Microsoft Word Tips, Tricks & Templates » Design

How to Write Business Rules Documents

Editor — Thu, 25 Nov 2010 02:50:00 +0000

One area where many Business Consultants get tripped up is confusing Business Rules and Business Requirements. We looked at how to write Business Requirements last week, so let’s look at what Business Rules and Business Requirements have in common and where they differ.

Business Requirements – Excel Template

Difference Between Business Rules and Business Requirements?

Why do we need to document Business Rules before starting to gather Business Requirements? Is there a connection between Business Requirements and Business Rules? One of the problems for Business Consultant is that they may focus so much on gathering Business Requirements, that they forget the underlying Business Rules which define how the business functions. Unless you’re clear on the difference between the two, you may end up gathering requirements which you may have to revise change later on if they contradict or break an existing business rule.

What is the difference between a business rule and a business requirement?

Business Rules – these are statements (or conditions) that tell a person whether they can perform a specific action that relates to how the business operates. Business Rules also give you the criteria and conditions for making these decisions.
Business Requirement – this may include what you need to do to enable the business rule to be implemented. In other words, a business requirement may not be valid if it contradicts or breaks an existing business rule.

Example of Business Rules

Let’s step back a minute. My Dad has three pet ducks at his home. One water duck and two land ducks. Yes, it gets very loud sometimes.

So, here are some rules regarding the ducks health and safety:

Ducks cannot be given bread. It may choke them.
Ducks cannot be left unattended when swimming. They are poor swimmers and may drown.
Ducks must be given water with all meals. Helps them digest.
Duck must have buddies. They’re very socialable and pine when alone.
Ducks must be kept out of the kitchen. Yes, I see the irony

Ok, these are some of the rules we have for the ducks.

From Business Rules to Business Requirements

Now, imagine we were building a new apartment block for millionaire ducks. No doubt there will be many requirements about their lifestyle, feeding, entertainment and transport. While gathering and defining these requirements, we need to consider:

The new apartment owners must not allow folks to give bread to the Ducks.
If you’re building a swimming pool. They can have a pool if it’s a requirement, but they also need a life guard.

You get the idea, right?

Connection Between Business Rule and Business Requirements

Now that we’ve looked at how Business Rules work, let’s look at how and where they are connected:

Do business rules exist even when you can’t implement a requirement? Yes. The Business Rules inn independent of the requirements gathering process. It can and must exist independently of other processes.
Does implementing a business requirement mean complying with the business rule? Depends. In general, Yes, but there can be exceptions.
Does implementing the business requirement make it easier to comply with the business rule? Yes. The connection will be stronger across all business process and allow greater understanding of how the Business Rules to Business Requirements function.

Sample Business Rule

This is an example of business rules for a bank taking credit card applications over the web.

Example: Taking Credit Card Applications Over The Web

Business Rule: Customer has an Email Address.
Business Requirement: Ability for bank staff to send and receive emails to the customer.

Now if we change the business rule:

Revised Rule: Customer must have a valid Email Address.

Note: A second rule is required to define ‘valid email address’. An Email Address is considered Valid if does not return as ‘undeliverable’ within 60 minutes of being sent out.

Additional Business Requirement to support Business Rule:

System will immediately send email to customer once email address is received. The email is not batch processed but sent in response to each email received.

Note: The smallest change in the wording of the business rule can have significant impacts on other business processes. When testing business requirements make sure that you consider all possible scenarios where the revised business rule will impact other parts of the business.

Recap

Business rules describe what you may or may not do in a specific business scenario. It also gives the criteria, conditions and exceptions for making these decisions.
Business Requirements capture what a user must do to implement and/or comply with a Business Rule.
You may need different sets of business requirements to implement different sets of business rules, for example, when dealing with complex business processes with complicated conditions and exceptions.
Business rules are independent of business requirements and shouldn’t be changed to accommodate a requirement.

Be careful when changing a business rule in case it impacts how a business process functions.

Conclusion

There is one final point I want to share. Make sure that ownership of the business rules is properly assigned to someone – and make the person accountable.

One approach is to assign this activity to a business analyst with strong skills in document control and with the ability to push through new versions of revised Business Rules.

Try to find the most practical solution for managing your business rules. We used a networked Excel spreadsheet at a large European bank and it worked very well. All documents were version controlled and we followed a strict naming convention which made it easier to retrieve and update the rules when needed.

Don’t get tripped up on the technology. Once the team understand how the documents are structured, written and shared, then you should be fine. Also, remember to purge out-dated business rules. This means you’ll have fewer documents to manage and should speed up annual audits if/when the auditors want to check your document repository.

Final tip: in the Excel spreadsheet, cross-reference the business rule to the business requirements so you can quickly identify where one change impacts another.

About the Author: Ivan Walsh runs the How to Write a Business Plan Blog. He also shares Small Business Information for Entrepreneurs at Klariti.com

Get Started with Business Process Design

Editor — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 10:39:00 +0000

At the end of the workshop, our client confessed, ‘I didn’t know our business worked like that’.

We’d came onsite and over three months mapped out the processes in his Finance, Sales and Operations Depts. For me, one of the most rewarding aspects of Business Analysis is discovering how a business works and then mapping it out in Visio.

Business Process Template – MS Word

Definition: What is a Business Process?

We write the process narratives in Word. In simple terms, business process design is a way of gathering related, structured activities (tasks) that serve a particular goal, usually for customer though it can also be for an IT system. The best way I’ve found to capture the business process is in flowcharts, which show the sequence of activities and where each task inter-relates.

I’ve learnt so much how business models work by taking a business apart, process by process, and seeing where it’s working best and where it needs some fine-tuning.

One definition of a business process is that it’s a ‘set of coordinated tasks and activities that will lead to accomplishing a specific organizational goal’ TechTarget’s Definition of Business Process. In addition, business process management (BPM) is a systematic approach to improving those processes.
The Business Process Management Initiative (BPMI) promotes the standardization of common business processes, as a means of furthering e-business and business-to-business (B2B) development. To realize end, it developed the Business Process Modeling Language (BPML), an Extensible Markup Language (XML)-based meta-language for modeling business processes.
A business process diagram let’s you illustrate activities that are designed to produce specific outputs. For example, if you worked for a bank, you might have a Credit Card application process.That shows what the customer needs to give in, what happens when the application is received, and what results are expected. The customer gets a new credit card or is rejected. You need to design processes for each these scenarios.

Visio Business Process templates

Business Process Example

Let’s look at an example of creating a process flow diagram for a Credit Card application. Like we said, business processes show how to capture (record) the order in which activities occur.

For example.

Customer applies for credit card on the bank site
Or
Customer applies for credit card in the branch
Or
Customer applies for credit card at promotional event
Then
The credit card application is received electronically, but the email is wrong (separate process flow)
The credit card application is received at main office, but address is missing (separate process flow)
The credit card application is received at branch office who send it to head office (separate process flow) Then
The customer gets a new credit card in the post
The customer is offered a new credit card but has to come into the branch (with ID) to pick it up
The customer is offered a new credit card but it send to the wrong address (printing error)
Or
The customer is rejected online.
The customer is rejected at branch.
The customer is rejected at sub-branch.

All of these scenarios need to be mapped correctly and, if necessary, form part of a new process. For example, the credit card rejection process. As a Business Analyst, you need to design business processes for each these scenarios.

Business Process Analysis

A process must have a start, inputs (documents or information) and outputs (reports/forms/results). At its most simple level, every process has a:

Start – what triggers the process into action? I want a credit card.
Middle – what goes on in the process? The different steps, including variations, business rules, and possible exceptions.
End – what conditions are necessary to close the process? I got my plastic friend. Woohoo!

Business process modeling involves designing processes that add value by showing the transformation of inputs into useful outputs.

What inputs go into the Business Process?

Inputs are whatever enters something into the process, for example, the customer (a human resource) submits a credit card application. In another process, a HR system (equipment) may submit a report to anther IT system, maybe the SAP or Oracle databases. Inputs can be resources (people), materials, energy, and equipment (software).

In UML, a resource is an input to a business process and is consumed during the processing. For example, as each daily train service is run, the service resource is ‘used up’ as far as the process of recording actual train times is concerned. When mapping business processes, an Input link indicates that the resource is consumed in the processing procedure. For example, when customer orders are processed they are signed off and used only once per order.

What are Business Process Analysis outputs?

Outputs are the result, the end product, in the business cycle. Outputs may be a physical product (possibly used as an input to another process) or a service. Outputs are whatever is produced as a result of this action. While this seems obvious, remember that in complexes there may be two or more outputs. You need to decide which is the main output and relegate other outputs to sub-processes. More on sub-processes later.

As a Business Analyst, this means that in the credit card application, the outputs will be the Acceptance of the Credit Card request or a Rejection of the request. When designing the process map, make sure you cover all scenarios so the process flow and all intermediate activities are mapped.

Conclusion

A business process will typically produce one or more outputs to the business, either for internal use of to satisfy external requirements. Outputs may be a physical object (such as a report), a transformation of raw resources into a new arrangement (a daily schedule) or a business result such as completing a customer order.

Remember, business process A’s output may feed into business processes B, either as a requested item or a trigger to start new activities.

Next week, I’ll look at how to use Business Process design techniques for large Software Development projects. You might want to read this if you’re looking at ways to improve your department’s performance, outsource projects, or to improve your knowledge of process design.

Do you enjoy process design or designing flowcharts? Please share your thoughts or lessons learnt below.

About the Author: Ivan Walsh is a contributing editor to the Klariti Small Business Centre. Ivan also shares Business Plan Ideas for SMEs on his business blog. Follow him on Twitter

MS Word 2010: Is the new Find re-design better or worse?

Editor — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 10:39:04 +0000

In the new version of Word 2010, there is a new ‘integrated flavor of the Find feature’.

Scott Walker, Lead Program Manager, for Microsoft Word explains that ‘Rather than a modeless dialog box that jumps about on the screen to get out of the way, the basic Find experience now sits conveniently at the top of the navigation pane.”

Note: The Word 2007 Find dialog is still available by clicking the dropdown at the right-hand edge of the search box.

So, what is the new Find user experience?

Scott runs through how it works:

Type in the Search Document box at the top of the navigation pane to start.

As you type:

All matches within the document highlight yellow. Word scrolls the document to the first match (and continues to scroll as you refine the term).
If you’re on the headings tab of the navigation pane, any tab corresponding to a heading whose content contains the term you searched for is highlighted yellow
If you’re on the pages tab of the pane, the thumbnails for the pages that don’t contain the search term are filtered out, leaving you with just the list of pages that have what you’re looking for
If you’re on the search results tab, you’ll see the list of matches with a small snippet of context. Note that this list grows and shrinks as you refine your search
Hit Enter is the same as clicking Find Next.
The dropdown menu to the right of the search box also offers many of the popular object types you might want to search for, including graphics, tables, equations, footnotes/endnotes, and comments (by author).

Other features

You can turn off the incremental search mode, and in the search options you can change settings such as match case, whole word only, etc.

The New Find Experience in Microsoft Word 2010: http://blogs.msdn.com

MS Office 2010, New Mini Translator feature

Editor — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 10:16:52 +0000

Microsoft have introduced a Mini Translator in Office 2010 that provides on-the-fly translation as you select a word or phrase and provides dictionary definitions of individual words.

How it works

Point to a word or selected phrase with your mouse, and the translation will display in a small window.
The Mini Translator also includes a Play button so you can hear an audio pronunciation of the word or phrase using a text-to-speech engine.
The Copy button lets you paste the translation into another document.
You can use the Mini Translator in Word, Outlook, OneNote and PowerPoint.

There is a nice tutorial and more screenshots over here:

http://blogs.technet.com/office_global_experience/archive/2009/07/31/using-the-new-mini-translator-in-office-2010.aspx

How to extend the Ribbon in MS Office / Open XML SDK

Editor — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 10:04:53 +0000

The Fluent UI, or as it’s better known the Ribbon, was introduced in Office 2007.

The Fluent UI technology, like the Open XML formats, is based on XML, which allows for a richer extensibility story for developers.

Erika Ehril’s blog post describes several tools and resources related to Fluent UI extensibility. Brian Jones extend her post by showing you how the Open XML SDK can be used to extend or actually control custom UI within documents.

As is the case with other features in Open XML files, the Open XML SDK 2.0 for Microsoft Office supports Fluent UI through strongly typed access to the custom UI xml part as well strongly typed access to the underlying xml contained within the custom UI xml part.

In other words, you can easily add, remove or modify custom UI for a particular document or set of documents using the SDK.

In this post, Brian show’s you how to add custom UI to a set of documents within a directory.

http://blogs.msdn.com/brian_jones/archive/2009/08/03/the-open-xml-sdk-and-fluent-ui-extensibility.aspx

FYI: You can also download this solution here.

Microsoft Word 2010: How to open Word files online in Protected View

Editor — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 09:48:37 +0000

Vikas on the Microsoft Office Trustworthy Computing security team explains how a new feature in Microsoft Word 2010 called Protected View.

In his article he discusses how hackers have discovered ways to manipulate Office binary files so that when they are opened and parsed, they cause their own code embedded within the file to run. To address these binary file parsing attacks in Office 2007, several new XML based file formats were introduced.

One of the new features in Microsoft Word 2010 is the Protected View, which lets you open a Word/Excel file over the web — via Microsoft’s intermediate sandbox — and then display it for you if it’s deemed to be safe to open.

What is Protected View?

Protected View is a new security defense-in-depth features added in Office 2010.

In Office 2010 when a file appears to be from a potentially risky location, such as the Internet, it is opened in Protected View.
Protected View appears like any other read-only view.
When the file is opened in Protected View, it is being opened in the new Office 2010 sandbox.
Office 2010 sandbox is the “next version” of the MOICE sandbox, thought no file conversation takes place.
What happens is that the file is opend within a sandboxed instance of the application (e.g. Word, Excel, PowerPoint) and if there was malicious code present in the file, the code will not be able to tamper with your documents; change your profile or other user settings.

When is Protected View used?

Microsoft’s goal when designing this feature was to only use it in high risk scenarios:

1. Files opened from the Internet.

When a file is downloaded from the web, the Windows Attachment Execution Service places a marker in the file’s alternate data stream to indicate it came from the Internet zone.

When a Word, Excel or PowerPoint file is opened — and has this marker — it opens in Protected View until the user decides to trust and edit it. To do this, press Enable Editing.

Attachments opened from Outlook 2010

When an attachment is opened from Outlook 2010 it opens in Protected View. Administrators can configure if they want all attachments to open in Protected View or just those sent from senders outside their Exchange environment.

Files opened from unsafe locations

For example, files opened from your Temporary Internet Files folder. You can extend this list to include directories you feel are also unsafe.

Files blocked by File Block Policy.

Microsoft introduced File Block in Office 2007 which lets administrators define file types that should not be opened.

In Office 2010 these blocked files can now be opened in Protected View and you can set policy to indicate if the user should be allowed to leave Protected View (by editing the file) or force them to stay in it.

Office File Validation failures

This scans an Office file when it is being opened and validates it against a well-known schema. When there are inconsistencies between the file and the schema, the file will fail validation and opens in Protected View.

File Open Dialog

You can open files in Protected View explicitly by using the Open button.

As Vikas discussed, Protected View is one of the new security defenses in Office 2010.

For a malware to be able to run in Protected View, it will need to find a way around DEP, ASLR, GS and the 2010 Office File validation checks. And after all that, the malware would need to find a way to break out of the sandbox.

For sure, this is a step in the right direction from Microsoft. The next time you received a ‘scary’ Word file, you can open it in Protected View and read it without having to worry that something bad could happen to your computer.

Microsoft Office 2010 Engineering: http://blogs.technet.com/office2010/archive/2009/08/13/protected-view-in-office-2010.aspx

Error Messages when Starting Microsoft Word

Editor — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 06:55:06 +0000

Over the years Microsoft Word has crashed on me several times. What’s interesting is that the error message I get tend to vary but the result it always the same – I can’t get Word to start.

Here are some common error messages, the reason why they appear, and what you can do to re-start Word. 9 times out of 10, if you delete the Normal.dot file and re-start, you’ll be fine. If that doesn’t work, please read on.

Error Message when Starting Word

When you start Microsoft Office Word, you may receive error messages that are similar to the following error messages:

run-time error.
subscript out of range.
Compile Error in hidden module module name.
Visual Basic Error – Object doesn’t support this property or method.
Cannot display the template add in template is not valid template name.
Word cannot open this document template template name.
module name cannot be found.
Command cannot be performed because a dialog box is open.
Cannot open this file file name.
The file cannot be opened.
Microsoft VisualBasic – The macros in this project are disabled.
The add-in template is not valid.

Why am I getting this message?

This behavior occurs because an add-in in one of the startup folders is not compatible with Word.

How to fix this?

To identify the add-in that may be causing the behavior, follow these steps:

1. Quit all Microsoft Office programs, including Word and Microsoft Outlook.

2. Open the following folder for depending on your version of Word.

For Microsoft Office Word 2007:

Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12\Startup

For Microsoft Office Word 2003:

Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office11\Startup

For Microsoft Word 2002:

Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office10\Startup

For Microsoft Word 2000:

Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\Startup

3. Move any files that are located in that folder to your desktop.

4. Open the following folder:

Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\Microsoft\Word\Startup

5. Move any files that are located in that folder to your desktop.

6. Restart Word.

For more information about how to use the Support Template, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: 820919 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/820919/ )

Did that work for you?

If not, please tell me what version of Word you’re using, what happened when you tried to re-start it, and any other information that may help diagnose this problem.

How to add Line Numbers to Word 2007 Documents

Editor — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 02:21:30 +0000

Microsoft Word can automatically count the lines in a document and display the appropriate number next to each line of text. This is useful if you need to refer to specific lines in a document, such as a legal contract. By default, Word numbers every line in a document (except those in tables, footnotes, endnotes, text boxes, frames, and headers and footers).

However, you can choose which line numbers to display. For example, include line numbers in all or part of the document. Or include line numbers at intervals, such as every tenth line (10, 20, 30, and so on).

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Adding Line Numbers to Word 2007

Adding line numbers to Word 2007 documents is basically the same as in Word 2003.

In Word 2007, Line Numbers are found under Page Layout. 3rd tab on the menu bar.

The only difference is that as the user interface is different, the menu options are in different places.

Adding Line Numbers to Word 2003

To add line numbers to an entire document:

On the File menu, click Page Setup, and then click the Layout tab.
In the Apply to box, click Whole document.
Click Line Numbers.
Select the Add line numbering check box, and then select the options you want.

How to add line numbers to a selection of text:

Select the text you want to number.
On the File menu, click Page Setup, and then click the Layout tab.
In the Apply to box, click Selected text.
Click Line Numbers.
Select the Add line numbering check box, and then select the options you want.

To skip line numbers for specific paragraphs:

Select the paragraphs for which you want to skip line numbers.
On the Format menu, click Paragraph, and then click the Line and Page Breaks tab.
Select the Suppress line numbers check box.

If you don’t want Word to count specific lines, such as a heading or a blank line, you can skip line numbers for these items and continue numbering the following lines.

You can make it easier for people to find information in your Word document by adding lines.

These run down the left hand side of the page. Instead of saying something is on page 5, paragraph 3, just tell them the line it’s on.

Microsoft Office 2010 – How OneNote will work with Shared Notebooks

Editor — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 14:56:25 +0000

How can you capture the benefits of brainstorms when your group is spread across locations and time zones?
In Microsoft OneNote 2010, shared notebooks let anyone “on the network” make changes, add content, or comment—and all changes are tracked and highlighted so you can easily see what’s new.

Full report here: http://www.microsoft.com/officebusiness/office2010/

How Word 2010 will be different than Word 2007

Editor — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 14:51:16 +0000

Microsoft has published an introduction to how Word 2010 will work. Interesting concepts here for technical writers and others who use Word for document creation.

: Image by Ivan Walsh via Flickr

Microsoft starts by saying that:

In the past, individuals worked on relatively simple, local documents, from their office.
Today, it is common for groups to work on rich, shared documents, from anywhere.

With this in mind, it has focused Word 2010 on improving document collaboration, graphics, and navigation.

It also plans to take this one step further and put Word into the browser and onto mobile phones.

“With Word 2010, you can co-author right within Word. You don’t need to hassle with email attachments, or documents with names like TSP_final_2_reallyFinal_FINAL.docx. Instead, just open your document, and start co-authoring. You can see who else is working with you, and where they are editing.”

Read about Word 2010 from 30,000 Feet: http://blogs.msdn.com

MS Office Developer Guild on Facebook, How to Join

Editor — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 01:16:40 +0000

John R. Durant’s writes on his MSDN blog that “to make it easier for Microsoft Office developers to stay alert about events, up-coming content, etc. and more easily share ideas, John has setup the “Office Developer Guild”—a group of like-minded professional friends on Facebook.”

Additional benefits in the ODG include:

Get announcements, slightly ahead of everyone else, of up-coming content, events, etc.
That way you can tee up your own blog entries in advance
Exclusive messages from community leaders and insiders.

Who can join?

Anyone who is interested in how to developer productivity solutions with Microsoft Office. This includes Web, SharePoint, SQL Server, Exchange, VBA, XML and other developers— all of these products & technologies are relevant.

How to join?

Search for my email on Facebook and request to be added: john.durant<> Microsoft<>com.

Host the ODG image: Place the ODG “badge” on your site or blog so that you identify yourself as a member of the “the Guild”.

Link: http://blogs.msdn.com/johnrdurant/archive/2009/07/30/office-developer-guild-is-live.aspx

I sent my request to join last week and should hear back pretty soon.

Top 10 New Features in MS Office 2010

Editor — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 14:01:16 +0000

What do you want to see in Microsoft Office 2010? Arpan Shan, who has access to the beta versions at Microsoft, shares his favorite 10 Office 2010 features.

Some of these you may already know, but he highlights some nice ideas that seem to be coming through. In Word 2010, for example, you will have an in-built screen capture tool that takes screen shots of whatever apps you have open. Interesting to see how Techsmith, the makers of Snagit, will respond to this.

Also, Scott Stiles, the head of the Program Management team for Word, describes the aims and objectives that Microsoft has for this new release.

Top 10 Office 2010 Tech Preview Features

1. Office Web Applications

He says that “the other advantage of Office Web Applications over a service like Google Docs/Spreadsheets is that not only will consumers be able to use this on Windows Live, but Enterprises can deploy Office Web Applications on their own SharePoint servers”.

Nice for corp users but doesn’t really help the little people.

2. Screen clippings

Here you can insert screenshots of applications that you open right from within Office. This saves you having to use Snagit or other screenshot applications. Not sure if you can crop or edit the screenshot. But if you just want a basic screenshot app, this will be useful.

3. Image Background Removal

He adds that previously he had to use other applications to make the background transparent but can now do this within applications like PowerPoint 2010.

4. Outlook User Experience

There are many UX enhancements in Outlook 2010. For example, when you receive meeting requests, you can see your other scheduled appointments inline.

You also have tips throughout Outlook 2010 that tell you if you’re above your quota, you’re going to send an email outside your organization, etc.

5. Video editing

In PowerPoint 2010, you can now insert and edit video. Not only can videos be inserted, but they can be modified. You can trim the video, set the image cover for the video, add borders, add other effects like reflection as well as other special effects.

PPTX files will increase in size (dramatically, I assume) when you add images and videos.

After trimming the video correctly in PowerPoint 2010, you can compress the media size to improve performance and reduce the size of the file.

6. PowerPoint Broadcasting

PowerPoint 2010 has a new broadcasting feature that lets you share PPT presentation.

You can either use a public “PowerPoint Broadcast Service” (you need a Live ID and it’s free) or an internal SharePoint server.

This lets you email a URL to a group of people and they can watch you deliver your PPTX from their browser.

7. PowerPoint Transitions

Some stylish new transitions are on the way. Let’s wait and see.

8. Copy/Paste

In current versions of Microsoft Office, you often end up using paste, look, undo, paste special, etc.

In Office 2010, there’s copy and paste live preview.

This lets you preview how different paste options will look without having to undo, paste, undo paste.

9. SharePoint Workspace

SharePoint Workspace (formerly Groove) lets you work with SharePoint content.

You can take SharePoint lists & libraries offline, provide a rich client UX and background syncing with SharePoint which helps with performance especially in low latency situations.

10. Sparklines

Excel 2010 introduces Sparklines.

This lets you show data trends in a one data cell.

It’s very useful when you’re analyzing numbers over time across a number of time periods. There are many forms sparklines can take from lines to columns to more yes/no type options for win/loss data.

Screenshots and more examples on his MSDN blog. http://blogs.msdn.com/my-top-office-2010-features.aspx

What do you think?

Of all the features here, the two that interests me the most are the screenshots and the copy/paste options.

Why?

Well, because these are two activities that I do all day. Some of the others, like video editing in PowerPoint don’t interest me – I‘ll use Techsmith Camtasia instead anyway.

But, improved screenshot capabilities would make a huge difference, especially if I can work on the screenshots, maybe add arrows and explanatory text.

How about you? What do you REALLY want to see in Microsoft Office 2010!

Tracking Business Processes from within MS Office

Editor — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 13:18:04 +0000

Israeli-based ActionBase have released an interesting application that provides Security Officers with “wave” collaborative software that addresses corporate governance, audit trails security. What interesting from a Microsoft Office perspective is that all of this can be done from within Microsoft Outlook and other Office applications.

Tracking Business Process from within MS Office

How does it work?

ActionBase converts regular e-mail into business-class e-mail, whereby all content is located under a one-line item in your inbox.

This means that all process stakeholders and participants in a discussion thread share the same content, can ask questions, respond and comment or add files instead of scattering feedback across different e-mail messages in the traditional paradigm.

It incorporates all actions that were initiated subsequently by any user involved in the process.

The ability to have drill-down capabilities from inside Microsoft Office applications allows process stakeholders to view the big picture — without compromising collaborative functionality.

Key features

Hierarchy model for business processes
Ensures process-related discussions remain associated with their original context, reducing e-mail overload.
Simplifies process-related search and follow-up by providing process visibility, i.e. related attachments and history, audit trails and change history.
Reporting mechanism provide real-time process information.

The company has also expanded ActionDoc (its action-driven Word documents) functionality to turn plain Word documents to executable working documents with a real-time graphical status view over the whole process.

ActionBase is currently offering a free trial, tailored to specific regulatory, auditing and organizational challenges.

More at www.actionbase.com

How to Force Word to Close after it Crashes

Editor — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 06:05:00 +0000

Word crashed. But when you go to re-open it, it refuses to do so. What’s happening here and how do I fix it.

How to Force Word to Close after it Crashes

When Word crashes, the Winword.exe file may still be running behind the scenes. I know.

If it is running, why won’t it open? There is no easy answer to this but here’s how you can get it re-started.

What you have to do is close this the Winword.exe before you re-open Word as otherwise system conflicts may arise, i.e. you may not be able to open Word, as the system sees that Winword.exe is currently running.

To close Winword.exe let’s use the Task Manager

1. Press CTRL+ALT+DEL. In the Windows Security dialog box, click Task Manager.

2. On the Processes tab, click any instance of Winword.exe, and then click End Process.

3. Close the Windows Task Manager, and then re-start Word.

Final Tip

One final tip here is that when you re-open Microsoft Word, make sure that the files you were looking for can be opened.

If you have difficulty with this, please take a look at this very detailed tutorial over on the Klariti site.

How to Open and Repair a Damaged Word file

Editor — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 05:46:51 +0000

You can “force” Word to recover a document after it has crashed. Microsoft Word tries to automatically recover a damaged document if it detects a problem with the file. Here’s how.

Microsoft Word tries to automatically recover a damaged document if it detects a problem with the file.

When this happens, it will re-open Word and show you a version of the document – before it crashed. It may also show you a second version of the document, which will be a second version of the document, usually recovered with the ‘autosave’ function.

How to Recover Text from a Crashed Word file

1. Open Word, and in the File menu, click Open.

2. In the File of type list, click All Files *.*.

3. In the Open dialog box, select your document.

4. Point to the arrow on the Open button, and then click Open and Repair.

This will open the Word file.

The style and formatting may be slightly damaged but you will have most of the text and can, at least, use it to rebuild a new document.

One final suggestion is to copy the material into a new Microsoft Word document, just in case there is some gremlin in the recovered document.

Does this work for you?

Let me know if your system is different. I’m on XP and use 2003 & 2007. Maybe XP is different.