This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.
In this atypical year, many of us have discovered a new sense of appreciation for our computers as critical tools to get work done. Now more than ever, we are all looking for new ways to be productive on our laptops and desktops. At Microsoft, we are committed to delivering great Microsoft 365 experiences that help our customers work easier and faster on their favorite devices. With this in mind, we want to share some of the latest Microsoft 365 innovations that can make you even more productive on a Mac.
Universal app support for Macs with M1 is here
We are excited to announce that starting today we are releasing new versions of many of our Microsoft 365 for Mac apps that run natively on Macs with M1. This means that now our core flagship Office apps—Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote—will run faster and take full advantage of the performance improvements on new Macs, making you even more productive on the latest MacBook Air, 13-inch MacBook Pro, and Mac mini. The new Office apps are Universal, so they will continue to run great on Macs with Intel processors. The apps are not only speedy, but they also look fantastic as they have been redesigned to match the new look of macOS Big Sur. Here is a peek at Outlook on the new 13-inch MacBook Pro.
If you have automatic updates turned on, you will start to receive these updates today. Otherwise, you can go to the Mac App Store and click the Updates tab, or with Microsoft AutoUpdate, you can go to your Office app’s Help menu and choose Check for Updates. Plus, find more commonly asked questions on our support page.
With more than 115M daily active users, Teams has become a critical part of the way many people are navigating the current situation. Teams allows you to meet, chat, call, and collaborate all in a single app. And, when people work in Teams, they all get the full breadth and depth of Microsoft 365. Microsoft Teams is currently available in Rosetta emulation mode on Macs with M1 and the browser. We are working on universal app support for M1 Macs and will share more news as our work progresses. Download the Teams app for your Mac here now.
Microsoft 365 experiences made for Mac
Over the past months, we have redesigned the experiences in our flagship apps for Mac with a focus on simplicity to improve ease of use. The new Outlook for Mac looks great with a redesign that matches the new look of macOS Big Sur, and an updated Office Start experience for Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote for Mac that incorporates the Fluent UI design system. This means that Microsoft 365 apps enable you to be more focused with immersive experiences that are easier to use right from the first screen. Experiences that feel both unmistakably Microsoft 365 and include elements that are native to the look of macOS so they are also unmistakably made for Mac. The new Office Start experience will be available next month.
We continue to learn how customers want to use our products through continued feedback. So, thank you to each and every one of you who have shared your experiences with us. Today we are pleased to announce support for iCloud accounts in the new Outlook for Mac. This will enable you to organize work and personal emails, contacts, and calendars together in one app so it is easier for you to stay connected to what matters. We will start to roll this out using the new Outlook for Mac in the coming weeks.
Work your way
Another area of focus is to make our Microsoft 365 apps work the way you do. Through many new innovations on our Mac apps, our goal is to help you get work done in more simple and intuitive ways.
Tell Me is a search box that quickly gets you to the Office tools you need or actions you want to take by just typing what you are looking for in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, or OneNote for Mac. Microsoft Search in the new Outlook for Mac allows you to type out your query or question using language you use every day to find emails, events, and files—no fancy syntax needed. These capabilities help simplify how you use Microsoft 365 apps to achieve more and are now available to all Mac users.
A commonly used productivity hack is to use your phone to capture images of important information you want to work on. With Data from Picture, you can take a photo of a table directly on your iPhone and turn it into data you can edit in Excel for Mac. This handy new feature uses Continuity Camera on your Mac and is also available now.
Voice input is a growing part of our digital lives and can be a great way to simplify your workflow. A new dictation toolbar with voice commands for creating content with your voice is coming to Word and Outlook for Mac. In addition, to help you check spelling, correct grammar, and get writing style suggestions, we will enable Microsoft Editor in Word for Mac. We plan to make these updates available to customers with access to Microsoft 365 for Insiders in early 2021.
New ways to work together
The shift to remote work highlights the need for teams to collaborate with agility, while ensuring sensitive data stays secure and meets compliance requirements. Our Microsoft 365 app teams have been busy getting modern collaboration and compliance capabilities ready so you can work from home more effectively on your Mac.
Sharing your calendars in Outlook with your co-workers helps you manage your time more efficiently. By giving access to participants’ calendars through simplified permissions, planning meetings and events is quick and easy. Based on the Microsoft sync technology and connected architecture, Outlook can provide reliable and faster synchronization of calendar events across Mac, Windows, iPhone, Android, and Web, keeping you on track of your time your way. The new Outlook for Mac will support shared calendars for customers subscribed to the Office Insider Mac Beta Channel in the first months of next year.
When creating new content as a team, the ability to collaborate around documents and presentations becomes especially valuable when your team is not in the same location. The new modern commenting experience in Word for Mac enables a contextual view of comments that allows you to focus on your content without missing active comments by contributors and reviewers. Modern commenting also includes improved @mentions in PowerPoint and Word for Mac that make it easier to reply to comments. The new @mentions experience is available now in PowerPoint for enterprise customers. Modern commenting for Word is in the Office Insider Beta Channel now and coming to Current Channel Preview in February 2021.
Have you ever collaborated with someone in a worksheet and suddenly your view changes and you are unable to finish your work? This can often happen when an active collaborator adds filters or sorts the data in a table of a shared worksheet. Excel sheet view is a new way to create customized views to sort and filter your data without disrupting what others see. This capability is an example of customer-driven product improvement and is now available on Excel for Mac.
Last, but certainly not least, Microsoft Information Protection sensitivity labels allow you to classify and protect your organization’s data with minimal effort through manual and automatic content labeling. Manual labeling is available on Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook for Mac. Automatic labeling is coming to these same apps for Microsoft 365 E5 customers in early 2021.
We are excited about the Microsoft 365 innovations we are delivering for our Mac user community and would love to hear your feedback about your experience using our latest features. If you want to try out new Office features first and make a difference in the products you use every day, please join the Office Insiders and check out the Mac channels.
Brought to you by Dr. Ware, Microsoft Office 365 Silver Partner, Charleston SC.
This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.
In the months since remote work became the new normal for many of us, we’ve all had our fair share of “virtual everything,” from customer meetings to online events and virtual team gatherings. Businesses of all sizes are using Microsoft Teams to stay connected, whether as part of their Microsoft 365 plan, or the free version of Microsoft Teams, which enables you to meet, chat, and collaborate securely, all in one place, at no cost.
Here are five things about the free version of Teams that make remote work easier, including new features now available.
1. Schedule meetings with anyone
Earlier this year we delivered scheduled meetings in the free version of Teams, answering one of the most frequent feature requests. When scheduling a meeting, organizers can either copy the meeting link to send it directly to other participants or send an invite via Outlook or Google calendar. Anyone, including external participants, can join meetings in one click—no setup or account required.
Now, we are also adding the ability to view past and upcoming meetings in Teams. Soon you’ll be able to view and edit all the meetings you scheduled in Teams, including their security options, right from the Meetings app on the left rail.
2. Reduce meeting fatigue with Together mode
Together mode is a new meeting experience in Teams that digitally places meeting participants in a shared background. It’s great for meetings in which multiple people speak, such as brainstorms or roundtable discussion, because it makes it easier to pick up body language and non-verbal cues. Together mode is now available in the free version of Teams with a variety of scenes including auditoriums, conference rooms, and even a coffee shop.
3. Work with external stakeholders using guest access
Often you need to collaborate with people outside your organization, such as clients, suppliers, and partners. You can do so directly in Teams by adding them as a guest. Guest access allows you to provide access to certain teams and chats to people outside the organization, while maintaining control over your company data.
Note: Guest access is not required to join a meeting.
4. Share files with built-in cloud storage or integrate your existing storage
The free version of Teams comes with 10 GB of team cloud storage and 2 GB of personal cloud storage per user. This allows organizations to securely store, access, and share important documents in Teams. You can even co-author Word, Excel and PowerPoint files with colleagues in real time within the Teams app.
Want to keep using your existing cloud storage service? No problem. You can easily integrate third party storage providers such as Google Drive, Dropbox and Box, enabling you to view, manage, and share those files in Teams as well.
5. Brainstorm together with Whiteboard in Teams Whiteboard in Teams makes it easy to run brainstorming and creative thinking sessions in a remote or hybrid work environment. Each Teams meeting has a dedicated whiteboard where participants can draw, sketch, and write on a shared digital canvas. You can also quickly add sticky notes to a whiteboard, making it easy to contribute if you’re not using a digital pen.
This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.
This past year has certainly been an extraordinary one, and we’ve seen the impact of technology as it transforms to meet increasing productivity and collaboration needs around the world. In just the first two months of the COVID-19 pandemic, we observed two years’ worth of digital transformation take place. And the momentum continues to help organizations and businesses optimize. In fact, in the past year, Microsoft Azure grew by more than 1,000 new capabilities, allowing us to innovate with the latest advancements in key areas including AI, machine learning, and virtualization. The rapid pace of technology change has truly shifted the landscape of in-demand skills for a digital world.
At Microsoft, we’ve been building a portfolio of role-based training and certifications designed to help tech professionals stay current and be future-ready. The retirement of product-focused certifications has allowed us to continue investing in our role-based learning offerings. And today, we’re excited to announce a couple of upcoming updates to our certification program to help our customers and partners keep pace with technology.
First, we’re providing our certified professionals a method to renew their Microsoft Certifications, initially earned by passing rigorous exam(s). In early February 2021, you’ll be able to renew your role-based and specialty certifications by passing a free renewal assessment on Microsoft Learn. Rather than having to retake scheduled exam(s), the renewal assessment can be completed online on your own time, and anytime within six months before your certification expires. After you pass the renewal assessment, your certification is extended by one additional year from the current expiration date; this can be done annually. To help you prepare, you’ll also have the option to access a free collection of curated learning modules for each renewal assessment.
Second, we’re updating the validity for role-based and specialty certifications to one year from the date you earned it. Starting in June 2021, this change will take effect for newly earned certifications. The shift to a one-year certification validity aligns to how quickly cloud technology changes; renewing certifications on an annual basis validates skills and ability to perform in job roles are relevant in the market.
This new frictionless approach is intended to enable you to focus on keeping current with technology, while also reducing the stress, complexity, and cost of keeping your certification active. Embracing a growth mindset and the need for continuous learning can help you open career opportunities, successfully perform in job roles, and continue to support your organization’s digital and cloud transformation. With a Microsoft Certification—globally recognized and industry-endorsed evidence of mastered real-world skills—you also demonstrate your proficiency in keeping pace with technology.
We’re happy to share these upcoming changes that enable you to stay current with necessary skills and to seamlessly weave in your certification renewal. For additional details on how to renew role-based and specialty certifications, including answers to frequently asked questions, check out the Renew your Microsoft Certification page. We thank you for sharing your learning journey with us, and we look forward to keeping you up to date on technology’s groundbreaking ability to continue transforming our world.
This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.
With many retailers extending online holiday sales, consumers are taking advantage of the ease of shopping from home. Online shopping can also enable more impulse buying, which in turn increases the likelihood of returns and cancelations and can open the door to abuse and fraud. Merchants need the right tools and controls to help reduce fraud and maximize their holiday revenue.
Here are some proactive and reactive ways to mitigate fraud and related losses during the high-volume holiday sales season.
Do a fraud check before the order is shipped
While it is common to do a fraud check at the time of checkout for online purchases, another effective method to protect against fraud is to do an assessment before the order is ready to be shipped. This will ensure that any change in the status of orders, during the time elapsed since checkout, gets accounted for. To get an idea of the fraud vulnerabilities that exist in your system, try to identify a user placing several orders repeatedly and then canceling the orders.
Doing this additional fraud check also helps prevent the loss of goods and saves the associated shipping costs. It’s especially important for your retail business, when most of what you sell are physical goods the fraud loss could influence the overall profit efficiency of your business.
To reduce loss, you can create a segment of high purchase value products and apply a distinctive fraud strategy for that segment. In addition, if you have a manual review process in place for reviewing orders, you can control the overall manual review volume by choosing to send orders for products that experience a high-fraud rate category instead of sending all orders for review.
Frequently look for patterns in consumer purchases
While proactive ways to stop fraud are ideal, another way to detect fraud is to reactively look for patterns in bulk data from the most recent orders.
Running anomaly detection on purchase orders placed in the last hour, identifying outliers in the data, and sending those specific outliers for further investigation is a good control that complements the real-time fraud checks.
This is also a good feedback loop for the real-time systems that use artificial intelligence to improve precision and accuracy in identifying fraudulent orders. A reactive fraud strategy is a good way to supplement overall fraud controls that are already in place.
Deriving insights through reporting
In addition to responding proactively and reactively, having robust reporting can provide additional insights and enable analytics. The ability to drill down to a specific product level to review transaction lines, see the specific reason code applied, and having access to the entire journal would enable fraud analysts and investigations teams to make decisions rapidly. Setting up alerts on when specific conditions and thresholds are met for products (or markets) that have been traditionally subject to fraud gives you the ability to respond quickly and adjust fraud strategies rapidly.
How Microsoft can help reduce post-purchase fraud loss
Reactive fraud assessment features can help to identify specific vulnerabilities existing at the store, point of sale, product levels, and so on. The Dynamics 365 Fraud Prevention tool provides a risk-based ranking of staff and point of sale terminals, analyzes underlying transaction data, and helps drive investigations. It provides the ability to drill down to specific transaction lines and review what reason codes were applied by the staff at the point of sale to order. This helps fraud investigators understand which business process such as returns, cancellations, or price overrides is the most susceptible to abuse. It also helps to identify where controls are needed the most (such as region, district, or store). Running your reactive fraud processes frequently will help your overall fraud strategy to be more effective over time.
Next steps
If you are currently using Dynamics 365 Fraud Protection, you can get a fraud check in real-time. The scorecard gives you a real-time view of the performance and support tool that helps to search and investigate all transactions including risk information and history. You can also enable loss prevention, which is based on anomaly detection for protecting against the abuse that happens in relation to returns and cancellations.
This article was originally posted by the FTC. See the original article here.
“Hello? It’s me — Frosty. Look it’s a long story but without my top hat, I’m melting. Please, I need your help — send money now or I’ll be nothing but a puddle!”
Brought to you by Dr. Ware, Microsoft Office 365 Silver Partner, Charleston SC.
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