Exciting news from the Visio team at MSIgnite 2016 in Atlanta - the Visio Roadmap

Today is an important day in the life of Visio Users. After a period of relatively small (but important) improvements to the product, the team shared their Roadmap for the very near and longer term future in a session at the Ignite conference in Atlanta.

Some very exciting features were announced and the goods news is that all are thing they are actively working on right now. We won't have to wait long either, pretty much every month improvements are being released into the wild!

Firstly of course it is important to highlight the news that's live RIGHT NOW, Visio On-line just deployed to Office 365 First Release customers is the new way of publishing, sharing and consuming Visio diagrams on the web. You read all about that right here. Suffice to say that the experience is a huge improvement over the existing Visio Services in SharePoint (that still is live on your SharePoint tenant as well) and also works in OneDrive and Dropbox.
The next great news is that there is now a native Visio viewer for iPad, it is still in preview too, so now besides the other office applications for iPad users can enjoy a very high fidelity and smooth viewing experience of Visio diagrams on those devices. You can go and register for this here.

Now for the highlights (for me) of the real news;

Visio is to get back a way to generate database diagrams through reverse engineering a schema, the intent is to allow for a range database types, this feature was there, had been depreciated and will now be brought back, and as I understand it in a sophisticated way.

Visio has had smart shapes for a fair while, the team is now adding what they call Smart Diagrams and the great news about that is that these types of diagrams support a very dynamic and 'live' way of populating and rendering shapes. This will allow for scenarios where the data source can determine what the diagram looks like in a very dynamic way! These capabilities will be available, as I understood it now, as templates, at first for Process diagrams, the Org Chart and Network diagrams. Developers and Power users will also be able to develop their own, or extend the out of the box templates.

A little further on the roadmap the team announced they are working on improving the creative and editing experience to allow for example drawing a diagram using ink in OneNote and create a structured diagram in Visio from that. We can also look forward to an editing experience in the browser as well some time down the road. Last I'd like to mention is a way to embed selected portions of Diagrams in programs like PowerPoint which will be very easy and 'live' so not a copy but a linked 'snippet' that is updated when the source is updated.

The above is just a highlight of some of the things that stood out to me, I will keep blogging more detail as it comes to light ;-) You can also keep an eye on the official Office roadmap as that will get updated with this information.

The penny has dropped, once again, faith has been restored #Gigjam

  This week has been a very exciting week at the technology front, at the World Wide Partner Conference, Microsoft has made a very significant announcement: Project GigJam

I've been wondering and worried for more than a year, friends in the know in Redmond have been trying to relax me and convince me something good is coming.... I've asked a lot of questions and vented a lot of frustration about direction and seeing so little progress in the area of end user productivity tools and apps - some exceptions noted like the incredibly impressive and significant release of PowerBI for example.

There has been tremendous progress coming from Redmond, but a lot of was in the platform and services, useful but not very exciting for End users and business people. By the way if you have not checked out PowerBI, please do yourself a favor and get on to it. If you need any help or direction, let me know @EdRichard. We have some awesome demo's to show you how PowerBI can unlock a wealth of insights into your business performance. Using new systems, like ours for Distribution, Warehouse and Transport Management, or as a model and reporting dashboard on top of your existing systems (or a combination of the two). 

So, ... now I know why they have been positive and relaxed .... and I am also relaxed, happy even .... the future is bright, very bright indeed. The Continuum that Windows 10 provides and the Microsoft Cloud services are a game changer in the way we get things done. This is already the case at Hedgehog Technology and some of our customers and will quickly get better and better.


"The past ten years have seen an unprecedented investment in technology to support business processes. With the rise of web service front-ends to existing applications, the adoption of new SaaS offerings, and the proliferation of mobile devices, the always-connected workforce is now real. 
What has not changed much is the time and effort these connected users have to spend, unaided by their business apps, to work with others to get things done."

The above is a quote, taken from a blog post published this week it marks, in my opinion an acknowledgement and vision for a game changing direction, and I love it!

The future is bright and e-Agility and HedgehogTechnology are on the cutting edge and passionate about delivering the solutions that re-define the way you, we work - using the awesome power the Microsoft eco system provides us.

Be part of that journey and feel free to reach out to us @Hedgehoglog let's discuss how we can enable your business to become a modern, efficient and most importantly 'happy' place.


PS. If you'd like to read a quick overview and recap of GigJam - I'd recommend
              
Ala Lepofsky @alanlepo                                         

13 Jul 2015 3:12 PM

                                

Read my initial review here: https://www.constellationr.com/content/has-microsoft-just-redefined-collaboration-introducing-project-gigjam
"Gigjam is the latest in the serious of moves that Microsoft is making as they focus on personal and team productivity. Customers, partners and competitors should pay close attention as the concepts in Gigjam could play a large part in shaping the future of way people work." 

Join in for Windwos 10 Developer readiness

The Right Tool For The Job - making sense of data PowerBI rocks!

The Right Tool For The Job

The Right Tool For The Job

TRTFTJ - Launching a new Acronym - post 2 of 2
 

Productivity - a buzz word on every Office Worker's mind these days.

I'm in the thick of it - people working in offices, warehouses and the likes, all stressed about 'getting the job done'. Picking the right tool, and making the most of collaborative environments and attitude - yes attitude! is an important step towards better Productivity. And keep the goal in mind; It's about the best outcome for the Business, not the individual!

There's so much we can do right now, don't wait for the all fixing magic bullet, take action right now.

So you are a business owner and you know, there's tons of data stored away and obscured by complex applications - Reporting is in-flexible and often requires IT people to configure or customize to produce the answers to the questions you have today, just because they are different from the needs you had when the system was purchased and installed.

A costly exercise, that is if the vendor still exists, supports and has the resources available at short notice, this alone can be a challenge these days.

Introducing: Self Service Business Intelligence! Do yourself a huge favor and get to know your data, understand where things are stored, how to access them and once you have that power, create models that meet your needs now and in the future.

It sounds complicated, but the good news is Microsoft has made it really easy, after reading this post, take an hour out of your day to get your head around the Microsoft PowerBI tools - I guarantee a return on that investment within a day or so and after a few weeks you won't know what it's like to live without it.

Your starting point is here

 

Take a moment to scroll down this site and look at some of the quick videos, trust me you'll be inspired. Once that's done, download and install the latest PowerBI Designer - and let me give you a quick getting started tip. Don't get distracted by wondering how to connect to your company data sources just yet. You have or can easily create some Excel spreadsheets with lots of data you are likely to be pretty familiar with.

Start with using those as a data source and get to know the power of the designer; there a tremendous amount of help and videos already available on-line

It's easy to get lost in the options; in my opinion you should start with a  simple excel data source (a .csv file will do), create a report with the PowerBI designer and then go into the PowerBI.com environment to load the report you created and play around with the Dashboard functionality. From there you can save and share the results with anyone in your organization and quickly become the BI hero!

I kid you not you won't believe how easy this is, and how much this enables you and you co-workers to make much more sense of data in ways you've never had imagined.

Microsoft PowerBI is a cornerstone to the Reporting and Dash boarding solutions we deliver at Hedgehog Technology, a solutions provider for the logistics industry  on a mission to transform the businesses of our customers.

 

TRTFTJ Series post 1 of 2

The Right Tool For The Job

The Right Tool For The Job

TRTFTJ - Launching a new Acronym today post 1 of 2
 

Productivity - a buzz word on every Office Worker's mind these days.

I'm in the thick of it - people working in offices, warehouses and the likes, all stressed about 'getting the job done'. Picking the right tool, and making the most of collaborative environments and attitude - yes attitude! is an important step towards better Productivity. And keep the goal in mind; It's about the best outcome for the Business, not the individual!

There's so much we can do right now, don't wait for the all fixing magic bullet, take action right now.

I'll start posting examples of TRT - The Right Tool - from now on, on this blog as I'm convinced business who embrace collaboration and innovative tools - challenge the status quo - will be the businesses making money and thriving in the connected world we live in.
 

Most of these examples will be based on real life observations - but I'll try to protect the innocent - if you do recognize yourself don't feel bad, feel privileged by the opportunity to contribute and inspire improvement and productivity!

 

The topic of today - FILES

I witnessed an email conversation yesterday - a topic for another post, our stubborn reliance on this ancient, inefficient way of communicating - here's this developer that realised a team member would need a source file. In this example a JavaScript file (.js) and he decided to attach it to an email and send it - a noble thought. Sadly Outlook blocks certain file types, .js being one of them and so the recipient mailed back that he cold not save the file, and requested the sender to go and rename the file and re-send it....  Now that you read it and think about it, you can probably see how much time was wasted and a number of ways this could have been avoided.

First of all what's the file doing in a local place?, that requires copying and mailing. And why use email?, don't we have Lync, Twitter, Yammer as examples of much better ways to 'share' the information. It's very likely you know that someone else in the team will face the same issue and might need the same file - or use it as a basis for solving his problem. Using a more open, social platform allows that transparency between team members and creates an automatic history of what problem was resolved, and how. Very valuable information that will certainly save someone else time in the future. I'm sure you can think of many examples just like this.

The same is true for many business documents, as soon as they are sent out via email, they are by definition stale, how many times have you sent out 'updates' , reviews, and had to consolidate changes to a "master" version? And still do?
 

The obvious solution is to create a central place, in this day and age clearly in "The Cloud" where the life of a file starts and ends - and stakeholders can collaborate, manage alerts and access the information from anywhere, on any device. Add to that the powerful capabilities to search and do things like version management and set permissions and you wonder "Why don't we do that for all our files?" Don't be inert and start the transformation process right now!
 

Office 365 file sharing is a great way to get started and "The Right Tool For The Job" for the above scenario or even OneDrive for Business is a great way to be more productive.

One closing thought, the above tools work great inside your business boundaries, but also provide easy options to work with external parties - so no excuses - no more sharing PDF's over email. you can have real collaboration, with added enterprise security at a very low cost of entry.
 

If you want to know more, feel free to contact Hedgehog Technology for guidance and advice on becoming more Agile, more Productive and "Getting The Job Done".

 

 

"Work the way the Cloud works - A-Synchronously "

Office 365 tip of the day - read all about Check-in and Check-out

 

Presenting Powerful new Office 365 techniques for business users in Melbourne

Making you world pop at Lightning Speed with SharePoint and Office - yet another exciting MBUG >> CloudBug presentation

Making your Intranet POP with Design and Stakeholder Engagement

By Katrina Rose – Head of Digital EBOS

When EBOS wanted to improve employee engagement and provide new efficient business processes they embarked on developing a new Intranet with SharePoint 2013. This session will include a live demonstration of the intranet solution and key learnings for building an intranet using agile and digital skills.

Develop at Lightning Speed with Modern Apps, Featuring Sway, Sienna, PowerBI and Office MIX  

By Shailen Sukul, Ed Richard and Rita Arrigo

Office now has so many new ways of creating content. This session will show you what non-technical users can achieve with these new tools:

Project Siena – breakthrough technology that enables your business experts, analysts, and imagineers to create transformative business apps.

SWAY – the new mobile friendly intelligent app that helps you easily pull together, format, and present your content on an interactive way.

Office Mix to turns your PowerPoints into interactive online lessons or presentations.

Power BI a new tool for Visualising data for business users. This demo will show an in context evaluation of a marketing campaign.

Looking forward to the new CloudBug starting at 11.30 24 March 2015 with a networking lunch ( at Microsoft Australia, 4 Freshwater Place, Southbank)
Join the Meetup here

This event is sponsored by SMS Management & Technology.

New Document Library enhancement in Office 365

For many years I've been frustrated by the fact that on a Document library on SharePoint or Office 365 there was only a New.... Word document option and you had to create content types etc. for other types like Excel, PowerPoint etc.

I just created a brand new Document library in one of my site and low and behold the below new dialog pops up. have no clue how long that's been there and now I am seriously wondering how to enable that behavior  in existing Document Libraries ;-) think some migration will be needed.