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www.office.com/setup Blogs: Last week, Outlook for Mac released two highly requested features designed to help you get more done, quickly. First, we added support for the Touch Bar for MacBook Pro users. Through the Touch Bar, we intelligently put the most common inbox, formatting and view commands at your fingertips-all based on what you're doing in Outlook. Additionally, we're bringing your favorite apps to your inbox with add-ins for Outlook for Mac. Whether it's translating emails on the fly or updating your notes or project board, you will now be able to accomplish all this and more right from your inbox. These add-ins are also available across Outlook for Windows, iOS and the web, so your favorite apps are always there to help you accomplish tasks quickly. Here's a look at what's new! INTUITIVE COMMANDS AT YOUR FINGERTIPS WITH TOUCH BAR SUPPORT IN OUTLOOK FOR MAC The Touch Bar in Outlook intelligently provides quick access to the most commonly used commands as you work on email and manage your calendar. When composing a new mail or meeting request, the Touch Bar displays the common formatting options. When viewing your calendar, you can switch between different views. And when viewing the reminders window, you can join an online meeting with one tap on the Touch Bar. www.office.com/setup Support for Touch Bar in Outlook for Mac is available to all Office 365 subscribers, as well as all Office 2016 for Mac customers. ACCOMPLISH TASKS QUICKLY WITH NEW ADD-INS Add-ins bring your favorite apps right inside Outlook, so you can accomplish tasks quickly without needing to switch back and forth between email and other apps. Last year, we announced the rollout of add-ins to Outlook 2016 for Mac in Office Insider. We are now making add-ins available to all Outlook 2016 for Mac customers who have Exchange 2013 Service Pack 1 or higher, or Office 365 or Outlook.com mailboxes. Use these add-ins to translate emails on the fly, edit a record in your CRM s

"An exuberant celebration of connections, of the ties that bind the universe together... I burst into tears."

Great conversation coming out of 8th graders playing this iCivics game http://t.co/BBVhkRDw #sschat

In order to be taken seriously, small businesses need to convince customers of their professional ability and their value. Small businesses can punch above their weight by taking the time to go to market with a professional set of business documents, templates and content to ensure customers aren't dismissing them before they have a chance to pitch the value of their product or service. But how can small businesses deliver a professional image when they don't have the same resources as big businesses? Web-based solutions, also known as 'cloud solutions,' help small businesses maintain professional-looking documents even while collaborating and editing with employees in real-time from different locations. Gone are the days where employees hoped documents maintained proper spacing and margins; small businesses can now create materials in confidence and showcase their professional ability to customers. Below are just a few of the ways small businesses can ensure they are maintaining a professional appearance when it comes to the business communications: MAKE THE FIRST IMPRESSION A PROFESSIONAL ONE An email newsletter is often a small business' first connection with a potential customer; they can keep it professional by registering a business email domain (johndoe@yourbusiness.com) and sending all communications to customers and potential customers from there. Most cloud solutions offer a cost-efficient and easy way to customize emails with basic client information - small businesses should take the time to add a personal touch to connect with their customers. Messages should be short and to the point to ensure their email will bring value to potential customers. Email signatures should be simple, clean and professional, and employees shouldn't forget to run a spell-check before hitting send. CREATE CUSTOMER-READY DOCUMENTS Whether creating documents on an office desktop or on-the-go on a mobile or tablet device through Office Mobile Apps in Office 3

We're excited to announce a major upgrade for our Outlook.com app for Android devices that overhauls the entire user interface and provides a number of new features. You can get the latest app here. www.office.com/setup We believe that the best mobile experience is enabled through Exchange ActiveSync-which provides a rich, powerful, network-optimized experience for Windows Phone, iOS and other mobile devices. However, native support for Exchange ActiveSync on Android devices varies significantly and so we build a separate app to ensure as many people as possible can have a great Outlook.com experience across all their devices. As you've heard us talk about previously, the overall response to Outlook.com has been very positive. However, our Android app has been behind and so we're excited to take this large step forward. Starting today, you can get the same great Outlook.com look and feel you've come to love on Windows 8 and the web on your Android device.

When FHI 360 wanted to move to cloud-based business productivity services, the organization decided to implement a Microsoft cloud-based solution. We recently spoke to Douglas Wilkins, Director of IT Infrastructure at FHI 360, to learn how the company is benefiting: FHI360 logoQ: Please tell us about FHI 360. Douglas Wilkins: FHI 360 is a nonprofit human development organization dedicated to improving lives in lasting ways by advancing integrated, locally driven solutions. Our staff includes experts in health, education, nutrition, environment, economic development, civil society, gender equality, youth, research, technology, communication, and social marketing-creating a unique mix of capabilities to address today's interrelated development challenges. FHI 360 serves more than 60 countries and all US states and territories. Q: Why did you want to move to cloud-based services for messaging and collaboration? Wilkins: We had a diverse IT infrastructure. Employees in the US had different IT toolsets and Internet access than staff in countries like Mozambique. Subscribing employees to a single, cloud-based solution was the most expedient way to ensure that everyone had the same IT tools, to work efficiently regardless of location. Migrating our communication and collaboration technologies to the cloud reduced much of the time required by our IT staff to manage divergent IT infrastructures and connectivity options found around the world. Q: What criteria did you use to select Microsoft as your vendor for cloud-based business productivity services? Wilkins: We wanted a vendor that demonstrated a real interest in our mission and goals, and that offered online business productivity tools tailored for the enterprise space. The capabilities of the Microsoft Services Consulting team, and the work of Intellinet, the partner Microsoft introduced us to, provided us with that. We migrated our 4,300 staff members around the world from diverse platforms to a Microsoft Offi

www.office.com/setup Blogs: New to Visio? This tutorial will help get you started with Visio 2016. We'll take you through starter diagrams to give you an idea of what diagrams look like. Then we'll take you through the four basic steps to creating your own diagram. START VISIO Click the Start button, type Visio, and then click the Visio icon to open the program. (If Visio is open already, clickFile > New.) LOOK AT THE STARTER DIAGRAMS Before you dig in and start making things yourself, let's show you a couple starter diagrams that Visio has made for you. That way you can get an idea of what diagrams look and feel like in the program. Click Categories. Categories link - www.office.com/setup Click Flowchart. Flowchart category thumbnail - www.office.com/setup Now pay attention to this step: single-click the Basic Flowchart thumbnail. Basic Flowchart thumbnail - www.office.com/setup Let's explain what this dialog is all about. Visio Basic Flowchart thumbnails: 1 blank template, and 3 starter diagrams - www.office.com/setup You choose the blank template when you have some experience with Visio (like after you've made a few practice diagrams). But if you don't have any experience, choose one of the other three starter diagrams. Double-click one of the starter diagram thumbnails. This is a starter diagram. Visio 2016 comes with many starter diagrams to give you ideas and examples. You can customize this starter diagram by typing your own text, adding your own shapes, and so on. Also, take a look at the tips and tricks. These help you work with the diagram. Let's open another starter diagram. Click File > New > Categories > Network. Single-click the Basic Network thumbnail. Basic Network thumbnail - www.office.com/setup Double-click one of the two starter diagram thumbnails. This is just another example of what you can do with Visio. On your own, go to File > New > Categories and explore the various starter diagrams in Visio. Not all diagrams have them, but many of the

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

With Google Apps and Office 365 revolutionizing the way people work, you may feel that Microsoft Office is quickly becoming a dated product that will soon be packed away to the back of the closet. But with the 2016 version set to launch in autumn of this year, Microsoft is looking to change your mind. Now they're adapting their classic Office package for today's modern workforce. Here are four of the new features that are reinventing the way you look at your Office applications. CLOUD FOCUS FOR OUTLOOK ATTACHMENTS Microsoft knows that sharing attachments amongst co-workers and teams can be a hassle. With many collaborators still sharing documents and files the old fashioned way - attaching it to an email and then sending to others - it's easy for users to get confused and send an incorrect or outdated version. To solve this problem, Microsoft is gently nudging us to use the cloud. Now when you add an attachment to an email, you're now asked if you'd also like to share a link to a file on your OneDrive, OneDrive for Business or SharePoint account. SHOWCASING EASY WAYS TO USE OFFICE BETTER If you're like most people, you probably aren't using Office to its full potential. And who can blame you? Between Word, Excel, PowerPoint and more, there are literally hundreds of features and tools you can use - if only you had the time to discover them all. To help you get the most out of Office, Microsoft has now added a Tell Me box in the top center of your program title bar. This tool gives you an easy way to get questions answered. For example, if you want to project your desktop screen to a second monitor or create a graph in Excel, simply type your question into the Tell Me box and Microsoft will find the answers that most closely fit your search criteria. SWAY Look out PowerPoint, here comes Sway - the new, hipper Office application that makes creating fluid, stylish presentations easy. With Sway, you can now gather content from various source

As governments strive to become more responsive and transparent, it's important for them to make public information easily accessible to citizens. At the same time, it's critical that they protect confidential data. A key reason why governments choose Microsoft Office 365 is Microsoft's leadership in the industry when it comes to privacy, security, and compliance practices. In short, governments know they can trust Microsoft to help protect their data. So how does Microsoft demonstrate leadership and why exactly do governments trust Office 365 to help protect their data? Here are four reasons: We respect your privacy. Google is under criticism for its privacy practices. Office 365 does not build advertising products out of customer data, unlike other companies. Nor do we scan your email or documents for building analytics, data mining, or advertising, or to improve the service. What's more, you own your data. Office 365 customer data belongs to the customer. Customers can remove their data whenever they choose. Office 365 is independently verified. Office 365 is compliant with many world-class industry standards, and it is verified by third parties. For example, Office 365 is the first major business productivity public cloud service to have implemented the rigorous set of physical, logical, process, and management controls defined by ISO 27001, one of the best security benchmarks available in the world. In addition, Office 365 is the first major business productivity public cloud service provider to sign the standard contractual clauses created by the European Union ("EU Model Clauses") with all customers. Office 365 also implements security processes that adhere to the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) required by U.S. federal agencies and to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). With Office 365, you know where your data is located. Office 365 customers know where major Office 365 datacenters are located

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,

Yes! It has everything. Even if you are trying to setup a list of what to buy and what to do. You will never need any other software but Microsoft Office. It is great to have it on your computer. We recommend Microsoft Office to every person with any device with a display. Lets see why. IT WILL EASE YOUR WORK. Literally, it will check spellings, it will suggest you what you should be writing. Your grammar if its worst, well Office has some Brit English Grammar inside of its gut. Yeah thats write. Microsoft Office has been coming with the Spell check and Grammar corrections since it was rolled out. It has the best typing management system around the globe.

In order to stay competitive in today's world, teams need to connect and share with each other more than ever before. On March 28th, we had the pleasure of hosting Rob Koplowitz from Forrester Research and Walton Smith from Booz Allen Hamilton in a live webinar where they discussed why organizations are turning to enterprise social and how they are using it to help their teams work more openly and efficiently. Rob discussed how communication is changing, and how we're accessing and interacting with information in new ways-incredibly, 66% of information workers in North America and Europe already work remotely.* The shift to cloud-based software and platforms is definitely contributing to some of these changes. The old way of building software involved engineers, months of coming up with specs, running Beta programs, and debugging. The time from idea to ship could take years. So the introduction of the cloud-and social-to the Enterprise is enabling companies to innovate and move to market faster than ever before. The cloud provides anytime, anywhere access which is essential to our increasingly mobile work environments; today employees can quickly and easily access a range of business systems, information and expertise from anywhere in the world. Our shift to cloud-based platforms and the introduction of working openly with social are changing the way teams collaborate. Take, for example, Booz Allen Hamilton, a leading provider of management and technology consulting services. The company has over 26,000 employees worldwide, with over 71% of their employees working on-site with customers, which often limits their access to company resources.** But in order to provide the best service to their clients, consultants need to be able to quickly and easily access information and expertise. Booz Allen recently integrated Yammer as a social layer across business tools because the cloud-based platform enables consultants world-wide to collaborate virtually. When o

Part of the thrill of working for the Office Division is the opportunity to tackle thorny business issues on behalf of our customers while providing them with a road map for the future. That may be why an interesting article caught my attention this week. In it, the author examined some of the investments Microsoft is making in the unified communications space. While I didn't agree with all of the conclusions it contained, the article certainly underscored the interest in communications and collaboration and how to make people more productive. Communicating and collaborating with others is really at the heart of what we do every day. Whether at work or at home, people have the need to make meaningful connections with one another. Compounding that need are the realities of the world we live in where instant access to information is expected, friends and coworkers are scattered across geographies and many adults are juggling multiple mobile devices. At Microsoft, we believe technology isn't the problem to these complexities, it's the answer. We're committed to providing capabilities that help people make sense of it all and to do so in a way that is intuitive, barrier free and agnostic to the devices on which we rely. We're incredibly proud of the fact that our long term-term vision for communications and collaboration not only marries the best of the cloud and the desktop, it's a holistic approach that spans "from the living room to the boardroom" placing people at the center of everything we do. Our communication and collaboration vision comes to life utilizing client and cloud assets, including Lync, Skype, Yammer, Outlook and SharePoint. These tools are enabling enterprise social capabilities, HD video conferencing and document collaboration as part of a highly secured, reliable and extensible platform. At the risk of looking geeky, I have to admit that I have a soft spot for Lync and it's comforting to know I'm not alone. More than 90% of

Bella Engen is a Technical Writer on the SharePoint User Content Publishing team, focused on search-driven experiences. Cross-site publishing is a new publishing method in SharePoint Server 2013 that can help streamline the publishing process in your organization, and at the same time reduce costs associated with maintaining and updating your website. By combining cross-site publishing with SharePoint search features, you can reduce the number of pages needed to maintain your website, and gain flexibility in how content is presented to your customers. In a nutshell, cross-site publishing simplifies the authoring experience by separating the process of how content is authored from the process of how content is displayed. SharePoint search features enable you to add user-specific behavior to your website, such as displaying different content to different customer groups, or displaying recommendations based on user behavior. In a blog series on the SharePoint IT Pro blog, you can learn how you can use SharePoint Server 2013 to set up a website that is based on product catalog data. The blog posts describe the different functionalities that are involved when setting up such a site, and show you step-by-step how the features are configured. To demonstrate how it all comes together, data from a fictitious company is used. The blog posts use several screenshots and diagrams to explain everything from how the cross-site publishing feature works, to how you can use search features to influence how product data is displayed to visitors on a site. To give you an idea of what type of site this blog series describes, here are a few screenshots of the final website: www.office.com/setup Visit the "How to set up a product-centric website in SharePoint Server 2013" blog series overview page for the complete list of current and upcoming posts.

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

ACCESS 2016: DESIGNING A SIMPLE QUERY MARCH 27, 2017 TRAINING / WWW.OFFICE.COM/SETUP ADMIN LEAVE A COMMENT WWW.OFFICE.COM/SETUP BLOGS: INTRODUCTION www.office.com/setup Blogs: The real power of a relational database lies in its ability to quickly retrieve and analyze your data by running a query. Queries allow you to pull information from one or more tables based on a set of search conditions you define. In this lesson, you will learn how to create a simple one-table query. 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 designing a simple query in Access. WHAT ARE QUERIES? Queries are a way of searching for and compiling data from one or more tables. Running a query is like asking a detailed question of your database. When you build a query in Access, you are defining specific search conditions to find exactly the data you want. HOW ARE QUERIES USED? Queries are far more powerful than the simple searches or filters you might use to find data within a table. This is because queries can draw their information from multiple tables. For example, while you could use a search in the customers table to find the name of one customer at your business or a filter on the orders table to view only orders placed within the past week, neither would let you view both customers and orders at once. However, you could easily run a query to find the name and phone number of every customer who's made a purchase within the past week. A well-designed query can give information you might not be able to find out just by examining the data in your tables. When you run a query, the results are presented to you in a table, but when you design one you use a different view. This is called Query Design view, and it lets you see how your query is put

WWW.OFFICE.COM/SETUP BLOGS: 5 TIPS FOR PRINTING WORD DOCUMENTS www.office.com/setup Blogs: If you've ever used Microsoft Word, there's a good chance you've needed to print a document. While Word's printing options are more advanced than some of the other programs in the Office suite, it can still be difficult to get printed documents to look exactly the way you want. That's why we've put together this list of tips. Keep these in mind the next time you need to print a document, and you're sure to have better results. These tips should work the same way for Word 2016, Word 2013, and Word 2010. If you're using Word 2007 or earlier, you can make many of these changes in the Print dialog box. 1. USE PRINT PREVIEW Before you print anything, you'll want to preview it. Just go to File > Print to see a preview of your document. From here, you'll also be able to adjust different page layout and printing settings, such as the page orientation, paper size, and margin width. Any changes you make will be updated in the preview pane as well. Screenshot of Microsoft Word - www.office.com/setup 2. USE SMALLER PAGE MARGINS There may be times when you need a way to make your document take up fewer printed pages. One of the easiest ways to do this is by using smaller margins. Just go to the Page Layout tab, click Margins, then select Narrow (you can also select Custom Margins for even smaller margins). Keep in mind that using very small margins may cause some text to be cut off by your printer. Screenshot of Microsoft Word - www.office.com/setup We've found this especially helpful if you have a multi-page document with just a few sentences on the last page. Making the margins smaller will bring the text up, which will usually remove the extra page. 3. PRINT DOUBLE-SIDED Double-sided printing is another great way to save paper. Double-siding printing options can vary, depending on your printer. Go to File > Print and select the menu just below the Pages: field (if you've never

WWW.OFFICE.COM/SETUP BLOGS: USING THE FORMAT PAINTER IN POWERPOINT AND WORD www.office.com/setup Blogs: Themes can be a great way to make your PowerPoint presentation or Word document look nice, but sometimes you might want to add custom design elements to your project. Custom formatting can be tedious, though, especially when you're doing a lot of it. For instance, take this PowerPoint slide. Let's say you've applied a series of effects to the photo on the left, and now you'd like to do the same to the photo on the right. Screenshot of Microsoft PowerPoint - www.office.com/setup You could try to remember all of the effects applied and apply them to the second photo as well-or you could save some time and use the Format Painter. The Format Painter is a tool in Word and PowerPoint that lets you copy all of the formatting from one object and apply it to another one. Think of it as copying and pasting for formatting. USING THE FORMAT PAINTER Select the object with the formatting you want to copy. Screenshot of Microsoft PowerPoint - www.office.com/setup Click the Format Painter icon. It may be located in a slightly different place, depending on your version of Office, but it always looks like a paintbrush. Screenshot of Microsoft PowerPoint - www.office.com/setup Select the object you want to apply the formatting to. The object will be formatted. Screenshot of Microsoft PowerPoint - www.office.com/setup See? Simple! That was much quicker than applying the individual effects one at a time. If you want, you can even use the Format Painter to apply the formatting to multiple objects. Just double-click the Format Painter icon instead of clicking it once. Screenshot of Microsoft PowerPoint - www.office.com/setup Even though weonly looked at using the Format Painter for photos in PowerPoint, you can use it for anything you can apply formatting to in Word or PowerPoint. This includes text, table cells, and shapes. Once you start using it, you'll be surprised how often

A teacher would never be satisfied with her performance if she discovered that the entire back row of her classroom was unable to hear her lecture. In the world of cloud services for business, we see things the same way. With Office 365, every user counts! Google has a different approach. It starts counting downtime only after at least 5 percent of users are affected. Imagine if 100 of your 2,000 users had no access to email. Would you, as an IT professional, be satisfied with your performance? Would your business hold you accountable for your performance? The answers to these questions are clear. Calculating downtime only after 5 percent of your users cannot access email, as Google does, makes it more difficult for you to assess impact to user productivity. Google's approach doesn't help your business with meaningful performance metrics. With Office 365, every affected customer and every service counts when we calculate downtime. Downtime means the total minutes in a month during which service is unavailable, excluding scheduled downtime. For services like email, there is no scheduled downtime, an experience that our many Exchange Server customers have long been accustomed to-system maintenance while they continue to be productive in their Outlook inboxes. In addition to the way it calculates downtime, Google also combines consumer and commercial service availability when reporting the availability of Gmail. This means if you are considering Google Apps for Business, you cannot get accurate information regarding the availability of the commercial service that you need. On the other hand, Microsoft's approach to calculating downtime, which includes every user minute, helps you understand whether your users' productivity is being impacted by downtime of email. Google takes a "use at your risk" approach around Google+, Hangout and Google Voice. These services are not part of Google Apps for Business and are excluded from the SLA. Excluding these serv