Microsoft 365 For Dummies

AMP UP YOUR COLLABORATION SKILLS AND ROCK THE MODERN WORKPLACE BY HARNESSING THE POWER OF MICROSOFT 365 WITH THIS ONE-STOP GUIDE TO THE WORLD'S LEADING PRODUCTIVITY PLATFORM

The Microsoft 365 productivity solution for the workplace is a cloud-based service with many features for effective and secure collaboration virtually or in person. Whether you start your day with meetings in Teams, respond to Outlook emails, create documents with Office apps, or even automate your work with artificial intelligence, Microsoft 365 has you covered. But first, you must unlock the potential of this powerful solution to showcase your ability to keep up with the modern workplace and make an impact in your organization. To do that, you need Microsoft 365 For Dummies!

This book walks you through the steps to get your work done anytime, anywhere, on any device, with Microsoft Teams as the central hub. Discover how to chat online in real time; conduct online meetings; co-author documents in the cloud; develop no-code applications; and even prioritize your well-being. The insights and step-by-step guidance in Microsoft 365 For Dummies will help you stay connected and engaged with your colleagues.

* Level up your teamwork game with the latest meeting and collaboration best practices from Microsoft Teams
* Stretch your use of Office apps (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and OneNote) by infusing artificial intelligence into your everyday tasks
* Save time (and look really smart) by automating your work with the Power Platform apps
* Take a break from work and focus on your health and well-being at home or in the office

Whether you’re a Microsoft 365 newbie or a superuser looking for details on what's new, Microsoft 365 For Dummies is the friendly and authoritative how-to book you need. Discover the benefits of cloud technology today!

JENNIFER REED is Founder of Cloud61, a firm offering IT consulting products and services. She is the author of Office 365 For Dummies, Migrating to Office 365 For Dummies, Office 365 Backup For Dummies, and Office 365 for Higher Education. She recently launched a startup (www.hydrojennfarms.com) aimed at promoting locally grown food and regenerative farming practices using modern technologies like Microsoft 365.

INTRODUCTION 1

About This Book 1

Foolish Assumptions 2

Icons Used in This Book 2

Beyond the Book 3

Where to Go from Here 3

PART 1: KEEPING UP WITH MICROSOFT 365 5

CHAPTER 1: WHAT’S IN IT FOR YOU: OVERVIEW OF FEATURES 7

Tasting the Flavors of Microsoft 365 8

Understanding the versions for home 9

Exploring the options for the workplace 9

Honing in on the Workplace Features 11

Reining in the apps and services 11

No, the robots have not taken over 12

Connecting the dots to get work done 13

CHAPTER 2: WORK, MEET LIFE: THE NEW WORLD OF WORK 17

Going Native, Digitally 18

How to get your colleague’s attention 18

Turn back the hands of time with version history 20

Prioritizing Self-Care and Well-Being 21

Viva la vida loca! 21

Taming the “too-connected” beast 22

Calling it a day with Virtual Commute 24

PART 2: REIMAGINING TEAMWORK 25

CHAPTER 3: UNLOCKING DIGITAL COLLABORATION 27

There’s a Purpose for That App 28

Office 365 versus Microsoft 365: What’s the diff? 28

Installing the Office 365 apps 29

The right tools for the right purpose 30

Connecting Experiences Across Apps 32

The lowdown on connected experiences 32

Look Ma, no hands! Using the Dictation feature 34

CHAPTER 4: ZOOMING IN ON TEAMS 37

Getting to Know Teams 38

Touring the Teams interface 38

Co-authoring documents in Teams 41

Don’t get ghosted — use Read Receipts 42

Reading instead of listening to voicemail 43

Creating a Humanistic Workplace 44

To hide or not to hide the kids (or pets) 45

The many ways to see each other 46

Eat chips without being annoying 48

CHAPTER 5: ROCKING YOUR MEETING LIKE A BOSS 51

The Things You Do Before 52

Get meeting insights from Outlook 52

Chat with attendees to prep 54

Preload agenda and documents 56

The Stuff You Do During 57

Present like a pro with one monitor 57

Reporting live from your home office! 58

Follow along with live captions or live transcriptions 60

The Actions to Take After 62

Play back the meeting 63

Track action items 63

Continue to engage via chat 64

CHAPTER 6: FACILITATING MEETINGS AND BREAKOUT SESSIONS 67

The Basics of Teams Meetings 68

Scheduling a meeting 69

Calling for an impromptu meeting 70

Joining a meeting 71

Meeting within a Meeting with Breakout Rooms 72

Creating Breakout rooms 73

Starting the breakout session 75

Rejoining the main session 76

CHAPTER 7: ALL ABOUT WEBINARS AND LIVE EVENTS 79

Calling the Shots with a Webinar 80

Preparing for a webinar 80

Creating the webinar event 81

Delivering the webinar 85

So, You Want to be a Producer 86

Getting ready to produce a live event 86

Scheduling a live event 87

Producing the live event 88

PART 3: MODERNIZING THE WORKPLACE WITH OFFICE APPS 91

CHAPTER 8: GETTING THE MOST OUT OF WORD 93

It’s Alive! Your Document, That Is 94

Jazz it up with pictures 94

Your screen is paper, draw on it 97

Immerse yourself in your reading 99

Becoming a Better Writer 100

Make your writing so much better 101

Support your facts with Researcher 103

That Time When Word Helped Your Career 104

Sprucing up your resume 104

Smashing the language barrier 105

CHAPTER 9: STEPPING UP YOUR EXCEL CHOPS 107

Excelling in Excel 108

Everyday Excel tasks 108

Get it all sorted out 110

Talk to your team from your workbook 111

Taking a Shortcut to Completing Tasks 114

Get to know Office Scripts 114

Stop the repetition; create a script 114

Run and share your script 116

So, You’re a Data Analyst Now? 118

Around the world with data types 119

Giving yourself permission to be curious 121

You’ve got questions, Excel has answers 123

CHAPTER 10: WOWING YOUR AUDIENCE WITH POWERPOINT 125

More than Just the Basics of PowerPoint 126

Navigating the web and desktop apps 127

Have an interesting topic? There’s’ a deck for that! 128

The Art of Creating a Deck 131

Be artsy (even when you’re not) with Designer 131

Mastering the Slide Master 133

Reuse, recycle decks with templates 134

The Science of Presenting a Deck 135

Practice with AI makes perfect 135

Give a unique experience with Live Presentations 138

Experiencing Live Presentations as an audience 141

CHAPTER 11: GOING DIGITAL WITH ONENOTE 145

Exploring Basic Functions 146

Understanding the different versions 146

Getting around the user interface 149

Creating a new notebook 150

Moving a notebook to a new location 152

Stepping Up the Notetaking Game 153

Tagging content for later use 154

Viewing and restoring page versions 155

Sharing your notebook 156

CHAPTER 12: STAYING CONNECTED WITH OUTLOOK 159

The Not-Just-Basic of Outlook 160

Just a few words will do 162

My thoughts exactly: When AI reads minds 164

Ask questions, naturally 167

Schedule Management with the Calendar 168

Click to meet from an email 168

Color your world with categories 169

Don’t get between your colleagues and their lunch 171

Outlook Out of the Ball Park 173

Sliding into a Teams chat from Outlook 173

Notes and Sticky Notes integration 174

Play my emails, please 175

PART 4: STORING YOUR DATA IN THE CLOUD 177

CHAPTER 13: CENTRALIZING DATA IN SHAREPOINT 179

Getting to Know SharePoint Online 180

No-code website in a flash? Yes you can! 181

Who let the dogs in? Setting permissions 184

The Wonders of Microsoft Lists 187

Creating and editing a List 187

A view for different points of view 189

Never miss an update with alerts 191

The Marvels of Document Libraries 192

Contributing to a document library 192

Help, I changed my mind! Versioning to the rescue 193

CHAPTER 14: GOODBYE HARD DRIVE, HELLO ONEDRIVE 197

Storing and Syncing Files in OneDrive 198

Ready, get set, sync! Using the sync app 198

What’s in a name? Work or School versus Home 201

What’s the diff? OneDrive versus SharePoint 202

The Many Ways to Share Files 204

May I have a quick link, please? 204

Managing access before it gets out of hand 206

PART 5: GIVING POWER TO THE PEOPLE LIKE YOU AND ME 209

CHAPTER 15: UNDERSTANDING THE POWER PLATFORM 211

What Is the Power Platform? 212

Creating Workflows with Power Automate 213

Getting to Know Power Apps 214

Telling a Story with Data in Power BI 217

Advanced Concepts 218

Meet the AI Builder 219

About the Microsoft Dataverse 219

CHAPTER 16: CREATING A POWER-AUTOMATED APPROVAL PROCESS 221

Gathering What You need 222

Nailing the scenario 222

Building the library 223

Picking the template 224

All Systems Go, Let’s Flow! 226

Building the flow, making the connections 226

Testing the workflow 230

Checking for approvals in Teams 231

Turning off the flow 232

CHAPTER 17: DEVELOPING YOUR FIRST APP WITH POWER APPS 233

Before Building the App 234

Creating the list to hold data 235

Managing access to the list 236

Fine-tuning the properties of the list 238

Specifying the survey questions 240

Building the App 243

Designing the app 244

Connecting the data source 244

Building the Survey screen 247

Adding buttons and labels to the form 250

Building the Welcome screen 253

Building the Thank You screen 255

Finalizing the Survey screen 255

Launching the App 256

Saving and sharing the app 257

Updating the app 257

Reviewing the data 258

CHAPTER 18: DASHBOARDING WITH POWER BI 259

Understanding Power BI Concepts 260

What’s in it for you? 261

How Power BI is licensed 261

It’s the elements, dear Watson 262

Exploring a Sample Data Set 263

Navigating the Power BI Service 263

Loading the dataset 266

Interacting with the dashboard 267

PART 6: BEING YOUR OWN IT DEPARTMENT 271

CHAPTER 19: GETTING UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL 273

Let’s Get Personal 274

Paint a thousand words with your picture 274

Spice things up with a custom cover photo 276

Don’t be shy, toot your own horn 276

IT Tasks You’re Empowered to Do 277

Updating your security information 278

Changing your password 279

Self-service password reset 280

CHAPTER 20: REINING IN YOUR DEVICES 283

Managing Your Devices 284

Securing your devices 284

Auditing and disabling devices 285

Checking for impossible travel 287

You Have Left the Building — Virtually 288

Signing out from devices all at once 288

Disconnecting a BYOD 289

PART 7: THE PART OF TENS 293

CHAPTER 21: TEN MORE APPS THAT GET THE WORK DONE 295

People 296

MyAnalytics 296

Kaizala 297

Stream 298

Whiteboard 298

Lists 299

Forms 300

Yammer 301

Sway 302

Planner 302

CHAPTER 22: TEN WAYS TO ROCK DELVE 305

Know Thyself with MyAnalytics 306

Delve Away, Your Docs Are Safe 306

Delve Consumes OneDrive and SharePoint data 307

The Search Is On for People and Docs 308

Act On a Document 309

Favorite Documents for Later Use 309

Group Documents in a Board 310

Documents-at-a-Glance with Cards 311

Popularity Contest for Documents 311

Get to Know Your Colleagues 311

CHAPTER 23: TEN MICROSOFT 365 REMOTE WORK TIPS 313

Set Lunch Hours and Enjoy Your Meal 314

Chill and Decompress: Go Meditate 315

Start Your Zero-Carbon Commute 315

Keep Your Promises with Help from AI 316

Work Late but Let Others Not 316

Make Your Meeting Worth Their Time 317

Wrap It Up in Five Minutes 317

Say Thanks with Praise 318

Your Status Is Not Complicated 318

Give a Heads Up with Signatures 319

Index 321