20 Microsoft 365 Productivity Tips

MN M365 User Group
20 Microsoft 365
Productivity Tips
Christian Buckley
AvePoint
Thomas Duff
Cambia Health

Thomas Duff
Software Engineer at Cambia Health
Thomas.Duff@CambiaHealth.com
@Duffbert
http://oneminuteofficemagic.com

Christian Buckley
Microsoft GTM Director at AvePoint
christian.buckley@avepoint.com
@buckleyplanet
http://www.buckleyplanet.com
Please remember to subscribe on YouTube!

Generating a PowerPoint presentation from a Word document
OK… this blew my mind. Joanne C Klein tweeted about the new Export to PowerPoint preview feature
in Word on the Web. I gave it a try, and it's pretty impressive! Here's how it works…
Here is a Word document I had lying around for a few years. I opened it up in the browser-based version
of Word and clicked on File:

Export > Export to PowerPoint presentation (preview):

I then picked a recommended design theme and clicked Export:

After a couple of progress screens that lasted less than 10 seconds:

I had a presentation!

Now for a couple of caveats:
▪ This is only available on the browser-based version of Word.
▪ It's a preview feature, so don't be surprised if they continue to tweak it.
▪ It only pays attention to text in the Word document. It does not support any media types in the document.
Having said that, it's pretty awesome. It's a great way to get an initial slide deck generated from content you
already have in Word, and you can then work on fleshing out the slides for your presentation.
Here's the Microsoft documentation on the feature: Microsoft Word and PowerPoint for the Web announce
Export to PowerPoint presentation

Create Tabs in Teams Chats
We’re all familiar with creating
Tabs in Teams, but did you know
that you can also create a Tab in a
Chat? It is a great way to expand
your collaborations with
individuals or small groups
without having to create the more
“permanent” Teams or Channels.
Tabs in channels can be seen by
everyone in the Team, but Tabs in
chats can only be seen by
members of the chat.
The same is true for bots used
within private or group chats,
which you can read more about at
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-
us/microsoftteams/platform/bots/
what-are-bots

Create Tabs in Teams Chats
To get started, go into the target
chat in Teams and select the +
from the top nav to add a tab.
The Add a Tab dialog will open,
allowing you to select from all of
the apps available to your
organization.
In this example, I want to post a
blog post to our chat that we can
reference in our ongoing
conversations.
Once saved, the new tab appears
in our chat, and only members of
the chat can view this
information.

Sharing Emails to Microsoft Teams
We've all been there… Someone sends out an
email to a group of people, and pretty soon
there are a number of replies coming in, none
of which have all the information due to people
replying at different times. Wouldn't it be nice if
you could take that email and move it into a
Teams chat or channel where everyone can
discuss the original email and everyone sees
everything to date?
Now you can… using the Share to Teams button
in Outlook!
Here's how it works…
I have an email that I'd like to move to a Teams
chat or channel for further discussion. To move
it, I can click on the Share to Teams button in
the Message menu bar:

In the dialog box, I can select a Teams channel or chat to send the email to, along with a text message to get
the conversation started. In this case, I'm sending it to our SharePoint Team Teams workspace, and specifically
the General channel:

The email is now posted in the General channel, and people in that Team can now start commenting and replying
on the email content, cutting out the whole "reply/reply to all" mess of disjointed replies and comments.
Granted… in a perfect world, you would have started this discussion *in* Teams instead of via email, but sometimes
the use case doesn't give you that option. For those situations where you want to open up a discussion on
something that came to you via email, this works out well.

Restore previous versions in File Explorer
It is often the small, incremental improvements that can add the most productivity to your daily activities.
You can now view and restore versions of a document directly within File Explorer – rather than having to open
the application to view the history.

Restore previous versions in File Explorer
Simply right click on the file name, and
from the menu dialog, select Version
History
The version history dialog opens, allowing
you to scan through your various versions
and open the right version.

Planner now has 25 labels for tasks
When Planner first came out, you had six labels to use for categorizing and filtering your tasks. Depending on how
much filtering and refining you wanted to do, you had to be pretty brutal in what to include and what to leave
out. However, Planner now provides 25(!) labels, so you have a lot more flexibility in how to label and report on
your tasks. Here's how it works…
For our M365 Admin Planner, we had our six labels set to Action: Communicate, Action: Block, Action: Configure,
No Action Needed, Action: Research, and Governance Discussion. But as you can see, the list of potential labels
(and colors) increased from 6 to 25:

Planner now has 25 labels for tasks
To create a new label, just click on the Pencil icon to edit the label. Type in the new name for that label, and press
Enter:

Add your Personal Calendar to your Outlook work account
Managing multiple calendars can be
tricky. Add to that complexity the need to
balance time between work and personal
calendars.
Outlook on the web has made that
process easier. Now when you add a
personal calendar to Outlook on the web,
the times for those events will be shown
as busy (with no details or information)
when someone wants to schedule a
meeting with you using the Scheduling
Assistant in Outlook.
Additionally, this new feature allows you
to see your personal calendar side by
side to your work calendar – in one single
view.
Read more at
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-
365/blog/2020/07/14/get-control-microsoft-365/

To add your personal calendar within Outlook for the web, you start by clicking on the calendar icon.
Then select the option to Add Calendar

The Add Calendar menu appears, with the option to add personal calendars.

In this example, I am going to add my Gmail calendar.
Selecting that option…
opens a sign in prompt for
Google. Select your account
and approve the access
privileges.

Once added, you should receive a security notification to your personal email account notifying you of the
change. From the Add Calendar dialog you can also verify all connected accounts.
Back within your calendar view,
you can now see your newly
added and color-coded personal
calendar (which you can toggle
on and off)

The History Menu in Microsoft Teams
If you spend most of your day in Microsoft
Teams, you know how difficult it is to bounce
back and forth between various teams, apps,
tabs, and so forth. If you have to go to a new
workspace, you then have to try and figure
out where you were before. Microsoft has
now made it easier to get back and forth
between areas by giving you a History Menu
in the upper-left corner of the Teams client,
much like the forward and backward buttons
in a browser. Here's how it works…
In the upper-left corner of the Team client,
you'll find forward and backward arrows to
hover over to see the last few places you've
been to in Teams:

The History Menu in Microsoft Teams
In this example, I hovered over the back
arrow and can see the last 12 locations I've
been in, and I can quickly return to those
locations without having to remember
exactly how to drill down to them:
This is a great feature and will save you a lot
of time navigation around Teams on a daily
basis.

Highlight part of an email and add it as a task in Outlook
As part of the greater Tasks strategy across Microsoft 365, you can now highlight text in Outlook for the web
and convert it to a task in Outlook – and in Microsoft ToDo.
We have all received emails that contain
next steps or instructions, but unless we
convert that text into actionable tasks,
things may get lost.
You can now generate tasks from these
emails while working in context in
Outlook.
Read more at
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft
-365/blog/2020/07/14/get-control-Microsoft-365/

In this example, I have sent myself an email with a list of reminders from my mobile device.

By highlighting the text on the page, two options appear just above my selected text:
1. Send an email regarding the
highlighted text
2. Create a task from the
selected text
To create a task, simply click
on the task icon.

The AI in Outlook for the web selects anything that appears to be a task, and automatically
adds them to a list of tasks.
From this view you can forward an
individual item via email, highlight
it (star), or mark it as completed.
Additionally, you can create
additional tasks from this view if
other steps are required to
completed these tasks.

By clicking on the Tasks icon at the bottom left, you will find the new ToDo integration within Outlook for the
web, and can open your Tasks list to see all of these items.
And if you’re a fan of ToDo in the
mobile app, these new tasks are
instantly available within ToDo.

Meeting Reactions in Microsoft Teams
Microsoft Teams has now provided a way to give visual feedback during a meeting with the use of Meeting
Reactions. It's a quick way to express (and gauge) the feelings and emotions of the audience while you're
presenting. Here's how it works…
In the menu bar at the top of the screen, hover over the Raise Hand icon to get the four Meeting Reaction
emoticons (Like, Heart, Applause, and Laugh). Click on whichever one is appropriate for you. Others in the meeting
will see the emoticon on your picture:

Meeting Reactions in Microsoft Teams
And if you're watching a presentation without all the meeting attendee images, you'll see the emoticons float up
from the bottom of the screen as they are clicked by others:
I've been in a few meetings where we've taken advantage of these to let the presenter know they like what was
said. As a presenter, it's kinda nice. :)

Capture and share web content in Microsoft Edge
Has Microsoft Edge replaced your other
browsers yet? If not, there are some
new features that make the latest
Chromium-based version a must-have.
One of these latest features is the
ability to easily capture and mark up
web content, and then save or share it.

To get started, select
the ellipsis (…) in the
top right corner of
the browser…

…and select the Web
Capture option from
the menu.

You can grab the entire
browser window, or
choose Free Select to
grab a specific area on
the page.

Once you’ve selected
the area to capture
using drag-and-drop,
you can copy and paste
the image anywhere, or
add an annotation using
Add Notes.

Adding Notes opens up
the drawing interface,
allowing you to annotate
in a variety of colors and
line thickness, and to
edit your work.

Once your annotations
are complete, you can
Copy the image with
your mark up and paste
it into another
document or email, Save
it as a file (image), or
Share it with someone.

As with just about every other
Microsoft product, selecting Share
opens up a new dialog box that
allows you to determine who and
how you share your screen
capture and annotations.

Using the URL shortener for Microsoft Forms URLs
Microsoft Forms is a great tool for data collection, but one thing that has been pretty ugly are the URLs that are
generated for sharing those Forms. Microsoft listened to user feedback, and they provided a built-in way to shorten
the Forms URL into something that doesn't cause headaches. Here's how it works…
When you click on the Share button to get the sharing URL, there's a new checkbox titled Shorten URL. This will
automatically provide a shorter, more friendly URL to send to people:

Using the URL shortener for Microsoft Forms URLs
Here's what the URL for my Form looked like prior to using the Shorten URL option:
And here's what it looked like after that option:
Definitely a much cleaner link!

Transcribe your videos in Word for the web
For those of us who are increasingly capturing interviews and meetings on the web, you can now generate
transcripts directly in Word for the web.
Transcribe detects different speakers so after
you finish recording, you can easily follow the
flow of the transcript. After your conversation,
you can revisit parts of the recording by playing
back the time-stamped audio and you can even
edit the transcript if you see something amiss.

Transcribe your videos in Word for the web
For those of us who are increasingly capturing interviews and meetings on the web, you can now generate
transcripts directly in Word for the web.
Transcribe detects different speakers so after you
finish recording, you can easily follow the flow of
the transcript. After your conversation, you can
revisit parts of the recording by playing back the
time-stamped audio and you can even edit the
transcript if you see something amiss.
Simply open Word online, select Dictate, and
upload your audio or video file to begin processing.
Once transcribed, you can search for specific
quotes and easily add them to your Word
document, or add the entire transcript in one click!
Read more at https://www.microsoft.com/en-
us/microsoft-365/blog/2020/08/25/microsoft-365-
transcription-voice-commands-word/

Images on SharePoint Online pages now support Lightbox
On many websites that use images, you can click on the image to have it "pop out" over the webpage, displaying a
larger image that's easier to read. SharePoint Online pages now support this Lightbox feature when you put an
image on a page using the Image web part. Here's how it works…
On this page, I have a screen capture that is somewhat on the small side. In order to pop out this image using the
Lightbox feature, I simply click on the image:

Images on SharePoint Online pages now support Lightbox
The image now shows up in its full size, overlaying the web page and dimming it out. To get back to the web page,
just click on the X in the upper-right corner:

Use Alt-Tab & Windows Key to Organize your Desktop
The reality is that multi-tasking (i.e. context-switching) is a productivity-sapping dream of the ADHD and OCD
crowd (I am one of them). Having said that….we all do it. So why not make it easier to organize our already overly
complex desktops?
The two tools that I rely on are switching between applications using Alt+Tab, and the screen-splitting bliss of the
Windows Key and arrows. When you add in the Windows Timeline feature, you will become the Master of your
screen domain!
First, we’re probably all familiar with the Alt+Tab capability, which allows you to see and move between any and
all open applications on your desktop. This is an essential tool when you have one screen or many screens.

Next up in screen splitting. Let’s say you’re taking notes in OneNote while reviewing several sites in the Edge
browser, or documentation hosted on Teams. Select the first app, in this case OneNote, and while holding down
the Windows Key on your keyboard, hit the right arrow (→)

The primary application will lock into place on the right, and as with the Alt+Tab process, you can then select
from the available open apps.

The second app will lock into place. You can then grab the divider between them, and slide left and right to adjust
how much screen real estate to give each as you work.

Suggested Times when scheduling meetings on Outlook on the Web
This recently popped up in Outlook on the, and it's rather cool! Now when you're using the Outlook calendar on the
web, you get a Suggested times view within the invite, and you don't even have to go to the Scheduling Assistant!
I clicked on the New event button in my Outlook calendar in the browser, filled in the Invitee field, and immediately
received a view of Suggested times for the meeting:

Suggested Times when scheduling meetings on Outlook on the Web
Since my original meeting time was in conflict with Sandra's calendar, I selected the 12:00 pm timeslot, and it shows
as a green entry in our shared times on the right:
I love having the time suggestions show up in this fashion, as I can bypass the Scheduling Assistant option!
Do remember that this is only available in Outlook in the browser. If you're using the Outlook client application,
you will not see this feature.

Timeline feature in Windows 10
Great tip from MVP Joanne Klein: If you ever find yourself with a rebooted machine and wondering what happened
to the last few documents that were open on your desktop, leverage the Timeline feature in Windows 10.
Read more at
https://joannecklein.com/2019/09/22/the-
timeline-feature-in-windows-10-a-hidden-gem/

To enable this functionality, go into Settings > Privacy > Activity History to select which accounts to show, and
whether you want to make your history visible (store your history locally) and/or share your history with Microsoft.

Once enabled, select the Timeline from the nav bar and then drag the slider on the right to go back and select
the documents, slides, or apps that you had open on that date.

Exporting to a CSV file in SharePoint Online lists
As you probably know, you can export SharePoint lists to Excel. It's a great way to get the data into other formats for
analysis. Microsoft has added a new twist to the Export feature… you can now export to a CSV (comma-separated
values) file instead of Excel. Here's how it works…
The Export to Excel option has been renamed to Export, and there's a dropdown option to pick either Excel
Workbook or CSV:
This may not be something that you want or need to do very often. But sometimes you want to get a text-only
data export without all the overhead of Excel formatting. In those cases, a CSV file format is the way to go.

Are you a serious note taker? If
you’re like me, you may take notes
on a yellow tablet next to your
computer, or on paper sticky notes,
within OneNote, using Planner and
ToDo, and whatever other tools are
available within your organization.
For me – it’s all of the above.
Sticky Notes allows you to capture
ideas, notes, and important info
across the apps you already use.
Now you can conveniently view,
edit, and create notes directly in
Outlook for the web, making it
easier than ever to keep track of
your notes as you go through email.
Read more at https://www.microsoft.com/en-
us/microsoft-365/blog/2019/11/26/customize-excel-
track-notes-outlook-whats-new-to-microsoft-365-
november
Keep track of Sticky Notes in Outlook on the Web

Without Outlook on
the Web, you’ll find
the Notes on the left
Nav bar, above your
Groups.
The New Note button
appears on the top
left of your screen.

What’s great about
this feature is that you
can create them on
the fly, with links and
images to whatever
you’re working on,
and keep them all in
one place.

Additionally, you can leverage
the new OneNote feed to
conveniently combine your
notes across Sticky Notes,
recent OneNote pages, and
even some mobile
apps (Samsung notes) so that
you can easily reference them
while you’re composing an
email in Outlook.com or
Outlook on the web.
You can use the search to find
the note you are looking for
and even copy and paste a
note right into an email. You
can also create a new Sticky
Note right from the OneNote
feed to capture any ideas or
thoughts you have while
working in Outlook

Focus mode for modern SharePoint pages
While a modern SharePoint page looks nice, there are times where you may want to maximize the amount of
content you can view on your screen (like if you're working on a small laptop). Focus mode for modern SharePoint
pages allows you to click on an icon and hide the site header, site navigation, and global navigation.
Here's a home page on a Team Site.
I want to see more of the page
content and less of the navigation,
so I click on the outward arrows
icon in the upper-right corner:

Focus mode for modern SharePoint pages
The site header is now hidden, along with the left-side navigation. That extra space is now used to display the page
content. In order to return the page to its normal format, just click on the inward arrows icon in the upper-right
corner:

Adding to OneNote Meeting Notes via Mobile
Within any new meeting, you have the
option to add OneNote meeting notes to
any outgoing meeting invite.
From the Appointment menu, simply
select Meeting Notes.
Next, select either Share Notes with the
Meeting or Take Notes on Your Own

Adding to OneNote Meeting Notes via Mobile
From your mobile device, you can now
capture images, audio, or even video
and add directly to the personal or
teams notes, giving you yet another
way to capture multi-media for your
collaborative efforts.

Thank you!
Christian Buckley
@buckleyplanet
buckleyPLANET.com
Tom Duff
@Duffbert
OneMinuteOfficeMagic.com
Please remember to subscribe on YouTube!

20 Microsoft 365 Productivity Tips

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