It is not uncommon for me to be asked how to create a calendar in a Team in Microsoft Teams. Most of the time, the need is about just wanting an overview of what will happen in the coming days.
Below I will show you some different options.
Continue reading “How to create a simple event calendar in a Team”
Most companies and organizations have a good ambition that everyone should use the company’s standardized Office templates. The templates must follow the correct graphic profile and have the correct outline. Unfortunately, few companies and organizations succeed in this.
A common misunderstanding is that an Office template is a “Reusable Office file” with the file extension .docx .xlsx or .pptx that you copy and change. Nothing could be more wrong.
“Real” Office templates have the following file extensions:
Sometimes the templates are on a file server, hopefully, the templates are at least stored somewhere on the company’s Microsoft 365 tenant (sometimes in a document library in SharePoint, sometimes they are even in a Team or spread across several Teams and channels.)
Sometimes you might even have your Office templates stored in an external solution that users have to log into and download the templates from. This often means that you miss when a new version has arrived and you continue, blissfully unaware, to work with your locally stored downloaded outdated templates.
An interesting detail is that when you store these “Reusable Office files” (that are not valid template formats), in an area where most users have editor rights, it is guaranteed that sooner or later someone has been inside and changed one or more of these files.
A good way to avoid these problems is to create “real” Office templates and store them in an area where only a few people have editor rights while all employees have read rights.
But is there an easy way to make these templates available to all users directly from Word, Excel and PowerPoint? The answer is a resounding YES! Keep reading to find out how.
Continue reading “Make your Office templates available to all users”
Many organizations and companies choose to block Teams apps that do not come directly from Microsoft, but they approve all team apps from Microsoft and these are thus possible for users to add to Teams.
A challenge with this approach to success is that users do not know how to go about asking for permission to access and use any of the apps that are blocked. Often, IT also does not have routines or solutions to handle this smoothly. In other words, it becomes a source of confusion and inertia in the organization.
Continue reading “A simple solution for requesting new Team apps”
After using a system, solution or tool for a longer period of time, it usually either becomes a bit messy and/or you come up with other structures that you would rather have used. Just think back to how often you moved and reorganized folders back in the day when you were working against file servers. Then it was relatively easy to change the order of the folders in the structure you had built, but that was probably also the only advantage of working with folders on a file server. Enough about that. Today, we work in a more modern way and with tools that give us significantly more dimensions and possibilities.
Most of us who work a lot with Microsoft Teams are sometimes asked how to move a channel. The most common answer from me when I get this question is the counter question: “Do you need to move all posts as well or is it enough to move the files?”.
Continue reading “Moving team channels is easy (when you know how to do it)”
In my daily work, I meet far too many companies and organizations that take the information structure too lightly. Sometimes due to lack of time, but sometimes due to carelessness. Either reason will sooner or later lead to chaos and irritated users. In the best case scenario, one has in any case gotten away from storing files on file servers and instead got over to Microsoft 365 with Teams, SharePoint and OneDrive as storage areas.
BUT
Unfortunately, it is far too common to just dump the files where you see that it is possible.
Here are some examples of Basic misuse (which many actually do).
On the first of September 2022, I will participate in Kai Stenberg’s PodCast “Teams Cast away“. There we will talk about information structure in Microsoft Teams. This blog post is written with the aim of sharing some tips with others who might wonder how to build a smart and logical structure in the simplest possible way so that you know where documents belong and can easily find them again when working in Microsoft Teams.
“Create and store documents in their logical/intuitive context. Then you and your colleagues don’t need to waste time searching for them later”
A golden rule in the handling of documents in Microsoft Teams is that the documents must always be created and stored in their relevant context. In my world, there should always be a relevant channel where a document fits. If you have relevant channels, you store documents and conversations in a relevant/logical context, and thus you don’t have to look for them. They simply have a natural place where they belong and your other team members should know (and practice) that too.
Below I will give you some simple and basic tips on what to keep in mind when you have a document that you are wondering where it belongs.
Most things are easy once you master them. Migration is no exception.
Wednesday, October 19, it’s time again for MVP-dagen in Oslo and it is a great pleasure for me to be able to participate and give a presentation here. The title of my session this time is “It’s easy to migrate files properly to Microsoft Teams (once you know how to do it)“.
“Your new Teams are set up and configured with the structures that are suitable for your business. All employees have received the training needed to be able to work in the right way and in the same way. Now all that remains is the fun of moving in.
In my session you will get some good tips on how you and your colleagues can migrate files from “old sources” to your new Teams (and in the right way). You will also get tips on when you need to use migration tools.”
The scenarios we are going to go through are the following:
Everyone is welcome to this event which has many great sessions and many topics so there is something of interest for everyone. Hope to see you there!
Follow this link to stay up-to-date on the schedule, speakers and registration.
I must say that it has never been so inspiring and exciting to work with collaboration solutions from Microsoft. The toolbox grows and grows and I can, with a clear conscience, say that now we probably have everything (or at least most) we need in Microsoft Teams. It has really and finally become a workspace where you can make all your tools and all your information available in the right context.
“Everything in one place!”
Here is a selection of some important building blocks that we can use to achieve this:
The possibilities do not stop here. For me, however, this is the most relevant functionality (for the moment) I need in my toolbox to help companies and organizations work in a smooth and modern way.
If you are eager to learn more about the possibilities with the news in #MicrosoftTeams, please take a look at “What’s New in Microsoft Teams | Microsoft Ignite 2020“
While Ignite is going virtual this year, Microsoft are still conducting research sessions, virtually of course, and they want to hear from you! If your organization uses SharePoint and/ or OneDrive and you’re interested talking to the product team we have several sessions lined up, so please take the survey linked above to tell them about your preferences.
I think most of us, at some point, have missed the opportunity to add and use document templates in Microsoft Teams. It would have been great if, in “Files”, you could just click “New” and then choose an Office template that you want to start from when creating a new document.
For those of you who lacked this functionality, I can inform you that there is a solution for this. Continue reading “Easy use of Office Document templates in Microsoft Teams”
“Take care of yourself and use protection!”
(If you didn’t hear it from your parents, you hear it from me now.)
Sensitivity labels with protection is now in “General availability” in SharePoint, OneDrive and Microsoft Teams.
Read the details here: Announcing general availability of sensitivity labels with protection in SharePoint and OneDrive
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