The Baretta

There is a lot of hype about businesses moving to Office 365, but what exactly is it and why is it so popular?  There are a waft of people (even in IT!) that have never heard of Office 365.  Over the next few months I will help demystify Office 365 & all the things great products that come with it. Question #1: What is Office 365 (O365)? O365 is a suite of products provided by Microsoft that can be purchased for a monthly or yearly fee. There are two basic types of subscriptions, Personal or Business. As part of a personal subscription , you are provided with the latest version of Microsoft Office (2016) which can be installed on any device. This includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Publisher, Outlook, etc. As part of a business subscription, in addition to a copy of Microsoft Office 2016 for all staff, you also get the option of using any of the list of products below which I will go into more detail on later: Yammer Skype for Business Exchange Online ...

On the 28th-29th April 2016, I attended the Digital Workplace Conference in Melbourne.  Here are my notes & thoughts about one of the sessions. Session:  From Intranet to Digital Workplace Speaker: James Robertson - @james_steptwo Session Takeaways: Intranets should achieve the objectives of the business.  Shouldn't be used for any one team to push their agenda or workload onto others. James' 3 simple steps for building a Digital Workplace: 1. Have projects to utilise the technology currently available 2. Develop a strategy for the technology that is on the horizon 3. Have a vision  to justify what paths you choose & that plainly explains what you are trying to achieve  6x2 Methodology - James' every-6-months approach to choosing the most critical & beneficial projects for the business.  As well as how to get executive buy in for your vision. A Week in the Digital Workspace  - A vision of how we will work in the...

On the 28th-29th April 2016, I attended the Digital Workplace Conference in Melbourne.  Here are my notes & thoughts about one of the sessions. Session:  Gather-Decide-Act: Three Business Process Case Studies That Transform Data Collection Into Inspired Action Speaker: Mike Fitzmaurice -  @MikeFitz Session Takeaways: Simple solutions using SharePoint lists and Nintex Forms to gather data easily Nintex Forms allow you to fill out forms in offline mode on a mobile device   Offline mode works like your email outbox.  It holds onto the data until there is an internet connection Mike's theory is that if you show a company how to collect data with a simple form, they will see the value of the solution & be inspired to act on building solutions for their other problems Tip: make data collection as simple as possible.  Don't build complicated forms Nintex Workflow also has the functionality to generate contract documents using the data captur...