Tag Archives: Office 365

Posted on Author Atlantic Computer Services Categories Blog

Microsoft Excel Adding Useful Features For Developers

There’s great news in your immediate future if you’re one of the legions of Excel users. Recently Microsoft made some behind the scenes changes to the venerable spreadsheet application that allows developers to code their own custom data types for use inside the program. The upgrade isn’t aimed at business executives but rather at developers who need to incorporate metadata into Excel cells.

Excel is very good at organizing text and numeric values and since the earliest days of the application that has always been enough. As time has passed and technology has advanced needs began changing. These days users need to be able to do more than just sort, parse, and organize text and numbers.

During the 2020 Ignite Conference the company showed off how the expanded capabilities could be used. It can be used by introducing dynamic arrays and array formulae along with support for Geography and Stock data types via the search engine Bing.

Not long after the company expanded their number by incorporating Wolfram data types. If you’re unfamiliar with them, Wolfram data types are a science-focused search engine.

The company had this to say about Excel’s expanded capabilities:

“Countless solutions have been built with Excel. Many of these solutions are powered by cells that most often contain (or evaluate to) just text or numbers.

With the addition of data types, Excel has evolved to a world where cells can contain something much richer. Linked data types (Stocks, Geography, Wolfram and Power BI) entity values, dynamic arrays, improved errors, images in cells, lambdas, and formatted number values are all new types that have delivered on this promise and back many of the experiences you have seen introduced in the product today.”

That humble spreadsheet application you’ve come to rely on is capable of doing a lot more than you may have realized. It has additional capabilities well worth exploring that could add tremendous value to your company whatever business you’re in.

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Posted on Author Atlantic Computer Services Categories Blog

AI Comes To Microsoft Office Products

The folks of Microsoft have been busy quietly making improvements to their venerable MS Office Suite.

Recently Excel got some intriguing updates that expanded the number of data types cells could accept. That is with a bit of programmatic help of course. At this year’s Ignite IT conference Microsoft announced some exciting new tools and capabilities coming to the suite as a whole.

At the center of all of it is what the company describes as a “natively integrated AI experience” that spans the whole of Microsoft 365’s architecture.

Currently there is a nominal amount of AI incorporated into Microsoft 365. For instance spelling and grammar corrections and word recommendations.

This is the merest tip of the iceberg. What’s coming has been dubbed “Context IQ.”

Here’s what it does:

In the editor Context IQ will provide predictive assistance. When you’re using the editor you may get a prompt to consider certain documents when attaching or sharing files with colleagues. That is if the AI determines that these would add value based on the other files you’re sending or sharing.

In a similar vein if you tag someone using the “@” symbol Context IQ will recommend others you may want to tag as well. When you schedule a meeting in Calendar Context IQ will help you auto-complete the meeting subject and recommend the best times for hosting the meeting. It does this by using your participant list and their scheduled availability (assuming that data is also in Calendar).

All of this is designed to help you get more done more quickly and efficiently and that’s amazing.

You may have already seen some Context IQ elements as the company has taken a phased approach to its implementation. If you haven’t you certainly will see it in action soon. Kudos to Microsoft for incorporating such high value changes.

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Posted on Author Atlantic Computer Services Categories Blog

With Upcoming Release, You Can Sync Excel And Quickbooks

Are you a QuickBooks user? If so you’re going to be thrilled by the company’s recent announcement that Excel integration is coming soon.

You read that correctly. Soon you will be able to sync QuickBooks and Excel which should simplify your life a great deal. This is but the latest in a long line of similar moves Intuit QuickBooks has made.

Over the past few years the company has integrated their wildly popular software with a variety of other platforms like Bill.com, HubSpot, LeanLaw and DocuSign.

Alex Chriss is QuickBook’s Executive VP and General Manager.

He had this to say about the recent announcement:

“Further reducing complex workflows through automation, coupled with powerful customization capabilities, will enhance performance and scalability and allow businesses at a critical point in their journey to reach a new level of growth…

Customers will be able to sync data between Excel and QuickBooks Online Advanced automatically. This much-requested capability will help businesses save time and further streamline data syncing at critical points in their business journey, whether they’re adopting accounting software or seeking enhanced reporting that delivers greater visibility into their operations.

Customers will be able to build custom reports, in a tool they already use, without compromising on convenience or accuracy of data.”

If you run a business of any size this is great news indeed. If you aren’t currently using QuickBooks and your current accounting software is leaving you underwhelmed now is a great time to give QuickBooks a try. It is a solution hundreds of thousands of business owners rely on. Given the large and growing number of integrations available it’s easy to understand why.

Kudos to QuickBooks for going the extra mile and working so hard to create added value for their customers.

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Posted on Author Atlantic Computer Services Categories Blog

Microsoft Teams Adds A Number Of New Features

Do you use Microsoft Teams? If you do then you’re going to love the August update. It offers a number of new high value features that will improve the quality of your online meetings. Here’s a quick overview:

Two New Presenter Options

In Presenter Mode you’ll find two new options available: A Reporter mode and a Side By Side mode. In Reporter Mode any shared content will be placed above your shoulder (left or right) as a visual aid while you’re speaking. In Side by Side mode your shared content will be in a separate column next to you.

Captioning and Transcription Changes

The two biggest changes here are live captions and live transcripts which provide captions and transcription in real time as your meeting is unfolding. In addition to that Microsoft has expanded the number of supported languages to 27 which is absolutely fantastic.

Calling Changes

The latest version of Teams now offers dual-tone multi-frequency support for Virtual Desktop Infrastructure. In addition to these changes Admins can now delegate admin roles to specific members for the device management section in the Teams Admin Center.

Where Teams for Education is concerned both educators and students can access and edit Team meetings for their courses directly from their Canvas course. It is a small change but a big time saver and highly convenient. You’ll also be able to view past and future meetings at a glance on your agenda and schedule and edit or join meetings from your LMS course.

Teams for Education also offers a new way to collaborate via Blackboard and the new Reading Progress feature allows readers to practice their skills in a safe student centered environment.

The bottom line is that there’s something for just about everyone in the August update. You won’t want to miss this one.

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Posted on Author Atlantic Computer Services Categories Blog

Microsoft 365 Getting Button To Easily Report Phishing Emails

We’re beginning to see increasing collaboration between giant tech companies and government agencies around the world. In the UK the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) launched its Suspicious Email Reporting Service (SERS) back in April of 2020. The agency has received nearly 7 million reports since its launch. These include more than 50,500 reported scams and in excess of 97,500 suspicious URLs.

Microsoft is getting in on the action and has recently added a new button to its Microsoft 365 service. This new button offers one touch reporting convenience. At the touch of a button users can report scam emails directly to SERS.

Modern email systems have gotten quite good at detecting and deleting phishing and other scam emails before the user even sees them. As good as most systems are though they do have limits. This new button adds an additional layer of protection and puts the control firmly in the hands of the users.

It’s a good addition because hackers and scammers are always on the lookout for new methods. They look for ways to trick email systems and get past the automated detection routines that stop so many of their malicious emails.

To gain access to the new reporting button you’ll want to head to the company’s AppSource site and install it as a Microsoft 365 add on.

Once installed and enabled, the new reporting button will appear on your Microsoft 365 toolbar. Any time you click the button, it will send the questionable email to report@phishing.gov.uk

If you have any difficulty downloading the add on from AppSource or you’re unable to install it for any reason you can manually report suspicious emails to the NCSC using the email address above.

Kudos to Microsoft for their collaboration with the NCSC. Here’s hoping their efforts ultimately result in far fewer phishing scams and poisoned emails.

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