Discover valuable resources and insights for optimizing your business with Microsoft Dynamics. As a trusted Microsoft Dynamics partner, Crestwood Associates provides expert guidance on leveraging Dynamics 365, Office 365, and more to enhance your business operations.
If you’re a visual person like I am, and you like things color coordinated, then you need to check out Color Categories in Microsoft Outlook. This feature has been around since 2010 and it’s a great way to get organized, and keep track of your emails. It helps me to sort and find my messages … Read more
Did you know that you can track your Skype chat conversations in Outlook, track call history, and durations? It can be a useful tool in regard to tracking time with clients or projects. Here’s how I use it. First make sure your Skype Options are set properly. For some companies this is controlled by your … Read more
Our Marketing department here at Crestwood decided to try out Microsoft Teams. I was leery at first, but I have to say, overall, it’s AWESOME! The more I use Teams, the less time I spend searching for emails, files, or switching between screens. Microsoft Teams has brought almost everything into one window. It truly is … Read more
It’s that time of the year again, we are all scrambling to close out 2018 while planning for 2019. There’s a lot of new technology and tools to help, but most of us still resort to the tried and true – Microsoft Excel. If you’re not a pro with formulas, and auto fill – then … Read more
One of my favorite new features of Office 365 – 2016 is the get started quickly with the Start screen. This feature runs across the board with Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Publisher. The Start screen gives you quick access to the most recently used documents, or open other documents from local or cloud storage … Read more
You now can ask Microsoft what you want to do in the search box on the ribbon. This new feature runs across the board in the Office 365 suite of apps. All you have to do is type a keyword or phrase into the “Tell me what you want to do” and bingo, the tools … Read more
Maximize your research time with the integrated Smart Lookup in Microsoft Office products. Smart Lookup is a cool new feature I wish I had back in college. It makes research quick and easy. If you haven’t tried this out, you need to today! What is Smart Lookup? Smart Lookup is a way to research words … Read more
1. Automatic Updates to Well-Known Apps First, your company will always be on the latest version and will not need to worry about upgrading to latest and greatest. Office 365 Enterprise E3 is straightforward to use; most you have been using these products throughout your professional careers. Only difference is your data will be in … Read more
Make my agenda come to me… I love the quote from the overly-ambitious Senator Underwood in “House of Cards.” He was talking to Freddy, a blue-collar owner of a restaurant. Freddy was telling him about his ride to work when he had to swerve to avoid a refrigerator that fell out of the back of … Read more
How many productive Microsoft Visual Studio shortcut keys have you learned but managed to forget? I used to have a shortcut key created using AutoHotkey that would allow me to get to a Word document with a collection of (less often used) shortcuts as a cheat sheet. I recently decided it might be better to … Read more
This week we’re going to talk about Microsoft Office 365 PowerPoint, what it’s used for, and how to set up a new presentation. First things first, you may ask yourself, what will I use PowerPoint for? PowerPoint is software used to create professional looking slideshow presentations. They can be displayed on projectors, big screen TVs, … Read more
How many of you found yourself working on a document and before you know it, the application you are using crashes? You think to yourself, “Oh I hope it saved!” I’ve lost plenty of documents, countless! It’s the worse feeling in the world; all that work you put in and just like that gone! Did … Read more
Raise your hand if you have ever had problems dealing with Headers & Footers in Microsoft Word. Did you raise your hand? I know I did! My boss emailed me a couple weeks ago. “Lauren, can you remove the 3rd page? Every time I try, the footer disappears.” “Not a problem,” I replied, “see attached…” … Read more
Welcome to Crestwood’s new Productivity Tips. Every week we will look at a new feature in Office 365 and show you every day tips and tricks. I’m certain you will find lots of time savers for Outlook, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Microsoft Outlook’s Email Attach File Tool One of my new favorite features of … Read more
Save time upgrading your hard drive. Here’s how to upgrade your drive C: with more space, without having to reinstall Windows from scratch. Items that you’ll need SSD drive to replace the one you have installed. USB thumb drive USB drive with enough space to back up your entire C: drive. Software: Macrium Reflect Software: … Read more
Have you ever had that important question, and just wanted to ping someone quickly for the answer, but when you pull them up, you realize they are busy or presenting? UGH. Then, you move on and totally forget later to ask? Here’s a great little trick – Tagging You can easily tag a person in … Read more
Windows 10 can be tricky when installing Dynamics on workstations. We have run into an annoying issue where the drive won’t stay mapped to a network. Whether you map the drive using the Net Use command or in File Explorer, as soon as you open File Explorer to verify, the drive is no longer showing … Read more
Here’s a HUGE time-saving tip when searching for an email in Microsoft Outlook and Office 365. Who, what, and when are the key. Just follow these simple syntax rules, and you’ll be amazed how easy it is to find those emails. Replace Who with FROM: Replace What with ABOUT: Replace When with RECEIVED: Here’s an example: … Read more
If you use Skype for Business, you can always go in and look at your call history. However, did you know, if you dig a little bit, you can also get the exact time, date and duration of the call? There might be other methods of retrieving this information, but here is the simplest method … Read more
If you are using Microsoft’s Skype for Business and Microsoft CRM, have you noticed that the phone numbers in CRM are hyperlinks? You can click on the links and the system will automatically launch Skype with the phone number all ready queued up to dial. However, did you know that you can also simulate this … Read more