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Posts tagged ‘Outlook’

Jan 20

Microsoft Office 365 from the Web and I
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New Office 365 2013 Preview: Introduction

REDMOND, WASHINGTON

Elegant. Simple. A revolution is coming to Microsoft. Its name? Microsoft Office 365 2013 Edition.

The features of the new system make it the best cloud productivity solution in the Industry.

Microsoft Office 365 with Office 2013 is a software suite that works equally well on the Mac as it does on a Windows PC.

One Microsoft Office 365 account can be installed on up to five computers, so multiple users can share Microsoft Windows and Apple Mac data.

Mobile computing works great on every kind of phone. The new version may even boast live video chat on mobile, which we will test out in this series.

Anything a business wants to accomplish can be completed with these tools.

Influential think tank Forrester Research says that the Office 365 cloud model provides a far lower Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) when compared to a traditional on-site installation of the same options.

Microsoft Office 365 2013 Edition is user-friendly whether you have a PC, Mac or Phone.

From a compliance standpoint, Office 365 services offers a 99.97% Financially-Backed Uptime Service Level Agreement (SLA).

New Office 365 2013 Preview Table of Contents

Starting with this introduction, there are three more sections which will showcase the most salient aspects of the new technology in a logical format. We are testing this new system out starting today, and the categories below will fill up as we complete our testing and research and fill in the categories. As of today we are starting with expected archetypal categories, but as we learn more these will change and grow from time to time.

Installation and Account Creation for Trial

  1. Signing Up
  2. Installing and Initial Configuration Office 2013  
  3. Account Administration
  4. Security Recommendations
Microsoft Office

Microsoft Office

Word, Excel,Access, Publisher, PowerPoint, and One Note

Word, Excel,Access, Publisher, PowerPoint, and One Note

Microsoft Office Desktop Edition 2013

  1. Installation
  2. New Interface  
  3. New Features
  4. Microsoft Word
  5. Microsoft Excel
  6. Microsoft PowerPoint
  7. Microsoft Publisher (Expected February 22, 2013)
  8. Microsoft Visio (Expected February 23, 2013)
  9. Microsoft Project (Expected February 24, 2013)
  10. Microsoft One Note (Expected February 25, 2013)
  11. Navigation (Expected February 26, 2013)
  12. Custom Settings (Expected February 27, 2013)
  13. Licensing Options (Expected February 28, 2013)
Email, Calendars, and Customer Relationship Management

Email, Calendars, and CRM

Exchange Server 2013

Exchange Server 2013

Microsoft Dynamics CRM

Microsoft Dynamics CRM

Microsoft Exchange 2013

  1. E-Mail (Expected March 23, 2013)
  2. Calendaring (Expected March 24, 2013)
  3. Social Networking (Expected March 25, 2013)
  4. E-Mail Merge (Expected March 26, 2013)
  5. Fax (Expected March 27, 2013)
  6. Lync Interoperability (Expected March 28, 2013)

Microsoft Dynamics CRM

  1. Interoperability with Office 365
  2. Advantages (Expected March 29, 2013)
  3. CRM For Mobile (Expected March 30, 2013)

Website

Website

Public-Facing SharePoint Features

  1. CSS (Expected March 1, 2013)
  2. Other Coding (Expected March 2, 2013)

Office Web Apps

Office Web Apps

Office Web Apps

  1. Speed and Efficiency on Slower Machines (Expected March 31, 2013)
  2. Mobile and Specialty Cases
  3. Simultaneous document Editing (Expected April 1, 2013)
File Sharing and Project Management

File Sharing and Project Management

SharePoint 2013

SharePoint 2013

SharePoint Server 2013

  1. Intranets (Expected March 3, 2013)
  2. Extranets (Expected March 4, 2013)
  3. Share Point Project Management Solutions for Small Businesses (Expected March 5, 2013)
  4. New Extensibility and Coding Options (Expected March 6, 2013)

Microsoft Project Management Server on Office 365

  1. Introduction (Expected March 7, 2013)
  2. Local Installation (Expected March 8, 2013)
  3. Project Management in Information Technology
  4. Project Management for Law Firms
  5. Project Management for Medical Practices (Expected March 9, 2013)
  6. Project Management for Education and Government (Expected March 10, 2013)
Instant Messaging, Presence, and Conferencing

Instant Messaging, Presence, and Conferencing

Microsoft Lync 2013

Microsoft Lync 2013

Lync 2013

  1. Enterprise Instant Messaging (Expected April 2, 2013)
  2. Lync Mobile (Expected April 3, 2013)
  3. Audio Conferencing (Expected April 4, 2013)
  4. Telephony (Expected April 5, 2013)
  5. Universal Messaging (Expected April 6, 2013)
  6. Video Teleconferencing (Expected April 7, 2013)
  7. Video “Brady Bunch Style” Tiled User Meeting (Expected April 8, 2013)
  8. Audio / Visual Meeting with Simultaneous Document Editing by Multiple Users (Expected April 9, 2013)

Mobility

Mobility

Windows 8 Phone

  1. Installation with Windows Synch: Zune (Expected March 11, 2013)
  2. Office 365
  3. Loading Music (Expected March 12, 2013)
  4. Synchronizing Contacts (Expected March 13, 2013)

Microsoft Office 365

  1. SharePoint (Expected March 14, 2013)
  2. Exchange (Expected March 15, 2013)
  3. Microsoft Dynamics CRM

Security and Trust

Security and Trust

Compliance and Risk Management

  • 99.97% Guaranteed Uptime Financially Backed Service Level Agreement (SLA) (Expected April 10, 2013)
  • Financially Backed Service Level Agreement (SLA) (Expected April 11, 2013)
  • ISO 9000 Compliance (Expected April 12, 2013)
  • Sarbanes Oxley Act Compliance (Expected April 13, 2013)
  • HIPAA Compliance (With hybrid on-site compliant servers on-site) (Expected April 14, 2013)

Economic Considerations

  1. Cost Calculator (Expected March 16, 2013)
  2. Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) (Expected March 17, 2013)
  3. Return on Investment (ROI) (Expected March1 8, 2013)
  4. Adoption by Fortune 500 Businesses (Expected March `19, 2013)
  5. Adoption by Foreign Governments (Expected March 20, 2013)
  6. Acceptance by US Government Accounting Office (GAO) and use in U.S. Government (Expected March 21, 2013)
  7. Use in State Government (the Web and I is a registered and licensed state vendor) (Expected March 22, 2013)

Contact the Web and I, Inc. today to get started at 646-853-0573!

Dec 15

Business Contact Manager or Solutions
1 Comment

Microsoft Outlook Business Contact Manager CRM

A little-known built-in feature of Microsoft Office as it is installed from a disk rather than with Office 365 is that there is a free included light CRM (Customer Relationship Management) feature known as Microsoft Outlook Business Contact Manager CRM. Although we push people to the cloud and recommend Office 365 with Dynamics CRM to our clients, some already have Microsoft Office 2010 installed from a disk. They wish to benefit from CRM and some of the collaborative features to increase productivity. Here is some information about  that little-known product.

Business Contact Manager Training

Starting to use Business Contact Manager 2010 for Outlook / Exchange is not merely installing a new piece of familiar software for users: it is an enterprise product that has the potential to transform business by enriching the data collected on contacts, refining your marketing efforts, and allowing your sales and marketing team members to collaborate as a team on the same shared set of data. Business Contact Manager 2010 is a form of Customer Relationship Management software, or CRM. CRM Software is enterprise grade collaborative software, and proper use requires a brief re-training of staff as well as a re-engineered business process.

Since the early 1990’s, information workers in sales and marketing have become used to working alone, each with their own set of leads. Sometimes the leads even overlapped between salespeople, because of inclusion in multiple lists as duplicates. Sales leaders contact many people, and they collected a great deal of information about the businesses in question. Once the campaign is closed, this business information is lost. Other employees who receive a call from well-documented prospects would not have any information collected nor would they know which persons’ lead they had received a call from. Sales staff would not get proper credit, and information collected was not in place across the organization to impress the client. Clients do not wish to provide their information more than once. If they have to, it tends to make them less confident about your business. Customer Relationship Management software like Business Contact Manager keeps this information shared, allowing you to respond quickly to clients needs and to use your sales efforts to enrich your contact database with the best available information. Some information may be collected by cold calling. Other information may come into inside sales about the same contact through a different employee. Both sets of information get recorded about the same company and person, and everyone in the organization can see the complete results of all information collected as well as their communication record and all sales and marketing activities involved.

Training is the most effective way to get started. Your employees will not just learn the basics of learning a new type of software, rather the business process will be adapted to a new way of thinking and doing business: a collaborative and more efficient way.

Here are some of the important topics I can cover in two days of training for your staff. Much of the content and guidance below has been provided by Microsoft.

Find Business Contact Manager in Outlook

This is how you can get started by opening the program in Outlook:

  • In the Navigation Pane, under Business Contact Manager. (Click the Business Contact Manager folder to display the Business Contact Manager Dashboard.)

Find Business Contact Manager in Outlook

-or-

  • In the Navigation Pane, click the Business Contact Manager or Solutions button.

Business Contact Manager or Solutions

Here, Business Records is visible beneath the Business Contact Manager folder, as well as the Welcome Center, Contact Management, Sales, Marketing, Project Management, and Deleted Items folders.

Additional features and options are found in the Backstage view, on the Business Contact Manager tab.

Business Contact Manager folders

The folders beneath Business Contact Manager provide alternative representations of your data.

If you haven’t already added your own business data, try using the sample business database. Click the File tab.

Click the Business Contact Manager tab. Click Manage Databases, and then click Switch to Sample Business.

Click See
1 Business Contact Manager The Business Contact Manager Dashboard. View up-to-the-minute information about your business in the gadgets. Gadgets graphically display information from the various records of Business Contact Manager for your analysis. For information about the Dashboard, see Track important business details on the Dashboard later in this article.
Welcome Center Welcome Center An overview of Business Contact Manager for Outlook features and introductory videos. For more information about the Welcome Center, see Learn about Business Contact Manager in the Welcome Center later in this article.
Contact Management Contact Management The Contact Management workspace to give you quick access to Account, Business Contact, and Lead records, and gadgets that display the information you want to see.
Sales Sales The Sales workspace which gives you quick access to your Opportunity and Lead records. Use the records to review your potential sales and customers. The gadgets display up-to-the-minute sales information.
Marketing Marketing The Marketing workspace to plan and view the marketing activities that promote your business. The gadgets display information about your marketing activities.
Project Management Project Management The Project Management workspace. Keep up with your Business Projects and their related tasks.
Deleted Items Deleted Items The Deleted Items folder holds records deleted from Business Contact Manager for Outlook, and can only be emptied by the owner of the Business Contact Manager database.
Search Folders Search Folders Folders, such as Business Leads, that list the records that match the criteria that you specify. Search Folders are automatically updated.

The Business Records folder

  • To open the Business Records folder, in the Navigation Pane, click the Business Contact Manager or Solutions button, and then click Business Records.

The Business Records folder contains folders that display a list of each type of record: Accounts; Business Contacts; Opportunities; Marketing Activities; Business Projects and Project Tasks; and Communication History items.

 Note   Leads are included in the Business Contacts folder because they are a type of Business Contact.

Click See
Business Records Business Records The Accounts, Business Contacts, Opportunities, Marketing Activities, Business Projects, and Projects Tasks, and Communication History folders that display lists of the records of the selected type. Note   Lead records are included in the Business Contacts folder because they are a type of Business Contact.
Accounts Accounts A list of all Accounts, and any records that are based on the Account record type.View, edit, or add new Accounts and Account record types to this list.
Business Contacts Business Contacts A list of all Business Contacts, Leads, and any records that are based on the Business Contact record type.View, edit, or add new Business Contacts, and Business Contact record types to this list.
Opportunities Opportunities A list of all Opportunities.View, edit, or add new Opportunities to this complete list.
Marketing Activities Marketing Activities A list of all marketing activities such as call lists and mass e-mail campaigns.Create, view, or edit any marketing activity.
Business Projects Business Projects Create, view, or edit a Business Project.Click the Project Tasks folder to view the related tasks.
Project Tasks Project Tasks Create and link Project Tasks to Business Projects, and view or edit Project Tasks.
Communication History Communication History A list of all communication history items, such as Opportunities, Business Projects, e-mail messages, appointments, and meetings.
Deleted Items Deleted Items The Deleted Items folder holds records deleted from Business Contact Manager for Outlook, and can only be emptied by the owner of the Business Contact Manager database.

The Welcome Center

Once you complete the Startup Wizard, the Welcome Center opens. Use it to find a wealth of introductory information about Business Contact Manager for Outlook. Click a category on the wheel to see a brief description about that area. Watch a short video for an overview of how you can use Business Contact Manager for Outlook to help you keep track of your business information.

Or, click one of the Getting Started cards in the lower half of the Welcome Center for more details, videos, and links to articles about the features that interest you. Use the arrows to scroll through the cards.

You can return to the Welcome Center any time you like. Just click the Welcome Center folder in the Navigation Pane under Business Contact Manager.

Track important business details on the Dashboard

With just a glance at the gadgets on the Dashboard in Business Contact Manager for Outlook, you can see your business’s earnings potential, the current and future workload on staff, and which marketing activities are producing results for your business. The Dashboard can display up to 20 gadgets charting the sales, marketing activities, projects, and tasks of your business.

Use the Ribbon to add the gadgets that you want to see on the Dashboard. Drag the gadgets to rearrange them, or click the View tab on the Ribbon to add or remove columns from the Dashboard. It’s your view to customize.

Use the Business Contact Manager workspaces

Each Business Contact Manager for Outlook workspace includes a gadgets area and section for tabs. The commands are slightly different for each of the workspaces. Generally, they each include commands that enable you to create new records, edit them, and set up some kind of communication, such as send an e-mail message.

Display a workspace

In the Navigation Pane, under Business Contact Manager, click one of the following folders to display the workspace:

  • Contact Management.
  • Sales.
  • Marketing.
  • Project Management.

Display Workspace

  1. In the gadgets area, display key business metrics in charts and graphs to get a quick view of the state of your business. You can show or hide the gadgets area as well as add or remove gadgets.
  2. In the tabs area, you can manage, review, and analyze your business data. Each tab is comprised of a list of records, and a Reading or Preview Pane. The Reading Pane displays information from sections in a selected record.
  3. The tabs list the records that you want to see, such as the Opportunities or Leads records shown. You can add a tab for any record type to any workspace by clicking the Create New Tab button.
  4. In the Reading or Preview Pane, you can view selected sections from an individual record. To change the sections that are included, click Select Sections.

Change Business Contact Manager settings and options or get help

To change settings for some features, or perform tasks such as sharing or backing up your database, importing or exporting data, or get Help from newsgroups or other users, go to the Backstage view.

  1. Click the File tab.
  1. Click the Business Contact Manager tab.
  2. Do the following:
    • To perform a task. such as sharing the database, that affects all of Business Contact Manager, click one of the buttons.
    • To get help from Microsoft or from the Business Contact Manager community, under Getting Help, click one of the options.

For more information about the options in the Backstage view, see Set options and use features in the Backstage view.

More features

We’ve come a long way from the Rolodex®. Today, your business records contain a rich set of searchable data that can be of immense help in running your business. Plus, the tools in Business Contact Manager for Outlook go even farther because you can use them to visualize your data in gadgets, reports, and charts, and take the data with you to help you be more productive when you’re out of the office.

Search your business records

Searching your business records is a quick way to find a single record or group of records. Your 10 most recent search strings are automatically saved for easy re-use.

Filter your records

Applying a filter to a set of data or records allows you to display only information that meets a specified criteria. Filters make it easy to retrieve a single record or a set of records that have common characteristics. Filtering a list or report is a great way to produce a lists for a marketing activity, sales calls, or other business activity.

Use gadgets

In Business Contact Manager for Outlook, gadgets display key business metrics and information on your Dashboard or the Contact Management, Sales, Marketing, and Project Management workspaces.

Create reports and charts

A report is an excellent tool for gaining insight into your Accounts, Business Contacts, Leads, Opportunities, Business Projects, and marketing activities. You can open more than 60 standard reports in Business Contact Manager for Outlook, and can also modify, save, update, and reuse an almost unlimited number of additional reports.

Export your business records

You can export your business records and use them in other programs, such as Microsoft Excel. For example, you may want to export a copy of the data in a single report to Excel for deeper analysis.

Go mobile

You can take your business data with you when you leave the office: on your laptop, or on your phone. You can also access Business Contacts by signing in to Outlook Web Access if you have turned on the Business Contact Synchronization feature. For information about taking your business data with on your laptop, see Work offline using Business Contact Manager.

Dec 7

Cost Savings
1 Comment

Creating a Private Microsoft Office 365 Style Private Cloud in your Company

Goals

This project is intended to provide a secure intranet environment for the multiple offices of Your Corporation with the features of secure services including zones for document collaboration, E-Mail with Exchange, remote PC access from tablets, and the ability to have multiple users collaborate on the same documents simultaneously. Corporate instant messaging and online meetings are also desired features. In short, an environment should be created on local servers in one office and be usable by the other offices. Security considerations include a secure locked area for servers at least consisting of a lockable server cabinet for access control and removable drives. Removable drives should be consistent in size and type across all servers so that they can be changed without powering down the servers. The parity information on the drives should allow for rebuilding of information on a freshly inserted drive. Two load-balanced web servers with firewalls will serve as application servers. Additionally, a firewall appliance can act as a second level of firewall protection. The firewall appliance should be a Linux-based model with statefull packet inspection, because this is a complementary firewall strategy to that of Windows. This strategy has been successfully used by clients including NYU School of Medicine and our own offices. The servers needed are: Lync Server 2012, Lync Edge Server 2012, SQL Server, Exchange Server 2012, Office Web Apps Server 2012, IIS Web Server (A component of Microsoft Server 2012), and SharePoint Server 2013. Using the most recent products will bring You in line with the upgrades for Office 365 scheduled tentatively for the end of December 2012. Investing in the latest technology has risks involved with using the newest technology including undiscovered performance issues. As an alternative, the earlier versions of the software can be purchased and used. Backup will be relegated to a dedicated appliance that provides continual automated backup, one backup appliance for each server. These appliances can be carried away from the premises if needed just as easily as the removable hard drives.

Martin Low of the Web and I, Inc. is available to serve as the functional lead and project manager, and he is working from his office to select experts for an installation and integration by technical experts in each server type which can take place over two days convenient to Your Company on that weekend Mr. Low will configure SharePoint, oversee technical staff, clean up the contact list for the Exchange Global Address List, and assign security roles to users at Your Company

Following installation, Mr. Low will initiate training operations at the pleasure of Your Company He can initiate training in the main office in the first week and can provide additional training at other offices in person or through web meeting. In person training is recommended, but the wishes of Your Company will prevail.

Your Company has expressed a concern with server maintenance including software and hardware maintenance hours and expenses. Software maintenance can be had through technical experts in the individual server products by remote access or in person locally from an area accessible to Katonah. We recommend using local resources for increased security. Maintenance of the servers from a mechanical standpoint has a few possible approaches. The Web and I is experienced in the sourcing and construction of quality servers brand new from parts. The advantage to this is the lower costs of the servers Your Company needs to purchase. However the Web and I can also purchase the necessary servers from Dell at a discount through Dell Outlet. The advantage of using Dell for critical equipment is that Dell has service plans that guarantee on-site service including any needed parts all included in low-cost annual plans. The Web and I, Inc., despite our ability to make our own computers also chooses to use Dell because of the security our organization needs for the computers which run our mission-critical applications. The Web and I, Inc. represented by Martin Low will do a study of projected expenses for purchase as well as ongoing expenses for maintenance prior to the commencement of the Project. A formalized project management strategy will be used in accordance with best practices.

Implementation Methodology: Project Management

Accountability

There are people who need to be assigned responsibility for actions, decisions, and policies concerning the management of the implementation and governance, all within the scope of their role within the project. In other words, someone puts SharePoint in place; and project management helps this by defining the what, when, why, and where of this implementation.

Sustainability

While preserving the integrity of the platform delivered to the organization, the platform must meet present needs, but also future organizational requirements. These new technological capabilities need to be managed and governed to grow. Project management helps by providing methods so that issues concerning the economic (user requirements in terms of added features or products), social (the ability to enhance and connect people), and environment (the infrastructure can be scaled, for example) are protected and managed.

Resiliency

A SharePoint implementation needs to be robust to survive. All systems must have the ability to provide and maintain an acceptable level of service in the face of faults and challenges to normal operation. Project management provides processes such as configuration management, planning for backup, disaster recovery, monitoring, and performance levels.

Supportability

These technologies need to be looked after. Project management defines the quality-control measures to be enacted by the team that is responsible for the implementation.

As a Project Manager Mr. Low needs to ensure that when describing the four above elements to the Your Company that they understand there is a timeline to put in these technologies. Best practices do not allow for letting the client put together the timeline themselves, because they will start by reasoning that anything they don’t do is easy to do. Designing a platform for mission critical operations cannot be completed in two weeks, for example.

Accountability, supportability, resiliency, and sustainability cannot be assured in a week. Those are continual processes, and to make sure you can apply those means planning through to implementation. The estimated project timeline is one month. Two days for installation of the servers, and one month for ongoing training, quality assurance, contingency planning, and more.

Securing Office Web Apps Server communications by using HTTPS

Office Web Apps Server can communicate with SharePoint 2013, Lync Server 2013, and Exchange Server 2013 by using the HTTPS protocol. In production environments, we strongly recommend that you use HTTPS. You’ll have to have to install an Internet Server certificate that can be assigned to the server that runs Office Web Apps Server (if you are using a single server) or to the load balancer (if you are using multiple servers that run Office Web Apps Server).

With Microsoft server products, properly integrated and implemented, there is no need for expensive Wide Area Network (WAN) solutions, as these server products can be accessed securely over the Internet with 256 bit encryption.

Next Steps

  1. Approval of Project Outline by Your Company
  2. Contract Signing and 10% down payment of consultation budget. (the Web and I, Inc. will sign any confidentiality contracts you may require at this time by authorized signer Martin Low.)
  3. Plan for Procurement Methodology to  be completed by the Web and I, Inc.
  4. Approval of Procurement Methodology for hardware by Your Company
  5. Project Budget to be prepared by the Web and I, Inc.
  6. Project Budget to be approved by Your Company
  7. Project Kick-Off Date selected by Your Company
  8. Staff Selection Completed by the Web and I, Inc.
  9. Staff Approval by Your Company
  10. Technology Maintenance Plan to be completed by the Web and I, Inc.
  11. Technology Maintenance Plan to be approved by Your company
  12. Disaster Management and Recovery Plans to be completed by the Web and I, Inc.
  13. Disaster Management and Recovery Plans to be approved by Your Company
  14. Projected Ongoing Expenses to be completed by the Web and I, Inc.
  15. Projected Ongoing Expenses to be approved by Your Company
  16. Project Plan completed by the Web and I, Inc.
  17. Project Plan Approval by Your Company
  18. Business Process Re-Engineering Plan completed by the Web and I, Inc.
  19. Business Process Re-Engineering Plan approved by Your Company
  20. Software Testing, Quality Assessment and Quality Improvement Plan completed by the Web and I, Inc.
  21. Software Testing, Quality Assessment and Quality Improvement Plan approve by Your Company
  22. Regulatory Compliance Plan to be completed by the Web and I, Inc.
  23. Regulatory Compliance Plan to be approved by the Web and I, Inc.
  24. Staff Training Plan to be completed by the Web and I, Inc.
  25. Staff Training Plan approved by Your Company
  26. Payment of 40% of Consultation Budget and 100% of Hardware and Software. Alternatively hardware and software can be ordered by Martin Low directly at Katonah using Your Company payment methods for shipment to Your Company
  27. Purchase of Servers to be shipped directly to Katonah Office.
  28. Installation and Integration on Project Kick-Off Date to take place on two days.
    1. Project Kick-Off Meeting.
    2. Install Windows Server 2012 on all 8 Servers (6 product servers and two load-balanced web app servers).
    3. Windows 8 Upgrades on all Desktops.
    4. Configuration and Testing of Backup Appliances.

May 17

Microsoft Outlook
3 Comments

Outlook E-Mail Sorting Problems: an Easy Solution

Very often, an inadvertent click results in unexpected results, and so it is with Outlook and the grey “Sort By:” selector bar at the top of the list of messages. Before you know it, you cannot find the messages you received today, because the order has changed to be listed by sender or other unwanted sorting order.

Unwanted Sorting Order in Outloook

Click for Larger Sizes

This situation can cause endless frustration by users of Microsoft Office 365 who may be new to Outlook or may have been using much older versions before.

Fortunately, there is an easy solution and your Outlook sorting will be back to normal before you know it. You need to right-click the gray Arrange By bar and click on Date in the resulting menu as illustrated below:

Change sorting order

Click for Larger Sizes

Once you have clicked on “Date” and changed the sort order, your messages will be back to the normal sort order and the latest ones will again be on top.

Outlook with the Proper Sort Order

Click for Larger Sizes

Aug 13

Microsoft Office 365 from the Web and I
2 Comments

E-Mail Rules in Microsoft Office 365

One of the most important features of Office 365 is their world-class E-Mail from Microsoft Exchange. And one of the best features that people can do to save time is to program Outlook to perform tasks such as getting rid of junk mail automatically and delivering mail that meets certain conditions into specific folders. This lets Outlook automatically pre-sort your mail into the folders of your choice. You will see when those folders get new messages, which will allow you to treat messages in their folders as tasks and then track them for completion.

Rules can be added through the Outlook Desktop Application. However this is not recommended because the rules will not be permanent. Specifying rules through the Outlook Web Access (OWA) Interface on your Microsoft Office 365 portal will be the preferred method and best practice as per Microsoft Office 365 in Business, Wiley Press, 2011.

To update your rules, go to Portal.Microsoftonline.Com:

1. Login to Microsoft Office Live

1. Login to Microsoft Office Live. Go to http://portal.microsoft.com in order to log in to Microsoft Office 365.

Log in with your User Name and Password.

2. The Microsoft Office 356 Home Page

2. The Microsoft Office 356 Home Page is the page you will see when you first log in.

From the home page, click “Outlook” in the top middle part of the Internet Explorer window. These steps work with Firefox and Safari as well on both PC and Mac.

3. Outlook Web Access View.

3. Outlook Web Access View. This is the place to check your E-Mail, Tasks, Calendars, and more.

This is the inbox view. From here we can find E-Mails which we can apply rules to.

4. Selecting an E-Mail for the Junk Sender List.

4. Selecting an E-Mail for the Junk Sender List. This twitter E-mail is a part of business networking, but it can be annoying as well. In order to save time, I will send this type of twitter notification automatically to the Junk folder.

After clicking the option to display the images on the E-Mail, I can see what I am looking at first. This should only be done with sources you know to be safe. Otherwise, other parties who have sent you the image may be able to track you opening the image.

5. As we can see this is a standardized notification from twitter and a prime junk mail candidate.

5. As we can see this is a standardized notification from twitter and a prime junk mail candidate.

With Outlook there are Rules to organize E-mail that you want and Junk Mail Rules. Select a message in your inbox that you consider to be junk. Once you apply Junk Mail Rules, the E-Mail address or the domain itself will be set to send any message meeting the criteria into your Junk E-Mail folder. To begin with the E-Mail highlighted, right-click the  message to show the options. The first option will send future E-Mail from the E-Mail address in question to the Junk E-Mail folder. The second option will block the entire domain: be careful with this option because it should not be used to block mail from major domains such as live.com, hotmail.com, yahoo.com. Blocking those domains will lock out some customers and vendors for contacting you.

6. Finding Outlook Rules with a Right Click on the message.

6. Finding Outlook Rules with a Right Click on the message.

7. Outlook Rules.

7. The illustration below shows the Add Sender to Blocked Senders List option highlighted. .

8. Outlook Rules.

8. This is a confirmation message that shows up on the screen to indicate that the sender’s E-Mail address has been added to the Blocked Sender List.

10. Outlook Rules.

10. Right-click the message to see the available options.

13. Outlook Rules.

13. The options on the bottom allow you do do many different things. You can automatically delete a message, automatically send it to a specific folder, forward it to another recipient, or send a text message to a user. In this case we are using the “Move the message to folder” option.

14. Outlook Rules.

14. When you select the folder in the dialog box that opens, you can use the control at right to create a new folder to send the mail featuring this new rule to.

15. Outlook Rules.

15. Type in the name of your new folder.

16. Outlook Rules.

16. With the new folder selected, click the “OK” Button on the lower-right hand corner of the dialog box.

 

17. Outlook Rules.

17. Further selections after this allow you to further specify the conditions that define when the rule is to be applied. It pays for you to familiarize yourself with all of them and imagine scenarios where they would be useful to you, so that you are prepared to apply rules to new mail arriving in the inbox. For very large inboxes, most E-mail can have automatic rules applied to it. This makes for an organized workflow and less time spent on the inbox. Employers can benefit from more efficient workers, and employees can benefit by having less work to do.

18. Outlook Rules.

18. Since there are more actions available besides moving E-Mail to a folder, you can elect to also add additional actions. A scenario is that if you are receiving E-Mail orders you could send a copy of the E-Mail to everyone responsible. You could then also specify that a text message be sent to one or more employees as well.

For more help or for your custom solution call today 646-853-0573.

Jun 23

Microsoft Office 365 from the Web and I
7 Comments

The Web and I Creates First U.S. Based Office 365 Fax Service

Inspired by Europe’s success in creating integrated faxing from Office 365, the Web and I has helped two local businesses to discard their fax machines in favor of virtualized E-Faxing services.

This service is also cloud based, and the benefits include:

  • The ability to send faxes from your E-Mail from Outlook or Web Outlook.
  • The ability to receive faxes in Outlook or Web Outlook.
  • The ability to route faxes directly to Office 365 Sharepoint 2010 Workspace.
  • The ability to integrate your Multi-Function Printer and Scanner.
  • The ability to receive and review or print your faxes anywhere.
  • The ability to print your documents to any fax machine around you, print your documents to your client’s or vendor’s fax machine in their office!
  • The ability to receive all fax transmissions receipts in Outlook.
  • The ability to store all fax transmissions, receipts, and received faxes in a legally compliant archive with disaster management and recovery plans rated at ISO 9000 standards. The archive can only be deleted by Microsoft and the standards employed make the proof of sending and receiving documents available in a manner suitable for presentation as evidence in a court of law.
  • The ability to add signatures, logos, custom fax cover sheets, and other visual refinements.
  • Mass faxing capabilities.
  • The ability to send and receive faxes using the Web and I, Secure Faxing capabilities.

Because we are a boutique firm serving many professionals in diverse fields including healthcare, law, real estate, finance, banking, mortgages, and E-Commerce, we are sensitive to the unique compliance needs you may have. Some businesses are happy just to know that everything is backed up and safe. We provide that.  But in addition, we serve and fulfill the following additional compliance standards which may be required by your field:

  • Health Care Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) Standards.
  • Graham-Leach Bliley Act (GLB).
  • Sarbanes Oxley (SOX).

Experience

June 23, 2011, first integration of Office 365 in the US by a local law firm, the name of which can be announced subsequent to their own press release on June 27, 2011. Our second client is already in the planning phase for a five-line fax installation July 1, 2011.

Clients in Progress

First United Services

The Current Business Process and their faxing

First United Services, a ten-employee mortgage modification firm in Long Island, New York, has been helping people keep their homes for over a decade. Despite others in the field that lack a good reputation or business practices, First United Services actually succeeds in closing mortgage modifications with lenders and securing more favorable terms for their clients, regardless of circumstances. Their need for document faxing is in the thousands per month. They send many documents to banks that are for official business. Right now, many of the transmission reports are kept on paper folders. Sometimes they get lost. Everyone has to wait on-line to use their beautiful state-of-the-art Multi-Function Printer to send a fax. Scanning capabilities are built-in, but nobody knows how to access any scanned documents other than faxing them somewhere. Their office has just implemented Windows Intune and Microsoft Office 365. In addition to being users of Exchange and Outlook, the employees here rely on their SharePoint 2010 databases to track all client activity. They want to also store all of their documents there and integrate fax services with SharePoint and Outlook. They also want to be able to scan from their Multi-Function Printer to Outlook, Fax, and Office 365 all at the same time.

The Solution

The Web and I has come up with a solution whereby each employee requiring enterprise faxing has their own personal fax number for inbound and outbound faxes. Theses are cloud fax services with a land line number, but the faxes are delivered to and sent from Outlook. Each employee can send and receive 200 fax pages per month for $19.95, with add-on plans to cover any additional need. Employees with lesser page needs per month can pool accounts together and share, much the same way fax machines are shared now. Additional accounts involve no contracts to sign, so lines can be added and taken away at will and can be used for as little as a month. This way, First United Services will only have to pay for volume when they need it, and only for what they need. Faxing from Outlook means that everyone working at First United will just select a bank from their contact lists, attach documents to an email and add any text to the E-mail as needed, and then receive a return receipt. Office 365 provides legally compliant archiving of all of the E-mails, so no matter how many fax lines come and go, the archive of inbound faxes, outbound faxes, and transmission receipts will be there available as evidence in court. They can have full confidence in the knowledge that the Web and I has an attorney-approved compliance solution, and that we have attorney references available for prospective clients to provide proper testimonial for the simplicity, viability, and value of our solution as well as its’ applicability with your individual compliance needs.

To get a solution like this today, please call us at 646-853-0573

May 13

Microsoft Office 365 from the Web and I
5 Comments

Microsoft Office 365

Office 365 has been here now since June 18, 2011. Users are finding training needs minimal as they are used to the Microsoft Office Ribbon, even when they are using sophisticated add-on applications such as Microsoft Dynamics CRM! Desktop and online and server services in the future will be combined, but you will need a proper consultant in order to implement and make full use of the sophisticated features while maintaining a prudent and compliant information technology policy.

Microsoft Office 365 is a full suite of business productivity servers ready to run all of the computing needs of your business regardless of size. The product handles your corporate E-Mail, document storage, project management, scheduling, video teleconferencing, audio teleconferencing, PBX, enterprise voicemail, blackberry services, and integration with Microsoft Office, the licenses of which are also included with the plans we recommend. Soon you will be able to add-on accounting and project management as well. With the Web and I we are already implementing our first integrated accounting solution for one of our clients.. You may need only some of these services, and Office 365 has a plan to suit every user. However we recommend the E3 and E1 plans because they include the latest version of Microsoft Office for your desktop. With Dynamics CRM you will have integrated customer relationship management including Sales Management, Marketing Management, Order Management, and Invoice Management.

For information about the new 2013 version of Microsoft Office 365 2013 Edition Click Here

The Servers (and Services) Available with Office 365

Exchange Server 2013

Microsoft Exchange Online

Microsoft Exchange Online is an email, calendar and contacts solution delivered as a cloud service, hosted by Microsoft. The service is based on Microsoft Exchange server and offers 25 GB of email storage per user.  In addition, Exchange online offers users personalized calendars and contacts with sharing capability and 99.9% reliability in online secure back-up. Exchange ActiveSync provides mobile connectivity to Exchange services and mobile email applications. With added E-Fax service your users can each have their own fax number and they can even send and receive faxes from their mobile devices or laptops.

SharePoint 2013

Microsoft SharePoint Online

Microsoft SharePoint Online is a collaboration, sharing, and document editing service using internal and external sites. SharePoint is a great center for your corporate Intranet, and you can store and organize your documents, lists, and databases. Databases of increasing complexity are available with Office 365 including integration with Microsoft’s flagship accounting software, Microsoft Dynamics. One of our clients, First United Services, uses Microsoft Dynamics Customer Relationship Management software to handle client communications, document storage, information collaboration, sales management, order management, invoice management and interface with their soon-to-be-implemented Microsoft Dynamics GP Server solution.

Articles Written by the Web and I about SharePoint

Microsoft Lync 2013

Microsoft Lync Online

Microsoft Lync Online provides communications features including presence information, instant messaging, PC-to-PC audio/video calling and online meetings that can include PC audio, video and web conferencing with application sharing, whiteboards, and other collaboration tools. Lync Online is accessed through the Lync client. Lync Online also supports presence information and click-to-communicate features inside Microsoft Office applications. Currently the Lync components of Office 365 exclude Lync’s Enterprise Voice feature set.
Office Professional Plus

Microsoft Office Professional Plus in Office 365 provides the same client software as the Office Professional Plus product available through Microsoft Volume Licensing.

An Article Written by the Web and I about Microsoft Lync:

New Office 365

Microsoft Office 365: Under the Hood

Office Professional Plus in Office 365 has month-to-month, per-user licensing. It is an “Always On” service that has 99.98% reliability and can protect your data better and more cheaply than your staff can. Most very small businesses can afford no IT staff or servers at all. Office 365 provides server services that were once the exclusive domain of the Fortune 500 companies, who have been using enterprise class software since the turn of the millennium. If you were to purchase the servers, get a full-time IT person, and buy the licenses from Microsoft to do the same thing for a company of ten employees, you would spend $250,000 for the first year alone, and at least $75,000 each additional year. Now take that cost and compare it to the $3000 – $25,000 for the first year and $3000 – $15,000 for each additional year of service for a company of ten. For a sole proprietor like some of our customers are, you will spend between $300 – $10,000 for the first year and $300 – $1500 per year for additional years. These costs assume all of the installation, implementation, and customization costs. The lowest numbers are for the Microsoft Office 365 E3 plan alone.

Office Web Apps are browser-based versions of Microsoft Excel, Word, Access and PowerPoint that enable viewing and lightweight editing of Office documents in Web browsers while preserving the formatting of the original documents. When you have legacy computers or do not wish to tax the speed of the computer you are using, Microsoft Web apps are a great way to access your documents and databases.

For your E-Mail you will be using Web Outlook or your desktop outlook you already enjoy.  For those not familiar with Web Outlook, it is Outlook that can be accessed from any modern web browser with all of the features of Desktop outlook and connected to the same information, so you are never away from home as long as an Internet connection is available.

Enterprise users always have access to the desktop edition, but it can be handy. An example would be when you are without your computer at the client’s office. They ask for a brochure that you do not have with you but is on the corporate shared drive for your department. Your client only has Mac computers, and they do not run Office at all. How do you save the day and impress your client? You can either go on their Mac, log in to Office 365 on the Mac Safari browser, navigate to your corporate shared drive, then open the brochure and print the one you need.  For our E-Fax users, this can be even easier, they can retrieve any document in their corporate servers on their Blackberry or Windows 7 Mango phones and send it to any fax machine in the world in seconds.  Paper records in the home office can be scanned into the Multi-Function Printer and have it sent directly to Office 365 and into the hands of your employees on the road immediately.

Video teleconferencing was always a very expensive but very desirable feature for remote communication with clients as well as staff on the road or in their homes. With Office 365 each employee or client can be connected with a $20 webcam with integrated microphone. Video and audio teleconferencing is a great way to help the environment and your budget by avoiding travel and still meeting. With Office 365, multiple users can edit the same document simultaneously in multiple locations while on video teleconference.

As an added option, Blackberry services will be available, so that you can run Exchange on Blackberry for secure corporate messaging. Remote access to what you need is a big part of Office 365.

Backups are included in Office 365 for Small Businesses, and the Office 365 for Enterprises comes with ISO compliant archiving features, and both editions come with the ability for people in separate locations to simultaneously have open and work on the same document with a picture in picture video conference.  All of this securely on your bonded and trustworthy Microsoft-hosted extranet.

With the high costs of IT personnel needed to baby sit servers, as well as the down time and expensive licensing, cloud hosted server services from Microsoft make sense.  These are tools of unprecedented power, offering true ERP solutions for small businesses.

Office 365 is the successor to Office Live, which is our specialty. We are part of  an exclusive list of Office Live consultants with Microsoft Bizspark Startup grants who can start you out on Office Live today and upgrade you to Office 365 as soon as it becomes available! Take advantage of most of the features of Office 365 by calling us for Office Live now! Call 646-853-0573 and visit thewebandi.com.

For information about the new 2013 version of Microsoft Office 365 2013 Edition Click Here

New Articles Written by the Web and I about Office 365

Here are more videos about Office 365


Collaboration and Communication Available With Enterprise: Communicate and collaborate with any device and monitor your employees from anywhere in the world.


SharePoint and Office 365, and how you can collaborate as well as track employee productivity.


Lync and Communication including video teleconferencing. Work from anywhere and always contact your employees.


Enterprise Exchange Online and mobile office working. Your employees can help you from anywhere, no more excuses.

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