E-mail is a pretty incredible technology. With just a click a message can be sent thousands of miles in just a minute. And yet, for a while now, sometimes E-mail is just too slow and cumbersome! Perhaps you've come across this scenario: Someone emails you and/or a group of people looking for more information or providing information about something you are working on You need to collaborate on this with someone in your office You forward the email (or you/someone replies to the email without the outside sender) to communicate internally about the message It's possible you'll end up picking up the phone and calling someone because that's just easier than emailing back and forth Maybe you are even emailing attachments of a document as well so they can review what you are talking about The end result is that you were able to collaborate, but without taking advantage of modern technologies available to you. Your inbox might have numerous messages back and forth about the email and there might now be multiple copies of the same document on various email. There's a pretty simple solution for that. Use a modern collaboration system. If you are using Microsoft 365, that means using Teams. One simple button now exists to make that scenario a whole lot easier! Sharing an email into Microsoft Teams Select an email Click "Share To Teams" Select a Team and Channel to save to That's it! Once the email is there, you can use Teams to communicate and collaborate. Any attachments are saved where everyone in the Team can access them. And, a call, video, or screen share is just a click away! Your team members can easily reply back in real-time. This feature is ready to be used for any business on Microsoft 365. If you are an Aevo customer and don't see the option, please contact support to get it enabled. You can learn more about sharing an email from Microsoft Outlook to Microsoft Teams here. Interested in having a conversation about technology in your business? Send in a contact request at www.aevotec.com or email info@aevotec.com.

For this post we are going to assume your Business has already incorporated the basics of Microsoft 365 into your infrastructure. That means you have Office 365, you are using OneDrive, you are using SharePoint, and Teams is part of your day to day workflow. (If you are still saving most of your data to a server somewhere, you really need to read this post.) One useful feature available to you is the ability to configure alerts in SharePoint. With this feature enabled, you can receive an email or text message whenever there is a change to a particular folder. This feature is included with your subscription, the system is just waiting for you to enable it! Enabling alerts in SharePoint is easy First, navigate to the folder you want to setup an alert for: If you are using Teams, you are using SharePoint. You can open your "Files" tab and click "Open in SharePoint" In SharePoint, select the "..." menu and click "Alert Me": From here, configure the alert: Via the configuration menu you'll be able to... Give a title for your alert Setup who will receive alerts Configure if the notification will be via email or text Define what triggers an alert (e.g. if a new file is added or deleted) Define how frequently an alert is sent (e.g. Every time it is triggered vs daily or weekly) You also can manage your existing alerts Just below the option to enable alerts, is the option to manage existing alerts: From here, you are able to edit or delete your alerts: Click the alert name to edit it Pretty cool, right? Alerts like this can trigger new kinds of workflow in your business that can help you and your Staff become more productive. As you explore this feature, make sure you take it slow! Automation, even a simple email notification, can create workflow disruptions if they haven't been properly implemented. The alert feature in SharePoint can be used to to replace some of the steps in your existing processes. Some examples: Get notified when a signed agreement is added to a folder Configure notifications for when a file moves from one step (folder) to another Setup a notification for when something you have edited has been edited by someone else Create a customer folder for your customers and get a notification when they upload new documents Configure notifications to email your Ticketing / CRM systems to automatically trigger those systems to create tickets and reminders SharePoint Alerts are just the beginning of exploring automation options available to you as a Microsoft 365 enabled business. To learn more about using SharePoint Alerts, click here. Interested in having a conversation about technology in your business? Send in a contact request at www.aevotec.com or email info@aevotec.com.

We've written about simple tables, dropdown interfaces, online data imports, geographical visualizations, and referencing data from other data sources, there's just a seemingly never ending list of cool things you can do with Excel. Data Types in Excel is just another great feature to know about in Excel. Using Excel Data Types lets you easily pull linked data quickly into your spreadsheet that can be used however you like. Our demo uses U.S. States, but there are numerous data types available: Using Data Types In Excel Create of column of data with a data type (In our example, we used States) Select the "Data" tab Select the "Data Type" (In our example, "Geography") Click your table, then click to add linked data to your table With the linked data added to your table, you can use this data in formulas, charts, and with other components of your worksheet! You can learn more about using Excel Data Types here! Interested in having a conversation about technology in your business? Send in a contact request at www.aevotec.com or email info@aevotec.com.

It only took a bit over 4 years, but as of yesterday, Microsoft Teams now supports dragging attachments from Outlook into Microsoft Teams! This gives you a very fast and easy way to save attachments you receive via Email. How to use drag and drop support for file attachments: Open message in Outlook with attachment Open Teams Navigate to the Files tab of a channel you want to save to Drag the attachment from Outlook into Teams You'll see an "Uploading 1 Item" notification on the top right of Teams The attachment is now saved to Teams The feature should be enabled and ready for you to start using. If you don't see it, try restarting Outlook and Teams, then try again. If it still isn't working, contact your IT resource to make sure the feature has been turned on. Interested in having a conversation about technology in your business? Send in a contact request at www.aevotec.com or email info@aevotec.com.

Microsoft Publisher is a desktop publishing application that can be used for creating brochures, newsletters, cards, bulletins, and other types of graphical documents that you can print, email, or use in other applications. It is an application that has existed since 1991 and is included with the Microsoft Office suite. It's an application that is often overlooked and gets updated at a slower pace than more popular applications like Word, Excel, or Outlook. You likely have it installed on your computer right now, and it's very possible you have never used it. So what do you use Microsoft Publisher for? You can use Publisher for pretty much anything. From cards to posters to email announcements. There are examples throughout the www.aevotec.com website of images and PDFs that started in Publisher. Some recent use cases: Sales Brochure A monthly newsletter Email Holiday Greeting Social Media Post Design drafts for a website "Wear a mask" posters for the front door Reminder Bulletins for a bulletin board Graphical announcement used in Teams Why use Publisher instead of something better? It's easy to use and you are probably already paying for it. Microsoft Publisher Training is free and there are ready to use templates for pretty much any situation you can think of. If you have a Microsoft 365 subscription that includes Office Desktop Apps, the default installation includes Microsoft Publisher. Microsoft Publisher is not the best desktop or graphic design software out there. There are several fantastic options available for desktop and graphic design. Applications like InDesign and Photoshop are industry standards for good reasons. They are extremely powerful, but can have a learning curve and will have an additional cost for licensing. Sometimes "the best" isn't the right solution. Sometimes all you need is something quick, simple, and ready for you to use. Remember that Publisher exists the next time you need to make a brochure, announcement, or really just any quick graphic. It just might be the right tool for the job! Interested in having a conversation about technology in your business? Send in a contact request at www.aevotec.com or email info@aevotec.com.

Over the last year we've written posts on a wide range of technology topics. From planning for the next year to advising you to start using win+tab to a more recent post about how to use Microsoft 365's free stock images and media feature. As our last post for the year, we figured it would be a great time to take a look back at the top five posts of the year. Here are the most popular articles published over the last year: 1. Let's Document Internal Processes With OneNote! 2. Excel has a new feature: XLOOKUP (It's kind of a big deal) 3. Using Microsoft Teams To Train On Microsoft Teams 4. OneNote Is A "Secret" Productivity Weapon 5. Using Microsoft Whiteboard In A Teams Meeting Thanks for reading and see you next year! Interested in having a conversation about technology in your business? Send in a contact request at www.aevotec.com or email info@aevotec.com.

A couple of months ago, Microsoft started rolling out its "Premium Content Library" to beta testers. This library is a collection of stock photos, illustrations, and videos for businesses to use within the Microsoft 365 Office suite. Rather than pay extra for the use of this library, the intent was for it to be an additional benefit to being a Microsoft 365 subscriber. You can use these images and videos in your documents, spreadsheets, and presentations for no additional charge. The feature is leaving beta in the near future and will soon be ready for your business to utilize! How do I add premium content to my document? The feature will be available for office on the web as well as the desktop version. To test this today, you'll need to be running the "Insider" version of Office 365, you should contact your IT resource if you want to get access to this. However, if you wait, the update is rolling out of beta soon. One of the initial releases will be to add "illustrations" to Powerpoint. Here's an example of adding a premium illustration in PowerPoint: Open Powerpoint Insert Tab -> Icons Select the "Illustrations" tab Search and Pick an image You can then adjust the image as you need, from resizing to recoloring it! The images are completely licensed for your business to use! Again, it's still rolling out, if you don't already see the feature available for you, you can expect to see it soon. Don't want to wait? Reach out to your IT resource to have it enabled. Interested in having a conversation about technology in your business? Send in a contact request at www.aevotec.com or email info@aevotec.com.

In Windows 10, there is "secret" menu just a click away that gives you access to many important features! Alright, it's not really a secret as it's one of the most commonly used shortcuts in the IT world. Accessing the "Secret" Start Menu: Right click the Start Button That's it! Bonus Tip: Windows Key + X is a keyboard shortcut to bring up the same menu! It's a great way to get to important features as quickly as possible. You can use this menu to quickly access the Task Manager, uninstall applications, and restart your computer! Interested in having a conversation about technology in your business? Send in a contact request at www.aevotec.com or email info@aevotec.com.

Your business may qualify for a promotion that gives you a year of Microsoft Audio Conferencing licenses for free. Your business may be paying for a service (Zoom, WebEx, GoToMeeting, etc.) to host your meetings. Paired with this license, Teams can completely replace these services. So what is an "Audio Conferencing" license? With Microsoft Teams, a meeting consists of a host and their invited guests. Anyone can join that meeting with a PC, Mac, Smartphone, or Tablet. This is standard for any business using Microsoft Teams. When you make a normal meeting invite, it looks like this: However, there is another feature that allows each meeting to have a dial-in audio conferencing phone bridge. This feature allows anyone to dial-in with a telephone to join the audio. It also includes centralized security and configuration portals to streamline enablement and management. With this license assigned, your meeting invites will include dial-in numbers: A lot of businesses might already have Teams up and running, but many do not have the ability to have a phone bridge as it is an extra charge for most license levels. Microsoft's promotion provides a 1 year, full featured, enterprise grade audio conferencing solution to businesses for free. So how do you get the promotional license? Well, if you are an Aevo customer, you've already been contacted to enable the service. For non-Aevo customers, you'll need to contact your IT department or vendor to hook you up! If you don't have an IT vendor or department, here's a great company to contact! Once the promotional licenses are provisioned, it take can take a couple of hours for the service to be ready for testing. With the service enabled, every user with the license will have dial-in info automatically added to meeting invites. Click here to learn even more about Audio Conferencing in Microsoft 365 Interested in having a conversation about technology in your business? Send in a contact request at www.aevotec.com or email info@aevotec.com.

We are nearing the end of 2020 and we're still finding that many people don't realize they are walking around with a scanner in their pocket. Your phone can be used to scan, save, and sign documents. While you likely won't want to use your phone to scan large quantities of pages at a time, it can be a fantastic tool to have ready when you need it. How to scan a work document with your phone: Install OneDrive on your mobile device (iPhone / Android) Sign in with your work account Select the Scan Button (The camera icon on the bottom right) Set the mode to "Document" Tap the white circle to "Scan" Save the scanned file You can then access the scanned document via OneDrive on your phone, OneDrive from the web, or from your computer! That's it! The scanned file will be securely stored, backed up, and protected by your company's IT policies. Pretty cool, right? There are a lot of different options to explore within the OneDrive app (such as signing!). You can learn even more about using the scanning feature here. Interested in having a conversation about technology in your business? Send in a contact request at www.aevotec.com or email info@aevotec.com.

Recently Microsoft announced a new feature that allows you to use Word Online to upload an audio file for transcription. This feature allows you to upload a recording, transcribe that recording, identify speakers, and then copy the transcription into a Word document. Using the feature is as simple as it sounds: 1. Open a document in Word Online (Desktop version will get this feature later!) 2. Select the transcribe feature: 3. Upload an audio file or record audio: 4. The transcription feature will automatically try to identify different speakers in your recording. You can then label speakers and adjust text if needed. The checkbox "change all " will update the label for each transcribed text segment for that detected speaker. To hear the audio used click the timestamp to play the recording exactly where the transcribed text was detected. 5. Click "Add all to document" to copy the entire transcription into the Word document You can then copy, format, and modify the texted however you need. If you ever need to copy the text again, you can click the "Add all to document" button again. For a full tutorial on how to use this feature, click here. Pretty cool, right? Speech to text is not perfect, but with the integration of cloud technology and AI it has come a very long way. It's realistic to expect that you'll need to make a few edits to the detected transcription text. That said, the feature is impressive, easy to use, and is ready for you to start testing! Word Online transcription is available for Microsoft Office 365 subscribers and is available for you to start testing out today. If you don't see the feature available, reach out to your IT contact to have it enabled. Interested in having a conversation about technology in your business? Send in a contact request at www.aevotec.com or email info@aevotec.com.

It's easy to share your screen in Teams. You can share a whole monitor or a specific window. You can also share your PowerPoint presentation directly into a meeting and even give your viewers the ability to navigate through the PowerPoint themselves! Sharing a PowerPoint in a Teams Meeting Click "Share" in a meeting Select "PowerPoint" under the PowerPoint category Your presentation will now be visible to all attendees of the meeting. You can then select to move slides or give viewers access to move slides on their own. Learn more about this feature here. To see more pictures of goats, click here. Interested in having a conversation about technology in your business? Send in a contact request at www.aevotec.com or email info@aevotec.com.

If you haven't heard of Microsoft Whiteboard, it is a a "digital canvas app" that is designed to help you and your team better collaborate and visualize ideas. It is free, and ready for your business to start using. You are able to easily utilize Whiteboard in any Teams Meeting. All members of the meeting are able to see and contribute to the canvas for the meeting in real-time. The Whiteboard used in the meeting is saved and accessible via the Board Gallery of the Whiteboard App. How to add a Whiteboard to your Teams meeting: Join a Teams Meeting Click the "Share Content" icon Or, use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Shift+E Select "Microsoft Whiteboard" All participants of the meeting will now see the Whiteboard You can learn more about this feature here. Want to learn more about how to use the Whiteboard App? Click here. Interested in having a conversation about technology in your business? Send in a contact request at www.aevotec.com or email info@aevotec.com.

Interested in having a conversation about technology in your business? Send in a contact request at www.aevotec.com or email info@aevotec.com.

It's pretty crazy to think that we'd write a post about Walkie Talkies being a new feature in a modern collaboration system. Yet, here we are. Microsoft Teams has rolled out its Walkie Talkie feature. We've been testing out the Walkie Talkie feature for over a week now and it really brings out opportunities for collaboration amongst the team, especially with people working further apart. It provides a fun alternative to a group chat or meeting for an informal "Hey!". If you have ever used the Sprint/Nextel feature from years ago, or really, an actual Walkie Talkie, you'll be familiar with how it works: People join a Walkie Talkie Channel One at a time, people can talk by pressing the talk button Anyone on the channel can hear who is talking All you need is a mobile device running Microsoft Teams and the feature enabled by your IT Department. It's simple, seemingly archaic, yet, a blast! The feature is not going to be for every office or department. That said, here are a couple of use case examples: A quick communication channel for warehouse workers Method for a smaller group of teammates to stay in touch throughout the day Field Worker Communications for out of the office workers Communication Channels for each store or office Used for events and coordination A simpler method for low-tech environments or technology resistant staff to communicate on Teams Just a fun way for your staff to communicate internally There are even dedicated devices available that support the feature: The Samsung Galaxy X-Cover Pro has a dedicated Teams Walkie Talkie button There are headsets like the Jabra Blue Parrott which are wireless via bluetooth The Klein PTT Earpieces can add a dedicated wired Walkie Talkie button to any device. You can click here to learn more about using the Walkie Talkie feature in Microsoft Teams. Don't forget to contact your IT resource to enable the feature if you want to test it out! Interested in having a conversation about technology in your business? Send in a contact request at www.aevotec.com or email info@aevotec.com.