Profit and loss data modeling and analysis with Microsoft Excel

www.office.com/setup Blogs: Accounting and Finance Professionals have a new learning resource. The Profit and Loss Data Modeling and Analysis with Microsoft PowerPivot in Excel article, Excel workbook samples, and sample Access database provide scenario-based data modeling and analysis help for self-service BI with PowerPivot and Power View.

The scenario describes how Finance professionals at Contoso Ltd. create a PowerPivot data model, Excel PivotTables, and Power View reports to analyze budget, forecasting, and other profit and loss account metrics, such as:

• Aggregate, or value measures such as sums and averages for currency and headcount.
• Comparison measures such as year-over-year, year-to-date, and variance for cash flow and headcount.
• Performance, or ratio measures such as percentage, cost per head, and rate and volume variances–all of which calculate on different combinations of value and comparison measures.

Extensive details of over 80 DAX formulas are provided, as well as tips for creating highly efficient and fast performing data models. The Excel 2013 version of the sample workbook also provides several dynamic Power View reports.

To learn more, download the whitepaper.

Original Post: https://blogs.office.com/2013/08/08/profit-and-loss-data-modeling-and-analysis-with-microsoft-excel/

Cloud services you can trust: Office 365 availability

www.office.com/setup Blogs: “Your complete office in the cloud” is how we think of Microsoft Office 365. While it gives us enormous pride that one billion people use Office, we deeply appreciate the responsibility we have to meet and exceed our customers’ expectations every day. We recognize that productivity apps are mission critical; using them is how work gets done. It is imperative for us to ensure our service is trustworthy and reliable while we continue to add new capabilities to Office 365. Our measure for this is service availability.

Office 365 availability

Since launching Office 365 two years ago, we have continued to invest deeply in our infrastructure to ensure a highly available service.  While information has been available in detail for our current customers, today we’re making this information available to all customers considering Office 365.   We measure availability as the number of minutes that the Office 365 service is available in a calendar month as a percentage of the total number of minutes in that month.  We call this measure of availability the uptime number. Within this calculation we include our business, government and education services. The worldwide uptime number for Office 365 for the last four quarters beginning July 2012 and ending June 2013 has been 99.98%, 99.97%, 99.94% and 99.97% respectively.  Going forward we will disclose uptime numbers on a quarterly basis on the Office 365 Trust Center.

Here are a few more details about the uptime number:

1. The uptime number includes Exchange, SharePoint, Lync and Office Web Apps, weighted on the number of people using each of these services. Customers use these services together, so all of these are taken into account while calculating uptime.
2. This uptime number applies to Office 365 for business, education and government. We do not include consumer services in this calculation.
3. Office 365 ProPlus is an integral part of our service offering but is not included in this calculation of uptime since it largely runs on the users’ devices.
4. Individual customers may experience higher or lower uptime percentages compared to the global uptime numbers depending on location and usage patterns.

As a commitment to running a highly available service, we have a Service Level Agreement of 99.9% that is financially backed.

Availability design principles

We have been building enterprise-class solutions for decades. In addition, Microsoft runs a number of cloud services like Office 365, Windows Azure, CRM Online, Outlook.com, SkyDrive, Bing, Skype and Xbox Live to  name a few. We benefit from this diversity of services, leveraging best practices from each service across the others improving both the design of the software as well as operational processes.

Below are some examples of best practices applied in design and operational processes for Office 365.

Redundancy. Redundancy at every layer–physical, data and functional:

• We build physical redundancy at the disk/card level within servers, the server level within a datacenter and the service level across geographically separate data centers to protect against failures. Each data center has facilities and power redundancy. We have multiple datacenters serving every region.
• To build redundancy at the data level, we constantly replicate data across geographically separate datacenters. Our design goal is to maintain multiple copies of data whether in transit or at rest and failover capabilities to enable rapid recovery.
• In addition to the physical and data redundancy, as one of our core strengths we build Office clients to provide functional redundancy to enable you to be productive using offline functionality when there is no network connectivity.

Resiliency. Active load balancing and constant recovery testing across failure domains:

• We actively balance load to provide end users the best possible experiences in an automated manner. These mechanisms also dynamically prioritize, performing low priority tasks during low activity periods and deferring them during high load.
• We have both automated and manual failover to healthy resources during hardware or software failures and monitoring alerts.
• We routinely perform recovery across failure domains to ensure readiness for circumstances require failovers.

Distributed Services. Functionally distributed component services:

• The component services in Office 365 like Exchange, SharePoint, Lync and Office Web Apps are functionally distributed, ensuring that the scope and impact of failure in one area is limited to that area alone and not impact others.
• We replicate directory data across these component services so that if one service is experiencing an issue, users are able to login and use other services seamlessly.
• Our operations and deployment teams benefit from the distributed nature of our service, simplifying all aspects of maintenance and deployment, diagnostics, repair and recovery.

Monitoring. Extensive monitoring, recovery and diagnostic tools:

• Our internal monitoring systems continuously monitor the service for any failure and are built to drive automated recovery of the service.
• Our systems analyze any deviations in service behavior to alert on-call engineers to take proactive measures.
• We also have Outside-In monitoring constantly executing from multiple locations around the world both from trusted third party services (for independent SLA verification) and our own worldwide datacenters to raise alerts.
• For diagnostics, we have extensive logging, auditing, and tracing. Granular tracing and monitoring helps us isolate issues to root cause.

Simplification. Reduced complexity drives predictability:

• We use standardized components wherever possible. This leads to fewer deployment and issue isolation complexities as well as predictable failures and recovery.
• We use standardized process wherever possible. The focus is not only on automation but making sure that critical processes are repeated and repeatable.
• We have architected the software components to be loosely coupled so that their deployment and ongoing health don’t require complex orchestration.
• Our change management goes through progressive, staged, instrumented rings of scope and validation before being deployed worldwide.

Human back-up. 24/7 on-call support:

• While we have automated recovery actions where possible, we also have a team of on-call professionals standing by 24×7 to support you. This team includes support engineers, product developers, program managers, product managers and senior leadership.
• With an entire team on call, we have the ability to provide rapid response and information collection towards problem resolution.
• Our on-call professionals while providing back-up, also improve the automated systems every time they are called to help.

Continuous learning

We understand that there will be times when you may experience service interruptions. We do a thorough post-incident review every time an incident occurs regardless of the magnitude of impact. A post-incident review consists of an analysis of what happened, how we responded and how we prevent similar incidents in the future. In the interest of transparency and accountability, we share post-incident review for any major service incidents if your organization was affected. As a large enterprise, we also “eat our own dogfood,” i.e., use our own pre-production service to conduct day-to-day business here at Microsoft. Continuous improvement is a key component to provide a highly available, world-class service.

Consistent communication

Transparency requires consistent communication, especially when you are using online productivity services to conduct your business. We have a number of communication channels such as email, RSS feeds and the Service Health Dashboard. As an Office 365 customer, you get a detailed view into the availability of services that are relevant to your organization. The Office 365 Service Health Dashboard is your window into the current status of your services and your licenses. We continue to drive improvements into the Service Health Dashboard including tracking timeliness of updates to ensure so that you have full insight into your services health.

We also have some exciting new tools to improve your ability to stay up to date with the service.  Last week we released a new feature in the administration portal called “Message Center.” Message Center is a central hub for service communications, tenant reporting and actions required by administrators.  Also, by the end of this year, administrators can expect a new mobile app that will provide service health information as well as other communications regarding their service.

Running a comprehensive and evolving service at ever increasing scale is a challenge and there will be service interruptions despite our efforts. We want to assure you that we are continually learning and are relentless in our commitment to provide you with a reliable highly available service that meets your expectations.  Service continuity is more than an engineering principle it is a commitment to customers in our SLA and as one of the key pillars of Office 365 Trust Center (the other four pillars being Privacy, Security, Compliance and Transparency). This public disclosure of Office 365 uptime is evidence of our ongoing commitment to both Service Continuity and Transparency.

Original Post: https://blogs.office.com/2013/08/08/cloud-services-you-can-trust-office-365-availability/

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www.office.com/myaccount

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Loving the ‘Like’ Button

www.office.com/setup Blogs: Any social network user will tell you, the more “Likes” your post gets, the better. But in practice, I’ve seen that a “Like” can mean more than simply liking what an update has to say. As an avid user of the “Like” button, I was curious to learn more about how other people use it on Yammer. So last week, I created a survey and posted it to the Yammer Customer Network (YCN). The feedback was lively, and the results indicated that Yammer users intuitively choose the “Like” button to quickly convey a variety of messages.

As it turns out, there are many different uses of a “Like,” and each has a direct benefit to you and your network. I’ve broken down the major examples as ranked below, and encourage you to try using “Like” in a new way:

1. “Like” to show your approval, appreciation, or agreement.

95% of the users surveyed hit “Like” when they genuinely like someone’s post. Clicking the “Like” button is an efficient and easy way to participate when you’re busy, as Workflow Expert Lori Koncz explains, “‘Like’ is acceptance, appreciation, and applause all in one click.” This can be particularly powerful when a leader uses “Like” to show that they are engaged with their employees and recognize contributions across their organization.

2. “Like” messages that you’ve been @mentioned or cc’d on to notify the poster that you’ve have seen the message.

This creates a quick feedback loop, without a string of emails that just say, “Got it” or “You’re welcome.”

3. “Like” new users posts for positive reinforcement.

Lisa Vanderlip, Communications Specialist for the Canadian Cancer Society, told us, “As my network’s community manager, I encourage ‘Likes’ as they let the poster know that they have had an impact. Nothing worse than posting and then all you hear is crickets [nothing].” “Likes” are one of the best ways to boost employee engagement in a new network and build momentum during a network or a group launch.

4. As a new user, “Like” posts to get your feet wet.

“Likes” are a low-stakes way for new users to get comfortable with working out loud. And, by liking coworkers’ posts, these shy users are building connections with others and supporting their network.

5. “Like” to recognize useful content outside of your immediate team or division.

Yammer encourages us to work out in the open, and the “Like” button is a simple way for colleagues to show appreciation for useful content, discussions, and collaborative effort across the organization. Being “Liked” shows that people outside your own immediate team care about what you are working on.

How to “Like” a message you dislike.

Sometimes there’s just a negative posts or bad news, and responding with “Like” may feel inappropriate, but it’s important to show you’re engaged. Speaking from personal experience, I believe most people understand that your “Like” conveys support and acknowledgment, not that you’re actually pleased that your coworker is “sick as a dog.” If you’re still concerned that clicking “Like” will send the wrong message, you can “Like” someone else’s uplifting response in the thread, or simply write a personal reply of your own conveying how you feel about this topic or issue.

Regardless of how you use “Like,” share your personal experiences with us in the comments below! If you’re interesting in starting a discussion in your network about the different and creative ways people use “Like,” please reach out to me for details on the survey I posted to the YCN.

Original Post: https://blogs.office.com/2013/08/08/loving-button/

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Microsoft releases Office 2016

www.office.com/setup Blogs: REDMOND, Wash. — Sept. 22, 2015 — On Tuesday, Microsoft Corp. began the worldwide release of Office 2016. The apps are the latest addition to Office 365, Microsoft’s cloud-based subscription service that helps people do their best work, together. The company also announced new and enhanced Office 365 services built for team productivity.

“The way people work has changed dramatically, and that’s why Microsoft is focused on reinventing productivity and business processes for the mobile-first, cloud-first world,” said Satya Nadella, chief executive officer of Microsoft. “These latest innovations take another big step forward in transforming Office from a familiar set of individual productivity apps to a connected set of apps and services designed for modern working, collaboration and teamwork.”

Nadella wrote about the new Office on the Official Microsoft Blog. Kirk Koenigsbauer, corporate vice president for the Office Client Applications and Services team, provided more insights about Office 2016 on the Office Blog.

Office 2016 delivers new versions of the Office desktop apps for Windows, including Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Outlook, OneNote, Project, Visio and Access. By subscribing to Office 365, customers can get always-up-to-date, fully installed apps for use across their devices, combined with a continually evolving set of consumer and commercial services, such as OneDrive online storage, Skype for Business, Delve, Yammer and enterprise-grade security features.

Together, the new Office and Windows 10 are the most complete solution for doing. The Office 2016 apps run beautifully on the best Windows ever, including the new Sway for Windows 10 to create shareable, interactive stories that look great on any screen. Windows Hello logs you into Windows and Office 365 in one simple step.¹ Office Mobile apps on Windows 10 empower on-the-go productivity, and work with Continuum² so you can use your phone like a PC. Cortana³ connects with Office 365 to help with tasks such as meeting preparation, with Outlook integration coming in November.

Built for teamwork

The Office 2016 apps simplify collaboration and remove barriers to team success.

• Co-authoring⁴ is now provided in Word, PowerPoint and OneNote desktop software, including real-time typing in Word that lets you see others’ edits as they make them.
• Skype in-app integration across the rich client apps allows you to IM, screen share, talk or video chat right in your docs.
• Office 365 Groups are now an integrated part of the Outlook 2016 client app and available on your favorite mobile device through the Outlook Groups app, delivering a consistent team experience across the suite.

In addition, new Office 365 solutions that combine the power of apps and services for better collaboration are coming soon.

• Introduced today, Office 365 Planner helps teams organize their work, with the ability to create new plans, organize and assign tasks, set due dates, and update status with visual dashboards and email notifications. Planner will be available in preview to Office 365 First Release customers starting next quarter.
• Significant new updates to OneDrive for Business are coming later this month, including a new sync client for Windows and Mac, which will deliver selective sync and enhanced reliability. Updates also include increased file size and volume limits per user, a new user interface in the browser, mobile enhancements, and new IT and developer features.
• Unveiled earlier this year, GigJam is available Tuesday in private preview and will become part of Office 365 in 2016. GigJam is an unprecedented new way for teams to accomplish tasks and transform business processes by breaking down the barriers between devices, apps and people.

Works for you

Office 2016 provides built-in intelligence to help you work faster and smarter.

• Outlook 2016 provides the smartest inbox yet, with lightning-fast search and automatic removal of low-priority mail. Everyone on the To: line has the right access to documents with modern, cloud-based attachments.
• Tell Me helps you quickly find the right Office feature or command, and Smart Lookup brings insights from the Web right into your documents.
• Excel 2016 now includes integrated publishing to Power BI and new modern chart types to help you make the most of your data.
• The most recently used documents list allows you to pick up right where you left off, traveling with you across your devices, whether you are working in Office Online, in the Office Mobile apps or in the Office 2016 desktop apps.

The most secured Office

Office 2016 apps with Office 365 deliver new capabilities for better enterprise security and protection.

• Built-in Data Loss Prevention across Word, PowerPoint, Excel and Outlook significantly reduces the risk of leaking sensitive data, giving IT administrators tools to manage content authoring and document sharing policies.
• Multifactor authentication ensures secured access to content anywhere when you’re away from the corporate network.
• Enterprise Data Protection will be available for the Office Mobile apps for Windows 10 later this year and for the desktop apps early next year, enabling secured content sharing within corporate boundaries.

Availability and requirements

The new Office 2016 apps are available in 40 languages and require Windows 7 or later. Starting Tuesday, Office 365 subscribers can choose to download the new Office 2016 apps as part of their subscription. Automatic updates will begin rolling out to consumer and small-business subscribers next month, and to commercial customers early next year. Office 2016 is also available today as a one-time purchase for both PCs and Macs.

Customers can visit one of the more than 110 Microsoft Stores in the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico to discover and purchase the new Office. While there, they can participate in a free, one-hour Office 2016 workshop and visit the in-store Answer Desk, a one-stop shop for your Office needs.

More information is available at http://www.Office365.com.

Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT” @microsoft) is the leading platform and productivity company for the mobile-first, cloud-first world, and its mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.

¹ Windows Hello requires specialized hardware, including fingerprint reader, illuminated IR sensor or other biometric sensors, and may require additional authentication steps in certain configurations.

² Available only on premium Windows Phones. External monitor must support HDMI input. Requires a Continuum-compatible accessory.

³ Cortana experience may vary by region and device.

⁴ Co-authors must be using Office 2016 or Office Online.

Note to editors: For more information, news and perspectives from Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft News Center at http://news.microsoft.com. Web links, telephone numbers and titles were correct at time of publication, but may have changed. For additional assistance, journalists and analysts may contact Microsoft’s Rapid Response Team or other appropriate contacts listed at http://news.microsoft.com/microsoft-public-relations-contacts.

Read more at https://news.microsoft.com/2015/09/22/microsoft-releases-office-2016/#50x6dK2kOGClFTk5.99

Original Post: https://news.microsoft.com/2015/09/22/microsoft-releases-office-2016/#M34YleWi3ODRJwE3.97

What are the differences between office 2010 and 2016?

www.office.com/setup Blogs: The best comparison I’ve seen if by an Internet Hosting and infrastructure provider called Sherweb that provides a side-by-side review of updates:

• Office 2010, 2013 & 2016 at → Office 2016 vs. 2013: What's new and improved? | SherWeb

The Interface changes more noticeably from Office 2010 to 2013 then to 2016. And the BIG change in Office 2016 is it’s integration with online and teamwork features. On upgrading to 2016 we immediately exploited Outlook’s now integrated ‘Clutter’ feature and began to make use of the integration of ‘Groups’ that was absent before.

In Office 2013 and now 2016 the availability of the ‘Recent Items’ list is a small feature that we find ourselves using all the time, particularly to attach a file to an Outlook message.

PS We routinely try to make the move from one Office version to another a bit easier by installing the ‘old reliable’ Office 2003 menus from a company called UBit.

• UBitMenu International Languages where you can download and install their : UBitMenu for Office 2007, 2010, 2013 and 2016 Shortcuts

This small, fast, and light add-in makes a new [Menu] tab available in all the later office versions that lets folks be productive while learning what’s new at their own pace.

19.1k Views · 3 Upvotes

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Related QuestionsMore Answers Below

• What are some compelling reasons to upgrade to Office 2016 from Office 2010?
• What are the differences between Office 2010 and 2013?
• What are the main differences between Microsoft Office 2013 and 2016 for Windows?
• What are the differences between an Outlook 2010 and 2016?
• Should I move from Office 2010 to 2016?

Elizabeth Nofs, MOS Expert and Microsoft Vendor of Approved Courseware

Answered 29 May

What Are the Differences between Microsoft Office 2010 and Office 2016? The posts, below, have many bits and links that outline the new options that were added to each version of Microsoft Office. I appreciate the information and the useful resources. It is interesting to note that each author has some feature in MS Office that caught their attention.

What Changed for Me The big difference was the switch from desktop computers to devices: Phones, Tablets and iPads. Almost 60% of all computing is now done on a hand-held device, not a desktop PC. Microsoft bought Nokia, the phone company, and all of the Touch Screen patents that Nokia owned.

Bigger Ribbons The Ribbons definitely changed from Microsoft Office 2007 to 2013. The Ribbon is almost twice as big, so that I can click with my fingers, instead of my mouse.

Word 2007 Home Ribbon

Word 2013 Home Ribbon

New Quick Clicks The Quick Clicks provide rich options right next to whatever I am editing-Picture, Chart, Text-without having to scroll up to the top of a very little screen.

Excel 2013 Chart Style

Excel 2016 Quick Analysis

If you look at the bottom of Microsoft Excel, you can see the plus (+) sign by the Tabs. Doesn’t that remind you of the (+) that you use on your SmartPhone to add a new Contact? Hello, New Tab

Consume or Create? In class I make a distinction between consuming information: I read it on my SmartPhone.

…And creating knowledge: I analyze the data and publish the findings professionally.

The Computer Mama’s Work Stations

My Humble Opinion I believe that Microsoft is seeking the right pathway with their flagship product Microsoft Office. The options in Office 2016 are integrated with the business version of Microsoft Office 365. Being part of a server, especially an Exchange server, puts a lot of business savvy into the hands of a small business. These tools were very expensive to deploy and maintain in my own office: hardware, setup, support.

I am looking forward to the next steps.

Good question. Thanks for asking. eBeth

Elizabeth Nofs, the Computer Mama

Original post: https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-differences-between-office-2010-and-2016

Microsoft Teams: 7 things you need to know

www.office.com/setup Blogs: The new Office 365 component for collaborative communication is Microsoft's long-promised answer to Slack.

Microsoft unveiled its long-rumored collaboration tool Wednesday at an event in New York. Dubbed Microsoft Teams, it's a forthcoming Office 365 component that adds a group chat tool to the company's megaprofitable office suite.

Teams is squarely aimed as a competitor to Slack, the upstart web-based software that has challenged email's dominance in the many small groups and large corporations that have adopted it over the past few years.

After the unveiling of Teams at the event, anchored by Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, I received a guided tour of the software. Here’s what we know so far.

It's a lot like Slack

When viewing demos or screenshots of Microsoft Teams, you could be forgiven for confusing it with a new version of Slack. The user interfaces look extremely similar, and it uses the same general “channels” and individual/small group chat design language.

Related stories

• Microsoft Teams challenges Slack for office dominance
• Microsoft Office 2016: The CNET review
• Three ways to get your hands on Office 2016

At first glance, Microsoft is hardly reinventing the wheel here. Instead, it’s utilizing a lot of its existing strengths in Office (online applications), Azure (cloud-based file management), Skype (online communication), Exchange servers (data management) and security, all of which are pulled together in a new group chat application.

Teams also incorporates plenty of other familiar Slack features, including in-line animated GIFs and assistant bots, including one (“WhoBot”) that’s designed to find individuals in your organization based on their specialties or assignments.

It supports threaded conversation

“Showcase artists” thread within the “Art and Media Festival” channel

John Falcone/CNET

A common complaint among Slack users is the app’s dearth of email-style threaded conversations. In other words, any discussion within a channel is completely jumbled with another. (Slack has said it’s been testing threaded conversations since at least April, but the feature has yet to appear.) By contrast, Teams will support threaded conversations on day one.

It's a free add-on for Office 365 enterprise subscribers

Teams isn’t exactly free, but if your organization is already an Office 365 subscriber it won’t cost anything additional. Of course, that doesn’t mean it’ll just pop up on your desktop the day it launches. Like any Office component, it’ll be up to your company’s IT department whether or not to deploy it to users in the organization.

... but it's not available to non-business Office subscribers

Did you purchase a “one and done” Microsoft Office software download? Are you an individual or family subscriber to Office 365? Sorry, no Teams for you. The new software is strictly aimed at the enterprise/business market.

That’s a big departure from Slack, which is essentially a freemium web-based tool that’s available to any ad hoc group who chooses to sign up for it. (Customers can then convert to a paid Slack subscription, which offers more features and options.) So if you’re a family or other small group, don’t expect to use or try Microsoft Teams.

Teams works on all major platforms

Microsoft has, or will have, apps for Windows 10, Mac, Android, iOS, Windows Phone and even browser-based web clients. Assuming the web client is robust and works on Chromebooks, that should cover all but a few outliers.

The Teams app running on an iPhone

John Falcone/CNET

Teams supports third-party plug-ins

ZenDesk (customer service software) and Asana (a popular project management tool) have already said they’ll be working to integrate their services with Teams.

Teams will be officially available Q1 2017 -- but you can try it now

Microsoft is targeting the official launch of Teams by the end of March 2017. But a preview of Teams is available now – again, though, only to enterprise customers. At the bottom of this Microsoft page, the company notes that “IT admins can turn on Microsoft Teams as part of your Office 365 plan,” and offers an instructional video.

On the same page, Microsoft also highlights a free Office 365 Business Premium trial offer, which would allow participants to use the Teams beta as well.

Microsoft Teams' tricks should make Slack nervous (CNET Update report)

Original Post: https://www.cnet.com/news/microsoft-teams-7-things-you-need-to-know/

Office Mobile for Android phones

www.office.com/setup Blogs: Guy Gilbert is a senior product manager focused on Office apps across Windows Phone, iPhone, and Android phones.

We are thrilled that Office Mobile for Android phones is available in the U.S. today. Office 365 subscribers will be able to download the app from the Google Play store and activate it. The release of this app shows that we’re committed to keep providing additional value for Office 365 subscribers. Office 365 subscribers will now be able to access, view, and edit Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents with Windows Phone, iPhone and Android phones. Here is the official announcement of the news.

Update 3/27/2014:  You no longer need an Office 365 subscription to edit documents with Office Mobile for Android phones.  You must update to the latest version of the Office Mobile app to enable free document editing and creation.

I will provide some more detail about Office Mobile for Android phones, and answer some questions that you might have.

If you aren’t already an Office 365 subscriber, you can visit www.office.com to learn more about Office 365 and sign up for a free 30 day trial.

Signing in

When signing in to Office Mobile for Android phones, you can use either a Microsoft Account associated with your Office 365 Home Premium or Office 365 University subscription or an Organization account for all other Office 365 accounts.  You can find the full list of eligible Office 365 subscriptions later in this blog post.  Don’t worry if you have both types of accounts.  You can access cloud storage places, for example SkyDrive and SkyDrive Pro, after you sign-in.

On the recent documents tab, the last documents you worked on from either your PC – running the new Office – or phone will automatically show up here.  This is made possible by Office 365’s roaming documents feature so that you always have quick access to the most up to date version of documents you worked on.

On the Locations tab you can see all of your connected cloud storage locations and add additional locations, such as SkyDrive, SkyDrive Pro or SharePoint sites.

Getting around Office Mobile

From the home page you can easily move between your recent documents, your cloud storage locations, and creating a new Word or Excel document.  Let’s take a look at each area.

The New Documents tab lets you create a new Word or Excel document from your phone and provides templates to get you started quickly

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Word

You can read, edit and create new Word documents with Office Mobile.  Word is optimized for the small screen of your Android phone, making your documents look great.  When you open a Word document from SkyDrive or SkyDrive Pro, it will open at the exact place you left off on your PC or phone. The menu bar disappears a few seconds after opening the document, so that you can truly focus on the content of the document.

The document outline helps you navigate the document outline and comments, which is handy for when you want to review just a particular section of a long document

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Tap the pencil on the menu bar and you get access to the most common editing, commenting and formatting options.

Once you’re done making changes to a Word document, you can share it via email or save the document to SkyDrive.

Excel

Excel worksheets, tables, and charts are beautifully scaled to fit your phone screen. When you update numbers in the spreadsheet, the entire workbook will recalculate. You can also create charts, utilize AutoSum features and filter data in tables.

The Outline View lets you jump to the worksheet, chart or table of your choosing. From the Outline View, you can also quickly navigate to comments.

You can also filter or sort data in tables, in order to get new insights.

Select any range of cells and using the AutoSum feature you can instantly view the total, average, count, maximum and minimum values for that range.

With that same selected data, you can quickly create a chart.

Finally, you can format cells to clearly highlight the most important data.

PowerPoint

Preparing for your upcoming presentation is now more convenient with Office Mobile for Android phones.  You can review your slides and edit speaker notes, move and hide slides, and make text edits directly from your phone.  In the navigation bar, the Slide Navigator replaces the Viewing Tools from Word and Excel.

In Portrait mode you can see your slides and notes, edit your speaker notes, and practice your presentation.

In Landscape mode, swipe through your presentation and view it.

With the Slide Navigator, you can quickly jump to any slide.

Tap the pencil on the menu bar and you can make changes to the text on the slide.

Settings

When you click the options button while on the Office Mobile home screen, you can access the settings for Office Mobile. The settings page lets you reset Office Mobile and add an identity for comments made on your phone. Resetting Office returns the app to initial state and deletes all your documents and cloud storage locations from the phone.

You can also access help documentation, see the version number, read the Terms of Service and Privacy policy, and select Improve Office Mobile settings.

Frequently asked questions

What are the requirements to use Office Mobile for Android phones?

There are two key requirements:

• You need a qualifying Office 365 subscription plan that includes the Office 2013 desktop applications (see list below). After you download and install Office Mobile for Android phones, just sign in with your Office 365 username and password to activate the app.
• A phone running Android OS 4.0 or greater.

What Office 365 subscriptions include Office Mobile?

Any Office 365 subscription plan that includes the full Office 2013 desktop applications also includes Office Mobile. Specifically, these plans are:  Office 365 Home Premium, Office 365 Small Business Premium, Office 365 Midsize Business, Office 365 Enterprise E3 and E4, Office 365 Education A3 and A4, Office 365 ProPlus, and Office 365 University.  There are also Office 365 government plans that include Office Mobile.

Additionally, Office 365 trial subscriptions will activate Office Mobile.  Please visit Office.com to get a 30 day trial.

What languages and markets will Office Mobile for Android phones be available in?

Office Mobile for Android phones will be available in 33 languages and in 117 markets.  Initially, it will only be available in the United States.  We will gradually expand to additional markets and languages.

• Office Mobile for Android phones will be available into the following languages: Bulgarian, Catalan, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English (US), Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian , Japanese, Korean, Latvian, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Portuguese (Portugal), Romanian, Russian, Serbian (Latin), Simplified Chinese, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Traditional Chinese, Turkish, Ukrainian.
• Office Mobile for Android phones will be made available in the following markets: Albania, Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Armenia, Aruba, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, The Bahamas, Bangladesh, Belarus, Belgium, Belize, Benin, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Brazil, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Cameroon, Canada, Cape Verde, Chile, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cote D’Ivoire, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Estonia, Fiji, Finland, France, Gabon, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Guatemala, Guinea-Bissau, Haiti, Honduras, Hong Kong SAR, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Jamaica, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Korea, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Malaysia, Mali, Malta, Mauritius, Mexico, Moldova, Mozambique, Namibia, Netherlands, Netherlands Antilles, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Niger, Nigeria, Norway, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Rwanda, Senegal, Serbia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Togo, Trinidad and Tobago, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Uganda, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States, Uruguay, Uzbekistan, Venezuela, Zambia, Zimbabwe.

When will Office Mobile for Android phones be available outside of the United States?

Office Mobile for Android phones will be available in other markets over the next several weeks.

Can I purchase Office Mobile for Android phones in the Google Play store?

The app is available free of charge for Office 365 subscribers only. Office Mobile is a subscription benefit and demonstrates our commitment to add new value to the Office 365 subscription service.

Customers can buy an appropriate Office 365 subscription through regular channels, for example www.office.com.  Office 365 subscriptions will not be available for purchase in the Google Play store.

How does Office Mobile for Android phones compare to Office Mobile on Windows Phone 8?

Office Mobile on Windows Phone 8 provides a richer, more integrated experience. Specifically, on Windows Phone 8:

• Office Mobile comes preinstalled;
• Office Mobile is pre-activated, so it will function without an Office 365 subscription;
• Office 365 setup combines the setup of email, Office Mobile and Lync, with a single entry of credentials;
• Office documents received as attachments in email will open directly with the Office Mobile app, not with viewers that may not render the documents correctly;
• Office Mobile has support for saving documents locally on the phone;
• Office Mobile includes searching and filtering for documents;
• Office Mobile supports opening IRM-protected email and documents.

What is the difference between Office Mobile for iPhone and Office Mobile for Android phones?

The functionality of both apps is very similar. The main differences are:

• Office Mobile for Android phones does not include an option to purchase an Office 365 subscription from within the app. Office Mobile for Android phones only has a “sign in” option.
• When accessing documents on an on-premises SharePoint Server, the URL to the document needs to be fully qualified for Office Mobile for Android phones to be able to open it. For instance, https://contoso/monthlyreport.docx will not open, but https://contoso.corpnet.northwind.com/monthlyreport.docx will open in Office Mobile.

How many phones can I install and activate Office Mobile for Android phones on?

Most Office 365 subscriptions grant you the license to install Office Mobile on up to 5 mobile devices, not including Windows Phone devices (which come with a pre-activated version of Office Mobile preinstalled).  An Office 365 University subscription grants you the license to install Office Mobile on up to 2 mobile devices.

Is Office Mobile for Android phones available on other devices like Android tablets?

We built Office Mobile for Android phones to ensure a great Office experience when using a small screen device.  Therefore, you will not be able to download and install Office Mobile for Android phones on an Android tablet from the Google Play store.  If you have an Android tablet, we recommend using the Office Web Apps which provide the best Office experience on a tablet.

Where can I get more information on Microsoft technical support?

Microsoft technical support information on Office 365 subscription is available here:  http://support.microsoft.com/get-support/office/office-365-home-premium/mobile/

We hope this new app will be very valuable for Office 365 subscribers with Android phones.  Please let us know what you like and what you’d like to see added in the comments below.

— Guy Gilbert

Original Post: https://blogs.office.com/2013/07/31/office-mobile-for-android-phones/