Microsoft Office 2019 Server: Blend of Positives and Limitations

Microsoft Office 2019 Server: Blend of Positives and Limitations

Cloud or on-premise? It’s a question that companies continue to face, and likely will for years to come. Cloud services and applications are now viable alternatives to their local counterparts, yet many companies still hesitate to embrace them fully. Whether it’s through a lack of understanding, fear for security, or pressures within the organization, there remains significant resistance to the cloud.

Recent news about Microsoft’s on-premise Office 2019 Server would seem to indicate that the software giant “gets” the situation and is going out of its way to back something other than its seemingly ubiquitous Office 365.

According to the article, however, shortcomings in Office 2019 Server and, what’s more, a not-so-subtle push within the product toward cloud features makes for a product that’s not as extensible or powerful as it might have been.

The Shortcomings

Starting with Exchange 2019, users will no longer have access to the Unified Messaging role. Also, support for existing Skype for Business Server and third-party PBX is no longer available in the Exchange 2019 mailbox, requiring companies to migrate to Skype for Business Server 2019 or Office 365.

Speaking of Skype for Business, there aren’t many shortcomings; rather, services like Cloud Voicemail, Cloud Auto Attendant, and Cloud Call Data Connector all have one thing in common. You guessed it – reliance on the cloud.

Additionally, Office 2019 installations require the user to be running Windows 10, while server products are supported on Windows Server 2016 and (preferably) 2019. While the article doesn’t go into detail, Office 2019 users will not see the same breadth of features in their applications that counterparts using Office 365 do.

What’s the Verdict?

The article is certainly down on the offering by Microsoft, and there are legitimate reasons for it. Still, it’s not all bad for the on-premise crowd. Exchange 2019 gets support for 48 processor cores and a beefy 256GB RAM, with enhanced indexing and search.

SharePoint Server 2019 is probably the most positively affected, with an increase to 15GB file size limits (opposed to 10GB in SharePoint 2016) and a bump to maximum URL lengths of 400 unicode characters (up from 260 characters).

There’s enough positives sprinkled throughout to make Office 2019 products an alternative to Office 365, for companies bent on using on-premise solutions. It’s clear where Microsoft’s heart is, but they haven’t abandoned on-premise quite yet.

Do you need help navigating your cloud and on-premise computing needs? Contact us to find out how we can help your company put the right technology in place for your unique needs.

PowerPoint Can Be For More Than Just Presentations

PowerPoint Can Be For More Than Just Presentations

Most offices contain a productivity suite, and most productivity suites will come with some type of slideshow software that can be used to prepare presentations.

Microsoft PowerPoint is a great tool to make slideshows, but it can be used for other purposes that you might not immediately think of. We’ll go over some of the best, including when and how you might want to use PowerPoint.

Creating Infographics

Infographics are a tried-and-true way to get across a lot of information in an easily consumable format, but it can be tricky to use certain solutions to create them.

Right out of the box, Microsoft PowerPoint is easy enough to use. You can create various graphs, images, and word art to build out info graphics designed to convey information in an easy-to-follow format. Since PowerPoint also works on a slide-by-slide basis, this makes it easy to compare and contrast information easily enough.

Making Quizzes

Let’s say that your employees need some security training. You’d rather not create another boring presentation that makes them zone out. You can create an engaging exercise by turning a PowerPoint presentation into a quiz.

For example, you can have one question be on one slide along with the answers to the question in a multiple-choice format. You can then display the answer on a separate slide afterward.

Create Animated Shorts

Did you know that PowerPoint actually has quite a lot of built-in animation functionality?

Using these, you can make simple animated shorts. They might not be terribly intuitive, but they are certainly better than nothing–and it’s a great way to get just a little bit more value out of your slideshow solution.

Onboarding New Employees

All businesses have an onboarding process, but depending on the type of organization, that process will differ.

If your organization has a lot of intensive tasks that need to be explained, a PowerPoint can be a great way to provide information about your company culture, any benefits the employee receives, and other important things that they should know.

This means that you can take a fairly long-winded process and have the employee review the information as they go. What are some ways your business uses PowerPoint? Let us know in the comments.

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Tip of the Week: Functional Excel Features

Tip of the Week: Functional Excel Features

Spreadsheets are great for organizing information, but they aren’t particularly interesting to look at–especially if you aren’t using Microsoft Excel features to the best of your ability.

Today’s tip is dedicated to going over some of the more obscure Microsoft Excel tips and tricks that will help you stylize your spreadsheets and make them more dynamic.

Visible Zeros

Have you ever tried to enter in any number that begins with a zero into Excel? Chances are that you have, whether it’s for entering in serial numbers or dates. Excel will hide these zeros, making 000857 actually display as 857. This makes certain data inaccurate. You can fix this issue by adding a quotation mark in front of the number, keeping the zeros from being omitted from the result.

Create a Dropdown List

You can add a dropdown list to your spreadsheet so that it can showcase a lot of information in one particular cell. First, you have to click Validate in the Data tab, located in the header menu. Once you’re on the Settings page, you’ll see a menu labelled Allow. Next, select List and highlight the cells that make up the options you’d like in your dropdown menu. Once you’re done, click OK.

Accessing Tools on the Developer Tab

Depending on what you expect to use Excel for, you might have a need for more advanced capabilities for your spreadsheet. You can create option buttons, macros, and much more. These options can be found in the Developer tab, which will be hidden by default. First, you need to access the Excel menu at the top of your screen. You’ll select Preferences after this. From here, you select Ribbon & Toolbar. You’ll next see a list of the various options that you can add or remove from your Tabs. If you select Developer, you’ll see the tools that we just discussed.

Shading Every Other Row

Spreadsheets are difficult to look at when each row looks the same. You can add shading to the format to make it a little easier on the eyes. To do this, just highlight the area you want for this effect. You can use the shortcut Select All (Ctrl + A) to apply this effect to your entire sheet. In the Home tab, click on the Conditional Formatting option and select New Rule. You’ll then see a Style dropdown menu with the option for Classic. You’ll select Use a formula to determine which cells to format. Enter the formula =MOD(ROW(),2) and pick your desired color, and your spreadsheet should be striped quite nicely.

What are some of your favorite ways to take advantage of Microsoft Excel? Let us know in the comments.

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