Internet Access To All Goal For New Partnership

The world leading technology companies Ericsson, Facebook, Samsung, Nokia, Opera, Mediatek and Qualcomm have joined forces and formed a global partnership, internet.org. Their aim is to give internet access to all people on earth.


Only 2.7 billion have internet access
kalmstrom.com Business Solutions had been an unfeasible business without the internet, and my own whole carreer has been built on the possibility to reach customers, partners and employees via the internet.

On the other hand, the first web page was published only 20 years ago, and still nearly two thirds of the worlds' population are locked out from all the chances given to us by the internet.

Three paths
According to the new internet.org website, the founders will work along three paths to reach their goal:

• Make the technology cheaper – "No one should have to choose between access to the internet and food or medicine."
  
• Develop methods for more efficient data transmission.
  
• Introduce business models that will give more ways to go online.

Open new markets
I feel happy about the new partnership, and that a branch of one of the founding companies is a Member of the kalmstrom.com Community  makes it even better!

Of course the founders of internet.org have their own motives for their project, because they need the new markets that will open when more people get connected to the internet. If they succeed and their efforts lead to a quicker and more equal extension of the internet,  kalmstrom.com will also beneft from it on a smaller scale.

Knowledge and contact
But it is not only business. In general I really believe that the internet can help us creating a better world by making it smaller and easier to understand.

I value my internet contacts highly, and the internet is a source of knowledge that I use daily, so I wish the founders of internet.org good luck with their partnership. When strong forces like these companies work together they should be able to make a difference!

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

SharePoint Task Manager Customization With InfoPath

Kanban Task Manager currently comes in two versions that may be used together: one for Outlook tasks and one for SharePoint tasks. The SharePoint tasks are easy to customize, but if you want to change the task form there are some things to consider.

Form customization with InfoPath
As all SharePoint lists items the tasks of Kanban Task Manager for SharePoint can be customized. The most common way is proably to add and delete columns in the task form.

When you use the Enterprise version of SharePoint 2013 you can also customize the task form itself with the integrated InfoPath tool. In the demo below I am explaining how to do it and what to think about.

Try it first!
I recommend that you activate Kanban Task Manager on a separate site in the collection to test your customization idea. When you try it on a site where Kanban Task Manager is not normally used, you can make sure it really works as intended before you implement it on a site where a group is actually working with Kanban Task Manager.

Related Items
With SharePoint 2013 the new column type “Related Items” was introduced in the task lists. It might be useful when you want to add related items to a task, but unfortunately it does not go well with InfoPath.

"Related Items" is hidden by default, so users never see it when they select phase, project or responsible in a Kanban Task Manager tasks. Therefore it can be deleted from the task list without problems and without anyone noticing it.

Same for all
What I have advised above is valid for all task list customizations with InfoPath. If you have connected Outlook to a SharePoint Task list with HelpDesk OSP and want to customize that list with InfoPath, you should also remove the Related Items first.

As HelpDesk OSP is not installed in SharePoint but only in Outlook, you don't have to try the customization on a separate site. But you should test it with another list before you modify the list that is connected to Outlook.

Only for Kanban Task Manager
When you customize the Kanban Task Manager task form you must do one more thing: change the information source for phase, project and responsible so that it is not linked to item. In the next version of Kanban Task Manager this change before customizing with InfoPath will not be needed.



I have recorded a few more demos on SharePoint and InfoPath that you might be interested to watch before you start customizing your task form. Please refer to the kalmstrom.com Tips section to learn more.

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

Excel Formulas That Multiply and Divide In Home Costs Calculator

Last week I wrote about Excel formulas and about my first demo on basic use of them. That demo shows how to make Excel calculate sums.

Now I have recorded another tutorial for the kalmstrom.com Tips section: Excel formulas for multiplication and division.

Excel reports
The reason I am publishing a series of Excel tutorials right now is that we have begun using Excel for statistics in the kalmstrom.com applications.

Currently our helpdesk products as well as our resource booking add-on and our solution for project and task management in Outlook have these Excel reports. Soon we will add them to our Outlook add-on for time reporting too.

We have of course made it easy to create reports on various aspects of how the kalmstrom.com products are used, but it is also possible to create custom reports on the data.

Correctly used Excel is an excellent tool, and I hope that the new Excel reports and my tutorials will stimulate kalmstrom.com Community Members to extend the use of it.

Home costs
Excel is not only useful in business related reports and statistics. Like many others I use Excel for private calculations too, and as an example for my tutorial I have taken such an application: the costs of owning a home with a mortgage.

In the demo I show how to make Excel calculate the different costs associated with the home, and I create the formulas in a way that make it easy to introduce changes.

If, as an example, the interest is changed, I can enter the new interest in one cell only, and Excel will calculate the home costs with the new value.

Make it look nice 
When the formulas are in place and work as they should, it is a good practice to apply formats and cell styles to make the Excel sheet more appealing and easier to read and use.

In my example I remove the decimals and set the cell styles so that cells with formulas and cells with input values look different.  That way I can quickly see what can be changed and what should be kept as it is.


In the kalmstrom.com Tips section you can find many more pointers and "how tos" on SharePoint, Excel, Outlook and other platforms. Please take a look! If you are a Community Member you are also welcome to suggest new demos that would be good to have in the Tips section.

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

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