Chris A Watkins - Business

 O365: SharePoint Searching in Office 365 and Teams See also -  Other Office 365 Posts Earlier posts have discussed the huge advantages of centralising documents, files and communications in SharePoint and Office 365. One of the strongest functions in Office 365 is the ability to search all content so that locating data is easy. However, the search tools in Office 365 are not always obvious. Teams Search Teams is becoming really popular, not least due to the fact that it makes SharePoint very easy to deploy, use and control. At the top of each Teams General Tab is a search box This is multi function. Type / into the box and you will see a list of commands that will perform all sorts of Teams functions    The /Files option will return files you have recently accessed. Great, if the file or document you are looking for is actually in the recent file list. What if the information you require is in an older file, or in a different location? Location Search Also in Teams ...

 O365: Automation - The First Step See also -  Other Office 365 Posts Making SharePoint Lists and Libraries is a simple process and these act as data containers for information passing through your business. We can capture data into the containers by creating the content from within the list or library, by scan and by import. In most businesses, once the information, whether it is a document or data, is stored in SharePoint it will need to be followed through to ensure that it is made available to the right personnel and is acted on in a timely fashion. The traditional method of ensuring this workflow is to send out email reminders and/or to place the information where the affected users can find it. There is a better way. Simple Work Flow  The simplest work flow is to equip each List and Library with a column for status. Using a SharePoint Library created to store customer orders The status column can be seen to the right of the customer column To add a status column ...

O365: Moving Stuff Around See also -  Other Office 365 Posts Earlier Posts have demonstrated how to make SharePoint data containers (Lists and Libraries), how to populate them and how to use the data across the business. We've also touched on collecting data via mobile phone and tablet and how the data can be used both on site, at the computer desk, and off site via mobile or tablet. This is all the same live data with little duplication and only occasional need to synchronise between devices.  That's fine for static or semi static data like contact names and addresses. These only change when something changes in the real world and the data need updating to reflect the new reality. Dynamic Data However, some data needs to change because it is by nature dynamic. For instance, a sales query may become a quotation, and then an order and then a delivery note and then an invoice. A telephone conversation with customer may become an email confirmation, which may become dormant. But,...

O365: Make Life Simple. Grab Data on the Go. See also -  Other Office 365 Posts Earlier Office 365 posts have pointed towards simple ways to make SharePoint List and SharePoint Library data containers, simple ways to populate these with data that is useful to business and simple ways to filter that data for useful output commination like invoices and reports. Reading back through those posts it becomes obvious that the more data you collect, the more you can do with it. This is probably best highlighted in the CRM example, where all communication between company representatives and individual customers is captured and used across the business. The great thing about modern technology is that even when visiting a customer the person representing the business can access the same data that is available when sitting at a computer in the office. In addition, updates can be made to the data without a return to the office being necessary. Accounting The same can be said of accounts and exp...

O365: The SharePoint Data Harvest See also -  Other Office 365 Posts An earlier post on getting data into SharePoint libraries touched on the various methods of building data stores for use across the business. The methods range from creating files, documents and data in SharePoint Lists and Libraries, importing into SharePoint Lists and Libraries and scanning into Lists and Libraries. The importance of import and scan in this context is that valuable communication data generally has two parts - Outwards communication - files, data and documents that are sent out  and Inwards communication - files, data and documents that are received. The email Issue Let's take a look at what happens with email. In a sales department email will often be sent from and received by an individual. A well organised salesperson will probably create folders in the inbox to sort incoming mail so that communications from customers are easily found. But, what happens to outgoing mail? This usually resi...

O365: The Advantages of Teams and SharePoint for Business See also - Other Office 365 Posts Business and management are stressful enough without having to worry about where to store or file a communication, or worse still trying to remember where you stored the communications you had last week. It gets worse when you are part of a team and you need to know where everyone else is filing relative data.  How long does it take to message or email a colleague to ask if they know who said what to a customer yesterday, or last month?  How long does it take to get your reply? It's not difficult to ensure that all communication is captured and catalogued to make sure that every team member has the full and current picture. Store and Catalogue Using Office 365 Data can be stored in SharePoint Lists . These are simple to create and use. Documents can be stored in SharePoint Libraries . Providing fast, secure access to communication Data from SharePoint Lists can be linked to SharePoint L...

O365: Getting Really Useful Data into SharePoint Libraries See also - Blogs on  Library ,  List ,  Linking ,  Teams ,   Invoicing ,  Workflow ,   Bulk Invoicing  and  Spreadsheet Data A really useful SharePoint Library structure will give you something like this -  Just typing the words 'Credit Card' into the SharePoint search box returns a list of items relating to credit card across the entire Office 365 site. Security Don't worry about users accessing documents that are restricted. If you create or place a document into a Teams Document Library, it will be available to members of that Team by default. However, each document can be locked down to no access, view only or edit. You can also stop sharing any document, or alternatively share only with the members of the team you select. Users with whom the document has not been shared with will not be able to access it. Being More Specific   That's fine if you know which Credit C...