How to get back the old view in Outlook?

Office 365 Users would have experienced a change in the layout of the way emails are listed in their Inbox. Previously the Inbox had two Categories All and Unread. But recently they made a change to declutter the Inbox. Mails that Outlook deems as Important or personalized emails come under the Focussed Category. And Mails that are related to promotions or subscriptions come under the Other Category.

There might be some of you who have not embraced this new change with the feeling that they might miss out on emails. Outlook would not send you desktop notifications on emails that belong to the Other Category. They would only send notifications to the emails that come to the Focussed Category. Fortunately there is a way to go back to the old view. Here is how to do it!

The Steps

1. Activate the View Tab
2. Click on “Show Focussed Inbox”. 

 

And that is it! Now you would notice that the layout has changed to All/Unread 🙂

 

What’s new in Excel 2016 or Excel for Office 365?

Excel has recently come out with some new features that were released to the end users of Office 365.

Some of the features are as follows

1. Deselect Cells- How often have you selected some cells in Excel only to realize later that not all the cells that you selected are required? Then the only way to go about this is to start all over again. But this is a thing of the past since Excel now allows you to deselect cells after making a selection. So, In case you have accidentally selected some cells, you could deselect them rather than going back to square one.
2. Insert 3D Models– Windows 10 users would have noticed a desktop application called Paint 3D. This is where you can create 3D Models. Excel now allows you to Import these models to your spreadsheet in order to better Interpret the Information at hand.
3. Convert SVG Icons to Shapes-SVG also known as Scalable Vector Graphics is a format for Images where the resolution or the sharpness of an Image is maintained even when it is zoomed or blown up. SVG Images can now be transformed Into shapes for further manipulation.

New Features in Outlook for Office 365

Outlook has come up with some new features. Now you can Insert a table directly Into Outlook rather than copying tables from Word or Excel. If your Office has locations in different time zones, you can add a 2nd timezone to your Outlook Calendar. And finally if you are travelling across timezones, Outlook would automatically adjust your Meetings to the new time zone.

How to allow users to download videos in Office 365 Video?

Office 365 Video is an application that is part of the Office 365 suite where users can upload and view videos. By Default only owners of the video can download videos. If you want the viewers to download videos, you would have to follow these steps-

1. Click on the channel where the videos are uploaded.
2. On the top click on Channel Settings. 
3. Select the “Permissions” Option on the left navigation. 
4. On the bottom make sure you choose the option “Owners,Editors,Viewers” from the dropdown. 

Now, your viewers should be able to download videos from the channel. 🙂

Microsoft Stream

Microsoft Stream is a new offering from Microsoft available in the Office 365 Suite. It’s a place where users can upload and view videos. People can create channels and follow the ones that are of Interest. Admins can create groups so that they can target a specific user base like users belonging to a specific department.

This product would slowly replace Office 365 Video. One can say that Office 365 Video is a subset of Microsoft Stream since Microsoft Stream offers far more features and control than Office 365 Video.

I encourage all readers that have Office 365, to check out this app!

 

Setting up Timezone in Outlook Web App

Outlook Web App is the Online Version of the Outlook Client. This obviously runs in the browser of choice. New or fairly new users of Office 365 might receive notifications Informing them that the Timezone has not been set in Outlook. This notification comes in a regular basis and it might get annoying. So, before this gets Into your nerves, here is how one would set up their Timezone in the Outlook Web App. 🙂

The How?

You would have to go to this link https://outlook.office365.com/owa/?path=/options/regional and then select your Timezone and format.

Office 365 Down Detector

Sometimes you might experience Office 365 to be slow or not running at the speed it should be. Or you might encounter Issues with the admin center. There is a website that gives a list of Issues that currently exist with Office 365. It also gives a map to show the areas that are affected by the Office 365 outage.

The website is called Down Detector http://downdetector.com/status/office-365 

 

 

Installing Office 365

In order to Install Office 365 one would have to follow these steps-

1. Login to the http://portal.office.com 
2. Then click on Install Office.
3. After installing Office 365  , activate the Office suite using your Office 365 credentials.

The Installation time might vary from 20-30 minutes depending on your Internet connection. In order to check the status or the progress of the Installation, click on the tray icon that says Office 365.

 

Uninstalling Office 365-Method 2

I had written a blog about 3 months ago regarding Uninstalling Office 365. There is another way to do this which appears to be more efficient. All you have to do is click on this link . This would take you to a Microsoft Office page regarding Uninstalling Office 365. It would show 3 options, we are going to follow the 2nd option ie- Completely uninstall Office with the easy fix tool. 

Click on the Download button and the tool would take care of the rest. This is a recommended method by the Microsoft Tech. Support Team and it would always make sense to follow this 🙂

 

Notification on Office Updates

In Office 365 updates are applied periodically. If updates are to take place, all the open Applications have to be closed. So In case a User is working on an application, he/she needs to be notified before updates occur.

Normally a User is given a notification every 2 hours starting from 12 hours before the deadline. And once the deadline is reached, the User is given a 15 minute warning before Office is restarted. This is done so that the User can save their work before the Application closes.

In order to apply or set a deadline, one can either use Group Policy or the Configuration file from the Office Deployment Tool. If a Deadline is applied to both of them, then the Group Policy takes precedence.