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Amazon’s virtual assistant is designed to support home and office automation, maximize efficiency and save user time and money. Can Alexa’s automation of professional processes translate into profit – and conquer the business world?

It’s no surprise to most consumers that Amazon loves integration and automation. After a successful “dabble” in a shipping membership, its Amazon Prime service now estimates 80 million users and generates $6.4 billion in annual revenue. After test markets proved successful with both Amazon Prime Now, expediting delivery on specific Amazon Prime products to within a two-hour window, and Amazon Fresh, a home delivery grocery service, Amazon’s acquisition of Whole Foods seemed a logical next step to offer consumers a one-stop shop for most purchases.

Simultaneously, the expanding Amazon Echo product line-up aims to help consumers with artificial intelligence-based home automation solutions.

“Alexa, order more laundry detergent…”

“Alexa, set a timer for 15 minutes…”

“Alexa, what is the weather supposed to be like today…”

Alexa is happy to call another Echo product by looking through your contacts to find who has an Alexa-enabled device, or to command your Roomba to start a clean cycle. A whole-house Sonos audio system will set you back a few thousand dollars, but a couple of Amazon Echo devices will cost you a few hundred dollars by comparison and can be linked together to play the same music with comparable sound quality. Amazon Echo products and the voice-activated Alexa smart assistant are becoming more commonplace in homes but isn’t seen as a valuable option for a virtual assistant in the workplace – yet. Consumers tend to feel a bit overwhelmed by the vast options for how users can take full advantage of Alexa’s capabilities. Amazon does send a weekly email with the latest tips on how to make the most off Alexa, but we’re betting you didn’t know you can enable the Chat Bot skill to have Alexa assist in posting to your Slack account in a specific channel.

• Enable the “Alexa Things to Try” skill and Alexa will deliver a quick tip-filled brief every day on how she can help you.

Yes, Alexa can help you post to a Slack channel. Let that sink in. Did you know Alexa can also integrate with Salesforce tools? Through Amazon Web Services (AWS), developers can design innovative voice-enabled technologies to build an Alexa skill, much like the Chat Bot skill mentioned above. Alexa can fetch various reports, like expense reports and professional status reports, with a simple voice command. Voice-activated automation of simple and repetitive tasks increase both efficiency and productivity and are far more cost-efficient.

Those are the buzzwords of the day: efficiency and productivity. What can you do to increase each, and improve overall cost-efficiency for your company? Think about what tasks your business can automate. That is the initial goal.

• Did you know Amazon allows developers to create skills through the Alexa Skills Set on the Alexa developer site? Whether only for your company’s use or if you choose to publish the skill to be used by others, this is a fantastic resource with all the tools for experienced developers.

What skills would help your business run more efficiently? Here are a few existing Alexa skills that you can already implement:

• Quick Events
  • Alexa can help you keep organized and on time with this skill that can add items to your Google calendar and check for conflicting events on your schedule.
• Complete Tasks
  • This skill requires users to also have the accompanying Complete mobile app on their smartphone or tablet and allows users to add tasks by voice command.
• Kayak Explore
  • For users with a Kayak account, Kayak Explore will check flight status, track prices, allow you to set up travel plans and more with the ever-expanding skill.
• Translated
  • Given the global nature of agreements and transactions in modern business arrangements, the Translate skill helps users by translating short sentences into 36 languages. The best part of this particular skill is since the nature of Alexa is voice-activated, this skill includes pronunciation!
• Chineasy
  • Going one step further than Translated, Alexa users with the Chineasy skill can learn Mandarin Chinese in an easy-to-remember process with one sentence a day. The unique features of this skill also share interesting stories of Chinese history and culture with users.
• Notion
  • Alexa will read your emails to you and also delete them, but what makes this skill a must-have is that Notion will prioritize your emails based on importance.
• AstroBot
  • Like Notion, AstroBot is your new intelligent email assistant for your Gmail or Office 365 email from an Alexa-enabled device.
• UPS
  • This skill works much like the UPS.com website or the UPS app. You can find a location, track packages, or get a shipping quote with this Alexa skill, once it’s linked to your UPS My Choice account.

Did you know that with Skill Finder, Alexa will also tell you a “Skill of the Day” to showcase one featured skill? This is aside from the “Alexa Things to Try” skill, which means Alexa really wants to help you learn what it has to offer!

In the last decade, every major organization needed to develop a website to stay competitive, but in the last few years, the requirement has become the mobile app. Organizations that wasted time, money and resources on a mobile app that didn’t add value for users found themselves removed from smartphone screen real estate and declining metrics via their mobile app dashboard. Consumers feel the same way about Alexa skills that are published to the Alexa Skill storefront. More importantly, allocate resources to developing an Alexa skill that just doesn’t offer much improvement in productivity for your organization will be even more frustrating.

How can you run your day-to-day operations more efficiently? What processes can you automate? Sure, you already automate many tasks using software programs, but Alexa is different. You can tell Alexa what you need it to do while you’re performing another function.

Between Notion and Quick Events, the next day your human assistant takes the day off, try an Alexa skill to see how Alexa can help you run your business and dominate your industry by saving you time and making you money!

Do What Professional Sports Teams Do—Use Analytics.

To win in any sport, coaches used to rely solely on their knowledge, experience and “gut.”  Today, they have another source to rely on–analytics. And those who don’t take advantage of it will fall behind their competition.

Analytics are used in many industries, but today it’s helping team managers and coaches “score points.”  It’s being used to influence coaching decisions, boost performance, help with contract negotiations, prevent injuries and even gain insight into fan preferences.

Fans and sports enthusiasts can now visit websites where they can see breakdowns of their favorite player’s performance. According to John Forese, senior vice president and general manager of LiveAnalytics, a LiveNation data, analytics, and research company:

“It’s about knowing when a fan is interested in an opposing team coming to town or whether a 4 p.m. game is not too late for them. It’s about hitting them with that communication when they are in the decision mindset and giving season ticket holders more incentive to keep coming and retain their tickets.”

Analytics has been used in businesses for years. Only recently has it been applied to professional sports. And why not? It’s a source of information to help us make better decisions.  If you don’t use it in your business, you’re leaving a lot of information on the table that could help you succeed. And, those who don’t will be at a competitive disadvantage.

This is the premise of what MIT lecturer Ben Shields tells businesses—That managers and coaches can learn so much about analytical decision-making from the progress that sports teams have made in recent years. This is no different than what many businesses do today. They rely on software solutions like Microsoft Power BI (Business Intelligence) to transform data and create interactive reports to help them analyze data to reach their goals.

Teams now benefit from the use of wearable technologies that provide real-time data to track players’ movements. Every major professional sports team today has a department or team of data analytics experts.  They use data-driven decision-making to ensure their teams and players are at the “top of their game.”

As you know, professional sports teams have scouts. These scouts visit prospective players and take copious notes.  They send these notes to data developers. Then, the data is forwarded to skilled mathematicians who crunch the numbers to help a team’s general manager create overall profiles of players. They use these profiles to decide if a particular player should be signed on as a free agent or is worth drafting or acquiring in a trade for another player.

This sounds easy, right? It’s not.

It can be difficult to decide what data is valuable and what isn’t. Unless the team decides in advance what criteria an evaluation should be based on, all this work is for not.  It’s the same in any business.  You must first prioritize what your goals are before analyzing data. Otherwise the volume of data you accumulate can be overwhelming.

When asked how to integrate analytics into the decision-making process, Shields replied:

“We start with encouraging executives to clearly articulate their organizational goals and prioritize which goals may benefit from an analytics approach. Some organizations start with the data and the technology. We say start with the goals.”

Ever since Billy Beane, (the most progressive and talented baseball executive) first started utilizing statistical predictors over ten years ago, every MLB team has adopted analytics, as have teams in the NFL and NBA.  Vivek Ranadive, the Sacramento Kings’ owner believes that data analysis has changed the game of basketball forever. For example, Pitchf/x technology from Sportvision has been installed in all 30 Major League Baseball Stadiums. It tracks all the pitches that occur during games. Sportvision also provides data-capturing technologies for football and car-racing sports.

Basketball is one of the best examples of how analytics has changed the way sports are played and player performance is measured. They use “Player Tracking” to analyze the efficiency of a team of players by tracking their movement on the court.  SportVU put six cameras in all the NBA arenas to capture the movements of players and basketballs. It does this at a rate of 25x per second. Another company called Zebra Technologies makes RFID tags, which attach to equipment, balls, and players to track movement, distance, and speed. The RFID tags blink at a rate of 25 times per second and deliver data in 120 milliseconds.

This technology provides a team’s analysts a multitude of data such as player speed and ball possession. It shows them how fast a team player moves and how far he’s traveled throughout the game, as well as how many times he touched the ball, how many rebounds attempts he made, and more.

As mentioned above it can be difficult to determine how to use all this data and apply it to attain a competitive advantage. Coaches and team executives must know how to prioritize the volumes of data, how to prioritize it, decide what factors to apply in decision making and how to track the decisions they made. Just like departments in your business such as purchasing and sales, sports teams have both offense and defense coaches. They must consider the objectives for both before developing a mechanism for analyzing data. Then they must track the decisions they’ve made to ensure the team’s goals are met.  There’s no one formula for this.  Each team will do this differently.

According to Shields, even the players see value in data analytics:

“End users have become advocates, and by end users, I mean athletes. A growing number are starting to understand the value of analytics insights as they relate to their performance. This doesn’t mean the athletes are running their own models in Python; it means the information about how his or her performance can improve is being communicated in the right way and with the right emphasis on how that athlete can benefit. And, as a result, the athlete becomes more of a believer and more of an advocate for this type of information.”

Analytics in both business and sports organizations is a “game changer.” It’s an evolving field, and as it improves, more will depend on it for decision making.

Integrate and Collaborate Seamlessly Microsoft Teams

Microsoft Teams has become the go-to chat-based workspace in Office 365. It’s more than just a hub for teamwork. It’s even customizable for each type of team.

Microsoft Teams is perfect for one-on-one conversations, open group discussions or even public meetings. It has many modern features that make meetings more fun and productive. For instance, there are cool GIFs, stickers, and emojis available so team members can show a little personality. The program integrates well with Outlook email and it’s easy to switch between teams. Add to that the ability to use video calling on Android that includes mobile voice and you’ve got an excellent business resource.

The Microsoft Teams app provides users with all the tools necessary to facilitate meetings for corporate America as well as freelancers and even educational institutions. With so many people now taking online classes, the Teams app can give a tutor and student the perfect place to discuss Algebra or learn a new language. The app is fairly intuitive and most users pick up all the fine points of how to use it very quickly.

How Microsoft Teams Sets Itself Apart

With so many meeting apps available now, organizations want to know why Microsoft Teams is better. That’s a good question and it does have a good answer: because this app is included in Office 365, it seamlessly integrates with all the programs that today’s business professionals are already using. Within the Teams app, users can access all files and any Office programs such as PowerPoint, Excel, Word and OneNote. In addition, the app features integration with Power Bl, SharePoint and Planner Intelligence using Microsoft Graph.

Though you can open these files using other meeting apps, they are seamlessly integrated into the Microsoft Teams app, limiting the additional steps that users must perform. Many of the exciting features are available with just a single tap. Regardless of what type of business you’re in, the Microsoft Team’s app can be customized to work the way you need it to. That’s one of the big reasons why people in so many different industries choose Team. The app works just as well for a few people or a dozen. It works nicely for business pros, teachers and students. The app is easy to set up and takes very little instruction to get started. With custom memes and tailored channels, most people quickly become expert Teams users.

Beyond the Basics

After using Microsoft Teams for a while, most people start looking around at some of the more advanced features, of which there are many. Do you need to integrate some common cloud services into your meeting? It’s a simple process.

Partner integration is available for Trello and SAP but Microsoft will be adding new partners in the future. The individual channels contain Bots that can be working in the background on important tasks. In addition to those great features, the Teams App is served from the Microsoft global hyperscale cloud. That makes it available from anywhere in the world, so if you need to meet with people Japan, in Taiwan, someone in Quebec and a group in India, it’s a simple matter to do so. Team players can share their documents, show a PowerPoint, go over an Excel spreadsheet and work on many other tasks like these. There are virtually a limitless number of tasks that can be done and without the help of an IT specialist.

Ideal for the Medical Field

Since the Teams app is compliant with HIPAA, ISO27001, and others, it’s perfect for use in a medical facility of any type or size. However, the app could also work well in telemedicine. Though live face-to-face meeting software is included in most programs for the telemedicine industry, Teams could be used in numerous instances. Say you were on the go and needed to use the app from your mobile phone. It’s not only quick and easy but remember that it is compliant with most HIPAA guidelines. Talk to a colleague or patient. Sometimes you just need a quick face-to-face with someone and that’s it.

Excellent Built-In Security

The Teams app is big on security as well. With so many thousands of cyber-theft events taking place each year around the world, you just can’t be too careful. Sometimes a team might be talking about their favorite flavor of ice cream and sometimes they might be discussing a new hyperdrive for America’s next rocket ship. Multi-factor authentication and built-in data protection are just two ways Microsoft ensures that your meeting will remain confidential.

Use Teams to Enhance Customer Service

Though this is being done in some organizations, in the future there may be a great number of businesses that contact their customers using apps like Teams, to let customers know about some problem with an order. Perhaps you just sold hardwood flooring to a residential customer for their whole house but now you’ve learned that the flooring is back-ordered for six months. Wouldn’t it be better to speak to this customer face-to-face when you break the news to them? Customers may be less upset when they realize that the store cared enough to have a manager call them and speak to them in person about the problem. That’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to retail sales.

In the sales world, it’s very common to have angry customers whose brand-new refrigerator/stove/television/computer just stopped working. Mitigating customer problems is a great way to use Microsoft Teams.

Working Together

Microsoft Teams encourages people to work together. You can bring up the new budget from Excel and let everyone go over it, make comments, and suggest changes. You can open the new marketing plan in Word so that a whole room full of execs hear about the latest marketing campaign. They need to become familiar enough with it to pass on the information to employees in their department. Since most people have Office 365 already on their computer, there’s nothing new to install.

How to Set Up a Team

Simply go to the Office interface and click on the Teams App. At the bottom left corner of the screen, select “Create Team”, then type a name and short description. Next, add people to your new team. Using Microsoft Outlook, you can add an entire group. Now click “Done” and create a general channel. Other channels may be added later as needed. Name and describe this channel, click “Add” and it’s all set up. Within just a few minutes you can have a specific meeting place set up where you can meet each week with co-workers, students, your doctor, unhappy customers and much more.

Miscellaneous Features

Adding and removing team members is simple and only takes a few moments. A tutor who is working with five different students throughout the day could easily change the student’s name quickly in between each lesson. You might start with a private chat, just between the teacher and student. However, what if you wanted to add a second teacher or several more students? It’s easy to do that. Just list the name(s) of the people you want to attend, then compose a new message in Outlook to invite them to attend. While in a chat, you can make a video or audio call by selecting the icon for it. Chats can be renamed, which is good for those that get transferred to a different department. You can continue using the same chat room; just add or remove people as needed.

Microsoft Team has so many more features that make life and work much simpler. It is quickly becoming the favorite virtual chat room for business people in every industry. If you’re still feeling you need some help with setting up a chat room, Microsoft offers a great range of informative YouTube videos with step-by-step instructions for how to do just about anything.

Give Free Global Radio A Try Instead

Listening to free, global radio stations is a great way to broaden your horizons and liven up your listen to habits. It’s also a lot easier than you may think.

Why Listen to Global Radio?

Many people are saying that radio is dead, but that’s not true at all. It has morphed into something much greater than it once was. Today, many of us have friends and family living in other countries, which is why someone might want to listen to a radio station in Hong Kong. There is a wide range of other reasons as well. Maybe you grew up in the Philippines and just want to keep up with what’s going on in your hometown. Tuning into one of their local radio stations is a great way to do this.

Say you just moved from Seattle to New York, but maybe you’d like to continue getting daily news from Seattle. Or maybe you might be thinking of moving to New Zealand. What better way to find out what life is really like there than by listening to local radio stations?

Get Local News & Weather

You can get local news, weather and other fun, interesting or weird information by tuning into radio stations in other parts of the world. The best part about this is that there are now several services that offer you the ability to listen to dozens of different radio stations from Ireland to Australia. Many of these services allow you to browse by station or by country. Let’s say you want to listen to a radio station in Latvia.

Latvia is a small country on the western border of Russia. Estonia lies to the north, while Belarus lies to the south. In spite of this being a small remote nation, one global radio service offers 19 different radio stations in Latvia. Some of these stations are broadcast in Russian while some are broadcast in Latvian or other Baltic languages. If you’re trying to learn to speak Russian, listening to a Russian radio station would enhance your efforts.

Whether you were born in France and yearn to hear the language spoken by French people or you are trying to learn about a new culture, listening to a French radio station would make your efforts more enjoyable. As mentioned above, access to global radio stations is free on many websites. Most of these sites give you choices as to what you’d like to listen to. You can listen to talk radio shows, local news, and weather for any city, sports news for any country or city, or just music from the city or country of your choosing.

How to Get Started

Search for internet radio stations or services that provide multiple choices. Good search phrases for this include:

• Listen to radio stations worldwide
• Global radio stations
• Internet radio

Multiple choices will come up depending on exactly what you typed in the browser. Some of these will be paid services like Amazon Music Unlimited. Though they do offer 30 days of free music, at some point you’ll have to start paying to listen. Of course, a paid service will offer other perks like being able to listen using your Echo device. These are Alexa voice-controlled devices that make it easy to hear your favorite tunes from Spain, India or anyplace in the world.

If you’re not ready to sign up for a paid service, you’ll also find many free services like Pandora, Screamer, TuneIn, and Jango. Most of these allow you to search for your favorite artist, search by genre, or search by specific song/artist titles. You might be looking for the latest Hip Hop music or some good music for your workout routine. Simply click on something that peaks your interests and listens. If you don’t like what you hear, use the back button to return to the original page.

At Pandora, you create your own personal “station” by choosing favorite artists or genres of music such as country music. You can add favorite tunes or artists as you desire. Pandora offers ad-free listening for around $5 per month. This type of “radio station” does not include local news and weather; it’s just music.

Tips for Success

With so much cultural, musical, and lifestyle information available through radio stations, there’s no reason not to become an avid listener. You can broaden your musical tastes or just find out what’s going on today in Rome simply by tuning into an Internet radio station. However, there are many other reasons to listen – become better informed about what’s going on in the world, or track new emerging technology in Southeast Asia.

Since there are so many choices now available, select a station or service based on what you’d like to accomplish. If you simply want to listen to music, then Pandora or Jango are both good choices. If you want to listen to an actual radio station, then Screamer and TuneIn are good ideas. Most stations and services offer ad-free content for an additional charge. You may have to pay extra for specific content, such as comedy programming.

The interface for many worldwide radio stations will allow you to manage volume control, play, stop or resume listening. They may also have an information box that will tell you what song/artist is currently playing. You can tag a song or a station as a “favorite” so that it’s easy to return there.

Improving your Sound Quality

With music, sound quality is usually important. That’s where many computers and laptops fall short. You may have to spend over $1,000 to get a computer with a decent sound card. If you are unable to afford this, there are workarounds. Amazon and other online sellers, offer devices that allow you to hook your computer up to external speakers.

External Speakers

To find out more about this, simply search online for “how to hook up my computer to external speakers” and other similar phrases. Usually, it’s just a matter of wiring your computer to a device like a Lepai LP2020 amplifier and then wiring that device to your external speakers. You can also purchase external speakers made specifically for this purpose. These speakers will have a 3.5mm jack or USB plug that can be plugged directly into the laptop or computer.

Of course, all computers have a headphone jack. For about $100 you can buy headphones with amazing sound quality. This will make your listening experience more personal and intimate. This is a good idea when you have others in the family or home who may not want to listen to, say, Latvian Folk Music.

Stop Struggling – Try Microsoft’s Team Planner

Microsoft’s latest and greatest app is called Team Planner. It’s an amazing tool that lets people organize any task. Of course, it was developed with corporate America in mind, but this type of app would be great for planning anything from a birthday party to a wedding. The app has been well-received and is now being used around the world in every type of business or enterprise.

Designed for Projects of Any Size

For those who work with teams every day, it’s clear why this type of app has been so successful. Any company or department that has worked on a big project understands the frustrations. There’s just no easy way to manage a big project with lots of players involved. How do you assign people to specific tasks? How do you upload documents so everyone has access? How can you find out each person’s current status?

In the past, programs developed to streamline project management have been large, unwieldy conglomerations that most team members could hardly understand. Each task was so cumbersome it was often easier to just work without project management software. This is where Microsoft really excels, because their developers have been down this road before. They know the pitfalls and drawbacks. With each generation of software, they’ve gradually eliminated time-consuming obstacles. They’ve fine-tuned the app, sanding off its rough edges and now what’s left is a really intuitive solution that works well for both corporate America and individuals.

How to Begin

Begin by Opening MS Office 365. There you’ll see all the apps available. Planner should be shown as one of the tiles on the page. Click on the interface and Team Planner will open to the Dashboard. You can also launch the app from the “app launcher” icon in the upper left-hand corner. At the dashboard page, you can view all ongoing projects. This is also where you create a new project.

Let’s say you want to create a project for your company’s new marketing video. Just click on the “Plus” sign. Next, you’ll fill in project details including a name and description of the project. As you create tasks, go ahead and assign each one to a member of your team. You can include as much or as little information as you need to. The app also has a chat feature that allows team members to connect. Workers find it helpful to have a built-in chat feature. As they discuss the project, both parties can see the plan’s progress and find out what each member is working on.

Planner uses a handy tool called “Buckets” and you can give descriptive names to your buckets. Place all related tasks in one bucket. This prevents you from having to search around for specific things. Click on My Tasks for a comprehensive list of your own projects. It’s easy to see where you are and what you need to do next.

Email Notifications

As the project leader assigns new tasks to team members, an email notification is sent to each one. This ensures that everyone knows what they’ve been assigned to do. From now on, there’s no confusion about who should be working on what. These types of snags can prevent a project from moving forward the way the boss expects it to – those days are over with Team Planner.

Transparency in Every Task and Project

Ever worked on a big project and not known its status or who was working on what? That’s happened to all of us at some time. With the Team Planner Dashboard, you can quickly see who has been assigned to what task. You can also view any attachments, images, videos or other task-related information.

As each person completes a task, they mark it done. That makes it easy for the team leader and others to check the project’s progress. No more playing phone tag with the PM and team members for progress updates.

Organize Your Work Visually

For those people who work better when tasks are more visual, Team Planner is a good solution. Each project has a board that allows you to easily organize tasks, placing them in buckets. It’s easy to view the project’s current stage. If someone has to drop out of the project, just drag and drop to assign it to someone else. Teams work together in unison. Anyone can update or change the status of an assignment. With Team Planner, project collaboration is a breeze.

Best Features

Built for Office 365, Team Planner lets you attach files to tasks, work together on those files, and even have conversations around tasks without switching between apps. With this app, all discussions and deliverables stay with the plan. That way, nothing can fall through the cracks. Want to know what you should be working on next? Click on My Tasks for a comprehensive list of your own projects. It’s easy to see where you are and what you need to do next.

Microsoft Flow

Microsoft Flow is a SaaS cloud service that makes it easy to get all your favorite apps to communicate with each other. It works with Microsoft programs like Outlook and OneNote, but also includes over 100 other programs that people use daily and find handy. Automate time-consuming tasks, such as emails. Set up a flow that notifies you with a text message when you receive an important email from a client. Emailing your customer using Outlook with project updates. Manage approvals all in one place. With just the tap of a button, you can set up and accomplish many tasks that once took days to complete.

Conclusion

No matter what type of work you do, great teamwork is the key to success. That’s one of the reasons why Microsoft developed its new app, “Team Planner.” With this program, it’s so much easier for teams to create plans, assign tasks, share files and get organized. That’s the key to any project succeeding. All team members must be working together toward a final goal. When everyone has a clear idea of what the project is all about and what should be completed next, your project will get completed on-time and on budget.

Cloud-based file storage is an amazing convenience, giving users the ability to access files from anywhere and share them with colleagues. When users have more than one cloud-based storage solution, needing the same files stored in each can be tedious and confusing – but not anymore!

Technology is a wonderful thing; it’s given us electronic communications, shortening the life cycle of a project significantly. Shorter project timelines equate to increased project volume completion within the same time frame, thus generating more revenue. Technology has allowed for business processes to be automated, reducing costs and increasing productivity.

The key to productivity is in the approach. Increasing productivity requires the output to be greater than the input, which is why automation is a must. Technology enables expedited business processes, therefore increasing productivity. Any time a process can be automated, the result is reduced cost for the business in questions. If not managed properly, from design to deployment, automation can have disastrous results. Avoiding this requires a thorough understanding of each step of the process involved, preventing anything from being overlooked.

Business Process Automation is big business. Integrating applications to work seamlessly with each other can have a major impact on organizations, and often results in a dedicated and loyal customer base for a business that offers applications and platforms to meet these needs. In this regard, one of the biggest players in both the technology world and the BPA circle simultaneously is Microsoft. Microsoft can be — and wants to be — the manufacturer of the desktop or laptop computer your workforce is using, of the software application through which your professionals are communicating and documenting tasks, as well as the platforms in which these files are being stored. From their Surface product line to their Office 365 Suite to SharePoint, Microsoft is keen to deliver and provide for your every professional need.

Now, Microsoft is taking this one step further with automated workflows in Flow. A workflow is a multi-step repetitive task, and Microsoft Flow is a workflow management tool that automates these workflows even across multiple applications and cloud-based connections for files and services. Microsoft’s goal with Flow is to simplify the lives of professionals, period. The fortunate byproduct of this goal — and of Flow itself — is for Microsoft to be in every aspect of users’ lives: cloud data storage, electronics, email, word processing, and reliance for every element of productivity.

A popular user feature of Microsoft Flow is templates, of which there are many – and users can create workflow templates as well. Given the number of integrated applications is over 200, the relative number of workflows is seemingly countless.

• If you don’t already know how to use a template in Microsoft Flow, take a “two-minute tutorial” and acquaint yourself with the straightforward process in their step-by-step guide.

You’ll see immediately how you can establish a multi-step workflow, with these being some of the most-used templates in Microsoft Flow:

• Get a push notification when you receive an email from your biggest customer
  • Perhaps your biggest customer demands immediate responses from you to remain happy. Happy customers stick around longer, spend more, and are much more likely to refer business to you based on their positive experience. Setting up a push notification for these emails could make you money!
• Save all Outlook email attachments in OneDrive or to a SharePoint document library
  • Time is money! Never lose time hunting down a specific email from an undetermined date for an attachment again – set up a workflow that automatically saves all email attachments.
• Save all tweets that include a specific hashtag to an Excel spreadsheet
  • Track your social media footprint with the metrics that matter!
• Save Dropbox files to SharePoint files
• Send an email survey and save all responses to an Excel file
  • Better yet – save all responses to a Google Spreadsheet that can be shared and each user’s changes documented
• Copy your Outlook task list into a Trello board
• And so many more!

The Browse Templates page in Microsoft Flow is your new best friend. The most commonly-used workflows, some designed by Microsoft and others designed by people who think just like you, are shown in categories. Our favorite category is the Productivity tab – and we’re pretty sure yours will be, too. Microsoft Flow is a virtual assistant that only needs to be told what to do one time, and then never forgets!

One of the more mundane features is the ability to add conditions to a workflow. Much like a “Rule” in Microsoft Outlook treats incoming email messages a certain way when specific conditions are met, Microsoft Flow applies prerequisites or conditions to repetitive tasks before enacting the workflow.

• Conditions can include timetables, as well. You can establish a workflow to save all comments on an Instagram post after one day to an Excel file to track these metrics.

We saved the best for last… Microsoft Flow has a mobile app! Users can download the app to their mobile device — phone or tablet — and access from anywhere. The mobile app not only allows the creation of an on-the-go workflow but also monitors workflow activity to see how often a workflow is applied or if it needs to be edited for improvement.

Automation is a beautiful thing. Microsoft Flow offers a free tier for users with unlimited workflow creation and up to 750 runs per month, with a “run” being an application of a workflow and an automated check to see if a workflow can be applied, every 15 minutes. Paid plans offer a higher run volume with greater frequency at shorter intervals, and also connects with premium platforms including Salesforce.com and Adobe Creative Cloud.

• Do you use LiveChat on your website? You can establish a workflow to send you a push notification when a LiveChat message comes in, eliminating the need to sit at a machine and watch and wait for an indicator or alert.

If you haven’t already reviewed the Service Toolbar to check out what applications can be integrated for workflows, what are you waiting for? Microsoft Flow is waiting to help you stay organized, manage your time more efficiently, and nearly eliminate downtime.

Are you still using Microsoft Word the old-fashioned way? Upgrade your skills from amateur to awesome today!

From the time a business is established, the goal is growth and revenue. In the professional world, revenue and growth are hand-in-hand, but rare is the opportunity to accomplish growth or generate revenue quickly as a one-person operation.

Expansion and growth of a business is a positive sign – a sign that relationships are solid and operations are successful. For any of these circumstances, some form of communication takes place. Parties talk, form agreements, and put those agreements in writing — often as contracts — and these are then shared, so all parties have copies for their records.

Collaboration is defined as the action of working with someone toward a shared goal – and it’s also the current office buzzword. When multiple individuals collaborate on a project and produce documentation of this project, the document is shared like the previously mentioned contract.

Agreements and contracts have been around for more than a century – much longer, in fact. No longer do clusters of secretaries sit outside a row of executive offices, busily deciphering shorthand as their hands zoom over the click-clack of typewriter keys, transcribing letters or meeting minutes. The typewriter was replaced decades ago by the electronic word processor, and communication has migrated from postal mail service to email and even text messages among colleagues and casual professional relationships. Why? Because these types of communication are faster and enable progress to be made more quickly. The underlying theme here is that communication is key in any situation involving multiple people.

We sense a pattern.

What if each of those executives in that row of offices had their own copy of the same contract and each made notes in the margins for changes? The administrative assistant responsible for consolidating those notes into one cohesive document faced quite the task. The difference today is that typing in a word processor like Microsoft Word is a basic requirement of administrative roles, with speed and accuracy being a key element in a job description.

Microsoft Word isn’t just for secretaries! These days, users range from first graders to grandparents, and everyone in between. It’s the go-to application for college students when writing term papers, and the starting point for novelists and authors. The Word Document is the most widely-recognized document type and the most commonly-used document format. It’s this last part that makes sharing documents with other users so easy.

An office staple since the late 1980’s, Microsoft has evolved from the early days of Microsoft Works into a sophisticated word processing tool, with a vast array of collaborative features – many hidden to the naked eye. Everyone that has ever used a computer in some way is familiar with the basic idea of typing words into a document on a screen, but did you know that Microsoft Word allows multiple users to conveniently collaborate inside one shared document? What’s more, users can highlight text with comments, and all users that make edits can have these changes tracked for discussion.

How to track changes made by all users within a document in Microsoft Word:

• The Track Changes feature can be found in Tools, Track Changes, Highlight Changes
  • This feature can also be found in the Ribbon menu in Review, Tracking, and toggle Track Changes to “On”.
  • Multiple users inside the same document can toggle this feature on and make changes, while their edits are notated in the right margin for each user to see and either “accept” or “reject”.
  • Ideally, the ability to “accept” or “reject” offers a chance to discuss more significant changes that may impact an important document

Microsoft Word is no longer just a word processor – it’s a sophisticated software application that has a multitude of uses, only one of which is creating basic documents. Considering the many built-in templates for resumes, flyers, brochures, fax cover sheets, and letterheads, Microsoft Word is also an economical option for small businesses, nonprofits, and other groups or individuals to use for a variety of professional purposes.

Beyond Bullets and Bold Typeface

Most users know the basics, like how to underline or italicize words or select different fonts. Then there is everyone’s favorite feature – undo, the magical arrow which pretends like the last action you just took, which you deemed a mistake, never even happened!

• So simple? You can select text by inserting your mouse at the start of the text, clicking, and then dragging your mouse to the end of the text and letting go of the click button, or you can use your keys and arrow cursors with the “shift” key much the same way.

However, do you know some of the more intermediate features? Below are some of these features, followed by the menu location where you can find each that you’d like to try.

• Columns: Format, Columns (select the number of columns to insert)
  • You can create columns of text that flow from one into the next for a clean appearance, and a unique look.
• Charts: Insert, Charts (select the type of chart you’d like to insert)
  • Professional documents that include charts to present data offer a visual enhancement and have a polished look
  • This feature will require the use of a data table to convert into a chart, and once you select the chart style you’d like to insert, you’ll be prompted to include the data at the next step.
• Highlighted text: Ribbon, Home
  • Note that this feature will require the user to select affected text before toggling this feature on, or you will need to toggle this feature on and then type the text you wish to be highlighted, and then toggle off once you have completed typing this specific text.
  • When you begin a new document in Microsoft Word, if you don’t see a toolbar at the top of the document where you’d normally toggle the option to make your text bold or change the font style or size, you can choose “View” from the main navigation menu and make sure the checkmark is next to “Ribbon”. If it’s not, click on “Ribbon” and this menu will toggle on. You’ll then see the icon with the highlighter on it, and you can click this to select which color options you have to highlight selected text.
• Subscripting and superscripting text: Ribbon, Home
  • This feature will require the same process as the highlighted text toggle actions.
  • Just next to the highlight icon are the icons showing “X₂” and “X²” where you can choose to subscript or superscript selected text.
  • You can also find this feature in: Format, Font, and check the appropriate boxes
• Bulleted or numbered list: Ribbon, Home
  • Once you are ready to insert a bulleted or numbered list, toggle the icon with the bullets or the “1-, 2-, 3-“ and begin typing, hitting enter (or return) after each listed line item
  • There is a drop-down triangle to the right of each of these where users can change the style and layout of the list
  • You can also find this feature in: Format, Bullets, and Numbering, and select the option that resembles the style you’d like to choose for your document
• Spell check and grammar check: Tools, Spelling, and Grammar
  • This tool for checking user spelling and grammar is adaptive in that the user can add frequently-used words like last names or company names and the Spellchecker will “learn” the name and not prompt the user to “ignore” the word each time Microsoft Words thinks the user has entered a misspelled word.
  • This feature can be toggled to automatically remain on (or off) throughout typing:
    • Tools, Spelling and Grammar, Spelling and Grammar, Options, and then toggle the types of words you’d like to be recognized or ignored each time you use Microsoft Word.
  • Cut, copy and paste text
    • This is another fan favorite of the application, but did you know you can make entire paragraphs disappear and reappear at another location? This way you don’t have to remember to go back to the first instance and delete once you’ve copied and pasted the word, phrase, or paragraph.

Advanced features 

• Insert hyperlinks: Insert, Hyperlink
  • This feature is incredibly helpful if you need to embed a website hyperlink, or if you need to refer a reader to “fine print” text, like legal disclaimers, which would otherwise take up a lot of space within a document but doesn’t need to be included.
  • Users will need to select the text that will contain the hyperlink, and this text will turn blue and be underlined as a visual cue for the reader
• Convert to PDF: File, Save As
  • You can convert a document to a PDF file by choosing File, Save As, and at the bottom of the dialogue box that opened will be a drop-down menu that identifies “File Format”, and scroll down until you see “PDF”. “Save” has likely changed to “Export” at this point, but you’ll choose the location where you want the file to save.
• Password protection: open, modify, or format/edit: Tools, Protect Document
  • You can create a document and save the file with password protection. Passwords can be required just to open, to modify, or to format/edit the document. This is a nice feature if the document contains financial information, confidential details, or you just want to safeguard your file against being intercepted by the wrong viewer.

Once you’ve mastered these intermediate and advanced features within Microsoft Word, you can then move on to create mail merges, print addresses or return addresses on envelopes, create address labels, create macros for snippets of text you use on a regular basis, and much more!

Advanced built-in functions may have escaped your knowledge as “hidden” before today, but now you can be a master of Microsoft Word.

Nobody likes doing taxes, but everyone has to. Make sure you know when you and your company need to file them this year.

For individual taxpayers, the tax due date is usually the same each year: April 15th. The only exception is when April 15th falls on a weekend. Then, the IRS typically extends the due date to April 16th or 17th. The same is true for those filing an extension. Extensions are due on October 15th unless that date falls on the weekend. Then it is usually extended to October 16th or 17th. This rule also pertains to holidays. If the filing date falls on a holiday, then everyone gets an extra day or two to file.

Rules for Filing Dates for Business Owners

For business owners, the filing dates are not that simple unless your business is a sole proprietorship or single member LLC. Those filers typically must use the same dates as individual taxpayers. However, business owners may be required to file on other dates depending on several factors.

For business owners, the filing date is affected by what type of business entity it is. That’s because the type of business entity determines the company’s fiscal year. If your business is an S Corporation or an LLC, it is considered a flow-through entity and the taxes are due on the fifteenth day of the third month of the fiscal year, which is commonly March 15th (or March 16th or 17th if there’s a holiday or weekend involved).

The filing date for extensions for an LLC and S Corporation is September 15th, unless that date falls on a weekend or holiday. Then it might be extended to the 16th or 17th.

Partnerships

The tax return for a partnership should be filed on the 15^th day of the 3^rd month following the end of the company’s tax year. For example, if year-end for your business is December 31^st, then the due date for tax filing is March 15^th. Remember that these dates will change if the filing date falls on a weekend or holiday. March 15^th (16^th or 17^th) is also the date when the individual partners should receive their Schedule K-1. This document shows each partner’s individual share of income or loss. Partners must have this document in order to file their individual tax returns, which would be due approximately one month later.

Limited Liability Company (LLC) with Multiple Members

Multiple-member LLCs may be taxed as partnerships in some states. If this is true where you live, then the filing dates remain the same as for a partnership. The date for distributing Schedule K-1 to the partners is the same as well or March 15^th.

If the LLC ceases to exist, whether the company goes out of business or is moved into a C Corp, it’s important to file a short tax return right away. In most cases, the partners only have three and a half months to file this return. If partners fail to do this, the IRS may charge additional monthly penalties on top of regular tax liability.

In situations where a multiple-member LLC is taxed as an S corporation or regular corporation, the following rules apply:

• Choose the most convenient filing date for your corporation. The only requirement is that owners have not filed a Subchapter S election. Quarter end dates are typically chosen.
• Corporate tax returns are due and payable on the 15^th day of the fourth month following the company’s fiscal year.
• For a Subchapter S Corporation, taxes should be filed on the same filing date as the individual owner’s personal tax return. The Schedule K-1 shows the individual income for each owner. S Corporations are most often filed using a calendar end date of December 31^st unless the corporation can show a valid reason for changing the date.

Charitable Organizations & Nonprofits

Charitable organizations and other nonprofits must file their taxes on the 15^th day of the fifth month after the end of the organization’s fiscal year. In most cases, these organizations must file their taxes by May 15^th. Charitable organizations only qualify for three-month extensions instead of six months. So, extensions would be due by August 15^th.

Tips for Success

Learning the correct tax dates for filing is one of the big challenges for new business owners. Since the penalties can be exorbitant, many tax experts recommend setting up a tax calendar for your business. You can learn the dates by going online or speaking with an accountant. Some people prefer setting up an actual calendar with the dates circled that they can place somewhere in their office. Others prefer setting up a digital calendar using an app or Google.

This can prevent you from worrying about whether you’ve got some type of quarterly filing coming up soon. Business owners certainly have enough to worry about so solving an important issue like tax filings will relieve some of that stress. After you’ve got your tax calendar set up, ask someone in the know to check it over for you and make sure everything is correct.

Penalties & Interest

Filing your taxes on time and correctly is important for both individuals and companies. If you miss a filing date, penalties and interest begin to accrue immediately. The IRS will make no exceptions to these rules. That’s why it’s so important to know when to file and what forms you should file. If you aren’t confident in your ability to file a business tax return, hire a professional. Because of their expertise and experience, an accountant can often save you more than enough money to pay for their services.

Even if you have a professional accounting service doing your taxes for you, it can be a good idea to double check and make sure everything was filed on time each quarter and year-end. Most accountants will not only notify you, but they will send you copies of what they filed on your behalf.

Remember that filing an extension does give you extra time to pay, but it does not stop interest and fees from accruing.

Reducing your Tax Burden with the Right Strategy

There are so many ways to reduce your tax obligation. All it takes is a bit of strategy and planning. An accountant can recommend the best options to help your business take advantage of perfectly legal strategies. For instance, a 401k can be set up for small business investments, real estate, and hard-money lending. This can allow your company to defer taxes on profits.

Your company can make investments in automobiles, property and other big-ticket items. It can also purchase rental property. In many cases, those with rental property can show losses throughout the year due to property maintenance, interest and other charges. Many company owners hire their spouse and/or children. Though they will need to be assigned an actual job with weekly duties, this can be a powerful tax saving tool.

There are so many other ways for businesses to save money on their taxes each year. Don’t be afraid to discuss every legitimate method with your accountant.

Microsoft Office 365 users are constantly surprised at the many innovative tools included within this suite of programs.  FindTime is its newest meeting scheduler. With its integration into Outlook, users can quickly schedule meetings.

The FindTime app solves a very real problem that frustrates workers everywhere. Its ease of use is the number one advantage that people love about it. Because it is integrated into Outlook, it can save time in more ways than one. What is really remarkable is that a colleague does not need to have the app installed in order to respond.

How It Works

To get started, simply download this free Outlook add-on. An icon is added at the end of the Outlook ribbon – just click on it to get started. FindTime utilizes Outlook’s free/busy availability information to make scheduling a meeting much easier so you’ll spend less time on this exasperating chore. First, you send out an email and propose a potential meeting time or times. Attendees can reply by accepting or declining the suggested meeting time.

They can also suggest alternative meeting times and everyone has an opportunity to vote on whether the proposed time works for them. When all recipients have responded, the most popular time and date are chosen. The online poll allows you see how everyone else voted. You can also view their favorite time.

Once everyone in the group has responded to the poll, the meeting is scheduled using the most popular date and time. Now that a consensus has been reached, invites are automatically sent out by the FindTime app using Outlook. Though the app exists within Outlook, anyone can use it. People using other email programs or even those working at different organizations can be included.

Perks of FindTime

One of the perks of this app is that it encrypts all your personal information. Even the subject and body of the email can be encrypted to protect everyone’s personal identity. This is really important for those working on secret projects that they do not want made public yet.

If it has a drawback, FindTime’s weakness is the fact that it is currently only available for Outlook 2013, Outlook 2016, and Outlook Web Access.  Though the program works best for Office 365 users, Microsoft will no doubt continue to tweak the app so that it works with a broader range of programs in the future.

FindTime was developed in the Microsoft Garage. Though the Garage program only began 2014, it has become wildly popular because it allows almost anyone at Microsoft to form a team and work on a project of their choosing. This type of collaborative creation has worked well in the past. Open Source projects like Linus and Azure have been so successful that they’ve influenced business and industry across the globe.

Despite the numerous time scheduling applications on the market today — NeedToMeet, Timebridge, Doodle, etc. — FindTime is by and large the best app for those already using Outlook. So much of the app’s functionality connects perfectly with Outlook’s resources. For instance, using email templates in Outlook can streamline sending out a quick email concerning the meeting’s topic. A calendar event is automatically created as well. Microsoft developers went to great lengths to add additional functionalities that users really wanted.

FindTime Has Found Its Niche in the Marketplace

With millions of people already using Outlook, FindTime is the perfect meeting scheduler. It handles all aspects of setting up a meeting, including sending out invitations, emailing reminders, emailing general information about the meeting’s content, and many others. Some users have claimed that they’ve saved two hours a day by using FindTime over standard meeting scheduling software.

A wide number of users have suggested fun, unique and helpful additions to the program and some of these may be added in the future. For instance, a future version of FindTime may be able to set appointments for you and manage the online registration process for workshops and classes.

FindTime’s Features in a Nutshell:

• Find employees you want to attend in the Outlook database
• Send emails to selected employees
• Propose your selected times to attendees and allow them to vote and come to a consensus
• Easy for recipients to decline, accept or suggest new times
• FindTime looks for the best times and days that work according to each individual’s Outlook Calendar
• Recipients can see whether the suggested date and time is open on their Outlook Calendar
• All attendees vote
• FindTime sends out the meeting invites on your behalf
• Recipients only need internet access and an email address in order to be included
• Send out test invites by adding a second personal email address to the To: or Cc: line
• Recipients don’t need to have FindTime installed in order to participate
• Using Azure, FindTime encrypts personal information, email topic, email body, and attendee names
• No more playing email tag for days to try and set up a meeting

How to Install FindTime

Begin by logging into Office 365. Once you’re logged in, navigate to the Store. The Store link should show up in the middle of your screen, but it can also be found by clicking on the app launcher in the upper left-hand corner. Once inside the Store, search for FindTime by typing that in the search box. Next, press install. The program will install rather quickly and you will get a confirmation that it has been installed. Click Okay and you’re all set.

If you’d like to check to make sure the program was installed, or you need to see whether you already have FindTime installed, it’s easy to do so. Go to Settings > Manage Add-Ons and you’ll get a list of all add-ons. Checkboxes beside each add-on indicate whether the add-on is turned off or on. It’s a good idea to check there first, as you may already have the add-on installed and it simply needs to be turned on. Simply check the box to start using FindTime.

Although the latest version of Windows 10 isn’t a “game changer” you should appreciate some of its newer options and enhancements like the new Start Menu, OneDrive, Action Center, Cortana and ability for it to adjust its interface according to the device you use. Read on to get up to speed with Windows 10.

Before we begin, it’s important to note a few things: Be sure to sign in with your Microsoft ID when you first set up Windows 10. This way you can sync settings across all your devices.

You’ll also see a change in terminology from Windows 8. All applications are now referred to as Windows apps as opposed to Metro, Modern or Windows Store apps. However, the term Universal app is still used to designate the ability to use an application across all your devices (desktop, tablet or smartphone).

Let’s Start with the Start Menu: Windows retired the cumbersome Charms Bar and brought back the much-loved Start Menu. The Start Menu is where you go to operate everything in Windows 10. You remember how to do this, right? Go to the lower left of your screen to bring up the Start Menu. You’ll see that it’s now separated into sections. Plus, it’s more customizable than ever before – change from partial view to full view, customize the color, pin and unpin tiles and more.

Put your cursor over the top edge of the Start Menu and drag it up or down to enlarge or reduce it. You can also click “Resize” and select the options for Small, Medium or Large. Rename a group by clicking it and keying in the name you prefer. You can also do this with your unnamed groups. Try combining groups, dragging one to another, or creating a new group by dragging a tile to a blank area.

If you want to remove a tile, select “Unpin from Start,” and the tile will disappear. To expand the start menu from three to four columns, go to Settings>Personalization>Start, click “Show more Tiles” and set this to “On”.

The Settings page offers you other options to personalize your Start Menu. Here are a few more popular ones:

• “Pin to Start” to move an app from the “Most Used” list to the Start Menu.
• “Open File Location” to open File Explorer.
• “Run as an Administrator” to run an application as an admin.
• “Run as a Different User” to change the current user.

As you can see, there are many ways to customize the Start Menu.

All Apps: With this option, you can view all the applications that you use the most. When you “right click” on it, Windows 10 brings up the files you’ve recently opened. Go to the top left of your screen to open the three horizontal lines (the “hamburger” menu). Here you’ll see all the Windows apps in alphabetical order. Some may appear as a folder with a down arrow showing that there are a number of options for this particular app. Simply click on what you want to use. To uninstall an app, open the Start Menu, go to Settings>System, select the app, and click the “Uninstall” button that pops up. Note: Some Windows apps like Weather and Mail can’t be uninstalled.

Account: Go to this set of stacked icons at the bottom left of your screen. Here you can access your user account to sign in and out of Windows, change your account settings or lock your computer.

File Explorer, Settings, Power: At the bottom left of your screen you’ll find File Explorer, the file-browsing app previously referred to as Windows Explorer. Here you’ll also find the Windows Settings app with your System, Devices, Network & Internet, Personalization, Accounts, Time & Language, Ease of Access, Privacy, and Update & Security settings. Located here as well is the Power app where you can shut down, restart or put your computer to sleep.

Life at a Glance, Play and Explore, Unnamed and Live Apps: The tiles for your Windows desktop applications are grouped into these categories. As you install new apps, they will go into the unnamed group. If you use the Enterprise Edition of Windows 10, your IT professional may have configured other groupings that appear on the right side of the Start Menu. Live apps are the ones where you’ll find real-time data like Mail, Weather, and News. Live tiles contain Windows apps but not desktop applications. Go to “Turn live tile off” if you want to stop real-time information from streaming into the tile. If it’s already off, you can choose “Turn live tile on”.

OneDrive: Windows 10 automatically comes with OneDrive cloud storage. The setup is easy, and you should definitely take advantage of it. If you’re using the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update, OneDrive Files On-Demand allows you to access your OneDrive files from all your devices.

Windows Apps: Previously, Windows apps could only be run from the Start Menu and not from the desktop. You could use multiple Windows apps in separate windows on your desktop along with your desktop applications, but this was very limiting. Now you can minimize, close or resize your Windows apps just like you do with your desktop applications, and you can more easily access all the features in your Windows apps. On the bottom or left of the app are icons you can choose from, and you can customize these to your liking. For example, you’ll probably want to customize your Mail app to add accounts, select a type of mail account, combine mail from different accounts into one inbox, and much more.

Using a Tablet or 2-in-1: A new feature called Continuum detects the type of device you’re using and automatically adjusts the interface to suit it. For example, if you’re using a tablet with an attached keyboard, Continuum uses the desktop interface. When you disconnect the keyboard, it will ask you if you want to use Tablet Mode. Just click “yes” or click “Remember my response and don’t ask again” and Continuum will automatically switch to the right interface.

The Tablet mode in Windows 10 utilizes the touch and swipe gestures you’re familiar with. In the Start screen containing your apps, you’ll see six icons – three at the top and three at the bottom. The three at the bottom contains your user account, the Settings App, and the Power Icon. If you want, use the hamburger menu at the top to turn the screen black so the six icons contain text tables. Below this, you can tap the “Pinned Tiles” icon to fill your screen with tiles (the default interface). Or tap the “All Apps” to get a full-screen view of your Windows apps and desktop applications to quickly view and scroll to the ones you want. Interestingly, you will now need to scroll vertically rather than horizontally as you did before, but this is a minor inconvenience.

The Action Center: The Action Center displays notifications such as new emails, maintenance and security reminders, and news settings. You can launch it in one of three ways:

• Swiping from the right,
• Clicking the icon in the taskbar, or
• Selecting the Windows key + A.

The notifications will appear on the lower right and disappear on their own. You can adjust how many notifications are visible at once by going to the Action Center for any app. Three is the default Microsoft sets.

Many people find them useful, but if they bother or distract you, simply turn them off. Tap the notification and it will take you to the Task Manager where you can turn it off. (They will still be in the Action Center if you want to refer to them later.) You may want to keep the security and maintenance notifications on, so you remember to take necessary actions. Visit the Action Center – it’s pretty self-explanatory.

My People: This was introduced in the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update. With My People you can you pin your preferred contacts in the Windows taskbar, and quickly communicate with them without opening another application. To get going, click the My People button on the right side of the taskbar, and a Get Started button will pop up. Click this and the people you contact the most will appear. Pin them to the taskbar, or to add others, click “Find and Pin Contacts”. You can also scroll through communications and see all the messages you’ve exchanged, even your Skype video chats and instant messages.

The Edge Browser: Internet Explorer has been replaced as the default with the Edge Browser. Why? Because it’s considerably faster, safer, cleaner-looking and easier to use. In “Reading View”, everything you don’t need is stripped off the page, including advertisements, sidebars, and other distractions. You can use the annotation tool (it looks like a pencil and paper) and note anything you want to share. Simply select how you want to share it and follow the instructions – the Edge Browser will handle the rest. Even better, when using the Edge Browser, Cortana can pop up and alert you with details you’re looking for.

Speaking of Cortana: Cortana is a digital assistant that can search and help you find whatever you need on the Internet or on your computer. It’s set to turn on automatically when you start Windows 10. When you need help, type your question in the box to the lower left of your screen next to the Start button and Cortana will get to work for you. If you want to use Cortana’s voice assistant, go to your Settings menu to “Talk to Cortana” and in the section marked “Hey Cortana” turn the switch to “On”. After you do this, just say “Hey Cortana” and ask your question. You can use Cortana to browse, find files in your PC, and to locate various apps and settings.

Remember – technology works at its best when you know how to use it. The more you know about Windows 10, the better it’ll serve you on a daily basis. Be sure to put these 12 tips into practice the next time you start up your PC.