Word Mobile

Written by: Lorenzo Villalobos

When Microsoft launched its Office anywhere! Initiative with Microsoft Office 365 it boasted about the mobile experience and how Office 365 could be utilized on every platform to create, edit and share document. Although they were not lying it was clearly a much better experience on other platforms than their own. Luckily with the release of Windows 10, Office 2016, and Windows Phone 10, Microsoft has started to take its mobile experience at the home front more seriously.

Word Mobile encompasses the best that Microsoft has to offer in terms of design, features, integrations, and ease of use. Word Mobile knows what it is, and doesn’t stray far from its roots. Microsoft has done a wonderful job of bringing only the most essential and useful features that users on the go would need, but that’s not all its doing.

If you look at the above image you might be tempted to think that there is no way that the Word Mobile can hold a match to its desktop counterpart, I mean just look at all them options, and buttons. But let me ask you this, how often do you find yourself applying complex formatting to documents? If you say often then it’s a no brainer that this is not for you, but if you are like me and need a quick editor on the go then its more than enough.

Right now one of the hardest drawbacks is not being able to apply custom styles, but as the life cycle of the application continues we see Microsoft getting the application closer and closer to what they envision the mobile Office experience to be like.

At 150MB installed it’s a heck of a lot smaller than the full Microsoft Office suite, it also saves natively to the cloud, allows you to share with other users easily, offers, comes with version control, supports commenting and has enough font options to keep your documents interesting. Since its all saved into your OneDrive you can easily move into the desktop version of word to add anything that Word Mobile might not allow you to.

All in all the future of the Office 365 mobile experience is looking very bright, having written this entire article on Word Mobile only strengthens my conviction to test and review more Windows Store apps. Who knows maybe the next version of Office will be a be sold exclusively through the app store, just kidding of course!

If you or your organization are interested in trying out Office 365 please click on the link below to sign up for a free trial.

http://bit.ly/1CGCrgH

Office 365 VS Google Docs – Accessibility Part One

Written by Lorenzo V.

Hi everyone,

This is going to be a multi part blog series taking a look at Office 365 and Google docs. Today’s post will be focusing on accessibility, how easy is it to use these tools, and what is their availability on desktop, mobile and web.

Accessibility

How easy is it to get up and running with Google Docs VS Office 365?

Google Docs

Presentation Docs Calc

Google Docs is offered for free by default with the creation of a Google account, you also can receive Google Docs for free by merging an existing email (personalized domain, or other provider) to sync with your Google Chrome browser, or Android device. There isn’t much in the way of customization for its web based editor but this is understandable because of the open source nature of its file formats. WYSIWYG is very much in place here which is to Google Docs benefit because of its simple to understand editing tools, most new users wouldn’t have too many problems getting to what they need.

Google Docs comes with a docs, sheets, and slides. Through your desktop you have access to Google Drive. I won’t add the add ons for offline editing because they can only be used through the Google Chrome browser and are not their own stand alone applications. For the mobile space you have Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Google Drive. Offline editors are also available on Android, and iOS. At the time of writing this I was not able to find an applications for Windows Phone.

Continue reading →

Add-ins and applications custom tailored to your needs

Add-ins and Applications

Add-ins are plugins that integrates with a Microsoft Office application/s to extend or add a functionality that was not there before. These add-ins can be easily created to work privately within your companies Office environment, or can be created to work publicly on the Office add-ins marketplace. Ranging from business insight, all the way down to specific formatting Office add-ins are the way to go if you or your company needs a specific work flow.

Office over the last 10 years has done a phenomenal job in preserving compatibility and extending the tool set that developers can use to create these add-ins, and with new versions of Microsoft Office we can see these newer functions being extended upon by the developers. Office 365 and Microsoft Office 2013 have changed the game by further allowing cloud based add-ins and applications to be created that can extend the functionality of almost every Microsoft Office service imaginable both on desktop online. Add-ins and applications can also be made to work with Microsoft Azure platform to integrate the cloud with your needs.

Some might be wondering what is the difference between an add-in and an application. I know I was when I first started working with SDS so here the break down. Add-Ins cannot operate by itself while an application has its own interface and doesn’t need to synchronize with another application to work properly. If you need to extend a feature that is already included in Microsoft Office (2007 – 365) then your best options would be to look for that add-in that has the functionality that you need or have it custom developed.

Range and Flexibility

We can see a great example of Microsoft’s range and flexibility when it comes to opening its API by seeing the growth of applications in its Windows Store and online by companies that have created online services and applications that integrate seamlessly with Office 365, Dynamics CRM, Azure, Yammer, Skype and much more.

But what happens when you just can’t find what your or your company is looking for? What happens when you have something that only does 90% of what you need? Or even worse, what if you can’t find something that even begin to address what you need to accomplish your project goal? Or what if a tool exists that has no clear way of getting to work with your existing lineup of applications? These are all real concerns that companies face day to day and its important to find solutions that works.

Tailored from the beginning

With custom application development it can get a little trickier because it typically takes more time to develop and comes with a higher price tag. But that being said you will have a custom application that has the functions that you need and that integrate with your existing environment.

Custom application development is usually the last stop for companies trying to obtain the functions that they need. This can be a problem in later stages when a specific set of tools have been implemented and are in active use by employees and companies start looking for a custom solution. Often times you are faced with learning a new application, configuring the services, aggregating the resources to work with your existing data, migration, and training. By going down the custom route from the start you can substantially cut down those steps and focus on what is important.

Personally if I can’t find the application that has the complete set of functions I need I would begin to look into application development from the get go. The reason being that if I have projects underway that have timeframes that I need to keep up with then It would be in my companies best interest to avoid wasting time configuring, or training my staff on something that was never intended to be used in that way. Some applications or add-ins offer customization from the start and just require some tinkering with to get to work. A great example of this is Microsoft Dynamics. Microsoft Dynamics has the building blocks to create necessary CRM processes and merges with Office 365, Azure, and Yammer. Plugins and Add-ins can also be developed to extend the applications core function allowing customization on a level rarely seen in a CRM suite.

The integration is strong in this one

Microsoft has done a fantastic job creating the ecosystem needed to harbor communications on all levels. Having the tools that we have now we can make sure that the experience is tailored to the end users specification. Having the headaches taken out of the equation decisions maker can get back to what’s important, and that’s making decisions and managing projects. Not having to worry that your staff has to waste time by duplicating efforts because of software allows you to get back to what matters and companies such as ours are here to help.

In closing

If you have been having issues with an application, or just can’t seem to get an add-in to work the way you want it to don’t hesitate to reach out to us. Whether its for add-ins, custom application development, or just to chit chat we are interested in hearing from you. We enjoy working with people and strive to bring modern solutions that make sense. For more information please email us at information@sdselite.com or give us a call at: 1-866-888-2586

Written by: Lorenzo v.