Leverage Your Microsoft With The kalmstrom.com YouTube Channel

The kalmstrom.com demos and tutorials on YouTube are popular, and I like that the YouTube team continuously gives us new features that really make a difference in experience for both publishers and viewers.
Now I have taken advantage of a new feature called "Channel Trailer".

Late start
kalmstrom.com Business Solutions were late out on YouTube, because I could not accept the bad quality YouTube gave my videos in the beginning.

It was not until YouTube introduced the possibility to upload and show high-definition videos that I considered YouTube good enough. With HD even the details  became clear in the Outlook, Excel and SharePoint installations I needed to show.

97 videos
From 2010 kalmstrom.com Business Solutions begun publishing on YouTube. Today we have 97 videos that in some way deal with the Microsoft platforms SharePoint, Excel or Outlook.

As most of the first videos now have been removed I must have uploaded well over 120 demonstrations and tutorials on my own or Microsoft's products since I first begun using YouTube.

Product demonstrations
My first videos on YouTube were introductions to the kalmstrom.com Outlook and SharePoint solutions. These demos were embedded on the homepage for each application. We also create demos with user instructions, and nowadays we upload all such product videos to YouTube.

Tips and pointers
Other kalmstrom.com YouTube videos give a more general knowledge about SharePoint, Excel and Outlook than the product demos, and I sometimes use them when I lecture on IT courses.

These tips tutorials attract a great interest, and I plan to make more of them. To not burden the kalmstrom.com applications with the production costs, I have decided to allow advertisements on the demos that explain Microsoft's products rather than my own.

Statistics
It is interesting to follow the Analytics for the kalmstrom.com YouTube channel. The most watched video ever is the introduction to HelpDesk OSP, which is one of the product demos.

Second and third are two SharePoint tutorials, Add An InfoPath Form to A SharePoint 2013 FormLibrary and Create a Small Business SharePoint intranet.

Channel trailer
The Analytics is only one of the YouTube features that have enhanced the platform in the last years. The video channel is another one, and recently we got the possibility to add a trailer to the channel. This trailer is only shown to new visitors, not to the welll over 500 subscribers.

I was a bit hesitant to add the channel trailer here, because I actually want you to visit the kalmstrom.com YouTube channel and look at it there instead. But here it is anyway, so that subscribers also get a chance to watch it. I hope this trailer shows the essence of what kalmstrom.com stands for.



When you go to the kalmstrom.com YouTube channel, you will see all the playlists where our videos are gathered, and in the SharePoint 2013 playlist you will see another new feature: the custom thumbnail that give all these tutorials a similar look.

I will create more videos for my YouTube channel, and I will also try to use the features offered to give you the best possible experience. See you there!

By Peter Kalmstrom
CEO and Systems Designer
kalmstrom.com Business Solutions

Correct Excel Formulas From Start

The kalmstrom.com Tips section has a new Excel tutorial, and this time I demonstrate the basics of Excel formulas. If you are not already used to working with formulas, I recommend you to watch it.

You can do a lot with Excel if you know how to make the program count numeric values for you, but there are some pitfalls you should be aware of.

Calculate with Excel
The main reason for Excel's popularity is its capacity for calculations that can be used in  different kinds of dynamic presentations. Excel formulas tell the program what cells to use and what to do with the numeric values in those cells.

Thanks to the formula you can quickly see what happens if you change a value in one or several cells, because the result of the calculation will change automatically.

Make prognoses with Excel
As Excel makes it so easy to see what happens when values are changed, the program is often used for prognoses. We are all aware that a prognosis is not a true fact but just a qualified guess about the future, but I think we too often assume that the selection of data and the mathematics behind the prognosis are correct. But that is not always the case.

Student discovered mistake in famous white paper
Some months ago we could read about a grave mistake in Excel calculations made by an economy professor and a former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund. In 2010 they presented a research paper called Growth in a Time of Debt, which was widely spread and influenced politicians all over the world.

The paper claimed that growth slows down dramatically  in an economic crisis when the size of a country's debt rises above 90% of Gross Domestic Product. The study attracted much attention, as it seemed to answer the question about how to act in a crisis – stimulate economic growth or cut spending and raise taxes? – with the advice "hold on to the money".

When a student failed to replicate the findings he finally asked for the Excel spreadsheet used by the experts, and as he studied it he found an error. When it had been corrected the prognosis was modified considerably!

Double-check!
I think this story is worth remembering, because it shows how important it is to:

• include the correct data in the calculation
  
• create the correct formula for the calculation
  

Excel is an excellent tool, but you have to understand the mathematics behind the formulas. Excel does not do the math for you, and it certainly does not tell you what data is relevant to include in the calculations.

That said, I urge you to try Excel formulas if you have not already done it. In my demo I try to explain the logics behind the formulas, so I hope it will give you a good start!



Later I will record another tutorial with more advanced formulas, and you can already find several Excel demos on how to create graphs from tables with numeric values in the kalmstrom.com Tips section.

By Peter Kalmstrom
CEO and Systems Designer
kalmstrom.com Business Solutions

TimeCard for SharePoint Under Development

I am excited about our current development project, TimeCard V5, which will give TimeCard Workgroup users the option to report time and expenses from SharePoint and not only from Outlook.

Report time from the calendar
The idea behind TimeCard is that you should report time from the same place as where you plan your time, to avoid double entries.

Time is planned in a calendar, so that is where the reporting should be done too. I chose to create my application for the Outlook calendar, as Outlook is widely used and a good platform to build on.

Reporting to database
When TimeCard was developed 13 years ago, most people reported time to a database in a local network, so we gave TimeCard the options Access or SQL Server database. For users who needed to report from outside the network we offered reporting from the Outlook calendar to an ASP page, that forwarded the time reports to the database.

SharePoint superior cloud platform
Today, when the internet makes remote work so much easier, many want to both plan and report their time in a cloud calendar. Therefore it is time to take TimeCard to the cloud as well.

I have found SharePoint to be the by far best cloud solution. If you have followed this blog you know that I aim to give all the kalmstrom.com products a SharePoint alternative.

Plan and report time in the cloud
Version 5 of TimeCard Workgroup will give the option of using the new TimeCard for SharePoint, either as a separate solution or in combination with the Outlook version.

Each user will have his/her own SharePoint calendar, and when the Outlook version of TimeCard is used with the Outlook calendar, TimeCard will synchronize appointments in the two calendars. Time and expenses can be reported from either SharePoint or Outlook.

Similar to Kanban Task Manager
If you know the kalmstrom.com application for project and task management, you have already realized that TimeCard for SharePoint and TimeCard for Outlook will work together just like Kanban Task Manager for SharePoint and Kanban Task Manager for Outlook. You can either use both versions together or opt to use only one of them.

And ASP?
I recommend Community Members using TimeCard and ASP reporting to transfer to SharePoint when TimeCard V5 has been published, but I am not sure all  can manage that. I therefore sent an e-mail and asked them yesterday.

If necessary we will continue to support reporting via an ASP page, but should none of the current Community Members need it for future time reporting we will remove that part from TimeCard.

Customer care
My first aim is to keep subscribers happy, so that they keep using my products. That is why I sent my e-mail to ask about ASP usage.

To the customers, this is one of the advantages of being a subscriber instead of a buyer – the kalmstrom.com team is always there for them. We are happy to give assistance, answer questions and make sure the applications work well. We don't leave you on your own after the purchase!

Release plans
In addition to the SharePoint option, TimeCard V5 will have a new design, Excel reports and support for the 64 bit versions of Office 2010 and 2013, so it will be a while before we have put all parts together. We have recently added more developers to the team, though, so I hope we can release TimeCard V5 in October.

I will come back and tell you more about TimeCard V5 in this blog later, and you are of course also welcome to contact us with any questions you might have.

By Peter Kalmstrom
CEO and Systems Designer
kalmstrom.com Business Solutions.

Sandbox Laptop For New kalmstrom.com QA

We are happy to have a new Quality Assurance Engineer in the kalmstrom.com team. Ankita Kunchal begun working at the Indian office a month ago, and she has already become a valuable colleague. And her choice of photos for this blog post shows that she has a sense of humour!

"Learns quickly"
I have not co-operated much with Ankita, so when I prepared this blog I talked to Vijayant Rimza, our Lead QA. Vijayant has introduced Ankita to her tasks and supervised her progress, and he had only good things to say about her.

All new members of the kalmstrom.com team must start with a learning period, and Vijayant asked me to point out that Ankita grasps new things quickly and remembers what she has learned. This is crucial in our business, where we continuously have to update our knowledge.

#3 among graduates
Vijayant was not the first to notice that Ankita is a quick learner. When she took her Bachelor of Engineering in 2012 she was rewarded a bronze medal for being the third best of all graduates at her college this year. After that Ankita was trained in another software company before we offered her a position.

Desktop applications
“I have always tried to learn new things, and in the kalmstrom.com team I do that every day”, says Ankita. “I especially like that I can test different kinds of desktop applications now and not only web based solutions.”

Product testing
During her first month with kalmstrom.com Ankita has helped us with the testing of first Kanban Task Manager for Outlook and then HelpDesk OSP for Outlook and SharePoint.

We have now released updates of both these Outlook add-ons, and Ankita is concentrating on TimeCard for Outlook V5, which will require extensive testing before next version can be published.

Laptop in the sand
Ankita loves to travel, so before she begun working for kalmstrom.com she took a vacation and made a journey. When she visited Aksa beach in Mumbai she created a laptop in the sand, so that she could chat with her friends and tell them about the trip ;-)

Basket player
In her free time Ankita likes to dance, cook and play basketball. She is not tall, but she is quick and a good goalscorer. I am sure she will get a few hits in her work at kalmstrom.com also!

You are very welcome to the team, Ankita! I am looking forward to getting to know you better.

Kate Kalmström
Marketing and Documentation
kalmstrom.com Business Solutions

Use Excel Charts To Visualize Data - New kalmstrom.com Demo

The kalmstrom.com Tips section earlier had some tutorials for Excel 2010, but now I have also created new ones for Excel 2013. One of them explains how graphs and diagrams can be used to illustrate data.

Visualize complex data
A chart is a diagram or graph that  visualizes numerical data. When they are correctly used, charts make it much easier to understand relationships and changes in large quantities of data. Good charts can make complex data accessible, as information can be taken in more quickly than the data that they are created from.



Changes over time can be shown with a line chart, and a pie chart is good for data that represents percentages. Bars or columns are excellent when you want to compare data and show relative sizes.


Misuse
Charts can also be misused and create confusion or even be misleading. I am sure you have all sometimes looked at a chart in a newspaper or on a website and asked yourself what it is supposed illustrate. And I hope you don't fall for the commercial advertisements that show only the top of a bar graph to make very small changes look bigger than they actually are.

Learn all options
To be able to use the correct chart for each type of data you need to learn the different kinds of graphs and diagrams. Then you know what the alternatives are and can judge which to use in each case.

My tutorial below is just a starter, but I illustrate how using the wrong chart can create overwhelming graphics that is even harder to understand than the original data. And of course I also suggest a better way of doing it!

Excel reports
Most 2013 versions of our products give a possibility to create Excel reports on application data, and I hope users will take full advantage of all the possibilities Microsoft gives us in Excel. The default reports can be manipulated with the standard Excel features, and you can also create custom reports on the data.

Kanban Task Manager for Outlook has 7 default reports, Calendar Browser has 12 and Folder HelpDesk as many as16. All reports are presented with both a table and a chart.

In HelpDesk OSP, which uses SharePoint, we have chosen to give no default reports but instead let the users select in a dialog what SharePoint list and fields should be included in each report.

Welcome to watch the demo! In the kalmstrom.com Tips section you can find more tutorials on Excel and also on Outlook, SharePoint and other subjects.


By Peter Kalmstrom
CEO and Systems Manager
kalmstrom.com Business Solutions