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What do you have to say about our Project 2010 course?

At KeyStone Learning Systems, we always like to have customer feedback on our courses so we know our admins and their learners are offering and taking the courses they need in order to learn software effectively.

We recently asked a few of our customers what they thought of the Project 2010 training course, and this is what they said:                        

“I am about 60% through the Project Server course and really enjoy the structure and content.  The organization of opening a topic with an overview slide, jumping out to examples, and the 1 page summaries work very well for me.” -Jay Hauglid, senior project manager at Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community

“I have been using KeyStone Learning products since the late 90’s and they have always been top notch.   These courses are no exception.” -Jason Blinn, senior project manager at Fox Entertainment Group

We appreciate this feedback and are encouraged to hear the course is helping our customers. Our Project 2010 course includes videos, articles, quizzes and exercises, appealing to all types of learners and encourages learning and accountability.

For more information on our Project 2010 course click here.  To send us your own testimonial or feedback, email me at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

Great Ways to Get & Stay Organized in Outlook 2010 (Part 2)

Okay, so now that you have been applying the steps I mentioned in my first post, I am excited to share four additional steps that will help you save time in Outlook 2010. If you did not read the first post, the below steps will still help you, but feel free to read the first post here. Below you will see steps 4-7. Enjoy, and become more efficient in Outlook 2010.

4. Do a Quick Search: If, after applying categories, creating Rules and using Quick Steps you still have trouble finding Outlook 2010 items, remember to use the Quick Search bar at the top of each view. It searches as you type. You can enter a sender’s name or any term that might be in the items. If it’s there, Outlook’s Quick Search will find it. And, if just typing a word or phrase doesn’t narrow your search enough, just by clicking inside the Quick Search box grants you access to a Search contextual tab with all sorts of Search criteria fields you can use.

5. Activate Favorites in the Task Pane: It took me a while to realize this was available, but  since I did, I’ll never look at the Navigation Pane the same way again. If you don’t currently see “Favorites” at the top of the Navigation Pane’s folder list, display the ribbon’s View tab. Then, from the Navigation Pane option, enable “Favorites.” Now, for any folder you view more often then others, right-click it and choose “Add to Favorites.” Now, you can switch between different folders way faster because you’re not searching through all of your folders just to get to the ones you need most often

6. Open your calendar (or other favorite view) in a separate window to stop switching back and forth: Make multi-tasking easier by right-clicking your calendar (or other view) in the Navigation Pane and choosing “Open in New Window” from the resulting context menu. Now, you can tile your Outlook windows side-by-side or be able to switch to another view without losing your place in your current view. Brilliant!

7. Close Outlook! I know this sounds counter-intuitive to productivity, but how many times do you get sidetracked from a task because that little message flashes on the lower-right corner of your screen. I know…it’s crazy. One of the best ways to get your productivity back is to close Outlook from time-to-time, just while you’re working on another project. Between projects, you can open Outlook again, check out the new arrivals and see what you have coming up. But, really, does it need to be open 24/7?
 

For more information on KeyStone's Outlook 2010 training course click here. To read part 1 to this post click here.

Great Ways to Get & Stay Organized in Outlook 2010 (Part 1)

Do you ever have the feeling that you spend way too much time in Outlook? If you’re not checking the most recent email that just arrived, you’re searching for one you know you received and it’s somewhere in the 1,478 messages currently stacked up neatly in your Inbox.

It’s overwhelming and, worse than that, it sucks energy and time from your day. But, there are some Outlook 2010 features you can take advantage of to help increase your productivity so you can actually get out of Outlook 2010, allowing you to move along to another program.

1. Start actively using Color Categories: These look innocuous at first, but there’s a great deal of power in categorizing your Outlook items by color. How you categorize is totally dependent on how you work. Maybe you decide to categorize by project, by client, or by urgency. It doesn’t matter so long as you to start to assign categories to email, notes, tasks and appointments. You’ll find available categories and the ability to customize them by right-clicking an Outlook 2010 item. Click “Categorize” from that context-menu and the rest is fairly intuitive. After a short time, you’ll begin to see the colors taking shape in Outlook 2010 and you’ll know what an items pertains to solely by the assigned color.

2. Use Rules to Organize Incoming Messages: I think many of us receive a lot of messages each day that we don’t necessarily need to act upon but that we likely just need to keep a copy of. There are also those messages we receive because we’ve subscribed to a mailing list or regular newsletter. Those non-urgent messages quickly clutter an Inbox. To move them out so you can read them at a later time when you don’t have pressing issues looming, use Rules. Found on the Ribbon’s Home tab while looking at your Inbox, Rules are like little custom macros you create to allow Outlook 2010 to automatically take an action on incoming or outgoing messages based on criteria you set.

3. Take Advantage of Quick Steps: If you don’t quite trust Rules, but you do take similar steps frequently (like forwarding messages to a specific person or group), use Quick Steps instead. When you create a Quick Step (on the Ribbon’s home tab while looking at your Inbox), you define a set of actions you want Outlook 2010 to take whenever the Quick Step label is clicked. This way, you still have a pseudo Rule defined, but you control when it is applied.

Start applying these tips, and I will be sharing more in my next blog post. For more information on our Outlook 2012 course click here.

In review of 2011 we wanted to highlight a few of our favorite new features.

Here at KeyStone, we are always looking for ways to enhance and increase learner productivity through our platform. The below features are great ways administrators can create an effective learning environment for their organization.


1. Share your content: You can now share your KeyStone OnDemand created screencasts on your website, blog or other source.

2. Embed your favorite videos: Embed YouTube or other videos for easy sharing and they are instantly available by keyword search.

3. Creating custom content: Unlike many other training platforms, KeyStone OnDemand does not require third-party programs to create content. You can create screencasts and articles directly within the platform. So whether you have HR related needs or employee introduction courses to create, you can create all new content directly within the platform.

4. Customizing the environment to fit your organization: With the platform, you can add your logo as well as your organization’s colors to the platform for seamless integration to your learning environment.  You can also create your own “Featured Tip.”

For more information and a tour of KeyStone OnDemand click here. To start your free trial click here.

From the moment I downloaded PowerPoint 2010, it was truly love at first sight. Finally, Microsoft delivered to us a presentation program that offered both flexibility and style. Don’t get me wrong – I’m not completely trashing the previous versions of PowerPoint. But, frankly, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out how to click inside the box that says “Click to add …” to throw in some text. Add a little color using the small amount of design templates and you were pretty much good to go.

But, that’s all changed with PowerPoint 2010. Suddenly, the stakes have been raised and I’ve yet to meet anyone not drooling at the challenge.

So, aside from watching the Five Rules presentation, here are my Top three things everyone should be doing in PowerPoint 2010. Wait – you haven’t watched the Five Rules presentation? Right now, open PowerPoint, click the File tab and from the Sample Templates group, open the Five Rules presentation. Follow the directions and watch the presentation in Slide Show view. Shoot – that means I now have four things you should do in PowerPoint. We can fix that with some creative numbering:

0. Watch the Five Rules presentation

1. Instantly broadcast your PowerPoint presentations

To broadcast a slide show to up to 50 of your closest friends, or anyone else for that matter, you just need a Windows Live ID. If you’ve already set up a Windows Live SkyDrive to share files with others, have a Hotmail account or use Windows Messenger, you already have a Windows Live ID. If not, you can create one the first time you try to broadcast a presentation.

The good news is that only the person presenting needs to have a copy of PowerPoint 2010 and a Windows Live ID. All your participants need is a web browser and an active Internet connection. To start a broadcast, from the Backstage menu, select Save & Send, and then click the Broadcast Slide Show option. This gives you a big Broadcast Slide Show button. Click that button to get started.
If this is your first time using the Broadcast Service, you’ll need to set it up. If you’re prompted to sign in to your Windows Live Account or create one, this is the place to do it. You only have to do it once. PowerPoint will remember who you are the next time you broadcast a presentation. Simply follow the on-screen instructions until you reach the dialog with the Start Broadcast button.

Copy the link the PowerPoint gives you and send it to those people who will be joining your presentation. You can send this link via e-mail or chat message. At this point, you’re actively in broadcast mode. But, your participants won’t be able to see your screen until you launch either Slide Show view or Presenter view.

The final step is to click Start Slide Show in the second dialog. This starts your presentation in Slide Show view. At this point, your participants can see the view that’s on your screen. If you drop out of Slide Show view and back to Normal view, the people watching your presentation still see the last slide you were on and you get access to the ribbon’s Broadcast tab.

2. Add narration to your slides

Often, slide shows are delivered electronically without the benefit of a live presenter. In the past, you could separately record narration and upload individual audio files to each slide. In PowerPoint 2010, you can record narration directly on each slide. PowerPoint will create individual audio files and attach them to each slide.

To record narration on a slide show, you’ll start from the ribbon’s Slide Show tab. Choose the Record Slide Show option, then choose either Start Recording from Beginning or Start Recording from Current Slide.

In the Record Slide Show dialog, you can choose to include Narrations and the laser pointer. Once started, PowerPoint will record your audio voiceover through a recognized microphone for each slide in the presentation. It also keeps track of the slide timings.

Narration recorded in this way plays automatically the next time you’re in Slide Show view.

3. Take advantage of the Animation Painter

Creating custom animation effects on your slide objects is not always a quick process. And, once you get an object animated just the way you want it with added animation, effect options and timing, it can feel a little daunting to start the process all over again with another object in the presentation deck. This is where you can make good use of a new PowerPoint 2010 feature – the Animation Painter. Its option is located on the ribbon’s Animations tab in the Advanced Animation group.