Author: Misra GOZ

Enterprise Video Portal, Task and Feedback Management

We divided the 3rd week of our Working from Home Practices event into 3 main sections: Stream & Forms & Planner and Teams collaboration functions.

We started our video portal Stream with a general view of easy but very effective features like searching in the portal, uploading videos, adding videos to “Watchlist” and being able to watch them later. Cutting and sharing a video, editing sharing permissions, making the videos interactive by adding polls and quizzes to the minutes we want on Stream we can find our meeting videos is very useful. Moreover we can obtain integrity by viewing our portal’s channels or videos within Teams.

In the second part we took a look at question types, theme settings for personalizing, sharing options by digitalizing our form and quizzes with our survey application Forms. It is possible to edit questions together by sharing a link to work together, enable one person to answer only or in a certain period of time, register names in answers or answer anonymously with Forms. Also, you can transfer the results to Excel and zeroize the error margin and connect to different reporting tools. These surveys can be used under one app only like Stream by publishing within Teams.

Our last topic the Planner application is our task management tool where we can assign tasks to people and get graphic reports. You can categorize tasks with this tool and filter by these categories or assigned people, and transfer it to Excel. We can add our tasks to Outlook calendar and receive reminders. We included this app as well under the roof of Teams and finished this week’s event.

Office Insider Program – How to Join

What is the Windows Insider Program?

Microsoft Insider

was created for all Microsoft 365 users.

Office insider participants are granted first-hand access to new features and updates.
You can access dynamic array formulas.
In addition to this, you can share your comments about developments with the developers.

Click here to become an Office Insider member.

Access to the Insider Program

The procedure below is the simplest and most complete one.
For a long time it was blocked to go back to “standard” Excel version after you became an Insider .

But with this method you can change between channels anytime you want.

When you go to File> Account menu and want to see information about Microsoft Account like synchronized files, you will see that there are 3 standard buttons that enable you to know your software version number and Office news. If you cannot see the Office Insider button there, follow the steps below.

1st Step: Add Office Insider Button to your Account

After yo do the settings below, you will see that the 4th button is added too. Click on the Insider button.
To do it you need to add a key into registry. To open your registry type regedit on your Windows taskbar.

Normally Office, 16.0 and Common arrays are not on registry, you need to create them.

Path : HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwarePoliciesMicrosoftOffice16.0Common
Key Name: insiderslabbehavior
Value type : REG_DWORD
Value : 1

After you restart Office you will see that on the File > Account menu you have the Office Insider button.

2nd Step: Changing Office Channel

Then, to see both of the recommended levels click on the Insider > Modification Level button.

You can see 2 levels of the available update by clicking on the popup menu: Monthly Channel or Insider.
Needless to say you need to accept terms of use to change the channel of your application.

3rd Step: Differences between the Two Programs

Insider Channel
This is the level that open the latest Office updates. Some of them didn’t have the chance to be tested by the developers or to be completed. Thus, it carries a risk to fail your Excel functions and collapse your workbooks (it is pretty common). However, it is the only way to access latest features like XLOOKUP.

My recommendation: Don’t set up this version on a professional environment. Would be better in a test machine.

Monthly Channel
This channel is not for test users, it is for very advanced level Excel users. This version opens up persistent features that are usually non-existent in Office standard version (six month channel). For example, to be able to use dynamic array functions you need to subscribe to one of the 2 levels of Insider. If not, you cannot use them.

For this, if some of your employees want to access features that require Insider, this channel is the one that needs to be set up.

4th Step: Update Office

Whatever Office level you choose, it is a must to update your Office.
Single selection of Office channel is not enough to open the Insider program.

After you choose one of the insider levels and click on update button, upgrade will start automatically.

5th Step: Restarting Excel

It is enough to restart your Office apps once or twice to see the changes.

Going back to the Six Month Channel (standard version)

The only thing you need to go back to the six month channel which is Office’s basic version:

Click on the Insider icon.
Uncheck Save to Preview new versions of Office option
Update Office again.

Don’t forget to check other articles on our blog.
You can share this article and make sure that many other people get informed as well.

Bye. 🙋🏻‍♂️

Increase your Productivity with Windows 10

In the 4th week of our event we talked about making our work easier along with digitalizing our routine processes with Windows 10. In the previous weeks we mentioned importance of OneDrive and backed up our data. This week we talked about synchronization settings and smartly managing the files occupying our computer with “Storage Sense”. Storage Sense makes the not regularly used files Online Only and thus prevents them to take up unnecessary storage. We managed to have our computers locked when we got away from them with “Dynamic Lock“ by pairing our mobile devices with our computers via Bluetooth.

We talked about synchronizing all our choices from language settings and password to backgrounds between devices with “Sync Your Settings”. Also how to access the pages we worked on, the pages we opened in all devices with Windows’ Timeline feature; how to access everything we copied from one clipboard without copy-paste on “Clipboard” were important details. We wouldn’t skip mentioning the new Edge application. We asked “How can we pin the websites we opened in the browser to the taskbar as an app? We created the problem of opening millions of tabs and getting lost among them by creating Collections. While carrying the PostIt experience to digital with Sticky Notes, we introduced the new screenshot tool Snip&Sketch. And last but not least, we took a look at the Whiteboard feature we mentioned the first week, and left another event full of information behind.

Let PowerAutomate Do All your Routine Work

This week’s Working From Home Practices topic was the PowerAutomate application on which you can create work flows. While you can create a new work flow from scratch with PowerAutomate, you can also utilize templates in the application. For the work flows to be created there must be a Trigger and an Action in consequence. PowerAutomate automatizes your work by connecting to 3rd party applications (Google Sheets, Jira, Twitter, SalesForce etc.) with connectors. So this week we created work flows by utilising templates like receiving approval from specified people for a file added to SharePoint Online, notifying when a task is created on Planner by sharing a post on Teams, automatically saving e-mail attachments from Outlook to any area we want on OneDrive and reporting our location with one click. Also it is as easy to create a work flow from scratch without using templates!

Unknown Aspects of PowerPoint and Outlook

In the 5th week of our event we talked about interesting aspects of PowerPoint and Outlook. We all know how hard it is to start a presentation. Most of us don’t know that there are templates for presentations and Infographics while creating a new presentation and that we can get a few hour presentation done in a few minutes. Starting from this point, we mentioned icon catalogue, adding 3 dimension models and high definition background catalogues. After each part we got more information about the design of our presentation with “Design Ideas” and put the transition names “Morph.” This way we added motion and liveliness to our presentation.

“Summary Zoom” and “Slide Zoom” enabled us to summarize our multi-element presentations. Lastly collecting feedback by adding a poll/quiz from Forms using PowerPoint as an informing document was an important detail for us. The fact that Forms has an extension on Outlook enabled us to place fast polls in our e-mails. Another extension “Translator” we got to translate a text or an e-mail to the language we wanted. While we could create tasks about an e-mail with the Jira connector, Checkpoint extension enabled us to add locations that can be opened on Navigation from meeting invitations.

Digital Workplace – The notion that entered into our lives with the new normal

Even if the pandemic ends, a lot of companies stated that they will be changing to working from home system and to flexible working method. The notion of digital workplace will start to have a bigger place in our lives.

We talked about the “Digital Workplace” notion we started to here a lot lately, the importance of working correctly and efficiently on online systems and how companies should organize their digital work processes with Peakup COO Kadircan Toprakçı in this interview.

A Day in Teams While Working From Home

We talked about administering our corporate and non-corporate meeting routines and how we can organize our conferences with Live Event in the first week of our Working from Home Practices event under the title of A Day in Teams. Using the features of whiteboard, presenting with screen sharing, isolating oneself from what is going on at home by using background blurring in order to have the same experience with Microsoft Teams as the way we did at the office were our main topics.

Also being able to send notifications with the @mention feature while making announcements to our team members, work together on the flies that we share, get instant feedback by creating fast questionnaires were among the main topics that increase collaboration in Teams that we touched upon. It is also important to remind that we can pin the apps that exist in Store and use them comfortably.

You can access this event easily in the video below:

We Got the Microsoft in Education Global Training Partner Status

As PEAKUP, we continue to provide solutions to our business partners and support their periods of change with our leading team by using innovational education applications in unity with technology .

We were awarded with Microsoft in Education Global Training Partner Status to give our training and consultancy services aimed at digitalization in educational institutions and designing new generation education areas globally. We continue to provide training on a lot of topics –Microsoft Teams, Office 365 and Microsoft Azure technologies being in the first place like smart classroom management, distance learning, advanced level machine learning and deep learning.

We will continue to provide solutions, work and produce in order to support change and creativity in workplace with the thought of technology and future, contribute and help companies to adapt to period of change.

How to Add a Poll to a Stream Video

You are at the right place if your organization has educational/informative videos for your users to watch and you want to do polls/tests or collect feedback during videos. It is possible to insert polls that you created in Forms to certain minutes of your videos on Stream. This way while watching the videos people will come across a form and keep watching from where they left after answering. Now let’s take a look at how it is done.

1. Upload a video on Stream and click on the “Add New” option under “Interactivity”.

In this step stop the video at the minute you want your poll to appear and continue with the “Add New” option.

2. Choose the poll to be added from the Forms app and copy the share link.

The poll to be added should be created in the “Microsoft Forms” app. Copy the share link of your poll like in the image below. Microsoft Forms screen for getting the URL of the form to copy to Stream

3. Paste the poll link to “Form URL” field.

Paste the share link of the poll you want to have on your video to the “Form URL” text box and name your poll. Then end your action with the “Add to timeline” option below. Interactivity tab showing where to paste the URL

4. Job Done! Now your viewers can continue their videos after they reply the poll that comes across them.

Stream video Interactivity tab showing a new form called Feedback

Forms Microsoft Forms Stream

NOVA IoT Platform Online Press Launch

NOVA that is a completely domestic and national platform developed by Turkish Engineers in the PEAKUP technology laboratories has been introduced with an online press launch.

Brilliant Invention from Turkish Engineers: Now you can control an office with just one click

“Technology”, the lead actor of the changing world order, is digitalizing everything rapidly. Digitalization that has gotten even faster with the Covid-19 pandemic has surrounded us, so to speak. Our offices where we spend most of our time get their shares from this change as well. But most of us are still worried. The biggest question we have in our minds is if the precautions taken in the offices against pandemic are enough or what awaits people who work from home in the new order… Thanks to the IoT app developed in PEAKUP technology labs, an invention answering all these questions has been made. The era of minimum physical contact in the offices will begin with the IoT platform called NOVA.

Model of working from home that has been tried out for years but got faster with the pandemic is full of unknowns both for the employers and the employees. Even though some of the workers are back at their offices, the old way of working is going to change for sure. PEAKUP that develops technology for the offices of future with products like digital workplace platform Velocity, digital signature application Sign&Go and cyber security solution PassGate brought the IoT Platform NOVA into life, and integrated all these products to the same platform. NOVA that has been introduced by PEAKUP COO Kadircan Toprakçı and Head of Labs Emrah Uslu in the press conference held on Microsoft Teams, turns offices into safer environments, increases efficiency and savings by minimizing physical contact.

Ahmet Toprakçı who gave the opening speech of the meeting stated that he is proud of the inventor team of NOVA and that their goal now is to export this domestic and national technology to the world. He also reported that their England office might sign a major agreement. Here are the merits of NOVA…

NOVA, welcomes at the office door

NOVA takes the lead starting from the entrance to the office. The biggest benefit is decreasing physical contact in the environment. You will not need to touch the door handle everyone touches, you will not need to touch the remote controller for ac or a button for lighting. Opening a door with fingerprint ends with NOVA as well. All these can be done with just one button on a mobile phone or on a computer screen. Taking someone’s temperature is going to be contact-free and in a risky situation the person is not going to be let in. Warning and guidance systems will kick in by detecting with heat detectors if someone’s temperature gets high during the day and in which parts of the office this person walked around and with who he/she has been in contact with.

Regulates the air inside, prevents crowdedness

Air density quality and calorific values in the environment are important values when it comes to the health and motivation of office workers. NOVA analyzes all the changes in the air and sends notifications to the system in an adverse condition. Traditional air conditioning systems don’t have any functions other than measuring the environment temperature and automatically turning on and off. NOVA, in addition to these, offers an automatic system management to optimize the conditions by tracking the environment conditions like sufficient lightning, density of carbon dioxide and similar gases, and air flow. System can take the decision of turning on and off in accordance with the conditions that can be defined. It warns the crowded areas by detecting the number people per square meter, plays a determining role in putting specific people into quarantine in cases of risk rather than shutting the whole office down. NOVA that detects people who have been in contact with the person with risk, analyzes and reports it, is the safest and most advanced way of keeping track.

Meetings are in control of NOVA

While the digital meetings are becoming more efficient with the functions that Microsoft Teams offers to the workers, online meetings are being done in a shorter period of time and they are more target-driven. While physically it is not possible to have more than 3 meetings a day, the number triples when it comes to online meetings. On top of it, you don’t have to take notes thanks to being able to record the meetings as a video. The number of minutes of online meetings that were 900 million on March, 19 Monday had reached 4.1 billion minutes on April 29, Wednesday. The number of users increased to 75 million from 44 million in the same period of time. All these changes lead to serious expectations on both efficiency and security in physical meeting rooms. NOVA, by means of the devices placed in the meeting rooms, measure the air quality, crowdedness, time management and organizes the room reservation in compliance with the social distance rules. While entrance of a risky amount of people to the meeting rooms is monitored by NOVA, safer and more target-driven meetings from the meeting notes to the meeting statistics are possible via the mobile app.

Savings of 11 thousand dollars in a year increased the attention on the digital workplaces

PEAKUP COO KadirCan Toprakçı who put emphasis on the fact that even though the offices are enhanced thanks to the advanced technologies, running the business on digital platforms is easier and more efficient contrary to the popular belief said: “Even though the number of workers working at the office is pretty low right now, it is certain that it will increase over time. But it is estimated that around 30% of the workforce will be done from home a few days a week by the end of 2021 in the whole world. This rate right now is 3.6%. It is a must for the people who cannot let go of working at the office to redesign their office with regards to the pandemic rules. This means extra costs for a business. NOVA makes the life of both the employers and the employees easier without the need of redesigning the office with its online and offline integration.

Toprakçı who mentioned that the demand for digital workplaces has increased 70% in 3 days with most companies changing to working from home because of corona virus pandemic commented: “A worker working from home provides the employer a saving of 11 thousand dollars a year in average. Interest of businesses that want to carry out the digitalization parallel with the pandemic in change management service given by PEAKUP has increased by 15 times on a monthly basis. This means that our country is going through change parallel with the world trends and that we are on good terms with technology at least as much as the other developed countries.