to any template, including the premade ones. If you do make changes to a premade template, the updated version will be located in the My templates section.

There are many ways you can tweak Word to meet your needs, and templates are a great way to ensure similar documents will look the same, while saving you time. If you’d like to learn more ways you can customize Word, or any other program in the Office 365 suite, please contact us.

Survey, poll and voting. Whatever you call it, there’s a good chance that you use these in your office. Whether it’s to ask your employees where to go for lunch, or ask them how you think you should answer an email, they’re an important part of the modern office. Did you know you can use Microsoft 365’s Outlook to conduct these surveys?

Here’s how you can create polls and votes in your emails using Microsoft 365’s Outlook.

1. Open Outlook, and click New Message. If you have an email you’d like to attach a poll to, and forward it to others, open the email and click Forward.
2. Click on Options, located at the top of the window you compose the email in. From the drop-down menu, select Tracking.
3. Click Use Voting Buttons.
4. Choose from the options.

If you choose Custom, you’ll be able to customize the names of the buttons. This is done by:

1. Follow steps 1-4 above, and select Custom.
2. A window called Message Options will open, under Voting and Tracking Options select Use voting buttons.
3. Delete the default names and enter the name of the buttons you’d like to use. Be sure to separate them with a semicolon, with no spaces e.g., Choice One;Choice Two;Choice Three.
4. If you want a read and delivery receipt sent to you, press the two respective boxes below Use voting buttons.
5. Click Close. You’ll notice the buttons show up in the area where you compose your email. Compose the rest of your email, and click Send.

You can review the results by opening the email you sent, usually found in the Sent Items folder on the left-hand side of the Outlook window. In the open email, press the Message tab followed by Show and Tracking. If there haven’t been any responses the Tracking option will be grayed out, and you’ll be unable to click on it.

Being able to include a poll in your emails is a great feature of Office 365 that can be used for many situations. If you’d like to learn how to use other features of Office 365 please contact us.

The cloud has become one of the most talked about technical trends of the past few years, it seems like every company is trying to utilize it. A large number of businesses have developed versions of their software that have cloud elements, like storage. Microsoft is one of these companies, offering a cloud version of their popular Office suite - Office 365. There are some great benefits to using Office 365.

There are four main benefits to using a cloud based office suite like Office 365.

Prevent save disasters. One thing every employee has done is get caught up in their work and forget to save, only to have the program or computer crash resulting in the loss of their work. By using Office 365, changes are automatically saved and synced with the cloud, so if something does happen, you probably won’t lose any of your work.

Access from more devices. As Office 365 is browser based, you can access it on a tablet or smartphone. This means you don’t have to be on your computer to access and edit documents. If you give lots of presentations and have a tablet with a data connection, you could ditch the laptop all together.

Eliminate forgotten documents. It can be embarrassing to show up to an important meeting only to realize that you’ve forgotten an essential document back at the office. If this happens, you can just log into Office 365 and access the document.

More storage. With computers, there’s generally a fixed amount of storage available, when it’s used up, you have to free up space by deleting old files. This can be a problem, especially if you have to keep files and information due to legal requirements. Office 365 has plans that allow your company to have as much storage as you need.

These are just four of the benefits to using Office 365 in your business. If you’re looking to move your office suite into the cloud, or would like to learn more about Office 365, please contact us.

When we use office suites like Microsoft Office 365, we tend to spend a large amount of our time using the mouse to switch between tasks and features. In the interest of making you more productive and it easier to move around the program, Microsoft has introduced a number of keyboard shortcuts, no mouse required.

If you use Office 365, you probably spend a large percentage of time using Outlook. Here are some time saving Outlook keyboard shortcuts. These will work with both Windows and Mac operating systems.

Control + 1: Pressing this will switch to Mail. If you’re using a Mac, press command + 1.

Control + 2: This shortcut will switch to your Calendar. On the Mac press command +2.

Control + 3: This shortcut will open your Contacts. On the Mac press command + 3.

Control + Shift + M: This shortcut will open the compose a new message window. You can press this from anywhere in Outlook. On the Mac press command + Shift + M.

Control + Shift + A: When you press this, you’ll be able to set a new appointment. You can press this from anywhere in Outlook. On the Mac press command + Shift + A

F3: This shortcut will open the search pane. On the Mac you can press command + F3

Control + , or .: With a current message open you can press control + , (comma) to switch to the previous message in your Inbox, or press control + . (period/full stop) to switch to the next message in your Inbox. Pressing command + , or . will do the same thing on a Mac.

Control + Enter: When you have an email message open, pressing these keys will send the email. The Mac shortcut for this is command + return.

F4: If you press F4 Office 365 will close. To close the program on a Mac press command + Q

These are the most common shortcuts for Office 365. If you’d like to learn more Office 365 shortcuts or time saving tips, please contact us.

As we become more technologically advanced, the need for physical interaction is diminishing. More often than not, today’s young managers prefer to meet using technology. Microsoft has caught onto this and has integrated some innovative online meeting tools into their small business software, Office 365.

If you use Office 365 in your company, you can have online meetings through Microsoft’s messaging tool, Lync. Here’s how to start a meeting, and some features that make face-to-face meetings unnecessary.

How to start a meeting In Outlook’s calendar, schedule a meeting and invite the participants. When it’s time for the meeting, simply log into Lync, go to your calendar and select the meeting. You’ll have the option to Join online meeting, click it and the meeting will start. If a colleague is online and you would like them to join the meeting, click on their name and drag them over to the meeting window.

Features you can use during the meeting There are a number of useful things you can do in the meeting including:

• Video calls. If you and the attendees have webcams, you can turn the meeting into a video call by pressing the webcam button beside the attendees’ names.
• Share and share alike. Press Share (beside video) in the meeting window to get a dropdown menu with a number of things you can share with the participants. Say you are going to do a demonstration on your screen, you can share it with the attendees by selecting Main Monitor. You can also share presentations or programs.
• Change the presenter. If an employee would like to show something from their screen, or is going to present something, you can give them presenter status by right clicking on their name and selecting Make a Presenter.
• No interruptions. If one person is presenting, and another has a question, they don’t have to stop the presentation to ask a question, they can simply select IM and type the question. All participants will see it, and the presenter can answer the question when they are finished.

If you’re looking for an alternative to physical meetings, Office 365 has a great set of products that will allow you to do just that. To learn more about Office 365 or any of Microsoft’s other products please contact us, we’re ready to assist you.

Businesses have been using Microsoft Office for years and many users, if polled, would count themselves as experts. Users in their numbers have already adopted Microsoft’s cloud offering, Office 365, as their main office productivity suite. The same features from previous versions are included, not forgetting the option to include electronic business cards in your emails.

Here’s how to create and share an electronic business card:

Create an Electronic Business Card

1. Open Outlook and select Contacts followed by Home. Click on New Contact.
2. When the Contact window opens, press Business Card and the Edit Business Card window will open.
3. You will be able to enter contact information into the relevant areas under the Fields box.
4. If you want to add an image or change the layout of the business card, press the Layout button located in the right side of the screen.
5. When you have entered the information, press Ok and the business card will be saved as a .vcf file which is readable by most email clients.

Add an Electronic Business Card to an Email If you have saved a contact’s information as a business card, you can easily attach the card to an email.

1. In a message select the Contacts pane and search for the business card you would like to attach. When you find it, click it.
2. Select the Home tab, followed by Forward Contact. A drop-down menu will open, select As a Business Card.
3. You will see the business card as an attachment in the email.

Add a Business Card as a Signature You can add a business card to your signature in any email.

1. When you create an email message click Signature and select Add signature.
2. Select the signature you would like to use, if you have one. If not, press anywhere in the white space below Edit signature.
3. Click Business Card beside the paragraph alignment buttons in the Edit signature field.
4. Select the contact name you use and press Ok. Your contact information will show up at the bottom of the email as a downloadable .vcf file.

If you’re a user of Office 365 and would like to learn more, or would like more information on Office 365 or other products, please give us a call.

There are many tools businesses use during their day-to-day operations, but only a few are used by businesses across all industries. One that will be familiar to all is the office suite; comprised of a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation software and an email client. The most popular being Microsoft Office, which Microsoft has recently moved to the cloud.

Microsoft’s cloud based office suite for businesses is called Microsoft Office 365. Office 365 includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and OneNote - and Microsoft Server products e.g., Lync 2010 and SharePoint Server. All programs are accessed via a Web browser, offering users the ability to access the programs from the office, home or anywhere in between.

On March 14, 2012 Microsoft held a press conference announcing that the price of Office 365 subscriptions will be reduced by up to 20%. This decrease will apply to all new and renewing direct customers.

The price cut is a great advantage to many potential customers as it makes Office 365 more competitive with other cloud based office solutions such as Google Apps. This is also beneficial as many businesses already use the desktop versions of Microsoft Office. If they switch to Office 365, employees will be comfortable with the cloud version, as the software is exactly the same as the desktop version.

It’s the perfect time to look into Office 365 and see what it can bring to your organization. If you’d like to learn more about Microsoft Office 365 or other products from Microsoft, we are your go-to experts and will be more than happy to help.

Technology is advancing at such a rapid pace that many people replace their electronic devices almost every two years. This growth in the number of devices we own has led to an increase in the amount of e-waste we produce, and disposing of it needs to be done properly. Throwing it out on the curb beside the garbage is a no-no. Fear not, we are here to help.

Here’s how you can safely dispose of your old electronics:

Disposal points E-waste is becoming a large problem, disposing of it safely is a bigger one. In the West, many big-box stores and retailers have programs where you can drop off your old gadgets, often receiving store credit in return. Many municipalities are also doing their part and have set up e-waste collection points. The vast majority of these devices are broken down, with usable and valuable parts salvaged and sold back to manufacturers.

If the devices still work, some stores may even repair/upgrade them and resell them. Others will be shipped to China or Africa, where the parts are often saved or passed onto those who are in need. It’s a good idea to consult with your local government authority to see what they do with devices, and prepare accordingly. Most of the time, it’s as simple as bringing the device, with no cables or batteries attached, to the collection center, putting it on a counter and walking away.

If your local collection point ships products overseas for disposal, you should ensure that any and all electrical equipment is disabled. This means pulling wires from connection points, and removing batteries from phones. The reason for this is because many products are shipped and stored in compacted cubes, often within close proximity of static conducting elements. Given the right conditions, this could start an electrical fire that’s nearly impossible to contain.

Before you do this however, there are a few things you can do:

Computers When disposing of old computers, you should ensure to wipe all data on the hard drives. If you don’t, you might be surprised at how easy it is to access hard drives. Often, all it takes is a program downloaded from the Internet, a few mouse clicks, a line of code and ‘bam’, access granted.

The best thing to do is use a utility program like Eraser for Windows and the included Disk Utility for Mac. Some people go so far as taking the hard drive and RAM out of the computer and physically smashing it, or wiping a magnet over it. It should be noted that simply hitting the drive with a hammer or exposing it to magnetism may not destroy all the data. To do so, you’ll need to open the hard drive’s case by taking the screws off, yell, ‘Hulk smash’, while smashing the plates inside and then wave a magnet over it.

Phones Phones are a little easier to dispose of. First transfer all important information and remove any added memory cards. Next, do a full Factory Reset and pick the option to wipe all data. Finally, remove the battery and you should be good to go.

Office equipment If you’re disposing of external hard drives, you can basically do the same things as you would with the hard drive in your computer - wipe, smash and magnetize. For office equipment like printers and faxes, it can be a bit harder. Most manufacturers will tell you to remove all ink cartridges and paper and may have a way to wipe any flash memory on the device. It’s best to contact the manufacturer before you try anything though.

In general, it’s a good idea to contact a professional like us before disposing of office equipment, as we may have a better way to do so, or be able to take devices off your hands. Next time you have to get rid of some electronics, contact us.

Wireless connections are a great thing, as you can connect devices to the Internet and one another without the need for cables. Sadly, many of us don’t use wireless devices much beyond Wi-Fi. As we continue to use an increasing number of devices, all of which use cables, it can be hard to keep them in order. If you have a mess of cables in your office, it may be time to straighten them out.

Like most things in business, organization is key, and a neatly organized cable system not only helps IT, but can help ensure you can troubleshoot/repair if an IT professional isn’t available to do so in person.

If your server room/office looks like a Jackson Pollock painting, there are a few measures you can take to ensure a neat and tidy set of cables.

• Use a cabling professional. If you are starting out with a new system, or moving offices and need to lay new cable, it’s a good idea to skip the DIY and contact a professional who can help. This will help minimize cable mess along with potential performance and connection issues.
• Make a device map. On a piece of paper or chart, depending on how many devices you have, mark every device, assign them a unique number and mark what they connect to. For example, if you have a server and five computers, all these should link to the server.
• Tag on the hub. Use the numbers you’ve just applied to the devices and mark their current location on the Patch Panel - the panel on a server or electrical device where you attach cables. For example, If Computer #1 connects to Patch Panel B, mark this on the panel.
• Untangle those wires. Once you know the connection location, you can unplug all the cables, untangle them and plug them back in, in an orderly manner. Use Zip-Ties or twist ties to link cables together to make them easier to move or keep track of.
• Use colored cables. If you have different types of devices connected to one hub, it’s a good idea to use different colored cables so you know what is connected. For example servers could be red cords, printers yellow and computers white/blue.

Is your cabling in need of a good organizing but you lack the time or are unsure of how to go about it? Contact us, we can help.