Free IT Skills Taster Sessions with happy

When working with OneDrive, Teams and SharePoint it is important that everyone is on the same page so that people can communicate and collaborate effectively. More often than not without specific training people get very confused about the differences between these products and when to use one over the other.

You may hear some people say that Microsoft Teams and OneDrive sit on top of SharePoint. If you struggle to understand the differences between these applications, then this session is for you.

The Benefits

Once you understand the differences, you will know which application to use in order to find the right tools to get the job done.

Session Contents:

• What is OneDrive?
• What is Microsoft Teams?
• What is SharePoint?
• When should I use OneDrive, Microsoft Teams and SharePoint?

Microsoft Teams has come a long way since its introduction in 2017. A lot of organisations have adopted hybrid working and are using Teams as a remote communication tool. Typical uses include chat, audio and video calls, the sharing of content, real-time collaboration and meetings.

The Benefits

Microsoft Teams provides a centralised area where you can collaborate and communicate with your colleagues. Its adoption has been seen to lead to improved communication and productivity, fewer emails and faster response times in relation to queries.

Session Contents:

• Planning – things to think about
• What is a Team? How do you create one?
• What can Team Owners do?
• What is a Channel and what are the different types that you can create?
• How do you create a Channel?
• What is a Tab?
• What is Chat Chat?
• What is Teams Chat?
• What is a Mention?
• What are Tags?
• When would you use Chat Chat vs Teams Chat? Scenarios

Have you been using Microsoft Teams for a while? Have you tapped into the range of apps that are available to you in order to make collaboration easier? Microsoft Planner is just one of the apps that can be integrated into Microsoft Teams to help with task management. This is much more advantageous than using the Planner app on its own.

The Benefits

There are several benefits when it comes to using Microsoft Planner. Team leads on medium-sized projects can quickly allocate tasks to team members and members can view and prioritise tasks that have been assigned to them. Everyone can be kept in the loop and kept up to date on progress so that deadlines are met.

The Planner app is often compared to Asana and Trello.

Session Contents:

• Add an existing Plan to a Team Channel
• Add a new Plan to a Team Channel
• Adding Tasks:
  • Assigning a Task
  • Start and Due Dates
  • Labels
  • Check Lists
• Buckets
• Views and Filters

This taster session could be useful if you have recently upgraded to Office 2022 or are using Microsoft 365 but check that you have these functions available to you before attending the session.

Out with the old and in with the new - there have been several new functions that have been added to help with the clean-up and manipulation of your data.

The Benefits

Using the new functions can save time when it comes down to splitting and combining data from cells within your spreadsheets. For example, you can say goodbye to the LEFT, RIGHT and MID Functions and say hello to a number of new functions that can be used to easily split text into multiple cells regardless of spaces.

Session Contents:

• TOCOL and TOROW
• VSTSCK and HSTACK
• WRAPROWS and WRAPCOLS
• CHOOSECOLS and CHOOSEROWS
• EXPAND
• TEXTSPLIT
• TEXTBEFORE and TEXTAFTER

Excel allows you to organise large sets of data in an organised fashion. You can format the data and present it in a number of visual and user-friendly ways.

Session Contents:

• Adding Text, Numbers, and Dates to an Excel Spreadsheet
• Altering the look of your data (e.g., number and date formats)
• Merging Cells
• Wrapping Text
• Adding Notes (aka Comments)
• Resizing Notes
• Deleting Notes
• Saving and Printing an Excel Spreadsheet
• Closing an Excel Workbook

When it comes to using Excel, you won’t always have control over the type of data that gets imported from an external data source (e.g., a database, text file, or a Web page). Before you can start to analyse it, you will often need to clean it up. Excel has several features that can be used to do this.

The Benefits

If you work with large amounts of data that you need to analyse using manual calculations or that you need to create Pivot Tables from then this session is for you. Learning how to tidy up data will help when it comes down to correctly retrieving and calculating the results that you need.

Session Contents:

• Importing Data
• Removing Blank Rows
• Inserting and Deleting columns (using the keyboard)
• Finding and Removing Duplicates
• Finding and Removing Certain Formatting
• AutoFill Options (creating sequences)
• Flash Fill (Extracting First and Last Names from Full Names, Extracting Numbers from Text)
• Data formats (Numbers, Dates, Percentages)
• Converting Numbers to Percentages
• Using Autocomplete to Populate Cells

Do you work with large Data Sets? Do you often need to use a specific value e.g., an ID or Name to return specific information from a row or column of data e.g., a department or salary?

Then look no further the much talked about Microsoft 365 XLOOKUP Function in Excel will enable you to do this easily.

The Benefits

XLOOKUP provides a powerful, robust and flexible alternative to using the VLOOKUP, HLOOKUP and also INDEX and MATCH functions when you are looking to cross reference and retrieve data from a list.

There are different types that can be set up in Excel. The most common type is the creation of a Data Validation drop-down list which offers a pre-defined list of values that you can choose from.

The Benefits

Data Validation is a way of checking the accuracy and clarity of the data being entered into your Excel Spreadsheets.

Session Contents:

• What is XLOOKUP?
• Creating an XLOOKUP function to return a value from a different sheet
• What is Data Validation?
• Using Data Validation to create a dropdown list

Excel enables you to analyse vast amounts of data and create high level summaries and visuals in relation to questions that you may have. There are various features that you can use, and this session covers some of them.

The Benefits

Excel allows you to organise large sets of data in an organised fashion. You can format the data and present it in a number of visual and user-friendly ways.

Session Contents

• Creating tabs (using the mouse, using the keyboard)
• What is the difference between relative and absolute referencing?
• What is the difference between a Formula and a Function?
• What are Function Arguments?
• Creating a Basic IF Statement
• What Functions do you find most Useful?
• Creating a Recommended Pivot Table
• Creating a Pivot Chart from a Pivot Table (using the keyboard)

Excel has been around for a very long time, and it owes its longevity to being able to analyse vast amounts of data quickly and easily.

The Benefits

Excel can be used for basic calculations, but it really comes into its own when constructing more complex mathematical calculations that can be used to predict various outcomes e.g., projected financial results.

Session Contents:

• What is Freeze Panes? What are the benefits of using it?
• How to Organise Data (Sorting alphabetically, numerically and by colour).
• Using the SUMIFS and COUNTIFS functions (to sum and count values in a range that meet criteria that you set).
• Excel Tables
• Creating automatic subtotal rows in a data set using the Subtotal feature.

Are you yet to get to grips with PowerPoint? Do you want to stop your audience from drifting off after the umpteenth slide containing a sea of bullet points? If the answer is yes, then say hello to the PowerPoint Designer Tool which is available in Microsoft 365.

The Benefits

The Designer Tool creates professional looking slide decks based on automatically generated recommendations in no time at all. You simply create your content and then let PowerPoint Designer (also known as Design Ideas) do all of the heavy lifting.

Session Contents:

• How to enable Power Point Designer
• Creating a Presentation
• Adding Content
• Using PowerPoint Designer (to Jazz up the presentation)
• Adding Animations
• Adding Transitions (using the Morph Transition)
• Running the Presentation as a Slide Show

How do you fix your email overload in Outlook? What could you do differently to feel in control and lighten the email load? This taster session highlights good email culture that enables you to stay focused on what matters the most to help you improve productivity. There are various features that you can use to manage your mailbox and this session covers some of them.

The Benefits

This Outlook session will give you practical and technical tips to manage your mailbox better as well as cover behaviours that can help you and your colleagues lighten the load.

Session Contents:

• Understanding a few good email practices
• Discovering how to speed up every day email tasks
• Looking at radical approaches to email that will make you productive, not just busy

Book in for a 1-to-1 session with Happy to discuss your learning needs – whether it’s creating joy at work, the 4 day week, leadership & management training, personal development courses, improving your people’s IT skills, e-learning, finding out more about apprencticeships and how they can benefit your organisation – or anything else you can think of!

Choose a 30 minute session to speak with us and let us know what you’d like to talk about here – we look forward to talking to you!