20 Microsoft 365 Productivity Tips - Minnesota SharePoint User Group
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The document outlines various productivity tips and features available in Microsoft 365, including generating PowerPoint presentations from Word documents, creating tabs in Teams chats, sharing emails to Teams, restoring previous versions in File Explorer, and managing multiple calendars in Outlook. It highlights enhancements in tools such as Planner with increased labels for tasks, meeting reactions in Teams, web content capture in Edge, and transcription capabilities in Word. Additionally, it mentions the convenience of suggested meeting times in Outlook on the web and various workflow optimization strategies.
20 Microsoft 365 Productivity Tips - Minnesota SharePoint User Group
- 1. MN M365 User Group 20 Microsoft 365 Productivity Tips Christian Buckley AvePoint Thomas Duff Cambia Health
- 2. Thomas Duff Software Engineer at Cambia Health Thomas.Duff@CambiaHealth.com @Duffbert http://oneminuteofficemagic.com
- 3. Christian Buckley Microsoft GTM Director at AvePoint christian.buckley@avepoint.com @buckleyplanet http://www.buckleyplanet.com Please remember to subscribe on YouTube!
- 5. Generating a PowerPoint presentation from a Word document OK… this blew my mind. Joanne C Klein tweeted about the new Export to PowerPoint preview feature in Word on the Web. I gave it a try, and it's pretty impressive! Here's how it works… Here is a Word document I had lying around for a few years. I opened it up in the browser-based version of Word and clicked on File:
- 6. Generating a PowerPoint presentation from a Word document Export > Export to PowerPoint presentation (preview):
- 7. Generating a PowerPoint presentation from a Word document I then picked a recommended design theme and clicked Export:
- 8. Generating a PowerPoint presentation from a Word document After a couple of progress screens that lasted less than 10 seconds:
- 9. Generating a PowerPoint presentation from a Word document I had a presentation!
- 10. Generating a PowerPoint presentation from a Word document Now for a couple of caveats: ▪ This is only available on the browser-based version of Word. ▪ It's a preview feature, so don't be surprised if they continue to tweak it. ▪ It only pays attention to text in the Word document. It does not support any media types in the document. Having said that, it's pretty awesome. It's a great way to get an initial slide deck generated from content you already have in Word, and you can then work on fleshing out the slides for your presentation. Here's the Microsoft documentation on the feature: Microsoft Word and PowerPoint for the Web announce Export to PowerPoint presentation
- 12. Create Tabs in Teams Chats We’re all familiar with creating Tabs in Teams, but did you know that you can also create a Tab in a Chat? It is a great way to expand your collaborations with individuals or small groups without having to create the more “permanent” Teams or Channels. Tabs in channels can be seen by everyone in the Team, but Tabs in chats can only be seen by members of the chat. The same is true for bots used within private or group chats, which you can read more about at https://docs.microsoft.com/en- us/microsoftteams/platform/bots/ what-are-bots
- 13. Create Tabs in Teams Chats To get started, go into the target chat in Teams and select the + from the top nav to add a tab. The Add a Tab dialog will open, allowing you to select from all of the apps available to your organization. In this example, I want to post a blog post to our chat that we can reference in our ongoing conversations. Once saved, the new tab appears in our chat, and only members of the chat can view this information.
- 15. Sharing Emails to Microsoft Teams We've all been there… Someone sends out an email to a group of people, and pretty soon there are a number of replies coming in, none of which have all the information due to people replying at different times. Wouldn't it be nice if you could take that email and move it into a Teams chat or channel where everyone can discuss the original email and everyone sees everything to date? Now you can… using the Share to Teams button in Outlook! Here's how it works… I have an email that I'd like to move to a Teams chat or channel for further discussion. To move it, I can click on the Share to Teams button in the Message menu bar:
- 16. Sharing Emails to Microsoft Teams In the dialog box, I can select a Teams channel or chat to send the email to, along with a text message to get the conversation started. In this case, I'm sending it to our SharePoint Team Teams workspace, and specifically the General channel:
- 17. Sharing Emails to Microsoft Teams The email is now posted in the General channel, and people in that Team can now start commenting and replying on the email content, cutting out the whole "reply/reply to all" mess of disjointed replies and comments. Granted… in a perfect world, you would have started this discussion *in* Teams instead of via email, but sometimes the use case doesn't give you that option. For those situations where you want to open up a discussion on something that came to you via email, this works out well.
- 19. Restore previous versions in File Explorer It is often the small, incremental improvements that can add the most productivity to your daily activities. You can now view and restore versions of a document directly within File Explorer – rather than having to open the application to view the history.
- 20. Restore previous versions in File Explorer Simply right click on the file name, and from the menu dialog, select Version History The version history dialog opens, allowing you to scan through your various versions and open the right version.
- 22. Planner now has 25 labels for tasks When Planner first came out, you had six labels to use for categorizing and filtering your tasks. Depending on how much filtering and refining you wanted to do, you had to be pretty brutal in what to include and what to leave out. However, Planner now provides 25(!) labels, so you have a lot more flexibility in how to label and report on your tasks. Here's how it works… For our M365 Admin Planner, we had our six labels set to Action: Communicate, Action: Block, Action: Configure, No Action Needed, Action: Research, and Governance Discussion. But as you can see, the list of potential labels (and colors) increased from 6 to 25:
- 23. Planner now has 25 labels for tasks To create a new label, just click on the Pencil icon to edit the label. Type in the new name for that label, and press Enter:
- 25. Add your Personal Calendar to your Outlook work account Managing multiple calendars can be tricky. Add to that complexity the need to balance time between work and personal calendars. Outlook on the web has made that process easier. Now when you add a personal calendar to Outlook on the web, the times for those events will be shown as busy (with no details or information) when someone wants to schedule a meeting with you using the Scheduling Assistant in Outlook. Additionally, this new feature allows you to see your personal calendar side by side to your work calendar – in one single view. Read more at https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft- 365/blog/2020/07/14/get-control-microsoft-365/
- 26. Add your Personal Calendar to your Outlook work account To add your personal calendar within Outlook for the web, you start by clicking on the calendar icon. Then select the option to Add Calendar
- 27. Add your Personal Calendar to your Outlook work account The Add Calendar menu appears, with the option to add personal calendars.
- 28. Add your Personal Calendar to your Outlook work account In this example, I am going to add my Gmail calendar. Selecting that option… opens a sign in prompt for Google. Select your account and approve the access privileges.
- 29. Add your Personal Calendar to your Outlook work account Once added, you should receive a security notification to your personal email account notifying you of the change. From the Add Calendar dialog you can also verify all connected accounts. Back within your calendar view, you can now see your newly added and color-coded personal calendar (which you can toggle on and off)
- 31. The History Menu in Microsoft Teams If you spend most of your day in Microsoft Teams, you know how difficult it is to bounce back and forth between various teams, apps, tabs, and so forth. If you have to go to a new workspace, you then have to try and figure out where you were before. Microsoft has now made it easier to get back and forth between areas by giving you a History Menu in the upper-left corner of the Teams client, much like the forward and backward buttons in a browser. Here's how it works… In the upper-left corner of the Team client, you'll find forward and backward arrows to hover over to see the last few places you've been to in Teams:
- 32. The History Menu in Microsoft Teams In this example, I hovered over the back arrow and can see the last 12 locations I've been in, and I can quickly return to those locations without having to remember exactly how to drill down to them: This is a great feature and will save you a lot of time navigation around Teams on a daily basis.
- 34. Highlight part of an email and add it as a task in Outlook As part of the greater Tasks strategy across Microsoft 365, you can now highlight text in Outlook for the web and convert it to a task in Outlook – and in Microsoft ToDo. We have all received emails that contain next steps or instructions, but unless we convert that text into actionable tasks, things may get lost. You can now generate tasks from these emails while working in context in Outlook. Read more at https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft -365/blog/2020/07/14/get-control-Microsoft-365/
- 35. Highlight part of an email and add it as a task in Outlook In this example, I have sent myself an email with a list of reminders from my mobile device.
- 36. Highlight part of an email and add it as a task in Outlook By highlighting the text on the page, two options appear just above my selected text: 1. Send an email regarding the highlighted text 2. Create a task from the selected text To create a task, simply click on the task icon.
- 37. Highlight part of an email and add it as a task in Outlook The AI in Outlook for the web selects anything that appears to be a task, and automatically adds them to a list of tasks. From this view you can forward an individual item via email, highlight it (star), or mark it as completed. Additionally, you can create additional tasks from this view if other steps are required to completed these tasks.
- 38. Highlight part of an email and add it as a task in Outlook By clicking on the Tasks icon at the bottom left, you will find the new ToDo integration within Outlook for the web, and can open your Tasks list to see all of these items. And if you’re a fan of ToDo in the mobile app, these new tasks are instantly available within ToDo.
- 40. Meeting Reactions in Microsoft Teams Microsoft Teams has now provided a way to give visual feedback during a meeting with the use of Meeting Reactions. It's a quick way to express (and gauge) the feelings and emotions of the audience while you're presenting. Here's how it works… In the menu bar at the top of the screen, hover over the Raise Hand icon to get the four Meeting Reaction emoticons (Like, Heart, Applause, and Laugh). Click on whichever one is appropriate for you. Others in the meeting will see the emoticon on your picture:
- 41. Meeting Reactions in Microsoft Teams And if you're watching a presentation without all the meeting attendee images, you'll see the emoticons float up from the bottom of the screen as they are clicked by others: I've been in a few meetings where we've taken advantage of these to let the presenter know they like what was said. As a presenter, it's kinda nice. :)
- 43. Capture and share web content in Microsoft Edge Has Microsoft Edge replaced your other browsers yet? If not, there are some new features that make the latest Chromium-based version a must-have. One of these latest features is the ability to easily capture and mark up web content, and then save or share it.
- 44. To get started, select the ellipsis (…) in the top right corner of the browser… Capture and share web content in Microsoft Edge
- 45. …and select the Web Capture option from the menu. Capture and share web content in Microsoft Edge
- 46. You can grab the entire browser window, or choose Free Select to grab a specific area on the page. Capture and share web content in Microsoft Edge
- 47. Once you’ve selected the area to capture using drag-and-drop, you can copy and paste the image anywhere, or add an annotation using Add Notes. Capture and share web content in Microsoft Edge
- 48. Adding Notes opens up the drawing interface, allowing you to annotate in a variety of colors and line thickness, and to edit your work. Capture and share web content in Microsoft Edge
- 49. Once your annotations are complete, you can Copy the image with your mark up and paste it into another document or email, Save it as a file (image), or Share it with someone. Capture and share web content in Microsoft Edge
- 50. As with just about every other Microsoft product, selecting Share opens up a new dialog box that allows you to determine who and how you share your screen capture and annotations. Capture and share web content in Microsoft Edge
- 52. Using the URL shortener for Microsoft Forms URLs Microsoft Forms is a great tool for data collection, but one thing that has been pretty ugly are the URLs that are generated for sharing those Forms. Microsoft listened to user feedback, and they provided a built-in way to shorten the Forms URL into something that doesn't cause headaches. Here's how it works… When you click on the Share button to get the sharing URL, there's a new checkbox titled Shorten URL. This will automatically provide a shorter, more friendly URL to send to people:
- 53. Using the URL shortener for Microsoft Forms URLs Here's what the URL for my Form looked like prior to using the Shorten URL option: And here's what it looked like after that option: Definitely a much cleaner link!
- 55. Transcribe your videos in Word for the web For those of us who are increasingly capturing interviews and meetings on the web, you can now generate transcripts directly in Word for the web. Transcribe detects different speakers so after you finish recording, you can easily follow the flow of the transcript. After your conversation, you can revisit parts of the recording by playing back the time-stamped audio and you can even edit the transcript if you see something amiss.
- 56. Transcribe your videos in Word for the web For those of us who are increasingly capturing interviews and meetings on the web, you can now generate transcripts directly in Word for the web. Transcribe detects different speakers so after you finish recording, you can easily follow the flow of the transcript. After your conversation, you can revisit parts of the recording by playing back the time-stamped audio and you can even edit the transcript if you see something amiss. Simply open Word online, select Dictate, and upload your audio or video file to begin processing. Once transcribed, you can search for specific quotes and easily add them to your Word document, or add the entire transcript in one click! Read more at https://www.microsoft.com/en- us/microsoft-365/blog/2020/08/25/microsoft-365- transcription-voice-commands-word/
- 58. Images on SharePoint Online pages now support Lightbox On many websites that use images, you can click on the image to have it "pop out" over the webpage, displaying a larger image that's easier to read. SharePoint Online pages now support this Lightbox feature when you put an image on a page using the Image web part. Here's how it works… On this page, I have a screen capture that is somewhat on the small side. In order to pop out this image using the Lightbox feature, I simply click on the image:
- 59. Images on SharePoint Online pages now support Lightbox The image now shows up in its full size, overlaying the web page and dimming it out. To get back to the web page, just click on the X in the upper-right corner:
- 61. Use Alt-Tab & Windows Key to Organize your Desktop The reality is that multi-tasking (i.e. context-switching) is a productivity-sapping dream of the ADHD and OCD crowd (I am one of them). Having said that….we all do it. So why not make it easier to organize our already overly complex desktops? The two tools that I rely on are switching between applications using Alt+Tab, and the screen-splitting bliss of the Windows Key and arrows. When you add in the Windows Timeline feature, you will become the Master of your screen domain! First, we’re probably all familiar with the Alt+Tab capability, which allows you to see and move between any and all open applications on your desktop. This is an essential tool when you have one screen or many screens.
- 62. Use Alt-Tab & Windows Key to Organize your Desktop Next up in screen splitting. Let’s say you’re taking notes in OneNote while reviewing several sites in the Edge browser, or documentation hosted on Teams. Select the first app, in this case OneNote, and while holding down the Windows Key on your keyboard, hit the right arrow (→)
- 63. Use Alt-Tab & Windows Key to Organize your Desktop The primary application will lock into place on the right, and as with the Alt+Tab process, you can then select from the available open apps.
- 64. Use Alt-Tab & Windows Key to Organize your Desktop The second app will lock into place. You can then grab the divider between them, and slide left and right to adjust how much screen real estate to give each as you work.
- 65. Use Alt-Tab & Windows Key to Organize your Desktop The second app will lock into place. You can then grab the divider between them, and slide left and right to adjust how much screen real estate to give each as you work.
- 67. Suggested Times when scheduling meetings on Outlook on the Web This recently popped up in Outlook on the, and it's rather cool! Now when you're using the Outlook calendar on the web, you get a Suggested times view within the invite, and you don't even have to go to the Scheduling Assistant! Here's how it works… I clicked on the New event button in my Outlook calendar in the browser, filled in the Invitee field, and immediately received a view of Suggested times for the meeting:
- 68. Suggested Times when scheduling meetings on Outlook on the Web Since my original meeting time was in conflict with Sandra's calendar, I selected the 12:00 pm timeslot, and it shows as a green entry in our shared times on the right: I love having the time suggestions show up in this fashion, as I can bypass the Scheduling Assistant option! Do remember that this is only available in Outlook in the browser. If you're using the Outlook client application, you will not see this feature.
- 70. Timeline feature in Windows 10 Great tip from MVP Joanne Klein: If you ever find yourself with a rebooted machine and wondering what happened to the last few documents that were open on your desktop, leverage the Timeline feature in Windows 10. Read more at https://joannecklein.com/2019/09/22/the- timeline-feature-in-windows-10-a-hidden-gem/
- 71. Timeline feature in Windows 10 To enable this functionality, go into Settings > Privacy > Activity History to select which accounts to show, and whether you want to make your history visible (store your history locally) and/or share your history with Microsoft.
- 72. Timeline feature in Windows 10 Once enabled, select the Timeline from the nav bar and then drag the slider on the right to go back and select the documents, slides, or apps that you had open on that date.
- 73. Timeline feature in Windows 10 Once enabled, select the Timeline from the nav bar and then drag the slider on the right to go back and select the documents, slides, or apps that you had open on that date.
- 75. Exporting to a CSV file in SharePoint Online lists As you probably know, you can export SharePoint lists to Excel. It's a great way to get the data into other formats for analysis. Microsoft has added a new twist to the Export feature… you can now export to a CSV (comma-separated values) file instead of Excel. Here's how it works… The Export to Excel option has been renamed to Export, and there's a dropdown option to pick either Excel Workbook or CSV: This may not be something that you want or need to do very often. But sometimes you want to get a text-only data export without all the overhead of Excel formatting. In those cases, a CSV file format is the way to go.
- 77. Are you a serious note taker? If you’re like me, you may take notes on a yellow tablet next to your computer, or on paper sticky notes, within OneNote, using Planner and ToDo, and whatever other tools are available within your organization. For me – it’s all of the above. Sticky Notes allows you to capture ideas, notes, and important info across the apps you already use. Now you can conveniently view, edit, and create notes directly in Outlook for the web, making it easier than ever to keep track of your notes as you go through email. Read more at https://www.microsoft.com/en- us/microsoft-365/blog/2019/11/26/customize-excel- track-notes-outlook-whats-new-to-microsoft-365- november Keep track of Sticky Notes in Outlook on the Web
- 78. Without Outlook on the Web, you’ll find the Notes on the left Nav bar, above your Groups. The New Note button appears on the top left of your screen. Keep track of Sticky Notes in Outlook on the Web
- 79. What’s great about this feature is that you can create them on the fly, with links and images to whatever you’re working on, and keep them all in one place. Keep track of Sticky Notes in Outlook on the Web
- 80. Additionally, you can leverage the new OneNote feed to conveniently combine your notes across Sticky Notes, recent OneNote pages, and even some mobile apps (Samsung notes) so that you can easily reference them while you’re composing an email in Outlook.com or Outlook on the web. You can use the search to find the note you are looking for and even copy and paste a note right into an email. You can also create a new Sticky Note right from the OneNote feed to capture any ideas or thoughts you have while working in Outlook Keep track of Sticky Notes in Outlook on the Web
- 82. Focus mode for modern SharePoint pages While a modern SharePoint page looks nice, there are times where you may want to maximize the amount of content you can view on your screen (like if you're working on a small laptop). Focus mode for modern SharePoint pages allows you to click on an icon and hide the site header, site navigation, and global navigation. Here's how it works… Here's a home page on a Team Site. I want to see more of the page content and less of the navigation, so I click on the outward arrows icon in the upper-right corner:
- 83. Focus mode for modern SharePoint pages The site header is now hidden, along with the left-side navigation. That extra space is now used to display the page content. In order to return the page to its normal format, just click on the inward arrows icon in the upper-right corner:
- 85. Adding to OneNote Meeting Notes via Mobile Within any new meeting, you have the option to add OneNote meeting notes to any outgoing meeting invite. From the Appointment menu, simply select Meeting Notes. Next, select either Share Notes with the Meeting or Take Notes on Your Own
- 86. Adding to OneNote Meeting Notes via Mobile From your mobile device, you can now capture images, audio, or even video and add directly to the personal or teams notes, giving you yet another way to capture multi-media for your collaborative efforts.
- 88. Thank you! Christian Buckley @buckleyplanet buckleyPLANET.com Tom Duff @Duffbert OneMinuteOfficeMagic.com Please remember to subscribe on YouTube!