Microsoft has been slowly but surely polishing Office over the past few versions and Office 2016 proves why. Office 2016 is more or less tailored to make sharing easier across all of your platforms by expanding your collaboration options. We’re here to discuss some of the top ten features of this new update: 1. Outlook Overhaul: When adding an email attachment in Outlook 2016, you get the option to share a link to a file stored on your SharePoint, OneDrive or OneDrive for business account as well as the normal option to ‘add a file’. Also, if you add an attachment from your OneDrive you can choose to share it as a normal attachment, an embedded attachment or cloud attachment. 2. Clutter: Microsoft gives you more reinforcements when combatting against the torrent of emails you receive daily. Clutter is a tool that determines if a message you receive is low priority and if so moves it out of your inbox into a folder suitably named Clutter. Once the message has been moved you can see it in your clutter folder and decided if it doesn’t belong in there. Once activated, clutter shows up on smartphones, tablets, online and desktop versions of Outlook 2016 but you do have the option to turn the feature off. 3. Work Groups via Outlook: Despite not being able to decide on a final name- Microsoft has added 365 groups (AKA Outlook Desktop Groups or Office 365 Enterprise Mailboxes) to help facilitate collaboration. This feature in the desktop version of Outlook 2016 allows you to create and manage groups. From within Outlook you can: group notes on OneDrive, keep track of group activity and manage files and obtain conversation history. 4. Real Time Co-Editing: Live co-editing can be exasperating if the interface doesn’t make it clear who is editing what but this has been simplified in Word 2016. The real-time co-editing feature has been added into Office documents, it was previously made available online but this feature will now expand to Office 2016 applications starting with word. Microsoft has made plans to add this to other programs but there is no word on when this will be. 5. Tell Me query box: Office rarely gets used to its full potential and a lot of the time it’s because we don’t know where half the tools are. To help you become more constructive in Office 2016, Microsoft has added a ‘Tell Me’ box that is placed in the centre of your program title bar. The feature opens a search box for you to type what you want to do and a mini-menu appears with tools which match what you’re asking for. So if you want to figure out how to display your screen on a second monitor or put a watermark in a word document- you know where to go. 6. Built-in business intelligence: Microsoft has added the feature ‘Power Query’ into the core of Excel 2016, so it no longer needs a separate download. The tool allows you to combine your own data with third-party data from within the program. This lessens the difficulty when it comes to discovering, combining and refining data across a variety of sources. As well as this, with Power Query you can import into Excel structured data from public data sources including Wikipedia tables and Data.gov. Then you can use built-in JSON parser to create data visualisations over big data and azure HDInsight. 7. Data Loss Protection: Microsoft steps up on security in Office 2016 with tools to prevent data leakages and manage file permissions. Administrators can now enable and set Data Loss Protection policies for Word, Excel and PowerPoint: with the right management services on Windows you can choose whether a document can be copied, printed and forwarded or not. You can also stop it from being opened after an expiry date which you set without needing to download a separate app. 8. Revised Office menu options: Office menus get an intellectual enhancement resulting in the ease of: saving, opening and browsing for files. In Word for example the Open and Save As tabs have been modernised to lessen confusion when trying to navigate where you want to save a file- be it locally or on your OneDrive. Another menu update which you might particularly appreciate is within Outlook. When you go to add an attachment to an email, the attach file menu options now includes recent files, which consists of any Office documents which you have recently closed. This saves the annoying and sometimes time consuming step of having to look for that file you just closed and want to share. 9. Click-To-Run Features: Microsoft have added management modifications to their already existing technology: click to-run. The feature which was designed to reduce the time required to download, install and run office products now allows for: better network traffic management(for deploying office in bandwidth constrained times), enhanced distribution management (tighter integration with ConfigMgr), flexible update management (for bugs, fixes and feature updates) and simplified activation management ( a new admin portal feature for device activation). 10. Make way for sway: Sway allows you to drag and drop files, photos and videos from: Facebook, YouTube, your desktop or OneDrive onto a web browser, smartphone or tablet. With sway you can arrange your content in an engaging format which helps you communicate with others in an interesting way. Microsoft proves that its Office suite is the optimal choice among its competitors as this latest upgrade provides a plethora of new features which are bound to be useful in your daily business life. Collaboration is simplified with features such as ‘Real Time Co-Editing’ and security is made even tighter with ‘Data Loss Protection’. For more information on upgrading to Office 2016 or for help with upgrading your systems. Contact Our Account Managers by email (info@northernstar.co.uk) or by telephone (+44 (0) 800 319 6032).
FEATURES OF MAC OS X EL CAPITAN 2016:
The software for Mac OS X El Capitan is an upgrade focusing on improvements to performance, design and usability of OS X. Compared to its predecessor Yosemite, Apple says that launching apps is 40% faster, opening PDFs is four times faster and viewing messages in Mail is twice as fast. So check out some of the features that we think are worth mentioning. 1. Smarter Mail Just like Microsoft Outlook integrates with Outlook Calendar, Apple has made its Mail communicate to the Mac Calendar. If you get sent a meeting request, it will add that date to your calendar. 2. Mission Control Returns El Capitan’s predecessor Yosemite made a mistake when it changed Exposé into Mission Control and subsequently grouped open windows by app. But now things have returned to how they used to be, so you’ll be able to see minimised views of your documents and can see and select the one you want. To activate Mission Control, tap the short-cut button on your keyboard or F3. 3. Cursor Locator Keep losing track of where your cursor is pointing? Panic no more: Apple has brought in a great cursor-finding feature. Just rub the trackpad or shake your mouse and your cursor will enlarge instantaneously. If you use photo editing apps on mac or other mouse-concentrated features you have the option of turning the feature off in System Preferences> Accessibility. 4. Safari’s Pinned Tabs are Essential Safari now allows you to pin tabs in order for you to swiftly access your commonly used sites with ease. Moreover. Safari will always keep the tabs you’ve pinned, even if you shut down your desktop. 5. Split Screen has Arrived With this new OS you can finally have Windows’ best feature: split-screen windows and apps. You can create a split view or drag open windows together from your desktop to place them next to each other automatically. To activate Split Screen mode you can hold down the full screen button and as you hold the button you can pull the window to the left or right side of the screen and then click another window to begin using both windows side by side. Alternatively you can use Mission Control and drag a window onto the thumbnail of the full-screen and force them into split screen mode. 6. Safari adds Tabbed Audio notification Nothing is more annoying than going on a website that has an advert with sound enabled as default or has a video that automatically plays. Fortunately the newest update of Safari allows you to see where the sound is coming from by placing a little speaker notification in the tab. If you still want to use the tab you can stop the horribly-dubbed audio by simply clicking on the speaker icon and Safari will automatically mute it for you. 7. Maximise Desktop Space Want to stop your desktop from being cluttered? In El Capitan you can conceal your Menu bar as well as the Dock. To use this feature go to System Preferences and Tick “Automatically show and hide the menu bar”. 8. Push Notifications Tired of the constant alerts from Facebook, Calendar and many other apps that you may have installed? The asset feature: Notification Centre lets you turn of notifications on an app by app basis. The feature now allows you to group notifications in the Notification Centre by app which means you can see all your notifications as legible ordered lists. 9. Make Photos powerful with great third-party extensions Apple has added a new photos app to replace the waning iPhoto. There have been significant improvements made to image editing and you can add extra effects via third-party extensions. These extensions can be downloaded from the App store and they can be accessed by going into “edit” mode on a photo and selecting the “Extensions” option. 10. Locate and Use Emoji’s faster than before With El Capitan you are able to promptly add an emoji to whatever you’re writing by pressing Ctrl + Command + Spacebar to open the OS X character viewer. You should be able to quickly access and add any Unicode emoji found on Apple’s systems- including the Taco. 11. The Notes app has evolved Notes is no longer just an application for, well, jotting down notes. The feature is now a tool for pulling PDFs, storing images and of course taking richly detailed notes. Another great feature is that you can search for your uploaded images and easily find something that you’ve saved. 12. Spotlight can now search by natural language Spotlight has finally grown a brain and no longer needs for you to spell out what you’re looking for to the letter. The natural language processor enables Spotlight to detect phrases. Now you can say “emails from Jacob with attachments” instead of keywords such as “kind: email” and Spotlight will deliver. Although some of Apple’s competitors are ahead with a few of these features, Apple takes them to a new level. Many applications such as spotlight and Notes are becoming more powerful and innovative. Searching for information has been made simpler and little improvements such as the cursor locator allows you to use your Mac more efficiently for all kinds of everyday tasks.
Don’t Be Another TalkTalk: Online Security Advice
The high profile attack on TalkTalk has had many customers questioning their safety. Here’s five tips you should give your customers to stay safe online. The TalkTalk Security Scandal TalkTalk became the latest business to suffer a breach in security last month. On Wednesday 21st October 2015, the company suffered an attack involving stolen customer data, prompting investigations from TalkTalk and the Metropolitan Police. 156,959 people had personal details accessed 15,656 bank account numbers and sort codes were accessed 28,000 obscured credit and debit card numbers that were accessed This attack is just one incident in a host of high profile leaks, phishing attacks and other methods of online trickery and fraud that target customer’s personal details, including T-Mobile, Trump Hotels and Carphone Warehouse just this year. Staying Safe Online Scary stuff, right? This attack prompted us to compile some easy-to-follow advice on staying safe both online and offline… Be Vigilant About Email Email is one of the major mediums criminals use to attempt to access your data, as they send thousands of phishing emails to try and ensnare people across the web. Most of these will end up in your spam folder, but occasionally, one makes it through. Phishing is the practice of sending communications that are intended to imitate an official source in an attempt to gain access to passwords and financial data. As you can see from the screenshot of a real email we received, the tone is often rushed and desperate to encourage you to act without thinking. Attempts to induce panic can sometimes be successful, especially if we’re half reading something on a smartphone while on the go. Always read emails carefully and look out for the following: Does the email have the official logo, or does the design of the email look ‘off’? Is the email from the official email address? Is the language used different to what you expect from this company? Is the spelling or formatting incorrect? A hard and fast rule for email to generally ignore anything unless you have categorical evidence and if the action required seems usual. No companies that deal with sensitive details will ever advise you to ‘confirm’ your account details or give passwords – so never give them out. One final tip is to NEVER download ANYTHING that is attached to an email from someone you don’t know. These attachments are often viruses, malware or spyware designed to gather sensitive information that can be used to fraudulently access your accounts. Protecting Yourself Against Phishing Phone Scams Just like receiving a phone call in the middle of the night, an unexpected call can provoke fear and surprise – especially if the person on the other end is explaining that your financial details have been compromised. If you are contact by someone you don’t know: Don’t EVER give over login details or financial details over the phone. Ask the called to provide credentials – can they confirm they are from an official source? If you aren’t sure about a caller, end the call and look up the number on the internet – fraudulent numbers are often listed somewhere with a warning. General Online Protection: Antivirus and Modern Browsers Modern browsers and antivirus software are often well equipped to protect your computer against these kinds of scams, be sure to use a firewall, install antivirus software, and keep your browser updated regularly to sure you’re using the web in the safety manner possible.
OFFICE 365 VS GOOGLE APPS
Choosing between Office 365 and Google Apps can feel simple at first. One is Microsoft, the other is Google. Both give you email, calendars, cloud storage, document editing and video meetings. Both can help your team work from the office, from home or on the move. But once you look closer, the decision becomes more important. You are not just choosing a set of apps. You are choosing how your business communicates, stores files, protects data and supports users every day. Office 365 is now generally known as Microsoft 365, while Google Apps later became G Suite and is now known as Google Workspace. Many people still search for Office 365 vs Google Apps because those older names are familiar, but the products have moved on a lot. For many businesses, Microsoft 365 is still the stronger all-round option because it combines familiar Office applications, business email, Teams, OneDrive, SharePoint and strong management controls. Google Workspace can still be a good choice if your team prefers a simple, browser-based way of working. What Is The Main Difference? Microsoft 365 gives you access to tools such as Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Teams, OneDrive and SharePoint. Depending on your plan, you can use these tools online, on desktop and on mobile devices. Google Workspace gives you Gmail, Google Drive, Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, Calendar, Chat and Meet. It is designed around browser-based working and real-time collaboration. The main difference is how each platform feels in daily use. Microsoft 365 is often better for businesses that already rely on Outlook, Excel, Word documents and structured file management. Google Workspace is often better for teams that want quick document sharing and simple collaboration inside a browser. If you are reviewing your cloud setup, Northern Star’s cloud services and Office 365 support can help you choose, deploy and manage the right platform for your business. Familiarity And Ease Of Use Most UK businesses have used Microsoft Office in some form for years. That familiarity matters. If your staff already know Outlook, Word, Excel and PowerPoint, moving to Microsoft 365 usually feels natural. You still get the tools people recognise, but with the added flexibility of cloud access. Staff can work on files from different locations, join Teams meetings, use shared calendars and collaborate on documents without moving away from familiar applications. Google Workspace is also easy to use. Gmail, Docs and Drive are simple, clean and quick to learn. For teams that have always worked in Gmail, it can feel very straightforward. The issue is that some businesses need more than simple document editing. If your team uses advanced spreadsheets, heavily formatted Word documents, Outlook workflows or shared Microsoft file formats, Microsoft 365 usually gives you a smoother experience. For day-to-day help with users, devices and productivity tools, Northern Star’s IT support and management can help keep your systems running properly. Email And Calendar Management Email is still one of the most important systems in your business. If email becomes unreliable, poorly managed or difficult to search, it quickly affects your staff and your customers. Google Workspace uses Gmail, which many people like because it is clean, fast and browser-based. It works well for businesses that want a simple email experience with strong search and easy access from different devices. Microsoft 365 uses Exchange Online with Outlook. This is often the better fit for businesses that need shared mailboxes, delegated access, calendar permissions, distribution groups, professional email policies and a more structured approach to email management. If your business is growing, these controls become more important. What works for a small team may become harder to manage when you add more users, departments and locations. Collaboration And Teamwork Google Workspace has always been strong for live collaboration. You can create a document, share it quickly and let several people edit it at the same time. For simple documents, spreadsheets and slides, this can be very effective. Microsoft 365 has also become a strong collaboration platform. Teams, OneDrive and SharePoint now make it much easier to share files, co-author documents, manage permissions and keep conversations connected to projects. The difference is control. Google Workspace is very simple for quick collaboration. Microsoft 365 gives you collaboration plus stronger structure. This can be useful when your business needs better file permissions, document ownership, version control and integration with desktop apps. If you are not sure how your current setup supports teamwork, Northern Star’s IT consulting can help you review your systems and plan improvements. Working Offline Cloud tools are useful, but your team may still need to work when the internet is weak, unavailable or unreliable. Microsoft 365 has a clear advantage here if your plan includes desktop apps. Staff can continue using Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook on their devices, then sync changes when they are back online. Google Workspace does offer offline access for some tools, but it usually needs to be set up in advance and is more dependent on the browser. For teams that travel, work from client sites or deal with unreliable connections, Microsoft 365 can feel more dependable. If your business operates across multiple locations or needs support for remote users, Northern Star’s global support and international projects service can help maintain more consistent IT support. Security And Access Control Security should be a major part of your decision. Both Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace can be secure, but only when they are configured and managed properly. Microsoft 365 gives businesses a wide range of security and administration features, including multi-factor authentication, conditional access, device management, email protection and data protection controls. The exact features depend on the plan you choose. Google Workspace also provides security features such as two-step verification, admin controls, endpoint management and data protection settings. Again, the strength of your setup depends on the plan and configuration. The platform alone will not protect your business. Weak passwords, poor user permissions, exposed credentials and lack of staff awareness can create risk on either system. Northern Star’s security services can help protect users, devices, networks and cloud systems with
5 Business Factors When Deciding Between PC Or Mac
You may be considering changing the system you work on, or maybe someone from your office is arguing for an upgrade – whatever the reason, there’s a lot to consider when deciding between Mac or PC. Price Macs are notoriously expensive, so depending on the budget you’ve set for your business machines, they may be off the table from the outset. There are plenty of a good quality laptops that will fulfil a multitude of demands including web browsing and producing documents that are available for £600 or less. But that’s not to say you should scrimp too much. ‘‘You get what you pay for” is something most people have been told since they were old enough to scrape the coins of their pocket money together for a bag of sweets, and it’s something that, more often than not, is proven true. While it may be tempting to cut corners and save money on a cheaper laptop (£400 or less), the ease of use, reliability and power of these machines may cost you more in the long run due to downtime for repairs or productivity sapping slowness. Purpose Design work or visual jobs typically require Macs because of the often superior display and added power to run large programs like Illustrator, Photoshop and the Adobe Suite. Image is another factor that may persuade you to decide one way or the other. As ridiculous as it sounds, a vibrant marketing or design agency may favour Mac computers purely because they appear more cosmopolitan and modern, reflecting the ethos of the company . This can work both ways, as a more corporate brand may favour PCs, to appear diligent and businesslike. Ease of Use How easy a Machine is to use can have a big impact on your business. A confusing or difficult Machine may cost you time and even added expenditure on training. Mac computers take less time to boot up and often require less maintenance than a PC, so the extra expenditure on the Machine may pay dividends in improved productivity and reduced downtime. Also, due to simplicity and user friendly nature of the Mac interface, many people find it easier to perform tasks and work more efficiently on a Mac Machine. Although, confusingly, a higher percentage of people have been raised on Windows Machines, so may find the traditional layout easier to navigate. Objectively however, Macs do emerge victorious in the respect. Viruses and Security Despite what many people claim, Macs can get viruses. They are far less at risk than their competitors however. More viruses exist for Windows and a higher percentage of hackers will target Windows Machines simple because more Windows Machines exist. Generally, Macs offer more security, and when used in combination with reliable antivirus software, will ensure you business information is watertight. Compatibility: Does It Even Matter? Boot Camp can run Windows on a Mac, and applications and programs are almost universally available for both operating systems, so there’s less reason to prioritise either for using a particular business centric program (the Windows Office suite or particular design programs will run perfectly on either type of Machine). How To Decide Ultimately, there’s a myriad factors on the decision between PC and Mac. There’s devotees of each platform, but it all comes down to analysing the specific needs of your business. Macs may be prettier, but this route means a massive initial financial investment when even a simple laptop is around the thousand pound mark. That said, a trusty PC may not have the power or ability need to perform specialist tasks. Our advice is make a long, exhaustive list of the things you need your business machines to achieve, then consult the talking points we covered in this post to make an informed decision.
FYI: 7 Cloud acronyms you’ll encounter in business
Cloud-based computing is taking the place of more widely used hardware and physical software by permitting users to connect to physically distant digital systems which are maintained and updated by the vendor rather than the user. Modern cloud platforms allow instant access to shared computing resources including software, applications and networks. Although the cloud is making running a business easier from an IT perspective, it comes with the baggage of an overwhelming amount of baffling acronyms so we thought we’d help you out with 7 of the most common: 1. SaaS- Software as a Service SaaS is a common acronym for centrally managed software on demand. It is usually provided on a subscription basis and has become a common delivery model for many business applications, including Office and messaging software, development software, accounting and content management. One of the major selling points for SaaS to enterprise software companies is the potential to reduce IT support costs by outsourcing hardware and software maintenance and support to the SaaS provider. 2. IaaS- Infrastructure as a Service IaaS is virtual hardware companies can purchase instead of owning and operating their own data centers. IaaS provides access to remote data center infrastructures which can be used for virtual server space, network connections and bandwidth. Despite the cloud being responsible for maintaining the network of servers that IaaS is on, users are responsible for upgrading and managing middleware and operating systems. Amazon Web Services, and Microsoft Azure are a couple of leading providers of IaaS. 3. MaaS- Monitoring as a Service MaaS is a framework to monitor specific elements of servers and systems in the cloud. The primary use of MaaS is data collection about real-time functioning of IT components and performance. Another common function for MaaS is online state monitoring which tracks states of networks, applications and systems. 4. CAMP- Cloud Application Management for Platforms CAMP was designed to resolve incompatibilities between cloud environments by simplifying the management of multiple cloud applications. Because PaaS include their own API (application programming interface) to configure and monitor applications used on that platform, when PaaS are used in conjunction by different vendors the APIs conflict. So CAMP allows for collaboration between these PaaS. 5. MDM- Mobile Device Management A cloud platform brought forward to accommodate the budding trend of BYOD (bring your own device), MDM facilitates compatibility and security among several devices (including tablets, laptops and smart phones) in company networks where employees may work on a plethora of devices using various operating systems. 6. DaaS- Desktop as a Service A cloud service which permits users to access their desktops from different devices and provides smooth transitions between many devices. DaaS is generally used by businesses with employees who work remotely or from their own devices. 7. iPaaS- integration Platform as a Service iPaaS is a service used to help make cloud applications compatible with one another. Individually they cannot communicate or share data with each other across the cloud; especially problematic for businesses who use multiple SaaS and IaaS from different providers. The above is a basic overview some terms you may well run into and technologies you might not have thought about, for your business. And if you think they sound “too big” for you, remember that the beauty of cloud services is their ability to scale as big or small as your requirement- and that includes the price point too! If you want further information about the cloud or want help with migrating your systems to the cloud. Contact Our Account Managers by email (info@northernstar.co.uk) or by telephone (+44 (0) 800 319 6032).
Our 5 Favourite Business Communication Programs
Communication is at the heart of any business. Whether it’s liaising with your internal team, contributing to a collaborative project or speaking to important domestic and international clients – good, reliable communication makes everything easier. But what’s the best way to stay in touch? There’s loads of software out there that promise to give your business hyper-connectivity, so we investigated to discover the best tools for any small, medium or large business. Business Communication Programs Like any relationship, communication helps to avoid issues. Keeping a project moving forward often depends on a healthy conversation between the client and within the team. It’s just as vital that you can easily have a conference call with your contact in Moscow as it is to announce the location of your Christmas party to your team. With that in mind, here’s our top communication program selections: Conference Calling Pretty obvious business name, right? Instead of thinking up a witty name, Conference Calling put its creative energies into providing a solid, unbeatable conference call service. Available in both pay as you go and monthly subscriptions, this conference calling service comes with features such as personalised greetings, free recording, web controls, screen sharing, operator assisted calling, outbound calling and much more. In a saturated market, Conference Calling edges out its competitors with its simplicity, ease-of-use and extremely reasonable pricing. Slack Slack is a free internal chat system that’s super easy to use and free to use (depending on your requirements). It allows you to easily send documents and conduct both group chats and private chats, making it even easier to stay in touch without long, sprawling email chains or wandering around the office. It’s even used by NASA. We love slack because it’s been made with the user in mind. It’s affordable and has saved us a bunch of time by giving us direct contact with everyone in our team. You can even get a smartphone app for those occasions you’re working on the road. Perfect. Google Drive Google Drive is a really handy, free way of working collaboratively on documents. Word processing documents, spreadsheets, presentations and more can be edited and shared using just a Google email. It lacks many of the important features present on more advanced software (like Office 365 for example), but Google Drive is really easy to use and can be an agile way of working collaboratively and sharing information. Skype If you don’t need dedicated conferencing room hardware Skype is great low-cost option that supports simple person-to-person and group video calls. Skype is useable on the majority of smartphones and devices (as well as desktop), and it’s possible to use Skype to contact outside lines, such as landlines and mobiles. A very handy way of chatting across continents. Microsoft Office 365 We love Office 365: it’s modern but familiar, agile yet resilient – basically, it’s the perfect office tool. Microsoft Office 365 is a web version of the trusty old Office package, existing in the cloud to give everyone in the business access to documents, team project management, online video conferences, screen sharing, instant messaging, hosting email and online storage. Sounds pretty good, right? It is. Our team specialise in setting up Office 365 and helping business bring their communications into the twenty-first century. What’s more, you can scale your Office 365 subscription depending on your needs, so if you’re expanding, simply add more machines to your subscription. Downsizing? You can scale back just as easily. Still not convinced? We explore some of the compelling reasons to consider Office 365 here.
How to successfully manage your Outlook
1. Prioritise: People tend to read emails in chronological order and this could lead to important emails being pushed down. Instead of having this default setting, you can change it up by identify the top 2-5 projects that you are most concerned with and create subject headings to reflect these. You can then let your colleagues know that emails with those subject headings are the ones that you are going to pay initial attention to. 2. Categorise: You can group together related messages in folders through creating a new email folder each time you have a new customer. You can categorise emails by project, subject and other categories that are relevant to your work. You can also create folders for messages that are sent to or by your boss or an important client including crucial information that needs saving. 3. Search Folders: Outlook search folder provides an efficient way for you to find emails. The search folder comes with default features such as ‘unread mail’ but you can create your own in order for the folders in your Outlook to identify the aspects of the email that you are looking for in your inbox. 4. Brita filter for Outlook: You can use Outlook Junk Mail Filter to stop unnecessary messages from infiltrating your inbox. This filter will send emails marked as junk into a separate folder in your mailbox, where you can also look at the content of this folder to ensure that important emails are not mistakenly sent to it. 5. Colour Coordinate: Assigning colours to different message groups such as “notes”, “contacts” or “appointments” could make them easy to identify and simpler for you to sort through. You can also track all appointments, contacts and messages for computer projects by creating a category called “computer projects” and assigning the messages to it. 6. Raise the Outlook flag: With Outlook you can follow up or flag emails and tasks, these flags will point out someone’s enquiry or order. As well as that when you create a task and set an expiry date, it will automatically be flagged so that you don’t forget about it. 7. Ditch the default: With any Microsoft product there is always a default view and Outlook is not an exception. You don’t have to keep it that way, there are multiple pre-set views that you can choose, for example ‘most recent emails only’. You can also customize your outlook through adding columns or rearranging orders and sorting your emails by Date, Subject etc. 8. Become your own Time Lord: Outlook colours unread emails differently from read messages, however it is all too easy for an email to be marked as read when you have barely glanced at it and this could lead to you overlooking something important. To stop this from happening you can modify the amount of seconds you want the email to appear in the reading pane before it is marked as ‘read’. 9. Duplicates: Recently developed features in Outlook allow you to obtain information about contacts from your social media accounts such as LinkedIn and Facebook. What can happen is you get multiple contact entries for the same person with different details in each entry. You can link these details together for that contact and put the data in one place. 10. Favouritism: It can be tedious to navigate through your folder pane (especially when you have several email accounts) to find the exact folder that you want. You can simplify sourcing these folders if you add the most frequent ones as your favourites as they will appear at the top of the folder list.
Ten Top Tips for File Management
1) File as you go: A quick and simple tip to start you on your route to organisation: File each document when you first create it. By placing it in the right location from the start, you don’t have to worry about where you saved it when you’re finished. 2) Russian Nesting Doll Style: Make your life easier by creating folders within folders. A folder labelled for a customer can have inside it folders for “Projects”, “Correspondence” and “CustomerInfo”, therefore you will only have to open one folder to access all the files about one client. Moreover if you have a folder for invoices, that could contain folders named “2015”, “2014” etc. These simple changes will take you a long way in the world of organisation. 3) Be specific: Be logical when naming your files, keep in mind that you’re naming your files to be able to tell what the file is about without having to open it. So name the file for what it is and include dates if possible: if the file is a report to a client about their late payment then name it something like “Overdue-04-01-2015” rather than “report”. 4) Separation is key To prevent yourself from getting confused, separate your completed projects from ongoing ones. This way your eyes won’t be darting around the screen filtering through dozens of files and you will be able to find the important ones instantly. This leads to our next tip… 5) Out with the Old and In with the New-? No, just archive: Old files occupy a lot of memory, so if you’re certain a file is useless then delete it. Otherwise create a folder called “archive” in your primary collection of folders and move the old files into it. That way you can keep possible old resources that could still be used for future projects without them getting in the way. 6) Three birds one stone: Three tips accomplished with one solution: back-up, file management and storage. There are a plethora of software programs which were created to monitor, manage and recover files on your desktop and even better most of them are online, so you can store your files in the cloud which will come in handy if you are not in the office and want to work on some things. 7) Under one roof or root? Life will be simpler if you place all of your documents under one “root” folder, usually in Windows the default location for documents is the ‘My Documents’ folder, but if you are using SharePoint it will be your company’s one drive location. 8) Triple A: You could try to simplify things for yourself by putting your top priority files at the top of the file list by renaming them with an A at the beginning of the file name. Seems really silly but it could help you, although try not to overkill it by getting to a point where you’re naming a file ‘AAAAAAAAAAInvoices’. 9) Default. Standard. Approved: Application program files are located under the Program Files directory, so use this default file location when installing application programs. Installing applications somewhere else is complicated and unnecessary. 10) Customisation: If your main filing system is on virtual software then you might want to customise your virtual library. You can use pictures and colours to show what is inside specific folders and you can download folder icons from the internet.
6 neglected IT management activities which can harm your business
Is your business at risk? Answer: Yes, all the time, it’s just a matter of by how much. There are simple things that you can do to stop your business from suffering unnecessarily. We’re not here to advise you on how to get a client to pay on time (which would be nice) nor how to get your employees to respect company property. This post is about simple IT management related activities which, when neglected, could give you an unnecessary headache. Impenetrable security, Impenetrable business: Whether your business is small, medium or large you do not want to use a free or home user anti-virus. There is no way that this software can give you the quality of protection which you need for your business. It’s not just the level of protection, but the quality of the updates- you need to ensure that you keep up to date with your anti-virus software and that it has the most recent bug fixes. Only business grade software will do this. Remind me later… (Enough said): Everyone has experienced the “Adobe” and “Java” updates that plague your desktop every time you start up your computer and the constant reminder to upgrade your security. Listen to them! These updates are important. Adobe and Java are two of many systems which hackers can target and these updates are bandages to fix these vulnerabilities. It is good practice to install these updates as soon as they become available. Educate your staff: Having properly trained staff is your first line of defence from phishing emails. By simply warning your employees not to click on any links in suspicious emails and being sceptical of messages which implore them to ‘update’ or ‘verify’ account information, increases the safety of your business enormously. Password safety- You’d think it was obvious: If one of your employees becomes a victim of an email scam, hackers can retrieve passwords and can gain access to your company’s professional information. Everyone associated with your business needs to ensure that passwords are strong, yet easy to remember: having a username Elliot and a password Elliot1 is not reliable. Having secure passwords which need at least 8 characters including uppercase and lowercase letters with numbers and special characters should be company policy. BYOD is good but it comes with a price: Many companies are now allowing employees to use their own personal devices for work, to cut costs and increase accessibility, but doing so creates a number of additional risks including virus infection, risk to confidential information and ex-employees having easy access to sensitive corporate data. There are security precautions that can be set up to avoid these issues, but without the right management tools, these are easily skipped or circumvented, leaving your business vulnerable. Back it up! It’s amazing that businesses still suffer from data loss in this day and age. Most people are aware that there are reliable and monitored data back-up systems (especially online) which are inexpensive to set up. These save you from that “Arrrrgh!” moment when you find you no longer have those company account files or that email which outlines the heads of any deal’s terms, but why do back-up disasters still happen? Because of the “It won’t happen to me” mentality. Regardless of if you do or don’t back up, it will happen. If you back up it won’t cause you any problems. Even though these things seem obvious, they are often overlooked by many businesses. I’ve posted these points as a simple reminder that without proper mitigation, vulnerabilities can and do exist, but luckily there are straightforward and cost effective solutions available. Concerned about your company? Or interested in the cloud? Contact Our Account Managers by email (info@northernstar.co.uk) or by telephone (+44 (0) 800 319 6032).
