Shapes can be used to add interest to a presentation, to emphasize a point, or just to make your presentation look a bit more exciting. PowerPoint’s shapes are great because you can format them with colors, 3-D effects and shadows, and they always look perfect, even when you scale them really large or very small. With just a few simple tricks you can add a little variety and a unique feel to your shapes. All of the shapes below were created in PowerPoint and can be resized, copied and reused in any Office application. As you can see, they are all geometric shapes with added effects, such as shadowing. Making these shapes is simple and fun. Here, for example, is how to create the Celtic knot in the example above. Create a shape First, add a circle to a blank page. Make it fairly big, so you can work with it easily, but leave plenty of space to work. Now you’ll need a second circle of the same proportions, so simply make a copy. The quickest way to duplicate a shape is to select the circle and then drag it while holding the Ctrl key (for more keyboard shortcuts for Windows or Mac, check out our previous post 10 little-known keyboard shortcuts for editing in PowerPoint). Once you have the second circle, you want to size it down while keeping the same proportions. If you resize it by holding Shift while moving one of the corner handles, it scales it evenly, and the proportions stay the same. Next, drag the first circle over the top of the second, and use the alignment guides to align them, so they have the same center. When they are aligned the shape will look like this: Press Ctrl and click each circle to select them both (or use ⌘ if you are working on a Mac). You want to select the bigger circle first, then the smaller one. I’ll explain why in a moment, but for now let’s just see how the magic happens. Now that you have two shapes selected, the Merge Shapes under the Drawing Tools/Format ribbon tab is enabled. Click the Merge Shapes drop-down to display the five choices: Union, Combine, Fragment, Intersect and Subtract. You can move your mouse over each option to see a preview of what option each does, but for now, select Subtract. If you selected the shapes in the right order, you should have a circle with the center cut out. This is why the order you select shapes matters—the first shape you select is the part that’s kept when you click Subtract, while the second shape is cut out. If your Circle doesn’t look right, undo, click on a blank part of the slide, and reselect the shapes—making sure to select the bigger circle first, then click Subtract again. Now you have a single ring. Use the Ctrl+drag trick to make two more copies, so you have three identical rings. Move them so they overlap in a triangle, so that the overlap makes the Celtic knot shape. The alignment guides make it easy to make sure they’re all overlapped evenly. Then select the three rings and click Union from the Merge Shapes menu to make the knot. Apply effects to a shape Next, we’ll use a little shape formatting to make it unique. First, select your shape, and on the Drawing Tools/Format tab, click the Shape Outline drop-down and select an outline color (such as a golden color), and then set the Outline Weight to 4 ½ pt. Next, click Shape Fill and select a color (green for example). As a finishing touch, click Shape Effects, and under Bevel choices, select Relaxed Inset to make the outline look like a raised rim on a piece of jewelry. There you have it, a nice custom shape you can use anywhere. That’s the basics of making custom shapes. You can use the various Merge Shapes commands to trim shapes, combine them, and to make any number of useful custom shapes. Before we finish, I want to show you one more tip for making custom shapes that can be really powerful, which even some of the power users who know all about Merge Shapes miss. If you create a text box and a normal shape, you can use the Merge Shapes commands to make text into shapes. For instance, try making a rectangle and then make a text box with some text in it. You’ll probably want to change the font size so that the text is only slightly smaller than the rectangle. Drag the text box over the rectangle, select the rectangle first, then the text. If you select Subtract, you get a rectangle with the text cut out of it. If you select Intersect, you get a single shape that is shaped like the text. If you select Fragment, you get the shape with the text cut out, plus individual shapes for each letter. All of these shapes can have any normal shape formatting applied to them. I’ll bet you can immediately see some cool uses for that. Now you’re ready to go out and be a master of custom-made shapes. As a parting challenge, here’s an example of a really nice shape I made. It didn’t take me hours; in fact, it took only one Intersect operation to do. I’m not going to tell you how I made it, but I’ll give you a really big hint: there’s a font called Wingdings 2, and a choice on the Insert tab called Symbol that you can use to add a symbol to a text box. Knowing this and the tip above should be enough to get you started. There you have it—everything you need to know to create great shapes. What you can make is limited only by your imagination and patience. Have fun! —Tucker Hatfield, senior program manager for the PowerPoint Graphics team The post Make your own custom shapes in PowerPoint appeared first on Office Blogs.

These days we all live and work in a multi-device, multi-platform world, and so when building Office 2016 for Mac, one of our key objectives was to make it as easy as possible to transition from using Office for Windows to using Office for Mac and back again. That’s why you’ll notice an interface that’s consistent with what you’d expect when using Office 2016 for Windows, and why we added support for virtually all of the Windows Excel Ctrl keyboard shortcuts. So when it came to working with external data, we applied that same logic: how can we make the experience great and working cross platform easier than ever? External data in Excel 2016 for Mac We examined how we could improve external data for Excel 2016 for Mac and made the following changes: Excel 2016 for Mac comes with a pre-installed and integrated SQL Server ODBC driver, which we worked hand-in-hand with Simba Technologies to provide. Excel 2016 for Mac has a brand new Microsoft Query (MSQuery) and Connection Manager to make creating and managing all of your data connections easier and more consistent with Windows. Let’s take a deep dive into how each of these improvements can help you. Native support for ODBC data connections Excel 2016 for Mac supports ODBC data connections with SQL Server and Azure SQL Database right out of the box. This means several great things for anyone who works with external data: When creating or refreshing data connections to SQL Server, there are no third-party drivers required—everything you need is included right in the app. Connections made to SQL Server in Excel 2016 for Mac will work in Excel for Windows and vice versa. Have a workbook with ODBC data connections you’ve been using on Windows and never been able to use on your Mac? Well, now you can with cross-platform compatibility. If you want to connect to something other than SQL Server, we still have several great partners offering third-party drivers to connect to any data source you can imagine. In addition, all of the ways in which you interact with external data are now consistent between the platforms. Looking for that Refresh button? It’s on the Data tab just as you’d expect. The Data tab in Excel 2016 for Mac. A better way to work with external data connections One of the biggest improvements to working with external data connections in Excel for Windows in recent releases has been the Connection Manager. It provides a central place to see all of the data connections in a workbook, see where they are used, and modify, remove or refresh each one individually. With Excel 2016 for Mac, you now have that same Connection Manager you are familiar with from Windows. All of your connections are displayed, and you can click any of them to see where they are used in your workbook and to perform any action. The all-new Connection Manager in Excel 2016 for Mac. The Connection Properties dialog has been streamlined as well to match Excel for Windows, so that you now only see the properties that apply to your particular data connection. All of your connection properties are in one place and just like Excel for Windows. However, what good is easier management of your data connections if it’s too hard to create them to begin with? With Excel 2016 for Mac, creating a connection to SQL Server is easier than ever. On the Data tab, simply select New Database Query > SQL Server ODBC, and you are presented with a simple connection dialog. Once it’s filled out, the newly redesigned MSQuery launches. The all-new MSQuery in Excel 2016 for Mac. The new MSQuery experience is very similar to the SQL Query Analyzer that many of you have worked with. On the left is a listing of the databases and tables in your database that you can explore. At the top right is a color-coded SQL editor, and at the bottom right are the results of any query you run. Simply enter a SQL statement, click Run Query to make sure it works. Once it does, click Return Data to drop your data right back into your worksheet. And that’s it; your data is now in your Excel workbook, live and ready to use in Excel 2016 for Mac or Excel for Windows! Working with a third-party data provider works the exact same way. The only difference is that after installing the data provider, you select New Database Query > From Database and then select your data provider from the Apple iODBC manager. Now it’s your turn! We think we’ve made huge strides in making external data easier than ever in Excel 2016 for Mac and we hope you do too. Give it a try and let us know of any questions or feedback you have in the comments! The post Working with external data in Excel 2016 for Mac appeared first on Office Blogs.

In this episode, Jeremy Thake and Richard DiZerega talk to Jason Himmelstein about Power BI. http://officeblogspodcastswest.blob.core.windows.net/podcasts/EP59_Himmelstein.mp3 Download the podcast. Weekly updates office.com/getting-started Office Dev Show  Episode 6—Hackathons Boomerang for Outlook Pure CSS Burger Menu in SharePoint by Stefan Bauer Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider program APIs - Onboarding Tutorial Now in public preview: The Converged Microsoft Account and Azure Active Directory Programming Model Setup your development environment for High trust Saml Claims based SharePoint provider hosted applications using OWIN and an easy to use STS—part 3  by Bas Litjen Create Yammer group as another user  by Chris O’Conner Calling video O365 Video API from Win10 UWP by Corey Roth SharePoint Tabbed web parts by Mark Rackley js Dev for .Net Developers Series  by Andrew Connell Show notes powerbi.microsoft.com John White’s blog Richard Dizerega’s blog post on Power BI Got questions or comments about the show? Join the O365 Dev Podcast on the Office 365 Technical Network. The podcast RSS is available iTunes or search for it on "Office 365 Developer Podcast" or add directly with the RSS http://feeds.feedburner.com/Office365DeveloperPodcast. About Jason Himmelstein Jason Himmelstein is a Microsoft SharePoint MVP and an ITPro Solutions Architect with more than 18 years of experience working with Microsoft and related technologies. With a passion for technology, Jason has spent the past eight years dedicated to SharePoint, becoming a recognized expert in the field. Jason has successfully architected solutions for up to 120,000 users and maintains an active speaking schedule, addressing conferences around the world. He is currently the Office 365 Advisory Services Manager for Rackspace. You can find him blogging at www.sharepointlonghorn.com and follow him on @sharepointlhorn. About the hosts Jeremy is a technical product manager at Microsoft responsible for the Visual Studio Developer story for Office 365 development. Previously he worked at AvePoint Inc., a large ISV, as the chief architect shipping two apps to the Office Store. He has been heavily involved in the SharePoint community since 2006 and was awarded the SharePoint MVP award four years in a row before retiring the title to move to Microsoft. You can find Jeremy blogging at www.jeremythake.com and tweeting at @jthake.   Richard is a software engineer in Microsoft’s Developer Experience (DX) group, where he helps developers and software vendors maximize their use of Microsoft cloud services in Office 365 and Azure. Richard has spent a good portion of the last decade architecting Office-centric solutions, many that span Microsoft’s diverse technology portfolio. He is a passionate technology evangelist and frequent speaker are worldwide conferences, trainings and events. Richard is highly active in the Office 365 community, popular blogger at www.richdizz.com, and can be found on twitter at @richdizz. Richard is born, raised and based in Dallas, TX but works on a worldwide team based in Redmond. In his spare time, Richard is an avid builder of things (BoT), musician, and lightning fast runner. Useful links Office 365 Developer Center Blog Twitter Facebook StackOverflow http://aka.ms/AskSharePointDev http://aka.ms/AskOfficeDev http://aka.ms/AskOffice365Dev Yammer Office 365 Technical Network O365 Dev Podcast O365 Dev Apps Model O365 Dev Tools O365 Dev APIs O365 Dev Migration to App Model O365 Dev Links UserVoice The post Episode 059 with Jason Himmelstein on Power BI development—Office 365 Developer Podcast appeared first on Office Blogs.

Today, we are excited to announce deeper integration between Outlook and our other key Office apps for iPhone and iPad—Word, Excel and PowerPoint—designed to make it easier than ever to collaborate on and share Office documents on the go. In many organizations, Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents capture the bulk of the knowledge and experiences that information workers produce—strategy documents, sales presentations, contracts, market analyses, etc. In our personal lives, these documents contain to-do lists, travel itineraries, monthly budgets and more. This information is then frequently shared with others in email using Outlook. Outlook for iOS now opens Office documents sent as attachments directly in their respective apps, replacing the simple viewers we previously used. We’ve also streamlined the steps required to collaborate on files sent as attachments. These updates, combined with Outlook’s Focused Inbox, tight integration with calendar, customizable swipe gestures and predictive search help you get more done, even on the smallest screen. Let’s take a look at these new features. Open attachments right from Outlook Editing Office documents sent as attachments is now quick and simple. Tapping on an attachment in Outlook will open the file directly in Word, Excel or PowerPoint, ready for editing in the richest and most powerful authoring apps for iOS. If you haven’t yet downloaded the Office apps, Outlook will load a built-in viewer and provide a link to download the app in the App Store. You can tell which apps are installed by noting the Open in <app name> text underneath the title of the attachment. The Open in Word text indicates Outlook will open the file directly in Word. If an Office app is not installed, Outlook opens the file in a simple viewer and provides a link to the App Store. Collaborate with attachments in email A common scenario for many is collaborating on attachments and sending edits in email. To date, this activity was almost exclusively done at a computer, due to the many manual and sometimes confusing steps necessary when using the built-in Mail app for iOS. Outlook and the other Office apps make this process a breeze. With the latest updates, once you’ve opened a file from Outlook and finished making your changes, a single tap on the Back button closes the document and returns you to Outlook, automatically adding the now-updated file as an attachment in your reply. Sending attachments with Outlook Editing and sharing Office documents doesn’t always start from your inbox. While the best experience for collaborating on a document with others is to save and share the file from OneDrive, sometimes an attachment is necessary. Word, Excel and PowerPoint now include a "Send with Outlook" option in the "Share" menu. This button will bring up the Outlook "Compose New Email" pane with the document attached and ready to share. Productivity on the go Together, Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook for iOS bring together the core tools you need to get things done, even on the smallest screen. Download the Office apps for iPhone and iPad for free today and let us know what you think of our latest updates. The teams are always hard at work making improvements, and we want your feedback to make Outlook better! Please share your comments within Outlook by going to Settings > Suggest a Feature. Frequently asked questions Q. Is this capability available for Office for Windows and Android? A. Office for Windows has had rich integration between Outlook and Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents for decades. We expect this capability to be available on Android in the next couple of months. Q. When is OneDrive for Business support coming to Outlook for iOS? A. Outlook for iOS connects to OneDrive, Dropbox, iCloud, Google Drive and Box. We will be updating Outlook for iOS to connect to OneDrive for Business later this year. The post Deeper integration between Office documents and Outlook for iOS appeared first on Office Blogs.

This month’s Office 365 Dev Digest was written by Jeremy Thake, technical product manager for the Office 365 Dev team. Welcome to the sixth edition of Dev Digest, designed to help you—the Office 365 developer—keep up-to-date with what’s new in Office 365 development. It has been another busy month for the team, with some great strides to get new developers started with our APIs and add-ins. You can check this out yourself by navigating to dev.office.com/getting-started. From this page, you can follow the page flow, sign in with your Office 365 credentials, create an Azure application, and then download a code sample pre-filled with the client ID and secret, so you can immediately run your sample in your environment. We’ve targeted Android, ASP.NET MVC, iOS, Node.js, PHP, Python and Ruby with this first release for the API flow. The team will continue to iterate on this to make it even easier based on all your feedback. I’m really proud of the work done here because it spanned so many teams and a lot of feedback both internally and externally. We have also been working hard this month on getting more code samples out there. If you visit dev.office.com/codesamples, you will see that we’ve added new samples for the newly released Windows UWP projects along with our version 2 of our hero demo, showcased at Build and Ignite, called the Property Manager. We have had a lot of feedback from developers not knowing what you can do with the platform, so we have created a new Snack video showcase of short 3-5 minute videos. These videos help you to see what is possible through Office Store add-in demos and open sourced code samples. I encourage you all to engage with us on the Office 365 Technical Network with your questions. Dev documentation The Microsoft Content Publishing team works hard producing documentation to help developers learn our platform. Here are the key new and updated articles for this month: Office 365 APIs Authenticating with v2.0 app model preview Authenticate Office 365 and Outlook.com APIs using the v2.0 app model preview Limitations and restrictions of the V2.0 app model preview What’s new about the v2.0 app model preview Register an app to use the v2.0 authentication app model Types of applications supported by the v2.0 app model preview Scopes, permissions, and consent in the v2.0 app model preview Authentication protocols reference for the v2.0 app model preview Token reference for the v2.0 app model preview Outlook Use the Outlook REST API Outlook Mail REST API Reference Outlook Contacts REST API Reference Outlook Calendar REST API Reference Office 365 JavaScript UI controls OneDrive iOS SDK now available for OneDrive, preview for OneDrive for Business Webhooks for OneDrive personal are available in preview For more documentation check out Office developer documentation. Code samples Our team is continually on the lookout for new code samples to help you jump-start your own projects. Here is a list of the most recent new and updated samples from Microsoft as well as the dev community: OneNote REST API Explorer for Android OneNote REST API Explorer for iOS Office 365 Meeting Feedback Sample for Android Property Manager Code Sample Most recent Office 365 Dev podcasts Since joining Microsoft last year, I have been running around campus interviewing people about various dev topics. If you would like to hear me interview someone on a particular topic, please submit your suggestions in the Yammer group, and I’ll go hunt the relevant people down to interview. Here are the most recent podcast interviews: Episode 059 with Jason Himmelstein on PowerBI Episode 058 with Paul Katz on building Office add-ins for enterprise Episode 057 with Jim Epes on the App Awards Episode 056 on building products on top of SharePoint Online with Doug Ware Episode 055 on how Sunrise uses the Calendar API with Pierre-Élie Fauche For more podcasts check out dev.office.com/podcasts. Office Dev Show The Office Dev Show is our dedicated Channel 9 show focusing on all things Office 365 development-related. The show previews capabilities and features of the Office extensibility platform, as well as facilitating developers getting started building on Office 365 with a variety of technologies. Here are the episodes we’ve published to date: Episode 1—Unified API Episode 2—Getting Started Part 1 Kick-off Episode 3—Patterns and Practices Episode 4—Getting Started with PHP Episode 5—Interactive API Tutorials Episode 6—Hackathons Stay tuned to the show, publishing new episodes every Wednesday morning. Patterns and practices The Microsoft Patterns and Practices team is working hard to release samples to show the power of SharePoint add-ins. Don’t forget to join the monthly community calls to hear the updates from them directly on the monthly releases and concentration areas in the future. Thanks also for everyone who contributed in the previous release of the PnP from the community side. Your input is highly appreciated. Here are the latest updates from the team: Updated Transform page on office.com/transform Office 365 Developer Patterns and Practices (PnP)—August 2015 release details PnP August 2015 monthly community call recording at Channel 9 New training package created based on the PnP guidance at OfficeDevPnPTraining Numerous new videos in the PnP Channel 9 check at OfficeDevPnPVideos Numerous updates and new articles to PnP section in MSDN at OfficeDevPnPMSDN For more on patterns and practices check out dev.office.com/patterns-and-practices. All questions related on released materials and guidance can be added to our Yammer group at OfficeDevPnPYammer. Dev community blog posts The Office 365 dev community has been busy this month. It is exciting to see the effort people put into their posts in their spare time to share with the community. Check out these articles from the Microsoft field, MVPs and more: Office Dev Show Episode 4—Getting started with PHP Office 365 Developer Patterns and Practices—August 2015 release Office 365 API updates—OneNote OneNote API supports DELETE page by Diane Diaz Office add-in updates—PowerPoint, Word, Excel Property Manager Hero demo version 2 Ships! Connecting to Office 365 from an Office add-in by Richard DiZerega Contacts API Windows 10 Universal Windows Platform (UWP) by Richard DiZerega Connecting to Office 365 APIs from a Windows 10 UWP by Richard DiZerega Glyma for SharePoint is now open source! by Paul Culmsee The Office 365 API—OneDrive / Files API by Add-in Express How to set up a simple STS for web application development—Part 1 of 3 by Bas Lijten Configure claims-based web applications using OWIN WsFederation middleware by Bas Lijten A Worldmap list visualization for SharePoint Online by Yuri Burger Web add-ins—Coercion types in Word by Cindy Meister VBA->JS: Error handling (Syntax & Concept) by Cindy Meister My Experiences with the Office Dev PnP PowerShell Cmdlets by Daniel Laskewitz Modify Regional and Language settings with JSOM and JavaScript by Vardhaman Despande All you need to know about Azure Active Directory Applications in a few lines by Stephane Eysken’s Webcam Add-in for SharePoint by John Liu Building Apps for Windows 10 with Visual Studio 2015 Office Mobile apps for Windows 10 hit general availability Skype Group calls free Snack videos Souping up Office 365 by Andrew Connell Creating our first SharePoint 2013 Hosted App—Image Slider by Michael Koger Web Add-ins for (Word) VBA developers—Introduction by Cindy Meister Web Add-ins: Analyzing the "Hello World" JavaScript by Cindy Meister Office Web Add-ins: Developer IDE by Cindy Meister AAD Apps versus Yammer Apps to consume Yammer APIs by Stephan Eysken SharePoint Online credentials versus Azure Active Directory apps versus ACS apps by Stephan Eysken Creating Office add-ins—using ADAL JS and the Office 365 Unified API by Matthias Einig Office 365 OneNote API in Web Application by Garima Agrawal Office Tools for Visual Studio 2013 November 2014 update—Visual Studio 2013 April 2015 update breaks Add Connected Service Getting all Apps from your Tenant App Catalog using the Office 365 (CSOM) API JSOM Provisioning: Creating SharePoint artifacts without declarative XML STOP using SPDisposeCheck (or MSOCAF) with SharePoint 2013! Now! Office add-in training updates Office 365 API training updates Office Dev Show Office 365 YouTube Channel Debugging errors in SharePoint add-in development Automated testing of a Provider Hosted App with PowerShell Apply grid system to SharePoint using SUSY Office 365 Profile Angular sample JavaScript for VBA Developers—a short history Building a SharePoint Online chat room with SignalR and Azure Visual Studio 2015 ship event Caption this photo by Tobias Zimmergren Office Store Companies across the globe are extending the value of Office every day with Office add-ins. See how these solutions are making a difference at companies by watching their stories on betterwith.office.com! We are just a few days away from completing our next video, about a Seattle-area company that uses the D&B add-in for Office 365 to help track and qualify new customers. Check back in a few days! We plan to take the video program big this year, by baking in customer story videos into our developer evangelism (DX) Go-To-Market efforts with newly recruited partners. We’ll start marketing the site heavily in the coming weeks. Summertime tends to be a bit slower in the Store, but we’re still seeing a steady flow of new submissions and tons of updates to older add-ins. Several newcomers that impressed our validation team are below: LIA Publisher By Liberated Intelligence & Analysis, Inc. Empowers LIA admins and publishers to upload and publish straight into LIA from PowerPoint. Supported languages: English WealthStation Financial Planning By SunGard Business Systems, LLC WealthStation Financial Planning offers tools that provide quick assessments of retirement goals. Supported languages: English CYRIS for Outlook By Thales Communications and Security Encrypt and share sensitive files by email with CYRIS for Outlook! Supported languages: English, French KMailPrint By Keluro KMailPrint is an Outlook add-in that prints to PDF your emails. Supported languages: English, French Upcoming events There are plenty of events on the horizon…don’t miss out on these great events with Office 365 content. Our team looks forward to meeting you all at these events, so don’t be shy—come say hello at the Office 365 booth! Aug. 18-20 SharePoint Fest, Seattle Oct. 12 Unity Connect, Amsterdam Oct. 14 DevIntersection, Amsterdam Oct. 26 DevIntersection, Las Vegas Nov. 9-12 European SharePoint conference For more events check out dev.office.com/events. Until next month, please join our community discussions at www.yammer.com/itpronetwork and follow us on @OfficeDev on Twitter and on Facebook. Also, be sure to follow along with us on our daily developer mission: Jeremy Thake (@jthake), Chris Johnson (@loungflyz), Sonya Koptyev (@SonyaKoptyev), Dave Pae (@davidpae) and Jim Epes (@j_epes). —Jeremy Thake The post Office 365—monthly Dev Digest for August appeared first on Office Blogs.

"There is nothing so stable as change." —Bob Dylan One thing is certain: the advent of the Office 365 service has brought an unprecedented amount of innovation and change to our productivity and collaboration products. We’re constantly improving it, too—responding to customer demand and feedback and maintaining a tireless pursuit to reinvent productivity and provide the best set of services to help people work together. Over the past year, we released more than 450 updates to Office 365, both large and small. So many updates can be hard to keep track of, so we’re making improvements to the tools and processes you can use to keep up to speed on all these changes. During the past two weeks, we launched a new round of Wearable Productivity apps—such as Outlook and Yammer for Apple Watch and OneNote and OneDrive for Android Wear—as part of our quest to reinvent productivity on all platforms. We also announced previews of our new Skype for Business apps for iOS and Android, and real-time co-authoring for Word documents stored on OneDrive in Office 2016. In addition, we announced a new round of partner add-ins for Outlook that are designed to extend your email capabilities and help you get more done from your inbox. Last week, we also unveiled another set of innovative changes to Yammer, including a fresh new look and feel that’s designed for teamwork from the ground up. It’s all part of our ongoing mission to optimize Yammer for teams and to bring the benefits of open collaboration to teamwork. Below is a roundup of some key news items from the last couple of weeks. Enjoy! Catalent—pharmaceutical tech company boosts global efficiency, productivity with Office 365—Learn how Office 365 is helping Catalent transition from a collection of 30 semi-autonomous sites to a cohesive global organization. Newcastle City Council adopts the cloud with Office 365 and Azure—Find out how the Newcastle City Council in the UK is using Microsoft cloud services to improve collaboration and productivity, save money, and liberate IT staff. Microsoft’s Office 365 wins back Italian municipality after costly open source switch—Discover how Office 365 provides a much lower total cost of ownership (TCO) than alternative solutions. Natural Resources Wales uses Microsoft and mobile to unify departments—Learn how a new environmental organization in Wales used Office 365 and other Microsoft cloud services to merge and manage three separate government agencies. Microsoft updates Yammer Group Tools and promises deeper Office 365 integration—Find out more about Microsoft’s plans for Yammer and Office 365. Will OneDrive get you hooked on Office 365?—Discover how integration with OneDrive makes Office 365 even more appealing. The post Office 365 news roundup appeared first on Office Blogs.

We all know that online education allows for learning flexibility. Whether taking courses for professional development, continuing education, certification or credit, eLearning provides a convenient way for a student to meet their learning objectives.  The media company, Tech Cocktail, recently compiled a list of what they feel are 2014’s top projected learning trends for online universities and course creators to keep in mind in order to meet the needs of online students. "Learning on the go" - Today’s students utilize media on a variety of mediums and have become used to "instant gratification" when searching for answers, information or material.  Today’s online universities will need to provide courses and materials that are mobile friendly and that can be accessed on tablets, phones and other smart devices. "Learning at the speed of need" - Today’s students want their courses, tutorials and reading material easily accessible, whenever and wherever they might need it.  Short, quick lessons that allow a student to study and assimilate information quickly and efficiently will be most desirable.  Having the ability to access all study materials and course information right from their smart device makes learning, reviewing material and taking exams easier than ever.  "Gamification" - Learning through games will continue to grow as a trend in online education.  Companies are already developing apps that encourage students to spend time learning through play and Tech Cocktail expects this to continue to be a major eLearning trend in the future.  "Videos" - Informative videos have been shown to more fully engage a student as they provide both visual as well as auditory material.  The use of short, informative videos can enhance the online learning experience for any type of learner. Meeting the needs of today’s students and keeping abreast of new technologies and advances is paramount to the success of any online university or education company.  Ed4Online has long incorporated many of these as well as other important elements into their courses.  Our courses are self-paced and utilize a variety of learning methods and varied multi-media. We give students access to external information so that they can get connected to websites, videos, blogs, and communities that are in their field of interest. This type of learning encourages students to see their education as a portal to ongoing life-long learning about themselves, their world, and their industry. Please view our course catalog here: https://ed4online.com/ Source: http://tech.co/online-education-trends-2014-04       

A phrase caught my eye the other day, "whether you know it or not, you are marketing yourself each and every day."  How true!  We are sending messages about ourselves in everything we do - every action we take, every word we speak, every email we send. From holding the door for a stranger to how we treat the customer service representative on the other end of the phone - we are showing others who we are. The more we are aware of the image that we are projecting, the more we should try to focus on intentionally sending the right messages - putting our best self out there - and making sure that the image we are portraying is the one that we want others to see.  The three big steps in self-awareness and self-marketing: Prepare - Know your value and establish goals: 1. Who are you now? Make a list of your best qualities.  If you were to ask friends and coworkers to describe you now, what would they say?  Create a "positioning statement" about yourself.  Hone in on who you are, your strengths and your positive attributes. Identify and state what sets you apart from others. 2. What do you want out of life? Be as specific as possible.  Use both short and long term goals. 3. How will you know when you've reached your goals?  Write down the key indicators that will let you know you’ve reached your goals.  It could be landing that new job, completing a specific course, obtaining certification, or expanding your social network. Package - How people judge you Even though you may not be aware of it, people are constantly judging you and assessing your capabilities by noticing many different things about you. How?  With your eye contact, body language, appearance, speech.  You also market yourself with your quality of work.  And still others will pick up on your work ethic, sincerity, punctuality, etc. Other cues that people use when forming opinions about who you might be: Clothing / Hair / Weight / Height Jewelry / Facial hair / Makeup / Glasses Smell / Teeth / Smile Eye contact / Gait / Posture / Tone of voice / Laugh Nervous habits / Handshake / Neatness Handwriting / Spelling / Phone skills Car / Office / Home Enthusiasm / Energy level   Present and Promote Yourself - Now that you know you have a lot to offer, how will you let others know?  Create and maintain a professional resume Stay current in your field and search for ways to continue your learning and gain expertise Study a specialty niche in your field to increase your value to your company Network - in person, via social networks, at business meetings, trade shows, charity events Join clubs, professional groups and organizations Serve on committees and boards or volunteer your time Make sure that any social media channels that you post on are presenting the "you" that you want others to see.  Keep your posts professional and connect with like-minded individuals.   Once you become more aware of your value, setting goals, presenting your "best self" to others, and getting your information out there, you are well on your way to mastering the art of personal branding and marketing yourself! Ed4Online has hundreds of career and professional development courses to help you attain your goals.  Visit our website today to learn more.   Sources: http://www.boston.com/business/blogs/global-business-hub/2012/02/personal_brandi.html http://www.gmarketing.com/articles/163-guerrilla-marketing-yourself       

June is PTSD Awareness Month. Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is an anxiety disorder that may develop after exposure to a traumatic event. A traumatic event is something terrible and scary that you see, hear about, or that happens to you, like: Combat exposure Child sexual or physical abuse Terrorist attack Sexual or physical assault Serious accidents, like a car wreck Natural disasters, like a fire, tornado, hurricane, flood, or earthquake Anyone who has gone through a life-threatening event can develop PTSD including military troops who served in wars; rescue workers for catastrophes like the 2001 terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C.; survivors of the Oklahoma City bombing; survivors of accidents, rape, physical or sexual abuse, and other crimes; immigrants fleeing violence in their countries; survivors of earthquakes, floods, and hurricanes; and those who witness traumatic events. Family members of victims can develop the disorder as well. According to the National Center for PTSD, about 8 out of every 100 people (or 7-8% of the population) will have PTSD at some point in their lives. About 5.2 million adults have PTSD during a given year. This is only a small portion of those who have gone through a trauma. Women are more likely than men to develop PTSD. About 10% of women develop PTSD sometime in their lives compared with 5% of men. The National Center for PTSD  is working to raise awareness about PTSD and the importance of awareness. That is why their focus this year is to Learn, Connect and Share. Their campaign aims to encourage all Americans to educate themselves about PTSD, its signs/symptoms and treatment. Symptoms of PTSD: 1.  Reliving the event (also called re-experiencing symptoms) Memories of the traumatic event can come back at any time. People affected may feel the same fear and horror they did when the event took place. For example, they may experience: Nightmares. Feeling like they are going through the event again. This is called a flashback. They may see, hear, or smell something that causes them to relive the event. This is called a trigger. News reports, seeing an accident, or hearing a car backfire are examples of triggers. 2.  Avoiding situations that remind them of the event They may try to avoid situations or people that trigger memories of the traumatic event. They may even avoid talking or thinking about the event. For example, they may: Avoid crowds, because they feel dangerous. Avoid driving if they were in a car accident or if their military convoy was bombed. Avoid watching movies about a natural disaster if they experienced one. Avoid or put off seeking help because it keeps them from having to think or talk about the event. 3.  Negative changes in beliefs and feelings The way that they think about themselves and others changes because of the trauma. This symptom has many aspects, including the following: They may not have positive or loving feelings toward other people and may stay away from relationships. They may forget about parts of the traumatic event or not be able to talk about them. They may think the world is completely dangerous, and no one can be trusted. 4.  Feeling keyed up (also called hyperarousal) They may be jittery, or always alert and on the lookout for danger. They might suddenly become angry or irritable. For example, they may: Have a hard time sleeping. Have trouble concentrating. Be startled by a loud noise or surprise. Want to have their back to a wall in a restaurant or waiting room. Some of the treatments available: Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is one type of counseling. Research shows it is the most effective type of counseling for PTSD. The VA provides two forms of cognitive behavioral therapy to Veterans with PTSD: Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT) and Prolonged Exposure (PE) therapy. Medications have been shown to be effective. A type of drug known as a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI), which is also used for depression, has been found to be effective for many being treated for PTSD. In Group therapy, they talk with a group of people who also have been through a trauma and who have PTSD. Sharing their story with others may help them feel more comfortable talking about their trauma. This can help them cope with their symptoms, memories, and other parts of their life. In Brief psychodynamic psychotherapy, they learn ways of dealing with emotional conflicts caused by trauma. This therapy helps them to understand how their past affects the way they feel now. Family therapy is an important treatment option because PTSD can affect the whole family. A therapist helps them and their family to communicate, maintain good relationships, and to cope with tough emotions. The family can also learn more about PTSD and how it is treated. PTSD Awareness Day 2014 The National Child Traumatic Stress Network  invites everyone on June 27, 2014 to bring greater awareness to the issue of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD).  The more people know, the more they can do to help. With knowledge comes understanding; a willingness to share experiences, provide support and to reduce the stigma. Remember to Learn, Connect and Share. One way to learn about PTSD and other behavioral health topics is through Ed4Online. Ed4Online is proud to offer an extensive catalog of courses for individuals interested in learning more about behavioral health and for those who want to work as direct support professionals. Please visit our website here to learn more: https://ed4online.com/.       

"Make the most of yourself....for that is all there is of you."  ― Ralph Waldo Emerson Lifelong learning is about seeking or creating learning opportunities for both personal and professional development.  Lifelong learning is important because it applies to everything that we learn throughout our life, not just what is learned in a classroom. Learning allows us to make better, informed decisions. It enhances our understanding of the world around us, betters our social skills and our increases our personal development. Lifelong learning also assists us in becoming more successful in our careers as advances in technology require that we learn something new each and every day in order to keep our skills current in the workplace. There are many reasons for learning throughout life; two of which are personal development and professional development.  It’s important to note that these two reasons may not entirely be separate as personal development can improve your professional life and professional development can benefit your personal existence. Learning for personal development - Keeping an active and sharp mind will be of benefit your entire life.  Learning something new is a rewarding experience. Some examples of learning for personal development might include wanting to increase skills and knowledge around a pastime or hobby that you enjoy (photography, floral arranging).  You might want to brush up on computer skills and social media sites in order to more easily allow you to keep in touch with friends and loved ones.  Or maybe you will decide to take a degree course later in life simply because you enjoy the subject matter and the challenges of academic study. Learning for professional development - Employers are looking for well-balanced people with transferable skills - one key area is the ability to demonstrate that you are eager to learn and develop. Whether you currently are employed or if you are seeking employment, take advantage of training, coaching or mentoring opportunities.  Investing in your continuous development will allow you to add skills to your resume and make you more valuable and indispensable to your current or future employer. A more highly skilled and knowledgeable worker is an asset to any company and can lead to faster advancement within the company. Ed4Online is excited to announce the launch of our brand new online catalog of personal enrichment courses tailored to meet the needs of those seeking to fulfill a desire for life-long learning.  Our new expanded range of courses features an exceptional variety of core subjects, allowing for enrichment of important personal and professional skills. Structured as four-week seminars and led by Ed4Online's expert instructors, each personal enrichment course will focus on a key topic that's applicable to both personal growth and professional development. Students will be able to directly connect and interact with others taking the course, similar to a physical classroom, but with the convenience of being able to access the course from anywhere offering an Internet connection. Ed4Online's expanded catalog will offer courses in the following disciplines: Accounting and Finance, Business and Management, Coaching, College Readiness, Computer Applications, Entrepreneurship, Fitness and Health, Healthcare and Medical, Law and Legal, Marketing and Social Media, Personal Development, Teaching and Education, Test Preparation, and Writing and Publishing. Pursue lifelong learning through convenient and affordable online courses you can take anytime, anywhere. Experience the Ed4Online difference!  https://ed4online.com/personal-enrichment Sources: http://info.aiuonline.edu/aiuzine/issue31/theme1.asp http://www.skillsyouneed.com/ps/lifelong-learning.html#ixzz33TvrGqQC