Here is your final DigiTip for this academic year but you can catch up on all of our previous DigiTIps from this page. We hope that youâve found our tips useful, and weâll be back in September â24 where weâll continue support your confidence with technology, one DigiTip at a time!
Do you sometimes struggle in larger meetings to know who is currently speaking? âŚ..âwas that Ffion or Bethan?!â Maybe youâre working in a loud environment and are struggling to hear others in the meeting speak? Perhaps youâve joined a meeting where the language spoken isnât your first language? Or perhaps you appreciate the accessibility of having subtitles?
If any of the above are true for you, then you will likely find the functionality to enable live captions in MS Teams useful. Watch the video below to learn how to enable live captions:
Itâs worth noting a couple of things if youâre using this feature:
Live captions are only visible to those that have enabled the feature within the meeting, meaning that if you switch them on, they wonât automatically appear for everyone!
Live caption data is permanently deleted after a meeting, so no one will have access to this information.
Visit this webpage for further support and guidance in using MS Teams.
As someone who uses Microsoft Teams every day for work, Iâve discovered a collection of useful keyboard shortcuts and tips that have helped me in navigating the platform more efficiently. Whether you’re a staff member jumping from one meeting to the next, or a student using MS Teams to collaborate on projects or attend virtual lectures, these tips should help you to make the most of MS Teams.
Keyboard Shortcut
Description
Ctrl+Shift+O
Turn off your camera
Ctrl+Shift+M
Mute your microphone
Ctrl+K
Create shorter hyperlinks
Shift+Enter
Start a new line in the chatbox without sending the message
Summary of the key keyboard shortcuts mentioned in this blogpost
Turn off your camera quickly
There are times when you need to quickly turn off your video during a call, it may be that your bandwidth is limited or there are distractions behind you. Quickly toggle your camera on and off by using the Ctrl+Shift+O shortcut.
Customise your hyperlinks
Instead of cluttering your messages with lengthy URLs, make use of the Ctrl+K shortcut. This shortcut allows you to customise the displayed text for your hyperlink, making your messages more concise!
Mute your microphone
Background noise can also disrupt meetings (I have two dogs that bark whenever someone rings the doorbell, so this is my most-used shortcut!) Use Ctrl+Shift+M to mute and unmute your microphone swiftly.
Refine your search results
Teams has an useful search functionality, but sometimes it can yield too many results! Make the most of the available filters to refine your search and to save you time.
Start a new line in the chatbox without sending your message
Typing messages in Teams can be tricky, especially when you want to add line breaks without sending the incomplete message. Use Shift+Enter to start a new line in the chatbox without sending the message prematurely.
Make quick decisions with the polling feature
Do you need to gather opinions or make decisions quickly? If youâre looking to create a poll once youâve started your meeting, Teams offers a built-in polling feature.
Please note: We suggest that you use Vevox, AUâs polling tool, if youâre looking to set up a poll in advance of your online meeting or session.
Mark messages as urgent or important
Do you want to send an important message on Teams and are worried that it will get lost within a stream of messages? To solve this issue, you can mark any messages as urgent or important in MS Teams.
Do you have any other shortcuts or other general tips when youâre using MS Teams? If so, weâd love to hear from you! Share your tips and shortcuts in the box below âŹ
Whether you want to schedule weekly catch-ups with colleagues, bi-weekly project meetings, or monthly team meetings, knowing how to set these up using the recurring meetings function in Microsoft Outlook will save you a lot of time!
The below video demonstrates how to set up recurring meetings in the desktop app version of Outlook, but the process for setting these up on MS Teams or the web version of Outlook is very similar.
Once set up, your reoccurring meeting will now appear as a series in your calendar, and if you need to alter any details, youâll always have the option of altering just a single occurrence or the whole series.
Have you ever worked on a large Excel document where youâve scrolled down to find a figure, but then youâve had to scroll back up to the top again to remind yourself of what the headings was for that column?!
Thereâs an incredibly useful function in Excel that can help with this issue, which enables you to freeze single or multiple rows and columns. You can access this feature within Excel by clicking View > FreezePanes.
Watch the video below to learn how to freeze columns and rows:
Have you ever copied and pasted content from a webpage or another document into a new Word document and found that it completely messes up your formatting? Luckily, there are additional options outside of the basic pasting option (ctrl+v) which can help solve this!
Start by selecting where you want to paste your content and right-click with your cursor. You’ll then find several additional paste options (the options visible will be based on the type of content that you’ve copied).
Here’s a summary of what the most common 4 paste options will do:
Keep Formatting
This keeps the formatting of the text that you’ve just copied (be it from a webpage, another document, or another source).
Merge Formatting
This option changes the formatting of the text so that it matches the formatting of the text that surrounds it.
Use Destination Styles
This option formats the copied text so that it matches the formatting of the text where you’ve pasted your text
Keep Text Only
This option discards any existing formatting AND any non-text elements you have copied (e.g. images or tables).
Do you want to be able to save time using Outlook by running multiple tasks efficiently?
With DigiTip 19, we will be having a look at how to set up your Quick Step recipe. When an email comes through to your inbox, with just one click you can mark it as read, move it to a specific folder, automatically send a reply and many other options.
Are you a planner but struggling to be productive? Do you work better with a to-do list, but you want everything in one place? Introducing Microsoft Teams Task by planner!
You can create your own to-do lists, break these down into daily to-do lists and even view tasks that have been assigned to you in Microsoft Teams channels.
To create your To Do List:
Go to the Apps icon on the left-hand side of MS Teams
Search for and install the Tasks by Planner and To Do app
At the bottom of the planner, selectâ+ New list or planâ
Enter any task, select the priority and due date
Once completed select the circle and the task will complete itself
To break down your to-do list to more achievable goals you can add tasks from your to-do list to âmy dayâ which will refresh every day.
Watch the video below for a demo on how to use Microsoft Teams Tasks by planner.
Microsoft OneNote is a great way to store all your notes, organise your work and create lists all in one place.
You can create different tabs for different areas of work. Within this, you can add new pages to separate and organise your work, all with their own separate headers. You can colour code your sections to help organise and keep track of your work. You can also create check lists, highlight important information and much more using the âtagâ function.
Watch the video below for a demo on using Microsoft OneNote or follow the instructions below.
Click the â+â icon to create a new section.
Right click on the section to change the colour.
Name the page anything you would like.
Hover on the right-hand side pane to insert new pages.
Add checkboxes either by selecting the To Do Tag or by using ctrl+1.Â
You can make pages, subpages by selecting the page, right clicking, and selecting âmake subpageâ.
Depending on who you would like to communicate with, sometimes it is more convenient to schedule and delay your emails for another time. This gives you more time to re-edit the content of your email again if necessary and you can plan for less stress in the future if you can prepare your emails in advance!
Watch the video below or follow these instructions:
Open a blank new email message in Outlook
Compose the email and ensure you have included a recipient and a subject line
Click on the File tab that can be found on the top left corner of the email window
Select Properties
Ensure the Do not deliver before option is checked
Select the time and date you would like to schedule the email to send out for
Click Close followed by Send
Itâs worth noting that Outlook must be open for a delayed email to be sent out. Ensure you have chosen a sending time when you know your Outlook will be running.
