For one week only: 25 percent off Microsoft 365 Business Premium for small and medium-sized businesses

For one week only: 25 percent off Microsoft 365 Business Premium for small and medium-sized businesses

This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.

We recognize that 2020 has been a challenging year for small businesses, and we are here to help. In celebration of Small Business Saturday, we are offering small and medium-sized businesses in the United States a 25 percent discount on up to 25 seats of Microsoft 365 Business Premium so they can chat, call, host…

The post For one week only: 25 percent off Microsoft 365 Business Premium for small and medium-sized businesses appeared first on Microsoft 365 Blog.

Brought to you by Dr. Ware, Microsoft Office 365 Silver Partner, Charleston SC.

Bringing personal features in Microsoft Teams to desktop and web—now available in preview

Bringing personal features in Microsoft Teams to desktop and web—now available in preview

This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.

Bringing personal features in Microsoft Teams to desktop and web—now available in preview

Since the outbreak of COVID-19, it’s become a challenge for many of us to balance the various aspects of our lives. Whether it’s our jobs, homeschooling our kids, or coordinating virtual meetups with friends, managing all of this on a daily basis can get stressful. As a result, tools that help us stay on track and free up time for recharging have become more and more critical. Ever since we expanded Microsoft Teams beyond work and school and announced the preview of personal features in the Teams mobile app, I have found it helpful to organize and plan activities in my day-to-day life. From using tasks to track my grocery shopping list to scheduling virtual birthday celebrations, Teams has become my all-in-one hub for organizing my personal life.

Today, we are excited to announce the preview of more new personal features in Teams that will make it even easier to manage and plan your days. To begin with, you can now add your personal account in the Teams desktop or web app to chat with or call friends and family. With group chat and video calling now available on both desktop and mobile, connecting and organizing with loved ones will be easier than ever before, especially with holidays around the corner. We are also adding new features in preview in the Teams mobile app, such as the ability to chat with friends or family who don’t have Teams on their phones1, location alerts that let you know when someone leaves or arrives at designated locations2, and more.

Chat and call friends and family—right from your desktop

Since most people started working from home, the time we spend on our computers has risen dramatically. If you use your computer to send work emails and your phone to chat with friends and family, it can become difficult to keep track of incoming messages across all your devices. We want to make it easier for you to stay on top of your important communications—across your work and personal life—without having to constantly switch between devices. Now, you can add your personal account in the Teams desktop or web app and sync all your chats to your computer so you can carry on conversations on whatever device you prefer. Plus, you can use the Teams desktop or web app to call friends and family, even if they don’t have Teams installed, making it easier to connect with loved ones during the holidays. Your work and personal accounts open in different windows or browser tabs on your computer, making it easy to keep them separate.

The following features are now available in preview in the Teams desktop and web apps, with more features coming soon:

  • Start a personal chat or create a group chat with up to 250 people.
  • Seamlessly sync your existing chats from your phone to your computer and carry-on conversations on the device of your choice.
  • Talk all day for free with friends and family via video or audio calls.3
  • Share video meeting invites with anyone, even if they don’t have Teams, and see up to 49 of your friends and loved ones in one frame in Gallery view or Together mode.
  • Upload and share photos and videos from your computer in any personal or group chat.

To start using personal features in Teams on your computer, follow these steps:

  • If you are new to Teams, download the Teams desktop app and sign in with a personal Microsoft account or create a new one to get started.
  • If you currently use the Teams desktop app at work, click on your profile picture on the top-right corner and select ‘Add personal account’. Upon successful login, Teams will launch a new window containing your personal chats and groups so it’s easy to switch between your work and personal accounts.
    • Note: We are slowly rolling out the option to add a personal account to existing commercial users. So, if you don’t see this option to add your personal account, you may have to wait until your app is updated or for your IT admin to enable it within your organization.
  • If you want to use the personal features in Teams in your web browser, go to this link and sign in or create a new personal Microsoft account to get started.

While you can use the Teams desktop and web apps to chat with or call friends and family, we are working on bringing all the other personal features available in the Teams mobile app to desktop and web soon.

Adding more features in preview on the Teams mobile app

We are also introducing new features in preview in the Microsoft Teams mobile app to make it easier to stay connected with loved ones.

Chat with people in Teams, even if they are not using the app

When starting a group chat with your friends or family, you shouldn’t have to worry about whether they will miss your chats if they don’t have Teams. This is why we are previewing a new feature on our Teams iOS and Android apps that allows you to chat with contacts who don’t have Teams installed on their phones. Simply type a contact’s name or phone number to add them to a group chat and, if they are not on Teams, they can receive and send replies to the group via SMS, keeping the conversation flowing1. SMS participants will also get a link to download the Teams app on their phone making it easy to get started on Teams and take full advantage of rich media messaging and chat via GIFs, images, or videos.

This feature is available in preview for users in the US and Canada. You can learn more about this feature here.

Get notified when loved ones leave or arrive at a location

As we all begin to responsibly step out of our homes, we are releasing new location features in preview that will make it easier for your loved ones to receive updates about your physical whereabouts. Starting today, you can allow your loved ones to receive automatic alerts whenever you leave or arrive at a designated location2. So, if you are stepping out of your home on a daily basis, you can choose to let your family get automatic departure or arrival alerts so that they know when you will be back home.

In addition to these, we are also introducing the following new mobile features:

  • Add group events from your chats to your device’s calendar.
  • Get task and location updates in your activity feed.
  • Add a photo to your personal Safe.

The new features have started to roll out in preview on the Teams mobile app and will be fully rolled out in the coming weeks. To get started, download the Teams mobile app from the iOS or Android app store.

We are excited about continuing to preview more features in Teams that make it easier for you to organize and manage your personal life. While today is another step in that direction, we are continuing our efforts to bring even more features to you across all devices as we work towards making these features generally available. As always, we value your inputs during this journey, and we look forward to receiving your feedback.

Brought to you by Dr. Ware, Microsoft Office 365 Silver Partner, Charleston SC.

For one week only: 25 percent off Microsoft 365 Business Premium for small and medium-sized businesses

New apps and features in Microsoft 365 for individuals and families this fall

This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.

Family hanging out at home baking holiday cookies using Lenovo Ideapad Flex 3 to make holiday cards

New apps and features in Microsoft 365 for individuals and families this fall

Since we introduced Microsoft 365 to individuals and families earlier this year, we have continued to deliver new innovations across our apps and services to help you and your family save time and stay connected. See what’s new below.

Locate your loved ones and build better driving habits with Microsoft Family Safety

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Stay connected even when you’re apart with the Microsoft Family Safety app. Share your location with loved ones, spot them on a map, and save places they visit the most, all with a free Microsoft account. With a Microsoft 365 Family subscription, you also get alerted when your family members arrive or depart from a specific location.1 Plus, get insights on how your family is doing on the road, including how many times the driver uses their phone, their top speed, and even the number of times they brake hard. Location alerts are available to Microsoft 365 Family subscribers on Android and iOS worldwide, except for Japan, China, and countries where right-to-left languages are used. Drive safety reports and driver history are available to Microsoft 365 Family subscribers in the US, Canada, UK, and Australia on Android and iOS.

Get a more holistic view of your spending in Money in Excel

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Money in Excel now pulls up to two years of transaction history to get a better picture of your spending habits, a big increase from the three months of transaction history it launched with. Plus, Money in Excel now supports multiple credentials per financial institution so you and your partner can get a unified view of your accounts. Available now to Microsoft 365 Personal and Family subscribers in the US in Excel for Windows, macOS, and web.

Get started quickly with new templates for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint

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Over the last couple of months, we’ve published over 30 premium templates for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint that help you get started faster and look your best. Check out the Family Budget Planner template, the Mood Board template for your next creative project, and the Emergency Contacts template, a must-have for every home. Available now to Microsoft 365 Personal and Family subscribers in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint for web, Windows, and macOS.4

Stay in your flow with Your Phone app and Link to Windows on Galaxy phones

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In August, Microsoft and Samsung announced new experiences that will help you stay productive wherever you are. Today, we’re rolling out a new multi-app5 experience in Your Phone app, so you can run multiple Android mobile apps side by side on your Windows 10 PC. Apps will launch in separate windows enabling you to interact with multiple apps at the same time even if Your Phone app is not open. Pin your apps to Favorites, Windows 10 taskbar, or Start menu for quick and easy access. And moreover, you can now search for your previously pinned apps via Windows search from within your Start app list.

Whether you are staying connected with family and friends, keeping up on your social feed, or ordering food, you can do it all simultaneously from the comfort of your PC, with no need to install apps or sign-in again. The Your Phone multi-apps experience is now rolling out to supported Samsung devices. Learn more here.

Sync Samsung Notes and Reminders on Galaxy phones with Outlook, OneNote, and To Do

Also rolling out, Samsung Notes can automatically sync with your OneNote feed in Outlook on the web. And Samsung Reminders can automatically sync to Microsoft To Do, Outlook, and Microsoft Teams. Now you can take notes or set reminders while on the go with your Samsung Galaxy phone, and then access them on your Windows 10 PC when you return home. Samsung Note sync to OneNote feed in Outlook on the web is available now for Microsoft 365 Personal and Family subscribers and to anyone with a Microsoft account by the end of this year. Learn more about this experience on Samsung.com.

Easily share your photos and files with OneDrive family and group sharing

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OneDrive has always made it easy to share docs, photos, videos, albums, and folders. But until now, sharing to a group of people meant typing in the names of all the people you wanted to share with. Last month, we simplified the process with one-click sharing to family and groups. Once you predefine your family or friend group, you’ll be able to share a photo, album, or important document to your group with one click. Family and group sharing is available in OneDrive for web to anyone with a free Microsoft account.

Formal or casual? Specify your writing goals in Microsoft Editor

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Now you can choose the level of formality you would like Microsoft Editor to consider when providing relevant critiques for your writing. You can choose between “formal,” “professional”, or “casual” styles to help ensure your writing hits the right tone. This experience is rolling out now to Microsoft 365 Personal and Family subscribers in Word for web. Writing goals is currently only available for English language users; however, it will support additional languages in Word for web in the coming weeks.6 For languages outside of English, you can choose between two goals: “formal” or “casual.”

Focus on your conversation instead of your notes with Transcribe in Word for web

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Whether you’re interviewing a family member to chronicle your family’s history, running a virtual parent-teacher association meeting, or “attending” a college lecture via any major video conferencing platform, you want to focus on the conversation without worrying about taking notes. Now you can record your conversations directly in Word for the web and transcribe them automatically. Transcribe detects different speakers so after you finish recording, you can easily follow the flow of the transcript. Available now to Microsoft 365 Personal and Family subscribers in Word for web. Currently only available for English language users using Microsoft Edge or Chrome web browsers.

Survey or quiz your friends and family with Microsoft Forms

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In October, we made Microsoft Forms available for personal use. With easy-to-use tools and clear design suggestions, you can gather input and make plans for a variety of activities—survey your neighborhood friends for a weekly running time, coordinate your virtual holiday gathering with family, or even host a virtual trivia night with friends from any location. Available now for web and within the Office mobile app for anyone with a Microsoft account. Microsoft 365 Personal and Family subscribers can poll an expanded number of respondents and get access to more templates.


1Requires location alerts to be enabled and active.
2This feature is currently available in preview only in the US and Canada and is currently available only in chats with three or more participants. Standard SMS data charges apply.
3To help ensure the privacy of our users, this feature will only work if you are already sharing your location with the person setting up a location alert for you. Additionally, anytime someone sets up a location alert on you, Teams will notify you. To disable this feature, you can simply stop sharing your location.
4Premium templates are available in the following languages: Chinese (simplified), Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese (Brazilian), Russian, and Spanish.
5Users must link their Galaxy device to their Windows PC through ‘Link to Windows’ on phone and Your Phone app on PC, follow the set-up prompts, including being signed into same Microsoft account. Link to Windows is preloaded on select Galaxy devices. Your Phone requires latest Windows 10 Update on the PC. For Apps experience, Galaxy device must be on and connected to the same Wi-Fi network as the PC. Some mobile apps may restrict content to be shared on other screens or may require a touch screen to be able to interact with them. Ability to run multiple apps simultaneously is rolling out to select Samsung Galaxy devices running Android 11 and requires Windows 10 May 2020 Update or later.
6Writing goals in Microsoft Editor will support the following languages in the coming months: Chinese (simplified), Chinese (traditional), French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese (Brazilian), Portuguese (European), Russian, and Spanish.

Brought to you by Dr. Ware, Microsoft Office 365 Silver Partner, Charleston SC.

For one week only: 25 percent off Microsoft 365 Business Premium for small and medium-sized businesses

From new apps in Microsoft Teams meetings to Endpoint DLP—here’s what’s new to Microsoft 365 in November

This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.

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From new apps in Microsoft Teams meetings to Endpoint DLP—here’s what’s new to Microsoft 365 in November

As we enter the holiday season, it’s been inspiring to see organizations condense years of transformation into just a few short months. Many of you are adopting new digital technologies, transforming your business processes, and fundamentally rethinking how work will get done going forward. Throughout all of it, we’ve been focused on studying how work is changing and listening to you, our customers, so we can prioritize features and capabilities that will help you adapt to these changes and improve your workflows.

This month, we’re thrilled to announce that many of your top requested features—like background noise suppression in meetings—are coming to Teams and other Microsoft 365 services. Read on for details on those, plus the highly anticipated Microsoft Endpoint Data Loss Prevention and other new features across Microsoft 365 to help make it easier to pick up where you left off, keep track of your notes and tasks more easily, sketch out Amazon Web Services (AWS) application architectures in Visio for the web, and more.

New apps, noise suppression, and more for Teams

This month, we’re announcing the general availability of Teams apps for meetings, expanded Forms integration, and new capabilities that make it easier to build apps and bots right within Teams.

Enrich your meeting experience with Teams apps—Typically, collaborating with an app during a meeting required someone sharing their screen while they updated tasks, set reminders, managed requests, and more. This month, we’re excited to announce that you can now bring the capabilities of many of these apps directly into the meeting experience for everyone to interact with, making the time your team spends together more effective and collaborative before, during, and after your meetings. Checkout the new Teams apps for meetings now available in the Teams app store, including Asana, HireVue, Monday.com, Slido, and Teamflect (with more on the way), as well as familiar apps built by Microsoft such as Forms. If you’re a partner or developer, learn more about creating Teams apps for meetings in our documentation.

List of new Teams apps for meetings available in November.

Quickly gather feedback in Teams meetings with polls—Polls are a great way to turn passive listeners into active participants. Forms’ integration with Microsoft Teams now brings the power of polls to meetings, helping you conduct more engaging, informative, and productive meetings. Meeting presenters can prepare polls in advance and launch the polls during meetings that attendees can easily view and answer. The new Forms polls for meetings is currently rolling out and will reach you soon. You can get started by updating your Teams app and adding the Forms app to your meeting tabs.


Microsoft Forms integration with Microsoft Teams now brings the power of polls to meetings, here is a sample poll screen.

Remove unwelcome background noise in Teams meetings—Earlier this year, we released the ability to minimize distracting background noise in videos on Microsoft Stream. We are excited to share that we’re bringing this technology to Teams meetings. This real-time noise suppression will help remove unwelcome background noise during your meetings, making easier to hear speakers in loud and distracting environments. Noise suppression is rolling out to all users now.

Automate routine tasks without leaving Teams—Also new this month is the Power Automate app for Teams. The app provides a lightweight designer experience and a number of templates to help you quickly get started building workflows right within Teams. This new app makes it even quicker and easier to automate routine tasks within Teams. To get started, make sure you’re running the latest version of Teams.

Select from Top Picks within Power Automate to quickly automate routine tasks in Teams like creating a flow.

Easily build and deploy apps and intelligent chat bots in Teams—In September, we announced a new Power Apps and a new Power Virtual Agents app for Teams, running on a built-in low code data platform, now called Microsoft Dataverse for Teams— making it easy for creators to quickly build and deploy apps and bots for Teams—now those apps are generally available. Teams users can easily build applications and bots directly within Teams without needing to deal with connecting to storage, managing integrations, or switching applications. Dataverse for Teams makes the back-end tech logistics of creating and deploying business process solutions in Teams easier than ever. Built-in security and governance features provide seamless control of access to apps, bots, and flows, as well as their underlying data.

Here is an example of how to quickly build a HR bot within Microsoft Dataverse.

Find and share information more quickly

New capabilities help make it easier to find notes while working across Microsoft 365, capture and share content, and pick up where you left off.

Easily reference your notes when working on a OneNote page—Last month, we announced the OneNote feed for Outlook on the web, which conveniently combines your notes across Sticky Notes, recent OneNote pages, and even Samsung Notes so you can easily reference them while composing your mail. This makes it easy to reference your notes when working in a OneNote page and capture any new thoughts you have by creating a Sticky Note in your feed without having to leave OneNote. The OneNote feed is available in OneNote, OneNote on the web, OneNote for Windows 10, Outlook on the web, and Outlook.com. To get started in OneNote, click the Open feed icon in the top right corner of the OneNote app window to display the feed pane.

This image shows how you can reference your notes in a OneNote page  and capture any new thoughts by creating a Sticky Note in your feed without leaving OneNote.

Capture and share web content and more in Microsoft Edge—This month, we released two new features to help make you more productive and find information more easily. First, Web capture in Microsoft Edge lets you easily capture and mark up web content, and then save or share it—simply drag a box to select what you want to capture even if you need to scroll. Second, we’ve added news and information from your favorite content providers in a new “My Feed” section within the enterprise new tab page. This customizable feed sits alongside your Office 365 content and is designed to keep you connected to information most relevant to your industry or your company.


To capture content on the web, just click on the pull down menu on the right gutter to select Web capture, select your content and highlight with the Draw function found at the top of your capture then click Share button found in the upper right corner.

Quickly pick up where you left off on recent files and more in OneDrive for iOS—A new home experience on the iOS mobile app for OneDrive will help you quickly pick up where you left off on recent files and easily re-discover memories from the past. Plus, you can now add a OneDrive widget to your iPhone home screen that displays your photo memories on this day across previous years. See your recent files and On This Day photos as soon as you open the OneDrive app. To get started, update your OneDrive iOS app.

This screenshot shows how you can easily access information on recent files or family memories once you install the OneDrive widget to your iPhone.

OneDrive family and group sharing now available

OneDrive family and group sharing now available—OneDrive has always made it easy to share docs, photos, videos, albums, and folders. But until now, sharing to a group of people meant typing in the names of all the people you wanted to share with. Last month, we simplified the process with one-click sharing to family and groups. Once you predefine your family or friend group, you’ll be able to share a photo, album, or important document to your group with one click. Family and group sharing are available in OneDrive for the web and included in all free and paid OneDrive consumer plans, as well in Microsoft 365 Personal and Family plans.


This is an example of how quickly you can share with friends or family once you have set up your predefined group.

Hear Office documents read aloud to you on Android phones—As you move through your busy day, sometimes it’s easier to hear your document read aloud to you. Now you can use Read Aloud to do exactly that in Word for Android phone and in Word on the Office app for Android. New voices offer a more natural and pleasant listening experience. You can easily pause and resume Read Aloud as well as adjust the voice speed. To get started, open the Word or Office app on your Android phone, go to the Review tab, then tap Read Aloud.

Get Yammer notifications in your Teams activity feed and more—This month, we’re announcing several new and upcoming features in Yammer. Coming soon, notifications from your Yammer announcements and mentions will show up in your Microsoft Teams activity feed if you have the Communities app installed. We’re also now rolling out an updated experience in the Yammer Tab for Teams that brings modern capabilities like pinning, cover photos, live events, and more. Finally, also released this month is support for Yammer Q and A insights in Microsoft Productivity Score, an interactive guide to get the most out of Yammer, and an updated experience for topics and hashtags in Yammer.

This GIF is showing Yammer notifications inside Microsoft Teams activity feed on a mobile device.

Prevent data loss and diagram your IT solutions

New capabilities make it easier to prevent data loss on endpoints and sketch out IT solutions build on ASW.

Protect sensitive information on your endpoints—In July, we announced the public preview of Microsoft Endpoint Data Loss Prevention (DLP) which extends our data protection capabilities to devices. Now generally available, Endpoint DLP enables organizations to enforce policies that identify and prevent risky or inappropriate sharing, transfer, or use of sensitive information consistently across cloud, on-premises, and endpoints. We’re also adding new capabilities to a public preview based on feedback from customers—such as adding enforcement actions and locations-based sensitivity, a new dashboard in Microsoft 365 compliance center to manage DLP alerts, and more.

Watch this mechanics video or visit our documentation to learn more.

This image shows an example of how to create a rule with Endpoint DLP.

Sketch your Amazon Web Services (AWS) architecture in Visio for the web—Diagrams are a great way for cloud architects to visualize the design, deployment, and topology of IT solutions built on AWS. We’re excited to announce that we’ve added support to build AWS diagrams for various topologies and service interactions in Visio for the web. More than 400 shapes are available to help architects redesign existing infrastructure diagrams, conceptualize application architecture, or visualize the current state of your cloud environment and plan for the future. To help you get started easily, we’ve provided a few starter diagrams using various AWS services. Go to the Visio web app homepage and select your preferred diagram template to quickly start visualizing your AWS infrastructure.

This image shows a screen shot diagram of SAP using SIOS.

As you continue your navigation to a more sustainable, hybrid workplace, we are committed to developing technologies that help your people and teams thrive. From building low code apps right within Teams to new AI capabilities to help you manage tasks more easily, all of these updates are aimed at enabling your people to collaborate productively, securely, and safely from anywhere.

Brought to you by Dr. Ware, Microsoft Office 365 Silver Partner, Charleston SC.

For one week only: 25 percent off Microsoft 365 Business Premium for small and medium-sized businesses

Microsoft’s Chief People Officer shares 5 tips from top wellbeing and people experts

This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.

“From wellbeing luminary Arianna Huffington to Think Like a Monk author Jay Shetty, Kathleen Hogan’s People Talk interview series features conversations with some of the most fascinating minds on the topics of people and wellbeing. I get so much out of these chats, and so I invited Kathleen—Microsoft’s Chief People Officer & EVP of Human…

The post Microsoft’s Chief People Officer shares 5 tips from top wellbeing and people experts appeared first on Microsoft 365 Blog.

Brought to you by Dr. Ware, Microsoft Office 365 Silver Partner, Charleston SC.

For one week only: 25 percent off Microsoft 365 Business Premium for small and medium-sized businesses

Microsoft 365 now available from new Brazil geography

This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.

Microsoft 365 is now available from our new cloud datacenters in Brazil, enabling Brazilian organizations to store their customer data for core online services at rest in country. Learn more about the new Brazil geography for Microsoft 365.

The post Microsoft 365 now available from new Brazil geography appeared first on Microsoft 365 Blog.

Brought to you by Dr. Ware, Microsoft Office 365 Silver Partner, Charleston SC.