General Microsoft Articles

Article / Updated 10-28-2024

A paper database is useful for storing information, but not so useful for finding it again. With Access 2019, searching and finding information is easy. If you have a thousand business cards stored in a Rolodex file, how much time do you want to waste trying to find the phone number of a single person? With Access 2019, that is no longer a concern. Searching a database is crucial to make your data useful, so Access provides two ways to search a database: Search for a specific record. Use a filter to show one or more records that meet a specific criterion. Searching MS Access for a specific record The simplest type of search looks for a specific record. To search for a record, you need to know the data stored in at least one of its fields, such as a phone number or an email address. The more information you already know, the more likely Access will find the one record you want. If you search for all records that contain the first name Bill, Access could find dozens of records. If you just search for all records that contain the first name Bill, the last name Johnson, and a state address of Alaska, Access will likely find just the record you want. To search for a specific record in an Access database table, follow these steps: In the All Access Objects pane on the left of the screen, double-click the name of the database table you want to search. Access displays the Datasheet view of your database. Click the Home tab. In the Find group, click the Find icon. The Find and Replace dialog box appears. Click in the Find What text box and type the data you know is stored in the record you want to find. For example, if you want to find the phone number of a person but you know only the person’s last name, type the last name in the Find What text box. Click the Look In list box and choose Current field or Current document (searches in all fields). (Optional) Click in the Match list box and choose one of the following: Any Part of Field: The Find What text can appear in any part of a field. Whole Field: The Find What text is the only text stored in a field. Start of Field: The Find What text can be only at the beginning of a field. (Optional) Click in the Search list box and choose one of the following: Up: Searches from the record where the cursor appears, up to the beginning of the database table Down: Searches from the record where the cursor appears, down to the end of the database table All: Searches the entire database table Click Find Next. Access highlights the field where it finds the text you typed in Step 4. Repeat Step 8 to search for more records that may contain the text you typed in Step 4. Click Cancel or the Close button. Filtering an Access database Searching a database is easy but somewhat limited because you can retrieve only a single record at a time that matches any text that you want to find. If you want to find multiple records, you can use a filter. A filter lets you tell Access to display only those records that meet certain criteria, such all records that contain people who earn more than $200,000 a year, are currently married, live in Las Vegas, Nevada, and own two or more cats. To filter a database table, you must tell Access which field or fields to use as a filter, and then you must define the criteria for that filter. For example, if you want to filter your database table to see only records listing the names of people who are at least 65, you filter the Age field and set the criterion to Greater than or equal to 65. Filtering simply hides all records in a database table that don’t match your criteria. Filtering doesn’t delete or erase any records. Using an exact match for a filter in Access 2019 The simplest filtering criterion searches for an exact match. When you filter a field by an exact match, you’re telling Access, “I want to see only those records that contain this specific chunk of data in this particular field.” By using an exact match filter, you can display, for example, only the records that contain CA in the State field. To filter a database table, follow these steps: In the All Access Objects pane on the left of the screen, double-click the name of the database table you want to filter. Access displays the Datasheet view of your database. Click the Home tab. Click in the field (column) that you want to use as a filter. In the Sort & Filter group, click the Filter icon.A pop-up menu appears. You can either Select or clear check boxes from this menu. Continue with Steps 5 through 7 for more flexibility. Choose Text Filters. A submenu appears. Choose a filter option, such as Equals, Begins With, or Contains. A Custom Filter dialog box appears. Type the data you want to find and click OK. Access displays your filtered data, and a filter icon appears in the column heading. Access remembers your filter settings. If you want to clear the filter, click the filter icon in the column heading; when a pop-up menu appears, choose Clear Filter. To view all the data in your database table, click the Home tab. Then in the Sort & Filter group, click the Toggle Filter icon. Filtering Access databases by form One problem with defining filters in Datasheet view is that you have all your database table records cluttering the screen. To avoid this problem, Access lets you define filters by using a form, which basically displays an empty record so you can click the fields that you want to use to filter your database table. To define a filter by form, follow these steps: In the All Access Objects pane on the left of the screen, double-click the name of the database table that you want to filter. Access displays the Datasheet view of your database. Click the Home tab. In the Sort & Filter group, click the Advanced icon. A pull-down menu appears. Choose Filter by Form. Access displays a blank record. Click in any field, then type the data you want to filter such as a last name. In the Sort & Filter group, click the Advanced icon and then click Apply Filter/Sort. Access displays a filtered view of your database table. You can click the Toggle Filter icon again to view all the data in your database table. Using a filter criteria in Access 2019 Searching for an exact match in a field can be handy, but sometimes you may want to see records that meet certain criteria, such as finding the names of everyone whose salary is greater than $50,000 a year. Instead of filtering by an exact match, you have to define the filter criteria. The type of data stored in each field determines the type of criteria you can create. Three common types of data stored in fields are text, numbers, and dates, which you can filter in different ways. Common Criteria for Filtering Text Data Filtering Criteria Description Equals Field must match filter text exactly. Does Not Equal Field must not match filter text. Begins With Field must start with the filter text. Does Not Begin With Field must not begin with the filter text. Contains Field must contain the filter text. Does Not Contain Field must not contain any part of the filter text. Ends With Field ends with the filter text. Does Not End With Field does not end with the filter text. Common Criteria for Filtering Numeric Data Filtering Criteria Description Equals Field must equal filter number. Does Not Equal Field must not equal filter number. Less Than or Equal To Field must contain a number less than or equal to the filter number. Greater Than or Equal To Field must contain a number greater than or equal to the filter number. Between Field must contain a number that falls between two filter numbers. Common Criteria for Filtering Dates Filtering Criteria Description Equals Field must equal the filter date. Does Not Equal Field must not equal the filter date. On or Before Field date must be equal or earlier than the filter date. On or After Field date must be equal or later than the filter date. To create the filter criteria, follow these steps: In the All Access Objects pane on the left of the screen, double-click the name of the database table you want to filter. Access displays the Datasheet view of your database. Click the Home tab. Click in the field (column) that you want to use as a filter. In the Sort & Filter group, click the Filter icon. A pop-up menu appears. Select the Filters option, such as Text Filters or Number Filters. A submenu of filter options appears. Click a filter option, such as Between or Less Than. The Custom Filter dialog box appears. The Custom Filter dialog box contains the name of your filter option, such as Between Numbers or Less Than. Type one or more values in each text box in the Custom Filter dialog box, and then click OK. Access filters your database table according to your criteria. Repeat Steps 5 through 7 for each additional filter you want to add. You can click the Toggle Filter icon again to view all the data in your database table. Clearing a filter in Access 2019 When you apply a filter to a database table, you see only those records that match that filter. Access displays a Filtered message at the bottom of the screen to let you know when you’re looking at a filtered database table. To remove a filter so you can see all the records, choose one of the following: Click the Toggle Filter icon in the Sort & Filter group. Click the Filtered or Unfiltered button on the status bar near the bottom of the screen. Access temporarily turns off any filters so you can see all the information stored in your database table. When you choose the Save command (Ctrl+S) to save a database table, Access also saves your last filter. The next time you open that database table, you’ll be able to use the last filter you created. If you want to save multiple filters, you’ll have to save them as a query. See these handy Access keyboard shortcuts for further information.

Article / Updated 08-17-2023

Word 2016 permits you to use wildcard operators in searches. A wildcard operator is a character that represents characters in a search expression. Wildcards aren't for everybody. Using them requires a certain amount of expertise, but after you know how to use them, wildcards can be invaluable in searches and macros. The following table explains the wildcard operators that you can use in searches. Click the Use Wildcards check box if you want to search using wildcards. Wildcards for Searches Operator What It Finds Example ? Any single character b?t finds bat, bet, bit, and but. * Zero or more characters t*o finds to, two, and tattoo. [xyz] A specific character, x, y, or z t[aeiou]pper finds tapper, tipper, and topper. [x-z] A range of characters, x through z [1-4]000 finds 1000, 2000, 3000, and 4000, but not 5000. [!xy] Not the specific character or characters, xy p[!io]t finds pat and pet, but not pit or pot. < Characters at the beginning of words finds information, infomaniac, and infomercial. > Characters at the end of words ese> finds these, journalese, and legalese. @@ One or more instances of the previous character sho@@t finds shot and shoot. {n} Exactly n instances of the previous character sho{2}t finds shoot but not shot. {n,} At least n instances of the previous character ^p{3,} finds three or more paragraph breaks in a row, but not a single paragraph break or two paragraph breaks in a row. {n,m} From n to m instances of the previous character 10{2,4} finds 100, 1000, and 10000, but not 10 or 100000. You can't conduct a whole-word-only search with a wildcard. For example, a search for f*s not only finds fads and fits but also all text strings that begin with f and end with s, such as for the birds. Wildcard searches can yield many, many results and are sometimes useless. To search for an asterisk (*), question mark (?), or other character that serves as a wildcard search operator, place a backslash () before it in the text box.

Article / Updated 04-14-2023

By touching a couple of keys in combination in Office 2016 programs, you can save time with simple tasks, such as copying text from one place and pasting it somewhere else. The keyboard shortcuts included here work equally well in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2016. Both mouse and keyboard methods are provided here. To do this With the mouse With the keyboard Open a file File→Open Ctrl+O Create a new file File→New Ctrl+N Print active document File→Print Ctrl+P Save your work (first time), or resave with same settings File→Save Ctrl+S Save your work with different name, location, or type File→Save As F12 Copy selection to Clipboard Home→ Copy Ctrl+C Cut selection to Clipboard Home→ Cut Ctrl+X Paste selection to Clipboard Home→ Paste Ctrl+V Open the Paste Special dialog box Home→Paste→Paste Special Ctrl+Shift+V Display shortcut menu for selected item Right-click item Shift+F10 Left-align a paragraph Home→ Left Align Ctrl+L Center a paragraph Home→ Center Ctrl+E Right-align a paragraph Home→ Right Align Ctrl+R Make text bold Home→ Bold Ctrl+B Make text italicized Home→ Italic Ctrl+I Make text underlined Home→Underline Ctrl+U Make text larger Home→Increase Font Size Ctrl+> Make text smaller Home→Decrease Font Size Ctrl+< Undo previous action Undo button on Quick Access toolbar Ctrl+Z Redo previous Undo Redo button on Quick Access toolbar Ctrl+Y Insert hyperlink Insert→Hyperlink Ctrl+K Get help Type in Tellme what you want to do box F1 Close the active file File→Close Ctrl+F4 Close the application Close button on application window Alt+F4 Check spelling Review→Spelling F7

Article / Updated 10-03-2022

With the keyboard shortcuts shown here, you can switch among various views in Word 2016. Other key combinations enable you to save time with simple tasks, such as copying text from one place and pasting it somewhere else in your document. Switch to this view With the keyboard Print Layout Alt+Ctrl+P Outline Alt+Ctrl+O Draft Alt+Ctrl+N

Article / Updated 10-03-2022

By touching a couple of keys in combination, you can save time with simple tasks in Word 2016, such as copying text from one place and pasting it somewhere else in your document. With these keyboard shortcuts, you can speed up text editing and formatting in Word 2016. To do this With the keyboard Start a new line in the same paragraph Shift+Enter Insert a page break Ctrl+Enter Insert a column break Ctrl+Shift+Enter Clear formatting Ctrl+spacebar Make text subscript Ctrl+= Make text superscript Ctrl+Shift++ Delete one character to the left Backspace Delete one word to the left Ctrl+Backspace Delete one character to the right Delete Delete one word to the right Ctrl+Delete

Article / Updated 10-03-2022

In Word 2016 you can insert common symbols by using these keyboard shortcuts. Use these keyboard shortcuts instead of the Insert→Symbol command to insert common typographical symbols. Symbol Shortcut Em dash Alt+Ctrl+minus sign En dash Ctrl+minus sign Copyright Alt+Ctrl+C Registered trademark Alt+Ctrl+R Trademark Alt+Ctrl+T Ellipsis Alt+Ctrl+period

Article / Updated 10-03-2022

In Excel 2016, use the following keyboard shortcuts instead of the Number drop-down list on the Home tab to apply number formatting to Excel worksheet cells. To apply this number format Use this key combination General Ctrl+Shift+~ Currency with two decimal places, negative numbers in parentheses Ctrl+Shift+$ Percentage, no decimal places Ctrl+Shift+% Scientific, two decimal places Ctrl+Shift+^ Date format with day, month, and year Ctrl+Shift+# Time format with hour and minute, AM or PM Ctrl+Shift+@ Number format, two decimal places, thousands separator, minus sign for negative values Ctrl+Shift+!

Article / Updated 09-30-2022

In Excel 2016, you can use the following keyboard shortcuts to enter and format data. To do this Use the key combination Enter the current time Ctrl+Shift+: Enter the current date Ctrl+; Apply an outline border Ctrl+Shift+& Remove an outline border Ctrl+Shift+_ Display or hide formulas in cells Ctrl+` Display Format Cells dialog box Ctrl+1 Hides selected rows Ctrl+9 Hides selected columns Ctrl+0

Article / Updated 08-16-2022

Garnering support for Microsoft 365 Business adoption isn’t easy. It's understandable for a leader approving a significant budget for a SaaS solution (such as Microsoft 365 Business) to want to see the return on the investment (ROI). Guess who's on the hook for demonstrating the ROI of Microsoft 365 Business? Your IT team. One of the ways you can convince your leaders about the ROI is to show your success in getting end users to adopt the technology. Unfortunately, though, technology adoption is tricky. If you think you can just roll out the changes and expect users to start using the technology and singing your praises, think again. Change is usually met with resistance. Studies have shown that only 34 percent of the user population typically will adopt a new technology, as illustrated in the theory of Diffusion Innovations. Here, you find some of the best practices, tips, and tricks for driving adoption of Microsoft 365 Business. Feel free to customize and tweak these suggestions to fit your organization. Do take credit if any of the suggestions here bring you success. Get leaders to sponsor the adoption of Microsoft 365 Business Executive sponsorship in technology implementations are usually a foolproof way to get users to adopt a new technology, even if begrudgingly. Let's be honest, an IT admin does not have as much clout as the president, CEO or owner. After you identify the executive sponsors for your technology implementation, make sure you agree on what's expected of them. Ideally, you want executive sponsors to assume a shared responsibility for the success of the implementation. They can provide air cover when you run into political challenges in your organization or when end users push back on the changes you're rolling out. For your part, make sure to give your executive sponsors training on the functionalities of the technology based on relevant scenarios. For example, if they tend to use email a lot versus co-authoring documents, train them on the new features in Outlook instead of teaching them how to save and share files in SharePoint. When they see the value of the technology, they'll be able to share their experiences with the rest of the organization. Recruit and activate champs to promote Microsoft 365 Business adoption Scientists have not figured out a cloning machine yet, but you can create clones of yourself to scale up your training efforts. How? By recruiting and activating a network of champions for your cause, namely the adoption of Microsoft 365 Business. Usually, these people are early adopters and super users of the current technology in your organization. Give them access to the full suite of the Microsoft 365 Business services and conduct a focused training for them. Apply the “train the trainer” model so that they understand that they will be tasked with training other people in the organization. It might help if you give them an incentive to be in the Champs network (such as a new laptop) in exchange for going through the experience of a Windows 10 AutoPilot deployment. Ideally, you'll want a champ from each department who understands the workflow for the users in a department. You might find that people in the Marketing department, for example, are excited about Microsoft Stream, but the folks in the Finance department, not so much. Communicate the change It has been said that 90 percent of a project manager's job is communication. This statistic is true and applicable when you're implementing Microsoft 365 Business in your organization. Whether you have an assigned project manager or are tasked with the role of the project manager, it's best to have a solid communication plan. Be mindful of the cadence for the communication. If you send an email every day for three months reminding end users of an upcoming change, you may end up with annoyed people who will create a rule to automatically delete your emails or route them to a folder to read later. If you space the communication too far apart, they might miss a communication and be unprepared when you finally make the switch. You need to find the right balance based on what you know about your end users. For small businesses, you should make an initial announcement about the Microsoft 365 implementation around the time that licenses are procured. Then about three weeks before the email is cut over to the new system, the drip communication starts, and the frequency gradually increases as the cutover date approaches. Develop and execute a Microsoft 365 Business training plan The saying, “fail to plan, plan to fail,” couldn't be truer when it comes to implementing a new technology. Key to the overall implementation plan is the training plan for end users. The training plan doesn't have to be complex. Even an outline of who's going to be trained on what and when is sufficient, especially if you have a small organization. Remember the champs network and the executive sponsors? Those groups need to be included in the training plan. You may find that you need to adjust your training plan as you get a feel for how well your initial groups of trainees are responding. As such, create your training plan in a format that can be easily updated or collaborated on. You can expose your trainees to the new technology by using SharePoint lists or document libraries as the repository for your training plan. They will start to get trained on the functionalities without even realizing it! Start with “easy win” scenarios A trainer was once asked to deliver a four-hour training on Office 365 for a small business with 25 users. Attempts to get information from the business owner on the training needs and the technical skill sets of the employees were unsuccessful and the trainer was told to just train the users “the dummies way.” What that signaled to the trainer was that he couldn't have a fixed topic for the training. The trainer ended up preparing different scenarios to fit a variety of personas. Based on the flow of the conversation, the trainer pulled a certain scenario and focused the training around it. So, what is a scenario? In the above example, a scenario went something like this: Jane, Rob, and Paul work in the marketing department and are constantly emailing each other documents they're collaborating on. It's hard to keep track of the latest version of the document and figure out who's made what comment. Jane, who is in charge of culling all the feedback, is getting frustrated because just as she thinks she's made the final version of the document, someone sends belated feedback. Or someone pulls into the conversation another person who then provides feedback on issues, not knowing they have already been dealt with in previous conversations. The trainer presented that scenario to the workshop attendees and asked if that happens in their organization. The response was overwhelmingly yes. Based on that, the trainer spent 30 minutes showing them the co-authoring features in Word, OneDrive for Business, and SharePoint. They then used their own laptops to practice. By the end of 30 minutes, everyone had a good grasp of the concept and figured out which people were better at it than others. The ones who were more skilled became the go-to person for the ones who needed more hand-holding. The lesson here is that if you want users to adopt the Microsoft 365 Business, make it a quick win for them and tailor the training to a scenario that is real for them. It wouldn't have worked if the trainer simply started the training with Outlook and how to send encrypted emails. Provide self-service Microsoft 365 Business resources If you have a small or one-person IT team, you can reduce the burden of supporting many users during the implementation of Microsoft 365 Business by creating a self-service portal in SharePoint or Microsoft Stream or both. You can post 30-second how-to videos to give end users a refresher on the training. You can ask the champs to post content at your portal, or open your self-service repository to anyone's contribution. By doing it this way, your end users will be practicing what they've learned as they load content in SharePoint or Stream. If you want to get fancy, you can gamify the process by giving incentives to users who have the most-liked video. The Internet has a ton of videos on different scenarios for Microsoft 365 that you can include in your resources. However, it’s often the case that raw videos created by a co-worker showing the organization's environment resonate more with users than high-production-value marketing videos from Microsoft on YouTube and other channels. If your users are not into videos, another option is to start a OneNote notebook from a SharePoint site. In the notebook, create different sections focused on a technology. In each section, include step-by-step instructions showing how to complete a task using the technology. For example, you could have a section on Outlook where you have a page for email, a page for the calendar, and a page for tasks. As users read your content, they'll be learning about not only Outlook but also OneNote and SharePoint, albeit unknowingly. Highlight your Microsoft 365 Business wins Implementing a new technology such as Microsoft 365 Business is not an easy task. When you have success stories, take the time to celebrate and share the win with your end users. When users understand the value of their contribution to the success of the implementation, it helps motivate others who may not be participating much. An example of a win is showcasing how much the company saved by reducing travel costs since people started having videoconference meetings using Microsoft Teams. A win might also be a testimonial from someone about the increase in productivity from co-authoring documents in real time versus emailing documents back and forth. SharePoint Online has a nifty feature called News, an out-of-the-box service that allows you to create content that then gets shared across the different SharePoint experiences and apps. You can highlight your wins by using SharePoint News to further drive adoption of the technology. To find out more about SharePoint News, download this PDF file. Check the Microsoft 365 Business usage report As a global admin to your Microsoft 365 tenant, you have access to usage reports that provide insight into how your user base is adopting the technology. The reports include activity and usage metrics for Exchange, Microsoft Teams, Office 365, OneDrive, SharePoint, Skype for Business, and Yammer. You can export the reports into Excel for further analysis. If you're so inclined, you can even analyze the data in Power BI, yet another tool from Microsoft for visualizing data. One way to act on the available data to drive adoption is to look at OneDrive for Business usage. The report includes information on the user, the last activity date, the number of files, the number of active files, and the storage used. If you notice that a user has zero (0) files and very low storage used, that might be a good indication that the user isn't adopting OneDrive for Business. Based on that information, you could target training for users who have low usage of OneDrive for Business. Be ready to provide support for your Microsoft 365 Business Integration When deploying a new technology, nothing fails as spectacularly as a deployment with no support model in place. Following a deployment, people have even been fired from their jobs because of bad user experience and no clear path for escalation. Depending on how you acquire your licenses, you may have different options for support. If you bought your Microsoft 365 Business licenses directly from Microsoft through their website, your support is provided by Microsoft. Unless you're paying big money for Premiere support, only the global admin can submit support tickets to Microsoft Support. That means you, as the IT admin, will be on point for providing support for your end users. However, you can submit a ticket on behalf of your end users, and Microsoft Support may end up working directly with them to resolve an issue. If you purchased your licenses from a Microsoft Partner, either through the Cloud Solutions Provider (CSP) or Enterprise Agreement (EA) model, the partner is on the hook for providing support. Depending on your agreement with the partner, you can either send your end users directly to the partner's support team or act as the intermediary between your end users and the partner's support team. Be aware that partners may charge an extra fee for support on top of license fees. At Cloud611, you can purchase Microsoft 365 licenses that include 24/7/365 end user support for a minimal fee on top of the license cost. Bring in the Microsoft 365 Business pros If you have followed all or most of the tips above and still aren’t having success in driving adoption for Microsoft 365 Business, it may be time to bring in the pros. The Microsoft Partner Network is replete with highly qualified training and adoption partners who can help you unblock adoption challenges. Although you have to shell out good money to engage these partners, the investment may be worth it in the long run. You can search for Microsoft training partners. Just a heads up — that web address may not work in the Chrome browser, but the URL works perfectly in the Microsoft Edge browser. One of the partners you'll find from the Microsoft Partner Network is Softchoice Corporation. They have a robust end user adoption professional service that includes defining use cases to understand the end users' needs all the way to the creating an implementation plan to drive desired business outcomes. Yet another training partner you might consider is Brainstorm Inc. They were contracted by Microsoft to provide training for the Customer Immersion Experience program. If you feel your organization has unique training needs, you may just need to be connected with the right partner. Please send an email to [email protected] with the subject line “Need help with training.” Someone will respond ASAP.

Cheat Sheet / Updated 08-12-2022

Windows 365 is Microsoft’s cloud-based operating system that lets you connect to your PC from anywhere in the world with an Internet connection. All you need is a physical device that you can use as a window into your cloud PC and you are good to go. Getting your head around using a PC in the cloud can take some time. It reminds us of the first time we saw the movie The Matrix. In other words, it can be a bit of a mind trip. You are using a physical computer, and then connecting to your cloud PC, and then using your physical computer just like it is your cloud PC. But your cloud PC lives and runs in the cloud, and your physical computer, any physical computer, is just something real you use to connect to your cloud PC and get work done. Like we said, it can take some time to get your head around it.