A common trend among new software is in giving users the ability to personalize certain areas. This could be something as simple as adding your picture or changing the layout. Many programs that have traditionally been utility in nature, such as office suites, are starting to offer ways for users to customize. Microsoft Office 365 is one of those such programs offering these features.

Microsoft Office 365 is first and foremost a suite of familiar office software for businesses to use in their day-to-day operations. But just because this software is instantly recognizable as a Microsoft product, it doesn’t mean that you can’t make some small changes to personalize your computing workspace. Here are a few ways you can do just that:

Set Your Profile Picture You can set a profile picture which will show up on any window or application that has the ability to show your image - e.g., Microsoft Lync. To set your picture:

1. Log into Office 365 and go to the Home page.
2. Click the My Profile header. It’s located in the top right hand side of the screen, underneath your name.
3. Click Change Photo.
4. Choose your photo by selecting Browse. It’s recommended that your picture be under 100kb in size, you’ll get an error message telling you if it is any larger. When you have selected your picture, press Save.

Add a Signature to Your Emails Many business emails include a signature at the bottom, a way to make each email seem a little more personal, or provide more information including contact details and a potential message about an upcoming promotion. To set your signature:

1. Navigate to the Outlook page, click on Options. It’s located in the top right hand side of the screen, underneath your name.
2. Click See all options from the drop-down menu that opens.
3. Select My Account, followed by Settings which is located in the left hand menu.
4. Under the Mail Tab, you will have an option to edit your signature. If you want Outlook to automatically place your signature on every outgoing email, click the radio button below the signature that says Automatically include my signature on messages I send.

If you don’t choose to have Outlook automatically add your signature, you can add the signature in your email by selecting the Messages Tab in each new email, and clicking the little arrow below Signature. A list of created signatures will be shown, select the one you wish to use.

Add Your Picture or Logo to Your SharePoint Site If your company uses SharePoint, you can add a logo or picture to enhance what is a relatively plain environment.

1. First, you need to create an image. You can use almost any picture, just ensure you can legally use it. Get creative, this is your space!
2. When you have the image you want to use, open SharePoint, click Site Actions and select More Options.
3. Select Picture Library, and in the window that opens, select a name for a new library, and press Create.
4. Your new Library should be on the left side of the screen. Click to open it and select Upload.
5. When your picture shows up in the library, select it twice, so it’s in its own window. Copy the web address from the top of the page.
6. Under Site Actions select Site Settings followed by Look and Feel.
7. Beside Logo URL and description paste the URL you just copied. Click Ok and your image will show up on your SharePoint site.

With a few steps you can make Office 365 a little more personal. Just be sure that you can legally use the images you select. If you would like to learn more about Microsoft Office 365 or any other Microsoft products, give us a call.

As more small businesses continue to seek ways to make operations more efficient and cost effective, applications such as Office 365 continue to evolve to better meet consumer needs. With over 30 new updates to its efficient cloud-based service, Office 365 promises improved communication between users and clients within the same organization as well as compatibility with new platforms.

For many businesses nowadays, working while on the go is a necessity. This is why there is also a growing need for services and applications that allow people to work and continue to be productive even while they are mobile.

One of these services is Office 365, which is a package offering Microsoft Office, SharePoint Online, Exchange Online, and Lync Online. Office 365 is cloud-based, which enables people to access files and applications in a much more seamless and efficient manner. This kind of system is especially suitable for small businesses, not only because of its cost efficiency, but also its flexibility of use – which in turn helps members of smaller firms handle multiple tasks more effectively with no loss to productivity, even when they are out of the office.

Office 365 has also recently launched its first major service update, which makes it a more versatile tool for better communication and collaboration. The more than 30 new updates include support for Windows Phone 7, which allows people to access and edit their SharePoint documents from their Windows Phone 7 mobile device; new SharePoint Business Connectivity Services, which enable people within an organization to use SharePoint interface to connect to customer relationship management (CRM) or SAP software, which are common critical line-of-business applications; as well as new support for Lync for Mac, giving users the ability to use instant messaging, presence, and videoconferencing.

If applied and implemented properly, Office 365 can prove to be a very efficient tool for small businesses who want to be more cost efficient without compromising the quality of their output or their productivity. If you want to know more about how Office 365 will impact your business, please don't hesitate to get in touch with us.

It’s fairly common to discover that the cause of vanishing disk space on an SBS 2003 or SBS 2008 server is in fact due to bloating Sharepoint files, most often the log files. The resolution is very simple, we just need to shrink the relevant files.

1. Open up SQL Server Management Studio Express. If it’s not install on the server in question, download it from the Microsoft download site.

2. Connect to the relevant database instance. Note that you must use a custom connection string of “\.pipemssql$microsoft##sseesqlquery”. Note also that as you are logging on using Windows Authentication, the user account which you are logged on to the server with must have appropriate permissions to the database.

 

 

3. Right-click the database in question and select “Properties”. In our example this is “SharePoint_Config_29c26fca-17b8-48c1-9704-b869932abcb6”. We know this because this will be in the name of the massive log files that we are trying to shrink.

4. When the properties window appears, select “Options” in the left-hand menu

5. Change the Recovery Model to Simple. By default it is set to Full. Click OK.

 

 

6. Back at the main list of databases, right-click the database in question again, this time selecting Tasks > Shrink > Files

 

 

7. In the Shrink File page, change the File Type to Log. Notice how much free space will be reclaimed. Click OK.

 

 

8. Confirm that the expected drive space has been reclaimed.

Notice boards are great for sharing company information, but
how handy would it be to have an internal website (or ‘intranet’) for staff
use? If you are the lucky user in a Small Business Server network, setting up
an intranet for your business is simple – it’s already built in to your system
and is called ‘Sharepoint’.

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