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Forms are the cornerstone of business applications, and plenty of options exist to create a form in SharePoint. Which one you use will depend on your needs, technical skill and the version of SharePoint you are using. In this article we'll explore seven ways to build forms in SharePoint along with some of the pros and cons of each. All these options will be storing the data in an existing SharePoint list. SHAREPOINT LISTS Default forms are available for any SharePoint list. Create a list and you have a corresponding form to add and modify items. Options are available to organize the order of fields, format them, validate input, add basic calculations and attach files. There are also more advanced options such as limiting permissions to item owners and enabling workflows. You can modify all of these under List Settings for the list. These generic SharePoint forms are a good choice for simple applications that don't have too many columns or records and that only require basic functionality. Lists also offer a data sheet view to edit a limited set of columns, much like a spreadsheet. What you see is what you get with these basic forms. If you need to break fields up into multiple tabs, or perhaps have business logic run on them in real time, you'll need to keep on reading. And although theoretically a list can store millions of items, you can only access up to 5,000 items in any view (in reality the numbers are far lower before performance degrades considerably). Basic Sharepoint list form - www.office.com/setup SHAREPOINT DESIGNER Creating a custom form in SharePoint Designer is relatively easy. You take an existing SharePoint list and use Designer to create a new .aspx page which renders and controls the form. There are files used by a list to create forms, one each to add, edit and view. These are located in the same folder as their associated SharePoint list. With Designer you can show or hide fields based on certain criteria, change the layout, use va

www.office.com/setup Blogs: The shrouded veil of secrecy has been lifted from the latest edition of Microsoft Office. Excitement for Office 2016 is still lagging behind the Windows 10 enthusiasm camp, but following the July 29 release of Windows 10, attention will return to the world's most popular productivity suite.When Does Windows 10 Come Out, How Can You Get It & What Happens to the Technical Preview? When Does Windows 10 Come Out, How Can You Get It & What Happens to the Technical Preview?Windows 10 is coming soon. Still confused about how the upgrade will work and wondering about the timeline? We have some answers, although more questions remain.READ MORE Office 2016, like Windows 10, has been re-designed within a revised Microsoft ethos. Office 2016 has been built from the ground-up with mobile and cloud users in mind, slotting in with the ever expanding fleet of Microsoft productivity applications. Office is, in general, a different set of tools from days gone by. We aren't confined to the five-or-so core products, and we can expand the functionality of the Office ecosystem using a massive range of add-ins and templates. Office 2016 logo - www.office.com/setup I'm using VirtualBox to preview Office 2016. Microsoft strongly suggested uninstalling Office 2013, which isn't currently viable due to work commitments. Using a virtual machine, however is a great way to explore different Office products alongside each other, without having to uninstall your current suite. I've also had a look at Office 2016 on Windows 10 Build 10130. Verdict: good times.How To Use VirtualBox: User's Guide How To Use VirtualBox: User's GuideLearn to use VirtualBox. Get virtual computers up and running inside your computer, without having to buy any new hardware.READ MORE Anyway, enough of that. Let's look at Office 2016. NEW OVERVIEW Much akin to the extended and inclusive testing phase of Windows 10, the Office 2016 preview has now accumulated over 1 million users,

This post is brought to you by Seayoung Rhee, Product Marketing Manager in the SharePoint Product Marketing Group. Reliable business intelligence and insight are key to a thriving business. Excel, SharePoint and Office 365 make business intelligence (BI) in the new Office more accessible to everyone across an organization as part of their everyday work. New and enhanced features in familiar tools such as Excel empower everyone in a business to easily explore, model, analyze, and visualize data from various sources. With SharePoint, users of all levels can collaboratively develop and share insights through dashboards and scorecards, and this experience continues seamlessly in the cloud with Office 365. For corporate environments, these features are further enhanced by SQL Server for higher levels of performance and scalability both on-premises and in the cloud with BI Azure. Ultimately with Microsoft BI, anyone in the organization can develop the insights that help drive new discoveries and make better, more informed decisions. EXPLORE YOUR DATA PowerPivot was a popular add-in to Excel 2010, allowing users to create large data models with hundreds of millions of rows in Excel. This feature is now natively embedded in Excel to reduce the hassle of downloads and installation. PowerPivot is also supported in SharePoint with SQL Server Analysis Services where the workbooks with PowerPivot models can be shared broadly across the organization. New features like Quick Explore aid users in navigating their data, and Quick Analysis provides previews of their charts, graphs, and scorecards. Users can: Combine and analyze large datasets with PowerPivot Summarize data and discover trends with Quick Explore Instantly preview charts and pivot tables with Quick Analysis www.office.com/setup VISUALIZE YOUR INSIGHTS Introduced with SQL Server 2012, Power View provided a canvas to create visual dashboards in SharePoint. Now this feature is embedded into Excel and SharePoint so

www.office.com/setup Blogs: Microsoft today detailed the new features and improvements that it delivered to Office 365 users this month. Key among them are new Excel co-authoring capabilities, Microsoft Teams, and new OneNote inking and accessibility updates. "Office 365 provides the broadest and deepest toolkit for collaboration between individuals, teams and entire organizations," Microsoft corporate vice president Kirk Koenigsbauer explains. Here's what's new in March. CO-AUTHORING IN EXCEL 2016 FOR WINDOWS Following similar functionality in Word and PowerPoint, Microsoft has enabled co-authoring capabilities in Excel for the Windows desktop (Excel 2016). (This feature is also available in Excel Online and Excel Mobile on Android, iOS, and Windows 10; Excel for Mac support is coming soon.) "This allows you to know who else is working with you in a spreadsheet, see where they're working and view changes automatically within seconds," Mr. Koenigsbauer says. Co-authoring in Excel 2016 for Windows is rolling out for Office 365 subscribers in Office Insider Fast, Microsoft says. Co-authoring in Excel for iOS is currently available for Office Insider. The feature is generally available in Excel Mobile for Android and Windows, and in Excel Online. AUTOSAVE Microsoft is working to expand the availability of AutoSave beyond mobile versions of Office: Office 365 subscribers in Office Insider Fast now have access to AutoSave in Word, Excel and PowerPoint on Windows desktop, for files stored in SharePoint Online, OneDrive and OneDrive for Business. "With AutoSave, you can stop worrying about hitting the Save button, whether you're working alone or with others," Mr. Koenigsbauer explains. MICROSOFT TEAMS Microsoft delivered its long-awaited Slack alternative, called Microsoft Teams, earlier this month to all Office 365 commercial customers. And last week, it shipped Microsoft Teams to all Office 365 Education subscribers as well. "We are thri

Yana Terukhova is a Product Marketing Manager on the Microsoft Visio team. Visually displaying always up-to-date information on clearly laid out diagrams helps to communicate information effectively. In this post, we will see how to connect data from external sources to a diagram. Linking data to Visio diagrams was first introduced in 2007 and has been overwhelmingly popular. We've improved the functionality since then and the capability has become increasingly more powerful. Associating data with shapes on a diagram does not require any code. There's a simple wizard which guides you through linking your data source to your diagram. Once you've linked data to diagram shapes, apply data graphics to shapes-text, data bars, icons, or color by value conditional formatting-to visually display numerical data. The important point here is that data-linked diagrams are dynamic; the data graphics change when data is refreshed in the source (like Excel).

www.office.com/setup Blogs: Previews of PowerPoint2013 show that it will be easier to create and share professional presentations with a range of new and improved features. 1. NEW RANGE OF DESIGN THEMES Powerpoint 2013 start screen - www.office.com/setup Easier inclusion of videos, or pictures to give a more professional edge to presentations. Easy access to a collection of new themes available via the start screen. The ability to quickly change themes using theme variants. Alignment Guides have been added that make it easier to align text boxes, graphics and shapes with text. Merge Shapes tools -2013 includes Union, Combine, Fragment, Intersect, and Subtract tools making it easier for the user to merge two or more shapes into the shape required. 2. IMPROVEMENTS TO THE PRESENTER'S VIEW AND ORGANISATION OF THE PRESENTATION. The One click Slide Zoom allows the user to zoom in and out on diagram, or chart. The addition of a presenter's Navigation Grid, making it easier for the presenter to switch slides within a sequence using a navigation grid that the audience cannot see. The ability to easily project a presentation on a second screen using Auto-extend. 3. IMPROVED COLLABORATION WITH EASIER SHARING AND CO-AUTHORING. The Reply Comment feature. PowerPoint 2013 makes it easier to add and track comments next to the relevant section of text. Everyone working on the presentation can follow the discussion easily and act on any suggestions. Collaboration and Sharing. With Microsoft's emphasis on improved collaboration, the new default setting means that presentations are saved online to SkyDrive or SharePoint . This allows the author to send a link to the same file to everyone involved, complete with personalised viewing and editing permissions, so that everyone is working on the same version. The PowerPoint Web App Co-authoringfeature via PowerPoint Web. 2013 makes it easier for several people to work on the same presentation at the same time from the desktop or in bro

www.office.com/setup Blogs: Microsoft Word is an essential tool for any individual in today's digital age. Whether you are a working professional, a diligent student or an active retiree, proficiency in Microsoft Word is a vital skill1 that is useful for both complex business requirements as well as basic day-to-day purposes. Not only is Microsoft Word a flexible tool that allows you to achieve many of your digital document needs, it is also one of the most user- friendly applications from the Microsoft Office suite. Below are 10 MS Word features that you should be using at work, school or home but likely aren't. 1. SMART ART The Office 2007 and Office 2010 applications share very similar features for working with a range of graphics including pictures, Clip Art, Shapes, diagrams and Charts. It's easy to confuse SmartArt with the similarly named WordArt. Where WordArt just allows you to display text using a wide variety of different formats and effects, SmartArt is a comprehensive and flexible business diagram tool that greatly improves upon the 'Diagram Gallery' feature found in previous versions of Office. Smart Art screen shot 2 - www.office.com/setup The great thing about SmartArt is the ability to swap between different diagrams, even diagrams from other categories, without losing the information that you have already entered. From the selection available, use whichever SmartArt is appropriate to give your document that little bit extra charm. 2. TURN DATA INTO VISUAL CHARTS Charts are created using the same chart 'engine' that Excel uses. Accordingly, as your chart is created, another window will appear containing the Excel-generated data that the chart is based on. Use the Insert Chart button in the Illustrations group to insert a chart and select from the variety of options. The charts are versatile, just like the user-friendly data represented separately in MS Excel to smooth out the whole data-input-to-graph process. Visual Charts -

www.office.com/setup Blogs: Today marks general availability of Microsoft Flow and PowerApps, which enable people to automate workflows and quickly build custom apps that suit their specific needs. Earlier this year, we announced integration of SharePoint with Microsoft Flow, enabling you to create and launch flows directly from a SharePoint list. We also announced that native integration of PowerApps and SharePoint would drive rich new experiences to continue reinventing business processes with modern document libraries and modern lists in SharePoint. We know that tight integration is essential to unlocking productivity gains for the digital workplace. Accessing data from mobile devices was a first step. Bringing business processes to the same site for team documents and data is next. That's why SharePoint is a great home for your enterprise business applications. As we recognize today's milestones for PowerApps and Microsoft Flow, you can also look ahead to even deeper integration of these business tools as part of SharePoint, as we showcased at Ignite in September. UPCOMING INTEGRATION WITH SHAREPOINT PowerApps will be fully integrated into the SharePoint web experience. PowerApps provides a great mobile experience, and now that experience is connected to the data stored in SharePoint lists. Soon you'll be able to integrate PowerApps as the default in-browser experience for any SharePoint modern list. sharepoint-welcomes-powerapps-and-microsoft-flow-1 - www.office.com/setup PowerApps embedded in a SharePoint list. This means: You'll be able to launch PowerApps directly from the SharePoint mobile app. Modern document libraries will be made available as a data source for PowerApps and Microsoft Flow. For Microsoft Flow, you'll be able to run any flow on demand for a specific document or list item, in addition to waiting for an automated trigger to fire. Using the data gateway, PowerApps and Microsoft Flow will work with on-premises data in SQL and

The new Excel offers a rich set of charting capabilities that make creating and customizing charts simpler and more intuitive. One part of the fluid new experience is the Formatting Task pane. - www.office.com/setup Until now, precise adjustments to chart elements were made in the Format dialog box. The box sometimes obscured a portion of the chart, changes entered in the box were not visible until you closed it, and you had to select the exact element on the chart in order to see the options that were the best fit for the job. In the new Excel, the Format dialog box is replaced by the Formatting Task pane. The pane aligns neatly with the right or left side of the screen, so it's less likely to obscure the chart, and changes happen in real time, so you can immediately see how your choices affect the chart. The Formatting Task pane also offers an element selector so you can jump quickly between different elements without having to select one to modify. The new Formatting Task pane is the single source for formatting-all of the different styling options are consolidated in one place. With this single task pane, you can modify not only charts, but also shapes and text in Excel. USING THE FORMATTING TASK PANE The fastest way to open the Formatting Task pane is to double-click a chart element. You can also use the keyboard shortcut CTRL+1 while a chart element is selected. There are two other ways to open the task pane: The first way: On a chart, select an element. On the Ribbon, select the Chart Tools Format tab, then click Format Selection. - www.office.com/setup The second way: On a chart, select an element. Right-click, then select Format where is the axis, series, legend, title, or area that was selected. - www.office.com/setup Once open, the Formatting Task pane remains available until you close it. Since it always stays on the right or left side of the screen, the pane remains unobtrusive as you concentrate on other tasks. The

WWW.OFFICE.COM/SETUP BLOGS: INTRODUCTION www.office.com/setup Blogs: Access offers several advanced options for creating and modifying reports. The Report Wizard is a tool that guides you through the process of creating complex reports. Once you've created a report-whether through the Report Wizard or the Report command-you can then format it to make it look exactly how you want. In this lesson, you'll learn how to use the Report Wizard to create complex reports. You'll also learn how to use formatting options to format text, change report colors and fonts, and add a logo. Throughout this tutorial, we will be using a sample database. If you would like to follow along, you'll need to download our Access 2016 sample database. You will need to have Access 2016 installed on your computer in order to open the example. Watch the video below to learn more about the Report Wizard in Access. THE REPORT WIZARD While using the Report command is a quick way to create reports from the current object, it's not as helpful if you want to create a report with data from multiple objects. The Report Wizard makes it easy to create reports using fields from multiple tables and queries. It even lets you choose how your data will be organized. TO CREATE A REPORT WITH THE REPORT WIZARD: Select the Create tab and locate the Reports group. Click the Report Wizard command. Clicking the Report Wizard command - www.office.com/setup Blogs The Report Wizard will appear. In the procedures below, we'll discuss the different pages in the Report Wizard. The Report Wizard dialog box - www.office.com/setup Blogs STEP 1: SELECT THE FIELDS TO INCLUDE IN YOUR REPORT Click the drop-down arrow to select the table or query that contains the desired field(s). Selecting a table that contains fields to include in the report - www.office.com/setup Blogs Select a field from the list on the left, and click the right arrow to add it to the report. Adding fields to a report - www.office.com/setup Blogs

WWW.OFFICE.COM/SETUP BLOGS: INTRODUCTION www.office.com/setup Blogs: If you need to share information from your database with someone but don't want that person actually working with your database, consider creating a report. Reports allow you to organize and present your data in a reader-friendly, visually appealing format. Access makes it easy to create and customize a report using data from any query or table in your database. In this lesson, you will learn how to create, modify, and print reports. Throughout this tutorial, we will be using a sample database. If you would like to follow along, you'll need to download our Access 2016 sample database. You will need to have Access 2016 installed on your computer in order to open the example. Watch the video below to learn more about creating reports. TO CREATE A REPORT: Reports give you the ability to present components of your database in an easy-to-read, printable format. Access lets you create reports from both tables and queries. Open the table or query you want to use in your report. We want to print a list of cookies we've sold, so we'll open the Cookies Sold query. The Cookies Sold query - www.office.com/setup Select the Create tab on the Ribbon. Locate the Reports group, then click the Report command. Clicking the Report command - www.office.com/setup Access will create a new report based on your object. It's likely that some of your data will be located on the other side of the page break. To fix this, resize your fields. Simply select a field, then click and drag its edge until the field is the desired size. Repeat with additional fields until all of your fields fit. Resizing fields in the report - www.office.com/setup To save your report, click the Save command on the Quick Access Toolbar. When prompted, type a name for your report, then click OK. Saving and naming the report - www.office.com/setup Just like tables and queries, reports can be sorted and filtered. Simply right-click the field you w

Today's guest blogger is Javier Vasquez, Senior Director of Productivity Sales, State and Local Government at Microsoft. For the past 15 years, Javier has helped public sector customers implement solutions that help them realize value in their technology investments. As government agencies prepare for this week's Lean Government Virtual Summit, cloud innovation will surely be a hot topic. So why should governments choose Microsoft Office 365 as they consider moving their productivity software to the cloud? The infographic below highlights the advantages of Office 365 versus Google Apps for government agencies. As you can see from the infographic, the benefits of Office 365 are many: Office 365 offers governments substantial cost savings. Governments can rest assured their information is protected and their tools accessible to people with visual and hearing impairments. Office 365 makes it easy for governments to meet email retention policies and fulfill legal discovery requests. Governments have the tools they need to be highly responsive to the citizens they serve. As Todd Kimbriel, Director of E-Government for the Texas Department of Information Resource, puts it: "No other solution provides the rich capabilities of Office 365, including web conferencing, real-time collaboration, and document and calendar sharing." We hope you find the infographic helpful! Also, please note that officials from the City of Kansas City, Missouri and the U.S. Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board will be discussing their experiences with Office 365 at the Lean Government Virtual Summit. It's not too late to register! To learn more, click here.

This post is brought to you by Kevin Donovan, a Program Manager in the Graphics and Data Visualizations Team. One of the overlooked improvements that we added to charting in the new Office applications has to do with the "data grid" shared between Excel and PowerPoint/Word.

Last week, we welcomed Brian Solis, Altimeter principal analyst, thought leader and book author, to Yammer HQ to give a fireside chat, followed by signing of his new book: "What's The Future of Business?" I was thrilled to interview Brian, and we covered a variety of really meaty subjects - just check out the video below! The theme of the evening was transformation - transformation that is happening in our lives as individuals, how we relate to each other through technology and what we as businesses must do to stay relevant to the connected customer. Even the book itself is transformation of the book publishing convention. Unlike a regular, information-dense business book, "What's the Future of Business" attempts to bring together the best of both worlds: hard-hitting facts and practical frameworks, as well as a visual experience. The experience of the book is just as important as the content therein. What is the future of business? The future of business is experience, according to Solis. We as connected consumers make decisions outside of the sales funnel that companies have organized themselves around. We reference experiences of consumers who came before us, and contribute our own experiences to this dynamic tapestry. When consumers share, they are reacting to an experience, and the future of any business depends on its ability to provide experiences that are worth sharing. In his talk, Brian talked about the 4 moments of truth that add up to shareable experiences. At every stage of the customer journey, it is our job as businesses to design an experience to trigger the sharing of a moment. The Zero Moment of Truth comes when the consumer is starting to explore choices and is just becoming aware of needs and possible solutions. 1st Moment of Truth happens when the consumer is ready to buy. Consumer packaged goods companies have perfected providing the right experience at this point. 2nd Moment of Truth happens after the consumer purchases,

www.office.com/setup Blogs: If you are still using Microsoft Office 2003, you should be aware that Official support has long ended. If you are using Office 2007, support is due to end in 2 short years. Microsoft Office 2016, the latest Windows-based version of the major technology company's application suite, is scheduled for a release sometime in spring, 2015. However, we already know quite a bit about the product, thanks to a preview and testing program that Microsoft has been running. Here are 6 details to look forward to, ahead of the product's mainstream release: 1. Better Security Microsoft Office 2016 will emphasize the value of better security parameters. In addition to a file-level encryption functionality, new data loss protection tools inside of Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, and Microsoft PowerPoint will warn users when they attempt to save confidential files to unsafe locations. Microsoft Outlook will also be more secure, thanks to a multi-factor authentication feature. Similarly, the application suite will have stronger information rights management tools that let you limit what people can do with your documents or emails after you've shared access with them. For example, you can allow access to a certain document to expire after a set period of time, and prevent it from being forwarded. These tools will also stop people from copying and pasting information out of Microsoft Office 2016 applications. 2. Business Intelligence Features Microsoft Excel lives up to its name in Microsoft Office 2016. The latest version of this application features a built-in business intelligence tool called Power Query. This tool can dramatically change the way that you approach your data. Using it, you can quickly combine your own numbers with figures from public databases like Data.gov and Microsoft Azure Marketplace. After doing this, the application has another tool that lets you create detailed visualizations of the combined data. The data analysis tool

Are you using the new Project and wishing you could enhance its powerful capabilities with apps? Project 2013 has great extensibility potential-even across devices. The new apps for Project enhance capabilities of Microsoft Project 2013 applications, including Project Pro for Office 365, Project Professional 2013, Project Online and Project Server 2013. www.office.com/setup HOW DO I ADD AN APP TO PROJECT PRO FOR OFFICE 365 OR PROJECT PROFESSIONAL 2013? Open Project. On the Ribbon, click PROJECT, then click Apps for Office. www.office.com/setup All apps for Project associated with your account will show up. If you need to acquire new Apps from the Microsoft Office Store, click the Find more apps in the Office Store link and follow the instructions on the screen. www.office.com/setup START USING YOUR APPS The example below shows a project plan that has been synchronized to a project site in SharePoint or SharePoint Online and the highlighted app on the right SharkPro Insite shows data from your project site next to your document. www.office.com/setup Here are apps you can acquire for Project Pro for Office 365 or Project Professional 2013: Sensei Task Analyzer SharkPro SharePoint Insite™ for Project Visit the Office Store for more apps HOW DO I ADD AN APP TO PROJECT ONLINE OR PROJECT SERVER 2013? Choose the site where you want to add the app. On the Gear menu, select Add an app. www.office.com/setup The apps you see will depend on your corporate environment and on whether you have already acquired apps from the Office Store. If you don't see the apps you want in the list, you can add them. On the left side of the screen, click the SharePoint Store link to browse all available apps. Follow the on-screen instructions to add the apps you want. www.office.com/setup Once the app is added to your site, launch the app by clicking on its name in the left hand navigation or see all apps that are ready to use on your site through the Site co

WHAT IS MICROSOFT PROJECT? www.office.com/setup Blogs: Microsoft Project is a flexible tool for project portfolio management (PPM) and daily work, delivered through Office 365. The first place in this category of products is held by Wrike which has a total score of 9.8/10 and is the winner of our Best Project Management Software Award for 2016. You can try out Wrike for free here. You can also compare Microsoft Project with Wrike and see which one is better for your company. Microsoft Project enables businesses to get started, manage project portfolio investments, and deliver successfully with the intended business value. Microsoft Project Professional gives businesses a powerful, visually enhanced way to efficiently manage a wide range of their projects and programs. From meeting important deadlines, to choosing the right resources and empowering your office teams, Project Professional delivers new as well as intuitive experiences to plan, manage, and collaborate with various individuals, teams, and the enterprise.

Yana Terukhova is a Product Marketing Manager on the Microsoft Visio team. Visio offers over 60 types of professional templates to build compelling diagrams, and organization charts are among most the frequently created. Visio organization charts are simple and visual, but what if you want to connect them to key business indicators tracked by your organization, such as sales by region, budget by department, vacation status, or training progress? Sometimes this information is located in another source, like Excel or a complex database. Data-linked diagrams let you add data to Visio diagrams-no code required-and anyone in an organization can quickly create such dashboards to get better insights into data using Visio Professional 2013 or Visio Pro for Office 365.