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How to Make Gmail Look Like Outlook – Tutorial

Making gmail inbox look like outlook

The times of getting excited after seeing you got one new message in your inbox are long gone. Nowadays, emails are deeply rooted in the modern business culture with a staggering number of 269 billion emails sent per day. Yes, you read that right, billions.

Gmail & Microsoft Outlook are arguably the most common email clients used today. Although both services offer great features, it seems that Gmail has gotten the upper hand in recent years.

Nowadays, many individuals and corporations are transitioning to Google’s ecosystem to take full advantage of all the great apps and features that come with a Google account, and Gmail leads the pack.

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How to Work with Pivot Tables in Google Sheets

Google Sheets is a spreadsheet program that is a part of Googles web-based office suite. The program represents an online alternative to Microsoft Excel but it’s compatible both with Microsoft and Open Office file formats.

Since its initial release, back in 2006, there is an ongoing debate whether people should use Google Sheets or MS Excel. There’s no right or wrong answer to this. It all comes down to specific needs and tasks.

Someone would praise Google for its simplicity and ease of collaboration. Others would argue that Google Sheets, compared to Excel is lacking in the functionality department

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How To Easily Optimize Your Business’ Books

Optimizing Business Books

Every business has to face at least one tricky challenge in common: to keep its books organized. That might seem like an easy task if you are an accountant or a bookkeeper, but that’s not always the case.

The vast majority of small business owners end up having to organize the financial/documental part of the business by themselves to save some money or just to keep a close eye on them. Organization is a crucial part for every business’ success, and here are some valuable ways to start improving your operations today.

The first action you can take to integrate and organize your company’s books is to digitalize every single piece of document you might have. That’s right, even that small parking receipt from two months ago or that hotel bill that you paid during the last conference you attended–digitalize it! Documents that are stored in digital format (e.g., PDF, Docx, XLS) are much easier to handle and to access, which can be a huge time-saver. Or if you want to customize and convert the format of the documents you are storing you can use simple and extremely efficient tools such as Able2Extract to get the job done for you.

Also on the same line of digitalizing documents, a crucial measure to increase your books data security is to upload it to the cloud. This allows companies to store all the information they need in the cloud, which means that the data will be saved in external servers that can be accessed from anywhere at any time. Plus, some cloud service providers such as Welcome Networks presents the users with military-grade security for Virtual Desktops so they can have peace of mind about any hacking attempts.

Another highly necessary and important point to optimize books is to utilize online accounting software instead of the old fashioned offline desktop systems. Since these web-based applications allow you to send invoices, pay bills, do bank reconciliations, and to obtain reports of the most variables types, these web apps operate in the cloud and are the latest trend in the market.

An excellent example is SlickPie cloud accounting, a free software that even offers a source file attachment feature for companies to upload financial documents that are related to their transactions directly to their accounts, which can also be used in combination with Able2Extract to generate double the optimization value.

These software programs will drastically improve your business overall productivity since it will basically show you a financial x-ray of all your transactions through cash flow statements, balance sheets, and all other pertinent records registered in the system. And the best part is – it will all be just one click away to be accessed from any desktop or mobile device.

All these solutions need to be integrated and applied to increase the effectiveness in the company’s books. This will strengthen the business with top trend tactics that are being used by the main players in every industry, and it will grant your company with advantage points over your competitors’ procedures.

By putting these practices into action, your company will save time, money, and it will be much more secure to provide any financial documents whenever they are needed, regardless of environmental conditions.

If you were still waiting for the right time to come to embrace digital innovations to fully optimize your company’s books, now is the time!

6 Online Dashboards To Present Your Google Sheets Data

Excel Spreadsheet Diagram

When it’s more and more common for teams to collaborate around data in Google Sheets, you’ll find yourself needing a way to work with and access that data whenever you need to–not whenever your data analyst gets a chance.

But the problem is that if you aren’t too savvy with MS Excel, putting together your own dashboard for your Google Sheets data is downright overwhelming. It can be a steep learning curve you neither have the time nor the patience for.

As businesses are analyzing data that’s more complex than ever before, vendors specializing in data and business intelligence tools are offering out-of-the-box, online tools to make it easier.

These type of online dashboards can be the perfect solution. They let you get the same professional data visualization and analysis without all the technicalities.

The following 6 dashboard tools, for instance, have simple to use interfaces, features and data connection widgets that can integrate your Google Sheets data. Check them out.

1. Geckoboard

Geckoboard starts our list with its free account option. Powerful enough for Salesforce data and simple enough to use with Google sheets data. You can set it up as you would upload a file. It’s just a matter of creating a connection to your Google account or linking to the file via URL as a data source. You can find a good run down of Geckoboard’s spreadsheets integration on the site.

2.VizyDrop

VizyDrop is a data visualization tool that can easily integrate your Google Sheets data. Features with this tool include chart sharing, a dashboard editor, updated data visualizations, the ability to work with custom sources, and built-in app connectors.

This tool is on the simplistic side, but it’s free to use. You can start dropping in your data in their demo space, but you’ll have to sign up to save your data.

3. Slemma

Slemma also makes things super easy for you with its built-in integration with Google Drive available for all types of accounts. This dashboard tool provides you with automatic update and scheduled report delivery features.

Other features include one-click integration, calculations, automated pivot tables, and email dashboards. And if you’re new to working with data and aren’t sure how to best visualize it, you can get some inspiration from the data visualizations and dashboards other Slemma members have done. There’s a free 14-day trial available to check out.

4. BIME Analytics

Source: BIME Analytics

You can connect a number of any data sources you have with BIME Analytics–including online cloud services like Google Drive. BIME Analytics allows you to pull data from Google Sheets and cache datasets. There’s no storage; analysis is always live and direct. You can test it out with a 10 day free trial from the site.

5. Cyfe

In addition to other integrations to third party services like Google Analytics, Cyfe can also integrate your Google Sheets data directly. You have the ability to archive data, export reports, and share your dashboards. Its widgets will allow you to connect any of your data that’s on the web. You can sign up for free or go with the premium account for $19 /month.

6. Datahero

This tool touts itself as the “fastest and easiest way to understand your data”. DataHero is a data visualization tool that works with the data you already use in cloud storage services, or in files on your computer.

Import your data from cloud services, create insightful charts and organize them in separate dashboards to get the most out of your data. Once you sign up you get free trial access to their Premium service, which is a good starting point for exploring your dashboard needs. As a bonus, there is also a free account which will do just fine for visualizing your data on a lower scale.

Marrying business intelligence and Google Sheets data doesn’t have to be complicated or something you dread. On the contrary, it can be as simple as uploading your data online. See if any of the above are a good fit for your data needs.

9 Handy IFTTT Recipes To Automate Office 365 Tasks

When you have the Internet, your productivity can increase drastically. It all depends on how you use it.

If you constantly work on the Internet, then you probably already know all about IFTTT (If This Then That), the online service that automates your daily tasks by connecting popular web services that you use every day.

And IFTTT recently got Office 365 signed on as a service. Now a few of your favourite Office 365 apps are available as IFTTT channels: OneDrive, Mail, Calendar, and Contacts.

Knowing how often you use Office 365 yourself, you can imagine what kind of automated tasks are possible. In this blog post, you’ll learn how to start up your collection of Office 365 IFTTT recipes for some of the most simplest and common tasks you do on a daily basis.

Remember—if you don’t see a recipe that works for you, you can always create your own when you sign up to IFTTT.

Create A Calendar Reminder To Follow Up With Newly Added Contacts In A Week

Networking can be considered an art, which admittedly sometimes, requires help in not only remembering people, but proper networking etiquette, as well. Set a calendar reminder to follow up with new Office 365 contacts when you add them on.

Create A Task Card In Trello For Each Of Your Meetings

Sometimes your schedule can be too hectic to remember the standard follow up tasks–esecially for meetings. Well, if you’re a Trello user, there’s a recipe that will allow you to create task cards reminding you to follow up with meeting notes.

Add A Calendar Reminder To Bring An Umbrella

Hate it when you get caught in the rain? If you aren’t in the habit of checking the weather forecast, this neat little recipe can check in for you. It can give you an automatic Office 365 Calendar reminder to take your umbrella if rain is predicted for the day. Don’t ever get caught unprepared ever again!

Send Your Team A Note That Food Has Arrived

Who doesn’t love group lunches at the office? In workplaces where everyone is spread out among departments, you can save yourself a trip around the office and instantly inform your co-workers that their food has arrived. This “Do” Button Recipe isn’t your traditional “if this, then that recipe.” Instead of combining two actions, you use a single “Do” button on your phone to send an email to their inboxes.

Get A Notification When You Receive A High Priority Email

If you’re expecting an important email, you don’t have to sit around and wait for it. With this recipe, you can get iPhone notifications when you receive a high priority email in your Office 365 Mail inbox. This is a great way to free up your time and let IFTTT keep an eye out for you.

Archive Incoming Email Attachments To OneDrive

This recipe can help you save attachments you receive to your OneDrive account, allowing you to create an online database that makes it easy to store and find any important files you receive.

Download Liked Tracks From SoundCloud To OneDrive

Where would your productivity be without your music? If you’re a SoundCloud user, you can collect your favourite music and access it directly from your computer with this recipe that lets you download liked tracks on SoundCloud to OneDrive.

Save Your Instagram Photos To OneDrive

If you love taking pictures or are into photography, then you’re probably posting your shots to Instagram on a regular basis. With this recipe you can automatically save your Instagram photos to OneDrive and create an instant backup of all your photos.

Save the Facebook Photos You’re Tagged In To OneDrive

Can’t keep track of the Facebook photos you’re in? Just connect the Facebook and OneDrive channels to stay on top of it. This recipe lets you save any Facebook pictures that your friends tag you in. It’s a neat and easy way to start your own collection of photos with your friends.

There are a ton of other channel combinations you can use with Office 365. It’s just a matter of making the connections between the services you use on a daily basis.

Got your own suggestions? Help expand on this list by sharing some of your own recipes.