Ultimate Use of Microsoft Word in Business

Advanced Word

Most people struggle to get things done in Word. It is better to go for a Microsoft Word Training, to learn the key features of the software well.  After all, Microsoft Word is one of the most widely used and familiar office software in the world. It is better to invest some time into learning its key uses and key features that can save us all a lot of time.

Microsoft Word has grown in power and complexity over the years, and its integration with Office 365 and Microsoft OneDrive makes it even more versatile for businesses, both large and small.

Transform documents to web pages With Microsoft Word Training

Microsoft Word is used to create business document, including company reports, presentations, budgets, proposals, and plans.

It can help you build a library of key forms that are required in every office,  such as invoices, statement of accounts, reports, Meeting Minutes,  receipts, memos, and agenda for meetings.

Key Benefits of Microsoft Word:

I am listing a few key benefits here, in brief. You will need to learn them well to be able to use these features of Microsoft Word effectively. It will improve your Word documents and reports tremendously. These key benefits are covered in depth in our Microsoft Word Training.

Transform Word Documents to Web Pages:

Need to publish a newsletter or document for others to see? Easily transform your Word document into a webpage. You don’t have to know HTML to do this. And once a Word document is converted into a Web Page, it retains it formatting, styles, fonts etc. in full glory. So your Word documents will look slick and savvy, just like in Microsoft Word.

Get Real Time Translation with just a Click:

Collaborate with others across the globe. Translate documents in your non-native language with just a click.  Gone are the days when we had to keep looking for heavy dictionaries, and google for simple words and their meanings, or their counterpart in another language.  Now translation happens in real fast time, and this makes it easier to collaborate with others on the same document.

Add More Dimension to your Microsoft Word Docs:

Get creative by inserting 3D models directly in your proposals and reports. It is a great way to impress people, show your technical competence, and make your reports more savvy and presentable. This simple Microsoft Word Features can improve any Reports, Presentation, Proposal, or Document.

Add more dimensions to your Word Documents

Review and Read your Writing with Ease:

Have your content read back to you and easily catch any mistakes. Learning Tools help elevate your reading comprehension. That’s because when we write, we are in a different frame of mind. But when we hear the computer reading what we just wrote, it begins to show our mistakes. That’s the reason writers tend to write in one go, and then keep their copy aside for a day or two. Then they read it afresh, and are able to spot their mistakes and then rewrite the areas where problems exist.

When you don’t have the luxury of time, you can get Microsoft Word to read out your content, and instantly fix issues. This has been a real time save for me several times, when I had an important deadline to meet, and wanted the documents to look professional, well thought of, and well written.

Never Leave your Document while Researching:

Finding great sources just got simpler. Read articles in the task pane to stay focused on your writing. Now you don’t have to keep flipping between Google, Blogs, Articles, and your own document for researching and writing. You can now write, and do your research, all in a single common interface. Read in the Task Pane easily, saving you countless flicks into multiple windows, often losing way, and losing track of time too. Stay focused in a single window, and get more done easily with Microsoft Word features. I’d seriously recommend going for a Word Training course to learn these features thoroughly too.

Make your Documents Shine With Microsoft Word Tips & Tricks Training

Take your Writing from Good to Great With Microsoft Word Training:

Microsoft Editor goes beyond checking spelling and grammar so you can write with confidence. Get intelligent suggestions in the Editor Overview pane in Word and let Editor assist you across documents, email, and on the web.

Microsoft Word Training in Singapore

We are all using Microsoft Word like a typing software, whereas it can do wonders in decreasing your workload, saves time & improves productivity. 

 

Microsoft Word Training Courses in Singapore

Microsoft Word offers a plethora of advanced features, saving the hassle of performing tedious tasks – thus enabling you to devote the attention to more critical areas.

There are several tricks & techniques that make Microsoft word, an irreplaceable software at work. It is worth your time to invest some time into learning these and other important features of Microsoft Word, and take your word processing skills further.

Intellisoft offers you an Advanced Level Microsoft Word Course to Customize your working environment using Microsoft Word Options.

It covers from formatting, merging, tracking document to even using forms & macros to make the most out of an outstanding software. We are sure it will help you too.

Do register for Microsoft Word Training at our Singapore office. It will help you Create professional looking Documents, Reports, Proposals, Forms, Charts, Meeting Minutes, Tender Documents using Advanced Features of Microsoft Word, and impress clients and colleagues.

How to Read Unspoken Signals & Read The Body Language

Understand Body Language to Impress People in Business

Communication is made up of more than just the words we use. It is maintaining eye contact with the person you are talking to or your hand movements as you speak.

Nonverbal cues such as tone of voice, gestures, and posture all play their part.

Let us discuss on how we define what body language is, and how we can interpret it to understand and communicate with people more effectively.

What Is Body Language?

Body language is the unspoken element of communication that reveals our true feelings and emotions.

Statistics say only 7% of a message is conveyed through words. The other 93% comes from body language.

It is taken from Mehrabian’s Communication Model.Understanding Body Language - Mehrabian's model

It states that body language is more important than tone of voice & choice of words when communicating true feelings.

Body language is the range of nonverbal signals that you use to communicate your feelings and intentions. These include your posture, facial expressions, and hand gestures.

Your ability to understand and interpret body language can help you to pick up on unspoken issues or negative feelings in others.
You can also use body language in a positive way to add strength to your verbal messages.

Body Language for a Good First Impression

If you are meeting someone for the first ever time & you want to make a good impression, Body Language is the Key.

Here are some Ideas:

  • Have an open posture.
    • Be relaxed, but do not slouch! Sit or stand upright and place your hands by your sides.
    • Avoid standing with your hands on your hips, as this can communicate aggression or a desire to dominate.
  • Use a firm handshake.
    • But do not get carried away! You do not want it to become awkward, aggressive, or painful for the other person.
  • Maintain good eye contact.
    • Try to hold the other person’s gaze for a few seconds at a time. This will show them that you are sincere and engaged.
    • But avoid turning it into a staring contest!
  • Avoid touching your face.
    • If you do while answering questions, it can be seen as a sign of dishonesty.
    • While this isn’t always the case, you should still avoid fiddling with your hair or scratching your nose, so that you convey trustworthiness.

These tips are a good general guide for interpreting body language. Reflect on how you use your body language – and avoid making assumptions!

Interpreting body language should be a complement to talking and listening attentively, not a replacement for it.

Got an outline of What body Language is & why is it mandatory for everyone to learn it?

Sounds great! Now to inculcate the ability to read and portray the right Body Language skills, Intellisoft is offering a one day course that is perfectly designed to teach a Positive, Professional and Self-Assured Attitude.

This course even covers how to read Body Language, Body Language Mistakes, Nonverbal Communication & Facial Expressions.

Why wait? Join Intellisoft’s practical training now!

P.S. 50% of all employees will need Re-skilling by 2025, Soft skills like reading & understanding body language, Time Management Skills, Critical thinking and Problem-solving are the top key skills employers believe will grow in prominence in the next five years.

Make sure you are ready!

Is Microsoft Access Still Relevant Now?

Microsoft Access Training in Singapore

Large companies can use the corporate databases hosted on expensive servers, and then get multiple database administrators, server administrators to manage the servers.

Startups, small businesses, SME companies cannot afford these luxuries.

For simple to complex, single user or multiuser database applications, most solopreneurs, and SME companies rely on Microsoft Access. It is well suited, proven and highly relevant even in 2021.

We have several reasons to say that Microsoft Access is still a truly relevant Database system even in this year, in fact many more years to come.

Let us look at what Microsoft Access is

Microsoft Access is Relational Database Management System (RDBMS) from Microsoft that combines the relational Microsoft Jet Database Engine with a graphical user interface and software-development tools to build Forms, Queries and Reports.

This is ideal for getting started in building a Customer Database, Accounting System, Warranty Tracking System, Order & Inventory Tracking etc. easily.

Microsoft Access stores all database tables, queries, forms, reports, macros, and modules in the Access Jet database as a single file.

  • Developed by: Microsoft Corporation
  • Latest version: 16.0

Advantages of Microsoft Access

  • Only one installation needed (RDBMS and design implement in one simple package)
  • Easy to install
  • Easy to integrate
  • Cost wise, it is way much lower. It is possibly already included in your Microsoft license.

Now, coming back to the question, Access applications are still in use longer than 20 years and people are building newer, mission critical applications using Microsoft Access.

Microsoft Access is still a viable tool for personal or small workgroup applications. The small business is not going to spent thousands on a software project that will take a year or more to develop.

Access has always been denigrated by mainline IT people almost from the beginning because it gives people control, which takes that control away from the IT department.

It has multiple uses and is used worldwide. The Danish government uses an Access app for contact tracing of COVID cases.

And in Singapore, Access is truly relevant and used every day by thousands of companies and individuals.

So yes, if you need to develop a database for personal use or within a workgroup, it is still highly relevant.

Get started today in using Microsoft Access for your next Database Project!

P.S: Check this out to know if you are Microsoft Office Proficient.

Discover Lesser Known Features of Excel

Hidden features of Excel

Want to go beyond the common use of Excel and Explore its Extremely Useful but Lesser-Known Features of Microsoft Excel?

Microsoft Excel’s extensive features can help you to increases productivity and also saves time. Become proficient in Data Management & Business Analytics – Turn Data into Insights, Develop better tables & charts.

Lesser Known Features of Microsoft Excel

Conditional Formatting:

Apply formatting to cells automatically depending on the value of the cell. It is also a powerful feature, given that conditions can be based on any Excel formula. Conditional Formatting works by letting you set rules for how cells can be customized.

Conditional formatting makes it easy to highlight required cells or ranges of cells, emphasizing unusual values. In addition to that, it is used to visualize & analyze data in Excel by using data bars, color scales, and icon sets. Overall, it helps you to identify important data faster.

Learn Lesser Known Shortcuts of Excel at Intellisoft Singapore
Learn Lesser Known Shortcuts of Excel at Intellisoft Singapore

Advanced Filters:

This Advanced command works differently from the Filter command in several ways. It displays the Advanced Filter dialogue box instead of the Auto Filter menu. You can filter the data in place, or to a different location. You can also specify that you want to see unique items only.

All the duplicates are removed from the filtered list, with Advanced filter. The Data tab contains all the features of Advanced Filters. The advantage of using advanced filter is that you can see the filtered criteria in Excel cells. You can also easily add new filters by typing the values directly in the cells. Thus, it is absolute must learn feature.

Learn Advanced Filter for more Productivity at Intellisoft Singapore
Learn Advanced Filter for more Productivity at Intellisoft Singapore

Database Functions:

Database functions is a Seldom used Gem in Microsoft Excel. With this, you can not only perform basic calculations but also use complex criteria, that allow you to perform the calculation for a specified subset of the records in your database.

These functions treat the entire set as a Database, just like a SQL Database.

Learn the Database Function at Intellisoft Singapore
Learn the Database Function at Intellisoft Singapore

Consolidating Multiple Worksheet:

If you receive information in multiple sheets or workbooks that you want to summarize, the Consolidate command can help you pull data together onto one sheet. It allows you to combine information from multiple workbooks when you need them one place.

The Excel consolidate function lets you select data from its various locations and creates a table to summarize the information for you, automatically, painlessly.

Learn Consolidate Function at Intellisoft Singapore
Learn Consolidate Function at Intellisoft Singapore

Preventing others from Changing Master Data:

This feature allows you to prevent other users from accidentally or deliberately changing, moving, or deleting data in a worksheet. You can lock the cells on your Excel worksheet & then protect the sheet with a password.

With worksheet protection, you can make only certain parts of the sheet editable and users will not be able to modify data in any other region in the sheet.

You can lock the structure of your workbook by specifying a password.
Locking the workbook structure prevents other users from adding, moving, deleting, hiding, and renaming worksheets.

While Microsoft Excel is packed with gems, these are just a few advantages of learning Advanced Excel with us at Intellisoft. We’ll make you an expert in these lesser-known, but advanced features in Excel.

Microsoft Power BI: Super Charge Your Data Analysis Process

Learn Power BI for Data Analysis at Intellisoft Singapore

Do you analyze data? Whether you work in Sales, Finance, Manufacturing, Logistics, Engineering or Customer Service, there is a constant need to analyze data.

With the advent of the industrial age and the conveyor belt, gaining efficiency and reducing  errors has been a constant battle. We need more and better ways to analyze data. Today, billions of new data points are gathered every minute. There is more storage available in the cloud, and there is no dearth of computers big and strong enough to process it quickly.

Yet, there is a lack of know how, a lack of understanding on how to analyze data. As a result, more companies are still not able to tap on the promise of Big Data, Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things or Machine Learning.

To Understand the State of Data Analysis, and look at solutions, we need to understand a few fundamentals about Data, and Data Analysis.

Why Do We Want To Analyze Data?

Duh!

Of course there are a gazillion reasons.

No… Not really. The need to analyze data is routed in only a few basic reasons.

  1. To Gain Insights about our data. Why?
    • So that we can find out what works, and what does not. So we can compare the past results with another company, another product, another period, and see if there is some insight to glean.
    • When we find out what works, and find out where the problem lies, we can then perform Root cause analysis – which can tell us the real problem to fix. When we have fever, we can take a tablet of Paracetamol (Tylenol/Panadol/Aspirin).However, the fever is not the disease. It is a symptom that we develop, when something is not right with our body, and the body is fighting the bad bacteria/virus. During this fight, the temperature rises. The Paracetamol can reduce the fever, but it does not remove the fight.

      To go to the root cause of the problem, a visit to the doctor is required. The doctor may analyze the problem by looking at your Blood pressure, heart rate, x-ray, probes etc. and figure out the issue. If it is indeed bad bacteria causing some area to swell, the doc can issue a dose of Anti-biotics, which fight the bad guys, and treat the real problem.

      Once the bad guys are gone, the fever automatically comes down to the normal level.

  2. Make Better & Faster Decisions
    • Based on the insights, we are able to make better decision, and faster too.  And backed by data, we can have more confidence on our decision making process… rather than relying only on the gut-feeling.
    • With statistical methods of analyzing data and forecasting trends, the accuracy of the analysis, and insights gets deeper as we generate better analytics. We can then make a more informed decisions faster.

How Do We Analyze Data: The Traditional Data Analysis Process

The data analysis process is simple, and we have been following it for so long that it has almost become a habit… albeit a not so good habit. What we usually do is outlined below:

  1. Get the Raw Data File From The Source System
    • This could be a Text File, a Comma Separated Values (CSV) File, a PDF file, an SQL data dump, an Access or RDBMS source (think Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server or MySQL Database)
  2. Load into Excel
    • Load this data into Excel. This could be easily achieved, but this is a manual process, that has to be repeated every day, week, month etc., whenever the data changes, or new data arrives.
  3. Clean
    • Incoming data is seldom clean. There will be missing values, duplicates, wrong headers, mis-aligned dates in YYYYMMDD or some other odd text or  numeric layout, and other data issues to fix.
    • To do this, you’ll have to write some simple formulas, functions, data cleanup steps, fix dates, and fill blanks or nulls with an appropriate values. This is all manual process, unless automated with the help of macros.
  4. Lookup Master Data
    • Once the data is cleaned-up, we need to change the codes with values, get the correct product price, employee salary, or the date of manufacture from some master data tables. This often requires expertise with Excel formulas like VLOOKUP & HLOOKUP.You may have to do some interim calculations too, create some calculated columns, and create a wide table with all the fields/columns required for the analysis in the next step.
  5. Create Pivot Tables
    • To analyze the data, one of the quickest and fastest ways is to create a Pivot Table. Pivot Tables help you to summarize data – create Sum, Count, Differences, Cumulative Totals etc. and split it by the Rows & Columns.Further, you can create multiple Filters or Slices using the Filters or Slicers options.
  6. Keep Refreshing
    • By default, a Pivot Table does not refresh automatically. You have to either set up this option, or refresh manually.And even if you refresh it either way, it may not pick the additional, new data, for the range of the source data may be set explicitly to an Absolute range.

      Changing the Absolute range always is an extra step that you have to remember to do.

  7. Create Charts
    • To present the data, we mostly rely on the popular Bar Charts, Column Charts, Pie Charts, and the newly introduced Map, Funnel or Tree map charts.However, charts often get too busy, and there are not too many options to customize them.

      Once the charts are ready, you don’t want to send the entire Excel file, with the charts. And sending only the charts is not an option, without the underlying data.

      This brings us to the next point…

  8. Paste Charts Into PowerPoint
    • PowerPoint is the darling of the corporate boardroom.No presentation is ever complete without a mega slideshow. So people use Excel to analyze the data, and the paste the charts into PowerPoint.

      They create hundreds of slides, and then marvel at their slide deck. Finally, they are ready for the big presentation to the directors.

  9. Present to Management using PPT Slides
    • The PowerPoint show begins, and your audience is thrilled by your analysis, prestation and charts. You are secretly gloating over the success. Suddenly a member of the audience has a question – can you compare this quarter with a quarter 5 years ago?
    • Well… yes you can. But you don’t have the data right now.You’ll have to get back to your desk, do the right analysis, and probably show them the chart in your next quarterly meetup.
    • The opportunity window is so small, by the time you get back to them, they probably do not need the information any longer. You have to cut a sorry figure, and all your great work comes to nothing…

What’s wrong with this whole scenario. Let’s find out.

Problems With Traditional Approach To Data Analysis

There are a number of major problems in the Traditional approach of Data Analysis that has been around for the past 20-30 years… pretty much all along the advent of Spreadsheets. To name a few:

  • Excel Charts and Reports Are Not Interactive
    • Traditional Excel or PowerPoint Reports/Charts are not interactive. They are just screen shots. So they don’t change dynamically. Good because it will always be the same, and speed of execution will be fast. Bad because it can’t be used again… And has to be manually refreshed each time.
  • You Can’t Share Excel Files Easily
    • People are worried when it comes to sharing their Excel files. They have security, and privacy concerns. And an Excel file is quite fragile. Change of any path, sheet, formula or cell can break the workings completely, rendering it completely useless.
  • Excel VLookups are Slow & Cumbersome To Use
    • Excel files rely on Vlookups to pick the correct employee salary, product description attributes, or prices. It works great, and has been the mainstay for Excel’s popularity. However, VLookups recalculate extremely slowly on a linked Excel file, which has anywhere in excess of 200,000 records. At half a million, things absolutely come to a standstill, and many times Excel will give you the dreaded Blue Screen and simply crash.
  • Excel Takes Time to Clean & Refresh every time
    • Newly added data has to be cleaned up. It takes time, and is a slow, painstaking process. If you forget to update, or refresh on time, it shows old/wrong data and is a complete waste. New data has to be added, and refreshed each time.
  • Security of Excel Data is Quite Fragile
    • Sending Excel reports without the data is simply not possible. And sending it with data raises Security concerns. Any leaks will destroy your pricing, and lose your competitive advantage. And any broken links will render the data useless too.
  • A Very Small, Finite Limit of Excel Rows
    • There is only a finite number of rows that can be loaded into Excel. The current limit is a million rows (1,048,576 to be exact.). But in today’s world, a million rows is considered nothing. We need to look at ways to expand the limit to millions of rows.
  • Pivot Table Limitations
    • Pivot tables are quite slow to refresh. Further, they do not refresh automatically. And, there are very few ways to visualize the data – only sum, count, average, and YTD etc. It lacks the rich data transformations like Year on Year, Quarter on Quarter Analysis. It is not very good at showing the total overall percentages and its breakdowns.
  • Wasted Time in Cleanup
    • 80% time is spent  to clean the data, and only 20% is left for us to analyze it. This does not accord the time and importance data analysis requires. The equation is completely skewed out. It should be the other way round – 20% to clean, and 80% time for analysis.

Is There A Solution To All These Data Analysis Woes?

With the current state of Business Intelligence Tools, there is more than a glimmer of hope. The industry has finally arrived to a point where Big Data processing is becoming commonplace, and is no longer in the realm of the wealthy or the academics. Today, the common man’s BI tools are already working wonders.

  • Need for Interactive System
    • Today, the top of the breed BI tools like QlikView, Tableau and Microsoft, all offer dynamic ways to present data, and interactive ways to visualize it, in numerous ways.
  • Write Once. Use Again.
    • Now the steps of cleaning the data can be recorded, and used again and again, each month with hardly any tweaks. This reduces the need for manual cleanup and improves accuracy and reliability. It offers ways to scale up the data analysis process and work on more value added services.
  • Shift Cleanup vs Analyze Ratio to 20-80.
    • With the added interactivity and automation, finally more time can be spent in analyzing the data. Cleanup jobs are set in the background, and they can continue to run on auto-pilot. Plus, we are able to process data now in real time, which drastically improves the prospects of having usable, actionable data and insights.
  • Load Data From Multiple Sources
    • The ability to load and merge data from multiple sources is becoming much easier, and automation is making this chore into a breeze that is a fun to do activity today.
    • Data from Text files, CSV, Excel, Databases, XML, Websites, Live Tickers, On and Off site Corporate Data Warehouses is becoming a reality. This opens up new possibilities.
  • Remove need to do complex, slow VLookups
    • Forget slow VLookups, and be able to lookup any row, any column, irrespective of the order or distribution of the data rows and columns. This frees up new options and makes merging data a simple matter. In fact, now we do not need to have very wide tables..We can have shorter (Less wide – less number of column in a table And  have taller tables (More data rows)
    • For Tips on Data Modeling, read our Data Modeling Considerations in Power BI.
  • Load Huge Data Volume, beyond 1 million rows of Excel
    • Options like Microsoft Power Query & Microsoft Power Pivot enable you to load a few million rows a simple matter. And there is no need to worry about running out of space in Excel or its bandwidth – the ability to process a few million rows.

Microsoft Power BI: The Magic Wand To Vanquish All Your Data Analysis Problems

  • Super Fast
  • Dynamic, Interactive
  • Handle Big Data With Ease
  • Hundreds of Data Sources
  • Build Relationships. End of VLookups
  • Multiple Ways to Refresh
  • Visualize First
  • Generate Insights
  • Share With Ease
  • New Ways to Visualize – Maps, Tree Maps, Funnels, KPIs, Speedometers
  • Security of Sharing
  • Multi Device Support – Web, Desktop, Mobile, Tablet, Without installing any additional software
  • Real Time Processing
  • Multiple Dashboards
  • Slice & Dice To your Heart’s content

Article Written by Vinai Prakash, MBA, PMP, GAP, ACTA Certified

Additional Resources for Power BI

Training Courses

Data Analytics & Visualization with Power BI

Learn Microsoft Power BI Suite For Better Data Analysis & Reporting

Power BI Tips, Tricks & Video Tutorials

Power BI Tip #2: Reference Query Results in Another Query With Power Query [Video Tutorial]

Microsoft Power BI: Super Charge Your Data Analysis Process

Power BI Tip #6: Fixing The Vertical Axis in Power BI Visualisations

Power BI Tip #5: All About Slicer Controls in Power BI

Power BI Tip#4: Enter Data Into Power BI Quickly [Video]

Power BI Tip #3: Quick Formatting of Power BI Visuals

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