Category: Microsoft Teams

Assigning Tasks and Approvals

6/2/2021

How are you tracking assigned tasks and approvals in your organization?

As offices continue to evolve workflow from in-office paper-based to working from anywhere and paperless, the challenge of assigning tasks, tracking status and requesting approvals is a stumbling block.
For most, the use of email has become the method of assigning tasks and approvals. The reality is that email is very cumbersome.

In this post, we will look at the options available within Microsoft Teams and related apps.

Assigning Tasks

Assigning Tasks is accomplished in Microsoft Teams by adding the Planner app. Microsoft has a helpful support article covering the “Use of Planner in Microsoft Teams” that I recommend reading.

The secret to making Microsoft Planner work for people is to add the Tasks by Planner and To Do app to Teams. Click the Apps icon on the bottom left of Microsoft Teams which will open the Apps listing. Find or search for “Task by Planner and To Do”, click it and select add.

The Tasks by Planner and To Do app provides access to your Microsoft To Do lists. The Assigned to me group includes all assigned tasks from all plans with quick access to all shared plans in Microsoft planner.

In addition to all your assigned tasks in the Task by Planner and To Do app, Microsoft Planner can be configured to send you reminder emails.

Approvals

With our assigned tasks under control using Microsoft Planner, we now need to implement an approval process.

Microsoft Teams has an approval app that you can add using the same steps as above for the Tasks by Planner and To Do. This app will show the requests you have sent and those you have received.
To create an approval request, click on the New Approval in the approval app or click the approval icon in a chat or post.

Whichever place you click, the resulting window will open.

Scrolling down in the window provides access to additional options, including the Add Attachment.

Complete the Create a new approval request and then click send.
In this case, the User Demo sees the request in the Teams Post and the approval app.

Clicking the request in the list opens the Approval request details where Demo can click the file to review it, add any comments, and then reject or approve the request.

With this additional app added to Microsoft Teams, we can quickly request and process approvals in our organization, from time off requests to expense reports and document approvals.

Accounting Approvals

Dext recently announced Integration with ApprovalMax. The two services combine to move your accounting to an approval-based, paperless, and automated system. For many, this is the missing piece that prevented them from moving to paperless accounting. For complete details on the Integration, visit https://help.receipt-bank.com/hc/en-us/articles/360010793558-Integrating-Dext-Prepare-with-ApprovalMax. Integration is available between Dext Prepare, ApprovalMax, and both QuickBooks and Xero.

Please let us know in the comments how you are tracking tasks and processing approvals in your organization.

For more on using Microsoft Teams, attend our on-demand webinar K2’s Improving Collaboration with Microsoft Teams.

Ward Blatch, CPA CA

Microsoft Teams - Big Changes

5/3/2021

We have covered Teams here a lot over the past year, and the updates and improvements continue.

This post will cover the updates from the past quarter that impact my day-to-day work the most.

PowerPoint Live

PowerPoint Live significantly improves the experience when presenting a PowerPoint presentation during a Microsoft Team’s meeting.

The presenter view provides a clear picture of your slide, notes, and deck. The result is an easier way to present, share and move around the presentation. The presenter can also have the incoming video displayed across the top or on the right side.

For those attending the presentation PowerPoint live and Presenter mode provide the presenter with the ability to decide on the layout attendees see, including your video in the bottom right of the slide or not. For attendees, the presentation becomes interactive with the ability to follow links and view videos. In addition, attendees can move ahead or go back within the slides (presenter can disable).

Teams Meeting Limits

A Microsoft Teams meeting limit has been increased to 1,000 users, with the following 9,000 attendees joining in view-only mode. The meeting organizer and presenters will be notified when people are entering in view-only.

Steps to configure view-only are available at https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/MicrosoftTeams/view-only-meeting-experience.

250GB File Size Support

The file size limit for Teams, OneDrive and SharePoint, is now 250GB. That should handle those larger files we are creating in our teaching videos and, for some, their auto-cad files.

Meeting Recap

Turn on recording during your next Microsoft Teams meeting, and Teams will automatically provide a complete speaker attribution transcript of the meeting along with the recording, chat, and attached files. The recap will be found in the meeting chat tab.

Share To Teams

Built into Outlook desktop and on the web, Share To Teams provides a quick and easy way to share an email with a channel or in a chat. Share to Teams provides controls to handle attachments and include @mentions.

Additional Information

Hopefully, these updates will make your workday better. To keep current on updates, check out https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/what-s-new-in-microsoft-teams-d7092a6d-c896-424c-b362-a472d5f105de.

These additions should improve your collaboration and meetings, they have for me.

Ward Blatch

Five Technology Resolutions for 2021

1/10/2021

For many, the Holiday Season is a time to look back and reflect on the year gone by – and what a year it was! It is also a time to look forward, plan, and consider how we can do better in the coming year. Often, this results in making resolutions for the new year. In that spirit, let us consider five technology resolutions that you might consider adopting for 2021.

We Will Collaborate More Effectively

The first of our five technology resolutions centers on collaboration. In today’s work environment, collaboration is critical. Team members no longer work in isolation. Instead, they work collaboratively with customers, clients, vendors, and others who work for different organizations. Recognizing this new reality, yesterday’s work methods are no longer optimal for today’s environment.

To illustrate, the age-old practice of emailing documents to others for review and revision is outdated. Instead, we can take advantage of collaboration tools to enable simultaneous, multi-user collaboration. For instance, we can use the co-authoring feature in Excel, Word, and PowerPoint to collaborate on common Microsoft Office documents. Likewise, we can use Adobe’s Creative Cloud to enable collaboration too. Further, tools and platforms such as Google Workspace, Microsoft Teams, and Zoho One provide excellent collaboration options. No matter the technology used, recognize the benefits of collaboration. A recent Forrester report indicated that team members save almost two hours per week using collaboration tools. No matter the type of business you are in, seek out opportunities to improve collaboration in 2021.

Information Security Will be a Part of Everything We Do

The second of our five technology resolutions is to incorporate information security into all we do. You have, no doubt, read the headlines and know that cybersecurity attacks continue to rise. Ransomware, spear phishing, and Internet of Things attacks are just a few of the threats we face from external forces. But we also need to address internal security issues. These risks include team members sending sensitive and confidential information as unsecured email attachments, failing to use encrypted Internet connections, and not taking advantage of multi-factor authentication when a device or application.

Information security must become an integral part of each of our businesses. A single security incident – such as a ransomware attack – could cost millions in remediation expenses and perhaps more in reputation damage. Further, with ever-expanding data privacy laws and regulations, fines for non-compliance could cripple organizations of all sizes. To address these threats, resolve to make information security a fundamental part of every activity in your organization. Among other actions, encrypt all your data, and mandate multi-factor authentication wherever possible. Consider adopting a “zero trust” security model to minimize risk. Above all, train every team member on identifying and responding to the dangers that will inevitably arise. The issue of information security is not going to disappear, so address it now and ensure that all business processes incorporate appropriate security measures and all data remains secure.

Equip Work From Home Team Members Appropriately

In the understatement of the century, 2020 was a year of unprecedented business change. At the outset of the pandemic, business leaders told millions of workers to “pack up your computer, take it home, and figure out how to work from there.” And these team members did an outstanding job of making the best of the situation. Along the way, many realized they prefer to work from home and will continue to do so in the future. Therefore, the third of our five technology resolutions centers on remote team members. We must ensure that our remote workers have the equipment and tools necessary for the “new normal.” Stated differently, they need to be at least as productive at home as they were in the office.

In addition to addressing hardware issues and fast and secure internet connections, also carefully consider issues such as desks and chairs. Remember, employers typically have a responsibility to ensure that team members have the equipment they need to get their jobs done efficiently and safely. In most cases, workers’ compensation laws still apply, even if a team member works from home. Hence, it remains necessary to address workstation setup and safety measures, including those related to ergonomics. Further, do not let relatively inexpensive technology expenditures hamper productivity. For example, purchasing an inexpensive scanner or other hardware devices may pay big dividends in increased productivity for team members working from home or other remote locations.

We Will Leverage Our Investment in Existing Technologies to Improve Efficiency

Our fourth of five technology resolutions seeks to leverage existing investments. Most organizations have invested heavily in technology over the past two decades. But are these same organizations receiving the promised return on investment? The unfortunate answer is a resounding “no!”

One of the biggest reasons for this failure is that most organizations have not committed to training their team members to use the tools provided or discover some of the newer features in core applications. For example, although almost all accounting and financial professionals use Excel daily, they do not know how to work with data models, create formulas based on dynamic arrays, utilize Flash Fill, or perform “what-if analysis” using Solver. Thus, tasks take longer than necessary, and results are often not as precise as needed. For 2021, commit to leverage the investment already made in core technologies such as Excel, Word, Outlook, PowerPoint, Adobe Acrobat DC, and Windows 10. Incredible improvements in accuracy and efficiency await!

Our Team Will Adopt New Technologies to Improve Productivity

Rounding out the list of five technology resolutions is adopting new technologies. Just as we will leverage existing technologies, we also resolve to adopt innovative technologies, where appropriate, to improve productivity. One example lies in Robotic Process Automation (RPA). RPA allows businesses to automate rote, repetitive tasks such as manual data entry. With tools such as Automation Anywhere, Microsoft Power Automate, and Blue Prism, you can build custom applications to automate virtually any repetitive task performed in your organization.

But do not stop with RPA! Consider how you can use other technologies such as machine learning and artificial intelligence to improve productivity. For example, is there a role for artificial intelligence to help audit employee expense reports for errors, irregularities, and fraud? Tools available from companies such as AppZen can help you do precisely that, identifying out-of-policy spending and enhancing internal control at the same time. Once considered to be “bleeding-edge” technologies, these tools are now mainstream and offer new productivity plateaus.

Summary

Another New Year is upon us. With it, we will gladly say goodbye to what was a most tumultuous 2020. As we do, let us look forward to all that 2021 has to offer, including the opportunities to become more efficient, more effective, and more secure with technology. Resolve to improve your business with the five items outline above – collaboration, information security, equipping remote workers, leveraging existing technologies, and adopting new and transformative technologies. Next year, when you look back at the year that was 2021, you and your bottom line will be delighted you adopted these five technology resolutions for 2021. All the best to you and yours for a Happy Holiday season and a healthy and prosperous New Year!

Make 2021 your best year yet by becoming more knowledgeable, efficient, and secure when working with technology. You can do so by participating in the various learning opportunities we make available. To learn more, please click here or visit https://www.k2e.ca/training.html

Tommy Stephens

Planning My Tech Updates for 2021

12/21/2020

My home office has gone through significant changes from where it started in 2005. Back then, we had a small business server for file and printer sharing and our email server. The risk of downtime and the cost of upgrading resulted in our move to Office 365 for email in 2009. We still maintained our files on network-attached storage with cloud-based back. In 2018 we moved our files to SharePoint online, which has been working great for us the past two years.

Updates in 2020

Microsoft Teams has proven to be invaluable to us this year. To ensure we have the best online meeting experience, we upgraded our mics to the Blue yeti and upgraded our webcams to 1080p.

Updates Planned for 2021

As part of our annual IT review, I am now looking at what upgrades we need to consider for 2021. Our system worked well through 2020, with only one significant issue. Our PC purchased for the conference room and used for online meetings, webinars, and recording was dramatically underpowered. The following is a summary of each substantial section of our review.

Software

Our accounting practice will continue to move clients, where applicable, to cloud accounting. The online solutions meet the needs of our clients and simplify operations for both our clients and us.

Our write-up and tax software are working well, and with the data stored on SharePoint, we do not see a need to move to cloud solutions for either.

Our office runs on Microsoft 365, providing us with Microsoft Office Pro Plus, file sharing and storage, Microsoft Teams, calendar sharing, email, and an online booking site for clients. We have selected the Microsoft 365 E3 subscription to provide improved security, including data loss prevention and restricted access.

With the combination of retention policies in SharePoint and Adobe Acrobat Pro DC, we can operate as a paperless office.

The team at K2E Canada Inc. moved to LastPass for Teams, providing us with improved passwords and easy sharing to common sites the team uses.

The result is no changes are planned for software in 2021.

Firewall and Wi-Fi

We have been using a PFsense firewall for several years; its advanced configuration options are an excellent fit for our office.

A couple of years ago, we migrated our guest wireless system to Nest Wi-Fi. The advantage of this system is the easy setup and configuration with the power of a mesh network. Performance is excellent and a great match to our cable internet connection. With most of our devices not Wi-Fi 6 compatible, there is no need to upgrade.

Hardware

Scanners

We are using Canon ImageFormula scanners and will continue with them for the next couple of years.

Laptops

With its docking station, detachable keyboard, and digital pen, the Surface Pro is our standard laptop.

My Surface Pro 4 has worked well for the past five years, but it will be upgraded in 2021. The need for additional ram and a new processor is evident when compared to the performance of my partner’s Surface Pro 7. The replacement will be the new Surface Pro 8, expected to be released in the first quarter of 2021. The upgrade will be an i7 with 16GB of Ram and 256GB SSD.

Desktops

Our office desktop computers are a mix of Dell and custom builds. These computers are a mix of different generations of i5 and i7 processors with a minimum of 8GB of ram.

The conference room desktop, an i5 with 8GB of ram, has been moved to a workstation and replaced with a seven-year-old custom build. Despite the processor’s age, an i7 4th generation, the system works well because it has 32Gb of ram.

With new desktop processors being released in the first half of 2021, we will wait to upgrade this old machine. The upgrade will be either the 11th generation i7 or a Ryzen 5000 series with a minimum of 18GB of ram, reusing the existing SSD, and a dedicated video card such as the Radeon Pro WX 4100.

Summary

Our IT setup has taken a long time to mature to the point we are at now. The goal has always been to keep the design as straightforward as possible while maintaining high availability, security, and remote access. With just a couple of hardware updates, we should be in good shape for 2021.

Ward Blatch, CPA CA

The Best Ways to Collaborate with Office Documents

11/7/2020

Collaboration is more important today than it ever has been. With many team members working remotely, it can be challenging, to say the least, to share documents so that all interested parties can access, edit, and comment on them. Fortunately, the evolution of Microsoft Office includes features that can streamline, simplify, and enhance collaboration. Read on, and in this article, you will learn the best ways to collaborate with Office documents.

The Need to Collaborate

Before addressing the issue of “how,” let us explore “why.” Stated differently, why is collaboration so important? And why are yesterday’s methods inadequate in today’s environment?

Even before the pandemic-driven work-from-home (WFH) environment, the need to collaborate was significant. Consider, for example, the ubiquitous Excel workbook that many organizations use for at least a portion of their budgeting processes. Multiple users typically need to interact with that workbook, entering data, and generating reports. Typically, “collaboration” in this case involved emailing the workbook to all interested parties or using Excel’s Shared Workbook feature.

Other everyday collaboration needs include circulating a Word document among team members for editing and “wordsmithing.” Yet, Word does not offer a “Shared Document” feature, similar to Excel’s “Shared Workbook” feature. Therefore, “collaboration” with Word documents almost always meant emailing copies of the file to all interested parties.

Similarly, you might need to involve other team members in creating and editing a PowerPoint presentation. Unfortunately, like Word, PowerPoint does not offer a “Shared Presentation” feature; again, collaboration almost always involved emailing documents.

Drawbacks to Traditional Collaboration Methods

If email is the primary tool for collaboration, at least two adverse outcomes can occur. First, multiple copies of the same file immediately appear. As numerous users edit these copies, they no longer contain the same data. This practice, of course, leads to inconsistency in reports. Alternatively, Excel’s Shared Workbook feature generally mandates storing the workbook on a server that all parties can access. Of course, in a WFH environment, this requirement is not always satisfied easily.

Further, using the Shared Workbook feature imposes limitations on available functionality. Additionally, as pointed out above, neither Word nor PowerPoint offers a “Shared Document” feature. And finally, Microsoft has indicated that they will remove the Shared Workbook feature from Excel in future releases. As demonstrated, legacy versions of Microsoft Office applications present challenges when collaborating with others, both inside and outside our organizations.

Sharing Office Documents

Beginning with the 2010 release of Microsoft Office, improvements to collaboration techniques started to appear. At that time, Microsoft added the ability to share an Office document with internal and external users. This process relies on sending an invitation to the other users. It also requires you to store the file you wish to share in Microsoft’s Cloud-based OneDrive, OneDrive for Business, or SharePoint Online.

During the ensuing ten years, this process has improved significantly. It now provides detailed options for controlling who can access the document and what they can do with it once accessed. As shown in Figure 1, you can initiate the process of sharing your Cloud-stored documents by clicking Share near the upper right corner of the document’s window. You can read more about this process by clicking here to access an article on this feature published by Microsoft.

Figure 1 - Sharing An Excel Document With Other Users

Adding Comments and Notes to Documents

Another relatively new enhancement that facilitates collaboration is the ability to add Comments to Word and PowerPoint documents. Regarding Excel documents, you can add Comments and Notes.

Comments facilitate adding feedback to a document, such as suggestions to make it more usable to the intended audience. For Word, PowerPoint, and Excel, you can add Comments by clicking the Comment button near the window’s upper right corner. You can also add Comments using a right-click of your mouse. Once you add a Comment, other users can reply to it, facilitating a “threaded conversation” within the document, as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2 - Examples Of "Threaded" Comments In Word

As mentioned above, you can also add Notes to an Excel document. A Note is a means of documenting the contents of a cell. Typical uses of Notes include references to source documents, citations, and other forms of documentation that explain where the cell’s data originated. You can add a Note by right-clicking on a cell and choosing New Note. You can also add a Note by selecting Notes from the Review tab of Excel’s Ribbon.

Using Teams to Collaborate

At its core, Microsoft Teams is a communication and collaboration tool. Therefore, as you might expect, collaborating on documents occurs with ease when using Teams. Should you choose to save an Excel, Word, or PowerPoint document in Teams, multiple people can access and edit the file simultaneously, as shown in Figure 3. Of course, this functionality requires team members to possess appropriate security rights for the Team and Channel. If that is the case, no additional actions are necessary to collaborate on a document, making this perhaps the easiest way to facilitate collaboration in organizations of all sizes.

Figure 3 - Collaborating On A Document In Teams

Summary

The need for collaboration tools and techniques is not a new one. But the need for improved collaboration options on Microsoft Office documents is magnified in WFH and decentralized environments. Fortunately, Office now offers some outstanding features for sharing and collaborating with others, both inside and outside our organizations. So, instead of legacy tools and workarounds, take advantage of features such as sharing files, adding notes and comments to documents, and Teams. These are the best ways to collaborate with Office documents!

Five Ways You Should Use Microsoft Teams Today

6/1/2020

Since its introduction, Microsoft’s Teams platform has enjoyed widespread success and adoption. However, most organizations are not taking full advantage of all Teams has to offer. Beyond just a tool for hosting meetings, Teams offers so much more! In this article, you will learn about five specific features in Teams that you should be using today.

Communicate Through Microsoft Teams

Teams’ roots lie in Skype for Business, which served businesses well for almost two decades. However, Microsoft is officially ending all Skype for Business services on July 31, 2021, in favor of using Teams as a communication platform. When you choose to use Teams as a communications platform, you have multiple options for connecting and communicating with others, including internal and external participants. Your Teams-based communication options include:

Voice-only calls with individuals and with groups,
Video calls with individuals and with groups,
One-on-one chats and group chats, and
Screen-sharing calls.

Each of these communication options can be scheduled in advance or initiated on-the-fly, providing flexibility when launching some form of communication. Further, Teams offers a “live caption” option that can make your meetings more inclusive for those who are hearing-impaired.

Share Documents and Collaborate in Real-Time

Multi-user, simultaneous access to standard file types such as Excel spreadsheets and Word documents is challenging in traditional environments. Teams can change that! When you store an Excel, Word, PowerPoint, or OneNote document in Teams, you can easily share the file with others. Upon doing so, each person can access and edit the file simultaneously and in real-time. Imagine, for example, multiple team members working collaboratively on the Excel workbook that serves as the foundation for your organization’s budget. Consider how much more efficient it would be to have multiple users editing a PowerPoint presentation simultaneously. Both these scenarios are possible when you store documents in Teams.

Enable Apps in Microsoft Teams

Although Teams is immensely powerful without any modifications, you can customize it by adding other apps. For instance, suppose you need the ability to execute digital signatures in Teams. If so, you could add the Adobe Sign app into Teams to provide that functionality. Similarly, if you require robust project management features in teams, you can add Zoho Projects to your Teams account. You can choose from over 200 apps that are currently available to integrate with Teams. Each of these apps allows you to extend the functionality of the platform and accommodate almost every need.

Allow External Parties to Join Your Team

One of the commonly asked questions about Teams is “can we use Teams to communicate and collaborate with external parties, such as customers and clients?” The short answer is yes! More specifically, you can configure Teams to allow external access and guest access, two ways of communicating with those outside your organization. When you enable external access (also known as “federation”), you can connect with people in other domains, such as users at a customer/client or vendor location. On the other hand, when you enable guest access, you can add specific persons outside your organization as guest users by using their email address. Note that someone with administrative rights in Teams may need to configure both these options for you.

CLICK HERE to see a detailed comparison of external user access compared to guest access.

Secure Data in Microsoft Teams

As you are aware, data security is one of the most challenging issues facing business professionals today. Consequently, it should be a top-of-mind consideration in virtually every business decision we make, including our choice of technology platforms. Fortunately, this is an area where Teams shines. For example, consider the following security techniques that are available in Teams.

Team-wide and organization-wide multi-factor authentication, to reduce the likelihood that unauthorized users will be able to log-in
Full encryption of all data stored in Teams
Availability of Microsoft’s Advance Threat Protection to proactively look for malicious content and block end-user access to that content
Safe Attachments, a Microsoft technology that allows admin users to create policies for handling potentially unsafe attachments that might carry malware

Additionally, the mere fact that Teams will likely reduce dependency on email – a notoriously unsecured medium for exchanging information – will likely boost security also. Further, admins can configure Communication Compliance, Retention, and eDiscovery policies in Teams to reduce risk and ensure long-term availability of data. Similarly, you can enable Data Loss Prevention in Teams to ensure that users do not disclose sensitive information to unauthorized persons. When taking a holistic view of the security features available with Teams, it is easy to conclude that Team offers the potential for much better security than what most organizations are currently able to provide.

Summary

Teams is a component of many Office 365 and Microsoft 365 subscriptions and, accordingly, the number of users with access to Teams continues to grow as more business migrate to Office 365 and Microsoft 365. However, many individuals with access to Teams remain unaware of some of the platform’s better features and use it almost exclusively as a chat-based communication platform. Certainly, Teams offers much more than just chat! If you have access to Teams, consider how you can take advantage of the platform to enhance communications, improve collaboration, and operate more securely. As a bonus, you just might find your personal and organizational productivity begin to skyrocket!

Tommy Stephens

How I Work Efficiently From Home

5/3/2020

Working in a home office since 2005, I have made many changes to my setup in the interest of improving efficiency. Here are a few improvements I have made to my home office over time.

The Office

A room that is an office and not used for anything else. The separate room allows you to leave everything set up and provides the ability to leave the office. For myself, I find it hard to stop working and having it in a separate room does help.

For many, this is not a practical solution; however, finding a dedicated space can be a big help.
One more thing, you need a good office chair. Using the dining room chair is not going to be comfortable when sitting in it for hours at a time.

Monitors

Including my Surface Pro display, I use four monitors at my desk. Multiple monitors are a significant way to improve your efficiency. I find it slow and awkward to work on a single display.

In addition to improving the process of moving and viewing data, multiple monitors provide a screen to keep open the office chat program. The separate monitor makes it easy to stay in touch with co-workers. Glancing at the chat screen and a quick response keeps office communications flowing.

Collaboration Platform

A collaboration platform, such as Slack or Microsoft Teams, provides everyone with the tools to work together. These tools include chatting, audio calls, video calls, file sharing, file commenting, and file co-authoring. With all of this in a single application, it is very efficient for people to work as a team without being at the same physical location.

For us, this has been a great addition to our workflow. Simply ping someone in a chat and meet anytime quickly. Microsoft Teams collaboration platform can extend to people in organizations outside of your own. Recently, while working with another firm on a joint project, we used Teams to meet, collaborate, and share files. The collaboration was all done with the security of Teams allowing the outside organization access only to the project.

When meeting with people, video can make a considerable improvement in communication. Invest in a good quality webcam or use the one on your laptop or phone. To make it easier for others on the call with you, try to book meetings when the house is less active.

Most online meeting services today allow custom backgrounds. These backgrounds are a great option if you can’t set up a clean physical backdrop.

Mouse and Keyboard

A good quality ergonomic keyboard makes all the difference in your comfort. Combine the right keyboard and mouse, to make your day at the desk just that much better. Trying to use an inferior quality keyboard just slows you down.

Paperless

Scanning and storing documents electronic keeps the home office clean and organized without taking up valuable floor space with filing cabinets. We have been paperless since 2013 at K2E Canada Inc., and my accounting practice has been paperless since 2005. At this point, I can’t imagine working in a paper-based office.

Ward Blatch

Microsoft Teams - Meetings with people outside your organization

4/1/2020

Microsoft Teams provides a service to collaborate with people both inside and outside your organization. Teams provides chat, secure file sharing, audio calls, video calls, and desktop sharing. Currently, Microsoft Teams is available for free. You can sign up for the service here. If you are already using Office 365, Teams is part of business and enterprise plans.

Setting up a Meeting - Bookings

Bookings is very easy for people outside your organization to set up an online meeting with you. Bookings is available with Office 365 Business and Enterprise plans. Details on setting up Bookings for your organization is available here.

Bookings will automatically create the team meeting, send the link to the person making the booking, update your calendar and, if requested, send text reminders.

Outlook

Outlook on the desktop, web, iOS and Android allow selecting Teams meeting to include the meeting link in a calendar invite automatically.

Microsoft Teams

When you are a member of a team in your organization, you can create a meeting under Calendar using the Teams desktop app or website. The options are to Meet now or New Meeting.

Clicking Meet now will open a meeting, click join to start the session. The people panel opens on the right where you can enter an email address or copy the join information for forwarding to attendees.

The New meeting button opens up a calendar invite to be completed and sent to attendees.

Join the Meeting

Clicking a meeting link will open your default web browser where you can either download the app or “Join on the web instead.” For people not currently using teams, “Join on the web instead” is the quickest option as there is nothing to download or install to join the meeting.

The web client for teams opens where an attendee clicks “Join now” to enter the meeting. Optionally you can turn on or off your camera and mic, as well as make any device configuration changes that may be required.

Teams Meeting Tips

As you start to use Teams, a couple of tips to help are:

Do a trial run before working with people outside your organization
A proper mic and headset dramatically improve the experience for everyone
Video does improve communication
To make entry to the meeting more comfortable for people outside the organization, check the meeting options link under the Join Microsoft Teams Meeting link and allow everyone to bypass the lobby.

Ward Blatch

OneDrive, SharePoint, or Teams Making the Right Choice

3/10/2020

During a recent client visit, the ubiquitous question was asked: "Why would I use SharePoint or Teams instead of OneDrive." These three services from Microsoft all provide file storage, sharing, and collaboration, so it is easy to understand the confusion. Let's look at when each is the right choice.

OneDrive for Business

OneDrive's name is an attempt to note that this is the location for One person, you, to store your files. An option in OneDrive is to backup your essential PC folders, including desktop, documents, and pictures. To turn on the backup feature, go to OneDrive settings > Backup > Manage Backup.

In the window that opens, select the folders you will backup to OneDrive. It will be syncing the files providing access from any device and creating automatic versions of data in case you make a mistake or become infected with ransomware.

OneDrive is the storage location for your files. Sharing of files is possible with OneDrive, but that is not its primary role.

SharePoint

SharePoint is for sharing files. It is the equivalent of your network share, providing centralized controls and file access permissions. Providing critical advantages over a file share on the network SharePoint allows for the uncomplicated implementation of data loss prevention and policies to the data.

Using the OneDrive app, you can sync a SharePoint document library to your local computer for a simple method to access, save and share files. The files remain in SharePoint and will download when opening. You can mark files that you may need while offline as "Always keep on this device."

Microsoft Teams

Microsoft Teams uses SharePoint document libraries file storage and therefore has all the benefits of using SharePoint. Additional benefits of Microsoft Teams are the integrated chat, video conferencing, presence awareness, and a simplified interface to providing security over your organization's documents.

If you have not started replacing your network file shares with SharePoint, then Teams is the place to move files. It provides the same sync and access to data as SharePoint does with a much easier process to set up and the additional collaboration features. The one cautionary note, at the time of posting, is that Teams does not allow for file sharing to people outside the organization unless they have a Microsoft Account associated with their email address.

Summary

For efficient and effective file-sharing, use Teams and SharePoint, and for your files OneDrive. Make sure to take advantage of the OneDrive app for syncing and backup of your Desktop, Documents and Pictures folders.

Ward Blatch

Bring Your Team Together

11/10/2019

To learn more about Microsoft Teams while earning 2 verified CPD credits, register to attend the webinar K2's Improving Collaboration with Microsoft Teams on February 18, 2020 at 10.00am ET.

Bring your team together with Microsoft Teams, one of the best additions to the Microsoft stack in years. In this post, we will discuss how to use Microsoft’s Teams application to organize workflows, communications, and document sharing for your workgroup, department, or organization. No matter the size of your team, having all your team’s information in one place, with complete integration into your Office applications, can dramatically improve teamwork and performance.

Getting Started with Teams

Microsoft Teams is included with Office 365 Business and Enterprise subscriptions and as a limited free service. The inclusion with Office 365 means many organizations from small business to enterprise are ready to get started immediately. For those not using Office 365 you can sign up for a free account at https://products.office.com/en-us/microsoft-teams/free .

The primary differences between the free and subscription versions are:

Teams free is limited to 300 members per organization vs. 5,000.
Teams free has 10GB of shared storage and 2GB/user vs 1TB/user for the paid version.
The paid version of Teams offers scheduled meetings, meeting recording, additional administrative tools, usage reporting, and configurable user settings and policies.

Microsoft Teams makes a desktop app available for Windows, and mobile apps available for iOS and Android. The desktop app provides additional controls in meetings, including desktop sharing.

Microsoft Teams Communications

Teams provides a threaded and persistent chat conversation available to the team, a group or a private 1:1. To get someone’s attention, Teams allows the use of “@mention” to draw attention to a post and send alert emails to the individual or team.

For those times when a meeting is more productive than chat, Team Meetings allows for people inside and outside of the team to join an online meeting. Team Meetings supports audio, video, whiteboard, desktop app, and file sharing. Anyone with a web browser can join the meeting with a link, which can be provided via email or when scheduling a meeting.

File Sharing and Collaboration

Teams uses SharePoint Online as the backend for file sharing. This provides the security and controls over files required by your organization. Files are available from within the desktop, mobile, and web app. A persistent chat conversation relating to a file in Teams ensures the entire team is aware of what is happening with any file. Also, with the file stored in Teams, co-authoring is available using the desktop, mobile, or online apps for Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote.

For those using other cloud storage services, Teams can integrate with them. These alternative cloud storage locations include Box, Dropbox, Google Drive and ShareFile.

People Status and Activity

Teams integration with Exchange Online allows for automatic setting of your status with easy to see icons. This allows others on the team to see if you are available for a quick meeting or chat. To make sure you keep current of activity in Teams, the app provides a count indicator of unread updates. Activity can also be viewed by individual.

Extend Teams with Apps

Apps are available to extend teams functionality of Teams. Examples of these apps include Planner, Adobe Creative Cloud, various bots, and Power BI to name but a few.

Tips

Keeping everyone on track and up to date is made easier by Teams. A couple of tips to keep in mind when starting out are:

Create Teams based on security requirements of the information.
Create Channels in teams to separate topics.
Individuals outside the organization that you add to a Team will clearly be indicated with “guest” after their name.

Summary

Teams is one of the most exciting tools Microsoft has added in years. Under the Teams umbrella, you can collaborate and communicate with other team members quickly and easily, allowing you to get more done in less time. Further, you can easily extend your team by inviting individuals from outside your organization into the environment. And, if you are an Office 365 subscriber, there’s a good chance that you already have access to this amazing tool. But even if you don’t have access to Office 365, you can still sign up for a free account and take advantage of many Teams features. If you’re looking to maximize both individual and workgroup productivity, be sure to check out Teams today.

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Authors

Ward Blatch
Ward provides consulting and training services as the Managing Director of K2E Canada Inc. He joined K2E Canada in 2005 and is responsible for the Canadian operations of this international consulting group, which provides professional development technology education for accountants across Canada and the US. Ward lives in rural Nova Scotia and can be reached at ward@k2e.ca.

Tommy Stephens
Tommy is one of the shareholders in K2 Enterprises, affiliating with the Firm in 2003 and joining as a shareholder in 2017. At K2, Tommy focuses on creating and delivering content and is responsible for many of the Firm's management and marketing functions. Tommy resides in the metro Atlanta area. You may reach him at tommy@k2e.com.

Randy Johnson
Randy is a nationally recognized educator, consultant, and writer with over 40 years experience in Strategic Technology Planning, Accounting Software Selection, Paperless, Systems and Network Integration, Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Planning, Business Development and Management, Process Engineering and outsourced managed services. Randy can be reached at randy@k2e.com

Bernie Smith
Bernie coaches businesses to develop meaningful KPIs and present their management information in the clearest possible way to support good decision making. As the owner of Made to Measure KPIs, he has worked with major organisations including HSBC, Airbus, UBS, Barclays, Credit Suisse, Lloyds and many more.

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Assigning Tasks

Approvals

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PowerPoint Live

Teams Meeting Limits

250GB File Size Support

Meeting Recap

Share To Teams

Additional Information

We Will Collaborate More Effectively

Information Security Will be a Part of Everything We Do

Equip Work From Home Team Members Appropriately

We Will Leverage Our Investment in Existing Technologies to Improve Efficiency

Our Team Will Adopt New Technologies to Improve Productivity

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Updates in 2020

Updates Planned for 2021

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The Need to Collaborate

Sharing Office Documents

Adding Comments and Notes to Documents

Using Teams to Collaborate

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Communicate Through Microsoft Teams

Share Documents and Collaborate in Real-Time

Enable Apps in Microsoft Teams

Allow External Parties to Join Your Team

Secure Data in Microsoft Teams

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The Office

Monitors

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Mouse and Keyboard

Paperless

Setting up a Meeting - Bookings

Outlook

Microsoft Teams

Join the Meeting

Teams Meeting Tips

OneDrive for Business

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Microsoft Teams

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Getting Started with Teams

Microsoft Teams Communications

File Sharing and Collaboration

People Status and Activity

Extend Teams with Apps

Tips

Summary

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