Microsoft 365 Fundamentals Guide E-Book

Gustavo Moraes

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

Seitenzahl: 235

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

With its extensive set of tools and features for improving productivity and collaboration, Microsoft 365 is being widely adopted by organizations worldwide. This book will help not only developers but also business people and those working with information to discover tips and tricks for making the most of the apps in the Microsoft 365 suite.
The Microsoft 365 Fundamentals Guide is a compendium of best practices and tips to leverage M365 apps for effective collaboration and productivity. You'll find all that you need to work efficiently with the apps in the Microsoft 365 family in this complete, quick-start guide that takes you through the Microsoft 365 apps that you can use for your everyday activities. You'll learn how to boost your personal productivity with Microsoft Delve, MyAnalytics, Outlook, and OneNote. To enhance your communication and collaboration with teams, this book shows you how to make the best use of Microsoft OneDrive, Whiteboard, SharePoint, and Microsoft Teams. You'll also be able to be on top of your tasks and your team's activities, automating routines, forms, and apps with Microsoft Planner, To-Do, Power Automate, Power Apps, and Microsoft Forms.
By the end of this book, you'll have understood the purpose of each Microsoft 365 app, when and how to use it, and learned tips and tricks to achieve more with M365.

Leseprobe

Microsoft 365 Fundamentals Guide

Over 100 tips and tricks to help you get up and running with M365 quickly

Gustavo Moraes

Douglas Romão

BIRMINGHAM—MUMBAI

Microsoft 365 Fundamentals Guide

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Contributors

About the author

Gustavo Moraes is the CEO of Trentim, a company focused on providing management methodologies and tools mainly in the Microsoft ecosystem, with a large client base in Brazil and abroad. He is an MCT (Microsoft Certified Trainer). He has been working with Microsoft technologies for over 12 years with extensive expertise in process automation, and project and task management. He is one of the leading names in the field of automation on Microsoft and Low Code platforms in Brazil. He has led many events and communities in addition to being a prominent user in the Microsoft community. Christian, married to Aline for 8 years and father of Alexia and Natasha.

Douglas Romão has been a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional in Office Apps & Services and Business Applications since 2017. He is a Microsoft Certified Trainer and has been working with Microsoft technologies for over 15 years, focusing mainly on developing productivity and collaborative solutions. Currently, work as a Senior Solution Architect & Business Consultant within the Power Platform and Project & Portfolio Management field, leading technical communities and sharing knowledge through conferences, his YouTube channel/blog, and a podcast. Christian, father of Vicente (a 7-month-old baby boy by the time this book has been released) and married to Mariana.

About the reviewers

Shaun Jennings is a Microsoft 365 engineer with a 9-year focus on Microsoft 365 design, implementation, adoption, and administration. Shaun also has 25 years of experience in the Microsoft line of server and workstation OSes and applications. He is currently working in the healthcare industry, although he also has experience in the financial, government, and retail sectors. 

Steve Glasspool is an experienced Microsoft 365 consultant, having worked with the platform for over 9 years. Steve has assisted a multitude of organizations, varying in size and vertical, to get the best out of their licenses. Specializing in intranets and document management solutions, he pushes out-of-the-box features to meet objectives. When bespoke solutions are required, Steve will utilize his business analysis skill set to capture and define requirements, leading to a recommended solution that can be delivered by the development teams that he works closely with, in either the Power Platform or SharePoint framework. This is the first book that Steve has been involved in, but he hopes to assist with more in the future.

Table of Contents

Preface

Chapter 1: Licensing Microsoft 365

What plan suits you best

Microsoft 365 Personal

Office Home & Business 2019

Microsoft 365 Enterprise

Applications included separated by category

Additional subscriptions

Microsoft Dynamics

Power Platform

Summary

Chapter 2: Organizing and Finding Information with Microsoft Delve

A showcase with key information for your collaboration

The profile page

About Me

Organization

Back to Work and Discovery

Content cards

Managing security and privacy

Personalizing and tagging content to achieve more

The mobile app

Summary

Chapter 3: Workplace and Personal Productivity with Microsoft MyAnalytics

Workplace and personal productivity

What is MyAnalytics?

Focus – getting work done

Wellbeing – disconnecting and recharging

Network – sharing information

Collaboration – working with others

Leadership – developing your team

Summary

Chapter 4: Staying on Top of Emails and Calendars with Microsoft Outlook

Why use keyboard shortcuts?

Shortcuts for navigating in Microsoft Outlook

Shortcuts for managing emails

Shortcuts for creating new meetings

Sharing your calendars

Getting help from the Scheduling Assistant

Using the Focused inbox

Mentioning someone in an email

Sending an email later

Setting up and using Outlook mobile

Listening to your emails on the go

Summary

Chapter 5: Taking and Sharing Notes with Microsoft OneNote

OneNote structure

Copying text from a picture

Making and sharing lists

Creating a list

Embedding content, including audio

Examples of what can be pasted

Printing to OneNote

Emailing a OneNote page

Password-protected sections

Summary

Chapter 6: Working from Anywhere with Microsoft OneDrive

Setting up local folders and syncing

Freeing up space and storing files on demand

File sharing settings

Creating shared folders

Adding an expiry time and passwords for links

Using the mobile app

Using OneDrive's built-in Office Lens

Summary

Chapter 7: Collaboration and Ideation with Microsoft Whiteboard

Using templates

Grouping objects

Using reactions to target and prioritize

Working with a whiteboard in Microsoft Teams

Summary

Chapter 8: Microsoft SharePoint Online (SPO)

Technical requirements

Using view list formatting

Introduction to SharePoint list and library views

What is list view formatting?

How to use view formatting

Using field list formatting

How to use field list formatting

Using standard web parts

Ensuring that documents are organized

Using tags for files

SharePoint alerts

Creating lists from Excel sheets

Using calculated fields

Summary

Chapter 9: Working Together with Microsoft Teams

Technical requirements

Sending emails directly to a channel

Every channel has a mailbox

Using tags

Syncing files to desktop

What does this synchronization?

Sending and formatting messages

Formatting messages

Code snippets

Set Delivery Options

Pinning a group chat

Recording meetings and sharing them with colleagues

Saving messages to read later

Summary

Chapter 10: Managing Projects and Tasks with Microsoft Planner and To-Do

Understanding Agile methodologies

Scrum methodology

Kanban methodology

Creating and customizing boards

Managing files

Adding and editing tasks

Using conversations

Grouping and filtering

Copying a plan

Summary

Chapter 11: Doing More with Microsoft Power Automate

Creating a flow

Using the correct place for your flows

The joker action

Using variables to store and change data

Segregating your flow paths and bypassing actions

Using actions to organize your flows

Copying and sending actions to others

Viewing all your execution logs and organizing them

The secret of trigger conditions

Summary

Chapter 12: Power Apps

Technical requirements

Using variables to store data

Environment variables

Creating custom themes

Creating a page in your app to separate and configure a set of sample components

Creating themes using variables

Using standard templates

Categories of templates that can be found

Creating reusable components

The anatomy of a reusable component

Defining naming standards

How to define a good naming standard?

Adding comments

Using the enhanced formula bar

Avoiding connecting directly to data sources

Summary

Chapter 13: Getting Information with Microsoft Forms

The front door for external users

Using sections and segregation in your forms

Field validations and form themes

Saving all responses in Microsoft Excel

Multiple ways to get your responses

Collecting attachments for internal users

Managing your forms

Summary

Chapter 14: Visualizing Data with Microsoft Power BI

From a form to a Power BI dashboard

Theming your dashboard like a professional

Using a dashboard on your Teams channel or site

Summary

Chapter 15: QuickStart Excel, Word, and PowerPoint

An introduction to Microsoft 365 apps

Adding and managing comments

Collaboration and blocking downloading

PowerPoint – shortcuts

PowerPoint – Presenter Coach

PowerPoint – Design Ideas

Excel – conditional formatting

Excel – using Flash Fill

Word – setting a proofing language

Word – embedding a Word document

Summary

Appendix

Productivity and collaboration

Exploring the evolution of Microsoft 365

Next steps

Summary

Why subscribe?

Other Books You May Enjoy

Preface

With its extensive set of tools and features for improving productivity and collaboration, Microsoft 365 is being widely adopted by organizations worldwide. This book will help not only developers but also business people and those working with information to discover tips and tricks to make the most of the apps in the Microsoft 365 suite. Microsoft 365 Fundamentals Guide is a compendium of best practices and tips to leverage M365 apps for effective collaboration and productivity. You'll find all that you need to work efficiently with the apps in the Microsoft 365 family in this complete, quick-start guide, which takes you through the Microsoft 365 apps that you can use for your everyday activities. You'll learn how to boost your personal productivity with Microsoft Delve, MyAnalytics, Outlook, and OneNote. To enhance your communication and collaboration with teams, this book shows you how to make the best use of Microsoft OneDrive, Whiteboard, SharePoint, and Microsoft Teams. You'll also be able to be on top of your tasks and your team's activities, automating routines, forms, and apps with Microsoft Planner, To-Do, Power Automate, Power Apps, and Microsoft Forms. By the end of this book, you'll understand the purpose of each Microsoft 365 app, when and how to use it, and learned tips and tricks to achieve more with M365.

Who this book is for

Whether you're new to Microsoft 365 or an existing user looking to explore its wide range of features, you'll find this book helpful. Get started using this introductory guide or use it as a handy reference to explore the features of Microsoft 365. All you need is a basic understanding of computers.

What this book covers

Chapter 1, Licensing Microsoft 365, focuses on understanding the subscription plans offered by Microsoft and helping you choose the right plan. It will help you understand the add-ons offered by Microsoft 365. You will also see some of the licensing models that are available in Microsoft 365.

Chapter 2, Organizing and Finding Information with Microsoft Delve, teaches you how to use Microsoft Delve to manage your profile. Microsoft Delve enables you to navigate, discover, and search for information and people across Microsoft 365. You will also learn how to discover, track, and organize information in new ways so that it is easier for you to find what is important to your daily work within Microsoft 365.

Chapter 3, Workplace and Personal Productivity with Microsoft MyAnalytics, explores how to effectively reap the maximum benefits of My Analytics, which shows you how you're spending your work time – everything from how much time you're spending on email to who you collaborate with the most to your meeting habits. We'll look at the MyAnalytics dashboard, which gives you valuable new insights into how to increase focus, achieve work-life balance, and improve your work relationships and team collaboration.

Chapter 4, Staying on Top of Emails and Calendars with Microsoft Outlook, examines the most relevant tips and tricks to stay connected and productive with Microsoft Outlook, which is one of the most widely used apps, helping you in organizing your emails, managing and sharing calendars, working with files, and more.

Chapter 5, Taking and Sharing Notes with Microsoft OneNote, demonstrates that Microsoft OneNote is capable of much more than note-taking and information gathering. It is a powerful collaboration tool that enables you to capture, create, and share various types of content with your team. You will learn how to organize, sort, and tag content, draw and mix media, and use the web clipper.

Chapter 6, Collaboration and Ideation with Microsoft Whiteboard, will explore Microsoft OneDrive, an internet-based storage platform that enables you to access your files from any device. In this chapter, you will learn some of the most useful tips and tricks to effectively manage storage and collaborate using OneDrive, sharing files and folders with specific people to work and collaborate with you. You will also learn about syncing your files, co-authoring, and version control. 

Chapter 7, Collaboration and Ideation with Microsoft Whiteboard, demonstrates how to use Microsoft Whiteboard effectively.

Chapter 8, Microsoft SharePoint Online (SPO), looks at the best tips and tricks of Microsoft SharePoint for use in your daily workload. SharePoint gives companies the ability to control access to information and automate workflow processes across business units. You can use it to create websites and as a secure place to store, organize, and share content from any device.

Chapter 9, Working Together with Microsoft Teams, focuses on Microsoft Teams, which is a platform for unified communication in modern workplaces. It not only enables effective communication but also helps you manage your resources through its integration with various Microsoft Office 365 services. You will learn how to use Teams effectively, how to become more productive with shortcuts, how to add applications, and more.

Chapter 10, Managing Projects and Tasks with Microsoft Planner and To-Do, explores Microsoft Planner, an easy-to-use and extremely visual way to organize teamwork. Planner makes it easy for teams to create new plans, organize and assign tasks, share files, chat about their work, and get updates on progress. To help you embrace more of Planner's capabilities, we're sharing several best practices that we've collected over the years.

Chapter 11, Doing More with Microsoft Power Automate, examines Power Automate, a service that helps you create automated workflows between your favorite apps and services to synchronize files, get notifications, collect data, and more. In this chapter, you will learn how to automate business processes, send automatic reminders, move business data between systems on a schedule, connect data sources and publicly available APIs, and more.

Chapter 12, Power Apps, focuses on Power Apps, a suite of apps, services, connectors, and data platforms that enables citizen developers to leverage digital transformation. Microsoft Power Apps provides a rapid application development environment to build mobile apps. 

Chapter 13, Getting Information with Microsoft Forms, explores Microsoft Forms, which enables you to create surveys, quizzes, and polls, invite other people to respond, and see real-time results as they are submitted. You can access Microsoft Forms from any device. You will learn how to create and save forms, use built-in analytics, evaluate responses, and export results to Excel as needed.

Chapter 14, Visualizing Data with Microsoft Power BI, teaches you how to use Microsoft Power BI. Business intelligence is in high demand as organizations become more data-driven, and Microsoft Power BI when connected with Microsoft 365 can achieve and deliver more than a Power dashboard.

Chapter 15, QuickStart Excel, Word, and PowerPoint, teaches you how to leverage artificial intelligence in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint Online, which are widely known and used. However, few people explore their full capabilities. You will learn

shortcuts and productivity hacks so that you can use Office apps to collaborate more effectively.

Appendix, the last chapter, will provide a recap of the productivity and collaboration methods. We will also provide guidance on how to continue your journey with Microsoft 365.

To get the most out of this book

You can use any Microsoft 365 subscription plan – E3, E5, or F3.

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/9781801070195_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: "On our machines, we have user folders that are used by various applications to store documents. Among these folders are the Download, Pictures, Videos, and Desktop folders."

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: "To enable it, you must go to the settings on your OneDrive, and on the Settings tab, enable File On-Demand."

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.

Piracy: If you come across any illegal copies of our works in any form on the internet, we would be grateful if you would provide us with the location address or website name. Please contact us at [email protected] with a link to the material.

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Chapter 1: Licensing Microsoft 365

Microsoft 365 is a suite of productivity and collaboration tools for individuals and enterprises.

You might already be using this great platform, but there are a few tips we want to give you so that you can make the most of the tool.

In this chapter, you will see some of the licensing models that are available in Microsoft 365.

We will cover the following key topics in this chapter:

What plan suits you bestMicrosoft 365 PersonalOffice Home & Business 2019Microsoft 365 EnterpriseAdditional subscriptions

Once you have worked through each of these topics, you will understand which version of Microsoft 365 will best suit your requirements.

Important Note

It is important to state that licensing is something that is not always clear and can change often.

What plan suits you best

Of course, this is a tricky section and topic to tackle for a chapter, but we intend to provide some inspiration and benchmarks that might help you pick the right plan for your requirements.

The great thing about Microsoft 365 is that since it is a service with a subscription-based model, you can change your license and add or remove it at any time.

If you are implementing Microsoft 365 in your organization, you might want to contact Microsoft or a partner to get discounts, packages, and different payment methods that might fit better with your scenario.

In the following sections, we are going to understand the different types of licensing for Microsoft 365 so you can find the one that fits best with your needs.

Microsoft 365 Personal

Microsoft 365 Personal (formerly Office 365) is a subscription designed to help you have all Office apps, storage, and security for your personal use as a service – you can pay for it monthly or annually.

You can work across multiple devices, installing Office desktop apps and having a place in the cloud to store all your files securely. As it is a subscription, you will always have the latest features, fixes, and security updates, along with tech support, which you can reach out to at no extra cost.

Office apps can be installed on Windows PCs, macOS, Android, and iOS, and can be used on five devices at the same time. If you choose to subscribe to Microsoft 365 Family, you can have the same features for up to six people.

Regarding storage, you have 1 TB of cloud storage in OneDrive for your personal/professional use.

Microsoft 365 Personal is meant to be an open door when it comes to starting to use Microsoft Office tools for your personal productivity and storage, but let's see how this can grow as we need to have more capabilities for our families or our small businesses in the next section.

Office Home & Business 2019

Office 2019 is a one-time purchase that enables you to have the Office apps (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook) installed on one PC or Mac.

It has the 2019 version of Office with no version upgrades included, but with Microsoft support for 60 days at no extra cost.

It is designed for families and small businesses that need to use one or more Office apps and mail.

Now that we have been introduced to the personal, family, and small business versions of Microsoft 365, it is time to start looking into the versions designed for bigger companies that need to use productivity, collaboration, storage, and other capabilities. Let's do this in the next section.

Microsoft 365 Enterprise

Focused on serving as the digital transformation bridge for companies, the main goal of Microsoft 365 Enterprise plans is to provide cloud and desktop tools that help organizations to modernize, connect, be more productive, and collaborate.

This subscription can be purchased monthly or annually, per user within your organization that needs to have access to the enterprise apps.

There are (as of the time of writing this book) three types of plans available, which can be purchased according to the types of users that you have in your organization.

The E3 plan enables your organization to use all productivity apps with core security features and compliance capabilities.

The E5 plan has the same features as the E3 plan, but with voice and analytical capabilities included.

The F3 plan (formerly F1) was built to empower frontline workers to access and use productivity apps and cloud services, thereby helping them to work better.

Applications included separated by category

Microsoft 365 apps: All plans (E3, E5, and F3) include PowerPoint, Word, Excel, OneNote, Publisher (PC only), and Access (PC only).Email and calendar: Plans E3 and E5 include Outlook, Exchange, and Bookings. The F3 plan does not have Bookings included.Meetings and voice: All plans include Microsoft Teams, but only plan E5 includes Phone System and Audio Conferencing features.Social and intranet: All plans include SharePoint and Yammer.Files and content: All plans include OneDrive, Stream, Sway, Lists, and Forms.Work management: All plans include Planner, Power Apps, Power Automate, Power Virtual Agents, and To Do.Advanced analytics: Plans E3 and E5 include MyAnalytics; only E5 includes Power BI Pro, while F3 does not include anything.

There are other features, such as threat protection, information protection, security management, identity and access management, and device and apps management, that all plans have included, with some restrictions.

Microsoft 365 Enterprise plans have everything that your enterprise needs to provide digital transformation and achieve better collaboration, productivity, and a digital workforce in the workplace.

Now, let's see some of the additional subscriptions that we have for working together with Microsoft 365 subscriptions.

Additional subscriptions

Microsoft 365 is a productivity and collaboration suite that helps you personally, and your organization as a whole, to work better. That is a fact. But another great thing is that Microsoft has some other products that, combined with Microsoft 365 applications, can improve these capabilities even more.

They have separate subscriptions that can be purchased for specific users depending on the requirements of your organization. Let's have a look at each of them in turn.

Microsoft Dynamics

Microsoft Dynamics 365 is a complete suite of intelligent business applications that can help organizations in managing sales, marketing, field services, finance, operations, commerce, and HR.

You can purchase a Dynamics license per user (monthly or annually) for each of the applications described previously.

Power Platform

Power BI, Power Apps, Power Automate, and Power Virtual Agents are the applications that are part of the Power Platform. As you saw in the preceding section, some of those applications are included in the standard Microsoft 365 plans, but they also have subscription licensing.

The main differences concern the features available when you are using those applications with Microsoft 365 standard plans and when using them with the premium version.

The premium licenses, when it comes to Power Platform products, are designed specifically depending on the usage of Power Apps, Power Automate, and Power Virtual Agents, and they can be purchased for a specific user or for a specific scenario where you might want to use them.

Summary

In this chapter, we have seen many ways in which organizations and people can use Microsoft 365 and complementary applications by purchasing licenses in subscription mode.

Licensing is usually tricky and changes very often, so having a Microsoft partner or following the updates from Microsoft will give you leverage when choosing the right license for your needs. In the next chapter, we'll see how we can organize and find information from our users and organizations using Microsoft Delve, one of the central products within the platform.

Chapter 2: Organizing and Finding Information with Microsoft Delve

Microsoft, as a leader in several areas of activity related to modern IT and the modern workplace (for example, in communication with Microsoft Teams, in low-code/no-code with the Power Platform, and in collaboration with OneDrive), has focused all its products on "productivity." It has done this even if it means remodeling its products, as in the case of Cortana, which is no longer a virtual assistant like its peers Alexa, Siri, and Google Assistant and has become the Microsoft 365 Assistant. It has also done this by making new gadgets for that purpose, such as Surface Earbuds.

The masterpiece of Microsoft's strategy is to focus on the employee (Figure 2.1), placing them at the center of all its services and products, and embracing them so that they can work intelligently.

Figure 2.1 – All Microsoft platforms are designed around the employee

That's why personal productivity begins by being able to easily and efficiently access the information you need when you need it, and for that, Microsoft created Delve.

This chapter demonstrates how to use Microsoft Delve effectively. We will cover the following topics:

A showcase with key information for your collaborationThe profile pageContent cardsManaging security and privacyUsing boards to tag contentHow to build efficient collaborative spacesThe mobile app

A showcase with key information for your collaboration

Microsoft Delve is an exclusive cloud tool whose main objective is to provide integration between employees, students, companies, and users and their activities, which are transformed into documents. The speed and precision of this tool in seeking relevant and consistent content provide a significant increase in personal productivity, and in the consistency of your organization's work. Maybe, even if you have Microsoft 365, you have never used this tool, but you will see that it is already a part of your life and that using it correctly will provide enormous benefits.

To achieve the goal of increasing the productivity of the user, Delve uses the work that has already been done by Microsoft Graph to unite all the documents and people that are related or relevant to you (Figure 2.2) in a single location, all in a simple visual way. This could be a document that has been shared with you, a document that you liked, or even one that is popular among your colleagues and managers.

Figure 2.2 – Microsoft Delve is the showcase of Microsoft Graph