Welcome back!

3 things we’re covering today:

1. Using Microsoft Forms to gather business data ✅
2. The icon only 11% of Google users understand 🔒
3. Photos’ most beloved feature returns ❤️

🎬 3 Ways to Use Microsoft Forms in Your Business​

In my latest video, I cover three ways you can use Microsoft Forms to gain insights about your company.

After all - to be successful in business, you need an efficient way of collecting data about your customers, employees, and products.

Here are three key features:

1. 🌐 Surveys
   You can use a survey internally - eg to plan a company event - or externally, to get customer feedback on your latest product. Microsoft have loads of survey templates with pre-populated questions, and even an AI question generator.
   ​
2. ❓Quiz
   Training your team on using a new tool, and want to be sure they understood the important bits? Quizzes are ideal for that. You can also use quizzes for recruiting, to see how much a candidate really knows about your industry. Microsoft lets you include a timer, to make sure nobody spends 8 hours on the quiz. 😆
   ​
3. 📊 Polls
   You can share polls directly inside the Teams app, making it frictionless for your team to use. You can also use them during meetings to get feedback, and make attendees feel included. Microsoft lets you record the names of respondents, and share the aggregated results with everyone who took part.

📚 Shortform​

Do you want to read more books? In that case, I highly recommend Shortform! 👇

​Shortform offers high-quality guides to the world’s best non-fiction books. Each guide includes a concise 1-page summary, a longer chapter-by-chapter breakdown, and exercises to help you retain information.

This unique approach helps you grasp the key concepts of a 15-hour book in just 2 hours. It’s like having a knowledgeable friend giving you the inside scoop!

Ready to give Shortform a try? Sign up here for a free trial at http://shortform.com/leila. XelPlus Weekly readers also get 25% off the annual subscription - that’s equivalent to 3 free months!

Thank you to Shortform for sponsoring today’s newsletter. 😊

🤓 Geeky News

📊 Google Sheets - Enhanced Tool Finder
Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides have a new Enhanced Tool Finder feature! It helps you find features using your own words (eg “who last viewed this document”). It suggests common actions when you create a new file, and you can access previous features through it. This replaces the old Help > Search in the menus workflow, and will be permanently in the toolbar. I wonder if a similar tool will come to Excel?

🏞️ Windows 11 - Photos’ Slideshow Feature Returns
After a whole year, Microsoft is bringing back the much-loved ‘Slideshow’ feature that lets you automatically create slideshows from your photos and videos. This feature disappeared with the introduction of the all-new Photos app, in the Windows 11 2022 update. Hopefully it’s back to stay!

👥 PowerBI - Now Easier to Share in Teams​
It’s now easier to share and embed Power BI reports in Teams. Just paste a link, instead of browsing through workspaces!

This also lets you share a custom view of the report (“include my changes”) and take care of permissions (“share with everyone in my organization”). So you don’t have to handle individual access requests any more. 😌

🔓 Chrome - Google Replaces the Misleading Lock Icon​

A 2021 Google survey found that “only 11 percent of participants actually understood the intended purpose of the lock icon” in their browser. It shows whether or not a website is secured with an SSL certificate (HTTPS). 😉

To avoid misleading users about how ‘trustworthy’ websites are while browsing, Google are replacing the lock this year with a new ‘controls’ icon.

You can apply the same concept to your corporate reports! Do people really understand the symbols and icons you use?

Maybe it’s time to send out a survey…. this week’s video will help you set one up 😄

💚 My Favorite Things

🥕 How Often Do You Finish Online Courses?
​One of our XelPlus clients is motivating their team to upskill in a novel way… By giving monetary rewards to any employee who completes an XelPlus course within 30-60 days.

$300 if you complete a course within 30 days, and $150 within 60 days. Great idea - we all need a bit of encouragement every now and then!

I’m sure they’ll have lots of Excel experts before long.

🚀 Power Stories

Thank you Paul for this amazing review of our Power Query - Beginner to Pro course.

Finishing a course can be such a fulfilling experience 💚

Got a success story about using your XelPlus skills? I’d love to hear it! Hit reply to share the details, and inspire other students 😇

See you next week,

Leila

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