Efficiency Best Practices for Microsoft 365 E-Book

Dr.Nitin Paranjape

• Herausgeber: Packt Publishing
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 330

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

Efficiency Best Practices for Microsoft 365 covers the entire range of over 25 desktop and mobile applications on the Microsoft 365 platform. This book will provide simple, immediately usable, and authoritative guidance to help you save at least 20 minutes every day, advance in your career, and achieve business growth.
You'll start by covering components and tasks such as creating and storing files and then move on to data management and data analysis. As you progress through the chapters, you'll learn how to manage, monitor, and execute your tasks efficiently, focusing on creating a master task list, linking notes to meetings, and more. The book also guides you through handling projects involving many people and external contractors/agencies; you'll explore effective email communication, meeting management, and open collaboration across the organization. You'll also learn how to automate different repetitive tasks quickly and easily, even if you’re not a programmer, transforming the way you import, clean, and analyze data.
By the end of this Microsoft 365 book, you'll have gained the skills you need to improve efficiency with the help of expert tips and techniques for using M365 apps.

Leseprobe

Efficiency Best Practices for Microsoft 365

Discover ways to improve your efficiency and save time using M365 applications

Dr. Nitin Paranjape

BIRMINGHAM—MUMBAI

Efficiency Best Practices for Microsoft 365

Copyright © 2021 Packt Publishing

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978-1-80107-226-7

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To Dr. Nandini and Zeus Paranjape, and the billions of people who use Microsoft Office across the globe.

Contributors

About the author

Dr. Nitin Paranjape (Doc) completed his post-graduation in medicine – obstetrics and gynecology (he did complete it!) – in Mumbai, India. Technology was his hobby. Initially, he developed many medical applications, first on the Sinclair Spectrum and then on PCs. Soon he expanded to corporate IT.

His organization (Mediline) was one of the earliest partners of Microsoft in India. For 15 years, he was considered to be the pioneer of the entire Microsoft platform, cutting across programming tools, databases, infrastructure, and Office. However, he noticed that most of the technologies were largely underutilized – due to which people were still inefficient.

Therefore, he changed his focus to the most commonly used (and most underused) tool in the world – Microsoft Office. Now, he is known as the Productivity Guru and Dr. Productivity.

He has coached over 400,000 professionals across 3,000+ customers in 18 countries. He even coaches Microsoft's own staff and partners about the effective utilization of the Microsoft 365 platform. Having authored 700+ articles in print and 1,000+ blogs, he is a prolific writer, a sought-after orator, and an accomplished speaker.

He uses a simple, down-to-earth, humorous storytelling style enhanced with live demos to educate and empower his audience. Customers call his sessions a "magic show!".

He is also a PROSCI-certified change management consultant.

Doc's passion is to improve the efficiency of every user of the Office platform.

This book is the distillation of his knowledge and experience gained over 30 years of work.

First of all, I want to thank Raj Chaudhuri, my close friend and a genius technologist, who pushed me to write the book.

I was also privileged to have Vesa Nopanen, Chantal Bossé, and Raj Chaudhuri as content reviewers. I thank them for their invaluable input, suggestions, and details, which have enhanced the content significantly.

I also want to thank Shesham Patil, who helped me during the entire process of writing, publishing, and marketing the book. Thanks to Zeus, my son, for being my constant sounding board throughout the writing process.

Special thanks to Valentine Dsouza and Meena Nair, for refining the language and content of the book.

Finally, a big thank you to the professional publishing team at Packt: Adrija Mitra, Keagan Carnerio, Aaron Tanna, Divij Kotian, Anamika Singh, Jyoti Chauhan, Sejal Dsilva, Manthan Patel, Joseph Aloocaran, Pratik Tandel, and Divya Vijayan.

About the reviewers

Raj Chaudhuri has been exploring the IT industry, in various roles, for three decades now. He specializes in simplifying technology and mapping it to real human or organizational needs. Although he focuses mainly on open source technology these days, he still maintains a connection to his first love, Microsoft. He is keenly interested in increasing efficiency in all aspects of IT.

Chantal Bossé has been sharing her passion for visual communications and technology through her business, CHABOS, since 2004. As a presentation and visual communication leader, TEDx speaker coach, Microsoft Office Apps & Services MVP, and expert trainer on the LinkedIn Learning platform, she helps speakers and small businesses improve their PowerPoint presentation, public speaking, and Microsoft 365 and Teams skills. Her goal is to help clients increase their bottom line by leveraging the power of their Microsoft 365 applications. CHABOS' mission is to help small businesses and end users be more empowered and efficient with communication and collaborative technologies.

Vesa Nopanen is an experienced modern work principal consultant at Sulava Oy. Combining an understanding of business needs with technology expertise and vision enables him to help customers to succeed and grow. Vesa is very passionate about Microsoft Teams because it enables us to work together in a modern and hybrid-working world. He also has expertise and experience with Power Platform, Microsoft Viva, change management, and Office 365.

Vesa is also a blogger, an active member of the Microsoft Teams Community, an organizer at Teams Nation, and the founder of Teams Finland. He is also often a speaker at various community and Microsoft events, such as Microsoft Ignite.

Table of Contents

Preface

Section 1: Efficient Content Creation

Chapter 1: Fortunately, You're Inefficient!

Technical requirements

What will you gain by reading this book?

Evaluating your efficiency

Fitting a table in a Word doc

Editing formulas in Excel

Using the Send to Back option in PowerPoint

Inefficiency audit – how to find your own inefficiency

Useless repetition

Hands versus brain

Who is helping whom?

Why are there 14,000+ features?

Why do we use only a few features?

How to learn (to find the best way)

Observing the menus logically

Local problem – right-clicking

Global problems – top menu

Other ways to learn while you work

Discovering your needs behind solutions/features

Moving from a vicious to a virtuous cycle

Frequent questions answered

Which apps/tools are we covering?

How can you cover so many tools in one book?

Is this a tips and tricks book?

What will we not cover?

Why are there so many apps? Do I need all of them?

How to use this book

Prerequisites

Summary

Chapter 2: Components of Work

How is this book organized?

Creating files and content

Data management and analysis

Storing and managing files

Managing time and tasks

Managing teamwork and meetings

Automating repetitive tasks

Putting it all together

Maximizing efficiency across the organization

Efficiency primer

You are the boss

Mouse cursor shape

Using dialogs efficiently

Using the taskbar

Pinning apps to your taskbar

Rearranging taskbar icons on demand

Using System Tray icons

When to use a single click versus a double-click

Using the burger, waffle, and overflow menus

Important keyboard shortcuts

Creating custom toolbars

How and when to use the Shift, Ctrl, and Alt keys

Using Alt + Tab and Windows + Tab

Options available in the Office Ribbon

Using the File menu efficiently

Pinning often used files and folders

Getting familiar with the status bar

Getting twenty-four clipboards

Windows grouping

Reading efficiently using Immersive Reader

Using the Start menu to search

The Everything app

Summary

Chapter 3: Creating Content for Effective Communication

Technical requirement

Professional documents with Word

Objectives

Styles – no more manual formatting

Understanding sections

Working with tables

Your personal language coach

More about Word

Effective emails using Outlook

Using color

Quick Parts

Using tables to simplify replies

Email table of contents

The Focused and Other folders

Highlighting important emails automatically

Taking notes using OneNote

Why do you need OneNote?

How to get OneNote

Adding notebooks to OneNote

Mobile to desktop sync

Myth – a stylus/pen is a must to use OneNote

Autosaving – no folders or filenames

Linking notes to meetings

Searching for text in scanned documents and photos

OneNote calculator

Flowcharts with Visio

High-impact presentations with PowerPoint

Design Ideas

Design templates

Stock images

SmartArt

Layouts

Capturing screenshots

Animation, transitions, and Morph

Creating videos and GIFs

Coach

Creating an Office theme for your brand

Efficient copy and pasting

The "right" way to copy and paste

Paste and link

Moving paragraphs

Converting any content into a picture

Chart color changes after pasting

Instant web pages using Sway

Adding content

Playing and testing

Designing

Publishing

Creating a Sway page from Word

Creating a Sway page from PowerPoint

Summary

Chapter 4: Intelligent Data Analysis

Technical requirements

Data analysis in three steps

Clean data checklist

How to use this checklist

How to capture clean data

Entering clean data using Lists

Creating a new list

Adding columns

Sharing with people

Setting security

Data entry

Creating views

Connecting to Excel

Creating reports from Lists data

Automatic data entry from photos

Importing and cleaning up using Power Query

Crosstab data

Data with blank cells

Data in multiple CSV files

Importance of Excel tables

Data analysis

Quick Analysis

Analyzing data using AI

How does Excel know which reports to show?

Asking Excel a question

Creating reports with PivotTables

Show Values As

Charts and PivotCharts

Creating interactive reports using Power BI

Which Excel functions to learn and how

Shortlisting useful functions

How to learn any Excel function

Applying these functions to your files

Surveys and polls

Creating a survey

Surveys

Settings

Adding questions

Sharing the form

Analysis

Quizzes

Creating quiz questions

Scoring the quiz

Automation after submission

Inserting a quiz in training videos

Summary

Chapter 5: Managing Files Efficiently

Why storing files on the local drive is inefficient

Why sending attachments is bad

OneDrive, Teams, and Stream

Using OneDrive on Windows 10

Do I have OneDrive?

The latest version of OneDrive

Synchronizing files to the local drive

Storing new files on OneDrive

Saving files on the local drive plus the cloud

Automatic backup and restore

Who can see my OneDrive files?

OneDrive file icons

Editing files when offline

Deleting files

Files available across devices

OneDrive capacity

Documents and Desktop folder redirection

Benefits of storing files on OneDrive

AutoSave – no more file corruption

Auto-versions – 500 versions (base file size counted quota)

Editing in the browser/on mobile

Ransomware protection

Sharing links from OneDrive

Word, Excel, and PowerPoint sharing

Understanding the Share dialog

Allow editing

Block download

Adding email IDs

Sending the link

Sharing with external people

Sharing large files – up to 250 GB

How to stop sharing

File Explorer, web, and mobile sharing

Forwarded links will not work

Share contextually with @mention in comments

Editing together

The latest version is always visible

Why sending links is safer

Non-Microsoft files

Who edited what?

Files shared with me

OneDrive benefits summary

Summary

Section 2: Efficient Collaboration

Chapter 6: Time and Task Management

Growth mindset

Universal inefficiency

Step 1 – creating a master task list

Adding tasks

Handling delegation

Converting emails into tasks

Categorizing tasks

Tasks on mobile – the To Do app

Converting emails into tasks on mobile

Step 2 – finding time to execute tasks

Monitoring work

Monitoring delegated work

Action points in meeting notes

Daily Briefing emails

Viva Insights

Managing contacts (people)

Outlook profile cards

Organization chart

Creating contacts from email

Outlook contacts on mobile

Syncing Outlook contacts with your phone

Importing contacts into Outlook

Sending emails to multiple contacts

Online service booking

Managing shifts

Summary

Chapter 7: Efficient Teamwork and Meetings

Managing simple teamwork

Activity breakdown

Teams for collaboration

Teams menus

Teams chat

Teams chat files

Managing multiple related tasks

Problem – Email Overload

Solution – Use Teams

How to create a Team

When to create a Team in Teams

Adding Team members

Channel the teamwork

Working inside channels

Pinning important channels

Sharing an email to Teams

Channel email ID

Conversations versus chat

Files in Teams

Shared task list

My work across projects

Viewing tasks on mobile

Efficient Teams meetings

Teams meetings have a long life

Organizing a Teams meeting

Presenting in a Teams meeting

How to control notifications

How often should you check Teams?

Engaging with all employees

Centralized sharing with SharePoint

Open collaboration using Yammer

Summary

Section 3: Integration

Chapter 8: Automating Work without Programming

Understanding macros

Understanding Inbox rules in Outlook

PA – Automation without programming

Trigger actions across apps

First automation

Learning from templates

Exploring all connectors

Types of automation

Approvals

Premium connectors

How to learn and apply PA

Power Apps – apps without programming

Creating apps without programming

Creating an app from a list

Exploring UI options

Using AI in Power Apps

Creating apps inside Teams

Actions in Power Apps

Summary

Chapter 9: Putting It All Together

Technical requirement

Microsoft 365 best practices

Word

Lists

Excel

Power BI

Visio

PowerPoint

Office

OneNote

Sway

Forms

OneDrive for Business

SharePoint

Stream

Outlook

Viva Insights

Delve

To Do

Shifts

Bookings

Teams

Planner

Whiteboard

Yammer

Power Automate

Power Apps

Needs to solutions library

Efficient execution and collaboration

My work and delegated work

Need input from someone?

Need input about or inside a file?

Meetings – before, during, and after

Teamwork with a common goal

Opening collaboration across the organization

Knowledge/files repository

Complex projects with linked tasks

Integration across the apps

Embedding an app inside a Sway web page

Creating interactive dashboards/reports from data

Converting action points in meeting notes to tasks

Linking notes to meetings

Sending emails from data (Mail Merge)

Managing my work and project-related work

Creating an app from data

Automating work across apps

Creating a document from a presentation

Creating a web page from a presentation

Adding any app to manage teamwork

Converting a document into a presentation

Converting a Word document into a web page

Updating data in a file based upon data in another file

Summary

Chapter 10: Maximizing Efficiency across the Organization

Why is the adoption of Microsoft 365 poor?

Benefits of effective adoption

Who will do it? The bosses!

Educate everyone. I repeat – everyone

Standardization with best practices

Best practices format

Best practices examples

Efficiency champions

How to identify champions

The process

Notes for IT

Don'ts

Dos

Summary

Sample files and additional content

Your feedback matters

Other Books You May Enjoy

Preface

Everyone wants to grow. We are continuously striving to optimize processes, reduce errors, improve quality, and increase efficiency – in every aspect of business (and life) – except for one technology, Microsoft Office.

Over 1 billion people use it for a few hours every day. So why don't they try to improve their efficiency in using Office apps? Well, the work is getting done and the output is correct. Everyone seems to assume that because their method is working, it must be the best and only way. Maybe that was true on day one when you discovered it by trial and error.

But Microsoft has been adding thousands of features and apps to the Office platform over decades. Not every user has kept pace with it. Having worked with over 400,000 professionals over 30 years, I can confidently say that most processes are inefficient.

I feel sad that so many people are wasting precious time and effort every day because they do not know that there is a better, smarter, or faster way available to get the work done. The result? Without realizing it, they are wasting the most precious resource – time. This has a lot of side effects – overwork, stress, work-life imbalance, and burnout.

You cannot purchase time. But you can create time by working more efficiently. If you have extra time, I am sure you will use it constructively to drive your growth.

My objective is to gift every Office user with at least 20 minutes of extra time every day. You cannot reach 1 billion people by conducting live sessions or videos. That is why I wrote this book.

The Office platform is now known as Microsoft 365, and it consists of 25 apps. I selected the most powerful features across all these apps that every user should be aware of.

Conducting a live session is easy. That is what I have been doing for 3 decades. Writing a book is tough. I realized it the hard way while writing this book. I have spent 1 year refining the content.

This is not a user manual. The book teaches you how to learn while you work. It will help you work smarter and grow faster.

Who this book is for

If you use Microsoft Office on a regular basis, this book is for you. MS Office is no longer just Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook. It is a collection of 25 useful apps. It is now known as Microsoft 365.

You will learn about the benefits each app has to offer. This will help you use the right tool in the right situation. That is efficiency.

Just read the book. Each topic starts with a need and then shows the efficient solution. While reading the book, do not worry about performing each activity hands-on. As long as you know the feature is there, you can always use it when needed. Focus on reading the entire book from a need-solution point of view. That will give you more ideas about where you can use the relevant features in your own context.

What this book covers

Chapter 1, Fortunately, You're Inefficient!, covers the concept of inefficiency and helps you identify areas of improvement.

Chapter 2, Components of Work, introduces all the apps available under Microsoft 365. It also covers some efficiency boosters that are applicable across multiple apps.

Chapter 3, Creating Content for Effective Communication, shows how to create documents, web pages, emails, flow charts, and presentations efficiently.

Chapter 4, Intelligent Data Analysis, is about data. It covers how to import and clean up data and how to analyze data in Excel and Power BI.

Chapter 5, Managing Files Efficiently, explains why it is important that we keep our files on OneDrive for Business. We explore the benefits as well as security advantages of cloud storage.

Chapter 6, Time and Task Management, highlights how to manage your task list and block time to execute work efficiently. We also cover work delegation and monitoring.

Chapter 7, Efficient Teamwork and Meetings, explains how to enhance teamwork and project management using the Teams platform. The efficient meeting life cycle is also included.

Chapter 8, Automating Work without Programming, covers how to automate workflows using Power Automate and how to create mobile apps using Power Apps.

Chapter 9, Putting It All Together, explains how to use these apps in an integrated manner. Also included is the Needs-to-Solutions library. This is a list of common needs and the most efficient solutions.

Chapter 10, Maximizing Efficiency across the Organization, shows how to expand the efficiency transformation to your entire department or organization.

To get the most out of this book

This book covers Microsoft 365 apps. Therefore, you will need access to a subscription for Microsoft 365 – ideally, E3 or Business Premium. If you do not have access to a subscription, you can sign up for a free trial from the Microsoft website in your country.

The Office apps should be installed from the Microsoft 365 (or Office 365) web portal. If you have some other version of Microsoft Office on your PC (such as Office 2016, 2019, and so on), some of the features covered in the book may not work.

Download sample files and resources

You can download the supporting files for this book directly from: https://static.packt-cdn.com/downloads/978-1-80107-226-7_ExerciseFiles.zip. If there is an update to the files, it will be updated in the downloadable folder.

Download the color images

We also provide a PDF file that has color images of the screenshots and diagrams used in this book. You can download it here: https://static.packt-cdn.com/downloads/9781801072267_ColorImages.pdf.

Conventions used

There are a number of text conventions used throughout this book.

Code in text: Indicates code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles. Here is an example: "Use the Ch1 - Table not fitting in page.docx file from the Chapter 01 folder in the sample files."

Bold: Indicates a new term, an important word, or words that you see onscreen. For instance, words in menus or dialog boxes appear in bold. Here is an example: "Open the Layout tab and choose AutoFit | AutoFit Window."

Tips or Important Notes

Appear like this.

Get in touch

Feedback from our readers is always welcome.

General feedback: If you have questions about any aspect of this book, email us at [email protected] and mention the book title in the subject of your message.

Errata: Although we have taken every care to ensure the accuracy of our content, mistakes do happen. If you have found a mistake in this book, we would be grateful if you would report this to us. Please visit www.packtpub.com/support/errata and fill in the form.

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Section 1: Efficient Content Creation

This section will help you get off to a flying start – with immediate improvement in efficiency. We will learn how to detect inefficiency and how to find the most efficient way to do something. We will also learn how to create several types of content, including documents, spreadsheets, presentations, web pages, emails, survey forms, and reports. Finally, we will see how to store the files we create in an efficient and secure way.

In this section, there are the following chapters:

Chapter 1, Fortunately, You're Inefficient!Chapter 2, Components of WorkChapter 3, Creating Content for Effective CommunicationChapter 4, Intelligent Data AnalysisChapter 5, Managing Files Efficiently