Category: Training

Increase email productivity using Office 365

Outlook Productivity suite

Everyone uses email and being more productive can enhance your career. In today’s work environment, email is a mission critical application.

Outlook is a great communication tool. You can load Outlook on your PC, Mac, or mobile device. Here are some of the key task you can do with Outlook:

  • Manage appointments using calendar features.
  • Share files via the cloud such as One drive application.
  • Stay productive and connected any where in the world.
  • Organize email to focus on key messages.
  • Use @mentions to get someones attention

How to add @mentions – In the body of the email, add the @ symbol and the first few letters on users name. Outlook will offer a list of contacts to added. This will get the readers attention and probably a response.

Managing your calendar and contacts in Outlook

When scheduling meeting and appointments use the calendar assistant. The calendar scheduling assistant allows you to see when attendees and rooms are available. The bars in the times field will indicated when attendees are busy or free. The rooms tab on the right well let you know when rooms are available. This will make scheduling meeting pain free.

How to collaborate using Outlook

Outlook allows users to share a file attachment so you can collaborate on data files with others. In Outlook, select attach file for email message. Files with a cloud icon are stored in the cloud, such as OneDrive application . This allows multiple uses to make changes to file, enhancing collaboration.

How to setup and online meeting with notes

To setup an online meeting, in Outlook select Skype meeting and choose date and time. Note, you have to be logged into Skype to setup the online meeting. This inserts a link that attendees can use to join/access meeting.

To setup up meeting notes, select meeting notes on Outlook ribbon bar. This allow you to select an OneNote notebook to document minutes for your meeting.

Outlook is an amazing productivity tool. For additional useful tips, please subscribe. We will provide great productivity tips for our valued readers. Thank you and much appreciated.

Training and continuing education with Coursera

Training and career development are a crucial component to improving yourself and becoming more successful. During my studies, I have completed and extensive review of available training platforms. I have some very useful and valuable information.

I started reviewing some additional training sponsored by Google through Coursera. The first program was Google IT support professional certificate. Coursera gives users a 7 day free trail with full access to every course in your specialization. I enrolled in the IT support professional certificate specialization and I liked the class very much.

The IT support class was a combination of video lectures, exercises, and module quizzes. I found the material was interesting and informative. The program covered some very interesting material: digital logic, computer architecture, operating systems, networking, software, troubleshooting, and customer care. For some of the hands on exercises, we used Google cloud services to spin using up servers and associated services. I really liked using Google cloud services. The monthly cost for the program was $49 per month. I completed the course and received the following course certificate.

IT Support
IT Support

The next program I worked on was System Administration and Information Technology Infrastructure Services. Since this was they type of work I have done for most of my career, I was very interested in this topic. The work I do as a system administration, and the topics covered were: cloud services, server maintenance, infrastructure services, hardware provisioning, system maintenance, virtualization, remote access, SSH, Network services, Software services, File and Print services, Platform services, Directory Services, and Data recovery & Back Ups. The monthly cost for this program was $49 per month. The course material keep me engaged and working hard to complete each module. I felt the cost was well worth the price. I completed the course and received the following course certificate.

System Administrator IT infrastructure

I really enjoyed the first two class, so I continue on my Information Technology specialist track. The next class in the program was computer networking. Designing and building networks is a passion on mine, so learning more about networks was exciting. The class covered the following topics: TCP/IP 5 layer network model, OSI network model, Networking devices, Network Setup, physical layer, Data link layer, Network layer, Sub-netting, Routing, Transport layer, Firewalls, Application layer, Network services, Virtual Private Networks, Wide area network, wireless, Dynamic Name service, Cloud networks, and troubleshooting. The class was great and well worth the price of admission! I completed the course and received the following course certificate.

Conclusion: If you are looking to continue your education and improve your skill set, I recommend Coursera programs. The classes are designed help you stay motivated and on track. For each module there is a dead line, but this can be extended if you need additional time. Feel free to leave any comments on your experience with Coursera. If you need any assistance please contact me. Thanks

Note: I will be covering some these topics in more detail in some future posts.