ISG Blog

In times of trouble, it's good to rely on Scripture

Have a fantastic weekend.

Kia ora TSA whānau

Did you know that as ISG upgrade all our machines to Windows 10, the maori keyboard option is preloaded and available for use?  This is now part of our standard territorial image.  If you are still on Windows 7, ISG can easily install this for you, you simply need to log a ticket for this to happen for you. 

Once the language pack has been installed, then this option will be available by selecting the language icon on your Start toolbar and choosing Māori (Māori keyboard).  See image below:

Once selected, to add the Māori language macrons to your text press the "tilt symbol" key on your keyboard which is located under "ESC" key on a QWERTY keyboard (see image below) and then the vowel. For example, type M, then press the "tilt" key, then type "a", and the rest of the word for it to show the word "Māori".

As one of New Zealand's official languages, it is important to know how to use this in our everyday communications.  

Kia kaha everyone.

Since we've gone into lockdown, we have seen a marked increase in use of the Microsoft Teams and specially in the use of video calls.

Today's tip is to help you with backgrounds.  Sometimes if you are in an open space office, people walking behind you can be a distraction to others in the call, or if you are working from home, the place may not be as tidy as you would wish and so it would be nice to hide the unmade bed (as I did many times over lockdown 😊).

To “hide” your background, once in your call, tap on the three dots “…” on the call tool bar and select “Apply background effects”

This will open up a menu with the default background options which you can select and “Apply” to your background.  You have the option to blur your background or to select one of the pre-set options.  You can also create your own by selecting “+Add new”.  This allows you to select any JPEG file to be added as your background.  As a side note, IKEA have made available a number of jpeg’s that could be used for this and are available on https://backgroundsbyikea.com/

There are two points to consider when using backgrounds:

1. ISG’s advice is to be aware of the viewing audience. For example, it may not be appropriate to have an image of Homer Simpson in your background if you are on a professional call with external parties, as you represent The Salvation Army, but perfectly fine if you are on a call with your team doing a weekly quiz;
2. Be aware of the contrast of what is behind you. For example, if you are wearing a white shirt against a white wall, this may make it difficult to have a good image at the other end as limbs may disappear from sight. But a sharp contrast will ensure the image is sharp too.

From top left to right: (1) no background; (2) blurred background; (3) pre-set background; (4) self-selected background [+Add new]

It may be that you are happy to create your own professional background.  Just make sure if you are using the Red Shield in your background, that the one provided by PR Department is the one in use.  After all, its about keeping the professional image 😉

It's hard to find some good funnies these days, but with election dates recently amended, maybe it gives time for Rick Astley to put his 'hat in the ring' so to speak, because ...

*sigh* I hear you all say... 

Oh well, enjoy your weekend.

It has been good to see the increased use of Microsoft Teams around the territory, and one could say this has been one of the silver linings of our lockdown period. Microsoft Teams is a great tool for collaborating with each other particular when you are unable to be in the same location but even for sending quick messages to colleagues no matter where they are.  Video conferencing has also been used to a much greater extent in the last few months.

But much more than this, there are a number of useful applications within Teams that are often not used because many don't know about it.  Today we want to show you a simple tip that will help you be more effective and productive when using MS Teams.

The search bar in Teams can be used not only for searching through any chat, or collaboration thread for previous information, but it can also be used as a command line.  If you type "/" on the search field you are given the following list:

You choose whichever option you wish by simply typing the remainder of the command. For me the ones I find really helpful in this list include:

/org - which provides the line management for a specific person in our TSA directory

/dnd - quickly sets my status to 'Do Not Disturb' when I'm working on a project and don't want any interruptions, or find myself in a meeting doing a presentation and don't want my chat notifications popping up on screen

/chat - which saves me searching a previous conversation to add to it, I can just use this to quickly send a message to a specific person

Why not take the time to try some of these?  You may, like me, find this a really useful way of quickly finding or sending information.

This one is credit to our very own General, who posted this on instagram this week...

Have a blessing filled weekend.

Earlier this year there were QR codes for each Centre, Corps and Family Store being produced.  It would appear that for some of you these have never come through.

We have been advised that the process to activate a QR code has been simplified. If you did not receive your official QR code poster, the ministry of health have now modified their information and you can do this yourself at this web location

https://qrform.tracing.covid19.govt.nz/ 

You will need a driver's licence to create the poster, and on page 2 you will also need a NZBN number.  This is 9429042739890.  

Complete the necessary fields and a poster will then be emailed to the email selected in this application.

Take care everyone, stay safe and be kind.

It has been a while since ISG provided any tips on our blog and so we want to help you be more productive with the tools you currently have as well as learn some tips on some of the features that are available to you within O365.

Over the next few weeks we will be looking at MS Teams and help you make the most of this fantastic O365 tool that all TSA users have access to.

Today we want to focus on the latest update to the video capability in Teams.  A new feature called "Together mode" has recently been launched to all MS Team users and this is particularly helpful when you have a video meeting with a number of people.  The grid view is still available (up to 9), and an extended Large gallery is also now available (up to 49!) but the grid view can be a little hard to focus on who or what to watch.

The Together mode, using AI, merges all the faces into a single "room" and helps with focussing on the topic at hand.

This is available now to all TSA users. and to get this going you need to do a couple of things:

First, when in Teams, you may need to ensure you have the latest version of Teams, so go to the icon on top right of the Teams window and select "Check for updates"

then select Settings > "Turn on new meeting experience" by ticking the appropriate box

If the box has not been ticked, and you have now made the change, you will need to restart Teams to ensure this takes effect. Your pc may need a complete restart to ensure Teams is not still running in the background.

Then next time you are in a Teams meeting, and you have joined the meeting, you simply need to hit on the "..." (3 dots) on the toolbar and select Together mode.  Be aware that if there are not enough people in the group meeting, then this option may be greyed out but as soon as there are enough people to fill the "room" this will become available.

So next time you are in a video call with a number of people, why not try this.

It's road work season... it feels never ending.   Oh well take the detour and enjoy your weekend.

ISG are increasing security of our Office 365 for The Salvation Army New Zealand, Fiji, Tonga & Samoa by enforcing Multifactor Authentication (MFA).

Multi factor authentication (MFA) is a security method of authentication where two categories of credentials verifies the user's identity for a login.  In our case this is a password and a authentication code either through a text, or through the Microsoft Authenticator app.

For instructions on how to enable this, open this PDF from Google Drive.

When you have completed the steps in the file above, please log a ticket with ISG (sdp.sarmy.net.nz) so that we can activate it for you.

THQ are having their Christmas staff function today.  Christmas is not far away now.  Merely enjoy it.

Wherever you may be, have a fantastic weekend.

December is looming fast and everyone is getting ready for the Christmas season.

May God bless you over this busy time for so many of us... and take the time to laugh.  It's a great stress reliever. 

Have a great weekend.

Well the iSG Team do love it when people bring baking for them... 

Have a blessed weekend.

Have yourself a heavenly weekend.

Hope you enjoyed Guy Fawkes.  Now the countdown to Christmas begins.

Enjoy your weekend.

Barbecue season is upon us. May God be in your interactions with each other over this weekend.

God bless you

Enjoy recharging for another week.  Have a great weekend.

God bless you.

Enjoy a "sweet" weekend

(I know it's bad... I'm a dad, what else did you expect?)

ISG wishes to pass on a huge thank you to everyone in the territory who helped us complete Phase One of our Office 365 migration plan. 

Other than a little bit of “mop up” work, all our users are now using Office 365 for their email and calendar. 

After several months of planning, 32 training locations, 85 training sessions, near 1700 users and 200+ shared mailboxes migrated, more than 26,000 kilometres travelled, and hundreds of hours of work delivered by the iSG team in preparation, delivery, training (both at the time of migration and after in support calls), and all other support work for this migration, we can now take a five minute breather before embarking on Phase Two of our project. 

Thank you to all who made the effort to attend training (and some of you had to travel a fair distance). We trust that it was a worthwhile time and that you did pick up some good tips on how to manage your calendar and emails in a more efficient way so you can spend the time 'doing' the mission of caring, transforming and reforming.  Do remember there are a lot of tips in tricks in Supportal under Solutions, and subscribe to the iSG blog for regular reminder of some of these.

I want to specifically say a BIG thanks to the ISG team as they have travelled on this journey with us:

• To the service desk team capably led by Michael Cabatbat, always willing to assist our users with their many queries… thanks;
• To the back office team as they worked through the many possible pitfalls and navigated through all of them providing minimal disruption to our users during this time of transition… thanks; 
• To Robert McIlwraith who assisted our users with a smooth and mostly stress free change through his diligent training sessions and thorough notes (including all the new tips in the Solutions section of the supportal)... thanks; 
• To Ian Wood and Mark Whittaker who undertook the bulk of the load as they migrated each account and ensured what needed to be available to each user was made available when it needed to be… a big thanks. The number of extra hours spent outside of work hours to ensure there was minimal disruption to the users in the territory has been incredible, and the sacrifice given in this from them is something I am very grateful for.
• And finally to our families, for your patience, the endless long nights without us and your ongoing support and understanding of the fact we are "enabling the mission" for this wonderful organisation… thanks.

Congrats team on a successful delivery of Phase One.  

Bring on Phase Two 😉