Page 2 – Inova Solutions

Eliminate work stress with an email signature management tool

Posted on September 4, 2023September 4, 2023 by Adriana Wong

Manually creating, updating, and maintaining email signatures for every employee within your organization can generate stress for those tasked with the responsibility. Additionally, the potential for errors significantly increases when manually overseeing each and every email signature within the organization. By streamlining and automating signatures, you ensure a consistent sign-off for all your company e-mails. Some platforms, such as Exclaimer, integrate with Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Exchange.

E-mail signatures are no longer IT’s job, and why should they be?
There are so many ways to boost your brand with email signatures, so let the creatives manage it. At Inova Solutions, the Marketing team manages all company signatures with Exclaimer, keeping them up to date with our latest campaigns and news. Furthermore, we can create different groups for e-mail signatures, separate internal email signatures from external, add legal and compliance texts and use the built in analytics tool to see performance.

We’ve long ago given up manually managing signatures, as this is time-consuming and complicated to manage, and have been using Exclaimer as our email signature management tool for years. Here’s a couple of reasons why the Inova Solutions team is enthusiastic about this platform:

It helps us boost our marketing campaigns and news
Our email signatures have become another marketing channel we can use, because people spend lots of time viewing and responding to emails. Better yet, there’s no competition: when someone reads our email, they’re only seeing our content. That’s why we’ve seen great results from using banners and other marketing elements to boost our marketing campaigns with our email signatures. We also like to add important news and other highlights, such as our Microsoft Curaçao Partner of the Year win.
Adding consistency to our branding
Maintaining a consistent image in our marketing communication efforts is important. All employees use standardized signatures which naturally includes their contact information, but also our logo and other branding elements we use to support our marketing efforts.
Being able to create multiple e-mail templates
With Exclaimer, we are able to create multiple signature templates for internal or external e-mails and for senders in our Ecuador, Puerto Rico or Caribbean team. We can also narrow the settings down to exclude individual senders and implement advanced rules for each template.
Add the right legal and compliance messaging
Our compliance and legal messaging is included in our signatures, eliminating the compliance and legal risks of incorrect or missing e-mail disclaimers.
Limited technical knowledge needed
It’s easy to use Exclaimer’s drag-and-drop editor for designing our latest e-mail signature. We usually make changes to our signatures within minutes and are able to test the changes right within the tool.
Insights to help us make data-driven decisions
The analytics dashboard gives us insight into usage and engagement so we can track the effectives of our campaigns. We can see how many emails have been sent with a specific template, and the corresponding engagement rate.

How does Exclaimer connect with my Microsoft 365 or Exchange environment?
Here’s where our expertise comes in. We can help you set up your Exclaimer integration with Microsoft 365 or Exchange, enabling auto-updating so your sender details are always up to date. Of course, we have the inhouse experience to guide you in getting the best use of your Exclaimer subscription. Exclaimer’s available subscriptions are the Starter, Standard and Pro plan, depending on your business’ needs. Contact us to discuss the right plan for you.

Say goodbye to managing your email signatures manually! Let us help you integrate Exclaimer with your Microsoft 356 of Exchange environment. Contact us for a discovery call today!

These are the next steps in Microsoft’s legacy CSP commerce phase-out

Posted on August 23, 2023December 11, 2023 by Adriana Wong

As we’ve announced last year, Microsoft is bidding farewell to the CSP legacy platform and moving on to a New Commerce Experience.

A proactive approach with support from your account manager at Inova Solutions ensures smoother and simpler subscription management.

Take a look at the timeline:

Starting January 2024, public sector (academic, government community cloud, not-for-profit/charity) offers will be available in new commerce for new and renewing subscriptions.
From January 2024, Microsoft will begin automatic migration of all renewing commercial customers to the New Commerce Experience (NCE). Automatic migration for the public sector is set to start in July 2024. The NCE licensing model is built on an annual or multi-year commitment, aligned with other Microsoft agreements (Enterprise Agreement, Open Value Agreement). Automatic migration for the public sector is set to start in July 2024.

What’s changing, and what’s not?

All legacy subscriptions that are transitioned to the new commerce platform will be adjusted to align with the current annual term, and the quantity of seats will remain consistent with the previous CSP arrangement.
The migration, led by Microsoft, will occur on the date of subscription renewal, starting with subscriptions renewing in January 2024 and continuing throughout the entirety of the 2024 calendar year.
For all new or renewed subscriptions, you will be invoiced for the entire/remaining subscription term. Invoices for NCE products will not be integrated into your prepaid balance.
Once the migration is complete, you have a grace period of 168 hours to make changes to the subscription term or quantity, or if necessary, cancel the subscription.
After this 168–hour period, you will no longer have the option to cancel, reduce, or modify the subscription term. Any changes made during these initial 168 hours will result in pro-rated charges based on the subscription usage.

What are your action steps?

Update your accounting/finance department regarding the invoicing changes from a prepaid balance method and a monthly invoice to a subscription term method. A subscription term can be monthly, yearly, or triennial.
The benefits of proactively migrating your subscriptions include the ability to synchronize subscription end dates with the invoicing date, leading to a streamlined subscription management process.

Aspect	Legacy License Based	New Commerce Experience
Subscription term	Single annual commitment term	Flexible commitment terms: monthly, annual, triennial
Pricing	Monthly subscription, up to 20% higher	Competitive monthly subscription
Invoicing	Prepaid, replenished based on consumption	Invoiced for each subscription term
Subscription alignment	Subscriptions start and end on various days	Capability for subscription alignment with the same end/renewal date
Migration to NCE	Customers can initiate migration from legacy offers immediately

We are here to help! Book a transition meeting with our team:

We’re here to assist you through this transition. Have questions? Book a call with your dedicated account manager. Stay tuned for a smoother subscription journey ahead!

Why we’re excited about Microsoft 365 Copilot, and you should be too!

Posted on August 17, 2023September 11, 2023 by Adriana Wong

Sometimes, work gets to be too much, and you might need a helping hand – or Copilot. Microsoft 365 Copilot is integrated into your favorite Office apps, to help you focus on the most important work, and less on repetitive tasks.

Have you ever looked at a blank page – whether it was an e-mail, letter, or a presentation – and not known where to start? Have you ever gone through a day, or even a week feeling like you haven’t had the chance to do your most important work, because you were too preoccupied with meetings or repetitive tasks?

This is where Copilot comes in handy because it will work together with you so you:

Never have to start from scratch
Can optimize your time
Be better at the job you’re great at

CSP Product Manager Dupal Persaud shares his excitement about this new product:

It’s time to embark on a journey towards new heights of success and accomplishment. Microsoft 365 Copilot is a new AI-powered feature that helps you work smarter. This remarkable tool is set to revolutionize our approach, propelling us to unprecedented levels of productivity and innovation, securely designed to elevate your work efficiency.

Just as we mentioned earlier, one major highlight of Microsoft 365 Copilot is that it is integrated into our favorite Microsoft 365 apps, formerly known as the Office suite. Look and see for yourself how smoothly Copilot works together with Word, PowerPoint, Outlook and more!

You can embrace your writing brilliance thanks to Copilot in Word:

Draft a letter from a rough outline
Draft a proposal with data from a document or a spreadsheet
Edit existing text to make it clearer, or more concise, or formal

Copilot in PowerPoint can help you unlock the master presenter in you:

Transform existing text, such as a Word document, into a presentation
Add animations to your presentation
Shorten presentations into concise summaries
Adjust slide layouts

Uncover insightful analytics with Copilot in Excel:

Analyze and explore data
Identify key trends in data
Create insightful visuals and projections

Easily navigate your overflowing e-mail inbox with Copilot in Outlook:

Summarize long e-mail threads to understand the most important parts
Draft e-mail messages and responses to communicate better, faster, and easier
Adjust the tone and length of your e-mails

You can become the collaboration champion you’re meant to be with Copilot in Teams:

Create a new meeting agenda based on chat history
Create a meeting recap with key discussion points
Schedule follow-ups with the right persons
Create an action list based on decisions made

So, there you have it – a quick rundown of our excitement about Microsoft 365 Copilot.

Now let’s dive into the important stuff: what about data and privacy?

You get to enjoy all the AI capabilities of Copilot, without compromising your data. Microsoft 365 Copilot fits right in with Microsoft’s approach to enterprise-grade security, privacy, identity, compliance, and responsible AI. Your existing Microsoft 365 security, privacy, identity, and compliance protocols seamlessly roll over into Copilot. So, your data stays yours, as it’s isolated and protected within your Microsoft 365 tenant. Copilot also respects permission policies (group and individual) at the tenant level.

According to Microsoft, Copilot will be available for commercial customers for USD 30 per user per month for Microsoft 365 E3, E5, Business Standard, and Business Premium customers when broadly available. As for exactly when – Microsoft has not released any details yet.

Stay connected with us for the latest updates about Copilot: follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn or Instagram.

Source: Microsoft
Image source: Microsoft

10 SharePoint Hacks to Increase Productivity and Collaboration

Posted on August 8, 2023August 9, 2023 by Adriana Wong

Microsoft’s SharePoint is an integral part any team’s effort to increase productivity and collaboration, and there’s a wealth of hidden capabilities that are waiting to be leveraged. As part of the Microsoft ecosystem, SharePoint helps you securely store, organize, access and share your documents — but there may be hidden features that your team may not be taking advantage of yet. In the past, we shared 10 insightful SharePoint hacks to increase productivity and collaboration. Today, we’re taking it a step further by providing valuable tips to empower you in securely leveraging the full potential of SharePoint!

1. Have clear processes in place. Make templates for SharePoint and set up business processes regarding when data is added to SharePoint.

2. Create teams to organize your SharePoint data and documents. Teams make it easy to distribute information only to those who need it, letting them focus specifically on the documents that they’re working on.

3. Organize your corporate data in SharePoint. SharePoint sites should serve as a corporate intranet and a focus of a lot of your company’s knowledge. Build as much core documentation as possible to acclimate your (new) employees.

4. Set up SharePoint alerts. Alerts on SharePoint will automatically notify you when specific documents are changed, making it easier for you to track the information that you need. Alerts can also be used on high-priority documents to make sure changes are validated.

5. Leverage a shared calendar in SharePoint. A shared SharePoint calendar system is one of the most in-demand features for SharePoint, as it makes it easier for everyone within a Microsoft team to work easily together.

6. Keep a consistent look and feel. Templates aren’t just there to customize a project. Consistency matters when it comes to productivity and efficiency. As new pages and sites are added to SharePoint, they should be audited to make sure that they follow the company’s style guide. Any deviation makes it harder to find information.

7. Always ensure mobile-friendliness. Some of the modifications you can make to SharePoint can make it more difficult to use on mobile devices. Always test on mobile devices first and avoid introducing any integration or changes that could make it more difficult for mobile users: people are working on-the-go more often than ever.

8. Leverage ambassadors to promote SharePoint use. Make sure that certain critical users are able to go to seminars and are updated on productivity and collaboration features within SharePoint. These ambassadors can then be used to train other users on the use of these new features and functionality, thereby improving collaboration in an on-going, continuous way.

9. Integrate with other Microsoft tools. Microsoft Teams, Viva Engage, and other Microsoft ecosystem technology can integrate well with SharePoint, making it a central hub for all of the user data. While SharePoint provides superb collaboration and document management features, Viva Engage and Microsoft Teams make it easier to communicate one-on-one and in groups: using them together gets the best of both worlds.

10. Start the day with SharePoint by adding daily content. If you add daily updates to the front page of SharePoint, users will be more likely to log in and start their day on the intranet. This ensures that users will always get the updates and announcements that they need right away, while also emphasizing the importance of SharePoint to their work. Often, using SharePoint for productivity relates directly to making sure employees are using the platform.

Extra tips to help you optimize your SharePoint use

• Manage document or folder access. You can manage access to your documents and folders on SharePoint, by right-clicking on a document or folder and clicking on ‘Manage access’. Finally, you can also remove access to a file you have previously granted access to via a shared link.

• Protect your data by disabling edits and downloads. When sharing a file, you might not want those you share it with to be able to edit or download the document. This is especially helpful if you are working with sensitive documents that you don’t want to end up on someone’s personal computer, or if you don’t want any unwanted edits in your documents. You can easily select if someone can edit or download your file prior to sharing.

• Promote SharePoint adoption. Educating your team on the use of SharePoint not only optimizes the productivity and collaboration that is possible with SharePoint but can also promote the use of SharePoint’s security features.

If you’re interested in document management with Microsoft SharePoint or would like to optimize your use of Microsoft 365, do not hesitate to contact us. As a dedicated Microsoft Solutions partner, a key part of our approach is leading by example – we actively employ the solutinos we offer. This practice grants us unparralleled insights into our products, empowering us to be advocates and share our expertise.

Securely store, organize, access and share your business documents. Connect with us to learn more about Microsoft 365 and SharePoint. You can also book a discovery call with one of our experts here.

How one dance school is using Microsoft Teams to teach from afar

When the COVID-19 crisis caused schools in the country to close, Fina Dance Art School, a local dance school offering dance classes to children from 4 years up and also for adults in Willemstad, Curacao, was faced with a challenge: how to continue give dance lessons to students when the physical dance room was closed? Fina Dance School turned to Microsoft Teams to take the dance room online and keep students active from a distance.

The management team of Fina Dance Art School (Fina) were completely devasted when they had to close their dance school due to the pandemic. They were forced to stop doing what they loved the most; teaching how to dance. They have been doing so since 1983, and now after 37 years abruptly seeing their classes empty, not one single soul given their all in the dance lesson, seeing the sweat drops fall, hearing the joy after a successful move or tiers… was something that they would not get used to easily.

One of the reasons of their sadness was that they were not acquainted with any type of technology available out there that could help them deliver classes online, let alone having an IT infrastructure in place. The ladies at the school had an old-fashioned way of doing business which was working well before the pandemic arrived. This dance school offers several classes, with an overall of 280 students and 8 instructors spread out in different dance styles.

Innovating new ways of teaching

Luckily for Fina, there was one student that was using Microsoft Teams and referred Inova Solutions (Inova) to them to see if we could help the school setup the technology. Fina started to create their Online Continuity Plan to understand better and to have a strategy behind this “new normal” that was shaking the entire world. Initially, the management team was somewhat nervous about this whole Online Plan, but soon after some key conversation with the board and with Inova’s consultants they were very enthusiastic to be able to deliver their classes to their students again and fast! Now they are even thinking offering these virtual dance lessons as an added value to their normal program after COVID-19.

Seeing the little expert, the management of Fina had with technology, Inova offered its Inova Essentials Kit. The Inova Essentials kit is basically a starter package where we help implement the tool for the customer and additional configuration & services. This package comes with Office 365 including Teams. The best part of this entire kit was that it was free of charge as our response to the community in our Country. Fina could also enjoy a Crash Course from our internal champions in Teams, that helped the trainers, staff, and other members of the school jumpstart right away with the use of Teams. From the first conversation we held with the customer to the first live dance session via Teams, took less than a week to happen.

Bringing Virtual Dance Lessons

Students were ecstatic that they could continue with their dance classes virtually. At this point students where completely isolated of the rest of the world with the shelter in place order from the Government. The students could not do other classes online, because lots of other schools where also figuring out how to do so.

The students, especially the what older ones such as teenagers and young adults, where glad about the possibility of being able to continue their dance lessons virtually. They admitted that it wasn’t the same as being physically present in the classroom with the trainer, but that at least they could have enjoyed the participation and being connected with their peers. It’s now all about losing old habit and creating new ones. New tools, new rules. The cool thing was that they could still feel connected while in distant, especially that they could give instantaneous feedback to each other.

As for the trainers, just being able to dance and able to stream that to their students while at home, was something unimaginably for them. It filled their hearth with this immense satisfaction that they could somehow or the other bring sunshine to the screen for the students. It can be a lonely experience for them who are isolated back at home partway through the school year. Fina uses Teams meetings to bring some much-needed cheerfulness to this uncertain time. Fina conducts virtual dance classes for a limited group of students to ensure the best experience is being provided. They deliver interactive sessions, blended with new dance techniques and helping finetune the students’ dance moves. The trainers admit that this new method of given lessons had to make them even more creative when correcting the students’ techniques as it was quite challenging to correct them with no physical contact. However, it opened a new way of thinking and analyzing how to bring over the techniques which before you would not think so deep on it. Bottom line, the tool was functioning!

Teaching remotely, although not without its challenges, has brought a new dimension to the learning process. It was also cool to see parents joining in to say hi and meet the Fina trainers over video.

Choosing the best technology for digital transformation

The first step in Fina’s technology journey was to adopt Teams. Very rapidly after the implementation of that, we implemented Microsoft Office 365 in their infrastructure. At this moment internally they also use all the applications and use Teams to meet with the trainers to talk about new schedules, new programs and much more. So not only did Fina fulfill their expectation of delivering virtual classes to their students, but they also managed to inherit that same culture internally. That was something that the management team of this dance school never had in mind being capable of.

Fina maintained about 50% of their business productivity with the use of Teams.

This solution is now considered to be offered as an added value as part of their USP after the pandemic. With this modern approach in mind, the customer can focus on new market growth. Virtual classes are here to stay for Fina Dance Art School.

Picture: Fina Dance Art School Instagram