Tag Archive for: Microsoft

Copilot Basics: How to Write Good Microsoft 365 Prompts

You’ve entered a world where AI is like a friendly buddy you can talk to anytime. Need some help? Just write what you want in the Microsoft Copilot chat window. 

Copilot can do many things for you, like giving you a quick answer, a nice picture, or even a fancy graph. 

But keep in mind that the clearer you are with Copilot about what you want, the better it can show you what it can do.

The secret to making the most of Copilot’s abilities is prompting—the skill of giving clear and concise instructions or questions. 

The quality of Copilot’s responses depends on the accuracy of your prompts, so it’s an important skill for using the power of AI assistance. 

What is Copilot prompting? 

1.Provide clear and concise prompts. 

When interacting with Copilot for Microsoft 365, it’s crucial to be both clear and concise.  

  • Clear: Make your request or query unambiguous. 
  • Concise: Keep it brief without sacrificing clarity. 

Microsoft built Copilot to act, so telling Copilot what “to do” rather than what “not to do” is more effective. Try using “if-then” instructions. 

 2.Experiment with different styles. 

Get creative and experiment with different styles to home in on answers that fit your needs. Try specifying tone (neutral, casual, professional) or giving guidance for what kind of language to use. For example, “Use language a nontechnical person could understand.” 

 3.Give Copilot a point of view from which to answer. 

When you provide a point of view from which to answer, it helps Copilot understand the context of your request and generate more accurate responses.Usually, that involves the explanation about who you are and what you’re trying to achieve so the AI can roleplay. For example: 

  • You’re a social media manager writing Instagram post copy. 
  • You’re a marketing manager working on a new campaign marketing proposal.

You can also ask for a response in the style of a specific persona or approach, such as: 

  • Tell me how to solve this problem with the expertise of a business professor. 
  • Teach me about this sustainability concept in a way a nontechnical person could understand.

4.Be Iterative. Experimentation is important.

Some people make the mistake of quitting after a single prompt gets an unsatisfactory response. Working with Copilot is a dynamic and interactive process, where you and your Copilot collaborate to produce content, tackle complex problems, and acquire new information based on your goals, expectations, and feedback. And your initial prompt is just the start. As you provide more details and context, that conversation helps Copilot understand what you want and generate more relevant outputs. For example, “Please create a storyboard for a 60-minute keynote where I need to get a room full of salespeople engaged about our new approach to sustainability. Use these files as background.“

 

These tips can help new users improve their experience with Copilot for Microsoft 365 and take advantage of its features. If you need any help with Copilot, please contact AccessOrange for support. 

What makes a good prompt?

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Free Seminar: Data Security in Microsoft365 and Copilot

 

Join us at the “Security Data in the AI-driven World with Microsoft 365 and Copilot” free seminar and enhance your security knowledge.

Discover insights on M365 Security Framework, explore the power of Microsoft 365 Copilot, and learn about AccessOrange’s Managed Security Service.

Our distinguished speakers include:

  1. Roald Andersen, Founder and CEO of AccessOrange, who will delve into effective data security management for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs).
  2. Justin Chan, Channel Lead, Modern Work, Security and Copilot at Microsoft.
  3. Chadymae Barinan, Cloud Solution Architect – Modern Work + Security at Ingram Micro.

During this seminar, you’ll gain insights into the M365 Security Framework, explore the capabilities of Microsoft 365 Copilot, and learn about AccessOrange’s Managed Security Service.

Plus, enjoy a free lunch while networking with industry experts in the free seminar. Seats are limited, so register now!

Date: Tuesday, 30th April 2024 

 Time: 10:00 AM – 1:00 PM 

Venue: MPR Room, 11th floor, Microsoft Office, Frasers Tower, 182 Cecil St, #13-01, Singapore 069547 

 

Agenda

09:30-10:00: Registration

10:00-10:15: Opening Remarks

10:15-11:00: M365 Security Framework

11:00-11:30: Microsoft 365 Copilot

11:30-12:00: Introducing AccessOrange Managed Security Service

12:00-13:00: Lunch and Networking

 

*Free lunch will be provided. Seats are limited, so it’s first come, first served! 

Registration:  https://forms.office.com/r/vDzwgZvgEu

Don’t miss this opportunity to enhance your security knowledge!

Free seminar agenda and speaker details

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Planning for Office365? Your company name may be already in use

In the past week we helped a new customer to implement Office 365.

This particular customer (whom out of privacy reasons we do not name) is a mid-sized company in Hong Kong with approximately 80 employees. They had been evaluating Office 365 over the past few weeks, and finally had decided to implement the Business Premium edition, that includes not only the Exchange email services, but also the full Office suite, OneDrive and SharePoint.

After a successful kickoff meeting and training session we started the implementation, where the first step is the registration of the Office 365 license. During the registration, you need to enter the company name, address, contact person, but most important, you need to choose a User ID which will be used within Office 365. The user ID consists of a username and an domain which ends with “onmicrosoft.com”.

When we entered the customers company name, the following error message popped up:
(To respect the privacy of our customer we have made up a name in the screenshot)

Warning Message: Your company name is already in use

Our customer immediately started to panic:

“Is this a problem?”
“How can someone else use our company name?”
“What can we do to take it back?”
“What if we can’t take it back?”

In order to identify whether this used name is indeed a serious issue, you have to consider the following

While Microsoft writes the following information in their Office 365 FAQ:

Why do I have an “onmicrosoft.com” domain?

Office 365 creates a domain for you, like contoso.onmicrosoft.com, when you sign up with the service. The user ID that you create when you sign up includes the domain, like [email protected].

If you want to have your email look like [email protected]: buy the domain or just follow the steps in Add your users and domain to Office 365 if you own it already.

  • You can’t rename the onmicrosoft domain after sign-up. For example, if the initial domain you chose was fourthcoffee.onmicrosoft.com, you can’t change it to be fabrikam.onmicrosoft.com. To use a different onmicrosoft.com domain, you’d have to start a new subscription with Office 365.
  • You can’t rename your team site URL. Your team site URL is based on your onmicrosoft.com domain name, and because of the way SharePoint Online architecture works, unfortunately you can’t rename the team site.
  • You can’t remove your onmicrosoft domain. Office 365 needs to keep it around because it’s used behind the scenes for your subscription. But you don’t have to use the domain yourself after you’ve added a custom domain.

Is this a problem?

Looking at the information above, it may seem at first sight, that the domain name is not that important, since you can link Office365 with your own company domain name later, and have all users log on with their [email protected].

However, the second point that Microsoft mentions is worth thinking about: You can’t rename your team site URL.
If you are planning to use SharePoint, then the sharepoint URL will be linked to your account name, in this case [companyname].sharepoint.com. Therefore your company account name IS important, if you want to have a uniform naming standard for your employees.

So if you are going to use SharePoint, then yes, this can be an issue.

How to check whether a Tenant Name is still available?

Please follow this link to check whether your tenant name is still available or not.

How can someone else use our company name?

In the past we have identified different cases. It may be a company from another country that has the same name as yours, and (unfortunately for you) they were quicker in their switch to Office 365, resulting in the fact that they now own your desired account name.

The possible cause is that one of the IT employees in the company has created a test account previously, and (most probably) forgot about it. In case he or she is still working for this company, it is possible to retrieve the account password and continue the setup of Office with the “old” account.

What can we do to take it back

If the employee already has left the company, it may be a complicated matter to find out how to retrieve the password, as you may not have access to previous records. Contacting Microsoft is an option in this case, but they will verify if the person registered has used the same company name (and company email address) that you are using. If these are not the same, you may find yourself in a difficult case proving that the account ID belongs to you.

What if we can’t take it back?

If you are unable to prove the ownership of the other account, then you have only one option left and that is to use another account name, which may be similar to your original name. Some companies choose to add Ltd, or the country name to it. The fact is, everything is possible, as long as the account is not in use.

Conclusion

With the growth rate that Office 365 is expanding right now, the chance will increase that your desired username will be registered by someone else. Therefore we urge companies that are considering to implement Office 365 sooner or later, to just start with the registration with one or two accounts. At least by doing this, you can make sure your desired company ID and SharePoint name will be yours.

[addtoany]

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