Skype for Businesss / Office 2016 Issues and recommended fix

Skype for Business is removed when you upgrade to Office 2016

PROBLEM

Consider the following scenario:
• You have the stand-alone version of Skype for Business installed on your computer.
• You have Microsoft Office 365 Business or Office 365 Business Premium, and you upgrade Microsoft Office 2013 to Office 2016.

In this scenario, you may experience the following issues:
• The Skype for Business client is removed.
• When you try to reinstall the stand-alone Skype for Business client, you receive the following error message:

We have detected these newer versions of Office installed on your device.

To resolve this issue you can install a stand-alone copy of Skype for Business from the following links:

Skype for Business stand-alone (32-bit)
Skype for Business stand-alone (64-bit)

Introducing Office 365 Planner

Introducing Office 365 Planner: We’re excited to introduce a brand new experience in Office 365—Office 365 Planner, which offers people a simple and highly visual way to organize teamwork. Using Boards and Charts, your team can create new plans, organize and assign tasks, share files, chat about what you’re working on, and get updates on progress.

​How to Build a Presentation in Sway

Enabling seamless communication experiences for the web with Skype, Skype for Business and Microsoft Edge

Enabling seamless communication experiences for the web with Skype, Skype for Business and Microsoft Edge: Today we’re excited to share an important step in our efforts to bring seamless real-time communication experiences on the web to everyone—the Object Real-Time Communications Community (ORTC) API preview for Microsoft Edge browser is now available in the latest Windows Insider Preview release!

New Office 365 Admin Center Preview​

Take a peek at the new Office 365 Admin Center Preview ​that is more intuitive, informative, scalable and insightful so that you can do more in Office 365. This is a preview so there is much more to come. 

Office 365 Import Service—migration to SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business just became easier

Office 365 Import Service—migration to SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business just became easier: The Office 365 Import Service has enhanced the SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business content migration experience by making it fast and simple.

Office ProPlus: Current Branch and Current Branch for Business explained

What is Microsoft Current Branch, how does this compare to Current Branch for Business?

For customers who currently use Office 365 ProPlus, (the subscription version of Office apps for companies and organizations), you can continue to receive monthly feature and security updates just as you have been over the past few years. Moving forward, this always up-to-date approach is called Current Branch and means that you always have the most current Office apps and capabilities deployed. The next Current Branch will release on September 22nd and will have all of the new Office 2016 app updates included.

Based on feedback from many organizations running Office 365 ProPlus, I am excited to announce that we are adding a new option for updating Office called Current Branch for Business. If your organization typically waits a few months prior to rolling out a new version of Office or needs more time to test Office 2016 and your customizations between feature updates, this will be welcomed news.

Consistent with Windows 10 approach, the new Current Branch for Business update model delivers three cumulative feature updates per year, while continuing to offer monthly security updates. You’ll see the first Current Branch for Business build in February 2016—which is effectively the same feature set as the September 22nd release, but with four additional months of security updates also included. This tri-annual update model offers an additional way for Office 365 ProPlus to stay current moving forward. You can find out about the new servicing options on TechNet.

Office 2016 released date announced

Great news!

Microsoft have just confirmed Office 2016 will be broadly available starting on September 22nd. 

Business with a a volume licensing agreement in place, you can download Office 2016 from the Volume Licensing Service Center starting October 1st.

Microsoft announce new partnership with Dell

http://news.microsoft.com/2015/09/08/microsoft-and-dell-partner-to-deliver-windows-10-devices-and-unmatched-sales-services-and-support-to-the-enterprise/

Microsoft Getting in bed with Dell makes the Surface a better bet than ever for businesses

There is no doubt that the Microsoft surface brand has gone from a quirky niche product to a real laptop alternative,  however there are still limitations.

Although Microsoft are hugely experienced in manufacture of peripherals and accessories, they are relative newcomers in the endpoint market.  A result of this is a limited channel model, with very few resellers able to sell the product, and poor after sale hardware support.

The lack of support is a major issue for business, who need a predicable, cost effective method for supporting and repairing their hardware.

To address these issues, Microsoft have announced a major new initiative to partner with Dell to sell and support their Surface devices.

This will allow Dell to provide the option of Dell Services, including Dell Hardware Warranty (up to 4 years), ProSupport with Accidental Damage Service, and Configuration and Deployment Services.

The quality of the Surface product combined with these services, makes the Surface device a much more attractive proposition.

Top 10 Facts - Microsoft

Check out this interesting video from Top10Memes detailing the history of Microsoft in 10 top facts

Check out the latest Windows 10 devices from IFA 2015

Great blog from Microsoft showing the best new Windows 10 devices from IFA 2015

http://blogs.windows.com/bloggingwindows/2015/09/04/windows-10-experiences-come-to-life-on-new-devices/

Office 365 Changes - Aug 2015

Here is a round-up of changes to Office 365 for the month of August:

Learn how to use the new Waterfall chart in Excel 2016—The Waterfall chart is one of the most popular visualization tools used by businesses. When you use this new Excel chart, with just a few clicks you can show how you arrived at a net value by breaking down the cumulative effect of positive and negative contributions. This post shows you how to use a Waterfall chart to visualize a financial statement, use subtotals as a visual checkpoint in the chart, customize charts, and use the chart beyond financial analysis, for example, for navigating data about population, births and deaths.

Sway now available worldwide and Sway for Windows 10 is here—Sway, the digital storytelling app, is moving from preview to general availability and is rolling out to eligible Office 365 for business and education customers worldwide. That means any individual with a free Microsoft account can now use Sway, and more businesses, schools and other organizations can use Sway to create and share interactive reports, presentations, assignments, lessons, projects and more. Sway for Windows 10 has arrived too, along with a new layout option and new publishing capabilities like using Docs.com to share your Sways.

New apps to wear to help you stay productive—Wearables are hot and so are our new apps for them. Check out the new and updated wearable productivity apps. The all-new Outlook for Apple Watch lets you reply, schedule and archive right from your wrist, and the all-new Microsoft Translator for Apple Watch and Android Wear provides instant translation into 50 languages. Wunderlist for Apple Watch now has Quick Add magic, OneDrive for Android Wear got several improvements, and OneNote for Android Wear was redesigned to let you say, see and do more. Plus, Yammer for Apple Watch is coming soon.

Break down hierarchical data with the new Treemap and Sunburst charts—In Excel 2016, regardless of the format of your hierarchical data, you can create a Treemap or Sunburst hierarchy chart to reveal insights into your data. This post describes what hierarchical data is and what it looks like, explains how to choose between a Treemap or Sunburst chart for your data, and gives you tips for creating beautiful, intuitive hierarchical charts. Try out both new chart types and create a look for your data unlike any other chart you’ve previously used in Office.

New Outlook partner add-ins and expanded rollout of Outlook.com preview—New partnerships with Evernote, Yelp, IFTTT and Wunderlist and new add-ins are enhancing the Outlook experience for consumer and commercial users. The new add-ins—Uber, PayPal, Evernote and Boomerang—are rolling out now to help you get more done right from your inbox. The IFTTT, Yelp and Wunderlist add-ins are coming soon. Also, the preview of the new Outlook.com is being expanded to a broader audience. Read about the new add-ins and start using them now.

Preview real-time coauthoring on OneDrive—Now when two or more users running the latest Office 2016 Preview release open the same Word document from OneDrive, they can coauthor with others in real time. Each sees the cursor location and text edits made by the others automatically appear as they happen. Try real-time coauthoring on OneDrive today.

Visualize statistics with Histogram, Pareto and Box and Whisker charts—Take a close look at the new statistical chart types in Excel 2016 and find out how these new charts can help represent your statistical data in a way that works best for your needs. A Histogram chart shows the distribution of data, a Pareto chart automatically groups items and sorts columns from most common to least common, and a Box and Whisker chart characterizes the distribution of data and can be used to compare characteristics between different data sets. Read the post to find out more about how you can use these charts for your data.

Working with external data in Excel 2016 for Mac—Working with external data across platforms is now easier than ever thanks to two improvements in Excel 2016 for Mac. Excel 2016 for Mac comes with a preinstalled and integrated SQL Server ODBC driver, which was developed hand-in-hand with Simba Technologies. And it 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. Read the blog post to get the details.

Office 365 for Business & Education updates*

New features coming to Outlook on the web—A host of updates are on the way for the web version of Outlook in Office 365. Formerly known as the Outlook Web App (OWA), from now on the browser-based Outlook experience will be referred to as “Outlook on the web.” The updates include a simplified UI to help you be more efficient, new tools to help you stay on top of your inbox, new features so you can craft more visually engaging emails, new features to help you better manage your calendar, and a better mobile experience.

Sway now available worldwide and Sway for Windows 10 is here—Sway, the digital storytelling app, is moving from preview to general availability and is rolling out to eligible Office 365 for business and education customers worldwide. That means any individual with a free Microsoft account can now use Sway, and more businesses, schools and other organizations can use Sway to create and share interactive reports, presentations, assignments, lessons, projects and more. Sway for Windows 10 has arrived too, along with a new layout option and new publishing capabilities, like using Docs.com to share your Sways.

New wearable apps to help you stay productive—Check out the new and updated productivity apps for your wearable devices. The all-new Outlook for Apple Watch lets you reply, schedule and archive right from your wrist, and the all-new Microsoft Translator for Apple Watch and Android Wear provides instant translation into 50 languages. Wunderlist for Apple Watch now has Quick Add magic, OneDrive for Android Wear got several improvements, and OneNote for Android Wear was redesigned to let you say, see and do more. Plus, Yammer for Apple Watch is coming soon.

School administrators can now get a Staff Notebook at My Apps or OneNote.com/staffnotebookedu—School administrators can use OneNote Staff Notebook to cultivate and manage educator collaboration. Now Office 365 Education customers with E1 or E3 plans can easily access the OneNote Staff Notebook app on their My Apps page in the App Launcher or through a simple link with additional resources at onenote.com/staffnotebookedu. The app is also now available globally in 35 languages across 51 markets. Support for right-to-left languages such as Arabic and Hebrew is coming soon.

Preview of Skype for Business apps for iOS and Android is here—Find out what’s new in the Skype for Business apps for iOS and Android. Skype simplicity is now present throughout the apps. The In-Call and In-Meeting experience was updated to make it easier to navigate calls and meetings on your mobile phone or tablet. There’s also a new dashboard for easy navigation of your contacts, calls and meetings. Learn more about the preview and sign up for it today!

Optimizing Yammer for teams—Yammer groups empower team members to collaborate within the right context and with the right set of people. To encourage teams to make Yammer groups their go-to destination, the UI is being enhanced and the experience inside groups is being improved. The changes delivered on the web include the Discovery feed to surface group conversations, real-time group activity, immersive group experience and Next Group notification. Over the next months, the Yammer mobile apps are being reoriented around groups, too—including a Group Updates feed and much more—to meet the needs of fast-moving teams.

Updates to Power Query for Excel—This month’s Power Query update includes four new or improved features, including the option to specify Join Type in the Merge Queries dialog. You can now extract the first, the last, or a range of characters from a Text column. You can also customize the Quote Style in Split Column by Delimiter dialog, and support was added for UPN credentials in the Exchange connector.

Introducing the Office IT Pro Deployment Script project—Looking for advanced PowerShell scripts or thinking about how to streamline your Office client deployment process? Check out the new community GitHub project for Office IT Pro Deployment Scripts. Office 365 experts from around the world are contributing to a collection of PowerShell scripts designed to automate various procedures that would normally require manual intervention from an IT pro. Read this post to see some of the scripts already available, like Copy-OfficeGPOSettings, Check-DiskSpace and more.

Deeper integration between Office documents and Outlook for iOS—It’s easier than ever to collaborate on and share Office documents on the go. Outlook for iOS now opens Office documents sent as attachments directly in Word, Excel or PowerPoint. The steps required to collaborate on files sent as attachments have also been streamlined. In addition, Word, Excel and PowerPoint now include a Send with Outlook option on the Share menu. These updates, combined with the Focused Inbox, calendar integration, customizable swipe gestures and predictive search in Outlook, help you get more done, even on the smallest screen.

What’s new for business analytics in Excel 2016—Read about the new and improved business analytics features in Excel 2016, designed with the analyst’s journey in mind, from gathering to consuming data. The new capabilities you can take advantage of for your business include: faster and easier ways to get data, streamlined data analysis, new forecasting capabilities based on Exponential Smoothing (that is, FORECAST.ETS()…), new charts, and publishing and sharing your data analysis with your workgroup or clients through Power BI with just one button. You can try out the new features for yourself in the Office 2016 Preview for Windows.

Matter Center for Office 365—Matter Center allows people to create or view legal matters right from Outlook; tie Word, Excel, OneNote and other files to those matters; and securely collaborate with other legal professionals inside or outside their organizations.

Office 365 Developer updates

Dev Digest for August—Read this month’s Dev Digest to keep up with all things new in Office 365 development. Find out about the recent strides made to get new developers started with Office 365 APIs and add-ins, the code samples added for the newly released Windows UWP projects, along with version 2 of the hero demo called “The Property Manager” and the new Snack showcase of short videos showing what you can do with the platform. As always, get the documentation for new and updated APIs and code samples, plus a list of podcasts, Office Dev Show episodes, patterns and practices samples, blogs posts and upcoming events.

Office UI Fabric—Office UI Fabric is a responsive, mobile-first, front-end framework for developers, designed to make it simple to quickly create web experiences using the Office Design Language. With Office UI Fabric you can apply simple CSS styles to make your web applications look and feel like the rest of Office. The styling takes into account typography, color, icons, animations, responsive grid layouts and localization.

Please note that some of the updates may take time to show up in your Office 365 account, because they’re being rolled out to customers worldwide.

Video conferencing for startups and small businesses—10 hacks to maximize their value

Video conferencing for startups and small businesses—10 hacks to maximize their value: Whether you operate a startup on a budget or have a successful business, video conferencing can bring everyone together.

New Microsoft App - Snip

Not to be confused with the "Snipping tool"

Microsoft Snip is a new tool built by the team behind Sway and is currently in preview.

On the face of things, Snip this seems like a very simple tool:

1. Take a snapshot of your screen
2. Record audio to describe the snip
3. Add digital Ink to help focus the viewers attention

If you are looking for quick instructional videos this is a fast and easy tool to use.

Check it out!

https://mix.office.com/Snip

New school year brings new security features to Office 365 Education

New school year brings new security features to Office 365 Education: Today we are announcing changes to Office 365 Education that will make it easier for schools to meet their security and compliance needs at a time when teaching and learning are becoming increasingly collaborative and cloud-connected.

How to renew or migrate between Office 365 plans

Renew Office 365 small and midsized business subscriptions

This article applies to the following plans:

·         Office 365 Small Business

·         Office 365 Small Business Premium

·         Office 365 Midsize Business

For other business or education plans, see Renew Office 365 for business.
For Office 365 Home or Personal, see Renew Office 365 for home.

What are the new plans? The three new plans are Office 365 Business Essentials, Office 365 Business, and Office 365 Business Premium. These plans are built to meet the needs of small and midsized business customers—businesses ranging from 1 to approximately 300 employees. To learn more about each, see Office 365 for business plans. For more information about how the new plans compare to the old plans, see Moving to the new Office 365 plans for small and midsized businesses.Microsoft has introduced three new small and midsized business plans to replace the current plans. Depending on when your subscription expires, you may need to switch to a new plan when you renew.

When to move to the new plans

Customers who pay monthly or yearly by credit card or invoice, and have only one subscription with no add-ons (such as extra storage)    Renew and switch to the new plans at any time. For a step-by-step walkthrough, see Switch Office 365 plans using the switch plans wizard.

Customers who bought Office 365 with a prepaid product key from a retail store or partner, have multiple subscriptions, or have one or more add-ons    ·         Stay on your current plan if you renew before October 1, 2015 ·         Switch to a new plan if you renew after October 1, 2015 Why wait?  By October 1, 2015, we’re rolling out functionality to help you move to the new plans efficiently and smoothly, without any downtime or data loss. However, if you need to switch to one of the new plans before then, call support to get help.

To renew before October 1, 2015

If you’re renewing before October 1, 2015, stay on your current plan when you renew.

HOW DID YOU BUY OFFICE 365?	STEPS TO RENEW AND STAY ON YOUR CURRENT PLAN
If you bought a product key through a retail store	1.       Go to the Subscriptions page in the Office 365 admin center. You must be signed in as an Office 365 global admin to view this page. 2.       For the subscription you want to renew, choose Extend. (If the subscription has already expired, choose Renew instead). 3.       The next step asks you to choose how you want to pay for your renewal. Do one of the following: o    If you’ve already purchased a new Office 365 Small Business Premium product key, select Use a new and unused product key. Follow the remaining steps to enter your 25-character alphanumeric key and renew the subscription. o    If you want to use a credit or debit card, or to set up invoicing, select Use another payment option. Follow the remaining steps to enter your payment information and complete your order. This creates a new subscription with all of your data and license assignments from your original subscription intact. You can view the new subscription on the Subscriptions page. Don't worry if you still see the original subscription listed there; you can let it expire and ignore any related renewal email notifications. TIP   We recommend choosing to pay with a credit card or by invoice (the second option), rather than by using a product key, because it will make it easier to add or remove licenses from your subscription in the future.
If you pay by credit card or invoice, but have multiple subscriptions or add-ons	Make sure that auto-renew is turned on so that your subscription renews automatically. 1.       Go to the Subscriptions page in the Office 365 admin center. You must be signed in as an Office 365 global admin to view this page. 2.       If the toggle under Auto renew is set to On, you're all set. If it is set to Off, switch the toggle to turn it on. NOTE   You can only turn auto-renew on if your subscription is active. If the subscription is in an expired or disabled state, you need to first reactivate your subscription before you can turn auto-renew on.
If you bought your subscription through a partner using a Microsoft Open program	1.       After purchasing a new subscription for the same plan from your Office 365 partner, check your inbox for an email from Microsoft that contains an activation link. TIP   The email is sent to the person listed as the online administrator in the volume licensing agreement. If you’re not sure who is designated as the online administrator,contact your Office 365 partner. 2.       Follow the link in the email to sign in with your work or school account, accept the Open License Agreement, and renew the subscription. 3.       When asked if you want to add licenses or renew your subscription, choose Renew the end date to [x]. For a detailed walkthrough of this process, download the PDF guide,Activate Online Services: Office 365 Subscription. NOTE   Volume licensing customers can also choose to activate Office 365 subscriptions in theVolume Licensing Service Center. To learn how, download the PDF guide, Activate Online Services in the Volume Licensing Service Center.

To renew after October 1, 2015

If you’re renewing on or after October 1, 2015, switch to a new plan when you renew.

HOW DID YOU BUY OFFICE 365?	STEPS TO RENEW AND SWITCH TO A NEW PLAN
If you bought a product key through a retail store	When you renew and switch to one of the new plans, you don’t need to buy another product key. You can renew directly in the Office 365 admin center, either with a credit card or by setting up invoicing. 1.       Go to the Subscriptions page in the Office 365 admin center. You must be signed in as an Office 365 global admin to view this page. 2.       Choose Switch plans. 3.       Review the suggested plan and choose Switch now. If you want to see other plan options, choose See other switch plan options. 4.       Confirm the number of licenses you want in the new plan. 5.       Add your payment information and choose Place order. 6.       After you’ve checked out, you’ll see the status of your subscription as it switches to the new plan. When the switch is complete, you can return to the admin center.
If you bought your subscription through a partner using a Microsoft Open program	To purchase your renewal through an Open program, contact your Office 365 partner. 1.       After purchasing a new subscription for one of the new plans from your Office 365 partner, check your inbox for an email from Microsoft that contains an activation link. TIP   The email is sent to the person listed as the online administrator in the volume licensing agreement. If you’re not sure who is designated as the online administrator,contact your Office 365 partner. 2.       Follow the link in the email to sign in with your work or school account, accept the Open License Agreement, and renew the subscription. 3.       When asked if you want to add licenses or renew your subscription, choose Renew the end date to [x]. For a detailed walkthrough of this process, download the PDF guide, Activate Online Services: Office 365 Subscription. NOTE   Volume licensing customers can also choose to activate Office 365 subscriptions in the Volume Licensing Service Center. To learn how, download the PDF guide, Activate Online Services in the Volume Licensing Service Center. Alternatively, you can choose to renew directly through Microsoft. 1.       Go to the Subscriptions page in the Office 365 admin center. You must be signed in as an Office 365 global admin to view this page. 2.       Choose Renew or add user licenses. 3.       Select Use another payment option. 4.       Enter your preferred payment method (credit/debit card or invoice) and complete the order. This creates a new subscription with all of your data and license assignments from your original subscription intact. You can view the new subscription on theSubscriptions page. Don't worry if you still see the original subscription listed there; you can let it expire and ignore any related renewal email notifications.