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In This Issue

Windows 10 and Office 2016

Project Scheduling Best Practices

What's a Corporate Data Review

Creating and working with MS Access

Why UC will go Mainstream

4 new videos!

Blogs, Blogs, Blogs...

Plain Funny

Issue: #83

March/2015

First of all, let it be said. I am not a hugger by nature.

I can hug, I will hug. I can be hugged.

But I'm not a hugger. But I do appreciate the sentiment of a good hug. And boy, have I received a lot of them, both physical and virtual over the past couple of weeks.

This is my way of saying thanks to everybody for their kind words and support over the past couple of weeks.

For those of you who don't know, my mother passed away a couple of weeks ago, peacefully in her sleep with family members nearby (the best way to go).

By the way, feel free to skip over this into if you'd like. No problems here. But I feel I need to say something here (not 100% sure why).

The past weekend brought family and neighbors from all around to gather and share memories and stories. All good. All loving, even with the occasional tear in the eye.

One of the key strengths my mother had (and instilled a piece of that in my brain) was that of inclusion. Everybody gets to play. Everybody gets a chance. Everybody is worth something. And one of the remarkable things is I find myself reflecting on that point, more than any other. And I've found a lot of choices made over the decades that were profoundly influenced by that belief (always demonstrated, never stated). My involvement with volunteer User Groups. Community Theater and Improv. My family.

Even the way we've set up our marketing, with so much attention and effort paid to giving people information through webinars and lunchinars without caring whether they could/would pay for services.

My mom. All the way.

Didn't know she knew Marketing<g>.

Bob

Free Lunchinar: Windows 10 (and Office 2016), a Microsoft update

Microsoft has been pretty busy over the past few months with Windows 10. A major new version was released for preview, including their version of Apple Siri ("Cortana," from the xBox Halo).

But less fanfare has been generated for some of the decisions behind the scenes, including rather liberal upgrade paths from previous versions of Windows (including Windows phone). Also how Microsoft is going to handle software updates to Windows 10 once it's released.

And let's not forget about Microsoft Office. Apparently it's also going to be released in the same timeframe (no surprise there). Also apparently it's going to be called "Office 2016," in spite of my ongoing belief will be getting rid of the version number sooner rather than later.

So at our next luncheon are were going to review all of these changes that Microsoft is going to be implementing over the next 9 to 12 months. We'll also take a look (a high-altitude one) at some of the other changes that Microsoft is rolling out, including significant changes to Microsoft's Azure(cloud-based server and infrastructure), and Microsoft rebranding of their Lync product into Microsoft Skype for Business.

As always our lunchinars are free and open to the public. We'll be giving away a copy of Windows 8.1 and Office Professional 2013 (courtesy of Microsoft).

When: Wednesday, March 18, 2015 from 11:30 AM to 1:00 PM (Eastern)

Where: Stow Hampton Inn (or online from noon to 1pm)

Click here to RSVP!

Free March Project Management Webinar: Project Scheduling Best Practices

When creating project schedules Microsoft Project/Project Online, there are a few things that work well, and some things we've learned to avoid. Here are a few of my favorites:

Tasks should be a reasonable duration based on the size of the project overall - Typically between 8-40 hours works for most. Anything smaller is too granular and larger is too big to manage. If you find yourself with a 5 month task, try to think about how to break it up. Use the large task as a Summary Task, with the more detailed tasks underneath it.

Assign tasks to named resources when possible - Assigning a task to "Paul Brown" provides a lot more visibility and accountability than assigning it to "Accountant" or "Sales Team." Especially when using Project Online and/or Project Server and task status reporting is used.

True task dependencies - A lot of times we create a project schedule by entering the tasks in sequential order, and then linking them all together in finish to start relationships without much thought given. Rather than just arbitrarily linking tasks for cosmetic purposes, really think about which tasks are dependent on other tasks. Are they dependent on other tasks to start or finish before they can start or finish? If you don't know, these are great questions to ask your resources or subject matter experts as you are creating the schedule.

To read more click here.

To RSVP for the webinar (March 19th), click here.

Free March Database Webinar: What's a Corporate Data Review?

Did you like last months article (and webinar) about Database Performance? If you did, then you'll love this upcoming free webinar!

Welcome to our third monthly Database webinar. Doug Tombow will introduce you to some key concepts as well as provide some understandable examples of what you should be thinking about regarding assessing your existing corporate data.

Topics presented:

What is a Corporate Data Review?
How Useful is Your Corporate Data?
Determining the 'usability' of your corporate data
Enhancing the usability of corporate data

To read more click here.

To RSVP for the webinar (March 19th), click here.

Free March Office Webinar: Creating and working with Data in MS Access

In this free webcast, we will look at creating and working with data in Access tables. First we will look at how to organize and separate information into functional tables and set a primary field to identify records. Will look at design vs. datasheet view - how to create fields in a table and understand certain rules when working with fields. Will set the primary key field and work with different data types (such as text, numbers, dates, hyperlinks and attachments). Did you know you can create a calculated field in a table? We will work with data property settings, such as input masks, setting defaults and understand why you should create captions for your fields. We will use the lookup wizard to connect fields to other tables and create dropdown lists. We will also look at the relationship window to understand how to relate tables together.

Then we will look at a using the search, sorting, filtering features in a table, as well as being able to total, average, count a column of numbers. Finally look at creating a quick form to help you enter data more efficiently into a table.

Read more here.

Why Unified Communication will go Mainstream in 2015

One frequent conversation topic we have with customers is phones. The most frequent question is what to do in terms of replacing their current phone systems with new ones. The second most common is how to achieve the Nirvana of Unified Communications (UC).

The answer was always pretty simple. It started with the purchase of hardware and software, and the budget blew skyward for small-medium companies. But that's changing, and quickly (or at a snails pace, depending on your needs).

There are two processes underway. Existing smaller phone systems are increasing their capacity to integrate with external services (ie, integration with desktop software applications like CRM) without server-level investments. The second is cloud services extending their capabilities to include phone functionality, whether in device form or using the desktop device as a phone (think Microsoft's Skype).

Look for Microsoft to make some announcements specifically in the rebranding of their Lync product (soon to be called Skype for Business).

For more, click here.

New YouTube videos from February

This month we added four new videos to our YouTube library. Check 'em out!