Top 20 Tips for Office 365 Productivity

Top 20 Tips for
Office 365 Productivity
Christian Buckley
CollabTalk LLC http://bit.ly/Top20tips

Christian Buckley
Founder & CEO of CollabTalk LLC
Microsoft Regional Director & MVP
cbuck@collabtalk.com
www.buckleyplanet.com
@buckleyplanet

Christian Buckley
@buckleyplanet
http://www.buckleyplanet.com
Tom Duff
@Duffbert
http://OneMinuteOfficeMagic.com
For more content like this subscribe on YouTube – http://bit.ly/CollabTube

1. Finding the keyboard shortcuts
for Microsoft Teams

Finding the keyboard shortcuts for Microsoft Teams
This one is useful for anyone using Microsoft Teams. You can quickly get a pop-up list of all the keyboard
shortcuts that might save you a few seconds every time you do something out in Teams.
In the Microsoft Teams client application, place your cursor in the search bar at the top, and press ALT + /
at the same time:

This keystroke combination causes the following pop-up screen to appear with a number of keyboard
shortcuts you can use in the Microsoft Teams client:

At the bottom of the pop-up screen, you'll see a link for See Shortcuts For All Platforms. This gives you the
same information as above, but it covers both the Microsoft Teams client application as well as the web
application:

2. Text annotations in Office Lens

Text Annotations in Office Lens
 Office Lens trims, enhances, and makes pictures of whiteboards
and docs readable. You can use Office Lens to convert images to
PDF, Word and PowerPoint files, and you can even save images
to OneNote or OneDrive.
 You can now
 add text to highlight a part of a document
 add a watermark of your brand text before sharing
 add a caption that stays intact with the image wherever it
goes and communicates your idea to your colleagues
 After taking your image, simply tap on the ‘T’ icon and easily
add text while on the go and in the moment. You can select a
style/template, change text color and position, and then share!
 Currently available on both Android and iOS, but no word about
support for Windows Phone, Blackberry, Palm OS, or Kin
(fun article on why Windows Mobile failed that’s worth a read)

Text Annotations in Office Lens

3. Editing your video transcript
in Microsoft Stream

Editing your video transcript in Microsoft Stream
This tip is the result of someone asking me yesterday whether they could edit a transcript once a
video had been uploaded to Microsoft Stream. Much to my surprise, you *can* edit a video
transcript, and it's pretty easy!
First, call up the video you want to edit. This does assume you are an owner of the video and/or
have owner rights to it. At the bottom of the Transcript panel, you should see an Edit button. Click
it to put the Transcript into Edit mode:

Once you're in Edit mode, you can click a Transcript snippet to allow editing for that section. If you
click on the black circular arrow icon, the video will start playing at that point so you can listen to
what was actually said:

Once you're done, you can continue editing snippets, or you can click Done and get on with your
workday:

4. Create a Flow to follow up
on important emails

Create a Flow to Follow Up on Important Emails
We are constantly filtering and cleaning
up our email inbox, but sometimes we
may forget to follow up with emails we’ve
sent to other people. If you’ve ever
marked an email as “Important,” you can
create a Flow that will remind you to
follow up IF the recipient has not
responded.
The Flow team at Microsoft has provided
an easy template, or you can create your
own Flow, and then set up your
preferences for notifications (via mobile).
By default, the Flow will notify you if the
email IS read, so you need to set the flag
to notify if NOT read.
Read more at
https://flow.microsoft.com/en-
us/blog/fotw-remind-sent-high-
importance/

Ink Analysis in PowerPoint
Announced in April 2018, Microsoft has
expanded the inking capabilities in
Windows and the Office suite, now
leveraging shape and text recognition in
PowerPoint, allowing you to more quickly
markup and edit your presentations using
handwritten notes and touch screens to
write, select, and convert text and shapes
into clean, professional images and
drawings.
April 2018 announcements

New AI-Powered Inking Features
As of October 2018, there are several new AI-powered Inking capabilities in Word and PowerPoint.
You can now use a touch-enabled device and digital pen to ink your ideas and transform them
into perfectly formatted content. You can also choose from 30 new 3D models with built-in
animations to bring your content to life.

Finding a File Location
Ever wonder where you just saved your file? Now you can readily see the location
AND the file history. It’s located at the top of your file, and you can also quickly open
at it’s location or share the content, and see the complete history of the file.

7. Automating Microsoft To-Do
with your smart speakers

Automating Microsoft To-Do with Amazon, Apple
and Google Devices
 Households are increasingly using smart speakers and IoT devices to automate
various aspects of our lives and increase productivity, but did you know that you
can sync these services to Microsoft To-Do?
 To use Siri with Microsoft To-Do, you begin by connecting your Outlook.com or
Exchange account.
 Go to your iPhone's settings, select Accounts & Passwords and then Add
Account. Then select Exchange or Outlook.com and simply follow the
prompts to add your account.
 Once you’ve added your account, enable Reminders for that account by
selecting Accounts & Passwords once more and then either Exchange or
Outlook.com. Then make sure that Reminders is toggled on for that
account.
 Once your Microsoft Account has been connected, set your default
Reminders list to one in your Outlook or Exchange account by opening
your iPhone's settings, tap Reminders > Default List and then select the
desired list.
 Once set up, all you need to do is say 'Hey Siri, remind me to...' and it will be
synced to your Microsoft To-Do list. Using Siri and Reminders with Microsoft To-
Do on iOS11 and iOS12

Automating Microsoft To-Do with Amazon, Apple
and Google Devices
 For more details, check out the following:
 Using Siri and Reminders with Microsoft To-Do on iOS11 and iOS12
 Using Ok Google with Microsoft To-Do
 Using Apple Watch with Microsoft To-Do
 Additionally, there are many many many integrations available through services
like IFTTT (If This Then That) and Zapier to help connect your smart speakers and
smart phones to Microsoft apps and services, such as
 Connecting Amazon Echo To-Do to OneNote

8. Closing original emails in Outlook
when replying or forwarding

Closing original emails in Outlook when replying or forwarding…
As I get older, I find that my mind is much more… "efficient" when it comes to "erasing" short-term
memory… such as "why did I have this particular email open on my screen, and did I already
respond to it?" Well, I just saw an option in Outlook that closes the original email when you do a
Reply or Forward, eliminating all the screen clutter. Here's how it works…
Here's an example of how Outlook was working before. I'd click on an email message to make it
appear in a separate window, and then I'd click Reply, Reply All, or Forward:

You can see that I get a new email window, but my original email window is still there:

My Task Bar in Windows also has two items there for my original and my new emails:
However, by going out to my Outlook options and selecting Mail > Replies and forwards >
Close original message window when replying or forwarding, I can get Outlook to "declutter"
my screen by closing my original email before showing my new email screen:

Much cleaner, and I don't have to remember later why I had a particular email open for reading:

9. Making quick video
recordings in OneNote

Making quick video recordings in OneNote
Let's say you want to create a quick video of yourself, either to let your team know something, or perhaps
just as a reminder to yourself to take care of some items. OneNote has a basic video recording function
built in, and it's perfect for those basic types of videos (not screen captures… just whatever your vidcam is
picking up). Here's how it works…
First off, go to your OneNote Options (File > Options), select Audio & Video, and make sure you have
the right audio and video devices selected to record yourself:

Once that's done, go to the Insert tab, add a new page, place the cursor where you want the recording to
be, and click Record Video:

The video will start recording immediately, and you'll have a Recording tab in the Ribbon Bar that will
have the controls to Pause and Stop the recording:

When you're done, just click Stop and everything is stored automatically. If you want to replay the recording, click Play:

What's also a nice touch is that you can also right-click on the video icon and save it to a different location if
you need it to reside outside of OneNote:

10. Adding interactive Microsoft Forms
to PowerPoint

Create Internal or External Polls with Microsoft Forms
While not brand new, Forms is an
underutilized resource that allows you to
quickly and easily publish surveys and
snap polls within your organization – or
to external users and partners.
Creating your surveys is easy, as is
changing the question types, adding or
removing answers, and rearranging the
layout before or after you push it live.
Additionally, as the survey author, you
have access to real-time stats, and can
share the results with your management
team or respondents.
https://forms.microsoft.com

Engage your audience with interactive forms
and quizzes in PowerPoint
 Microsoft Forms is now integrated
with PowerPoint for Office 365,
providing a seamless way for
speakers, trainers, and educators to
connect and interact with
participants. As shown in a Microsoft
Tech Community blog post,
presenters can get real-time
audience feedback via forms and
quizzes without asking them to leave
PowerPoint.
 To get started, in PowerPoint under
Insert, click the Forms icon to create
a new form/quiz or insert one you’ve
already created.
 Please note that this feature is
currently only available for
PowerPoint Windows 32

To see the responses to your form or quiz,
sign in to your Office 365 account at
https://forms.office.com/
Open the appropriate form from your My
forms page, and then select the Responses
tab at the top of the page.

To create a quiz, check out the
article at https://support.office.com/en-
us/article/create-a-quiz-with-microsoft-
forms-a082a018-24a1-48c1-b176-
4b3616cdc83d

11. Connecting your cloud storage
to Microsoft Teams

Connecting Your Cloud Storage to Teams
Did you know that you can connect
multiple SharePoint lists and libraries to
Microsoft Teams through Files and Tabs?
But did you also know you can also
connect to your other cloud storage apps
and services the same way?
 Provides an interface into relevant content
 Surfaces sites and tools in context to
conversations
 Removes (or reduces) the “which tool do you
use when?” argument

Connecting Your Cloud Storage to Teams – as a Tab
https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/skypeh
ybridguy/2017/10/28/microsoft-teams-use-
an-existing-sharepoint-library/

Connecting Your Cloud Storage to Teams – as a Tab
http://www.sharepointlonghorn.com/using-
sharepoint-lists-microsoft-teams/

Connecting Your Cloud Storage to Teams – in Files
https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/skypeh
ybridguy/2017/10/28/microsoft-teams-use-
an-existing-sharepoint-library/

12. Reuse existing slides in new
PowerPoint presentations

Reuse existing slides in new PowerPoint presentations
Instead of recreating slides from scratch,
quickly find and reuse slides from your
files or from others in your organization
with the help of Microsoft AI in
PowerPoint.
Simply click the Reuse Slides button on
the Home tab to surface existing
PowerPoint decks in the sidebar to
browse through recommended
PowerPoint decks that you have access
to, view the slides in each presentation,
and insert them into the deck you are
creating.
This feature will be available in January
for all Office 365 subscribers.

13. Using the Read Aloud
feature in Outlook

Using the Read Aloud feature in Outlook
Have you ever gotten an email from someone that looks more like a novel than a request? Have you
wished you could just have someone read it to you while you focus on something else? Well, with
the Read Aloud feature in Outlook, you can now do that! Here's how…
First of all, you need to turn the feature on in your Outlook Options panel. Go to Ease of Access
and select the Show Read Aloud setting:

Now when you open an email, you'll see the Read Aloud Speech option. When you click that
option in the Ribbon Bar, a speech toolbar will appear and you'll start to hear the email being read
aloud. The toolbar allows you to Rewind, Pause/Start, Fast Forward, set Options, and Stop:

With the Options setting, you can alter the speed of the narration, as well as the voice used. David is
a lower-pitched male voice, while Mark has a higher-pitch. Zira is the female voice:
While this isn't something I'd necessarily use all that often, I can see it being useful for long emails with a
ton of text. It could also be extremely useful in the case of people who have vision issues that make it hard
to read and/or digest longer emails.

14. Change your Outlook
mobile swipe options

Change your Outlook mobile swipe options
If you use the Outlook mobile app, you have
some options available for how you manage
your email experience.
Personally, I don’t want to deal with folders and
multi-step actions within my phone, and prefer
to manage more complex actions through the
desktop app.
My preferred swipe actions are to Delete and
Mark as Read/Unread.
To change the swipe options, go into the gear
settings for your account and select Swipe
Options, and select from the options for left and
right swipe.

15. Find the right meeting time
with FindTime in Outlook

Find the Right Meeting Time with FindTime
Stop the endless email chains to try and find the right
time for a group meeting, and don’t pay a cent to 3rd
party services! Use FindTime
Add the app to your Outlook application, and scheduling
the right meeting time becomes a breeze (although you
may have to still chase people to respond).
Once installed, restart Outlook
and create a new email, and on
the right of the ribbon, select
New meeting Poll.
Works with Outlook 2013, 2016, Office 365 (Outlook
Online), and Outlook for Mac

16. AI-powered To-Do tracking in Word

AI-Powered To-Do Tracking in Word
Editor—Word’s AI-powered writing assistant—
is an indispensable tool for the written word.
But sometimes you need to leave a
placeholder in your document and come back
to it later to stay in your flow.
Word now helps users create and fill in these
placeholders without leaving the flow of their
work.
For example, type TODO: finish this section
or <<insert closing here>> and Word
recognizes and tracks them as to-dos. When
you come back to the document, you’ll see a
list of your remaining to-dos, and you can click
each one to navigate back to the right spot.

AI-Powered To-Do Tracking in Word
Once you’ve created your to-dos, Word can also
help you complete them. If you need help from a
friend or coworker, just @mention them within a
placeholder. Word sends them a notification with
a “deep link” to the relevant place in the
document.
Soon, they’ll be able to reply to the notification
with their contributions, and those contributions
will be inserted directly into the document—
making it easy to complete the task with an
email from any device.
Over time, Office will use AI to help fill in many
of these placeholders. In the next few months,
Word will use Microsoft Search to suggest
content for a to-do like <<insert chart of
quarterly sales figures>>. You will be able to
pick from the results and insert content from
another document with a single click.
Currently in preview with Office Insiders.

17. Insert data from picture into Excel

Insert Data from Picture into Excel
With Insert Data from Picture, you can take a picture of a
printed data table with your Android device and convert
that analog information into an Excel spreadsheet with a
single click.
New image recognition functionality automatically
converts the picture to a fully editable table in Excel,
eliminating the need for you to manually enter data.
Insert Data from Picture will be available in preview for the
Excel Android app soon. No dates for iOS devices just yet.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-
365/blog/2018/09/24/bringing-ai-to-excel-4-new-features-announced-
today-at-ignite/

18. Edit documents with a digital pen

Easily Edit Documents with a Digital Pen
 Using the new gestures in Ink Editor, you can now
edit documents with a digital pen while in tablet
mode using familiar shorthand.
 Using these new gestures, you can insert new lines,
add missing words, and delete and highlight
content quickly and naturally while on the go.
 These capabilities are available with a Microsoft 365
or Office 365 subscription when using a touch-
enabled device and a digital pen. Read more

19. Viewing your recent
edits in OneNote

Viewing your recent edits in OneNote
With the amount of work we do on a daily basis, it's often hard to remember just exactly where you
updated or changed information. You know you did it in the last couple of days, but you can't
specifically remember where it was done.
If you're using OneNote to store information, OneNote makes it easy to find everything you changed
and where exactly it was updated using the Recent Edits feature. Here's how that works…
Go to the History tab in the Ribbon
Bar and click on the Recent Edits
icon. You'll see a number of date
options that OneNote will use to
show you your changes. In my case,
I want to see everything that's been
changed Since Yesterday:

When I click the Since Yesterday option, my Search Results pane appears on the right side of the page,
and lists every page that's been updated since the date option I selected. In addition, I can click on the
links to the page to go directly to that location, plus I'll also see the changed page and content
highlighted in yellow:

By default, it searches the notebook that I'm
currently viewing. However, I also have the
option to have it search just the section I'm in,
an entire grouped section, or all the notebooks I
have in my OneNote client:
I also have options on how I want the data
sorted. By default, it's by date modified, but I
can also go by section, by title, and by author:

20. Export PowerPoint to video

Export PowerPoint to Video
You’ve spent time creating your
presentations with animations and
transitions to tell a story, and want
to save your file in a more
consumable format.
Export, Save as Video
You have the ability to create a
quick video using set timing, or
create custom timing and
transitions, and even annotate with
video so that you can walk through
each slide and talk about the
content that is being shown.

Our next bout:
Thursday, June 20th, 2019
“Summer Scuffle”
Register at http://bit.ly/O365scuffle

Christian Buckley
cbuck@collabtalk.com
@buckleyplanet
Thank you very much!
For more content like this subscribe on YouTube – http://bit.ly/CollabTube

cbuck@collabtalk.com +1 425-246-2823 www.CollabTalk.com
Contact Us
Strategy. Influence. Amplification.

Top 20 Tips for Office 365 Productivity

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

What's hot

What's hot (20)

Similar to Top 20 Tips for Office 365 Productivity

Similar to Top 20 Tips for Office 365 Productivity (20)

More from Christian Buckley

More from Christian Buckley (19)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

Top 20 Tips for Office 365 Productivity