October 2020

Apple was quick to follow up their annual September event with the Hi, Speed iPhone event this month. Four new iPhones were announced, plus a HomePod. We’re here to discuss the highlights of the event.

The event kicked off announcing the HomePod Mini, a smaller version of the HomePod speaker. The speaker includes Siri’s smart home capabilities, including a new feature called Intercom. For $99, you can choose between white or space grey colors, with pre-orders starting November 6th.

The main portion of the event included a lineup of 4 new iPhones – iPhone 12 Mini, iPhone 12, iPhone 12 Pro, and iPhone 12 Pro Max. As you go, the devices get bigger, fancier, and more expensive. For a full side by side comparison of each model, visit here. What is important to understand no matter the model, is a big focus on improved displays, improved cameras, and the introduction of 5G support across each version. A new “Ceramic Shield” technology was built in partnership with Corning, to improve the odds of your device surviving a fall. Various colors are available and all phones will run on Apple’s A14 Bionic chip. There are various pre-order and ship dates to note depending on which phone you want to purchase.

To learn more about the whole event and other small announcements, visit here.

If your business is like most, every department has created their version of a form needed to manage human resources, collect information from customers, or build a checklist of tasks to be done for a process.  These forms are typically created in Microsoft Word or Excel, and although easy to build, they are not easy to collect the information in one place, and are difficult to use workflow to initiate other tasks once they are completed.

Enter Microsoft Flow, the simple answer to easy forms creation, workflow, and data collection.  Flow works hand in hand with Office 365 to easily create interactive forms which can be distributed using a web browser and used within and/or outside your organization.  Given its integration with Office 365, data about users can be collected in the background (ex. Department, manager, location) eliminating the need to ask for this information as part of a form.  Likewise using the workflow aspects of Flow, once a form is completed it can automatically email someone to start the next step, or allow for approvals/denials, and many other things.

Handling employee expenses manually, not anymore.  Asking employees to fill out basic information on hire, not necessary.  The possibilities are really endless.

If you think you can benefit from the use of Flow, please reach out to the office and we can discuss further.  For more information visit here.

October is National Cybersecurity Awareness Month, serving as a reminder of the importance of security awareness all year long. Our office offers various tools and types of training to ensure your employees are educated and enabling them to make smart security decisions every day.

We partner with Knowbe4, an email training platform, designed to educate your users about phishing and other dangers of email. This training can help users identify scams or malicious intent before it is too late. There are also several Office 365 security addons available, like multi factor authentication or encryption, to protect your users and company as a whole. Plus, we have firewall security options you might find useful as another preventative measure to take against attacks.

With no shortage of cyber attacks occurring, whether against a large company or a few individuals, it is important to stay informed, and educate users to recognize attacks before falling victim to them. If you would like to learn more details about the options we have available, please feel free to contact the office!