New Command Bar in SharePoint Online

Microsoft is currently giving all users of SharePoint Online a new library command bar for the most common commands. The update begun on 9 April and will take several weeks.

SharePoint Online
You can subscribe to Microsoft's SharePoint Online standalone, but I think it is more common to use it as a part of Office 365, as we do for kalmstrom.com. In any case it is a convenient way of using SharePoint, as you get the features without having to manage the infrastructure. But SharePoint in the cloud does not give the same level of control as SharPoint on-premises.

For example, there is no way to stop upgrades and additions of new features. As a SharePoint admin I get a message in the Office 365 Message Center, but I have to accept it. I cannot select when I want the update to be implemented.

New command bar
From 9 April Microsoft is rolling out an update that gives a new command bar for SharePoint Document Libraries. It will have commands for frequently used tasks, as new, upload, edit, manage, share and synch.

The new SharePoint library command bar will give us quick access to functions that are used frequently, so I am looking forward to testing it – even though Microsoft has not asked for my permission!

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

Swedish Nature In Four Seasons

YouTube has become an important marketing channel for Peter Kalmstrom and the kalmstrom.com Solutions. Now we have begun buildning two new channels for another part of the business.

The new channels are about the Swedish language, and I hope the photos and the music will be appealing also to those who are not learning our language.

Teaching aids
If you have followed the kalmstrom.com Blog, you might remember that we don't only develop and sell software solutions that enhance Microsoft. We also publish teaching aids for the Swedish language, centered around the free tutorial site at tallstugan.se that gives guidelines and exercises for Swedish grammar and word formation.

Nature photos
As a background to the more than 180 articles on the site, we have added photos from Sweden. They often show nature from various parts of Sweden in different season, and now we have used some of these photos in YouTube videos. The photos are acompanied by well-known Swedish music.

Challenge
The kalmstrom.com YouTube channel has more than 2000 subscribers and over 300 000 views, mostly thanks to Peter's excellent way of presenting information. Now I want to have even more subscribers to my two new Tallstugan-channels, so wish me good luck!

Swedish and English
The tutorial site is in Swedish. It is intended for students who already know some of the language,  but it has an option to get the grammar rules and guidelines translated into English or Finnish. Unfortunately I cannot manage a Finnish YouTube channel, but I have created one Swedish grammar channel in Swedish and one Swedish grammar channel in English.

Animations
The grammar channels will soon have more content. We are working on animations that will illustrate some basic grammar rules in the Swedish language. They will be in Swedish, but the rule itself will be translated into English.

Apps and book
In addition to the site and the new channels, the Tallstugan series for Swedish grammar and word formation consists of apps for iOS and Android devices and a book.

Immigrants in Sweden and students of the Swedish language in other countries find the Tallstugan teaching aids helpful, and I hope the YouTube channels will help spreading the word to even more people.
By
Kate Kalmström
Sales and Documentation
kalmstrom.com Business Solutions

Beware Of Outlook IDs

All kalmstrom.com Solutions can be customized in various ways. We have tried to make it as easy as possible, for example by giving many options in the settings of each product. This works smoothly, as the administrator just have to select the options that best suit the organization.

Some customizations are a bit more complicated, and here I will give a piece of information about Outlook IDs that I hope will be helpful for anyone who needs to customize an Outlook field.

Folder HelpDesk and KBase
Two of the kalmstrom.com Outlook add-ons have forms that are possible to customize: the issue tracking tool Folder HelpDesk and  the knowledge base KBase. In these solutions, standard Outlook post items are used as incident tickets and knowledge articles. The items are possible to customize, but you have to be careful with when you name tags and controls.

Customize in settings
In KBase we have made it very easy to customize the form. The administrator only have to write a field name in the settings and select if the new field should be a text field or a Yes/No field. Then KBase will create the new fields in the article form.

Customize in HTML
When it comes to Folder HelpDesk some knowledge of HTML is necessary. This may be seen as a limitation, but working directly in HTML gives you more possibilities than you have in KBase. You can use any HTML editior to customize the ticket form, and should you still have difficulties, our developers are ready to assist. They will do it for free as long as the customization is not too extensive.

Outlook IDs
Many subscribers have made use of the form customization possibilities in Folder HelpDesk and KBase. However, it happens that they come to the kalmstrom.com support and complain that the data in their new fields is not saved to the database or SharePoint. The reason for this problem is normally that they have used an ID that is already present in Outlook.

When customizing an Outlook form you must not use an ID that already exists in Outlook. If you do, data from the field where the same ID is used for the second time will not be saved . This is not a big problem as long as you are aware of it, because if you test and notice that data is not saved, you can just give your tag or control another name. However, if you have bad luck also the other name is already used in Outlook!

FAQ
To help subscribers and other blog readers to avoid  several trials and errors with custom IDs, we have now published two FAQ on www.kalmstrom.com that give lists of IDs already in use by Outlook. Here are the links, and I hope you will find them useful!

http://www.kalmstrom.com/FAQ/KBase/8217.htm

http://www.kalmstrom.com/FAQ/FolderHelpDesk/8217.htm

In future versions of Folder HelpDesk and KBase we plan to add a warning that will be activated if you are trying to save a custom field with an already existing ID.

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

Goodbye Windows XP

From April 8 Microsoft will no longer support Windows XP. When the XP version was released in 2001 it meant an important enhancement of Microsoft's operating system, but today we have better and more secure options.

Still going strong
Windows XP became very popular among users, and the failure with Windows Vista made many organizations decide to stick to XP. In my opinion they should have upgraded to Windows 7 when it came, but in March 2014 Windows XP was still powering 27 % of all PCs in the world. Compare that with Windows 8 and 8.1, which only has 11 % of PC usage worldwide, and you understand that Microsoft is taking a drastic step when they end upport for Windows XP.

Security
So why does Microsoft discard a product that is so much in use? Of course they want people to buy their latest operating systems instead, but a main factor in the decision is security.Windows XP cannot meet today's online threats in the same way the later Windows versions do.

This security problem will increase dramatically when Microsoft stops giving new security updates. Should you still have some Windows XP machines within the organization I advice you to read the the technet blog post from which the image above is borrowed.

Office 365
Office 365 admins have already received a message about the ended support and its consequences for use of Office 365. Even if Office 365 will not block connections from fully patched Windows XP computers after 8 April 2014, the connectivity to the service will be at risk.

kalmstrom.com Solutions
When Microsoft announced the end of support for Windows XP in October 2012, I decided to stop developing for this Windows version. I knew that most of our subscribers use modern software anyway, so it would not create trouble for them.
                                                 
Therefore we begun phasing out Windows XP, and today the kalmstrom.com Solutions only support Windows Vista and later. Most of them still work with Windows XP anyway, but we don't recommend it.


Office 2003
Not only Windows XP but also Office 2003 will be discarded by Microsoft this coming Tuesday, and that actually means more to kalmstrom.com. After Microsoft introdced the ribbon in Office 2007 we could take advantage of it and enhance all our products considerably, but that also made it difficult for us to continue supporting Office 2003.
                                                    
Therefore I must admit I felt relieved when Microsoft announced the end of support for Office 2003. Now we no longer have to spend time on dragging this no-ribbon version along. Instead we can concentrate on newer versions of the Microsoft products we build on.
By
Peter Kalmstrom
CEO and Systems Designer
kalmstrom.com Business Solutions

Four Ways To Copy Excel Cells

In an article in the kalmstrom.com Tips section I am showing four ways to copy and paste Excel cells. This is a basic Tip, in contrast to the more advanced "FileShare to SharePoint" articles with PowerShell scripts that I have published recently.

Four ways
Are you new to Microsoft Excel and wonder how to copy cells in it? Or do you always use the same method and want to learn more ways to copy cells in Excel? In the demo below I am showing four different methods.

Copy and Paste ribbon buttons
The most common way to copy and paste in Excel, is perhaps to use the Copy and Paste buttons under the Home tab in the Excel ribbon. Select the cell or cells you want to copy, click on the Copy button, select the cell or range of cells where you want to paste the copied content and finally click the Paste button.

This method means that you have to move the mouse cursor back and forth to the ribbon, and that is not always the quickest way to copy and paste.

Stay near the cells
I actually prefer three other methods that let me stay near the area I want to copy from and paste into. They can be used for one cell as well as for a range of cells, and neither of them includes a mouse movement up to the ribbon.

Windows copy and paste
When you have selected the cell from which yo want to copy, you can use two alternatives to the Copy button: either right click the mouse and select "Copy" from the list of options or press “Ctrl + C” on the keyboard to copy. To paste, right click and select "Paste" from the list or press “Ctrl + V” on the keyboard.
These copy and paste methods can be used everywhere in Windows.

Drag and drop + Ctrl
The last, but not the least way to copy cells in Microsoft Excel is to select the cell and drag it with the mouse to the desired destination.  When you only drag and drop the cells will be moved, but when you press the keyboard “Ctrl” button at the same time the cells will be copied.

If you haven't tried all four methods I suggest you do so next time you work with Microsoft Excel. Please watch the demo below and read the article about Excel copy and paste in the kalmstrom.com Tips section. In the Tips article there is also information about copying cells with formulas.

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