Arranging meetings that work with everyone’s schedules is a pain — especially if participants don’t work in your office. A calendar that is easy to share publicly simplifies everything from scheduling calls with clients to quarterly meetings with business partners. Here’s how you can achieve that with Office 365.

Share an Office 365 calendar with specific people

Click the Share button from the Home menu along the top of your Office 365 calendar. This will open an email window where you can enter the addresses of people you want to see your calendar.

From that window, you can limit how much of your calendar they see by choosing from Availability Only, Limited Details, or Full Details. The latter two will show recipients the meeting names and participants of events on your calendar, whereas Availability Only will simply display scheduled events as Busy. After you’ve sent the invitation, recipients receive an email with a link to view your calendar in a web browser.

Make an Office 365 calendar public

If you’d prefer to have a link that you can share in a variety of channels whenever you’d like, click the Publish Online button from the Home menu along the top of your Office 365 calendar. From the dropdown menu, first click Publish This Calendar, then Configure This Published Calendar. This will create a link that you can give to collaborators outside your organization. As long as you don’t change your calendar’s visibility, they’ll be able to open that URL and view your availability.

Share your calendar so others can manage it

Users who have administrative control over their Office 365 calendar can set up special sharing settings that allow someone else to send and respond to invitations. From the Account Settings window, click on the Delegate Access button. This window lets you add or remove delegators and configure how much control they have over your calendar.

Even something as simple as sharing your calendar outside your organization has the potential to increase office productivity and efficiency. If you have questions or concerns about managing various aspects of Office 365, get in touch with us today.

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Non-techie Apple iPhone lovers relish in the magic hour ensuing a beta’s release. Those of us in the industry break down every minute detail and flock to our digital soapboxes to proclaim what we usually deem apocalyptic news. The sun is setting on Apple’s iOS 10 magic hour, and we’re here to pass judgement for you in the form of our favorite new features coming soon to your phone.

New lock screen

Changes to any mobile operating system (OS) almost always include updates to the lockscreen. However, this is no ordinary update. For the first time since the iPhone’s release in 2007, there’s no ‘Slide to Unlock’ feature. Instead, the screen provides in-depth, 3D touch-activated notifications displaying more detail than before without having to unlock your phone. The iPhone will automatically display the lock screen any time you pick it up, and you can unlock it by pressing the ‘Home’ button.

New widgets

Another upgrade visible on the lockscreen and homescreen is the long-awaited addition of ‘widgets.’ These are basically compartmentalized apps that run on a portion of your screen without having to open the app entirely. With iOS still in beta, the list of available widgets is already quite long, but iTunes controls, weather and calendar are a few of the standout native widgets. Don’t worry though, Apple is allowing third party widgets from the likes of ESPN, Google Maps and Amazon. They can be accessed by swiping from left to right on your lock screen or page one of your home screen.

3D touch on control center shortcuts

The iPhone 6s has been out long enough that most people have had a chance to interact with its 3D Touch feature, which performs different actions based on how much force you apply when tapping the screen. When combining 3D Touch functionality with the ‘Control Center’ dock that appears with a flick of the finger from the bottom of the screen upwards, each function displays ‘Favorite’ actions. For example, if you use a slightly more forceful touch on the Camera shortcut, you’re presented with the options to jump straight to Traditional, Slow Motion, Video or Selfie recording.

New/rich notifications

We see a lot more of 3D Touch throughout iOS 10, and another place it’s quite evident is notifications. Whether it’s on the lock screen or the notification center, a strong 3D Touch will open a small window that allows you to interact with that app without opening it completely. This is especially helpful for replying to messages and emails. In addition to this– something that may seem small to some, but huge to others, is the ability to hide all your notifications with just two taps. Simply press hard on the ‘X’ button in the upper right, and then click ‘Clear All Notifications.’

Handwritten messages

The iPhone’s native Messages app got a thorough overhaul, but we’ll leave the discovery of emojis, invisible ink and ‘fireworks’ for another time. Those don’t have much place in the business world, but handwritten messages certainly do. Give your professional messages a more personal, attentive touch by writing responses with your fingers with the app’s Digital Touch option.

‘Delete’ stock apps

Unfortunately, you can’t get back valuable storage space by deleting unnecessary native apps. But you can finally remove them from your home screen. Don’t have an iWatch and don’t see why you need to have the app on your phone, albeit tucked away in a folder on page three? Press and hold on the app, tap the shaking X, and tap ‘Remove.’ All gone.
iOS 10 is one of the most significant updates the iPhone has ever received. It’s still another month away from widespread release, but if you’d like to install the beta now, or you just want to learn more about how to automatically convert text to emojis, we’re your guys. Open up your boring, old Messages, and drop us a line. We’ll have you sending handwritten messages in no time.

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Google has announced another batch of features coming to your Android phone, possibly as soon as next month. Although some of the items are simple and subtle integrations and others are far more grandiose, they’re all going to drastically improve the performance of your phone. Since some people view their mobile device as something akin to an extension of their body, let’s take an in-depth look at the new things you’ll be able to do.

Split Screen

The most visible and exciting feature is Android’s new ‘split-screen’ functionality. Soon you will be able to enter your ‘overview’ mode (the button that shows all of your open apps in a rolodex style queue), click and hold on an app like YouTube and drag it to the top of your screen where it will dock. The bottom half of your screen will remain in ‘overview’ mode, allowing you to select an app to occupy the bottom half of the screen. With this update, sending an email while YouTube is open won’t cause any interruption in either of the two programs. It’s the same as having two monitors, just on a much smaller scale.

Because phone manufacturers get to layer their own components on top of Google’s core Android operating system, Samsung and LG already have a few ‘split-screen’ devices. However, by integrating this item into every Android phone regardless of manufacturer, app developers will have more incentive to optimize their product for this feature or even develop new apps designed entirely around this functionality.

Fast App Switching

Do you ever find yourself switching back and forth between two apps? Maybe you need to write an email on your phone, while using a web page as reference material. Switching between the two can really slow down the flow of your work, and Google has finally addressed this by improving the ‘overview’ interface. In addition to limiting the number of displayed programs and adding a ‘clear all’ button, Android mobile devices will get ‘fast app switching’. With this feature a simple double tap of your ‘overview’ button will switch to the last program you used. After switching to the previous app, you can double tap again to return to the original app. It’s simple, but goes a long way.

Updated Notification Window

Next up is a small change to the native notification window. At the moment, if one app has multiple notifications they all get grouped into one vague ‘card’ in your notification window. I/O announced that in the future users will be able to tap on one of those cards to expand it for more detail. Instead of just seeing that you have six emails from various users, you’ll be able to see more information and access response actions for each individual notification within apps.

Instant Apps

How many times have you installed an app that you didn’t want, but needed for a one-time use? Whether it’s to purchase tickets, gain access to a promotion or receive something from a friend who uses the app, it can be a lengthy and tedious process. With ‘Instant Apps’ Android will give you the option to temporarily load software, similar to a webpage, so you can access the service without actually downloading the unnecessary app. Google promises this will take mere seconds compared to the time it currently takes to download and install full programs before using them.

Some tech writers have cited ‘Instant Apps’ as actually faster than loading a website, with all of the security and safety of an app. Additionally, while the 3 features before this one will be released for phones with the most recent OS update, Google is making ‘Instant Apps’ available to developers for any phone running anything newer than the Jellybean OS.

In general, Android phones offer a lot more customization and developer-specific options when compared to Apple’s mobile devices. However, that can mean a lot more upkeep as well. If you’re having trouble maintaining your Android device’s peak capacity or need help managing their updates, don’t hesitate to call us.

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Choosing an app for your Android tablet can be daunting. Whether you’re looking for a document reader app or a new web browser, there are many options out there that offer similar features. So how do you know which ones are the best fit for your device? We’ve compiled a list of powerful applications that will help you make the most of your Android tablet. Check them out and save yourself from browsing through hundreds of thousands of apps in the store.

Adobe apps

Adobe offers a suite of apps for Android tablets, including the Acrobat Reader, Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere Clip, AIR, and so much more. These are all very useful for processing images, opening documents, and editing files. If you happen to be a user, most of the Adobe apps also work well with Creative Cloud.

Flipboard

Flipboard is a popular news application that uses a magazine-style interface. This app allows you to stay up-to-date with news and topics you’re interested in. You can easily customize your news digest from your favorite sources, such as Facebook, Twitter, RSS feeds, The New York Times, and more.

Google Drive

With Google Drive, you gain access to a suite of powerful apps including Google Docs, Google Sheets, Google Slides, Google Keep and much more. Google Drive offers 15GB of free storage, which you can use to store all kinds of digital files and access them from anywhere.

Kindle

There are tons of ebook reader apps out there, but few can measure up to Amazon’s Kindle app. Kindle provides you with more than a million ebooks to download and read on your Android device. You can also manually download different books in various formats, and then transfer them to an external storage device.

CamScanner

This nifty application allows you to use your Android tablet’s camera to scan documents such as invoices, forms, and receipts, and have them exported in PDF format. You can store, sync, and collaborate on these documents across any number of web-enabled devices. The app also comes with support for fax sending, OCR, printing, and more.

LastPass

We get it – you have numerous accounts for social networks, apps and websites, and memorizing all of your passwords can be confusing. LastPass is a password management application that will securely store your passwords, and automatically log you into various apps and websites. With LastPass, you don’t have to remember every password you use.

Zedge

Zedge is a search engine for downloading ringtones, notification sounds, wallpapers, and themes. It is a good place to start if you’re looking to customize the look and feel of your device in order to give it a personal touch. It’s super popular among Android tablet users, with millions of freebies available and a simple user interface.

These applications are far from being a comprehensive list, but they can help optimize the performance of your device. If you want to learn how to use Android tablets to boost your business’s efficiency, give us a call today.

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