Infowise Syndication

Rewrite SharePoint form data using AI

2024-04-15T15:44:53Z

Hi, AI is a great tool that can be extremely useful in many tasks in a modern enterprise. As you might've seen, Ultimate Forms has already received an AI-powered form generator that helps you create complex forms based on a simple description. Today we are happy to announce a new feature: AI-assisted text rewrite. Optionally enabled on any multiline text column, you can enhance your text by rewriting it in a certain style and even automatically translate it into a different language.

Open your form in Form Designer and select the column you want to add the new feature to. You can also create a new column directly in Form Designer.
In the Settings panel on the right, toggle "Allow use of AI to rewrite content" to enable the rewrite feature.
Select the desired output style and optionally allow automatic translation.
Publish your form, you are done.

Now we can open our form and enter some text: You can change the pre-selected default output style, here I manually selected technical writing style. Click on the button to generate a rewritten version: If we select French as our output language, we will select a different result: As you can see, our Submit button now changed to an Undo button. You can easily revert the reworked text to your original one. If you make any changes to the text, the Undo button will turn back to Submit. Note that this functionality works both with plain and rich text mode of the column. When in rich text mode, it will attempt to preserve your styling, for example, bold text will remain bold in the rewritten version. You can use this feature for instance to enhance your writing, to proof-read or to write in a language you are more comfortable in. I trust it can help to make your form-filling experience easier and more productive!

Simplify Your Leave Management with Infowise for SharePoint

2024-04-08T15:13:39Z

Hello and welcome to our latest blog post! Are you leveraging the full potential of SharePoint for managing employee leaves? Or perhaps you're already an expert looking for more advanced solutions? If you're ready to dive into the specifics of how our free Employee Leave Management solution can make your processes more efficient and cost-effective, jump right to the solution. For those new to this integration, let’s explore why SharePoint, enhanced with ULTIMATEFORMS, is your go-to option for not just out-of-the-box functionality but much more.

Why SharePoint and ULTIMATEFORMS?

Unlike standalone SharePoint, ULTIMATEFORMS-equipped SharePoint environments offer a plethora of tools, features, and customizations right out of the box. The integration of ULTIMATEFORMS with SharePoint transforms it into a more dynamic platform, enabling users to create more sophisticated, AI-powered forms and workflows without any coding. This powerful combination ensures you can manage employee leave requests more efficiently with automated approvals and real-time updates.

SharePoint Process Solutions by Infowise

With Infowise, SharePoint users are provided with a range of process solutions that are not only free but also customizable and reusable. These solutions are designed to be easily installed and are user-friendly, making them perfect even for non-technical users. With over 200 solutions available, Infowise covers all aspects of business process management, ensuring that there is something for every need. These solutions are offered at no additional charge, although a subscription to Infowise ULTIMATEFORMS is required. Explore more about these solutions here.

Today's Process Solution: Employee Leave Management

Our Employee Leave Management solution exemplifies how Infowise ULTIMATEFORMS can be leveraged to streamline complex processes. This solution automates the entire leave management process, from application to approval, ensuring compliance and reducing manual workloads.

Infowise Resources for Your Success

To ensure you get the most out of ULTIMATEFORMS, Infowise offers extensive resources, including training, tutorials, webinars, and comprehensive documentation. These resources are designed to help you maximize the utility of your solutions and encourage self-sufficiency and innovation.

Trust in Infowise

Infowise is not only a leading provider of SharePoint enhancements but is also a vetted and approved GSA IT-70 contractor to the US government. This recognition underscores our commitment to quality and trustworthiness in delivering top-tier solutions.

Quick Start with ULTIMATEFORMS

Getting started with ULTIMATEFORMS is straightforward. Visit our Quick Start page to learn how you can implement your Employee Leave Management solution quickly and with ease.

Experience the Difference with a Free Trial

Interested in seeing how our Employee Leave Management solution can transform your business? Sign up for a free trial today and experience the power of SharePoint and ULTIMATEFORMS in action!

Make SharePoint Employee Onboarding a Breeze with Infowise ULTIMATEFORMS

2024-04-05T23:12:46Z

Make Employee Onboarding a Breeze with Infowise ULTIMATEFORMS for SharePoint

Hello there, HR innovators and team builders! Is your employee onboarding process as welcoming and efficient as you’d like it to be? With Infowise ULTIMATEFORMS for SharePoint, you’re about to transform this critical phase into an absolute breeze. Already a SharePoint connoisseur? Then feel free to skip ahead and explore the process solution we offer. For those who are passionate about creating the best start for their new team members, let's unpack how Infowise can supercharge your onboarding experience.

Elevating SharePoint Onboarding to New Heights

First impressions count, and onboarding is your company's first impression for new talent. SharePoint is a great platform, but it’s Infowise ULTIMATEFORMS that provides the personalized touch and automation that makes onboarding not just necessary, but exceptional. Here’s how Infowise ULTIMATEFORMS can elevate your onboarding process:

Automated Workflows: Set up automated workflows to handle routine tasks, such as sending welcome emails, creating new user accounts, and scheduling first-week activities. This ensures that no step is missed and reduces the workload on your HR team.
Ai-Powered Forms: Utilize our new AI-powered feature to create customizable forms for new hires quickly. Ask the AI assistant to generate forms for personal information, tax details, and direct deposit information. These forms are easy to use and integrate seamlessly into your SharePoint environment, streamlining your onboarding process.
Centralized Information Hub: Create a centralized hub where new hires can find everything they need to get started, including training materials, company policies, and introductions to their team. This hub can be easily accessed through SharePoint, providing a seamless experience for the user.
Tracking and Reporting: Monitor the progress of each new hire through dashboards and reports. This allows HR to quickly identify any issues or delays in the onboarding process and address them promptly.
Enhanced Security and Compliance: Ensure that all data collected through the onboarding process is secure and compliant with relevant laws and regulations. Infowise ULTIMATEFORMS offers robust security features that protect sensitive information.

With Infowise, you're setting the stage for a successful employee journey from the very first day.

Infowise Resources: Empower Your Onboarding Process

Infowise's On-Demand Learning Channel is designed to provide unfettered access to a wealth of SharePoint and ULTIMATEFORMS knowledge whenever you need it. This unique platform allows you to engage with our content at your convenience, ensuring that you never miss out on learning opportunities. Every resource on the channel, including detailed webinars, tutorials, and comprehensive guides, is completely accessible at no cost. Additionally, each live or archived webinar comes with a free SharePoint solution, enabling you to implement what you've learned immediately and effectively.

A Trusted Name in Onboarding Excellence

Infowise isn’t just about innovation; it’s about trust. With GSA IT-70 schedule approval, we offer solutions that meet rigorous government standards for security and reliability.

Quick Start with Infowise ULTIMATEFORMS

Get your onboarding system up and running quickly with Infowise’s intuitive quick-start guides. Welcome new hires with confidence and class.

Transform Onboarding Today

It’s time to make onboarding the highlight of your HR processes. With Infowise ULTIMATEFORMS for SharePoint, you’re not just onboarding; you’re setting a precedent. Begin your transformation with a free trial and let the journey to excellence commence.

Streamline Your Recruitment Process with Infowise – A SharePoint Enhancement

2024-04-05T20:30:03Z

Streamlining Recruitment with Infowise: A Smarter Approach to Hiring

Hello! Are you exploring the dynamic landscape of recruitment technology? If so, you know it can be a complex balancing act. But imagine if there were tools to make this intricate task not just manageable but efficient and even enjoyable. That's where SharePoint and Infowise ULTIMATEFORMS come into play. Are you already a proficient SharePoint user? If yes, feel free to skip ahead and explore the transformative solutions we offer for your recruitment processes.
If you're curious to learn more about the why and how stay with us as we explore why combining SharePoint with Infowise ULTIMATEFORMS could be the revolutionary change your recruitment efforts need.

Why SharePoint and ULTIMATEFORMS, not out-of-the-box SharePoint?

While SharePoint is undoubtedly a powerful platform, its out-of-the-box features may fall short in addressing the specific complexities of recruitment. This is where Infowise ULTIMATEFORMS steps in as a formidable enhancement to your SharePoint environment. With ULTIMATEFORMS , you gain the ability to tailor and expand the capabilities of SharePoint to better suit your recruitment needs. The addition of an AI assistant feature elevates your experience by automating the creation of forms and sorting data efficiently. Imagine being able to automate the tedious, repetitive parts of the recruitment process, crafting dynamic, responsive forms that adapt to your needs, and generating detailed analytics that provide deep insights into your recruitment activities. All these functionalities integrate seamlessly with your existing SharePoint setup, empowering you to transform how you manage recruitment.

SharePoint Process Solutions by Infowise

Infowise SharePoint Process Solutions are a godsend to HR professionals. Here's why:

The SharePoint solutions offered by Infowise are designed to provide a comprehensive and user-friendly enhancement to your business operations, particularly in HR processes. Here's a more detailed breakdown of the benefits these solutions bring:

Cost-Effective: Access to these solutions comes free of charge with your subscription to Infowise ULTIMATEFORMS, making it a financially smart choice for businesses looking to optimize their processes without additional costs.
Versatile: The solutions are highly adaptable, allowing you to repurpose and reuse them across various HR functions. Whether it's recruitment, onboarding, performance evaluations, or employee management, these tools can be customized to fit different needs, enhancing consistency and efficiency across departments.
User-Friendly: Designed with simplicity in mind, these SharePoint solutions are easy to install and require no advanced technical skills. This accessibility ensures that your HR team can focus more on strategic tasks and less on navigating complex software.
Comprehensive Coverage: With over 200 business process management solutions available, Infowise ULTIMATEFORMS provides a vast array of tools at your fingertips. This extensive selection covers all aspects of business process management, ensuring you have the right tools for any challenge that arises.
Seamless Integration: These solutions integrate smoothly with your existing SharePoint environment, ensuring that you can enhance your capabilities without disrupting current operations.
Efficiency and Productivity: By automating and streamlining processes, these solutions help to reduce manual workloads, minimize errors, and speed up operations, leading to greater productivity and efficiency within your team.
Customization and Scalability: The flexible nature of these tools means they can be tailored to meet the evolving needs of your business, supporting scalability and continuous improvement.

These features make Infowise's SharePoint solutions an essential asset for any organization aiming to enhance their HR processes while ensuring cost-efficiency and user-friendly experiences. From the initial job posting to managing candidate pipelines, every step is refined for simplicity and efficiency.

Infowise Resources: Sharpen Your Recruitment Skills

To maximize your recruitment strategy, Infowise offers extensive resources, including training, tutorials, webinars, and documentation. These resources are designed to help you get the most out of ULTIMATEFORMS for SharePoint.

Building Trust with Infowise

Trusting in Infowise comes easily, as it’s vetted and approved by the GSA IT-70 contractor to the US government. This endorsement is a testament to the reliability and security that Infowise brings to your recruitment processes.

Quick Starts with ULTIMATEFORMS

Ready to jumpstart your recruitment process? Infowise provides quick start guides that help you get going with ULTIMATEFORMS, ensuring that your path to optimized recruitment is just a few clicks away.

The Infowise Edge: A Seamless Recruitment Journey

Embark on a journey to smarter recruitment with Infowise ULTIMATEFORMS. By integrating this tool with SharePoint, your recruitment process becomes a narrative of success. Start your story today with a free trial and write the future of your company's talent acquisition.

Generate SharePoint forms with AI

2024-04-01T21:16:06Z

Hi, Today we are announcing an exciting new feature that can help you drastically reduce the amount of time it takes to create new SharePoint lists and forms in Ultimate Forms. By leveraging a state-of-the-art AI engine, you create a new list/form combination by simply describing your requirements in simple human language. You are then presented with a list of suggested columns matching your requirements. You can then optionally perform additional adjustments, and afterwards, your list/form are generated automatically in just a few seconds. Our goal was to create a tool that saves you valuable time by listing and then generating a large number of relevant columns automatically. Additionally, we help you leverage unique Ultimate Forms features not avaiable in regular SharePoint forms:

Repeating sections
Summary columns
Column permissions
Advanced validation rules
Dynamic rules and default value rules
Advanced modern forms

Let's create a new list together, so you can see how easy and straightforward the process is, while still allowing quick access to more advanced features, whenever required.

Open Ultimate Forms by clicking on Design button on any list.
Click on Generate with AI in the main toolbar
Enter your list description and provide the number of desired columns. Tip: in most cases, it would be easier to request a larger number of columns and delete unnecessary ones afterwards.
Click on Submit, after just a few seconds a list a suggested columns is presented.

NOTE: the list of column is generated by AI and will most likely be different each time. For best results, it is advisable to provide the most detailed description possible. You can also click on Try again to adjust your description and re-generate the column list.
For simpler lists, you might just accept the suggestions and go straight to the next stage, the actual creation of the list/form. In our case, as our form is quite complex, we will require some adjustments.
First, let's promote some columns into a repeating section. First select the required colums, then click on Create repeating section.
Next, let's add a new column to our repeating section to calculate the line total. I'm adding a new column of type Currency.
Click on the gear button to open Advanced settings panel. Here we will add a calculation rule to automatically generate the column value. Line total is the multiplication of Unit price and Quantity. When Calculated value is entered, the column will be automatically set to read-only.
Add the new column. Next we want to create a Subtotal column, of type Summary, that will automatically summarize the line totals of the repeating section.
Next, click on Advanced settings to specify which columns you want to summarize and how.
Add the column and then drag it upwards, above the tax-related columns.
Now, let's add a calculation formula for the Tax amount column, which will be the Subtotal multiplied by the Tax rate.
And now let's set a formula for the Total, which is Subtotal plus the Tax amount.
We can also optionally set specific column permissions, validations and dynamic rules. For example, we can add a validation rule for Customer email column to ensure the value entered is a valid email address.
At this point, we are happy with the form and can click on the Create button.
The process will take a few seconds after which the following screen is displayed.
Here you can open the new form for data entry.

Note how the calculated values are automatically generated.
You can also click on Design to open the form configuration in Form Designer to tweak it even further.
And we are done!

As you can see, the process is simple, yet extremely powerful. It minimizes the repetitive manual steps of columns creation and configuration, helping you generate advanced forms in just a few minutes! I invite you to give it a try and see how much more productive you can become!

Power Up Forms with Action Buttons

2024-03-26T13:40:14Z

Forms should allow users to make updates as easily as possible. The easiest form interaction is clicking a button. We all like the idea of making an update with one click. Consider your form strategy. What are common updates that are needed when users update your form? Can you consolidate multiple steps to one button click? Here are some examples of actions that often need to take place when a form is updated:

Send an email update.
Update a history log in the form to record that the action took place.
Make a status update to reflect a new status based on the user action.
Update summary information in the header describing the new state.
Record user notes about the action they are committing.

Almost any form can benefit from action buttons. Let's consider different types of buttons and functionality that you can add: Standard Form Buttons are always at the bottom of forms including Edit, Save, Cancel, Close etc. These should be included at the bottom of the form with few exceptions. In some cases it may help users to change the default text on buttons to provide a more precise user experience. For example, why not change "Save" to "Submit Ticket" for a new help ticket. More precise labels on buttons eliminates confusion. Action Buttons generally describe buttons embedded in the form to streamline user interaction and provide additional functionality. Let's learn how these can be used. Action - This can be set to perform actions only or perform additional updates after including saving out of the form, reopening the form or opening another new form. Action and Action and Save should be used most often because these options most closely normal use cases. These allow updates to multiple fields in your form with one click. Let's describe a typical situation. A user clicks a button submit approval. This should be one click for the user, but multiple updates should happen.

A corresponding approval field should be set approved
A History field (multiline text field) should be appended to describing the update.
An Email Update field should be updated which will trigger an email rules to notify users of the update.

All updates can be set to happen in the settings for the button. Just pick the corresponding fields which need to be updated and provide the relevent text. Add Input Parameters for even more dynamic updates! The idea is that you can prompt users for information when they click the button to allow for even more versatility. In the above example, you might ask the user to provide update notes when they click approve. Additional button types offer even more functionality: Trigger Action can be used to kick off actions that have been predefined in the business logic. Normally actions are triggered after saving the form. Using this type of button, you can allow the user to trigger immediate action updates anywhere in SharePoint while working in the form. Create Associated Item can be used to streamline creating associated items in a repeating table in the form. This may be useful to provide a more efficient process to add items to the list based on values in the parent form. In other words you can reference field data in the parent form instead of requiring the user to manually enter data already known. Custom Script allows invoking custom javascript. This is rarely used in special scenarios by developers to trigger unique form updates. Another great feature in buttons is that it is easy to change the look by adding icons, changing the color and changing the text. Don't forget to make your buttons look nice! There are many options to build business logic directly into the form using action buttons. The best way to discover opportunities is through practice. Instead of limiting users to only the standard form buttons, look for ways to allow multiple updates with one button click!

Infowise Ultimate Forms: Elevate Government Efficiency with GSA Schedule 70 Solutions

2024-03-25T15:14:51Z

Infowise ULTIMATEFORMS: Your Key to Enhanced Government Efficiency through GSA Schedule 70

The GSA Schedule 70 is the largest, most widely used acquisition vehicle in the federal government. Infowise is proud to be a part of this select group of vendors approved to sell our software products and services to the US Federal Government. Ultimate Forms, our lead product, offers a wide range of features and capabilities that will make it easy for you to create and manage processes and tasks required to run an efficient organization.

How can government agencies take advantage of Infowise's products?

Infowise has been providing advanced IT solutions to its clients in various industries for over ten years. After getting listed on the GSA, federal, state, municipal, and county governments can also benefit from our services. A few of those benefits include, and are not limited to:

Expedited acquisition process through single-point access for GSA agencies and partners
Multiple implementation partners in the US who can rapidly deploy products and train staff
Built-in value in cost-effectiveness and a great many savings designed for GSA clients
Intuitive products that are easy to use and require no code customizations with flexible purchase options.
Seamless integration within SharePoint
Fantastic customer support
Easy to learn and use

Not a Government Agency, would you like to partner on a GSA project?

The Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) provides the legal framework for government contracting. Infowise is GSA Schedule 70 Approved, which means we've been vetted by the government and our products are available for purchase through the GSA Schedule. As an Infowise partner, you can offer your government clients the Infowise Ultimate Forms suite of products at a discounted price. As a partner, you can expect the highest level of commitment from us, accompanying you every step of the way. You can always count on our support and advice, providing the highest possible value.

As our partner, you receive:

Technical support throughout the bidding process
Discounted training packages to your team and client
Co-visitation and on-site training when required
Partner discount on all your purchases
Free license to demo our products
Dedicated support every step of the way

Do you want to become an Infowise partner? Don't hesitate to get in touch with our partnership program Director, Avi Pagi: avip@Infowisesolutions.com

Infowise - The Smart Way to Automate SharePoint.

What Makes Ultimate Forms Special

2024-03-21T21:09:20Z

Millions of people around the world leverage Microsoft SharePoint for designing and managing business solutions, tailored to their unique requirements. With thousands of customers around the world and close to 15 years of constant improvements, Ultimate Forms is a trusted platform, helping save valuable time and money. Solutions built in Ultimate Forms take a fraction of time to develop, do not require extensive knowledge or programming experience, yet are advanced and highly customizable. In this article, I would like to focus on the features and capabilities, unique to Ultimate Forms, that have the greatest impact on productivity. This is by no means a complete overview of the product, but more of a focused spotlight targeting specific points. In general, Ultimate Forms is divided into interactive user interface components, such as forms, calendars or charts, and backend "business logic" components, such as actions, alerts or import. We will start with the forms.

Forms

When we first started to develop Form Designer, the idea was to create forms that are powerful and feature-rich, sufficient for many common business applications, without the need for developing complex processes in the backend. Although it might appear at the first glance as yet another drag & drop visual designer, it's actually chock-full of advanced features for you to discover!

Nested elements

Unlike most common form designers that pretty much stack columns on top of each other, Ultimate Forms allows you to nest tabs, containers, banners and columns. It not only allows you to create complex layouts in your forms, it also allows you to inherit permission rules. By applying a permission rule to a container for instance, it is then automatically applied to all columns within that container, without the need to create the same set of permission rules for each individual column. In large and complex forms, it speeds up the development process and makes maintenance easy!

Actions and rules

Powerful, dynamic forms are fast, interactive, reliable, and also relieve the processing load from the servers. Ultimate Forms provides a variety of dynamic features baked into the forms themselves:

Dynamic rules - set column values based on other columns, calculations, functions, subject to conditions. In combination with read-only permissions, you can ensure column values are controlled via rules only, without user intervention, maximizing data integrity.
Action buttons - set values to multiple columns at once with the click of a button, allowing you to create control panels on the form for triggering events.
Backend action integration - for more complex needs, forms can trigger backend actions either with a push of a button or upon opening or closing.
Scripting - for the very specific needs of more advanced users, the power of JavaScript is at your disposal.

Special columns

Ultimate Forms contains a selection of special column types, not present in SharePoint. Whether it's electronic signatures or relationships/repeating sections, these are some of the most valuable building blocks for common business scenarios. And because all the components of Ultimate Forms are highly integrated, you can be sure those columns are handled properly when printing, exporting or sending an alert.

Business Logic

These are various components that work behind the scenes, with or without user interaction, to perform operations or updates according to predefined rules. Ultimate Forms has several such components, such as Actions, Alerts, Import or Item ID, which cover the majority of common business needs.

Actions

Traditional workflows have been a part of SharePoint for many years, in many different reincarnations, from the humble beginnings of SharePoint Designer workflows, all the way to the current PowerAutomate behemoth. What is common to them all is the workflow paradigm, based on the flowchart concept. It is no doubt an extremely powerful tool, but apparently there are many users out there who are simply not technical enough to feel comfortable working with these concepts. Actions are simple, standalone pieces of functionality. Each executes a single task, has its own triggers and conditions and is generally independent of others. Actions can be added and removed from a list without affecting other actions, allowing you to make frequent changes and adjustment as you develop your solution. And with the ability to trigger on events, on timer or even manually, they are one of the most useful pieces of the Ultimate Forms puzzle!

Alerts

Customization is the main superpower of the Alerts component. You have full control over how the email looks like, who is going to receive it, where it's coming from, under what conditions it is sent and what documents come with it. Simply irreplaceable!

Import

Integration is extremely important in any business, we need to connect the data we receive from various sources and create a single unified picture. With Import, you can work with emails, SMS messages, databases, web services and APIs and even files to create or update content within your SharePoint sites automatically and transparently.

Templates

"Create once, use many times" is the way you save time! Ultimate Forms has baked-in template support, allowing you to quickly replicate whole sites with all their settings between site collections and even between different tenants. Just create yourself Template Manager credentials and save time. And with our growing catalog of business solutions (free, by the way!), you never need to start from scratch. Just grab one closest to what you need to build today and apply with a click of a button. As you can see, our focus with Ultimate Forms has always been productivity and ease of use. And we will continue working hard to make our product even better each day!

Bridging Business Challenges: From "Oops" to "Aha" with Infowise ULTIMATEFORMS

2024-03-09T18:14:53Z

Hello and welcome, SharePoint navigators and business professionals! Have you ever encountered those "Oops" moments in your day-to-day operations? Whether it's the frustration of managing complex project timelines, the inefficiency of HR processes, the challenges of tracking sales leads, or the daunting task of orchestrating marketing campaigns, these pain points are all too familiar. They're not just minor hiccups but serious daily obstacles that developers and business analysts face, threatening to derail productivity and innovation.

From Oops to Aha, Swiftly Turn Challenges into SharePoint Solutions!

In the fast-paced world of business, such challenges can be daunting, leaving even the most seasoned professionals searching for a more straightforward, effective solution. That's where we step in with a transformative approach. Our slogan, "From Oops to Aha, Swiftly Turn Challenges into SharePoint Solutions," isn't just a catchy phrase—it's our mission. With Infowise ULTIMATEFORMS, we're committed to shrinking the gap between these frustrating "Oops" moments and the rewarding "Aha!" breakthroughs that propel your business forward. Infowise ULTIMATEFORMS is your ally in this journey, providing an innovative toolkit designed to harness the full potential of SharePoint. It empowers you to effortlessly turn the tides on operational challenges across HR, project management, sales, and marketing. Imagine transforming complex forms into user-friendly interfaces, automating workflows to streamline project management, enhancing HR processes for better employee engagement, and leveraging data analytics for insightful marketing and sales strategies—all within the familiar environment of SharePoint. Join us as we embark on this journey from "Oops" to "Aha!" Discover how Infowise ULTIMATEFORMS enables you to swiftly turn everyday challenges into efficient, scalable SharePoint solutions. Say goodbye to the days of frustration and welcome a world where operational hurdles are effortlessly overcome with smart, customizable, and integrated SharePoint enhancements.

Unlocking Efficiency: Infowise ULTIMATEFORMS for Code-Free SharePoint Solutions

Stay tuned as we delve into the dynamic world of Infowise ULTIMATEFORMS, your gateway to elevating SharePoint collaboration. Imagine developing quick, code-free process solutions that streamline your operations and enhance productivity. With Infowise ULTIMATEFORMS, you're equipped with an extensive suite of features and tools aimed at revolutionizing your SharePoint environment. From crafting intricate custom forms to implementing advanced workflow automation, we'll guide you through how this powerful tool can transform the way your business operates. Every challenge becomes an opportunity, turning each "Oops" moment into an "Aha!" breakthrough. Embrace the future of effortless, efficient SharePoint collaboration with Infowise ULTIMATEFORMS. Welcome to the future of business operations, where challenges are swiftly turned into opportunities with Infowise ULTIMATEFORMS.

Infowise ULTIMATEFORMS: Unlocking SharePoint's Full Potential

2024-03-08T15:59:10Z

Hello there! If you're on a quest to make your SharePoint experience not just better but outstanding, you've come to the right place. Are you a seasoned SharePoint user or just getting started? Either way, you'll find valuable insights here. For the experts among you, feel free to jump straight to the advanced sections to uncover the deeper capabilities of Infowise ULTIMATEFORMS.

Let's dive into the world of Infowise ULTIMATEFORMS, a powerful tool designed to elevate your SharePoint sites beyond the out-of-the-box functionalities. Infowise ULTIMATEFORMS offers a suite of features that transform SharePoint into a more dynamic, flexible, and accessible platform, making it ideal for businesses looking to automate processes, enhance data management, and streamline their operations without extensive coding.

Getting Started with Infowise ULTIMATEFORMS

Embarking on your Infowise journey begins with understanding its core components and how it integrates seamlessly with SharePoint. Infowise ULTIMATEFORMS is built to complement SharePoint's capabilities, enabling users to create custom lists, forms, and workflows that cater to complex business needs.

Initial Setup: Quick Start

Setting up Infowise ULTIMATEFORMS is straightforward. Once you have a trial subscription, you can install the app on your site. This process integrates Infowise's capabilities directly into your SharePoint environment, making its features readily accessible.

Navigating the Interface:

The Infowise ULTIMATEFORMS dashboard is intuitive and designed with the user in mind. Upon accessing Infowise from your SharePoint site, you'll find a comprehensive menu of options ranging from creating custom forms to setting up advanced workflows. The interface allows you to navigate through the functionalities easily, providing tools and templates to get you started quickly.

Mastering the Basics: Custom Forms and Simple Workflows

One of the first steps in leveraging Infowise ULTIMATEFORMS is to customize your SharePoint lists and forms. Infowise provides an array of field types and design options, enabling you to create forms that are not only functional but also intuitive and user-friendly.

Creating Custom Lists and Libraries:

Begin by designing lists that capture all the necessary information your business process requires. Infowise enhances this process by offering additional field types and configuration options, making your lists more detailed and tailored to specific needs.

Basic Form Customization:

With ULTIMATEFORMS, you can transform the way forms are filled out and viewed. Utilize the drag-and-drop form designer to add, arrange, and customize fields. Incorporate conditional formatting to make your forms dynamic, showing or hiding fields based on user inputs.

Introduction to Simple Workflows (Actions):

Automate your routine tasks with Infowise's easy-to-use Actions tools. With just a few clicks, you can set up notifications, create approval processes, and link your forms to workflows. These basic workflows are crucial for streamlining operations and reducing manual efforts.

Leveraging Infowise Resources for Empowerment

As we wrap up our introduction to Infowise ULTIMATEFORMS for SharePoint's transformative capabilities, it's clear that the journey to mastering this platform is exciting and filled with potential. While delving into the technicalities may seem daunting initially, remember that you're not alone in this journey.

Infowise ULTIMATEFORMS is about the tools it provides and the extensive support and learning resources available to you. Whether you're a SharePoint novice or looking to expand your expertise, Infowise offers a variety of ways to enhance your skills and knowledge.

Webinar Tutorials: Your Learning Companion

One of the most effective ways to get up to speed with Infowise ULTIMATEFORMS is through our how-to webinar tutorials. These sessions are designed to walk you through various features, from basic setups to more complex functionalities. Led by experts, these webinars offer insights and tips that are invaluable for both new users and seasoned professionals looking to leverage Infowise to its fullest potential.

Comprehensive Coverage: Our webinars cover a wide range of topics, ensuring you have a solid understanding of how to effectively use Infowise ULTIMATEFORMS and SharePoint solutions to enhance your SharePoint experience.
Interactive Learning: Live demonstrations and Q&A sessions provide immediate answers to questions, making the learning process both engaging and practical.
Accessible Anytime: Did you miss a live session? No worries. All webinars are recorded and accessible 24x7, allowing you to learn at your own pace and revisit topics as needed.

Empower Yourself with Infowise Resources

Besides webinars, Infowise provides an extensive library of training, tutorials, and documentation. These resources are meticulously designed to empower you with the knowledge and skills to transform your SharePoint sites effectively.

Start Exploring Today

Visit the Infowise Training and Resources page to discover all the learning opportunities that are available to you. Dive into tutorials, explore documentation, and sign up for upcoming webinars to continue your learning journey.
With Infowise ULTIMATEFORMS , you have the tools and support to make your SharePoint experience not just better but extraordinary. Take advantage of these resources and unlock the full potential of your SharePoint environment. Empower yourself with knowledge, and see how Infowise ULTIMATEFORMS can transform your business processes and workflows. Begin your journey to becoming an Infowise ULTIMATEFORMS expert today, and unleash the true power of SharePoint in your organization.

Elevate Your Maintenance Management with SharePoint and Infowise ULTIMATEFORMS

2024-02-27T20:06:34Z

Hello and welcome to another insightful exploration of how SharePoint, coupled with the power of Infowise ULTIMATEFORMS, can significantly enhance your operational efficiency. Today, we're delving into a common yet critical aspect of business operations - maintenance request facilitation. Are you an expert SharePoint user seeking a streamlined process solution for managing maintenance requests? If so, you might want to jump straight to our process solution here. For those keen on understanding the full spectrum of benefits, let's dive deeper.

Why SharePoint and ULTIMATEFORMS for Maintenance Requests?

Traditional maintenance request systems often lead to inefficient management of devices and appliances, resulting in prolonged downtimes and increased operational costs. SharePoint out of the box offers a robust platform for handling various business processes, but when combined with ULTIMATEFORMS, the capabilities extend far beyond the conventional. This synergy allows for an intuitive, highly customizable, and automated maintenance request facilitation process that not only addresses the issue resolution swiftly but also streamlines project management and bug tracking within your organization.

SharePoint Process Solutions by Infowise

Infowise presents an array of SharePoint process solutions that are designed to cater to all aspects of business process management, including maintenance request facilitation. Accessible at Infowise Solutions, these solutions offer seamless integration into your existing SharePoint environment, providing:

No Additional Cost: While the solutions are free, they require a subscription to Infowise ULTIMATEFORMS.
Repurpose and Reuse: Each solution is designed with flexibility in mind, allowing for customization and reuse across various departments and needs.
Ease of Installation: The solutions are user-friendly, ensuring quick installation and straightforward operation.
Extensive Coverage: With over 200 solutions available, Infowise covers a comprehensive range of business process management needs, ensuring there’s a solution for almost every requirement.

Today's Spotlight: Maintenance Request Facilitation

Our focus today is on the Maintenance Request Facilitation solution provided by Infowise. This solution empowers organizations to efficiently request and manage maintenance for devices and appliances with ease. It streamlines the submission, tracking, and resolution of maintenance requests, ensuring that nothing falls through the cracks. The integration with SharePoint and ULTIMATEFORMS enhances the visibility of maintenance issues across the board, facilitating effective communication and swift action.

Infowise Resources: Empowering Your Journey

Embarking on this journey with Infowise, you're never alone. A wealth of resources is at your disposal, including training, tutorials, webinars, and comprehensive documentation. These resources are designed to help you maximize the potential of your maintenance request solution, ensuring you're well-equipped to tackle any challenges that may arise.

Trusted by the Best: Infowise and GSA IT-70

Infowise is not only innovative but also trusted. As a vetted and approved GSA IT-70 contractor to the US government, Infowise stands as a beacon of reliability and security. This endorsement underscores the quality and trustworthiness of Infowise solutions, including the maintenance request facilitation solution.

Quick Start with ULTIMATEFORMS

Ready to revolutionize your maintenance management process? Begin your journey with Infowise ULTIMATEFORMS by visiting this link. Here, you'll find all the tools and guidance needed to implement the maintenance request facilitation solution quickly and efficiently.

Elevate Your Efficiency Game

In today’s fast-paced world, the efficiency of operations can significantly impact the success of your organization. By leveraging SharePoint and Infowise ULTIMATEFORMS for your maintenance request processes, you're not just addressing a need but setting a new standard for operational excellence. Why not take the first step toward transforming your maintenance management today? Experience a seamless, effective, and cost-efficient approach to maintenance request facilitation that propels your organization forward.

Transforming Service Request Management: How SharePoint and Infowise ULTIMATEFORMS Minimize Downtime and Boost Efficiency

2024-02-26T15:14:35Z

Hello, and welcome to today's insightful journey into enhancing your business processes, particularly in managing service requests for office equipment. If you're already a SharePoint wizard, you might want to jump straight into how Infowise ULTIMATEFORMS transforms service request processing. If so, here's your direct line to innovation: Infowise Solutions. For those keen on understanding the nitty-gritty, let's dive deeper.

Why SharePoint and ULTIMATEFORMS Over Standard SharePoint Solutions?

SharePoint, out of the box, offers a robust platform for collaboration and information management. However, when it comes to specific business processes like managing service requests for office equipment, the platform may require additional customization to truly meet your needs. This is where ULTIMATEFORMS comes into play. It elevates SharePoint's capabilities, enabling you to create, customize, and manage service requests with unparalleled efficiency. ULTIMATEFORMS adds a layer of agility and customization to SharePoint, ensuring that downtime is minimized and productivity is maximized.

The Essence of Efficient Service Request Processing

The core of efficient service request processing lies in its ability to minimize equipment downtime, which in turn, ensures operational continuity. By leveraging SharePoint and ULTIMATEFORMS, businesses can streamline the submission, tracking, and resolution of service requests. This synergy allows for a transparent, accessible, and manageable process, ensuring that each request is handled promptly and effectively. Customizable forms, automated workflows, and detailed reporting are just a few features that make this possible.

Infowise Resources: Training, Tutorials, Webinars, and Documentation

Adopting new tools can be daunting, but Infowise makes it easy with a wealth of resources designed to help you get the most out of ULTIMATEFORMS. From instructor-guided training sessions and tutorials to informative webinars and comprehensive documentation, you're never alone on your journey to mastering efficient service request processing.

Infowise is a GSA IT-70 contractor to the US Government

It's worth noting that Infowise is not just another tech vendor. It's a trusted and vetted GSA IT-70 contractor to the US government. This accreditation is a testament to the reliability, security, and effectiveness of Infowise solutions, including ULTIMATEFORMS. By choosing Infowise, you're opting for a solution that's been rigorously evaluated and approved at the highest levels.

Quick Starts with ULTIMATEFORMS

Getting started with ULTIMATEFORMS is easier than you might think. With quick-start solutions designed for immediate impact, you can begin enhancing your service request processes today. Visit Quick Starts with ULTIMATEFORMS to embark on your journey toward streamlined operational efficiency.

Embarking on a Journey of Innovation

Ready to transform your service request management? Infowise ULTIMATEFORMS offers a seamless, efficient, and customizable solution just a few clicks away. Begin your journey of innovation and streamline your processes like never before.

Revolutionizing Inventory Management with SharePoint and ULTIMATEFORMS

2024-02-22T16:57:42Z

Hello there! Are you grappling with the challenges of inventory management? If you're on the lookout for a way to make this critical process smoother and more cost-effective, you've come to the right place. And if you're already a SharePoint aficionado, feel free to skip ahead to the heart of our solution; click here! Otherwise, stick around as we unveil a game-changer in inventory management, courtesy of Infowise and SharePoint's dynamic duo.

Why Choose SharePoint with ULTIMATEFORMS for Inventory Management?

Inventory management need not be a thorn in your side. With Infowise's ULTIMATEFORMS powered by SharePoint, you're not just working with any standard tool. This combination is designed to elevate your inventory management from a tedious task to a strategic advantage. It goes beyond the basics offered by SharePoint out of the box, integrating advanced features that allow for real-time visibility, comprehensive tracking, and efficient inventory control. It's about making your operation run smoother without the typical headaches of overstocking or stock shortages.

Introducing the Inventory Checklist Solution

At the heart of our discussion is the Inventory Checklist solution—a bespoke tool tailored for organizations keen on refining their inventory practices. This solution isn't just about keeping track of numbers; it's about providing a holistic view of your inventory in real time, ensuring that your stock levels are always in perfect harmony with your operational demands. By leveraging the Inventory Checklist, businesses unlock a level of precision and efficiency that traditional methods can hardly match.

Leveraging Infowise Resources for Maximum Impact

Infowise doesn't stop at providing the tool to help you get the most out of the Inventory Checklist solution. We offer a treasure trove of resources, including enlightening webinars, hands-on training sessions, step-by-step tutorials, and comprehensive documentation. These resources are your key to unlocking the full potential of the Inventory Checklist, ensuring that you're well-equipped to optimize your inventory management processes to the fullest.

Building Trust with Infowise

Trust is paramount, and at Infowise, we understand that. It's why we're proud to be a GSA IT-70 contractor approved by the US government. This stamp of approval is a testament to our commitment to providing solutions that are not just effective but also reliable and secure. With Infowise, you're choosing a partner that's recognized for excellence and trusted by one of the largest and most scrutinized organizations globally.

Ready to Transform Your Inventory Management?

Embark on a journey to redefine your inventory management strategy with the Inventory Checklist solution. Embrace this tool and witness the transformative effect of streamlined inventory processes on your operational efficiency. Keep an eye out for our next article, where we'll explore the Issue Tracker Form solution, another innovation designed to enhance issue resolution and foster team collaboration.

SharePoint Customer Complaint Solution: Turning Challenges into Opportunities

2024-02-20T20:45:44Z

Hello and welcome! Are you navigating the intricate world of customer service and seeking innovative ways to enhance satisfaction and loyalty? It's all about transforming challenges into stepping stones for service excellence. Enter Infowise with its flagship SharePoint enhancer, ULTIMATEFORMS, your secret weapon to address customer complaints and revolutionize the entire resolution process. Our spotlight today shines on the Customer Complaint solution, a testament to how combining Infowise with SharePoint elevates customer service standards and simplifies complaint management. Already versed in SharePoint's wonders? Jump ahead and discover this transformative solution. If you are new to SharePoint and Infowise environment, let’s embark on a journey to redefine customer service together.

Beyond Basic SharePoint: The ULTIMATEFORMS Advantage

While SharePoint offers a robust foundation, navigating customer complaints demands more than its out-of-the-box features. ULTIMATEFORMS by Infowise supercharges SharePoint, providing the customization and flexibility your unique business processes require. It's about creating an ecosystem where customer feedback is not just managed but valued and acted upon efficiently, making every customer feel prioritized and understood.

Transforming Complaints into Solutions: The Customer Complaint Solution

Infowise's Customer Complaint solution is not just a tool; it's a strategy to streamline and enhance the complaint management lifecycle. From the moment a complaint is lodged to its resolution, the system ensures seamless categorization, assignment, and follow-up. Automated workflows and real-time analytics work in tandem to offer insights and ensure accountability, turning potential customer service pitfalls into opportunities for growth and improvement.

Empowerment Through Knowledge: Infowise Resources

The transition to ULTIMATEFORMS is supported by a rich repository of resources designed to empower your team. Infowise offers comprehensive training, detailed tutorials, live webinars, and extensive documentation to ensure you leverage ULTIMATEFORMS to its full potential. Whether you're starting or scaling your SharePoint capabilities, these resources are your guide to a smooth and successful implementation.

A Partnership Built on Trust: Infowise and GSA IT-70 Approval

Choosing Infowise means partnering with a provider that's not only innovative but also trusted and secure. As a GSA IT-70 contractor approved for the U.S. government, Infowise stands as a beacon of reliability, meeting the rigorous standards required for federal engagements. This approval underscores our commitment to delivering secure, efficient, and dependable solutions.

Getting Started with ULTIMATEFORMS Made Simple

Embarking on your ULTIMATEFORMS journey is straightforward with our Quick Start options. These tailored solutions, designed for easy integration with your existing SharePoint setup, pave the way for immediate improvements in customer service and internal efficiencies. Begin your transformation by visiting Infowise Quick Starts, and unlock the potential to significantly enhance your operational capabilities.

Elevate Your Customer Service with ULTIMATEFORMS

Imagine a service environment where every complaint is an avenue for excellence. With ULTIMATEFORMS, this vision is not just a possibility but a reality. We invite you to explore the transformative power of ULTIMATEFORMS and redefine the essence of customer service. Step into a future where every customer interaction is an opportunity for growth and loyalty. Start your path to outstanding customer service today.

Optimize Your Customer Feedback Process with Our Free SharePoint Solution

2024-02-14T15:30:05Z

Hi everyone! With over 200 solutions designed to enhance business efficiency, today we're spotlighting a crucial tool in our arsenal – the InfoWise Solution for Customer Feedback. This solution is all about bridging the gap between you and your customers, ensuring their voices lead to meaningful changes in your business. It's your direct line to understanding and acting on customer insights. Ready to see how this tool can transform feedback into actionable steps for improvement? Let’s explore together!

Solution Overview

Our Customer Feedback solution empowers organizations to gather feedback from their clientele directly. This tool not only facilitates the collection of valuable insights but also streamlines the feedback management process, allowing businesses to act on customer suggestions and concerns swiftly. With this solution, companies can enhance their services, tailor their offerings to meet customer needs better, and ultimately drive satisfaction and loyalty.

Exploring Infowise Resources

To ensure users can fully capitalize on the Customer Feedback solution, Infowise provides extensive resources, including detailed webinars, interactive training, comprehensive tutorials, and in-depth documentation. These resources are crafted to equip you with the knowledge and tools necessary to implement, manage, and benefit from the Customer Feedback solution, fostering a culture of continuous improvement and customer-centricity.

Install a Free Solution

Take the first step towards embracing customer-driven innovation by implementing the Customer Feedback solution. Tap into the wealth of insights your customers have to offer and let their voices guide your path to improvement and success. I look forward to our upcoming article on the Customer Complaint solution, where we will discuss strategies for efficiently resolving customer concerns and maintaining high service standards.

Discover how the Customer Feedback solution can transform your approach to customer insights. For further details and to enhance your customer feedback processes, visit Documentation page.

Effortless SharePoint Maintenance Request Solution: Streamline Your Repair Needs Today

2024-02-14T15:13:11Z

Hello, SharePoint Enthusiasts! As 2024 unfolds, our SharePoint journey has taken us from exploring complex issue tracking to sharing some of the 60 free solutions available to our users. It's been a fantastic ride, filled with shared insights and growth. Today, we pivot to something essential yet understated: Maintenance Request Systems. This area, crucial for smooth operations, may not always grab headlines but significantly impacts our work environments. We're diving into how to streamline maintenance requests with SharePoint, ensuring these critical tasks are managed efficiently. This series will cover the basics and advanced tips to enhance your SharePoint utility.
Join me as we share the basics of the maintenance requests, simplifying them into an efficient process for all. As you well know, these solutions are free to download and repurpose to fit your business's unique requirements.

Transitioning to SharePoint and UlTIMATEFORMS for Maintenance Solutions

Let's picture a typical situation where something breaks or needs fixing. Usually, you might have to fill out a paper form or send an email, wait for someone to notice, and then hope it gets fixed soon. This process can be slow, confusing about what's most important, and leave you waiting longer than you'd like. But things changed for the better when we started using SharePoint and UltimateForms, and here is why: SharePoint serves as the foundational platform, offering a collaborative space where issues can be reported, tracked, and resolved. Its inherent features support document management, communication, and integration with other Microsoft services, laying the groundwork for a comprehensive maintenance request solution. ULTIMATEFORMS, on the other hand, enhances SharePoint's capabilities by introducing advanced forms, automated workflows, and dynamic reporting features. It simplifies data entry through user-friendly forms, ensuring that maintenance requests are accurately captured and categorized. Automated workflows trigger the appropriate response actions, routing requests to the right teams and prioritizing them based on predefined criteria. This not only accelerates the resolution process but also enhances visibility and accountability within the organization.

Solution Overview

The Maintenance Request solution is designed to address the challenges of managing office devices and appliances. It simplifies the process of requesting maintenance, ensuring that operations continue running without a hitch. Easy to implement and use, this solution is a lifeline for businesses looking to minimize downtime and maintain productivity. With Maintenance Request, you can expect a streamlined process that enhances operational efficiency and keeps your team focused on their core tasks.

For a straightforward guide on setting up and managing a maintenance request system, the Infowise Solutions documentation offers a user-friendly overview. It's an essential resource for administrators and users looking to implement or navigate this system effectively. To explore the full details and get started, visit the documentation page.

Exploring Infowise Resources

Infowise offers an array of resources to support users in leveraging the Maintenance Request solution to its full potential. Engaging webinars and hands-on training sessions provide users with the knowledge and skills needed to implement and utilize this solution effectively. Step-by-step tutorials guide you through every feature, while comprehensive documentation ensures you have all the information at your fingertips. These resources are designed to help you maximize the benefits of your Maintenance Request solution, fostering a proactive approach to maintenance and issue resolution.

Explore a Collection of over 200 Solutions!

We invite you to explore our comprehensive collection of over 200 solutions designed to enhance your digital workspace, available for free on the Infowise Solutions documentation page. Whether you're looking to streamline your operations, manage requests more effectively, or explore new tools, there's something for everyone. Dive into our resources and discover how you can transform your business processes today. For more details, visit our solutions page.

New Components management page on-premises

2024-01-29T10:10:58Z

Announcing the addition of a new Components management feature added to the Ultimate Forms on-premises Design page! This page features most of the functionality found in our Central administration > Capability dashboard (for administrator accounts). So, Farm admins can import license files, edit separate component licenses, access installers download links and components information pages. The layout in the screenshot above is visible only to users with Farm administrator rights. And the layout below will be visible for all users, it will show which version of the component is installed and which one is the latest available.

This page will appear on Farms, where any component released after January 25^th, 2024, was installed.

More information can be found in the following documentation page.

Harnessing the Power of SharePoint and Infowise ULTIMATEFORMS for Effective Quality Assurance

2024-01-23T15:00:02Z

Streamlining Issue Tracking for Business Excellence

Operational efficiency is critical; managing internal issues effectively is vital for any business aiming to thrive. This blog offers an in-depth look at leveraging SharePoint and InfoWise ULTIMATEFORMS for quality assurance issue tracking, a crucial yet often underappreciated aspect of business operations. Focused on the broader implications, we highlight the transformative potential these tools offer to teams, especially in medium and large businesses. We delve into how SharePoint and InfoWise UltimateForms can reshape your approach to internal challenges ranging from minor inconveniences to major hurdles. These platforms provide a versatile and customizable environment, enabling teams to manage quality assurance issues adeptly. The result? Streamlined processes, enhanced productivity, and an overall boost in business performance.

SharePoint Quality Assurance Solution: Streamlining Issue Reporting

In large companies, maintaining high-quality standards is a complex challenge. The SharePoint Quality Assurance Solution is pivotal in simplifying this process. This tool is designed to manage the reporting and resolution of quality-related concerns efficiently, ensuring the maintenance of high standards.

Structured Reporting Platform: Enhance Accountability and Clarity

Report all issues, delegate tasks, and see them resolved.
The Quality Assurance Issue Form acts as a comprehensive platform for reporting various quality issues, including bugs, enhancement requests, and documentation concerns. It enables detailed submissions, ensuring clear communication and accountability between the reporting individuals and the teams responsible for quality assurance or development.

Customizable Issue Tracking: Tailored to Organizational Needs

Optimize your process and maintain product excellence.
A standardized and efficient issue-reporting system is crucial for organizations dealing with multiple projects and teams. The Quality Assurance Issue Form is highly customizable, allowing companies to adapt it to their specific needs. This facilitates effective tracking, prioritization, and resolution of quality issues, thereby enhancing overall product quality. These templates, provided free of charge to UltimateForms customers, can be modified to suit various organizational requirements.

Continuous Improvement and Quality Assurance: A Commitment to Excellence Implement a solution and foster a culture of quality.

Adopting the SharePoint Quality Assurance Solution demonstrates a company's commitment to continuous improvement and upholding high-quality standards. It not only streamlines the issue-tracking process but also reinforces a culture of excellence within the organization. For further details and implementation, organizations are encouraged to explore more about this innovative solution.

To install SharePoint solutions for effective quality assurance issue tracking, follow the steps outlined on the InfoWise documentation page.

Explore Infowise Educational Resources

Infowise, a leader in providing cutting-edge technology solutions, is excited to announce a comprehensive learning initiative designed to enhance your technical skills and knowledge. Our program includes an array of expert-led webinars, in-depth training sessions, and detailed tutorials, all aimed at empowering you with the latest industry insights and practical know-how. To make this opportunity even more accessible, we're offering a 30-day free trial, allowing you to experience the full breadth of our educational resources without any initial investment. Whether you're a seasoned professional or starting out, Infowise's educational offerings are tailored to help you stay ahead in the ever-evolving tech landscape.

Explore Infowise SharePoint Solutions for Issue Tracking: A One-Stop Guide to Enhancing Business Efficiency and Customer Service

2024-01-12T16:48:58Z

Harness the Power of Infowise SharePoint Solutions for Enhanced Issue Tracking

In our latest post, we delve into the realm of issue tracking, a key area of focus this month. Notably, ULTIMATEFORMS, Infowise's flagship software product, is inherently equipped with robust tracking capabilities at its core. While the Infowise Helpdesk stands out as a preferred choice among our users, the comprehensive functionalities in forms, data management, and approval processes in ULTIMATEFORMS add significant value to our suite of solutions. Additionally, we also highlight a selection of other issue tracking applications available for a free trial, offering a diverse range of options to meet various needs.

The Essence of Infowise Solutions

At the core of Infowise Solutions is the Ultimate Forms feature, a robust platform designed to streamline business processes. Its versatility lies in its ability to create dynamic forms, pivotal for effective issue tracking. This functionality allows businesses to capture, monitor, and resolve issues efficiently, ensuring that nothing falls through the cracks.

The ease of customization and repurposing of these solutions is a significant advantage. Businesses can adapt the forms to meet their needs, making tracking and resolving issues more streamlined and effective.

Practical Applications: Infowise ULTIMATEFORMS in Action

Infowise Ultimate Forms shine in their practical applications, offering solutions like:

Customer Feedback Solution

Infowise's Customer Feedback solution is a powerful tool designed to capture valuable insights from clients. By using dynamic forms created with Ultimate Forms, businesses can easily gather feedback on their services, providing a clear window into customer satisfaction and areas for improvement. The main list is meticulously configured to collect comprehensive information, which is instrumental in establishing a Customer Satisfaction ranking. This tool's adaptability makes it particularly user-friendly; businesses can customize the template to suit their unique needs, rephrasing questions or adding new ones and even enabling fully anonymous submissions. This flexibility ensures companies can tailor the feedback process to yield the most constructive and relevant information.

Customer Complaint Registration

Handling customer complaints efficiently is crucial for any business, and Infowise's Customer Complaint Registration tool is tailored to this task. It enables customers to register detailed complaints, including the ability to embed screenshots, which adds a layer of clarity to the communication. This tool is about registering complaints and effectively managing them – from analyzing the root cause to documenting and tracking preventive measures. The streamlined process ensures that every complaint is addressed thoroughly, promoting a culture of responsiveness and attentiveness to customer needs.

Bug Tracker

The Bug Tracker solution by Infowise is an invaluable asset for software development teams. It provides a structured environment to enter, monitor, and resolve software bugs. The color-coded view of bugs allows for easy categorization and prioritization, while the ability to create and track multiple tasks associated with each bug ensures thorough management of the resolution process. This solution's strength lies in its ability to maintain a detailed history of resolution steps, facilitating a clear understanding of issues and their rectification over time. It's a comprehensive tool that enhances the efficiency and effectiveness of the Bug Tracking and resolution process.

IT Service Request Form

The IT Service Request Form Template simplifies the submission and management of IT service requests within an organization. It serves as a standardized method for employees to request various IT services, from software installations to hardware repairs. The form is designed to capture all necessary details, such as the requester's department and job title, ensuring accurate and efficient processing. This comprehensive approach not only improves communication between users and IT personnel but also accelerates issue resolution, thereby enhancing overall organizational efficiency.

Technical Support Request Form

Infowise's Technical Support Request Form is designed to streamline the reporting and resolving of technical issues within large companies. It allows employees to communicate their problems to the IT support team efficiently, ensuring swift resolution. The form covers all essential aspects, from contact information to the nature of the issue (hardware or software), and even allows for uploading relevant attachments like error messages. This organized approach enables the support team to prioritize issues effectively, improving productivity across the organization. By capturing additional details like previous occurrences and preferred contact times, the form further enhances the support team's ability to provide tailored solutions, thereby minimizing downtime and ensuring efficient technical support.

Engaging Through Education: Webinars, Tutorials, and Documentation

Infowise goes beyond just providing tools; it ensures users are well-equipped to use them effectively. This is achieved through:

Webinars: These interactive sessions provide real-time insights and demonstrations, guiding users through various functionalities and best practices in issue tracking.
Tutorials: Step-by-step guides offer a hands-on approach to learning, making it easier for users to understand and implement various features within their own business contexts.
Documentation: Comprehensive documentation serves as a reference point, offering detailed information about every aspect of Infowise solutions, from basic setup to advanced features.

Try Infowise ULTIMATEFORMS!

Infowise Ultimate Forms are a testament to how technology can simplify and enhance business processes. By offering free, customizable, and easy-to-use solutions, Infowise not only helps in effective issue tracking but also empowers businesses to operate more efficiently. The added educational resources ensure users are well-equipped to make the most of these tools, making Infowise a comprehensive solution for any business leveraging SharePoint.

Enhance Business Efficiency: A Guide to Top SharePoint Issue Tracking Tools

2024-01-10T14:17:40Z

In today's fast-paced business environment, effective issue tracking is crucial for maintaining operational efficiency and customer satisfaction. Whether it's internal IT support, customer service, or maintenance requests, having the right tools can significantly streamline the process. In this blog post, we'll explore some of the best-known issue tracking solutions that can help your organization stay on top of its game.

Helpdesk: A Comprehensive Internal and End-User Issue Tracker

Description: Helpdesk is a versatile Issue Tracking system perfect for addressing both internal and customer-facing challenges. With standard fields for issue tracking and integrated email functionality, this tool ensures efficient problem-solving.

Explore Helpdesk

Issue Tracking: Streamlining Organizational Issue Management

Description: This tool excels in tracking various issues within an organization, offering submission of new problems via external forms. It's designed to assign responsible parties, create tasks, and document resolution steps, ensuring comprehensive management of issues from start to finish.

Learn More about Issue Tracking

Customer Complaint: Rapid Resolution of Customer Grievances

Description: The Customer Complaint Form is essential for quickly identifying and resolving customer complaints. This tool aids teams in swiftly moving from complaint to solution, crucial for maintaining a positive business reputation.

Discover the Customer Complaint Form

Maintenance Request: Enhancing Customer Service in Maintenance

Description: Streamline your maintenance service requests with this form. It allows customers to provide detailed information, including images, to initiate maintenance calls. The form's customization capabilities and anonymous submission option make it a valuable asset for any service provider.

Check Out the Maintenance Request Form

IT Service Request: Efficient IT Support Management

Description: Tailored for employees seeking IT support, this form simplifies the process of reporting computer issues. It's an effective way for IT departments to track and respond to service requests, enhancing the overall workflow.

Explore the Computer Service Request

Conclusion

Infowise's range of issue-tracking solutions demonstrates their dedication to providing versatile and efficient tools for business process management. These tools are designed to cater to various aspects of organizational operations, ensuring that issues are managed effectively and efficiently.

For more detailed information and to explore additional tools, visit Infowise's Website.

Ready to enhance your issue-tracking process? Explore these solutions and see how they can transform your business operations. Visit Infowise solutions portal today!

Scaling Your Business with SharePoint's Free, Prebuilt Infowise Helpdesk Solution

2024-01-08T16:54:46Z

Personal Note Introduction Best wishes for a happy and prosperous 2024! As we continue our journey into this new year, I am thrilled to share more insights and developments in business solutions. Following our recent focus on HR solutions, where we covered the basics among a diverse range of over 80 solutions, it's clear that the depth of this field is immense. While we couldn't explore every solution in detail, I strived to bring you the most fundamental and impactful ones. Now, let's focus on an equally vital area – scaling your business efficiently with SharePoint's Infowise Helpdesk.

1. Introduction to the Need for Scalable Helpdesk Solutions

In an ever-evolving business landscape, scalability is critical, especially in customer support. Growing businesses face unique challenges, and a scalable helpdesk is vital for managing increased customer interactions and expectations. SharePoint's Infowise Helpdesk is designed to meet these dynamic needs, offering a solution that grows with your business.

2. Benefits of Using SharePoint and Infowise ULTIMATEFORMS for Scalability

SharePoint, in conjunction with Infowise, offers a robust platform for scalable customer support. This combination provides customizable templates, seamless integration with existing systems, and the capacity to handle growing ticket volumes. These features ensure that your helpdesk system can adapt to your business's expansion, maintaining efficient customer service without bottlenecks.

3. Real-world applications and Success Stories

To illustrate the effectiveness of SharePoint's Infowise Helpdesk, let's look at real-world examples. Various businesses across different sectors have successfully scaled their customer support using this solution. These success stories highlight the versatility and effectiveness of SharePoint's Infowise Helpdesk in accommodating growth.

4. Providing Resources for New Users: Education, Training, and Support

For new users, a range of resources is available to master the Infowise Helpdesk solution. Comprehensive guides, video tutorials, webinars, and community forums offer invaluable learning tools. Additionally, dedicated customer support from Infowise ensures personalized guidance and assistance, making the implementation and utilization process as seamless as possible.

In-Depth Look at the SharePoint Infowise Helpdesk Features

Our SharePoint-based Infowise Helpdesk solution offers a comprehensive set of features designed to streamline and optimize your service request management. This robust system allows for service requests to be entered by representatives, directly by end-users, or even emailed in, providing flexibility in initiating support issues. To ensure efficient handling:

User-Friendly Ticket Entry and Editing: While end-users can input tickets, they can edit only a subset of columns relevant to ticket creation. This ensures clarity and prevents information overload.
Automated Alerts and Assignments: The support team is alerted as soon as a ticket is created. Requests are then automatically assigned to a designated team member, who receives a customizable email notification, streamlining the response process.
Iterative Resolution Process: The resolution journey for each ticket is documented in a step-by-step manner. You can break down complex issues into manageable tasks, each potentially assigned to different team members, with individual due dates and progress tracking.
Knowledge Base Integration: A standout feature is the ability to transform resolved service requests into knowledge base (KB) articles with just a click. This facilitates the creation of a rich, self-help resource, enhancing future issue resolution and customer self-service.

Conclusion
In today's fast-paced business environment, a scalable helpdesk system is not just a convenience but a necessity. SharePoint's Infowise Helpdesk stands out as a solution that supports your business growth while managing expanding customer support requirements. I invite you to explore further how this product can transform your customer support operations. Contact our team for more information or to schedule a demonstration.

New version of Ultimate Forms

2024-01-01T16:31:54Z

Hi, We are happy to announce the release of the new version of Ultimate Forms for SharePoint Online, version 1.4.0.0. In this version we change the way the app works, moving away from the old add-in model and the deprecated ACS authentication/authorization mechanism. As you might already know, Microsoft recently announced that ACS (access control system), the original mechanism present in all provider-hosted add-ins, was being retired and will be completely removed on April 2nd 2026. With this new version we are making several significant changes you have to be aware about before you upgrade:

The current Infowise Ultimate Forms app is being retired and will no longer be installed. All of its existing user interfaces and resources will be used by the new app. The existing app will be removed either manually or by the installation wizard.
The current Infowise Ultimate Forms Extensions app is being upgraded to version 1.4.0.0 and renamed Infowise Ultimate Forms. It is the only app that needs to be installed and is based on a collection of SPFx components, among other things.
The new Infowise Ultimate Forms can now be made available to all sites directly from the app catalog. There will be no longer a need to install on each site separately.
The SharePoint interface integration (such as Design, Print, Add Alert, Run Actions and Action History buttons) will only be shown in the modern UI. No buttons will be available in the classic UI.
The app can be optionally installed in the Site Contents of a particular site, if the global installation option is not desired. It will not however serve as an access point to the app (you won't be able to click on it to access the app).
Our Installation Wizard will only install version 1.4.0.0 and will remove the previous versions.
Custom scripting will no longer be required in the majority of cases. If you plan to still be using Classic forms, you will still need to enable custom scripting. By default, custom scripting will be left disabled and the Classic form section of the app will be disabled.
Modern forms will no longer require Site Pages functionality and will not generate web part pages to run on. Existing forms will not be affected until the next time they are published.
Although ACS will continue to be supported for customers upgrading from the previous versions, we recommend switching to the new method, using Entra enterprise application. The app will show a warning when the application is yet to be granted access, but functionality will not be impacted until April 2nd 2026, when Microsoft completely disables ACS. Once you grant access to Infowise Ultimate Forms Data Access enterprise app, you should also create an app principal for this app within SharePoint. It is required by several components that rely on Remote Event Receiver (RER) technology:
- Delete event in Alerts
- Synchronous Actions and Actions based on Delete events
- Item ID templates
- Signature columns (the need for RER will be elimininated soon)
- Associated Items Summary columns (the need for RER will be elimininated soon)
Most Actions and Alerts, which still use RER for historical reasons, will be automatically switched to use webhooks. Note that you might see a change in behaviour, as Modified By value produced by actions will switch from the triggering user to SharePoint App.
The access token granted to the app upon opening will now be expire in 60 minutes. You should never leave the app open for longer than that, as you won't be able to save your changes with an expired access token. Previously the access token had an expiration time of several hours.
JSON-based custom rendering is being added to the majority of our custom field types. It means that the rendering will be immediate upon loading views and will not have to wait until the rendering component is loaded by the page. You will need to re-save the field settings (no changes required) for the switch to be implemented for each individual field. This is not urgent or required as the old rendering mechanism will remain fully functional.

We are very excited to be able to integrate this new functionality in our product in a way that is simple and transparent to most customers. You will notice that the app will now load faster and the UI integration will be more reliable. However we understand that some customers, who rely on some of the existing functionality might be affected. Although there is a hard switchover date of April 2nd 2026, we suggest to start making assessments and upgrade plans sooner rather than later. Note that the installation wizard will only install version 1.4.0.0. If you still require the older version, do not attempt to install using the wizard. Instead, use the manual method, which still allows you to download and install the two old app packages. Enjoy the new features and improvements!

Enhancing Performance Reviews with SharePoint: Discover Through Hands-On Video Training

2023-12-13T15:53:42Z

How SharePoint Can Transform Your Performance Reviews

Welcome back to our HR Excellence blog series! We've already dived into hiring, onboarding, and managing performance. Now, let's talk about a critical piece of the HR puzzle: performance review tools. In today's fast-paced world, getting these reviews right is vital. At Infowise, we get this. That's why we've been exploring and sharing insights on various HR processes, and today, we're zooming in on performance appraisals. With more than 80 cool HR solution templates, we're excited to show you how SharePoint, especially with a help from ULTIMATEFORMS, can make performance reviews a breeze. So, let's jump in and see how these tools can make a real difference in your organization's review process!

Transform Employee Evaluation with Innovative SharePoint Tools

Why SharePoint for Performance Reviews? SharePoint stands out as a robust and versatile platform, ideal for redefining performance appraisal processes. It offers a seamless blend of accessibility, security, and customization, making it a top choice for organizations aiming to enhance employee evaluation strategies. Incorporating SharePoint into your performance appraisal system streamlines the process and ensures a more engaging and comprehensive evaluation.

The Power of ULTIMATEFORMS in Performance Management

ULTIMATEFORMS takes SharePoint's capabilities to the next level, especially in the context of performance management. It provides various tools and features that simplify and enrich the review process. From automated scheduling of reviews to customized report outputs, ULTIMATEFORMS ensures that every aspect of employee evaluation is covered with precision and ease.

Hands-On Video Training Overview

To help you better understand the integration of SharePoint and ULTIMATEFORMS in performance reviews, we've developed a hands-on video training (available at Infowise Webinars). This training covers the A to Z of building an innovative, user-friendly performance review system using SharePoint. Key features include:

A Visual Dashboard for Efficient Management

Our visual dashboard puts all critical information at your fingertips. It offers an intuitive and easy-to-navigate interface that allows managers to understand team performance at a glance quickly. This tool is invaluable for tracking progress, identifying areas of concern, and making informed decisions swiftly.

Progress Indicators and KPI Flags for Real-Time Tracking

Keeping track of team and individual performance is easier than ever with our progress indicators and KPI flags. These features provide real-time updates on key performance metrics, helping you stay on top of achievements and areas needing improvement. This real-time tracking ensures that no critical performance data slips through the cracks.

Automated Email Reminders and Follow-Up Systems

Forget the days of missed reviews or delayed feedback. Our system includes automated email reminders and follow-up systems to keep everyone in the loop. This automation ensures that employees and managers are always prepared for upcoming reviews, fostering a culture of continuous feedback and development.

A Streamlined Workflow Process for Smoother Operations

Efficiency is key in performance management, and our system is designed to provide a streamlined workflow. This setup simplifies the review process, making it more straightforward and less time-consuming. Reducing administrative burdens allows managers and HR professionals to focus more on people and less on paperwork.

Tools for Goal Planning and Tracking Accomplishments

Set and track goals effectively with our comprehensive tools. These features enable employees and managers to collaboratively set, monitor, and adjust goals as needed, aligning individual objectives with organizational targets. Tracking accomplishments becomes integral to the performance review, driving motivation and clarity.

Customized PDF Report Generation for Detailed Assessments

Our system offers customized PDF report generation, providing detailed and professional assessments of each employee's performance. These reports are helpful for review meetings and as necessary documentation for HR records and future references. They offer a clear, concise, comprehensive view of performance over time.

Essential Resources and Links

To further assist you in mastering the SharePoint-based performance review system, we've compiled a list of essential resources:

Webinars: Deep Dive into Our Informative Sessions

Our webinars are a treasure trove of information designed to give you an in-depth understanding of how to maximize the potential of SharePoint for performance reviews. These sessions, led by industry experts, cover various topics, from basic setup to advanced features. Whether you're a beginner or looking to enhance your existing system, our webinars provide valuable insights and practical tips to elevate your HR processes. Best of all, these webinars are informative and interactive, allowing you to ask questions and engage directly with SharePoint experts.

Tutorials: Get Step-by-Step Guidance

If you learn best by doing, our tutorials are perfect for you. These step-by-step guides are tailored to help you navigate through the various features of our SharePoint performance review tools. From setting up automatic scheduling to customizing your dashboard, our tutorials make learning easy and effective. They are designed to be user-friendly, ensuring that even those new to SharePoint can easily follow along and implement the system. Plus, these tutorials are always accessible, allowing you to learn quickly.

Documentation: Find Detailed Manuals and Guides

Our comprehensive documentation is invaluable for those who prefer detailed written instructions. You'll find everything from quick-start guides to in-depth manuals covering every aspect of our performance review system. This documentation is meticulously organized and updated regularly, ensuring you have the latest information. It is a great reference tool, helping you troubleshoot, understand best practices, and get the most out of your SharePoint system.

Solutions: More than 150 Free SharePoint Templates

At Infowise, we understand the importance of having the right tools to kickstart your project and enhance your learning experience. That's why we offer a range of free essential SharePoint Business Process Solutions, perfectly tailored for ULTIMATEFORMS users. These solutions are not just about getting you started; they provide a strong foundation for your projects and learning journey.

Conclusion: Start with a 30-day Free Trial

We invite you to experience the transformative power of our SharePoint-based performance appraisal system. Sign up for a 30-day free trial and witness how it can streamline and enhance your employee evaluation process. Join us in revolutionizing performance reviews and elevating your HR practices to new heights with Infowise.

Interactive SharePoint LMS Mastery: Unlock Employee Training Potential with ULTIMATEFORMS and Exclusive Hands-On Video

2023-12-05T16:16:11Z

Hello everyone! As November winds down, I realize how ambitious I was in trying to cover the vast world of HR SharePoint solutions in just one month. The sheer volume of applications, training videos, and support materials designed explicitly for HR is overwhelming, and it's clear that a single month isn't nearly enough to do them justice. That's why I've decided to extend our journey into these solutions, focusing for the rest of 2023 on a particularly important topic: employee training and evolution solutions.

Our first topic is building an employee training solution – an LMS system with SharePoint and ULTIMATEFORMS. This guide is more than just instructions; it's a pathway to transforming how we approach workplace learning and development. So, join me on this exciting journey as we explore the endless possibilities of these amazing tools!

Laying the Groundwork for Your SharePoint LMS

SharePoint LMS, Learning Management System, Employee Training

In this digital era, creating an effective Learning Management System (LMS) is crucial for employee development. SharePoint, a versatile platform, serves as an ideal foundation for an LMS. When combined with ULTIMATEFORMS, it transcends traditional boundaries, offering a flexible and dynamic environment for learning.

Essential Features of Your Custom LMS

Personalized Dashboard, Progress Tracking, SharePoint Training

A successful LMS caters to the diverse needs of its users. Our focus here is on creating a personalized dashboard for each user, enabling efficient progress tracking, and ensuring multi-role functionality for students, teachers, and administrators. These features are central to fostering an engaging and interactive learning experience.

Content Management and Assessment Tools

SharePoint Document Management, Online Training Content, Performance Tracking

Storing and managing training content efficiently is a cornerstone of a robust LMS. SharePoint excels in document management, allowing you to store videos, documents, and other training materials seamlessly. Moreover, integrating assessment tools to evaluate and track performance is pivotal in aligning training with organizational goals.

Hands-On Training Video

SharePoint Video Tutorial, Building LMS within SharePoint

Dive into our hands-on training video, which provides a practical, step-by-step guide to constructing your LMS with SharePoint and ULTIMATEFORMS. This tutorial is designed to simplify complex processes, ensuring you can effectively implement and manage your training system.

Maximizing Your LMS's Potential

SharePoint Best Practices, Custom LMS Benefits

Understanding the full potential of your SharePoint-based LMS is key to leveraging its capabilities. We discuss the benefits of a custom-built LMS and share best practices to ensure your system is not only functional but also scalable and secure.

ULTIMATEFORMS: Your Tool for Enhanced SharePoint Functionality

ULTIMATEFORMS, SharePoint Enhancement, Custom Solutions

If you're delving into the world of SharePoint, ULTIMATEFORMS is a name you need to know. This innovative tool is designed to elevate your SharePoint experience, making it more flexible, dynamic, and tailored to your specific needs. Let's explore what makes ULTIMATEFORMS an essential asset for anyone looking to maximize their SharePoint potential.

What is ULTIMATEFORMS?

ULTIMATEFORMS is a powerful add-on for SharePoint

ULTIMATEFORMS is a powerful add-on for SharePoint that allows you to create custom forms, automate workflows, and manage data more effectively. It's designed to enhance SharePoint's native capabilities, making it easier for you to build solutions that are perfectly aligned with your organizational requirements.

30-Day Trial and On-Premises Option

One of the standout features of ULTIMATEFORMS is the 30-day free trial, giving you full access to its capabilities without any commitment. This trial period is crucial for you to explore and understand the tool's potential in your specific environment. Additionally, ULTIMATEFORMS offers the flexibility to be deployed on your own server. This means you can work with the application in your controlled environment, ensuring it aligns perfectly with your organization's IT policies and infrastructure before making any long-term commitment.

Access to Free SharePoint Solutions, Webinars, and Documentation

What sets ULTIMATEFORMS apart is its functionality and the wealth of resources available to its users. The application comes with an array of free solutions that can be leveraged to address common business scenarios. These pre-built solutions can significantly reduce development time and provide you with a solid foundation for your custom applications.

Furthermore, ULTIMATEFORMS offers a series of webinars that provide insights, tips, and best practices for utilizing the tool effectively. These webinars are a great way to stay informed about the latest trends and techniques in SharePoint development.

Last but not least, ULTIMATEFORMS is backed by comprehensive documentation. Whether you're a novice or an experienced SharePoint developer, these resources are invaluable in helping you get the most out of the application. From step-by-step guides to detailed how-to articles, the documentation covers every aspect of ULTIMATEFORMS, ensuring you have the support you need to succeed.

Our journey through building a custom LMS using SharePoint and ULTIMATEFORMS demonstrates the immense potential of these tools to revolutionize employee training. Tailored to your organization's specific needs, this LMS solution promises a dynamic and engaging learning environment.

Stay ahead in the HR tech curve by subscribing to our channel for more insightful content on SharePoint HR solutions. Try building your own LMS using our guide and share your experiences with our community!

Microsoft retiring add-in model for SharePoint Online

2023-11-28T20:08:24Z

Hi, As you might have already learned, Microsoft recently announced the planned retirement of the add-in model in SharePoint Online. Starting by gradual removal of deployment abilities in 2024, by 2026, no add-in will be allowed to run in any tenant. SharePoint add-ins are supposed to implement additional 3rd party functionality, not available out-of-the-box. Infowise Ultimate Forms is currently implement as two apps, that work in tandem:

Ultimate Forms (main app) - currently implemented as an add-in, it provides the backend functionality, such as Actions, Alerts, Print, etc.
Ultimate Forms Extensions - provides the visual user interface, such as forms, special column types and various web parts. This component is implemented as a SPFX Extension (the new and improved method of extending SharePoint) and is not affected by the announcement.

Although the main app is technically an add-in, it has very little dependence on the add-in model, primarily only in terms of its authentication layer. Fortunately, we have already added the ability to use Microsoft Entra (formerly known as Azure Active Directory) as a second authentication mechanism, thus making the process easy and painless. Our plan is to upgrade and extend Ultimate Forms Extensions app to serve as the main app and access point (the "Design" button you all know and love :)), while using the code and capabilities of the current main app in the background, coupled with Microsoft Entra authentication mechanism. As approximately 99% of the work is already done, we do not expect the conversion process to be complex or labour-intensive, while also benefitting from the following improvements:

Only one app would need to be installed and even that one could be made available to all sites from the app catalog, without the need to install in each site separately
Azure ACS (Access Control Services), the legacy authentication layer of SharePoint apps is notoriously unreliable and can sometimes issue faulty or empty access tokens, as well as requiring to re-trust app permissions. Microsoft Microsoft Entra is much more reliable in this regard.
Permissions for the app will be granted for the whole tenant once, in a central location accessible only to tenant administrators, without the need to grant for each site collection, as currently required with ACS.
We will use this opportunity to upgrade the Extensions app to the latest version of the SPFX platform, making use of the latest features and capabilities.
The installation wizard will be faster and more efficient, due to the need to only install a single app.
Additional features will be eventually made possible, such as web part connections, specific action buttons in list toolbars, etc.
As legacy app parts will be discontinued, there will no longer be confusion between them and their modern SPFX counterparts we provide.
There will be no confusion arising from some customers installing the Office Store app version.

We expect to release a new version of Ultimate Forms by the spring of 2024. A special announcement will be published and will include upgrade instructions and any functionality changes that might be introduced. We expect the process to be seamless, simple and straightforward, and generally completely transparent to end users. NOTE: our on-premises customers are not affected by the announcement.

GSA-Approved SharePoint Solutions: Pioneering Efficiency in Government HR Departments

2023-11-27T16:24:11Z

In a landscape where government agencies face mounting pressure to operate with the efficiency and agility of private enterprises, the role of citizens and their elected representatives is ever-evolving, akin to boards of directors in the private sector. This shift brings with it a heightened demand for cost-effectiveness and streamlined operations. At Infowise, we recognize and embrace these challenges. Our commitment is firmly rooted in supporting government HR departments with advanced SharePoint-based solutions designed to meet the unique needs of the public sector with the precision and flexibility required in this new era.

Infowise – A Trusted Partner for Government Agencies

GSA Schedule 70 IT Contract At Infowise, our GSA Schedule 70 IT contractor designation marks a significant milestone. This accreditation is a testament to our commitment to excellence and compliance with government standards. The General Services Administration (GSA) Schedule 70 is a government-wide acquisition contract offering a comprehensive array of IT products, services, and solutions. Our presence on this schedule simplifies the procurement process for US federal agencies, ensuring they have access to the highest quality IT solutions.

Why Government Agencies Choose Infowise

Government agencies require solutions that are not only robust but also secure and compliant with their unique regulations. Infowise stands out by offering SharePoint-based solutions that meet these stringent requirements. Our track record includes successful collaborations with various government entities, demonstrating our ability to understand and address the specific challenges faced by the public sector.

Tailored SharePoint Solutions for Government HR

Understanding SharePoint's Role in HR
Microsoft's versatile platform, SharePoint, is known for its excellence in managing documents, streamlining workflows, and facilitating secure data sharing, making it an ideal foundation for HR applications. Leveraging this robust framework, we've developed ULTIMATEFORMS. This innovative solution is launched directly within SharePoint, enhancing and boosting its native capabilities to offer even more powerful and specialized HR management tools. Instant Access to a Free Solution We offer a free version of ULTIMATEFORMS on our server that users can effortlessly utilize. This accessibility ensures that you can immediately start experiencing the benefits of our system without any upfront investment. It's an excellent opportunity to familiarize yourself with the interface and basic functionalities of ULTIMATEFORMS, further enhancing the user-friendly nature of SharePoint-based applications.

____________________________________________

Infowse has been servicing various public sector agencies for more than ten years as a vetted and approved GSA (General Services Administration) vendor, which only helps us further focus our products and services for our government clients.
- Avi Pagi

Business Development, Public Sector

avip@Infowisesolutions.com

___________________________________________

Infowise's Customizable HR SharePoint Solutions

Our solutions, ranging from employee onboarding systems to comprehensive performance management tools, are fully customizable. This means that each government department can tailor the solutions to fit its unique processes and requirements. The adaptability of our offerings ensures that as your needs evolve, so too can your solutions. The Power of No-Code Solutions Simplifying IT with No-Code solutions

In an environment where IT resources are often limited, our no-code solutions stand as a beacon of empowerment. With Infowise, HR professionals can create, modify, and manage applications without extensive IT skills. This approach accelerates deployment and significantly reduces the strain on IT departments.

Empowering HR Teams

Our solutions empower HR teams to take control of their systems. From automating routine tasks to generating insightful reports, teams can manage their operations more efficiently, leading to enhanced productivity and better decision-making.

Cost-Effective Efficiency for Government Operations

Budget-Friendly Solutions

In a sector where budgetary constraints are a constant challenge, Infowise provides cost-effective solutions that maintain quality and functionality. Our SharePoint-based solutions offer a more affordable alternative to traditional, often expensive, HR software systems.

30-Day Free Trial!

30-Day Free Trial of ULTIMATEFORMS: To further enhance your experience, we provide a 30-day free trial of ULTIMATEFORMS. This trial period allows you to explore the full range of features and capabilities that ULTIMATEFORMS brings to the SharePoint environment. It's an invaluable chance to see how its advanced functionalities can streamline and optimize your performance management processes.

Enhancing Operational Efficiency

The efficiency of government operations is paramount. Infowise's solutions are designed to streamline HR processes, reduce manual workload, and improve overall operational agility. This leads to more efficient government operations, benefiting the public sector and its citizens.

At Infowise, we support private and government sectors with advanced, adaptable HR solutions. As a GSA-approved contractor, we bring trustworthy, SharePoint-based solutions ready to transform government HR departments' operations—for a detailed consultation or to schedule a demonstration, contact our Business Development Director Avi Pagi at avip@Infowisesolutions.com. Let's work together to streamline your HR processes and enhance operational efficiency! Best!

New Employee Onboarding with SharePoint and UltimateForms: A Free, Efficient Solution

2023-11-21T15:34:05Z

Introduction to HR Excellence Month

"Embracing HR Excellence: A Journey Through Essential HR Processes"

As we commence our HR Excellence Month, our journey was initially set to encompass a wide array of HR processes: Recruitment, Onboarding, Training and Development, Engagement, Retention, and Exit strategies. This comprehensive approach addresses the multifaceted nature of human resource management in today's dynamic business landscape.

Pivoting to Employee Review Software

"Responding to Demand: The Unexpected Surge in Interest for Employee Review Software"

Interestingly, our path took an unexpected turn due to the overwhelming interest in our Employee Review Software. The surge in demo requests highlighted the ever-evolving needs of the HR community and the importance of being responsive to these shifts. This experience has been a valuable reminder of the fluidity and responsiveness required in modern HR practices.

Refocusing on New Employee Onboarding

"The Art of Onboarding: Creating a Seamless New Employee Experience"

Now, realigning with our original plan, we are turning our attention back to a fundamental aspect of HR management - New Employee Onboarding. The onboarding process is more than just a procedural necessity; it's an opportunity to lay a strong foundation for new employees, significantly impacting their integration, development, and retention within the company.

Introducing SharePoint and ULTIMATEFORMS

"Leveraging SharePoint and ULTIMATEFORMS for Enhanced Onboarding Efficiency"

In addressing the challenges of onboarding, we spotlight SharePoint and ULTIMATEFORMS. These innovative tools are not mere facilitators; they are game-changers in transforming the onboarding process. They offer streamlined workflows, personalized employee experiences, and efficient administrative management, making them indispensable for modern HR operations.

ULTIMATEFORMS Free Trial: A Cost-Effective Solution

"Empowering HR with ULTIMATEFORMS: Free Trial for a Limited Time"

To further support our commitment to providing practical and impactful HR solutions, we are thrilled to offer a free trial of ULTIMATEFORMS. This gesture is part of our initiative to make advanced HR tools accessible to all organizations, regardless of size or budget constraints. Join us as we dive into a hands-on training session to create a robust New Employee Onboarding Solution using SharePoint and ULTIMATEFORMS.

Overview of SharePoint and ULTIMATEFORMS in Onboarding

"Leveraging SharePoint and ULTIMATEFORMS for Efficient Employee Integration"

SharePoint and ULTIMATEFORMS are powerful tools in the arsenal of HR professionals. SharePoint is a robust platform for hosting varied business applications, while ULTIMATEFORMS enhances its capabilities, creating customized, user-friendly interfaces. These tools facilitate a seamless onboarding experience, significantly upgrading traditional, paper-based processes.

Breakdown of the Hands-on Video Training

"Expert Insights: Will Cooper's Guide to Onboarding with SharePoint"

Our lead trainer, Will Cooper, provides valuable insights in his hands-on video training. Will breaks down the free onboarding software options available in SharePoint and ULTIMATEFORMS, emphasizing features like:

Personalized employee dashboards
Flexible task management systems
Progress indicators through intuitive dashboards
Automated email notifications for task completion and updates
A step-by-step guide to the onboarding process

Deep Dive into Onboarding Features

"Enhancing Onboarding: Personalized Dashboards and More"

Each feature Will discusses plays a crucial role in streamlining the onboarding process. Personalized dashboards, for instance, offer new employees a sense of belonging and clarity from day one. Flexible task management allows both HR and the new hires to track and manage onboarding tasks efficiently. These features and automated notifications ensure that everyone stays informed and engaged throughout the onboarding journey.

The Advantages of Free New Employee Onboarding Software

"Free New Employee Onboarding Software: Maximizing Value, Minimizing Costs"

In today's cost-conscious business environment, access to free new employee onboarding software like ULTIMATEFORMS is a game-changer. This particularly benefits small and medium-sized businesses looking to optimize their onboarding processes without significant investment. By leveraging these free tools, companies can ensure a smooth and welcoming experience for their new team members.

Getting Started with ULTIMATEFORMS

"Kickstarting Your Onboarding Process with ULTIMATEFORMS: A Step-by-Step Guide"

Starting with ULTIMATEFORMS is straightforward. By signing up for the free trial, you can access a range of features designed to make the onboarding process as smooth as possible. This guide helps you customize your first onboarding workflow to meet your organization’s needs.

To jumpstart with ULTIMATEFORMS and enhance your SharePoint experience, we recommend a few key steps:

Installation: Begin by seamlessly integrating ULTIMATEFORMS into your SharePoint environment. The installation process is designed to be straightforward and user-friendly, ensuring a smooth setup.
Tutorials: Once installed, explore a range of detailed tutorials available within ULTIMATEFORMS. These tutorials cover various features and functionalities, guiding you through the process of creating, customizing, and managing forms and workflows in SharePoint.
Training: For those who wish to delve deeper, ULTIMATEFORMS offers specialized training sessions. These sessions provide in-depth knowledge and hands-on experience, helping you to master the tool and leverage its full potential in your SharePoint projects.
Partners: ULTIMATEFORMS collaborates with a network of skilled partners. These partners can offer additional support, expert advice, and customized solutions to ensure you get the most out of ULTIMATEFORMS in your specific business context.

Each step enhances your proficiency with ULTIMATEFORMS, making your SharePoint experience more efficient and effective.

Conclusion

Efficient and effective onboarding is crucial for the long-term success of any organization. By leveraging the capabilities of SharePoint and ULTIMATEFORMS, companies can ensure a welcoming and productive start for their new employees. We encourage you to take advantage of the ULTIMATEFORMS free trial and explore Will Cooper’s training video for more insights.

Ready to transform your onboarding process? Watch Will Cooper’s detailed video on SharePoint and ULTIMATEFORMS and sign up for the ULTIMATEFORMS free trial today. Embrace the future of onboarding with us!

Mastering Performance Management: A Hands-On Video Guide to Building Systems with ULTIMATEFORMS in SharePoint

2023-11-16T14:08:41Z

In a previous article, we explored the innovative features of our performance management solution designed to foster a high-performance culture within organizations. Building on that foundation, this blog post is dedicated to a hands-on training video, a practical guide that walks you through our premium, tailor-made solution to guarantee the success of your business.

This comprehensive video will showcase:

Performance Review: Dive into how to manage employee performance effectively. We'll demonstrate how you can measure their overall contribution and use our system to gain powerful insights, enabling you to devise strategic action plans.
Goal Setting: Learn to set and manage SMART goals - Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time-Bound. The video will guide you on providing ongoing expectations and feedback aligned with key performance indicators, a crucial step in driving employee success.
Culture & Values: Discover how to utilize our powerful app modules to cultivate and sustain a robust, high-performance culture. We'll show you how to integrate shared values across your enterprise, reinforcing the bedrock of your organizational identity.
Customization: We understand that each organization is unique. That's why we offer 25 hours of consulting with each purchase, ensuring the solution is customized to your needs. The video will provide insights into how this process works and the transformative impact it can have on your performance management system.

24/7 Video Training Library

Infowise Video Training Library offers a range of video tutorials for users of ULTIMATEFORMS in Microsoft SharePoint. It caters to beginners and advanced users, covering basic introductions and detailed feature explanations. These resources aim to improve workflow and productivity in SharePoint by helping users effectively utilize Infowise tools.
Stay tuned for a journey that combines theoretical knowledge with practical application, empowering you to harness the full potential of our performance management system.
In conclusion, the cornerstone of our performance management solution's effectiveness lies in its strategic leveraging of two pivotal technologies: the ubiquity of SharePoint and the innovative capabilities of ULTIMATEFORMS.

SharePoint: A Catalyst for Corporate Collaboration

SharePoint is a testament to the power of collaboration in the corporate world. Its widespread adoption is not just due to its versatility as a document management and storage system but also because it facilitates seamless collaboration across departments and teams. By integrating SharePoint into our solution, we unlock its potential for centralizing data, streamlining communication, and enhancing cooperative efforts. This integration means our performance management system is robust, secure, and deeply ingrained in day-to-day corporate collaboration.

ULTIMATEFORMS: Unleashing Unique Abilities

ULTIMATEFORMS elevates our solution to new heights. It's an add-on and a transformative tool extending SharePoint's functionality. With ULTIMATEFORMS, we bring a level of customization and flexibility to performance management that is unparalleled. Whether creating dynamic forms, automating workflows, or generating insightful reports, ULTIMATEFORMS empowers users to tailor their performance management processes to their needs. Its user-friendly interface ensures that even those without technical expertise can make the most of its wide array of features, making it an invaluable asset for any organization looking to optimize its performance management strategy.

By combining the collaborative strength of SharePoint with the versatile prowess of ULTIMATEFORMS, our solution stands as a beacon of innovation in performance management. It's a testament to our commitment to providing a powerful, intuitive system that aligns with modern enterprises' evolving needs. As your organization embarks on its journey toward cultivating a high-performance culture, our solution will be the tool that guides and supports you every step of the way.

As we wrap up our exploration of this innovative performance management solution, I'd like to highlight a few key offerings, ensuring you have all the information to get started right away.

Instant Access to a Free Solution

Immediately following the training video, we offer a free version of our solution that users can install and begin using. This accessibility ensures that you can immediately start experiencing the benefits of our system without any upfront investment. It's an excellent opportunity to familiarize yourself with the interface and basic functionalities.

Business Development, Public Sector

avip@Infowisesolutions.com

___________________________________________

30-Day Free Trial!

Customization Support Through Our Partners

While our solution is designed to be intuitive and user-friendly, we understand that some organizations may require further customization to align perfectly with their unique needs. Our network of skilled and certified partners is ready to assist. Contact us, and we will connect you with the right partner to guide you through the installation, implementation, and training processes, ensuring a seamless integration into your HR landscape.

As November progresses, we'll keep sharing updates and insights about our HR solution through our blog and social posts. I look forward to sharing more informative how-to content, as we offer over eighty solutions tailored for HR and general managers. We wish you the best in your journey to boost your organization's performance management strategy!

Transforming Performance Management: Exploring the Synergy of SharePoint and ULTIMATEFORMS

2023-11-15T13:26:27Z

Building a High-Performance Culture through Advanced Performance Management

The need for intuitive and no-code performance management tools is increasingly evident in the dynamic world of human resources and organizational development. Just this past week, our inbox has been filled with requests from HR People and Culture managers, all keen to see a demo of our intuitive, no-code performance review system. This growing interest has spurred me to provide a comprehensive overview of our app, highlighting its user-friendly features and its significant advantages. This article will examine the key functionalities that set our system apart in employee performance management. And more to come – a subsequent article will follow, complemented by a hands-on training video, to ensure that you can fully leverage our solution in your organizational environment.

Performance Review: Our solution automates the traditional performance review process. It enables managers to manage and evaluate employee performance effectively, measuring their overall contributions precisely. The system offers powerful analytics, transforming raw data into actionable insights. This facilitates informed decision-making, allowing managers to identify areas of strength and opportunities for team development. With these tools, you can create targeted action plans that drive improvement and growth.

Goal Setting: Goal setting is the cornerstone of any effective performance management system. Our system emphasizes the importance of SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time-Bound) goals. This framework ensures that objectives are clear and achievable, providing employees with a concrete direction. Our system not only facilitates the setting of these goals but also enables continuous monitoring and feedback. This ongoing engagement keeps employees aligned with key performance indicators, ensuring that they are consistently contributing to organizational objectives.

Culture & Values: Beyond individual and team performance, our solution recognizes the significance of a robust organizational culture. We leverage powerful app modules to help embed and maintain a high-performance culture and shared values across your enterprise. These tools encourage the adoption of core values and behaviors crucial to your organization's identity and success. By aligning individual efforts with the broader cultural objectives, our system creates a cohesive and motivated workforce, driving your organization toward its strategic goals.

In conclusion, our employee performance management system is not just a tool for evaluation and feedback but a strategic asset fostering a culture of excellence and continuous improvement. By integrating performance review, goal setting, and culture and values, we empower your organization to build and sustain a high-performance environment, setting the stage for ongoing success and growth.

Comprehensive App Features of Our Employee Performance Management Solution

Simplified Review Tools: Our system streamlines the employee performance review with standardized, uniform procedures. This functionality enables managers to assess employee performance effectively and derive powerful insights for strategic planning. The tools ensure that performance reviews are thorough and manageable, helping you to create well-informed action plans for team development.

Goal Setting: The goal-setting module is designed to help employees realize their full potential. It offers simple automated tools to implement and manage, encouraging team members to set new career objectives and achieve ambitious goals. The unique feature of this module is the flexibility it provides - employees can create multiple plans, save them as drafts, and submit them when ready. This approach empowers employees to take charge of their career growth proactively.

Safe and Secure People Data: In the realm of performance management, data security is paramount. Our application ensures the safe gathering, storage, and analysis of people's data. This aspect is crucial for aligning employee career goals with organizational objectives. Managers can access and accurately assess past employee goals, plans, and accomplishments, ensuring data integrity and confidentiality.

Workflow and Approvals: The system's role-based access control ensures that department-specific data is accessible only to authorized personnel. The app equips managers with powerful search capabilities and tools for efficient employee review and evaluation. Managers' dashboards are meticulously designed to overview the progress and status of all employee reviews. Moreover, designated HR team members can easily configure and administer the solution through user-friendly lists and settings pages, enhancing operational efficiency.

Feedback: Continuous feedback keeps employees engaged and aligned with their career goals and the organization's growth plans. Our software facilitates this by enabling managers and peers to provide performance feedback seamlessly. This is achieved through automatically generated, pre-populated emails, simplifying the feedback process and ensuring it is timely and relevant.

In summary, our employee performance management system is a comprehensive solution encompassing every aspect of performance management. From streamlined review processes and goal setting to secure data management, workflow optimization, and effective feedback mechanisms, our solution is designed to boost efficiency, engagement, and alignment with organizational goals, ultimately fostering a high-performance culture.

Setting the Pace for a Month of HR Excellence

As we dive deeper into November, we will explore various HR topics and best practices. Our free Job Application Portal is just the beginning. Throughout the month, we'll showcase how to maximize SharePoint and ULTIMATEFORMS for your HR processes, from onboarding to employee engagement and performance management. Stay tuned as we guide you through creating comprehensive, cost-effective HR solutions that save time, enhance candidate and employee experiences, and integrate seamlessly with your existing technology stack. Embrace the future of HR this November!

Crafting Your SharePoint Job Application System from Start to Finish; Hands-on Video Training

2023-11-07T14:32:12Z

November is here, and in the spirit of continuous improvement and innovation, we're dedicating this month to exploring the vast capabilities of HR solutions within SharePoint, enhanced by ULTIMATEFORMS. Our journey began with our last blog post, where we touched upon the transformative job application system designed to give our clients a running start on their HR projects. Today, we delve deeper. We recognize that while our free application serves admirably, many of you expressed a desire to see a more personalized, hands-on approach—a system that not only functions efficiently but also resonates with your unique business culture. Your feedback is invaluable, and we've listened.

A Hands-On Guide to Tailored HR Solutions

In-Depth Video Training: Your Blueprint to an Advanced Applicant Tracking System To equip you with a robust understanding of how to leverage SharePoint for your HR needs, our video training series is meticulously designed to walk you through creating a complete applicant tracking system. This is not just an instructional series—it's an interactive guide to implementing an efficient and scalable solution tailored for your organization. Here's what the training covers:

Custom Job Application Forms: Learn how to build a form that fits your needs. Add as many fields as necessary to capture the information that matters most to your company.
Smart Data Validation: We'll show you how to ensure the data you collect is accurate and complete, with custom validation rules that leave no room for error.
File Attachments Made Easy: Allow candidates to attach their resumes, cover letters, and additional documents effortlessly. Our training ensures that no vital information is missed.
Tailored Confirmation Screens: Create a custom confirmation screen that greets applicants upon submission, providing them with reassurance and necessary next steps.
Branding That Resonates: Inject your company's personality into every aspect of the application process. Incorporate your branding colors and logo for a consistent and professional look.
Efficient Applicant Management: We'll dive into how to organize and manage your applicants directly within SharePoint. Track hiring stages, add detailed notes, and maintain a top-level view of your recruitment pipeline.
Automated Communications: Simplify follow-ups with the ability to send automatic email notifications. Whether it's an update, a thank you message, or an interview invitation, do it all with a single click.

This comprehensive training will not only familiarize you with the system but also empower you to create a hiring process that is reflective of your organization's ethos and operational style. Watch Our Training Videos Here These sessions are your stepping stones towards creating an ecosystem that’s not just about managing human resources but nurturing them.

Over 80 Free HR Applications

Our commitment to your success is reflected in our suite of over 80 free applications. These aren't just solutions; they're starting points. Download, customize, and deploy them across your organization to streamline processes, enhance productivity, and foster a culture of efficiency. Explore Free HR Applications

The ULTIMATEFORMS Advantage

Why ULTIMATEFORMS? The answer lies in its myriad benefits:

Customization at your fingertips
Automated workflows to save time and reduce errors
No-code solutions that bring your HR vision to life without IT overhead
Integration that speaks the language of SharePoint seamlessly

A Month of Learning and Innovation

And there's more. To ensure you make the most of these tools, we're offering a 30-day trial of ULTIMATEFORMS. It’s your all-access pass to discover the full power of what we offer. Throughout November, follow our social media posts and blog series. We'll cover a wealth of learning materials, tips, and tricks to elevate your HR operations with our free products and solutions. Start Your 30-Day ULTIMATEFORMS Trial

Stay Tuned for More

As we navigate the intricacies of SharePoint HR solutions together, we look forward to sharing more insights, offering more solutions, and hearing more from you. Join us in transforming HR management into a strategic powerhouse with SharePoint and ULTIMATEFORMS. See you in our next post, where we continue to unlock the potential of human resources with smart technology.

Streamlining HR Solutions: Kickstarting November with SharePoint and ULTIMATEFORMS

2023-11-06T15:32:06Z

"As HR consultants, we consistently receive inquiries from clients in pursuit of HR solutions that align with their budget constraints while being versatile enough to resonate with their distinctive operational rhythms and cultural ethos." J.W, HR Consultants

At our firm, it's almost a daily thing — folks like J.W. reaching out, keen on finding HR solutions that won’t just fit neatly into their budget but also gel with their company’s way of doing things. They’re not just asking questions; they’re eager to dive in, often signing up for demos to see firsthand how these tailored HR systems can slot into their business like the missing piece of a puzzle. That's exactly why this November, we've put a spotlight on HR solutions. We will journey to transform your HR department into a powerhouse of efficiency and innovation. We believe that the foundation of any robust HR system is the recruitment process, and we're thrilled to introduce our first offering of the month: a custom Job Application Portal, entirely free, powered by SharePoint and ULTIMATEFORMS.

The First Step in HR Transformation: A Cutting-Edge Job Application Portal

Our focus is to set the stage for a month of strategic HR solutions. The Job Application Portal isn't just the starting point; it's a testament to how SharePoint and ULTIMATEFORMS can be leveraged to create powerful HR tools that are cost-effective and simple to use.

Why SharePoint-based Job Application System?

Your quest for top talent begins with the job application. It's the first interaction potential employees have with your organization, and making it seamless is crucial. Here's why our Job Application Portal stands out:

Efficiency in Application Management

Using SharePoint, HR departments can centralize their recruitment processes. With ULTIMATEFORMS, custom forms can be created and tailored to meet your specific criteria, automating data collection and sorting applications with ease.

Customization at Its Core

The templates provided by ULTIMATEFORMS are just the beginning. You can modify and personalize them to reflect your company's ethos and the specific nuances of the role you're looking to fill. This customization ensures you attract the right talent and simplify the screening process.

Insights into Recruitment Channels

Knowing where your best candidates come from can help you optimize recruitment strategies. Our portal allows you to track the efficiency of different media and agencies, giving you valuable insights into your recruitment efforts.

Privacy for Peace of Mind

We understand the need for discretion in the job search process. The Job Application Portal supports fully anonymous submissions, ensuring that even the most passive candidates feel comfortable applying.

A Sneak Peek at the Features of the Free Job Application Portal

Easy-to-Use Interface: Designed for simplicity and user experience, making it easy for candidates to apply and for HR to manage applications.
Integration with SharePoint: Seamless connection with your existing SharePoint environment to keep all data interconnected.
Custom Form Builder: Leverage ULTIMATEFORMS to create forms that fit your needs without writing a single line of code.
Automated Workflows: Set up notifications, auto-responses, and review triggers to streamline the recruitment process.
Analytics and Reporting: Use built-in analytics to assess the effectiveness of your recruitment campaigns and the quality of applicants obtained.

Setting the Pace for a Month of HR Excellence

As we dive deeper into November, we will be exploring a variety of HR topics and best practices. Our free Job Application Portal is just the beginning. Throughout the month, we'll showcase how to maximize SharePoint and ULTIMATEFORMS for your HR processes, from onboarding to employee engagement and performance management. Stay tuned as we guide you through creating comprehensive, cost-effective HR solutions that save time, enhance candidate and employee experiences, and integrate seamlessly with your existing technology stack. Embrace the future of HR this November – starting with our innovative Job Application Portal. It's time to redefine your recruitment process and set a new benchmark for HR excellence. Welcome to a month of transformation with SharePoint and ULTIMATEFORMS.

Copy and Paste Rules in Form Designer

2023-11-03T17:21:12Z

A new feature has just released in Form Designer: Rules Copy and Paste. In short, this allows you to copy any rules assigned to any element in your form including:

Permission Rules
Validation Rules
Default Rules
Style Rules

This new feature can help you save time when you repeat rules settings on elements in your form. It is very simple. First check off the rule (or rules) that you want to copy, then click the copy button in the rules header for that section: Once you click the copy button in the rules header, your copied rule(s) are stored and ready to be applied to another element. Next click on another element in your form and click the paste button in the corresponding rule section to copy your rule to the target element: That's it! Simple copy paste of styles from one element to the next. Note that whenever you click the copy button, any previously copied rule will be replaced with the one you just selected. You can paste a copied rule multiple times to different elements. (Just the same as if you are using copy and paste in a Word document.) There is a closely related feature that is equally useful. Element Copy lets you copy controls like containers, headers, fragments and other elements throughout your form. To access this functionality, click on an element, then click the copy button on the right side: Next time you find yourself repeatedly applying the same rules or repeating the same form elements, remember to use the handy Copy functions in Form Designer!

Elevate Your SharePoint Experience with ULTIMATEFORMS: Unlock Advanced Document Management Solutions

2023-10-16T12:30:54Z

In today’s digital-driven workspace, managing voluminous documents efficiently is paramount. Suppose you’ve been grappling with SharePoint and feel you might be missing out on its extensive functionality. In that case, our past webinar offers you hands-on training with a bonus: a free Document Management System (DMS) template!

Tackling SharePoint Document Libraries

Many organizations today house tens of thousands of documents within SharePoint. With proper management, libraries can quickly become manageable, making vital documents more accessible to locate. Through our in-depth webinar, you will learn to harness ULTIMAEFORMS software, significantly enhancing SharePoint’s document libraries and providing advanced document management features for a streamlined experience.

Discover ULTIMATEFORMS’ Advanced Features

Our session unveils key functionalities designed to facilitate and improve your document management process, ensuring that your SharePoint libraries remain organized and accessible:

Categorized Sorting and Filtering: Simplify document retrieval with the ability to sort and filter using specified document categories, making navigation through extensive libraries seamless.
Enhanced Search Capabilities: Employ advanced search functionalities that allow for precise and quick location of the documents you need.
Effective Document Tagging: Improve search results and efficiency with intuitive document tagging, facilitating ease of access and organization.
Document Thumbnail Previews: Visual previews provide immediate reference points, allowing users to identify and select required documents quickly.
User-Friendly Visual Interface: Navigate through your document libraries easily, thanks to an interface designed for intuitive use and accessibility.
Centralized User Dashboard: A consolidated dashboard offers all users a central point for document access and management, streamlining user experience and collaboration.
Comprehensive Rollup View: Consolidate searches across various libraries with the rollup view feature, providing a unified perspective and simplified document retrieval.
Color-Coded Folders & Large Icon Views: Visual aids like color-coded folders and large document icons offer immediate visual cues, assisting in efficient document location and recovery.
Custom Forms for Document Property Management: Personalize and manage document properties effortlessly through customized forms tailored to your organizational needs.

Reap the Benefits of ULTIMATEFORMS

By leveraging the robust features of Ultimate Forms, users experience a streamlined process and create advanced documentation solutions effectively. Managing extensive document libraries becomes a breeze with categorized sorting, enhanced search capabilities, and intuitive tagging.

Business Development, Public Sector

avip@Infowisesolutions.com

____________________________________________

Infowise: GSA Schedule 70 Approved

Infowise proudly holds GSA Schedule 70 approval, reflecting our commitment to providing secure and reliable solutions for federal agencies. This recognition assures clients in the governmental sector that our products and services meet the highest standards for compliance and security. For all your GSA inquiries, contact Avi Pagi at avip@infowisesolutions.com

Dive into Our Resourceful Webinar!

Our past webinars are a goldmine for hands-on training, guiding you on utilizing ULTIMAEFORMS for a superior SharePoint experience. Coupled with a complimentary DMS template, it’s a resource designed to empower your document management processes, ensuring efficiency, accessibility, and organization.

Conclusion

Don’t allow the potential of SharePoint to go untapped. With Ultimate Forms, create and manage advanced documentation solutions tailored to your needs. Dive into our webinar today and unlock the full spectrum of benefits Ultimate Forms offers for a seamless, efficient document management experience!

Unlock the potential of SharePoint with Infowise Solutions’ ULTIMAEFORMS and ensure your document management is efficient, accessible, and hassle-free! Dive into the resource today and elevate your documentation solution to new heights!

DMS Month: Streamlining Approvals with SharePoint and Ultimate Forms!

2023-10-12T15:30:40Z

October marks the celebration of Document Management System (DMS) month, a pivotal time to spotlight DMS's indispensable role in optimizing business operations. A cornerstone of an effective DMS is a secure and efficient approval system. Recognizing its significance, we're diving into how SharePoint combined with Ultimate ULTIMATEFORMS orms can revolutionize this process.

The Power of a SharePoint-Based Approval System:

SharePoint, an adaptable platform catering to diverse business needs, has a transformative use in crafting intuitive approval systems. Such systems ensure documents seamlessly transition through the approval hierarchy, fostering swifter decision-making.

How Does It Work?

Upload and Route: Once ready, documents are uploaded to SharePoint libraries, automatically channeled to the designated reviewers.
Review and Feedback: Reviewers engage directly with the document, infusing it with feedback and comments, either directly or via SharePoint's user-friendly interface.
Final Decision: Post review, documents are either given a green light, revised, or red-flagged, with each step meticulously logged.

Unveiled Benefits:

Automated Precision: SharePoint ensures that approvals find their right destination, eliminating delays and oversights.
Collaborative Decisions: Group assignment features in SharePoint encourage collective consensus, fostering a collaborative approach.
Transparent Trails: Ultimate Forms logs every twist and turn in the approval journey, ensuring clarity and traceability.

Follow this hands-on training video to access a free SharePoint template!
Need to access more Solutions? Here are more than 100 free SharePoint templates!

Crafting Your Approval System with ULTIMATEFORMS:

Harness the robust features of ULTIMATEFORMS to sculpt your SharePoint approval system. From digital signatures and task assignments to timely alerts, every feature is your ally in streamlining processes.

Embrace Efficiency Now:

Resource Trove: Delve into expert-crafted resources - be it demos, enlightening articles, or detailed tutorials. Let them be your compass in navigating the creation of an adept approval system.
30-Day Free Exploration: Take ULTIMATEFORMS for a spin with our 30-day trial. Experience firsthand its adaptability in creating both straightforward and intricate solutions sans coding. Dive in today!

Infowise: GSA Schedule 70 Approved

_______________________________________

Infowise has been servicing various public sector agencies for more than ten years, as a vetted and approved GSA (General Services Administration) vendor only helps us to further focus our products and services for our government clients.
- Avi Pagi

Business Development, Public Sector

avip@Infowisesolutions.com

____________________________________________

Conclusion:

In the spirit of DMS month, let's champion efficiency and security in our approval processes. The synergy of SharePoint and ULTIMATEFORMS brings a sophisticated solution tailor-made for today's dynamic organizational needs. As we strive for streamlined operations, let the SharePoint and ULTIMATEFORMS duo be the wind beneath our wings.

Optimize Government Document Management in SharePoint with Infowise ULTIMATEFORMS

2023-10-09T21:55:40Z

Government institutions are synonymous with extensive documentation and record-keeping. Managing such a plethora of information efficiently is crucial; this is where SharePoint excels as a Document Management System (DMS). This article explores various use cases where SharePoint acts as a boon for the government's document management needs.

SharePoint for Document Management

Why SharePoint?

SharePoint offers a versatile platform that simplifies document management, fostering an organized, secure, and collaborative environment. Its core features include:

Document Libraries: Organize documents logically and accessibly.
Version Control: Track and manage changes with version history.
Security Protocols: Secure sensitive information with robust security features.
Collaboration Tools: Allow real-time collaboration on documents.
Search Functionality: Quickly locate and access necessary documents.
Workflow Automation: Streamline document-related processes through automation.

Government Use Cases

Legal Document Management

Governments deal with a multitude of legal documents that require meticulous management. SharePoint facilitates easy storage, retrieval, and tracking of legal contracts, legislation, and regulatory compliance documents, ensuring they are readily available for reference and review. Public Policy Documentation

Drafting, reviewing, and publishing public policies involve multiple stakeholders and extensive documentation. SharePoint supports the collaborative creation and management of policy documents, providing a platform for transparent and efficient policy development and dissemination. Human Resources Management

Government agencies have large workforces, necessitating a comprehensive HR document system. SharePoint enables secure storage and management of employee records, recruitment documentation, and payroll information, ensuring confidentiality and compliance with relevant laws and regulations. Public Records Archive

Maintaining a publicly accessible archive of government records and historical documents is a legal requirement for many agencies. SharePoint provides a structured and searchable archive, making accessing and retrieving necessary records easier for citizens and researchers. Project Management Documentation

Governments often oversee large projects that require detailed planning and documentation. With SharePoint, agencies can efficiently manage project-related documents, fostering collaboration among team members and meeting project timelines and goals. Emergency Response Planning

Documents related to emergency response and disaster recovery planning are vital for public safety. SharePoint ensures these documents are updated, accessible, and easily distributable to relevant parties during crises.

ULTIMATEFORMS: Supercharging SharePoint

Infowise Solutions Ltd.'s ULTIMATEFORMS seamlessly integrates with SharePoint, significantly enhancing its capabilities:

Ease of Use: ULTIMATEFORMS offers a user-friendly interface, allowing government employees without technical backgrounds to design, create, and automate applications effortlessly.
Automation and Efficiency: With advanced automation features, ULTIMATEFORMS helps government agencies reduce manual tasks, streamline workflows, and increase overall operational efficiency.
Scalability: As governmental needs evolve, ULTIMATEFORMS scales to meet growing demands, providing a flexible solution that supports various applications and services.

Infowise: Your GSA-Accredited IT-70 Contractor

Infowise Solutions Ltd. is proud to be a fully GSA-accredited IT-70 contractor. This prestigious accreditation simplifies the acquisition process for US Federal, State, and Metropolitan agencies, ensuring a smooth, reliable experience when purchasing and implementing our products.

Dedicated GSA Client Officer at Infowise

We understand the importance of dedicated support. At Infowise, we have an officer wholly committed to servicing GSA clients. This ensures that government agencies receive the attention and specialized service they require, facilitating seamless communication and effective product implementation. Contact avip@infowisesolutions.com for all your GSA inqueries.

Conclusion

SharePoint stands out as an unparalleled platform offering efficiency, security, and customization for government agencies. With the added power of ULTIMATEFORMS by Infowise Solutions Ltd., government bodies can further unlock SharePoint’s potential, meeting and exceeding citizen expectations for quick and efficient service delivery.

Infowise, as a GSA-accredited IT-70 contractor with a dedicated officer for GSA clients, is fully equipped and committed to supporting government agencies in their digital transformation journey.

For more information on how SharePoint and ULTIMATEFORMS can revolutionize your government agency's operations, don't hesitate to reach out to us at Infowise Solutions Ltd. Explore the possibilities and embark on a journey of efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and superior service delivery with us today!

Complimentary SharePoint Document Management System Plus Hands-On 24/7 accessible Training

2023-10-06T16:35:07Z

Imagine becoming an invaluable asset to your team - the go-to person who can consistently transform challenges into efficient solutions. This isn’t just a possibility; it can be your reality with Infowise Webinars! Our 24/7 learning channels are designed to ensure you are equipped with the knowledge and tools needed to excel.
As we enter October, a golden opportunity unfolds for those aiming to leverage Document Management System (DMS) solutions within SharePoint. Engage with our exclusive learning materials, and you’ll receive continuous learning opportunities and access to a free, ready-to-implement DMS solution immediately after each session. Delve into a month rich with invaluable insights and effective DMS practices that will undoubtedly refine the way you manage document libraries, making them more organized, accessible, and manageable than ever before.

October’s Learning Spotlight: DMS Solutions

Implementing intelligent DMS solutions becomes crucial as businesses continuously deal with expansive document libraries. This October, our channel delves deeply into providing you with the knowledge and tools to sort, categorize, tag, and navigate through your documents efficiently.

Why Engage This October?

Focused DMS Insights: The month is jam-packed with sessions exclusively covering DMS solutions, offering a focused learning experience.
Free Access to Premium Content: Our archived webinars, including the noteworthy “ULTIMATEFORMS for Advanced Document Management,” are accessible without any charges.
Start Immediately with Templates: Instantly apply learned strategies with our ready-to-use DMS templates designed for immediate deployment.

Unveil DMS Mastery with Our Channel:

24/7 Learning Opportunity: With unrestricted access, learn DMS intricacies at your own pace and convenience.
Expert-Led Sessions: Our sessions are orchestrated by industry experts, shedding light on DMS best practices and effective applications within SharePoint.
Interactive Learning Experience: Visual aids, color-coding strategies, and interactive dashboards are integrated to provide an engaging and effective learning journey.
Here are some sampling of your learning opporunities: Next Level SharePoint Document Management
Advanced SharePoint Document Mangemnt System

Empower Your Business:

Harness the power of efficient document management this October. With our learning channel, you acquire skills in SharePoint and gain proficiency in implementing robust DMS solutions, which is crucial for streamlined, effective business processes. SharePoint stands as a powerful platform, excelling in crafting efficient Document Management Systems (DMS) for various sectors requiring stringent regulatory documentation like finance, healthcare, education, and the legal field. Its robust features and intuitive interface facilitate easy navigation and document management, making it a prized asset for sectors handling substantial regulatory documentation.

GSA Schedule 70 Approved:

Infowise, with its steadfast commitment to security and reliability, is honored to be GSA Schedule 70 approved. This accolade is a testament to our dedication to delivering products and services that adhere to the compliance and security standards required by federal agencies. For all your public sector inqueries conctact Avi Pagi at avip@infowisesolutions.com

Stay Tuned for Our October Series!

This October, we have embarked on a journey to spotlight the brilliance of SharePoint in establishing efficient and compliant DMS across various sectors. Our series of articles will provide you with practical insights, tips, and a deeper understanding of how SharePoint can be a pivotal tool for your DMS needs. Stay with us throughout October to unlock the potential of SharePoint for DMS! October is the month of mastering DMS solutions on our learning channel. Equip yourself with the skills and tools necessary for superior document management within SharePoint, and witness a transformation in how your business handles documents. Join us this month, and let learning be your catalyst for efficiency and excellence.

Utilizing SharePoint for Document Management System in Finance, Healthcare, Education, and Legal Sectors

2023-10-05T15:50:35Z

In an era dominated by data, proficient document management is crucial. SharePoint emerges as a premier platform for managing documents effectively and efficiently, catering mainly to sectors that deal intensively with regulatory documentation.

Why SharePoint for Document Management?

User-Friendly Interface: Accessible to users of all levels, SharePoint's interface is intuitive and user-friendly.
Seamless Integration: With natural integration into the Microsoft ecosystem, SharePoint ensures smooth workflow transitions between Microsoft applications.
Advanced Search Feature: Quickly locate the necessary documents with SharePoint's advanced search functionality.
Collaboration Enhancement: SharePoint enables simultaneous document editing by multiple team members to promote real-time collaboration.
Top-Tier Security: Offering granular permission settings, SharePoint ensures sensitive documents remain confidential and accessible only to authorized individuals.

Diving Deep: SharePoint for Regulatory Document Management

Financial Sector:

SharePoint is indispensable for managing a myriad of financial documents such as contracts, invoices, compliance reports, and policy documentation, providing secure and organized access for authorized personnel.

Healthcare:

For healthcare institutions, SharePoint is a trusted ally for managing patient records, billing information, insurance documents, and compliance paperwork while adhering to strict privacy laws like HIPAA.

Education:

Educational institutions leverage SharePoint to organize student records, staff documentation, curriculum planning, compliance reporting, and more, ensuring a structured and secure document management framework.

Legal Firms:

Legal practices rely on SharePoint for efficiently managing case files, client contracts, internal policy documents, and compliance certificates, ensuring quick retrieval and secure storage.

Research & Development Organizations:

SharePoint is pivotal for these organizations to manage extensive datasets, research findings, compliance documentation, grant applications, and collaborative project documentation.

Elevating Efficiency with ULTIMATEFORMS

SharePoint is undoubtedly a potent platform, but when paired with ULTIMATEFORMS, its capabilities skyrocket. ULTIMATEFORMS, designed by Infowise, is a significant booster to SharePoint's already robust features, simplifying the creation of dynamic and responsive Document Management Systems (DMS). Enhanced features and an intuitive interface allow easy navigation, search, and management of documents, making it an invaluable asset for sectors dealing extensively with regulatory documentation.

_______________________________________

Infowse has been servicing various public sector agencies for more than ten years, as a vetted and approved GSA (General Services Administration) vendor only helps us to further focus our products and services for our government clients.
- Avi Pagi

Business Development, Public Sector

avip@Infowisesolutions.com

____________________________________________

Infowise: GSA Schedule 70 Approved

Stay Tuned for More!

Embarking on a journey this October, we'll be unfolding a series of articles dedicated to showcasing the synergy between SharePoint and ULTIMATEFORMS in crafting efficient and compliant DMS. Each piece will illuminate how the integration of ULTIMATEFORMS can further streamline and simplify your experience with SharePoint's Document Management System, providing practical insights and tips for various sectors. Don't miss out on unlocking the full potential of your DMS with SharePoint and ULTIMATEFORMS!

Ten Reasons to Start Using External Forms

2023-09-28T15:35:09Z

We all love using Ultimate Forms form designer to quickly and easily set up great looking dynamic forms in SharePoint. But many organizations have yet to take advantage of the ability to build forms that appear outside of SharePoint for any person with no login required. If you haven't yet used this awesome feature, you should take a closer look! Here are ten reasons that you should start using external forms forms in your organization.

1. Easy to set up

The first thing to know is that setup is super simple. In Form Designer, on the command bar click "External Form", then turn on Allow access for anonymous external users. Turn on Allow Hosted Forms and a URL will be shown. Post that link to your site or email. No login required!

2. Automatic spam blocking with CAPTCHA integration

Forms on public sites can attract "bot" submissions which is aggravating. Ultimate Forms is integrated with Google CAPTCHA services which ensures that only humans are submitting your form.

3. Forms can easily embed in your public website

Embedding forms in your public site is also easy. Copy and paste a small code snippet to your page and the form will appear directly in your site.

4. Form data is encrypted keeping user information safe and secure

When users submit data, it goes directely from the form to your SharePoint site. User data is kept safe and secure at all times.

5. Easily match the branding of your public site

Setting up the colors and images in your form to match your public site is easy. No programming required.

6. Simple drag and drop file attachments

In many cases, you might want to collect files with the form. You can simply show the attachments field on the form. Users simply drag and drop files to the box. No additional setup is required.

7. Automatic confirmation screen and email

Embedded forms can use a redirect URL to send users to a special page confirming their submission. You should also send an email to confirm receipt of the information. You can do this easily by including an email field on the form. Configure your email alert the same as any other email notifications that are created in SharePoint using Ultimate Forms email alert rules.

8. Forms can be used for general submissions (new form) or specific updates (edit form) such as approvals

In most cases, forms are used to collect new submissions from the public. This works great for job applications, customer support forms, surveys and general requests. It is possible to also request approvals using the edit form. In this case, an email notification can be sent to a person which includes a link to a specific form record. For example you may want to request an approval authorization or confirm scheduling. This functionality is automatic and easy to use.

9. Forms can be Multi Language

In our recent webinar on multi language forms we demonstrated how you can add translations to your form to accomodate users with different languages. You can configure a public form to appear in a different language using a simple to understand URL attribute. For example, you could create an English language form and include a link at the top to allow users to instead choose spanish. Simply link to the same form URL with this suffix: &lang=es. Once you have added the Spanish translations to the form, everything will work automatically.

10. External form use is generally unrestricted

Whether you need one form or ten, you can use this functionality as much as you need. Your Ultimate Forms licenses are tied to SharePoint users only. Once you have set up a few public forms, it is very easy to repeat the process for any additional public forms that you need. Just rinse and repeat. Be sure to read our detailed instructions for more information on functionality If you need any assistance with first time set up or have any general questions related to external forms, post your comments below!

Set SharePoint List Links to Always Open in SharePoint

2023-09-26T17:17:10Z

Microsoft rolled out changes to SharePoint Lists in October 2023 which change how links to lists work inside SharePoint. There are several updates most of which are described here: Microsoft Lists UX Changes 2023 One key change is that by default list links will open in the Microsoft Lists App instead of SharePoint. The header bar and site navigation will be hidden as shown: This behavior can be changed by overriding this setting using SharePoint Online Management Shell scripting. Before you begin, make sure that you have the newest version of SharePoint Online Management Shell which can be obtained here: Get newest version of SharePoint Online Management Shell First authenticate in the tool using this command. (Change MYDOMAIN to your own SharePoint domain.)

Connect-SPOService -Url https://MYDOMAIN-admin.sharepoint.com

For each site collection, this command should be run. (Replace the URL with your own site URL.)

Set-SPOSite -Identity https://contoso.sharepoint.com/sites/site1 -ListsShowHeaderAndNavigation 1

Here are some more details in case you are new to using scripting to update settings. Getting Started with SharePoint Online Management Shell

Optimizing SharePoint Resource Management: Insights from September and the Power of ULTIMATEFORMS

2023-09-25T20:46:51Z

September has always been a month of reflection and projection. As the gateway to the year's final quarter, it's the ideal time to assess where we've been and plan where we're heading. In the world of SharePoint and digital resource management, Infowise has been diligently crafting solutions, offering insights, and, as always, keeping our community informed and empowered. This month was no different. Let's take a look back.

Your September SharePoint Solution Recap

Dive into last month's insights, breakthroughs, and top solutions:

1- Project Management
2- Facility Booking
3- Company Vehicle Booking
4- Inventory Check List
5- Resource Management Solution
6- Explore more solutions

Diving into September's SharePoint Insights:

This September, Infowise's blogs ventured deep into the expansive realm of SharePoint, demystifying its capabilities and presenting tools to supercharge your operations. Here's a quick recap:

1. The Unparalleled Benefits of Using SharePoint for Resource Management:

SharePoint, at its core, has been designed to manage resources seamlessly. Whether you're looking to streamline internal processes, centralize documents, or foster team collaboration, SharePoint stands out as a business cornerstone. Some standout insights from our discussions include:

Centralized Access: One of SharePoint's core strengths is its ability to centralize resources. This ensures quick access, fosters collaboration, and reduces the redundancy of tasks.
Scalability: Whether you're a startup or a multinational corporation, SharePoint scales with your needs, ensuring you're never left wanting for more.
Customizable Workflows: Tailored workflows not only reduce manual labor but also reduce errors, ensuring seamless operations.

2. The Essential Need for Third-party Software in SharePoint:

While SharePoint is powerful, third-party solutions can take it from great to unparalleled. Our blogs dissected why adding third-party software is more than just an add-on; it's a necessity.

Feature Enhancement: While SharePoint offers various features, third-party solutions can introduce functionalities that cater to specific business needs.
Integration Capabilities: Merge SharePoint with your existing tools and software, ensuring you don't have to jump between platforms.
Reduced Development Time: Instead of building features from scratch, third-party tools can provide ready-made solutions that can be quickly deployed.

3. ULTIMATEFORMS: Supercharging Your Development Process:

If there's a tool that has stood out this September, it's ULTIMATEFORMS. We delved deep into understanding how it acts as a catalyst in the SharePoint development process.

Rapid Deployment: With ULTIMATEFORMS, what traditionally took weeks can now be achieved in days. It's all about efficiency and getting your solutions live faster.
No-code Solutions: Say goodbye to extensive coding. ULTIMATEFORMS offers intuitive, drag-and-drop solutions, making it user-friendly even for those without a technical background.
Seamless Integration: ULTIMATEFORMS isn't just another tool; it integrates seamlessly with SharePoint, ensuring a unified and cohesive experience.

Resources for Every Organization

Every organization's core requirement is efficient resource management. This goes beyond just tools; it's about creating a holistic ecosystem that fuels growth, productivity, and innovation. Infowise has always been a champion of this philosophy.

Free Solutions: Digital tools shouldn't break the bank. Our extensive library of free SharePoint solutions ranges from project management tools and HR solutions to advanced data-driven analytics. Each solution is crafted considering the diverse needs of businesses, nonprofits, and government entities. Whether you're a local store or a global conglomerate, there's a solution tailored just for you. Dive in and discover the treasure trove of tools waiting to be deployed. Link to Free Solutions
Past Webinars: Continuous learning is the key to digital mastery. Infowise's webinars are more than just sessions; they are immersive learning experiences. Missed any? Don't fret. Our archive spans topics from basic SharePoint onboarding to advanced solutions for niche industries. Whether you're just starting out or looking for that specific advanced tweak, our webinars have got you covered; here is your free 24/7 access to this great learning resource, Webinars Archive.

Thirty-day Free Trial

The best part? It's now available for a thirty-day free trial. It's more than a trial; it's a transformative experience. Dive in and witness the ULTIMATE transformation of your SharePoint experience.

Conclusion

While September has come to an end, the journey of innovation and empowerment continues. Infowise remains committed to being your trusted partner in this journey. We understand the complexities of modern digital ecosystems and the importance of having the right tools and insights. Our September offerings are a testament to this commitment.

As we head into the final stretch of 2023, we invite you to leverage our curated resources. Dive into our blogs, explore our solutions, and amplify your capabilities with ULTIMATEFORMS. Remember, in the digital age, it's not just about having resources; it's about optimizing them. And with Infowise by your side, you're always equipped for optimization.

Till the next recap, here's to unlocking the full potential of SharePoint and beyond!

Effective SharePoint and ULTIMATEFORMS Asset Tracking Application: A Practical Video Guide

2023-09-13T18:56:03Z

It’s essential to highlight that our video training library houses a series of invaluable webinars on this subject. Although some are not recent, these webinars continue to be a goldmine of practical knowledge and insights for both newcomers and seasoned professionals in the field of asset management. Each session is designed to meticulously guide you through the process of utilizing SharePoint and ULTIMATEFORMS to create an asset-tracking application tailored to your unique needs and objectives.

1. Access the Video Training Library

Navigate to our resources section and locate the webinar on creating an asset tracking system with SharePoint and ULTIMATEFORMS. While from a past live session, this video remains a gold mine of step-by-step instructions.

2. Familiarize Yourself with Core Components

The webinar elaborates on the pivotal functionalities required for a comprehensive asset tracking system, such as:

Critical data points: Asset Name, ID, Category, Location, and more.
Effortless image uploads for assets.
QR Code functionality for mobile-friendly tagging and scanning.
Automated email notifications post alterations.
Powerful search features.
Filtered views are categorized by diverse criteria.

3. Download an Assets Management Solution Template(s)

Adjacent to the video training, you'll find a downloadable template. This basic asset management solution is designed to give you a head start. Rather than building from scratch, this template serves as a foundation, allowing for customization per your unique requirements. If you need to see more templates? Our growing library of webinars is your guide. Perfect for all levels and industries, these videos help you save money while efficiently tracking assets.
We offer a starting template next to each video. It's a basic tool, ready for you to customize with your know-how for any business or industry need. No need to start from scratch - dive in, learn, and build your unique system with our helpful resources!

4. Implement & Customize

With the downloaded template and insights from the webinar, start by implementing the basic solution. Gradually modify and customize the application. ULTIMATEFORMS' flexibility ensures you can tweak features to align with your business's specific needs.

5. Mobile Integration

One standout feature is the system's mobile responsiveness. Ensure you test the application on mobile devices, making the most of the QR Code functionality for on-the-go asset tagging and updates.

6. Feedback and Iteration

After initial setup, gather feedback from potential users. Their insights can guide further refinements, ensuring the system is both user-friendly and efficient.

7. Stay Updated and engaged

While our past webinar provides a strong foundation, the tech landscape always evolves. Stay engaged with our platform for updates, new training, and advanced templates to ensure your asset tracking system remains cutting-edge. In conclusion, our webinar-turned-video training is a cornerstone for any business looking to harness SharePoint and ULTIMATEFORMS for effective asset management. Coupled with our basic asset management solution template, you have all the tools at your disposal to initiate, implement, and optimize your tracking system.

Using SharePoint to Track Business Assets: An Essential Guide

2023-09-13T14:36:44Z

In an era where digital transformation is paramount, businesses seek robust tools to manage data and streamline operations. SharePoint, a product of Microsoft, has become a frontrunner in this domain. While it is often recognized as a collaborative platform, few realize its potential in tracking business assets. In this article, we delve into the benefits and the steps to use SharePoint for asset management.

1. Why Use SharePoint for Asset Tracking?

a. Integration with Office Suite: SharePoint seamlessly integrates with Microsoft Office applications, simplifying data retrieval and update tasks. b. Customization: With SharePoint, businesses can design asset management solutions tailored to their specific needs, thanks to its customizable lists and libraries. c. Centralized Storage: SharePoint's robust document management system ensures centralized storage, thus making asset tracking more efficient. d. Enhanced Security: SharePoint offers granular permission levels, ensuring only authorized personnel access asset data.

2. Steps to Track Assets Using SharePoint

a. Define Asset Categories: Identify various asset categories like IT equipment, furniture, vehicles, etc. This categorization will help streamline the asset-tracking process. b. Set Up a Custom List: Navigate to your SharePoint site and create a new list. Name it 'Business Assets' or something relevant. c. Customize Columns: In your 'Business Assets' list, you can create columns for various asset details like 'Asset ID,' 'Purchase Date,' 'Warranty End Date,' 'Assigned To,' and 'Status.' SharePoint allows a single line of text, choice, date, and lookup columns to be used as needed. d. Add Assets: Once the list structure is set up, add assets. You can add them manually or use an Excel sheet to import data if you have many assets. e. Implement Workflow: Use SharePoint workflows to automate tasks. For instance, the workflow can automatically notify the concerned team if an asset is nearing its warranty expiration. f. Use Version Control: Enable versioning for your assets list. This feature ensures that changes to an asset's data are tracked, creating an audit trail. g. Assign Permissions: As mentioned earlier, SharePoint provides granular control over who can view or modify the asset data. Ensure only relevant personnel have access to the asset list. h. Generate Reports: You can utilize SharePoint's built-in tools or integrate with tools like Power BI to generate visual reports on asset status, location, usage, etc.

3. Enhancing Asset Tracking with SharePoint Add-ons

Several third-party tools and add-ons are specifically designed to augment SharePoint's capabilities. These tools can offer advanced features like barcode scanning, geo-tagging, and predictive maintenance alerts, further enhancing the asset management process.

4. Final Thoughts

Using SharePoint for asset tracking offers a reliable and comprehensive solution for businesses. With its integration capabilities, security features, and customization options, it stands out as a potent tool for asset management. Businesses can harness its power to keep track of assets, improve operational efficiency, and reduce costs.

5. Leveraging Third-party Applications: Spotlight on Infowise ULTIMATEFORMS

In the quest for enhanced asset management, businesses often look for third-party tools that complement SharePoint's native capabilities. Infowise ULTIMATEFORMS stands out in this domain. This powerful tool is designed to simplify complex processes within SharePoint without coding. When tracking assets, ULTIMATEFORMS can expedite the system creation process. Its intuitive drag-and-drop interface allows businesses to quickly design intricate asset management solutions with notifications, color-coded statuses, and conditional actions based on asset attributes. Furthermore, with Infowise, businesses can employ logic-driven forms that adjust based on user inputs, ensuring a dynamic and responsive asset-tracking system. Thus, integrating ULTIMATEFORMS with SharePoint shortens the setup phase and provides a more robust and organic asset-tracking environment tailored to the specific needs of a business.

Leveraging SharePoint and ULTIMATEFORMS for Efficient Vehicle Management System

2023-09-05T15:39:16Z

In the ever-evolving digital landscape, organizations worldwide strive for tools and systems that enable them to function efficiently, reduce costs, and drive value. As the need for resource management, especially vehicle booking becomes imperative for many enterprises, the combination of SharePoint with our own ULTIMATEFORMS emerges as a game-changer.

Maximize Efficiency: Our Vehicle Booking Management on SharePoint & ULTIMATEFORMS

Here's a comprehensive look at the unparalleled benefits of using our vehicle booking management system, built on the powerful duo of SharePoint and ULTIMATEFORMS:

Seamless Integration with Existing Systems:

Given SharePoint's robust nature, our Solution seamlessly integrates with your existing infrastructure. When combined with ULTIMATEFORMS, it brings about customizations that fit into any business model effortlessly, eliminating the need for separate systems or redundant software.

Efficiency Boosted by Intuitive Design:

ULTIMATEFORMS enhances SharePoint's capabilities, making creating user-friendly, intuitive interfaces possible. This ensures that even employees with minimal technical knowledge can easily navigate, book, and manage vehicles.

Advanced Customization with Minimal Code:

The beauty of ULTIMATEFORMS lies in its ability to let administrators and managers create custom solutions without the need for extensive coding. This flexibility means your vehicle booking system can evolve with your business requirements without costly developer interventions.

Automated Workflows for Smooth Operations:

Say goodbye to manual processes! Our Solution employs ULTIMATEFORMS to set up automated workflows. Whether it's sending out notifications for booking confirmations, maintenance reminders, or generating monthly usage reports, automation ensures timely and accurate operations.

Real-Time Collaboration and Accessibility:

As our Solution is cloud-based on SharePoint, it enables real-time collaboration. Teams from different locations can simultaneously access, update, and manage bookings, ensuring everyone is on the same page.

Enhanced Data Security:

Leveraging SharePoint's robust security protocols, your data remains protected. With ULTIMATEFORMS, you can also set up specific permissions, ensuring that sensitive information is accessible only to authorized personnel.

Scalable Solution for Growing Enterprises:

The combination of SharePoint and ULTIMATEFORMS offers scalability. As your organization grows, our vehicle booking system can expand to accommodate more vehicles, more users, and more complex requirements without performance hitches.

Reduced Operational Costs:

Implementing our Solution translates to significant savings. The automation and accurate data handling mean fewer errors, reduced manpower, and minimal operational disruptions, leading to cost efficiency.

Insightful Reporting for Better Decision Making:

With the advanced capabilities of ULTIMATEFORMS, generate detailed and insightful reports. This data-driven approach helps understand vehicle utilization patterns, forecast needs, and make informed business decisions.

Explore More with Our Resources

To further enhance your experience and provide a holistic understanding of what our vehicle booking management system offers, we invite you to delve into the extensive resources available on our website:

Solutions: Want an in-depth view of our range of solutions tailored for diverse organizational needs? Go ahead and download the Solution: It is Free!
Webinars: Our webinars are designed to provide hands-on experience, insights, and tips from experts in the field. These interactive sessions are perfect for those looking to maximize the benefits of SharePoint and ULTIMATEFORMS. Stay tuned for our upcoming sessions and get access to previous ones for a wealth of knowledge.
Documentations: Our Documentation section is a treasure trove for those who crave detailed technical knowledge or need assistance with any aspect of our solutions. From setup guides to troubleshooting tips, we've got you covered. Here is the Documentation for the Vehicle Booking System

Conclusion:

In the realm of vehicle booking management, the collaboration of SharePoint and ULTIMATEFORMS offers unparalleled advantages. Our Solution, built on this powerful combination, not only streamlines operations but also positions organizations for future growth and challenges. With the added resources from our website, we ensure you have all the tools at your disposal. Embrace the future of efficient vehicle management with us!

Efficiently Managing Business Assets: A Guide to Making the Right Choice

2023-08-28T15:29:21Z

"We are on the cusp of surpassing 100 employees and are looking for a way to utilize SharePoint to create a means for our engineers to reserve vehicles, cell phones, satellite phones, laptops, iPads, and more for their field visits. We need a reservation-type system with more functionality than just using a calendar in SharePoint or Outlook. Thank you!" - W.N., Project Admin

The above message we received sometime this summer from W.N., a project admin at that particular business. This was a typical request we receive on a regular basis from enterprise level, government (GSA), and small businesses. This plea underscores a common challenge faced by many organizations today: the need for a sophisticated reservation system that extends beyond basic calendar tools. As technology and assets become integral to operations, the demand for an advanced, integrated solution grows exponentially.

Wendy's sentiment is one shared by many businesses today. A simple calendar system no longer suffices in a world driven by technological assets and logistical needs. Ensuring efficient asset management, especially as a company grows, is both challenging and necessary.

The Need for an Advanced Reservation System

A basic calendar in SharePoint or Outlook might suffice for a team of ten, but when your organization nears or surpasses the hundred mark, the need for something more comprehensive becomes apparent. Here's why:

Diverse Assets: Today's businesses employ a myriad of devices—vehicles, cell phones, satellite phones, laptops, iPads, and more. Each of these assets has its unique reservation parameters.
Overlap & Conflicts: With the increase in the number of reservations, potential conflicts rise. An effective system will prevent double bookings.
Maintenance Scheduling: Devices need routine maintenance. An ideal reservation system should be able to schedule and track these intervals.
Ease of Use: For engineers and other staff, the system should be intuitive. It shouldn’t be a chore to reserve an asset.

How to Choose the Right System

When searching for the perfect system, keep in mind:

Scalability: Can the system accommodate growth? As assets and employees increase, it should scale without hiccups.
Customizability: Your business is unique, and so are its needs. Your reservation system should be flexible to cater to specific requirements.
Integration: The system should integrate seamlessly with other tools, like SharePoint, which you might already be using.
Support & Training: How accessible is help? Additionally, does the provider offer training for smooth onboarding?

Why ULTIMATEFORMS for SharePoint Might Be Your Best Bet

Enter ULTIMATEFORMS—a comprehensive solution designed specifically for SharePoint. Here’s its edge:

Deep Integration with SharePoint: If you're already a SharePoint user, ULIMATEFORMS will feel like a natural extension, amping up its functionality without burdening users with a new learning curve.
Customizable: Tailor ULTIMATEFORMS to your specific needs, ensuring the system works in tandem with your requirements.
Scalable: Designed with growth in mind, ULTIMATEFORMS can evolve alongside your business.
Stellar Support: Their team is there when you need them, making troubleshooting a breeze.
Training Options: To ensure optimal utilization, ULTIMATEFORMS offers training from the get-go.

Resources to Help you Build your own Assets Management System

Prebuilt Solutions: Infowise provides many prebuilt solutions suitable for various organizational needs. These ready-to-deploy applications streamline the implementation process, allowing businesses to leverage technology for asset management quickly. Additionally, these solutions can be customized further according to specific requirements.

Webinars: To maximize the value delivered to their users, Infowise conducts a series of webinars. These webinars cover various topics, from basic product introductions to deep dives into complex features. They aim to offer straightforward instruction, guidance, and up-to-date insights, catering to beginners and seasoned users.

Documentation: Infowise offers comprehensive documentation to ensure users always have the guidance they need. Whether trying to troubleshoot an issue, delve into advanced functionalities, or simply understand an essential feature, the detailed guides by Infowise act as a reliable resource for users across all skill levels.

Conclusion

In a competitive business environment, the right tools can set you apart. Efficient asset management is no longer optional—it's crucial. While there are numerous systems on offer, ULTIMATEFORMS for SharePoint stands out, promising robustness, scalability, and customizability, all packaged neatly for businesses ready to ascend to the next level.

Getting Started: Building Your Asset Management System on SharePoint and ULTIMATEFORMS

2023-08-28T14:26:37Z

Effective asset management has become a linchpin for achieving operational excellence in today's dynamic business landscape. The synergy between SharePoint and ULTIMATEFORMS, a powerful SharePoint-based solution, provides a robust foundation for creating an efficient and streamlined asset management system. In this guide, we'll walk you through the initial steps of building an asset management system that combines the capabilities of SharePoint and ULTIMATEFORMS.

Understanding the Power of SharePoint and ULTIMATEFORMS

Before diving into the building process, it's essential to grasp the strengths of both SharePoint and ULTIMATEFORMS. SharePoint, Microsoft's versatile platform, offers a wide array of tools for collaboration, document management, and workflow automation. On the other hand, ULTIMATEFORMS adds an extra layer of functionality by enabling you to design customized forms, automate processes, and enhance data collection within your SharePoint environment.

Define Your Asset Management Goals

Begin by clearly defining your asset management goals. What assets do you need to manage? What are your objectives for tracking and utilizing these assets? Understanding your goals will help shape the structure and features of your asset management system.

Assess Your Current Asset Management Processes

Take stock of your current asset management processes. Identify pain points, inefficiencies, and areas that need improvement. This assessment will serve as the foundation for designing a more streamlined and effective system. Plan Your System Architecture

Determine the architecture of your asset management system. Consider factors like the hierarchy of assets, user roles and permissions, and integration points with other systems. Planning your system architecture will help ensure a well-organized and coherent system. Utilize ULTIMATEFORMS for Customized Forms

ULTIMATEFORMS comes into play when you need customized forms to capture asset-related data. Design forms that align with your asset management goals, incorporating fields for asset details, ownership, maintenance history, and more. Implement Automated Workflows

Leverage SharePoint's workflow capabilities, combined with ULTIMATEFORMS, to create automated workflows for asset management. Design workflows that trigger notifications for maintenance schedules, approvals for asset requests, and alerts for critical events. Integrate Metadata and Tags

Utilize SharePoint's metadata capabilities to categorize and tag your assets efficiently. This enhances searchability and facilitates organized asset grouping. Ensure User Adoption through Training

User adoption is key to the success of any system. Provide training sessions to familiarize users with the asset management system's features, showing them how to navigate the system, submit requests, and access asset information. Monitor, Iterate, and Improve

After the initial implementation, continuously monitor the system's performance and gather feedback from users. Use this feedback to make iterative improvements and enhancements to the asset management system. Measure Success and ROI

Define key performance indicators (KPIs) that align with your asset management goals. Measure the success of your system by analyzing factors such as improved efficiency, reduced downtime, and optimized asset utilization.

Start Building Your Efficient Asset Management System

Ready to embark on the journey of building your asset management system on SharePoint and ULTIMATEFORMS?
Access our comprehensive guide at to kick-start your efforts and create an asset management system that empowers your organization's success.

In conclusion, the collaborative capabilities of SharePoint and the customized functionality of ULTIMATEFORMS make for a powerful combination in creating an asset management system. Following these steps'll lay a strong foundation for a system that efficiently tracks, manages, and optimizes your valuable assets.

FAQs About Building Asset Management Systems on SharePoint and ULTIMATEFORMS

1.What advantages does ULTIMATEFORMS bring to building asset management systems? ULTIMATEFORMS enhances SharePoint with customized forms, automated workflows, and advanced data collection, making it an ideal tool for creating effective asset management systems. Learn more at InfowiseSolutions.com/Assets_Management_System

2. Can I integrate ULTIMATEFORMS with my existing SharePoint environment?
Absolutely! ULTIMATEFORMS can be effortlessly integrated into your SharePoint setup, enhancing its functionalities and expediting your application development and asset management tasks. For more information on integration, visit InfowiseSolutions.com/documentation

3. How do automated workflows benefit asset management processes?

Automated workflows streamline tasks such as maintenance scheduling, approval processes, and event notifications, improving efficiency and reducing manual intervention.
Automation of workflow is best explored here and through many other resources, we have on our website. Use the search on our site to find what you need.

4. What is the significance of metadata and tags in asset management?
Metadata and tags enable efficient categorization and organization of assets, simplifying search and retrieval processes. Learn more about metadata utilization.

5. How can I ensure a successful asset management system implementation?
User training, continuous monitoring, iterative improvements, and measuring key performance indicators are essential for a successful asset management system implementation.
Gain implementation insights at InfowiseSolutions.com/tutorials

Top 10 Features Every SharePoint Asset Management System Should Have

2023-08-28T13:53:47Z

Effective asset management is more critical than ever in today's fast-paced business landscape. This is where SharePoint, a versatile platform developed by Microsoft, steps in with its comprehensive solutions for managing assets efficiently. Whether you're dealing with physical equipment, digital resources, or intellectual property, a well-structured SharePoint Asset Management System can significantly streamline processes and boost overall productivity. This article will explore the top 10 essential features that any successful SharePoint Asset Management System should incorporate. Before we conclude this article, we will share with you how third-party applications, such as our own ULTIMATEFORMS, can help you to create an application quickly without a line of coding.

Centralized Repository for Streamlined Access
A robust asset management system on SharePoint should offer a centralized repository where all your assets can be securely stored, meticulously organized, and easily accessed by authorized users. Leveraging a clear folder structure, intelligent metadata tagging, and robust version control, this feature ensures that your digital assets remain organized and accessible without any hassle.

Flexible and Customizable Metadata Fields

A tailor-made asset management system allows you to create and customize metadata fields to align with your organization's specific requirements perfectly. This enables efficient sorting, quick searching, and seamless filtering of assets, resulting in a more refined asset management experience.
Granular User Permissions and Access Control

Ensuring the security of your assets is paramount. A well-designed system should empower administrators to assign distinct access levels to users based on their roles within the organization. This feature prevents unauthorized access and safeguards sensitive information from falling into the wrong hands.
Seamless Integration with Microsoft Office Suite

Smooth integration with the Microsoft Office Suite is a critical feature that enhances collaboration and productivity. This functionality facilitates real-time editing, sharing, and joint work on assets, ensuring your team can efficiently update documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. Comprehensive Version History and Tracking

Efficient asset management demands a comprehensive version history feature. With this capability, users can keep track of changes made to assets over time, revert to previous versions if needed, and gain insights into who made specific alterations. Automation of Workflows for Enhanced Efficiency

SharePoint's strength lies in its ability to automate workflows, and your asset management system should take full advantage of this feature. Automated workflows can be set up to trigger notifications, approvals, and various other actions, streamlining processes and minimizing manual intervention. Mobile Compatibility for On-the-Go Management

In an era dominated by mobile devices, having a mobile-compatible asset management system is no longer optional. Your users should be able to access and manage assets seamlessly from their smartphones and tablets, ensuring productivity doesn't stop when they're on the move. Robust Reporting and Analytics

Organizations need insights into asset usage, trends, and performance to make informed decisions. A robust reporting and analytics feature provides valuable data, helping stakeholders effectively optimize asset allocation and utilization. Scalability and Uncompromised Performance As your organization expands, your asset management system should scale effortlessly to accommodate the increasing volume of assets. Scalability ensures that system performance remains impeccable even as your asset database grows. User-Friendly Interface for Intuitive Interaction

Last but not least, a user-friendly interface is pivotal for a successful asset management system. An intuitive design and navigation system simplifies finding, adding, and managing assets, reducing the need for extensive training.

Streamline Asset Management with Third-Party Solutions

In addition to the native capabilities of SharePoint, organizations can leverage third-party systems such as InfoWise ULTIMATEFORMS, a SharePoint-based solution designed to expedite the creation of effective asset management systems. By harnessing the power of such solutions, users can quickly develop customized workflows, forms, and processes tailored to their unique asset management needs. This approach saves time and ensures a highly efficient asset management system that aligns perfectly with the organization's objectives.

In conclusion, a well-implemented SharePoint Asset Management System can revolutionize how organizations handle their valuable assets. By integrating these top 10 features into the system and considering third-party solutions, businesses can seamlessly streamline their operations, foster collaboration, and make well-informed decisions regarding asset utilization.

The Ultimate Guide to Choosing the Right SharePoint Asset Management System

2023-08-28T13:30:00Z

Managing assets effectively is paramount to success in today's rapidly evolving business landscape. Whether they are digital assets like documents, images, and videos or physical assets such as office equipment, vehicles, and facilities, having a streamlined asset management system can significantly impact an organization's efficiency and productivity. SharePoint Asset Management Systems emerged as a powerful solution among the numerous options available. In this all-encompassing guide, we will delve deep into the intricacies of selecting the ideal SharePoint Asset Management System that seamlessly accommodates digital and physical assets.

The Versatility of SharePoint Asset Management

Before delving into the selection process, it's crucial to grasp the versatility of SharePoint Asset Management Systems. Developed by Microsoft, SharePoint is renowned for its collaboration, document management, and content-sharing capabilities. When managing diverse digital and physical assets, SharePoint offers a wide array of features that simplify storage, organization, retrieval, and sharing across an organization.

Key Considerations for Choosing the Right System

Scalability and Adaptability

The perfect SharePoint Asset Management System should be scalable and capable of handling the expanding volume of assets as your organization grows. Moreover, it must be adaptable to evolving business needs and technological advancements, ensuring its relevance and effectiveness over the long term. User-Friendly Interface

Usability is paramount. A user-friendly interface enhances adoption across the organization, ensuring that employees can seamlessly upload, categorize, and locate assets. This is especially important when dealing with both digital and physical assets, as it reduces the learning curve for employees. Comprehensive Metadata and Tagging Abilities

Efficient asset categorization is facilitated by robust metadata and tagging functionalities. The system should allow you to attach relevant metadata and tags to assets, making searching, sorting, and filtering content easier. This capability is invaluable when dealing with various types of assets, whether digital documents or physical equipment. Effortless Search and Retrieval Swift content retrieval is a primary objective of an asset management system. An effective SharePoint Asset Management System should offer powerful search capabilities, enabling users to find the assets they require quickly. This includes keyword searches, advanced filters, and possibly AI-powered content recognition, which is equally valuable for digital documents and physical assets. Seamless Integration with Existing Tools Integration with your current workflow tools and software is essential for both digital and physical asset management. A SharePoint Asset Management System that can seamlessly integrate with tools like Microsoft 365, CRM systems, and even maintenance management software for physical assets enhances productivity and streamlines operations. Stringent Security Measures Whether dealing with digital assets or physical equipment, data security is non-negotiable. Your chosen system should provide robust access controls, encryption protocols, and permissions settings. This safeguards sensitive assets and data, mitigating the risk of breaches. Customization Flexibility Each organization has its unique requirements. An adaptable SharePoint Asset Management System should offer customization options that allow tailoring the system to your specific needs. This includes the ability to create custom metadata fields, user interfaces, and workflows, catering to the diverse nature of digital and physical assets. Advanced Analytics and Reporting For both digital and physical assets, analytics and reporting tools are essential. The system should provide insights into asset usage, engagement, performance, maintenance schedules, and more. This data aids informed decision-making, ensuring optimal utilization of assets and resources.

Evaluating Vendor Offerings

As you embark on the journey to select the most suitable SharePoint Asset Management System, it's crucial to evaluate various vendor offerings against the criteria outlined above. Compare features, pricing models, customer support, and integration capabilities, keeping in mind the diverse nature of the assets you're managing.

Streamline Asset Management with Third-Party Solutions

In addition to the native capabilities of SharePoint, organizations can leverage third-party systems such as InfoWise ULTIMATEFORMS, a SharePoint-based solution designed to expedite the creation of effective asset management systems. By harnessing the power of such solutions, users can quickly develop customized workflows, forms, and processes tailored to their unique asset management needs. This approach not only saves time but also ensures a highly efficient asset management system that aligns perfectly with the organization's objectives.

In conclusion, a well-implemented SharePoint Asset Management System can truly revolutionize how organizations handle their valuable assets. By integrating these top 10 features into the system and considering third-party solutions, businesses can seamlessly streamline their operations, foster collaboration, and make well-informed decisions regarding asset utilization.

In Conclusion

Selecting the right SharePoint Asset Management System is an investment in efficiency and organization, whether you're dealing with digital documents or physical assets. By considering scalability, usability, security, and integration capabilities, you'll be well-equipped to make an informed decision that aligns with your organization's unique needs and objectives.

Cross-Site Lookup Column using Data Connection

2023-06-26T19:15:04Z

Lookup fields have always been a popular feature in SharePoint. Especially in cases where there are lots of choices that need to be frequently updated. These work great, but what if you want a lookup list that can be accessed across all your sharepoint sites? In SharePoint Online, there hasn't been a convenient way to have this kind of functionality which often leads to duplication of data. SharePoint does offer Managed Metadata functionality, but this means not being able to tap into SharePoint lists which we may need for workflows or other updates. In many organizations, Managed Metadata functionality isn't used at all so it might be best to not add another area to your environment which needs to be managed. Data Connections functionality solves this challenge allowing you to pull back data from other sites in SharePoint or even from external data sources so that you don't have to duplicate data that is stored somewhere else. Is this article, we'll describe how you can create a cross-site lookup field in which you can have a key SharePoint list called (our example uses Departments) in one site that can be referenced from anywhere in your SharePoint environment across all sites. I suggest you begin by following this practice example and then you can apply these steps anywhere you need in your live lists in SharePoint. One note before you begin, the data connection step (which can be done quickly) must be done by an M365 Global Administrator. If you are not a Global Admin, please request their support. Note that once the data connection is created, the Global Admin will not need to make any further updates. You can update the data in the source list as an regular SharePoint user. Begin by creating a simple list called Departments using the Title field for values as shown below: If your lookup list contains additional fields, be sure to create a view that shows only the ONE COLUMN which you want to appear in your lookup field to be displayed in a dropdown. In our example, the default All Items view contains just the Title field which is exactly what we want. Now go to an entirely different site and add a practice list called Reports once again with no additional fields added. We will add the lookup field in the next steps. Open Form Designer, then select Data Connections » Add new data connection:

Name the Data Connection Departments.
Select SharePoint for Type.
Copy and paste the URL of the source site where the list is located. This usually will include /sites/ in the URL.
Click Connect to authorize the connection. ! Must be done by an M365 Global Admin !

Select your lookup list Departments and the view that has 1 field showing which in our practice example is the default All Items view: In the second Permitted forms tab, select only the View items option as shown below:

In the Access control tab be sure to carefully apply all settings below.
Turn OFF Allow hosted forms. (This isn't for a public form.)
Turn OFF the reCAPTCHA option. (This isn't for a public form.)
ADD your ROOT SharePoint URL to indicate that this data connection is allowed across of of your SharePoint environment.
Click the first Save button, then click the 2nd Save button to save your Data Connection.

Go back to the main Ultimate Forms Settings page and select External data lookup in the Columns section:

Add a new field named Department using Source type Data connection.
Select the Data connection which we just created in the previous step.
Select the four toggle options in the bottom exactly as shown.

+ Select key values from dropdown + Preload all key values + Hide get button + Show values in separate columns Ensure other options are disabled.

Now you can save your field and add it to your form in Form Designer.
Test your functionality to see your new cross-site lookup field in action!

Now you have something handy that allows you to not repeat data in lookup lists on multiple sites. Although the M365 Admin does need to create the initial data connection, regular users can update the lookup list data as needed at any time after the initial setup. There are lots of great opportunities here. Common scenarios for lists that would be useful across all of SharePoint include:

Departments
Locations
Products
Divisions
Buildings
Building Rooms
Makes / Models of equipment

Enjoy!

Side-by-side labels in Modern forms

2023-06-15T19:32:20Z

Hi, Since the initial release of Modern forms a few years ago, we made sure the forms look and work great on any device, from a giant desktop screen, down to the smallest cellphone. Our forms are responsive by design and automatically adjust their size and even layout to accomodate the current screen real estate. Our customers use the same forms both at the office and on the go, without any need for adjustments. Up until now, we only allowed column labels to be placed above the columns, as it's the most logical layout for responsive forms and it's the general tendency in all modern forms everywhere. But we also received multiple requests to allow placing labels beside the columns. Classic forms used this layouts and I guess old habits refuse to die. Although it was possible to imitate that placement with Containers and Fragments, it wasn't the best solution, as various rules and permissions had to be applied separately to labels and columns, adding work and complexity. We are now adding support for side-by-side labels, as simple as a single toggle. In Form Designer, click on Styles in the toolbar, then switch to Style tab. Here at the top you can see the new option. As you can see, once you activate the new mode, you can also specify how wide the labels should be, just adjust it according to your actual forms labels. And while you are here, take a look at the other styling and theming options, which will help you create amazing looking forms in no time! Once you publish your form, you can immediately see the result: As easy as it should be! And when you view the same form on a very small screen (below 480px width, such as on a cellphone), the form will automatically adjust itself and place the labels above, as well as replacing tabs with expanding sections (accordions), to make the form much simpler to use. Another feature you can leverage now, enjoy!

Trigger Power Automate Flow using Ultimate Forms

2023-05-26T14:24:49Z

Power Automate is a powerful workflow tool that is a vital part of the Microsoft 365 ecosystem. Many of our customers use Ultimate Forms Actions in combination with Power Automate Flows as a part of their solutions. One thing you might wonder is this: How can you trigger a Power Automate Flow based on a specific form update in SharePoint? There are two methods that we will cover in this article. The first method is to use an HTTP Request Flow along with a corresponding Call application or service action in Ultimate Forms. The second method involves using the Get Changes for an Item Flow block in Power Automate to detect specific field changes when an item is modified. If you use Power Automate, in your SharePoint solutions, you will want to learn how to use both methods.

Flow HTTP Request Method

In Ultimate Forms, there is a new option available when using the Call application or service action. To begin, start out your action as shown: To do the next steps, you will create a new Flow using the When a HTTP request is received method in Power Automate. (Note that this type of Flow action requires a Per-user plan subscription from Microsoft for the user creating the Flow. You can find out more about Power Automate licensing here: https://powerautomate.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/) Here is example code in which two parameters will be passed to the Flow "License" and "Template" which are two text fields in our SharePoint list.

{
    "type": "object",
    "properties": {
        "License": {
            "type": "string"
        },
        "Template": {
            "type": "string"
        }
    }
}

You should build your own JSON code according to your own field names and field types.

Once the flow is triggered, you can use the passed values in the rest of your Flow as shown:

In Ultimate Forms, you are now ready to enter the configuration for your action. Select Power Automate for the Applicatoin type. Now copy and past the HTTP Post URL to the action and enter parameters as shown: Adjust the conditions according to trigger that you want to kick off the flow.

Get Changes for Item Method

The second method relies on conditions defined in your Flow and does not require a Power Automate Per User Plan license. In Power Automate, create a Flow using the "When an Item or File is Modified" trigger. In the second flow block, add a Get changes for an item or a file flow block. Use Trigger Window Start Token and Trigger Window End Token for the last two fields as shown. Now you can check whether a specific update has occurred in the form. In the provided example a Yes / No field is checked to see if it has been updated using the "Has changed" option: Note that you can define whatever conditions you want in your Flow. You could use an action in Ultimate Forms to trigger an update to a special field which you create just for this purpose. For example, you could add a Yes / No column "ApprovalRequest" (as shown above) which is ready only in the form and set by a special button which you create in your form which sets the value to yes. You can detect that change using the method defined above. Note that it is recommend to make this Flow more efficient by using a Trigger Condition which restricts the Flow to run ONLY when a field has a specific value. In this way, the Flow won't run every single time the list record is modified. A more detailed explanation and walkhrough of this method is demonstrated in the below video on the SharePoint Smart YouTube Channel here:

Image manipulation action in Ultimate Forms

2023-04-21T18:50:10Z

Hi, We are happy to announce a new addition to the Actions component of Ultimate Forms: Edit Images action type. Using this action type, you can easily automate image manipulation in your lists and document libraries. We support the following operations:

Resize - change the image to dynamically specified dimensions, optionally preserving proportions
Crop - cut out the important part out of the image, using dynamically specified position and size
Rotate - rotate the image using dynamically specified angle
Flip - flip vertically or horizontally
Straighten - automatically identify potential vertical lines and rotate the image accordingly
Adjust - change brightness, contrast and color gamma
Grayscale - remove color from image
Sharpen - automatically sharpen the image
Smoothen - remove small details for a smoother image
Blur - use Gaussian blur algorithm on the image
Change background color - automatically detect background and replace it with a provided color
Watermark - automatically add dynamically specified text inside the image (the rest of the blog demoes this process)
Add logo - embed the specified logo image inside the main image

You can run the action on both list item attachments and images in image/document library. The resulting image can then replace the original, be placed beside the original or uploaded to a library of your choosing (including dynamically determined site/list). You can also choose to save the image in a variety of formats, including all major image formats, as well as HTML, PDF, AutoCAD, etc. In my demo, I will use a combination of image file and a Location column in its properties. Once the location is found on the map and set, the action is triggered. It will then create a full address from the location and embed it in the top left corner of the image. The updated image will then replace the original one. So all we need to do is create a new action that runs on Edit and monitors changes to the Location column. Once that is filled, the action embeds the address inside the image.

Create a new Edit images action. The important parts here are the action type and the event type.
Under Conditions add "after change" condition that checks the Location column and makes sure it's not empty. The "after change" setting ensures that the action is only triggered when the value is actually changed.
Now the interesting part. Under Action settings specify what the action should actually do.
1. First of all, under Affected items it says ID=[ID], that makes it run on the current item (the item that triggered the action).
2. Target is set to Replace, the new image will replace the old one.
3. Under Text I assembled the full address out of the various subproperties of the Location column.
4. Then I specified font and location properties. I also chose to leave the image in its original format (not shown).
Save the action.
Upload an image, open its properties and set location. In about a minute the image will be automatically updated to include the address.

Enjoy!

HR Solutions for Non-Developers: Creating a Learning Management System with ULTIMATEFORMS and SharePoint

2023-04-12T17:54:47Z

This set of blogs about HR solutions mainly highlights and shares learning resources on our website to help you build SharePoint solutions using ULTIMATEFORMS. If you're familiar with SharePoint and want to get started building quickly, I shouldn't be in your way; here is our Quick Start page, go ahead and download a free trial of ULTIMATEFORMS and immediately begin building solutions. If you are a non-developer and would like to get a jumpstart on learning how to build solutions, then this post is for you as I will share two quick options on how to build a Learning Management System in SharePoint:

Downloading a template solution for Employee Training
Following the step-by-step instructions on creating a Learning management system

Nondevelopers, managers, and business analysts, now you can create HR solutions!

If you're new to the SharePoint space or need a background in development, it can be challenging to know where to start when building HR solutions or any process solution. That being said, SharePoint is a versatile and ubiquitous platform. With the right set of add-in tools like our own ULTIMATEFORMS, with its intuitive interface and powerful features, it offers nondevelopers, managers, and business analysts an excellent resource for building HR solutions, including employee training programs.

Introducing Infowise ULTIMATEFORMS

Infowise ULTIMATEFORMS, our lead product, can help you quickly create process solutions by leveraging the collaborative power of your own SharePoint platform and ULTIMATEFROMS' simplicity, ease of use, and no-code functionalities. Using ULTIMATEFORMS, you can rapidly design, implement and deliver robust solutions matching the changing needs of your enterprise.

UltimateForms supports all Microsoft SharePoint platforms, including Microsoft 365 and all on-premises SharePoint versions.

Key features of a Learning Management System (LMS)

Personalized Dashboard

A personalized dashboard allows you to create dashboards for all course participants, making it easy for students, teachers, and admins to access the necessary information. For example, students can view their progress bars and track their assignments, while teachers and admins can easily manage courses, schedules, and training content.

Progress Bars and Assignments Tracking

The solution displays a progress bar to track student progress through assignments tracking.

Functionality for Students, Teachers, and Admins

ULTIMATEFORMS provides functionality for all users involved in the training process, including students, teachers, and admins. For example, students can access training content and track their progress, while teachers and admins can manage courses, schedules, and student assignments.

Auto-Generated Email Notifications and Reminders

ULTIMATEFORMS can be configured to send auto-generated email notifications and reminders to students, instructors, and admins. These alert messages help ensure everyone stays on track and up-to-date with course schedules and deadlines.

Store Training Content, Including Videos and Documents

With ULTIMATEFORMS, you can easily store training content, including videos and documents. Storage of content allows students to access training materials conveniently and helps ensure everyone can access the most up-to-date information.

Setup Test Questions and Track Performance

You can create exam questions and monitor performance in relation to the course material using ULTIMATEFORMS. Timely tests ensure that students retain their learning knowledge and give instructors and administrators crucial information to assess the training program's efficacy.

Set up Courses and Schedules for Each Student

ULTIMATEFORMS includes functionality for creating courses and schedules for individual students. Such customization helps to ensure that students receive the training they require in a timely and effective manner.

Finally, I want to share my thoughts after following this quick video about creating a Learning Management System inside SharePoint;

The LMS solution is way easier to use than I could have imagined.
ULTIMATEFORMS and SharePoint provide excellent vehicles for developing and managing an efficient employee training program. As ULTIMATEFROMS provides the workflows, SharePoint is an excellent collaborative tool, and that is what you need for an effective learning tool.
This Learning Management System, as simple as it might appear, still delivers on all fundamentals of a sound collaborative educational system, such as personalized dashboards, progress bars, assignment tracking, auto-generated email notifications and reminders, and the ability to store training content and track performance.
You can download the basic free solution created by our trainer, Will Cooper, and further repurpose it for your unique business requirements.

In conclusion, ULTIMATEFORMS is a vast platform that provides numerous opportunities for building and customizing HR solutions to meet your specific organizational requirements, whether a large or small firm or a governmental body. So make this your first step into simplifying building business process solutions. Happy Learning!

Streamline Government Facility Management with SharePoint and ULTIMATE FORMS: Build Your Own System Today

2023-04-04T16:03:55Z

Classrooms, offices, boardrooms, hospital beds, and courtrooms are all excellent examples of shared facilities that rely on active and efficient resource management systems to make them available for everyday use. While some software solutions are available to help organizations manage their resources, they are often extensive, feature-heavy, and industry-specific, making them prohibitively expensive, less accessible, and not user-friendly enough for government agencies. Here at Infowise, we believe in simplifying the process of creating a facility and resource management system by helping government agencies leverage their own SharePoint platform to create a customized facility and resource management applications. By tailoring the system to align with the organization's unique operational needs, our user-friendly solution streamlines resource management and boosts productivity for organizations of all sizes, that is including public sectors

Solutions for the modern digital government

Infowise Solutions Ltd. was awarded a five-year U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) IT Schedule
70 contract to provide SharePoint and Microsoft 365-based process automation products.
Contract #: 47QTCA20D009C
MAS Schedule: IT Schedule 70
Contractor: INFOWISE SOLUTIONS LTD
DUNS: 202754644
______________________________________________

A Do-it-Yourself SharePoint Facility Management Solution!

One of the key benefits of using our facility management system built on an organization's own SharePoint platform is that it can be customized to align with its specific operational needs. By leveraging the existing infrastructure and workflows of the organization's SharePoint platform, our system can be tailored to meet the unique requirements of the organization's resource management processes. This ensures that the application aligns more with the organization's operational needs and is more efficient, cost-effective, and scalable. Add to that everything you build is code-free, and you can custom-build the application as a facility manager.

ULTIMATEFORMS for SharePoint, a GSA-Approved Solution!

Just in case you are new to the SharePoint space, here is a little bit of introduction about ULTIMATEFORMS, as you will be using this application to build your own SharePoint Facility and Resouce Management system. ULTIMATEFORMS by Infowise simplifies SharePoint applications by building by offering customizable forms and workflows, automation features, data visualization tools, seamless integration with other platforms, and robust security and compliance. These features help streamline processes, reduce errors, increase productivity, gain insights into operations, and manage data and workflows across different systems. Its GSA-approved status ensures the highest levels of security and compliance for sensitive data.

Enjoy a host of procedural and feature benefits by building your resource management system using SharePoint and our Infowise ULTIMATEFORMS, including;

Simple resource manifest includes pictures for every resource: Our system includes a user-friendly resource manifest that provides an overview of all available resources, complete with pictures for easy identification. This feature ensures that you can easily select the necessary equipment without the hassle of sorting through confusing spreadsheets or lists.
Self-service reservations with picture preview of resources during selection: Our self-service reservation feature allows users to reserve resources quickly and easily. And to simplify the process, we provide a picture preview of the resource during the selection process. This ensures that users can easily confirm they are selecting the correct equipment for their needs.
An automatic conflict checks the system to avoid schedule overlap: To prevent scheduling conflicts, our system includes an automatic conflict check feature that ensures that resources are not double-booked. This feature saves time and reduces the likelihood of errors or confusion.
Visually appealing dashboard showing reservations scheduled for all resources: Our visually appealing dashboard displays all reservations scheduled for all resources, allowing you to monitor the availability and use it easily. The dashboard provides a clear, organized view of your organization's resources and reservations, helping you stay on top of things at a glance.
Automated email notifications for confirmations and reminders: Our system includes automated email notifications for confirmations and reminders, ensuring that users are always up-to-date on their reservations. This feature saves time and ensures that users don't forget about their reservations.
Simple process to add or edit resources anytime: With our system, adding or editing resources is a breeze. Our simple process allows you to add or update new resources anytime. This ensures that your resource management system is always up-to-date and accurate.
Crystal clear dashboard always shows availability and use of all resources: Our crystal clear dashboard provides an at-a-glance view of the availability and use of all resources. This feature ensures that you can quickly assess the status of your resources and make informed decisions about future reservations.

Start Building Your Own Facility and Resouces Management System

Are you ready to simplify your facility and resource management operations with ULTIMATEFORMS by Infowise? We offer two quick and easy ways to get started. First, follow our step-by-step demo to quickly build your facility management system using ULTIMATEFORMS. Secondly, you can download our free Resource Management System and customize it to meet your specific needs. Don't hesitate to contact us for further assistance or require a more sophisticated system to meet your organization's needs. Our team can advise you on the right implementation partner to help you achieve your goals. Don't let inefficient resource management hold your organization back – start building your own facility and resource management system today with ULTIMATE FORMS by Infowise.

Unlocking the Power of SharePoint for US Government GSA Clients - Infowise's Wide Partner Network

2023-03-30T14:52:13Z

"By working with Infowise Solutions partners, government agencies can be confident that they are working with certified and experienced professionals with a proven track record of delivering high-quality products."

Avi Pagi, Program Manager,
avip@infowisesolutions.com

--------------

Contract #: 47QTCA20D009C

MAS Schedule: IT Schedule 70

Contractor: INFOWISE SOLUTIONS LTD

DUNS: 202754644

NAICS: 511210
--------------------------------------------

Infowise Solutions is dedicated to supporting US government agencies in fully utilizing SharePoint as a powerful tool for collaboration and communication and building robust business process solutions. By leveraging our vast partner network, US GSA government agencies can benefit from increased onboarding speed, improved deployment processes, and comprehensive training that support their mission-critical projects. In addition, our partners have expertise in providing tailored solutions designed specifically for the US government and their unique needs, allowing them to quickly realize the advantages that SharePoint solutions by Infowise can provide.
Before we delve into the benefits of working with our certified partners, let's review ULTIMATEFORMS, our lead product, and why government agencies can benefit significantly from this solution.

Infowise ULTIMATEFORMS

Infowise ULTIMATEFORMS is a comprehensive solution that was developed specifically for SharePoint environments by SharePoint developers. Its main goal is to empower business analysts, IT managers, and department managers to create full-featured solutions without writing a single line of code.
ULTIMATEFORMS has a user-friendly drag-and-drop interface that makes it easy for non-technical users to design and implement SharePoint solutions. Its intuitive interface and pre-built templates allow users to quickly create powerful forms, workflows, and reports tailored to their unique business processes and requirements.
With ULTIMATEFORMS, users can quickly build complex workflows, automate business processes, and easily capture data. This reduces the time and resources required for manual data entry and repetitive tasks, freeing up staff to focus on more valuable activities.
The solution also provides extensive reporting capabilities, allowing users to generate visual dashboards and reports based on real-time data. This enables managers to make data-driven decisions, monitor performance, and identify trends that can help to optimize business processes.
In summary, Infowise ULTIMATEFORMS is a powerful SharePoint solution that enables non-technical users to build full-functional solutions tailored to their business needs. Its intuitive interface, pre-built templates, and reporting capabilities allow users to automate business processes, capture data, and generate insights without writing a single line of code.

Working with our certified partner's network

Our certification program ensures that our partners have the necessary skills and expertise to deliver Infowise Solutions' products and services to our clients. This program includes comprehensive training and ongoing support to ensure that our partners are fully equipped to meet the needs of our clients.

Benefits of working with Infowise partners network

Wide Partner Network: With over 130 implementation partners spanning multiple countries, Infowise Solutions has a solid global presence. However, our highest concentration of partners is in the US, enabling us to serve a wide range of US government agencies nationwide.
Diverse Expertise: Infowise Solutions has a diverse network of implementation partners with specific knowledge and expertise in SharePoint solutions, covering many verticals such as education, HR, healthcare, local government services, finance, and facility management. This specialized expertise ensures that our partners can deliver tailored services to meet the unique needs of each government agency.
Fast Deployment: With a large pool of implementation partners, Infowise working with our local partners, we can rapidly deploy solutions and provide quick turnaround times for your government agencies looking to implement new solutions.
Customized Solutions: Working with Infowise Solutions' partner network, government agencies can access a wide range of customized SharePoint solutions that meet their unique needs and budget requirements.
Ongoing Support: Infowise Solutions' partner network provides ongoing support, training, and troubleshooting services, ensuring that government agencies receive the help they need to make the most of their SharePoint solutions.

Infowise Solutions' extensive partner network, specialized expertise, and ability to provide customized and rapid SharePoint solutions, government agencies searching for SharePoint answers on the GSA platform may be more likely to choose Infowise Solutions for their needs. If you require more information about our GSA US government program, please get in touch with Avi Pagi, Program Manager, at avip@infowisesolutions.com

Enhancing Citizen Engagement with Infowise Solutions Ltd.'s GSA-Approved SharePoint Forms

2023-03-26T20:16:23Z

Infowise Solutions Ltd. has successfully undergone the rigorous vetting process of the General Services Administration (GSA), resulting in the approval of our innovative solutions. This endorsement highlights our commitment to providing US government agencies with cost-effective and efficient SharePoint solutions. GSA-approved products are a testament to the quality processes, reliable technology, and superior service that we have developed over many years in the industry. Our Senior GSA Program Manager, Avi Pagi, notes, "the GSA certification was a natural next step for Infowise Solutions Ltd., as we have provided various state, municipal, and county entities with our code-free and intuitive solutions for over a decade."

Limitations of SharePoint native forms for external use

In the case of modern government and citizen engagement, the importance of secured forms becomes even more critical: In today's digital age, citizens expect easy and secure access to government services online. SharePoint forms provide a safe and streamlined process for governments to interact with citizens, increasing their trust and engagement. However, native Sharepoint forms collect and manage information within an organization's SharePoint sites, only accessible to authorized users. As practical and secure as it might be, It can also be considered a limitation in some cases, as it limits the ability to share the collected data with external parties or to collect information from external sources. For example, a government agency may need to collect data from constituents, vendors, and other governmental entities, requiring forms that can be accessed from outside the organization's SharePoint site. To overcome this limitation, governments use third-party tools or services such as our own, ULTIMATEFORMS, to create forms that can be embedded in external websites or shared via URL.

ULTIMATEFORMS secure and dynamics forms for enhanced citizen engagement

ULTIMATEFORMS is a powerful tool that can help government agencies create and manage external SharePoint forms more efficiently and effectively. Here are some reasons why ULTIMATEFORMS is an excellent choice for external SharePoint forms:

Simplified form creation: ULTIMATEFORMS provides a simple and user-friendly interface allowing non-technical users to create complex SharePoint forms easily. This reduces the need for IT involvement and speeds up the form-creation process.
Advanced form features: ULTIMATEFORMS provides various advanced form features, such as conditional logic, dynamic fields, and custom validation rules. These features enable government agencies to create engaging, interactive forms that enhance the citizen experience.
Mobile optimization: ULTIMATEFORMS is mobile-optimized, ensuring that citizens can easily access and complete forms on their mobile devices, enhancing the overall accessibility and usability of the forms.
Enhanced data management: ULTIMATEFORMS provides advanced data management features that enable government agencies to manage and analyze form data more effectively. This can help agencies identify trends, streamline processes, and improve service delivery.
Improved security: ULTIMATEFORMS provides advanced security features, such as CAPTCHA verification and IP address tracking, that help prevent spam submissions and other security risks associated with external forms.

Simplified, quick, and code-free SharePoint forms

ULTIMATEFORMS leverages the ubiquity and power of SharePoint to help non-developers create powerful forms opening more possibilities for government agencies to strengthen citizen engagement: ULTIMATEFORMS is a powerful tool simplifies the process of creating and managing SharePoint forms, even for non-technical users. This allows government agencies to develop engaging and functional structures that strengthen citizen engagement and improve service delivery. Overall, ULTIMATEFORMS is a powerful tool that enables government agencies to create and manage external SharePoint forms more efficiently and effectively. By simplifying the form creation process, providing advanced form features, optimizing for mobile, enhancing data management, and improving security, ULTIMATEFORMS helps government agencies enhance citizen engagement and improve service delivery.

End of support for SharePoint 2013

2023-03-22T21:28:51Z

NOTE: updated March 23rd 2023 Hi, As you know, Microsoft is ending support for SharePoint 2013 on April 11th, 2023. As the result, we will be decommissioning our development and testing environments targeting SharePoint 2013 on July 1st, 2023. Additionally, we will be upgrading our source code to target SharePoint 2016 and up, which will cause it to stop working on SharePoint 2013. Your currently installed versions will continue to work, but we will not be able to provide support that includes bug fixes. We recommend that, if you're still running SharePoint 2013, plans would be made to transition to more modern versions as soon as possible.

Streamlining Government Operations with Infowise Solutions as a GSA IT Schedule 70 Contractor

2023-03-22T15:45:28Z

As a GSA IT Schedule 70 contractor, Infowise Solutions has been thoroughly vetted by the US General Services Administration and approved to provide technology solutions and services to government agencies. As a result, government agencies can be confident that Infowise has met rigorous quality, performance, and reliability standards. In addition, Infowise offers a range of powerful software tools and solutions that can help government agencies improve their operations and achieve their goals. These tools are designed to integrate seamlessly with existing systems and workflows, making it easy for agencies to implement and use them. Moreover, Infowise has a wealth of experience working with government agencies and understands the unique challenges and requirements that they face. This expertise enables Infowise to deliver tailored solutions that meet the specific needs of government agencies while also adhering to strict security and compliance standards. Overall, government agencies can benefit greatly from working with Infowise Solutions, a trusted and experienced IT provider committed to delivering high-quality solutions that meet the needs of government agencies.

How can government agencies take advantage of Infowise's products?

After getting listed on the GSA, federal, state, municipal, and county governments can also benefit from our services. A few of those benefits include, and are not limited to:

Expedited acquisition process through single-point access for GSA agencies and partners
Multiple implementation partners in the US who can rapidly deploy products and train staff
Built-in value in cost-effectiveness and a great many savings designed for GSA clients
Intuitive products

Not a Government Agency, would you like to partner on a GSA project?

As a partner, you can expect the highest level of commitment from us, accompanying you every step of the way. You can always count on our support and advice, providing the highest possible value. As our partner, you receive the following:

Technical support throughout the bidding process
Discounted training packages to your team and client
Co-visitation and on-site training when required
Partner discount on all your purchases
Unrestricted license to demo our products
Dedicated support every step of the way

Expedited acquisition process through single-point access

Knowing how complicated the purchase process can be, we have created single-point access for our GSA clients; you simply contact our Senior Program Manager, AVi Pagi, at avip@infowisesolutions.com and initiate the process. In conclusion, government agencies can benefit greatly from working with Infowise Solutions as a GSA IT Schedule 70 contractor. With its comprehensive range of software tools and services, Infowise can help government agencies streamline their operations while saving money and time. In addition, Infowise’s experience working with government agencies allows it to tailor solutions that meet each agency's specific needs, ensuring compliance with strict security and reliability standards.

Unlock the Potential of SharePoint with ULTIMATEFORMS for Government Agencies

2023-03-22T14:45:30Z

Government agencies can significantly benefit from using SharePoint, a powerful and feature-rich platform that can streamline communication, collaboration, data management, and other vital processes. With SharePoint, agencies can securely store documents, facilitate collaborative workflows for teams, implement highly configurable user access controls, and leverage integrated analytics capabilities to drive informed decision-making. Furthermore, combining SharePoint with ULTIMATEFORMS can add even more functionalities and capabilities, creating potent tools and solutions to help agencies run more efficiently and effectively.

Here are some of the benefits of using SharePoint in government;

Document Management: SharePoint can manage documents, including creating, editing, and storing them. This can help government agencies to streamline their document workflows and ensure that documents are easily accessible by authorized personnel.
Collaboration: SharePoint provides a collaborative platform that can be used to facilitate teamwork, communication, and information sharing among government employees, teams, and departments. This can lead to increased efficiency and productivity in the workplace.
Records Management: SharePoint can manage government records, including storing, indexing, and retrieving them. This can help agencies comply with government regulations and policies on records management.
Workflow Management: SharePoint can automate workflows and streamline business processes, including approvals, review, and publishing of documents. This can save time and reduce errors associated with manual processes.
Project Management: SharePoint can manage government projects, including scheduling, resource allocation, and task assignments. This can help project teams to collaborate and keep track of project progress.
Data Visualization: SharePoint can create dashboards and reports to help government agencies visualize and analyze data, monitor performance, and make informed decisions.
Search: SharePoint provides a powerful search engine that can be used to find information across the organization, including documents, lists, and sites. This can help government employees quickly find the information they need.
Security and Compliance: SharePoint provides a robust security model that can be used to manage permissions and access to information. This can help government agencies to ensure that information is protected and comply with government regulations and policies.
Business Intelligence: SharePoint can be used to create interactive reports and dashboards that can help government agencies to gain insights into their operations and make data-driven decisions.
Networking: SharePoint provides social networking features that can be used to connect government employees, share information, and collaborate on projects. This can help to foster a culture of collaboration and innovation within the organization.

More efficient, secure, and compliant government agencies

By utilizing the power of SharePoint and ULTIMATEFORMS, government agencies can unlock their potential and make better decisions that result in improved operational performance. Each of the mentioned SharePoint benefits and features above is significantly improved using ULTIMATEFORMS. This includes extending SharePoint Forms with custom attributes, providing automated business processes and workflows that can be adapted to individual needs, creating sophisticated integrated analytics tools and dashboards, managing user roles and access permissions, improving search capabilities with full-text indexing, and more. ULTIMATEFORMS is the perfect solution for government agencies looking to get the most out of their SharePoint investments. With its powerful features and flexible customization options, ULTIMATEFORMS can help agencies streamline operations, improve collaboration, increase security and compliance, and better understand their data.

We are Here to help!

In conclusion, government agencies can take advantage of Infowise's advanced IT solutions, which have been successfully provided to clients in various industries for over a decade. Infowise's listing on the GSA enables federal, state, municipal, and county governments to benefit from expedited acquisition processes, cost-effectiveness, and savings, as well as access to multiple implementation partners in the US who can rapidly deploy products and train staff. Moreover, Infowise's products are intuitive, making them easy to use for government agencies.
To initiate your GSA project, contact our Program Manager Avi Pagi at avip@Infowisesolutions.com. Avi will assist in answering any questions and guiding you through the process of utilizing Infowise's products and services for your agency.

Unveiling the Comprehensive Offering by Infowise Solutions for US Government Agencies as a GSA-approved contractor!

2023-03-13T18:21:28Z

Infowise is a GSA IT Schedule 70 contract.

Contract #: 47QTCA20D009C

MAS Schedule: IT Schedule 70

Contractor: INFOWISE SOLUTIONS LTD

DUNS: 202754644

NAICS: 511210

-------------------------------------------- Infowise Solutions is proud to offer its range of products and services as a GSA-approved contractor for US Government Agencies. Our solutions are designed to deliver innovative, efficient, and secure performance that meets your needs. Learn more about our offerings today! Infowise Solutions' expertise in providing services to the public sector for over 15 years makes it a natural progression for the company to be awarded a GSA 70-Contract. The company has a wealth of experience in developing and implementing customizable solutions for various US and Canadian government agencies, including federal, state, and local governments. Infowise Solutions and working with implementation partners have built a reputation for delivering high-quality, reliable, and scalable solutions to its public sector clients. Its solutions have helped government agencies streamline workflows, automate business processes, and increase efficiency. Infowise Solutions' extensive experience working with the public sector has enabled it to develop a deep understanding of government agencies' unique needs and challenges. As a result, the company is well-positioned through its regional partners to provide tailored solutions that meet government agencies' specific requirements while complying with relevant regulations and standards.

We are ready to support your agency:

By being awarded a GSA 70-Contract, Infowise Solutions can now offer its services to a broader range of government agencies and expand its reach across the public sector. This will enable more government agencies to benefit from the company's expertise in developing customized solutions that improve their operations and increase their productivity.

How can government agencies take advantage of Infowise products?

Infowise has provided advanced IT solutions to its clients in various industries for over ten years. After getting listed on the GSA, federal, state, municipal, and county governments can also benefit from our services. A few of those benefits include, and are not limited to:

Expedited acquisition process through single-point access for GSA agencies and partners; start your purchase process by contacting Avi Pagi, Senior Program Manager, at avip@infowisesolutions.com.
We have multiple implementation partners in the US who can rapidly deploy products and train your staff. You can start this process by contacting Avi Pagi, program Senior Manager, at avip@infowisesolutions.com to help you select an appropriate implementation partner in your area.
Built-in value in cost-effectiveness and a great many savings designed for GSA clients
Intuitive products that require no complex coding

Not a government agency, would you like to partner on a GSA project?

Are you a nongovernmental agency, and would you like to partner to win a GSA bid? It is a good idea to start by contacting Avi Pagi, Senior Program Manager, at avip@infowisesolutions.com. As a partner, you can expect the highest level of commitment from us, accompanying you every step of the way. You can always count on our support and advice, providing the highest possible value.

As our partner, you receive the following:

Partner discount on all your purchases

When you partner with Infowise, you can take advantage of exclusive discounts on all your purchases. Our team is committed to providing the most cost-effective solutions, and we will work with you to ensure that every purchase is budget-friendly while meeting your requirements.

Technical support throughout the bidding process

Our technical support experts provide personalized, comprehensive assistance to government agencies and partners when they need it. Whether seeking advice on products and services or needing help with specific project-related tools, our team can guide you through every step of the process and ensure your needs are met.

Discounted training packages to your team and client

Infowise offers discounted training packages to help government agencies and their stakeholders understand the best ways to use our products. From introductory courses all the way up to deep dives into customizing and integrating our solutions, our team can provide the necessary training for a successful implementation of Infowise’s innovative products.

Co-visitation and on-site training when required

Infowise provides co-visitation and on-site training when required, allowing government agencies to get the most out of our products. Our technical specialists can work with you directly to review your requirements and develop a customized plan that meets your unique needs. We are proud to be a GSA vendor offering cutting-edge IT solutions to government agencies in the United States. Contact us today to learn more about how Infowise can help you get the most out of our advanced technology solutions and services.

Unrestricted license to demo our products

As a trusted GSA vendor, we offer an unrestricted license to demo our products free of charge. Our team will provide personalized training and support throughout the entire evaluation process so that you can make an informed decision about using our technology in your agency.

Dedicated product support every step of the way

Our dedicated specialists are committed to providing the best service throughout your GSA procurement process. We are available 24/7 for prompt and reliable support, helping you better understand our products and services. With our extensive experience in supporting government agencies, you can always count on us! We are here to support your success and provide the best possible solutions for government agencies. Please don’t hesitate to reach out b contacting Avi Pagi, Senior Program Manager, at avip@infowisesolutions.com if there is anything we can do to assist with your GSA bid. We look forward to hearing from you soon.

Empowering HR Professionals: A Guide to Building Your Ultimate Employee Review System with SharePoint and ULTIMATEFORMS

2023-03-09T23:04:12Z

In March, we will be discussing SharePoint and ULTIMATEFORMS-based HR solutions. If you are already familiar with SharePoint, you can immediately install ULTIMATEFORMS and start by downloading pre-built HR templates, following the download and installation instructions. However, if you're new to the SharePoint space and have landed here through a search, don't worry. We are here to guide you through each step and explain how we can assist you as a non-developer HR professional. Our Infowise tech team is committed to empowering non-developers, business analysts, and HR managers to create robust HR solutions without writing a line of code. We strongly believe that end-users like yourself understand what they need, and with the right technology, they can reach their business objectives. So, here's your shortest route to creating intuitive, easy-to-use, and well-managed HR solutions.

SharePoint and ULTIMATEFORMS-based HR solutions!

ULTIMATEFORMS is a suite that enhances SharePoint's functionality and enables users to create custom business solutions, including HR solutions. These applications are built using SharePoint native tools and ULTIMATEFORMS, making them fully compatible with the SharePoint platform. The Infowise tech team has designed ULTIMATEFORMS to be user-friendly, so non-developers can easily use it to create custom HR solutions. ULTIMATEFORMS provides pre-built templates for HR tasks, such as employee onboarding, time-off requests, performance reviews, etc. Non-developers can customize these templates to fit their organization's specific needs. To start with ULTIMATEFORMS, non-developers can download the suite and follow the installation instructions. Once installed, they can use the pre-built HR templates to create customized solutions for their organization. Overall, ULTIMATEFORMS simplifies the process of creating HR solutions in SharePoint, making it accessible to non-developers.

Employee Review System built in SharePoint with these key features:

Automatically schedule reviews for each employee The Employee Review System built in SharePoint allows HR professionals to schedule reviews for each employee easily. With the help of this system, automated emails are sent out to employees and managers ahead of their review date. The system also provides a platform where the employee's performance can be tracked and documented over time. The system is designed with easy-to-use features that make it a great way to keep track of employee performance and development. Furthermore, the system allows for customizable fields to add in any relevant information, such as job duties and other vital items. With this Employee Review System built in SharePoint, companies can easily manage reviews and review cycles with ease. Visual dashboard management The Employee Review System built in SharePoint also enables HR professionals to manage the review process with a visual dashboard. This makes it easy to visualize the entire employee review process and identify areas for improvement addition; the dashboard lets you quickly see any due or overdue reviews and any employees needing additional training or coaching. Progress indicators and KPI flags This Employee Review System built in SharePoint also includes progress indicators and KPI flags. These tools allow HR professionals to quickly identify high-performing employees and track the progress of those struggling or needing additional coaching. For example, progress indicators such as check marks, bars, and other symbols can help you quickly identify an employee's performance level. In contrast, KPI flags help you quickly identify issues needing further review and interventions. With these tools, HR professionals have a powerful tool to track employee performance and drive improved results over time. Comprehensive reporting system The Employee Review System built in SharePoint also provides comprehensive reporting capabilities. This allows HR professionals to generate reports detailing any areas of strength easily and quickly. Reports can also be generated for any areas of improvement that need to be addressed or monitored more closely. This comprehensive reporting system makes it easy to identify trends, track performance over time, and pinpoint areas where coaching or additional training is needed. Automated email reminders and follow up This Employee Review System built in SharePoint also includes automated email reminders and follow-up. This system lets HR managers quickly set up automated emails to remind employees about their upcoming reviews. The system also allows for follow-up emails to ensure that any issues or areas of improvement have been addressed. This ensures that no employee slips through the cracks and that all reviews are completed promptly. Streamlined workflow process The Employee Review System built in SharePoint also helps streamline the workflow process. This makes it easy for HR professionals to manage the review process from start to finish without jumping through hoops. This system allows tasks to be quickly tracked and managed while enabling managers to assign swiftly or change tasks as needed. This ensures that all reviews are completed efficiently and promptly. Goal planning and accomplishments This Employee Review System built in SharePoint includes goal setting and tracking accomplishments. This allows HR professionals to quickly identify any key goals or objectives that need to be achieved by each employee. The system also provides a platform where employees can track their progress toward those goals. Customized PDF report output The Employee Review System built in SharePoint also provides a customized PDF report output. This allows HR professionals to quickly and easily generate comprehensive reports detailing an employee's performance, including areas of strength and improvement. In addition, customized PDF report templates can be tailored to the company's specific needs, making it easy to communicate critical information to employees and managers.

Conclusion

Overall, the Employee Review System built in SharePoint provides a comprehensive and customizable solution for managing employee reviews. With features like automated email reminders, goal planning and tracking, and customized report output, HR professionals have all the tools they need to manage their employee review processes effectively.

Action buttons in SharePoint alerts

2023-03-07T22:08:18Z

Hi, Ultimate Forms is all about speeding up business processes and removing unnecessary steps, whereby improving productivity. Our latest addition is Action Buttons inside alerts. Using these buttons your users can trigger actions and execute business processes directly from within email messages sent by Alerts, without having to open the browser, navigating to the SharePoint list, then locating and updating list items there. One of the most obvious uses is, of course, approvals, with Approve and Reject buttons found directly in the email (and that's what I'm demoing below), but any action or action group can be triggered. You can select from a wide variety of actions we provide in the Actions module of Ultimate Forms, within and outside of SharePoint (such as managing permissions, creating sites, calling 3rd party applications and many others). And as always, we put great effort to deliver this immense power to you in the simplest and most convenient fashion. In my demo today, I will be creating a process where a user creates an item in a list, which triggers an email being sent to the manager (same person for demo purposes). Inside the email there are two buttons, Approve and Reject. Clicking either one will immediately update the list item and set the Approval column while to either Approved or Rejected.

Create a simple list, then add a Choice column to it with options: Pending (default), Approved and Rejected.
Click on Design to open Ultimate Forms and create a new modern form for the list, make sure to exclude Approval column (or make it hidden or read-only in New form).

As you can see, I only have Title column, I'm keeping this demo as simple as possible.
Publish the form and switch over to Actions module.
Create a new Update List Item action and call it Approve.

Make sure to uncheck all event types, we only want this action to be triggered from the email.
Under Action settings, set Approval to Approved, nothing else need to be changed.
Save the action and create another one for Reject, the only difference being the value being set for Approval.
Next we need to create a new alert.
Under Recipients I set To field to Created By column, just because I want whoever is testing the process to receive the email.
Under When to send make sure only Item is added is selected. Next, switch to Mail Templates and click on Add column or button.
We need to create two buttons here, one for Approve and one for Reject. Once they are ready, we can place them inside the email body. Click on Add new button to start.
Enter the label (the text that appears on the button) and select the appropriate action from the two we just created. You can also control how the button looks like.
And do the same for Reject
Notice Require users to log in toggle. When it's on, the button can only be pressed by an authenticated user, which is the default in most cases. But in some cases you want to send the alert to someone outside of your organization and want them to run the action. For example, a doctor's office might want to use it to let patients confirm their appointments. In such cases, the toggle must be off.
Let's design the body of the alert the way we want it, then place the buttons within by setting the mouse cursor where the button should go, then double-clicking the button name. By default, each button will occupy its own row. If you want to place multiple buttons in one row, add a table and put each button in a different table cell. Make sure to activate "Min size" option on the table to prevent it from taking up the whole width of the screen.
Save your alert.

Now we are ready to test.

Create a new item in the list.
In a minute or so you will receive an email.
Click on Approve button. It will open a page in your browser, showing the execution progress.
Success!

As you can see, it literally take 5 min to implement this business process, but there is no limit to what you can accomplish!

Empowering HR Managers and Practitioners with Easy-to-Use SharePoint Solutions

2023-03-06T21:29:29Z

Throughout March, we are excited to share HR solutions that can be developed using ULTIMATEFORMS and SharePoint without requiring coding expertise. Whether you want to streamline employee candidacy processes and improve onboarding, training, or evaluation procedures, our tools can help you achieve your goals efficiently. Stay tuned to our blog page and social platforms for webinars, tutorials, and case studies showcasing how our HR solutions can benefit your organization. At Infowise, our core mission is to empower non-developers; managers, general practitioners, and business analysts by providing powerful tools to help them create customized solutions quickly and easily. We understand that the world of HR management can be complex, with ever-changing regulations and evolving employee needs. That's why our solutions for this sector are designed to be intuitive and user-friendly, allowing end-users to create powerful and practical solutions regardless of their technical skills. By eliminating the need for complex, time-consuming, and costly development processes, we allow HR professionals to focus on what they do best: creating a more efficient and productive workplace for their employees.

ULTIMATEFORMS for SharePoint

Before we go into the HR processes, here is a little intro about ULTIMATEFORMS; ULTIMATEFORMS for SharePoint is a platform that provides businesses with user-friendly tools to improve their workflow processes using SharePoint and Microsoft 365 without requiring any coding experience. With ULTIMATEFORMS, you can quickly set up workflows, automate data entry processes, and create customized forms tailored to your business needs. All this can be done without the need to write any code. The platform is designed to simplify and enhance business processes, enabling businesses to be more productive and efficient.

Transform Your HR Workflow with Our Advanced SharePoint Solutions

Transforming the way you recruit top talent, our interactive and intuitive SharePoint site offers an advanced HR recruitment process. With the option to begin the process by either forwarding CVs via email or adding an item to the recruitment list, the process is designed with ease and flexibility in mind.

Recruitment process in five comprehensive stages, including:

Our comprehensive recruitment process includes an HR Recruiter, Technical Interview, HR Interview, Division Approval, and HR Final Approval. Each covers the necessary steps to ensure the best candidate is selected for the job. With the HR Recruiter stage consisting of four sub-stages using a wizard mode form, the recruitment process becomes more efficient and effective, allowing businesses to streamline their hiring decisions. From assessing a candidate's qualifications and technical skills to evaluating their soft skills and cultural fit, our recruitment process covers all the necessary aspects of the hiring process to ensure that the right candidate is selected for the job. Our system also includes automatic rejection letters and job offers as a PDF file, streamlining the communication process. Stay up-to-date with email notifications at any stage, while color-coded items on the recruitment list allow for easy tracking of the current stage of the process.

Download a Free Recruitment Solution

Our SharePoint solutions are free. We do not believe these solutions are built to cover all your business's unique requirements. However, we understand that each business has unique requirements and challenges that our solutions in this basic format may not fully address. However, we are confident that our tool can serve as a malleable foundation upon which you introduce and build a more tailored solution that addresses those needs.

Conclusion

In conclusion, we believe that our SharePoint HR Solutions can be a valuable tool for HR professionals and departments seeking to streamline their operations and improve overall efficiency. While we cannot guarantee that our solutions will meet all your business's unique requirements, we trust that with your industry-specific knowledge and expertise, you can take our solution to the next level and create a customized HR solution that perfectly suits your needs without having to write a single line of code.

Outgoing IP address consolidation

2023-02-27T20:57:20Z

Hi, As you know, Ultimate Forms has various capabilities of integrating 3rd party applications in business processes. It could be data import from data bases, SMS integration or Teams channel creation. Although our SharePoint Online customer usually integrate applications that are also on the cloud, in some cases there is a need to integrate business applications located on premises. For example, you might want to import data from an SQL Server DB table into a SharePoint Online list. In most cases, you would need to add an exception to your on-premises firewall to allow our Azure-based services access to your resources. Until now, we provided a list of outgoing IP addresses that was quite extensive and difficult to work with. Starting next week, we will be using a single IP address for each region. Please make sure to visit this page to view the new IP address and add the address in your region that is highlighted in red to your firewall's exclusion list. For now, leave the old ones, you can remove them next Monday when the new IP will be made the only active one.

Ramp Up Quickly with ULTIMATEforms – Our Training Packages for Successful Solutions Building on SharePoint

2023-02-16T21:08:27Z

This month, we've been exploring learning and training solutions you can build using ULTIMATEforms for SharePoint; for that reason, I thought it would be an opportune time to write about our own training packages. Our comprehensive training packages provide hands-on practice to give you an immediate jumpstart on our ULTIMATEforms application and help you leverage its power to create solutions to daily challenges. We proudly offer three comprehensive training packages to help our customers make the most of our products. This blog post will explore the different training packages we offer and how they can help you succeed with Infowise Solutions.

UltimateForms Kick-Start (UFK)

The Kick-Start Training package is the perfect starting point for anyone new to Infowise Solutions. This pre-recorded training session is free-of-charge and requires no prior experience with UltimateForms. During the session, you'll learn all about the key features of the UltimateForms toolset and how to build a custom solution from start to finish. This is an excellent springboard for your initial acquaintance with Infowise Solutions, and it's the perfect way to get started on your path to success.

UltimateForms Foundation (UFF)

Our Foundation Training package is an in-depth, five-hour-long, hands-on training session that's targeted at customers who are new to our products and want to ramp up quickly. The only requirement for this training is familiarity with SharePoint; no technical experience is needed. During the session, you'll learn how to build complex workflows and forms using the UltimateForms toolset. We'll cover everything from basic form creation to advanced workflows and data management, and you'll have plenty of opportunities to practice what you've learned.

UltimateForms Advanced (UFA)

The Advanced Training package is designed for organizations that have completed our Foundation Training and are ready to move forward. This training is targeted at SharePoint administrators, SharePoint developers, and Infowise veterans who are already comfortable building solutions in SharePoint. During this technical deep dive, we'll explore more advanced capabilities of the UltimateForms toolset. You'll learn how to create custom functions, work with external data sources, and build custom dashboards and reports. This is a great way to take your Infowise Solutions skills to the next level.

Instructor-Led Training

Our expert trainers can work with you to develop a customized training program tailored to your specific needs. We'll work with you to develop a training program that covers your organization's most important topics. We'll provide hands-on, practical training to help you get the most out of your Infowise Solutions investment.

Conclusion

At Infowise, we are committed to helping our customers succeed with our SharePoint solutions. Our training packages are designed to help you make the most of our products, and we believe they are an essential component of our focus on customer success. Whether you're new to Infowise Solutions products or you're a seasoned SharePoint veteran, we have a training package that's right for you. Contact us today to learn more about our training options and how we can help you succeed with Infowise Solutions.

Setting Up a Comprehensive Learning Platform with SharePoint and ULTIMATEforms

2023-02-15T17:41:56Z

Continuing with our month's theme, creating a learning environment in SharePoint, here is a great one, a customized Learning Management System in SharePoint. The combination of Ultimateforms and SharePoint is an excellent and efficient way to create a customized Learning Management System (LMS) that supports your organization's training needs and requirements. In addition, its powerful features and integration capabilities make it an ideal platform for enhancing employee training and development.

Why use SharePoint and ULTIMATEforms to create a Learning Management System

SharePoint is an excellent solution for creating a customized Learning Management System (LMS) that supports your organization's training needs and requirements. Its powerful features and integration capabilities make it an ideal platform for enhancing employee training and development. For example, it allows for easy organization and categorization of training materials, making it easier for employees to find the material they need quickly. In addition, SharePoint offers robust collaboration features, allowing employees to provide feedback that enriches the program and leads to a more engaging and interactive learning experience. As mentioned above, the combination of SharePoint's native abilities and the powerful features and customization capabilities of ULTAIMTEfroms makes it incredibly easy to set up and manage even the most complex Learning Management Systems. Below are some features that make it an ideal platform for LMS development. Personalized dashboard for each user With ULTIMATEforms, you can easily create a custom dashboard for each student that displays relevant information and resources based on their areas of need. This personalized experience helps increase engagement and allows students to quickly find the data they need in one centralized location. Progress bars and assignments tracking ULTIMATEforms allows users to keep track of progress on assignments and tasks easily. This makes it easier for instructors to monitor their students' performance and enables them to provide feedback promptly. Functionality for students, teachers, and admins SharePoint can be tailored to meet the needs of students, teachers, and admins. This includes the ability to create custom forms for administrators to manage user accounts, assign tasks, and monitor progress. Students can access course materials and communicate with instructors in real-time via chat or discussion boards. Teachers can post announcements and assignments quickly and track student progress easily. Auto-generated email notifications and reminders SharePoint and ULTIMATEforms can generate automated email notifications and reminders for students, which helps ensure they stay on track. In addition, this saves instructors time and eliminates the need to manually remind students of upcoming assignments or deadlines. Store training content, including videos and documents SharePoint and ULTIMATEforms make it easy to store training content, including videos, documents, and other files. This allows instructors to quickly upload and share materials with their students in one location. It also ensures that all content is stored securely and can only be accessed by authorized users. Set up test questions and track performance related to content SharePoint and ULTIMATEforms allow instructors to set up test questions related to course content and track student performance. This makes it easy for teachers to measure progress and identify areas where students need additional help or support. Set up courses and schedules for each student. SharePoint and ULTIMATEforms allow instructors to set up courses and schedules for each student, making it easy for students to stay organized and on track with their studies. With these tools, instructors can assign tasks and monitor student progress in real-time. This helps create an engaging learning environment where students are motivated to perform well.

Resources

If you want to learn how to create a Learning Management System in SharePoint, I strongly recommend watching the training video presented by our lead instructor Will Cooper. In this video, he will guide you step-by-step through setting up your system quickly and efficiently. To access this helpful tutorial, follow the link provided here!

Conclusion

SharePoint and ULTIMATEforms offer a comprehensive platform for creating a Learning Management System tailored to any organization's needs. The powerful features and customization capabilities allow instructors to easily create personalized dashboards, assign tasks, track progress, store content securely, generate email notifications and reminders, and quickly set up tests. This makes it simpler and more efficient for instructors to manage their courses while providing students with a dynamic learning experience. With SharePoint and ULTIMATEforms, organizations can create an effective Learning Management System that helps improve student engagement, retention, and performance.

Effortlessly manage and share instructional videos in SharePoint

2023-02-07T15:59:37Z

Video communication has become vital in the fast-paced world of modern business, particularly for large companies. As a result, many organizations have turned to SharePoint to capture and share instructional videos to ensure that complex procedures, processes, and policies are communicated effectively. Although this provides a platform for successful video sharing, managing and organizing these videos can be challenging. That's where ULTIMATEforms comes in. ULTIMATEforms provides a practical and easy-to-use solution for this problem, allowing businesses to take full advantage of SharePoint's capabilities for capturing and sharing instructional videos. In this blog post, we will explore how ULTIMATEforms and SharePoint have come together to create a streamlined process for managing these critical pieces of

Video Communication for Enterprise-Size Organizations

Video communication has become an essential part of modern-day training and onboarding processes. It helps employees understand complex tasks and procedures and makes it easier for organizations to scale their training efforts. With enterprises' increasing size and complexity, video communication has become a critical aspect of business operations.

Benefits of Creating a Shareable Video Library

Improved communication: A centralized video library can make sharing information and communicating with employees, partners, and customers easier.
Employee Engagement: An organized video library can help foster employee engagement and reduce turnover by providing a clear roadmap for onboarding, training, and ongoing development.
Better knowledge retention: Videos are a highly engaging and effective way to share information and can help employees retain knowledge better than text or audio alone.
Better brand consistency: A video library can help maintain brand consistency by providing guidelines for creating videos and ensuring that all videos align with the company's brand and messaging.
Cost savings: A video library can reduce the need for in-person training and other resources, leading to cost savings for the business.
Increased efficiency: With a video library, employees can quickly access training videos and other important content, saving time and improving productivity.
Improved accessibility: A centralized video library can make it easier for employees, customers, and partners to access important information and resources, regardless of their location or device.

Streamlining the Process of Capturing and Sharing Videos

SharePoint is a powerful collaboration platform that enables organizations to create, store, and share content across their enterprise. With its built-in video capabilities, SharePoint is ideal for capturing and sharing instructional videos with employees. However, managing and organizing these videos can be challenging, especially for large enterprises. ULTIMATEforms is a comprehensive tool that integrates with SharePoint to streamline the process of capturing and sharing instructional videos. With its user-friendly dashboard, companies can upload videos easily and trigger notifications to notify users. The platform also includes formatted video descriptions, allows users to share videos easily, and provides user feedback, including questions and comments.

ULTIMATEforms' Video Library Features

Upload Videos Easily to a User-Friendly Dashboard: With ULTIMATEforms; companies can upload instructional videos to a user-friendly dashboard, making it easy to manage and organize their video library.
Automatically Trigger Emails to Notify Users: ULTIMATEforms can automatically trigger emails to notify users when new videos are added to the library, ensuring that everyone is aware of the latest content.
Include Formatted Video Descriptions: The platform includes formatted video descriptions, making it easy for users to understand what the video is about.
Allow Users to Share Videos Easily: ULTIMATEforms enables users to share videos easily with other users, making it easy for teams to collaborate and share knowledge.
Allow User Feedback Including Questions and Comments: ULTIMATEforms allows users to ask questions and provide feedback on instructional videos, ensuring that the content is relevant and up-to-date.
Link to Related Videos: ULTIMATEforms enables users to link to related videos, making it easy for employees to access related information and resources.
Set Expiration Date Ensuring Current Videos Gain Focus: Companies can set an expiration date for instructional videos, ensuring that users focus on the most current information.
Organize Videos in Categories for Easy Filter and Search: ULTIMATEforms enables companies to organize their instructional videos into categories, making it easy to filter and search for specific content.

Resources to help you start video library

Step-by-step on how to create a training video library in SharePoint: Video Library Management in SharePoint

Easy Share Instructional videos!

In conclusion, ULTIMATEforms' video library features are a powerful way to enable enterprises to streamline the capturing and sharing of instructional videos. Its user-friendly dashboard, automatic email notifications, formatted video descriptions, and ability to provide user feedback, ULTIMATEforms, makes it easy for companies to manage and organize their video library. If you want to improve your enterprise communication, consider using SharePoint and ultimate forms to capture and share instructional videos. The best way to start quickly is with our step-by-step presentation on creating a training video library in SharePoint!

Build Your Own Offline PDF Forms for Automatic Import to SharePoint

2023-02-06T19:20:29Z

In a world where the internet seems all around us and we use it all the time, it is easy to forget that there are still many situations where users do not have an internet connection. For organizations that need to provide forms to be filled out offline, it has seemed like a dead end scenario. Luckily with the new functionality released in Ultimate Forms, a solution path just became available. Web based forms should remain your go to when trying to provide the best possible user experience, but combining the ability to also use offline forms will help facilitate users as a fallback solution in those scenarios where a connection to the internet isn't always possible. To start, let's describe what we're trying to accomplish: We want to distribute forms to users that they can download to their device (computers, tablets or phones) which can be filled out when they are not connected to the internet. The first part of this process is using Adobe Acrobat Standard Edition (or Pro if you already have it) to create your own custom PDF form. Note that you only need a license for the person developing the forms. If you are new to this process - there are loads of videos and instructions on the web to help you ramp up on that process quickly. It's pretty intuitive! The key part to this process is the custom submit button which you will set to send an email to a special email address used later for import. This also sets the subject line on the email automatically. Here is a sample URL: mailto:forms@YOURORGANIZATION.com?subject=IMPORT CUSTOMER CONTACT When the user clicks the button, the PDF is automatically attached to a new email which is created in the email client along with the designated subject line. The user can repeatedly use this same form to make new submissions at any time. (Note that you should also add a "Clear" button as shown in the video.) When the user reconnects to the internet, the email in their outbox is sent automatically to the email address. Now we are ready to set up some magic in SharePoint. This is where Ultimate Forms comes in! In Ultimate Forms, you will set up a new import profile using the new Import from an editable PDF attachment option. You simply need to upload your form to the import profile and it will automatically detect the fields in the PDF. In the import profile, you can easily map your PDF fields to the fields in your SharePoint list. Make sure to set a condition to filter based on the subject line text. This ensures that the import is only attempted on the specific form that you have set up. (See the "mailto" link above!) If you don't already have a special email for inbound traffic, it is quite easy to set up. You should set up a new user account with an email like this: "forms@yourorganization.com". This account only needs an Exchange license (email only) which is relatively inexpensive on a month-to-month basis. Be sure to reference the article preceding this one which includes key technical information about the new funtionality: » Update SharePoint List Data When You're Offline Watch the video below to see all the key steps and watch the process in action:

Update SharePoint list data when you're offline

2023-01-31T23:05:44Z

Hi, It's 2023 and mobile Internet connection is ubiquitous. But still there are cases when you need to be able to enter data into your SharePoint lists when you are offline. Until now, there were no good option that allowed you to do it easily, without installing complicated apps and learning to work in new ways. With the addition of editable PDFs to the Print component of Ultimate Forms, the offline form capability is now within your reach. By combining Print, Actions and Import components, we can configure the following in just a few minutes:

Automatically generate an editable PDF document based on a list item and send it to the user.
The user opens the PDF from the email on their mobile device and makes the necessary changes to data, while remaining offline.
Once done, the updated document is emailed back (the email application will send it automatically once the user comes back online of course).
Import component will monitor the email account and automatically import the email. The updated information will be used to automatically update the list item.

That's it, no new software is needed and any mobile device will work just fine! Let's see how it can be configured:

Create a list with the columns you want. I'm creating a simple address verification list.
Create a modern form for the list. It's straightforward and not required, so I won't be expanding here.
Create a print template.
Make sure the enable Create editable PDF under PDF section. This will ensure all column values are editable.
Now let's create an action that will print the entered item and send it to the email address entered. Basically, once the user enters their details, a confirmation/verification email including the editable PDF is sent to them. Note that I'm enabling Item is added event to send automatically when an item is created.
And I'm also enable the Manual execution option, just in case.
Under the Action settings, I'm specifying the print template I just created.
And I'm configuring how the email is going to look like and where it's going to be sent.
As you can see, I'm sending it to the Email column value. The subject line is set to contain the unique ID of the item, it will extracted when importing and used to identify which item to update with the new info.
The sending part is done, now let's configure the import profile.
Enable Import from editable PDF attachment option and upload the PDF file. You can create a sample PDF by entering an item into the list with your details, the PDF will be emailed to you!
Now let's map the list columns to the columns in the PDF.
The important part here is the condition under Item which compares the item's unique ID with the ID we extract from the subject line of the email. The Extract function basically takes whatever comes after ID: in the subject line. I also added a condition to only import email with a certain subject line, that is optional, but as I'm using my own email address for testing purposes, I don't want it to try and import all the emails I receive!
And we are done!

Now let's test it!

I enter a new item into the list with my details.
After a minute or so I get an email with a PDF attachment.
I open the attachment and make some changes to the data.
Then I save the document, reply to the email and attach it
Once the import runs (and it runs every 15 min), it picks up the email and updates the list item.
Note the updated ZIP code!

And that's how easy it is to implement offline functionality with Ultimate Forms!

Unlock the full potential of form building in SharePoint with quality e-learning resources

2023-01-25T16:55:18Z

Welcome to ULTIMATEforms! If this is your first visit to our site, you are likely searching for resources for building powerful SharePoint Forms. Whether you're a seasoned user in the SharePoint space or new to the platform, we have what you're looking for; superb resources to help you create custom SharePoint forms. Our ULTIMATEforms Knowledge library is here to help you unlock the full potential of SharePoint with quality e-learning resources at your fingertips. With extensive documentation, tutorials, and knowledge-base blogs posted by our experts, you can access many great learning opportunities available 24/7. Start benefiting from these educational materials today to take your SharePoint experience to the next level. Check out our webinars on building custom business process solutions, advanced forms, and workflows today! It's time to harness the power of SharePoint now! I have highlighted the following webinars with a focus on SharePoint forms!

A powerful form builder interface that allows you to create fully dynamic SMART forms

In this learning material, our trainer will discuss using Infowise Ultimate Forms to provide a powerful form builder interface that allows you to create fully dynamic SMART forms that change according to the user, status, or any conditions you define. Additionally, the interface can expand and collapse as a user interacts with the form. We demonstrate building dynamic SMART forms that handle all kinds of conditions while providing the user with a friendly interface. Furthermore, all of this can be accomplished with simple configuration and no custom code! If you are frustrated by the limitations of your current forms, follow this step-by-step material and learn more about the features and functionality available to build SMART forms in SharePoint:

Show/hide sections conditionally according to user inputs
Apply conditional validation
Show / Hide information according to field values
Use custom buttons to allow users to make updates directly in the form
Add "baked-in instructions" and pop-up help to guide users
Change colors and styles according to status
Include a dynamic summary header with critical form data
Include automatic history logging of previous updates

Click here and start your learning journey

Great-looking custom forms from scratch faster than you would have ever thought possible

Creating custom SharePoint forms can be a slow and painstaking process. Because it takes so much time and effort, many organizations go without custom forms-based work processes. But it doesn't have to be! Infowise Ultimate Forms provides an excellent form designer which allows FAST custom form building designed around ease of use with no custom code. This material demonstrates building great-looking custom forms from scratch faster than you would have ever thought possible. If you are frustrated at your current options for building custom SharePoint forms, please join us to see how fast and easy it can be. We'll highlight these key features:

Simple and versatile container model
Easy-to-understand style rules to set the look and feel
Apply colors, borders, padding, and other styles in seconds
Create fields while building the form
Insert custom instructions, images, and related content
Create a dynamic header with key content
Use dynamic rules for conditional form sections
Build a completely custom form in only a few minutes

Click here and start an easy and quick learning journey!

Conclusion

In conclusion, ULTIMATEforms is an intuitive and quick building solution that constantly improves and adds new features. The technical team puts a lot of effort into enhancing the end-user learning experience. To make the most of this application, it is recommended to closely follow the materials on the website, sign up for the newsletter to stay updated on new features and download the application to explore it for yourself. Have fun!

Securely updating data via External forms in SharePoint

2023-01-23T20:37:32Z

Hi, External forms are one of the most compelling features of Ultimate Forms (and there are so many!). They allow you to expose forms of an internal SharePoint list to anonymous external users in a simple, but secure fashion. You can now send forms to your partners, customers or suppliers and the information gets entered directly into your SharePoint list, where you can print it, create reports, assign tasks or attach alerts. Basically using the full range of SharePoint's and Ultimate Forms' capabilities. The external forms can hosted by us (easy!) or embedded on a page within your external website (just a tad more complicated). When people open the form link and enter the information, it gets saved directly to the SharePoint list. But how do we make sure it's secure and we do not expose your precious data to the world? Well, the form never actually interacts with SharePoint directly. It interacts with our special proxy web interface, which examines every requests and determines that it is legitimate. Only forms you marked as external can be accessed and even there you control which capabilities are allowed (for instance, you might want to only allow New forms, but not Display or Edit). Today I want to discuss an exciting new capability we just added. You can now edit existing items in a safe and secure way. For each item we will generate a unique ID, which is impossible to guess and the form can only be opened using that ID. As the URL contains both form and item IDs and both of them are GUIDs (global unique identifier), the number of possible combination approaches the number of atoms in the whole observable Universe, which you would agree is rather high! Let me quickly demonstrate how we can implement a form that is filled out and then can be corrected at a later time, using a special link. It's called Address Info and it's a very simple address collection and correction form, intended to be filled out by people outside of your organization (clients, members, partners, etc.)

I created a simple list with the following columns:
Next, I opened our Form Designer and created a form for the list:
I wasn't lazy and even created a special Thank You page to be shown when the form is submitted:

Of course, you can invest a bit more in the design of it :)
Next, I enabled External form functionality:
Note that I enabled all form types. Click on the copy button next to New and Edit links and paste them in Notepad, we will use them soon. As you see, I used the Hosted form option and the URL leads to a page on the Infowise website, but you also embed it on your own page, using the provided script.
Publish the form.
Enter Alerts component and click to create a new alert.
First, we need to make some changes to the recipients. Delete yourself and add Email column instead:

That will ensure the alert is sent to the email that was entered into the form.
Next, under What to send, ensure the alert is sent on Item is added only:
And last, configure the subject and body of the email of the alert:

Make sure to use the link button on the toolbar and pasting the Edit form URL as the link URL. The link contains a token that will be replaced by the actual item's unique ID when sending.
Save the alert and you're done.

So easy, right? Let's try it out!

First open the New form link. The form is empty, fill it out and submit. Use your real email so you can get the notification.
In a minute or two an email will arrive:
Click on the link within the email, you can now see the information you submitted earlier and can make changes:

Note the two GUIDs in the URL. Their combination uniquely identifies the item and it is impossible to simply guess it, the number of options is truly astronomical! As you can see, it is so easy to create a secure external form and start collecting your data directly inside your SharePoint list. Enjoy!

Non-developers, rejoice; now you can build advanced SharePoint forms and workflows

2023-01-23T15:29:03Z

If you're new to SharePoint and have yet to work with it, you may be curious about what it is and how your business can benefit from it. This post will explain the fundamentals of SharePoint and ULTIMATEforms and demonstrate how this powerful combination can optimize processes in your organization. As you can understand, this post will cover both platforms in generalities; however, if you landed on this page because you searched for a specific SharePoint solution and you need to jump into action immediately, let me assist with these resources; ULTIMATEforms: Quick start ULTIMATEforms: Quick Forms ULTIMATEforms: SharePoint Solutions ULTIMATEforms: Documentations

What is SharePoint?

SharePoint is a web-based platform that allows teams to easily share and manage documents, tasks, and other information. It can be used for many purposes, including document management, project management, and team collaboration. SharePoint is part of the Microsoft Office Suite and can be integrated with other Office applications, such as Teams, Word and Excel. Please consult with Microsoft's resources on the topic!

How SharePoint can be used in your organization:

Document Management: SharePoint allows teams to easily share and manage documents, making it easy to keep track of the latest versions and collaborate with team members. You can also set permissions to control who can access and edit certain documents.
Project Management: SharePoint can track tasks, assign responsibilities, and monitor project progress. It also allows teams to share project-related documents and communicate with each other easily.
Team Collaboration: SharePoint provides a central location for teams to share information and communicate. It also allows teams to create and manage shared calendars, which can help to improve coordination and collaboration.
Intranet: SharePoint can be used to create an internal website for your organization, which can be used to share company news, policies, and other important information. This can help to improve communication and collaboration among employees.

Benefits of Using SharePoint:

Improved Communication and Collaboration: SharePoint allows teams to easily share information and communicate with each other, which can help to enhance collaboration and coordination among team members.
Increased Productivity: SharePoint can help streamline processes and make it easier for teams to manage tasks and documents, increasing productivity.
Better Document Management: SharePoint allows teams to easily share and manage documents, which can help to ensure that the latest versions are always available and that team members are working with the most up-to-date information.
Cost-effective: SharePoint can be a cost-effective solution for managing documents and tasks and collaborating with team members, especially compared to expensive alternatives.

ULTIMATEforms?

ULTIMATEforms, also known as Infowise ULTIMATEforms, is a software application that provides additional functionality to Microsoft SharePoint. The application offers a wide range of features, including forms creation and management, data validation, and workflow automation, making it a comprehensive solution for businesses and organizations that use SharePoint. Due to its extensive capabilities, it is not accurate to describe Ultimate Forms as simply an "add-on" to SharePoint but rather an application that enhances and extends the platform's functionality.

The main components of ULTIMATEforms

ULTIMATEforms is an extensive application. However, these components are the main features that make it so powerful:

Forms: component provides advanced tools for manipulating tab and column permissions, layout, and validation rules of items in SharePoint lists and document libraries.
Form Designer: This component allows users to create and customize forms using a drag-and-drop interface. Users can add fields, sections, and buttons to forms and customize their appearance.
Actions: component allows you to define and execute custom actions every time a list item or a document is created, updated, deleted, or based on a timer. You can define as many actions as you want, defining the action settings and conditions for execution. All actions are created, executed, and monitored using the web browser; no external tools are required.
Alerts: This component allows users to define and configure alerts sent via email or SMS when certain conditions are met.
Reports: This component allows users to generate reports from the data collected through forms. Users can create custom reports to view and analyze data in various ways.

All these components work together to create a comprehensive solution for creating and managing forms and workflows in SharePoint, making it easy for users to automate business processes and collect data.

Benefits of Using Ultimate Forms:

User-friendly interface: With ULTIMATEforms, users can easily create forms and workflows without coding, making it accessible to non-technical users.
Advanced features: Ultimate Forms provides advanced features such as conditional logic, validation, and calculated fields, allowing users to create complex forms and workflows.
Customizable: Ultimate Forms allows users to customize forms and workflows to fit their specific needs fully.
Time-saving: Ultimate Forms automates business processes and eliminates the need for manual data entry, saving time for your organization.
Improved data collection: ULTIMATEforms makes it easy to collect, manage and analyze data from forms, allowing your organization to make data-driven decisions.
Increased productivity: Ultimate Forms streamlines processes and improves team communication and collaboration, leading to increased productivity.

Experience the benefits of using ULTIMATEforms with a 30-Day Free Trial!

SharePoint forms are a powerful tool that can be used in many ways to collect and share information and data. However, in some instances, the out-of-the-box SharePoint forms may not meet an organization's specific needs. In such cases, a third-party solution such as Ultimate forms is required. Ultimate forms provide advanced features and customization options that allow organizations to create forms tailored to their specific needs. In addition, its user-friendly interface, advanced features, and automation capabilities make it cost-effective. ULTIMATEforms is a powerful tool that allows users to create advanced forms and workflows with minimal coding, making it accessible to non-technical users. Its user-friendly interface, advanced features, and automation capabilities make it a cost-effective solution for improving team communication and collaboration, streamlining processes, and making data-driven decisions. If you want to create SharePoint forms, we recommend trying ULTIMATEforms.

New features in PDF and Word conversion

2023-01-17T15:36:20Z

Hi, Ultimate Forms' Print component allows you to print out your items in the layout and format of your own design, helping you create and distribute documents with ease. One of the most important features is the ability to generate PDF and MS Word documents, two of the most important document formats in the world today. We've been offering these features for a very long time now. Today we are happy to announce that we are rolling out a number of improvements, some of them based on the direct customer feedback.

Word templates

Although the ability to upload your own Word template files to be filled out by the component is not new, we are now extending the use of these templates to PDF conversion as well. So when your print template contains a Word template and you are using Convert to PDF button, it will first internally generate a Word document from the template and then convert it to PDF. It's very simple and effective, especially for non-technical users, anyone can create a Word document!

Embedded attachments

Previously we allowed only PDF attachments to be embedded (inserted) into the generated PDF documents. Now we support Word, HTML and a variety of image formats, including DICOM and CAD. No additional configuration is required, it will just work!

Conversion throttling

We no longer limit the number of PDF conversions you are allowed to perform each day.

Word generation

When generating Word documents without the use of a template file, the generated document is much more advanced now, with header/footer handled separately and page number tokens respected. Watermark handling is also greatly improved. Note that all this applies to Print Actions as well, not only when the Print component is used directly.

Creating external SharePoint Forms easily with ULTIMATEforms

2023-01-16T18:29:31Z

SharePoint Forms basics!

SharePoint forms are used to collect and store data within a SharePoint site. They can be used for various purposes, such as collecting user information, tracking tasks, or creating surveys. SharePoint forms are primarily intended for internal use within an organization. They are typically used to collect and manage data within a company's SharePoint site, a closed system that is only accessible to authorized users. This allows for better control over who has access to the collected data and ensures that the information is kept confidential.

Limitations of SharePoint Forms for external use

Sharepoint forms collect and manage information within a company's SharePoint site, only accessible to authorized users. It can also be considered a limitation in some cases, as it limits the ability to share the collected data with external parties or to collect information from external sources. For example, some organizations may need to collect data from customers, vendors, and partners, which would require using forms that can be accessed from outside the company's SharePoint site. To overcome this limitation, organizations use third-party tools or services to create forms that can be embedded in external websites or shared via URL.

ULTIMATEforms for creating powerful external forms

ULTIMATEforms simplifies the process of creating forms in SharePoint, providing a user-friendly interface that does not require any coding knowledge. This enables organizations to quickly create forms and gather data without relying on IT resources. It can also automate business processes by creating workflows, notifications, and alerts. ULTIMATEforms can help organizations streamline their internal processes, improve data collection and management, and increase efficiency. ULTIMATEforms' ease-of-use and no-code principles also translate for external forms; once you're done developing the form with ULTIMATEforms design tool Form Designer, it is a simple one-click to expose your Form to external users.

Build secure forms using Infowise Form Designer

They securely transmitted form data from public users to the SharePoint Online list. As a result, the SharePoint list securely stores all forms' data, and the SharePoint forms are accessible from anywhere. In addition, SharePoint users can review and update the form submissions, add comments, or mark them as completed. The app makes it easy for SharePoint administrators to manage their public-facing SharePoint forms without writing a single line of code.

CAPTCHA technology to screen out spam submissions.

Infowise ULTIMATEforms app also includes a CAPTCHA feature to help screen out spam submissions. This allows organizations to protect their SharePoint forms from malicious attacks and keep data quality high.

Automatic transfer of data to SharePoint Online

Once the form is submitted, Infowise ULTIMATEforms automatically transfers the data to the SharePoint Online list. SharePoint administrators can monitor and manage all form submissions from SharePoint in an easy-to-use interface.

Automatic email notifications and dashboard tracking in SharePoint.

In addition to the SharePoint Online list, SharePoint administrators can set up automated email notifications when a form submission is received. Additionally, the app has a dashboard feature to keep track of all SharePoint forms' recommendations and their status. These features make it easy for organizations to manage public-facing SharePoint forms and help ensure that customer data is securely transmitted and stored.

Fully dynamic forms laid out exactly how you want

When you opt for ULTIMTEforms, you buy into the application's ability to generate attractive public-facing forms and tap into the Apps' massive capabilities to customize and format SharePoint forms. Creating SharePoint forms with Ultimate Forms is fully dynamic, where you can change the layout of the SharePoint form exactly how you want. You can customize SharePoint forms with a drag-and-drop builder, add custom HTML content, or upload files directly from SharePoint without writing any code.

Resources to get you started!

Step-by-step presentations

For creating public-facing SharePoint forms

Follow our instructor as he guides you through creating public-facing SharePoint forms with Infowise ULTIMATEforms.

Knowledgebase Articles

For creating public-facing SharePoint forms

Learn more about public-facing SharePoint forms and how to create them with step-by-step tutorials, detailed screenshots, and helpful tips in our knowledgebase articles.

Documentations

Check out our Infowise ULTIMATEforms documentation pages to learn more about public-facing SharePoint forms and how to create and manage them securely and efficiently. You can also find comprehensive tutorials on creating public-facing SharePoint forms, configuring their settings, and adding features to public-facing forms.

Conclusion

Start using ULTIMATEforms today to create and manage public-facing SharePoint forms with ease. With the help of ULTIMATEforms, you can build SharePoint forms quickly, customize them for external use, and ensure their security with authentication methods like SharePoint permissions or two-factor authentication. Get started today and see how easy it is to create powerful public-facing SharePoint forms with ULTIMATEforms.

Create and manage advanced dynamic SharePoint forms with Infowise Form Designer

2023-01-10T17:31:46Z

Welcome! Whether you're an experienced SharePoint user or new to the platform, Infowise ULTIMATEforms can be valuable for creating custom and dynamic forms within SharePoint. With ULTIMATEforms, you can automate business processes and create forms that are tailored to your specific needs. In this post, I'll provide resources to help you get started using ULTIMATEforms, including the Form Designer component. Whether you're just starting out or looking to take your SharePoint development skills to the next level, these resources will help you take advantage of the full capabilities of SharePoint using ULTIMATEforms. Here are essential resources to help you get started using Infowise From Designer:

An overview of ULTIMATEforms; From Designer is a component of ULTIMATEforms, so It might be a good idea to familiarize yourself with ULTIMATEforms.
An excellent blog about Infowise Form Designer by our Lead Trainer, Will Cooper.
A Step-by-step presentation on how to build dynamic, custom forms using Forms Designer might be in order now that you have familiarized yourself with our lead product.
Prebuild Solutions: forms are a means to an end, and the goal of any business is to turn daily business challenges into solutions; so here it is, a plethora of prebuilt SharePoint solutions/templates for your use, and they are free!
Documentation: our documentation for using Forms Designer is extensive!

Enjoy learning!

Infowise Form Designer

Intuitive: Infowise Form Designer is an easy-to-use drag-and-drop form builder for SharePoint. It lets users quickly create custom forms in SharePoint without coding or design skills. In addition, the intuitive user interface makes it easy for anyone to create forms with minimal effort. Secure: Creating forms with Infowise Form Designer can be a great way to streamline data collection and save time on manual form creation. So if you're looking for an easy-to-use form builder for SharePoint, Infowise Form Designer is worth considering. Custom Dynamic Forms: Using Infowise Form Designer can provide various benefits to businesses of any size. Form Designer enables users to create custom forms with an intuitive drag-and-drop interface that can be used on any device. It also allows multiple form elements such as text boxes, checkboxes, and more. Additionally, the auto-generated HTML makes it easy to embed forms into websites or applications without writing the code manually. Excellent Support: Several tutorials and video walkthroughs are available online if you're looking for resources on creating forms with Infowise Form Designer. Additionally, Infowise has an extensive library of support documentation to answer users' questions about the software. In conclusion, Infowise Form Designer is an easy-to-use form builder for SharePoint that enables users to create custom forms with minimal effort. It provides various benefits, such as creating forms on any device, different field formats, and auto-generated HTML for embedding into websites or applications. There are also resources available online for creating forms with Form Designer. Thank you for reading!

Boost your SharePoint form-building abilities with Infowise ULTIMATEforms

2023-01-09T15:39:45Z

While posting about Infowise ULTIMATEforms forte, which is building powerful forms, I thought I might need to create a post dedicated to sharing the vast resources we have to support your journey into becoming a master SharePoint form builder. At one glance, you will find that all the resources you need are already available on this site; it takes a few clicks to get started. Create the most dynamic, advanced SharePoint forms, and watch your audience be amazed! So, let's start with resources to get you started.

Quick Start with ULTIMATEforms

The Quick Start Guide provides a step-by-step overview of how to get set up with Ultimate Forms. It covers the main features and installation instructions and helps you configure and customize your forms in no time.

SharePoint Forms

You can create custom SharePoint forms tailored to your specific needs with Ultimate Forms. Our forms are intuitive, easy to use, and can be quickly deployed. Have a look at these few examples. Download, repurpose, and reuse; it is free!

Prebuilt SharePoint Applications

Various prebuilt applications are available for use with Ultimate Forms. These include ready-to-go templates for managing project tasks, creating surveys and polls, tracking workflow progress, and more. Download, repurpose, and reuse; it is free!

ULTIMATEforms Webinars

Access a vast library of instructor-guided step-by-step presentations and tutorials on everything you need to know about Ultimate Forms. Watch and learn as our experts explain the best practices for using Ultimate Forms for SharePoint in your organization.

ULTIMATEforms Tutorials

Our tutorials provide a thorough walkthrough of creating forms using Ultimate Forms. They are designed to help you get up and running quickly and easily.

ULTIMATEforms Documentation

Detailed documentation is available for all Ultimate Forms features, so you can ensure everything is set up correctly. Even if you’re not a technical expert, our easy-to-follow instructions will have your forms ready in no time!

ULTIMATEforms Training

Hands-on training is the best way to get proficient. That's why we've created three unique training offerings to help you master UlTIMATEforms. Our interactive sessions are delivered via web meetings and conducted within personal virtual workspaces.

ULTIMATEforms Implementation Partners

We have a network of trusted implementation partners who specialize in helping customers set up Ultimate Forms. Our partners can provide the expertise and guidance you need to ensure your forms look great and function properly.

ULTIMATEforms is available to you for a 30-day trial!

Now that you’re acquainted with our resources note that as a new user, you have a 30-day trial period to give Ultimate Forms a go. This way, you can ensure that it is the right solution for your organization before going all in! Ready to become a SharePoint form-building master? Get started today with Ultimate Forms, and let your forms do the talking! Good luck.

Understanding Dynamic Forms in SharePoint - Native Forms vs. Customized Forms

2023-01-04T20:16:15Z

Greetings!. Before going into this post topic, I would like to direct those of you who are here due to query about SharePoint forms to deal with the specific business challenge to available resources:

Powerful dynamic forms: your modern business solutions start with powerful yet easy-to-use forms created directly in your browser without a single line of code.
Pre-configured business solutions: browse our growing library of pre-built forms and business solutions, install them in your own environment, then use and modify them for free.

SharePoint native forms vs. SharePoint customized dynamic forms

In the context of SharePoint, a form is a page or document that contains fields for user input, such as text boxes, dropdown lists, and checkboxes. A dynamic form is a form that can change its appearance or behavior in response to user input or other events. For example, a dynamic form might hide or show specific fields based on the values entered by the user, or it might enable or disable certain buttons based on the user's permissions. Dynamic forms can be created in SharePoint using various tools, Microsoft's apps such as PowerApps, and Microsoft Flow, custom code, and third-party tools like our own ULTIMATEforms. Out-of-the-box SharePoint forms may not always be the best solution for businesses, depending on their specific needs and requirements. SharePoint native forms are fairly basic and do not have many customization options. They can be sufficient for simple data entry and retrieval tasks but may not provide enough flexibility or functionality for more complex or sophisticated use cases. For example, SharePoint basic forms may not offer the ability to hide or show fields based on user input or other conditions or to use custom layout templates. They also do not provide many options for customizing the appearance or behavior of forms, such as adding custom buttons or actions. As a result, businesses that need more advanced or dynamic forms may need to look for alternative solutions, such as Infowise Ultimate Forms or other third-party add-ons. However, it is also worth noting that SharePoint native forms can be a good choice for businesses that do not require a lot of customization and need an essential solution for collecting and storing data. In these cases, using SharePoint native forms can be a quick and easy way to start with SharePoint and may be a more cost-effective option than other solutions.

Adding dynamism to SharePoint Forms with Infowise Ultimateforms

Infowise Ultimate Forms is a third-party add-on for SharePoint that allows users to create dynamic forms within SharePoint. It provides a range of features and tools that can be used to customize the appearance and behavior of forms in SharePoint, including the ability to:

Expandable form sections based on user input
Conditionally control content display based on status, user role, or user inputs
Set up cascading dropdown controls to show filtered options
Auto-fill form fields streamlining form updates
Embed formatted help sections to guide users
Create custom validation rules for every scenario
Control the form design easily with simple-to-use options
Set up forms with easy configuration and NO CUSTOM CODE

By using Infowise Ultimate Forms, users can create dynamic forms that are more interactive and tailored to their specific needs. This can improve the usability and effectiveness of forms in SharePoint and make it easier for users to enter and update data.

Print your Custom Form to PDF without a Print Template

2023-01-04T18:40:57Z

Print templates and related output can sometimes be quite challenging. Especially with highly customized forms. In this post we'll look at another great option for printing which may help you save a lot of time while getting exactly what you need. First - let's review the regular print options at a high level:

A Simple Print Template allows you to put together a basic design by selecting fields and adding section headers. It's fast and easy, but the print output is basic and cannot be specially formatted.
An Advanced Print Template allows you to put together a sophisticated template which can be highly configured for precise formatting and output. This is powerful and applicable in situations where you need to get precise output to match a pre-existing format. In many cases this may involve using custom HTML and CSS along with tables to get the output to match your precise requirements. It's possible to achieve a precise goal, but it can be time consuming to get there. Coding may be required!
Word Templates are a much more user friendly option and generally the best option to produce advanced custom print layouts. This allows you to create a Word Document and format it exactly the way you want. You can simply reference your fields using square brackets like this: [Title]

These options give you a good variety of approaches to get the print output that you need. Now let's talk about an additional approach that offers advantages and may save you some time and effort. There are some drawbacks with print templates which we might want to overcome:

With a highly customized form it may be desirable to match the form in your print output, but this is difficult and requires double work in that you have to repeat your formatting to reproduce the format in your print template.
Forms often have rules to show or hide sections that are not applicable based on certain conditions. Print templates don't include this same logic. This may lead to showing sections in a print template with no data or having to develop multiple print templates to accomodate for these different situations.
Print templates can be quite time consuming in the case of advanced forms. That means the work might just not get done at all.

An additional alternative approach is to use your browser print command It sounds simple, but you can get the output you need and spend only a little bit of time setting it up. The basic idea is to direct users to the display form and use the browser print command on that screen. You do need to make adjustments, but luckily these are simple and easily to repeat. We'll walk through the steps below, but first we need to address limitations to this specific approach:

Everything must be visible all at once on your form. Tabbed forms are not compatible because content remains hidden. If you are using an accordion control ensure that the Collapsable setting is disabled so that all sections are in view.
Users need to apply some simple settings in the print dialog to get the desired output.
This type of printing cannot be automated. The user must execute the print command manually.

Now let's get to this good stuff! The first thing we need to do is provide a button which directs users to the display form. You can create a text field called "Print" then add a View Button using this free template: https://sharepointdashboards.com/PRE/?t2 You can set the button to include any text you want and even pick a custom icon. It could say "PRINT" or "PDF" or similar, but the only purpose of the button is to send users to the display form. Now we need to add some print instructions to be shown on the of the display form screen to tell users what to do: You can reuse this description or adjust as needed: SAVE FORM TO PDF FOLLOWING THESE STEPS IN GOOGLE CHROME: 1. CTRL + P to open print dialog. 2. In Destination select Save as PDF. 3. Expand More Settings. 4. Under Options uncheck Headers and footers. 5. Under Options check Background graphics. 6. Click Save This section should be setup with these settings:

Set a permissions rule to show it only on the display form.
Assign a CSS class name of print-instructions to the container

Next, select "ToolBar" and disable "Show Toolbar" in the command menu. This is required in order to prevent this part of the UI from appearing in the print output. Now we need to add some CSS to hide the print instructions and buttons on the print output: @media print{.buttonBar, .print-instructions{display: none !important;}} And that should be it! Here is a summary of what we accomplished with this approach to printing:

You do not have to create any print template at all using this approach.
This allows you to get print output of the display form exactly as it appears in your browser.
The special instructions at the top of the form ensure that users know how to print.
The special CSS entry will suppress the form buttons and print instructions from appearing in your output.
What you see is what you get. Your print output should match exactly what you see on screen.

This approach has limitations and won't accomodate certain scenarios like tabbed forms, but is it a viable additional approach which can benefit you in the case that you need custom print output that matches what users see in the form. So now you have an additional useful way to facilitate printing with your custom forms.

SharePoint form building with Ultimate Forms

2023-01-03T16:31:14Z

Greetings, and thank you for stopping by! If you are in the SharePoint space, you are likely familiar with Infowise Ultimateforms. On the other hand, if this is your first visit to our site, then you are here as a result of a web search for a "powerful SharePoint form builder". Considering that most of our readers do land on our blog seeking to solve a specific business process challenge, let me guide you to a set of powerful resources on our site to get you started with building powerful and dynamic SharePoint forms right away: Here are some excellent resources for creating SharePoint forms;

Here is an excellent presentation for creating dynamic SharePoint forms using Ultimateforms
For prebuild SharePoint solutions, click here to jump-start your project quickly.
Learn the ins and outs of the new Form Designer tool in this extended workshop

SharePoint's ULTIMATE form builder

Infowise Ultimate forms is a robust platform that turns out-of-box SharePoint into a launchpad for business process applications such as project management, Helpdesk, and unlimited possibilities of solutions customizable to your business requirements. It offers a wide range of features to suit any business needs and provides an easy-to-use interface that makes it simple to use and configure as this application requires no coding; you only need your browser to turn your business analyst into a developer. Users can easily customize their forms to suit their particular business needs. With a comprehensive suite of features and options, Ultimate Forms makes it easy to create powerful data collection forms tailored to the organization's requirements.

Secure SharePoint forms

In addition to its flexibility and convenience, Ultimate Forms offers special security measures that ensure user-entered information is kept safe from prying eyes. Through powerful encryption and alternative authentication methods, Ultimate Forms gives users peace of mind that their data is secure.

Intuitive and easy to learn

Ultimate Forms also includes an intuitive user interface that makes it easy to create complex forms, even for inexperienced users. From simple text boxes to multi-page wizards and custom navigation elements, Ultimate Forms provides a comprehensive toolset for creating highly customized forms.

Mobile-ready interface

The mobile-ready interface allows users to access their forms from various devices, including smartphones and tablets. This makes it easy to capture data in the field or on the go, enabling users to get real-time insights into their business processes. Ultimate Forms also integrates with other leading platforms, such as Microsoft Dynamics and QuickBooks, allowing users to integrate their forms with other business systems easily.

Infowise ULTIMATEforms, free trial!

Overall, Infowise Ultimate Forms offers a simple and efficient solution for creating robust data collection forms for SharePoint sites. With features such as mobile-optimized design, strong security measures, and intuitive user interfaces, businesses can quickly create forms that will help them capture the data they need to make informed decisions. With its comprehensive feature set and easy-to-use platform, Ultimate Forms is the perfect solution for businesses looking to create robust forms for their SharePoint sites.

Microsoft Teams for project management

2022-12-22T19:04:27Z

Microsoft Teams is fast becoming a popular solution for project management. It provides an array of features that allow teams to remain connected, work together productively, and monitor progress. SharePoint, OneDrive, and other Office 365 apps can be easily accessed through Teams, making it easy to construct documents, store files and share information in real time. Additionally, Teams boasts several tools explicitly crafted for project management tasks like task lists and Kanban boards.

Microsoft Teams integrates with various third-party apps

Teams can integrate with various third-party apps, such as Trello, Asana, Wrike, and Monday, for even more control over the project management process. This ultimate flexibility allows teams always to have access to the resources they need. Project managers can use SharePoint to host documents in an organized way so that they can be easily accessed by all team members, allowing them to share files and communicate efficiently. SharePoint also allows users to set up task lists with associated due dates, which can be seen by all team members, ensuring that no essential tasks are missed or overlooked.

UlLTIMATEforms for SharePoint

Ultimate Forms provides SharePoint users an invaluable resource for creating complex and advanced business solutions without coding. With Ultimate Forms' help, SharePoint can generate anything from simple vacation requests or expense reports to more intricate help desk or project management solutions. These tasks can all be accomplished in a matter of minutes, with no prior coding experience required.

Using UlLTIMATEforms in Microsoft Teams

Microsoft Teams and Ultimate Forms provide a powerful combination for project managers. SharePoint enables team members to store, access, and share documents quickly, while Ultimate Forms allows users to build sophisticated business solutions based on SharePoint lists and document libraries. Task lists with due dates can be created via SharePoint, helping to ensure no tasks are overlooked or missed. With this ultimate flexibility, teams always have access to the resources they need to be successful. Here is a step-by-step guide to using Ultimateforms in Microsoft Teams.

More resources on using Ultimatefroms in Microsoft Teams

Here is an easy-to-follow tutorial on adding Forms to Microsoft Teams
Here is a step-by-step guide to using Ultimateforms in Microsoft Teams
It's handy to know where to find and download free prebuild business apps
Here is our documentation on integrating Ultimteforms in Microsoft Teams

Conclusion

In conclusion, Microsoft Teams provides a comprehensive solution for project management that can be further enhanced with SharePoint and Ultimate Forms. SharePoint allows teams to store documents in an organized way, while Ultimate Forms enables users to create complex business solutions quickly and easily. With this ultimate flexibility, teams always have access to the resources they need to be successful.

Turning your SharePoint site into a powerful project management tool with Ultimateforms

2022-12-20T21:14:43Z

Welcome to Infowise! Here, we specialize in creating innovative and powerful tools that enable you to create any kind of solution your business requires. Our flagship product, Ultimate Forms, is a code-free SharePoint add-on that lets your analysts create efficient processes with ease. To make this process even simpler, we have created several templates to help you jump-start your projects. These templates are designed to give you an idea of what our tools can do and can be customized for any type of business or industry. With Infowise, you can quickly create a project management solution that perfectly fits your needs - no coding required!

With our help, you can turn your SharePoint site into a powerful project management tool

SharePoint is a robust platform that allows you to store, share, and manage documents and data. It also offers various project management templates to help you get started quickly.
UltimateForms simplifies the process of creating customized forms and workflows for your specific needs. By combining UltimateForms with SharePoint, you can create a comprehensive project management template that meets your requirements.
You can also use SharePoint to maintain data consistency across projects, assign tasks and manage documents effectively. With UltimateForms, you can further customize your project management template according to specific needs. Whether it's creating an approval workflow or tracking progress – UltimateForms offers the perfect solution for every project. A project management template is invaluable for businesses of all sizes, allowing users to efficiently plan and manage complex projects. By utilizing the combination of SharePoint and UltimateForms, users can create customized templates that meet the specific needs of their project. This enables users to track tasks better, assign roles and responsibilities, and monitor progress at each stage. In addition, users can also use templates to ensure data consistency across projects and help streamline their project management process. Below is a brief review of the modules included in our prebuild project management solution;

Manage and track customers, projects, tasks, and work hours

Manage all your projects from one centralized location.
Manage budgets, health, hour, and cost assignment.
Create and track tasks and issues.
Track the time your employees spend working on projects.
Track project status and actual hours/cost vs. budget and identify problems immediately.
The system is based on regular SharePoint lists, so you can easily extend and adapt it to your needs without any development costs!

The system is comprised of the following modules:

Dashboard - a one-glance overview of all the projects, tasks, and issues with color-coded indicators.
Customers - enter and manage customer details. Because the information is kept in a regular SharePoint list, you can extend it to better suit your needs at any time without taking the system offline!
Projects - enter and manage projects, including assigned employees, hour reporting, budget control, and status. The list is color-coded so that you can notice problems at a glance!
Tasks - subdivide your projects into tasks and track each task separately. Know instantly which task is within budget and which is problematic. Tasks are added directly from within the project, so you never lose context!
Work Hours - allow your employees to report the work hours spent on each project. You can extend the list with your own columns, such as manager approval or overtime reporting.
Reports - view reports of the entered information. You can view the total work hours submitted by any employee and see a color indicator of the project's current status vs. the budgeted hours.

Conclusion

In conclusion, SharePoint and UltimateForms offer a powerful and convenient way to create the perfect project management template for your business. Utilizing their combination of features enables businesses to save time, reduce costs, and increase efficiency when managing projects. With this combination of tools, you can optimize your workflow and ensure that your projects are successful.

Manage your own gallery of images for modern form

2022-12-19T18:21:32Z

Hi, Images are a great way to improve the quality of your forms, leading to better submission results. We provide multiple ways of integrating images within forms, such as the Image control or the background image property under Style. Up until now we provided two ways of referencing images:

Use a URL of an image stored somewhere.
Use the images we provide in our gallery (we currently have about 40 of them, but more are constantly added).

When you need to use your own images, there is really only one option of course and it's not very easy. You have to publish the image somewhere, then get the URL in the correct format. And if you are using external forms, you must ensure the image can be accessed by anonymous users as well. Now we are introducing a new feature: an ability to manage your own gallery of images, where you can upload and re-use your own images. These images are visible and editable to all form designers within the organization (in SharePoint, scoped to a site collection).

You would start by dragging the Image control on the design surface (or entering the Style settings of the form for a background image).
Now click on the image to see its properties on the right
Make sure Gallery option is selected, then click on Gallery
Here you can see the two available galleries, Infowise and Organization
Switch to Organization. Now you can see all the images uploaded by your organization (if any) and you can upload new ones.
Upload an image in any supported format (JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP, TIFF or SVG) that is below 700Kb in size. Once the image is uploaded (or selected), it will already be visible in the preview.
You can also optionally control width and height of the image for resizing (Infowise banners will show 100% width when no width is selected). You can also specify alignment, when the image is larger than the specified size and must be clipped.

NOTE: images uploaded to the gallery are visible to everyone without any security trimming. Make sure to only upload images that contain no confidential information.

Designing alert mail templates is now easier!

2022-12-15T17:12:38Z

Hi, The Alerts component of Ultimate Forms provides powerful alerting and notification capabilities with a wide variety of options and features, helping you ensure you can deliver timely, customizable and relevant messages. One of the main features is the ability to easily configure your own email templates, providing just the right design and information, which makes Alerts a great tool for many business scenarios. For instance, you can easily use it for communicating with your partners and customers (which is something we do extensively here at Infowise). We provide you with the ability to create and re-use different templates, as well as the ability for administrators to share common templates with all users. You can even use multiple templates with the same alert, depending on when it's sent (one template for when items are created and another for when they are modified). However we realized that this wealth of options and flexibilty comes with a price. It's bit too complex to create a simple alert with a unique design. You have to separately create a template and an alert and then link them together. Just a lot of steps and then you're also left with a bunch of templates you only use for a single alert. This really wasn't the intention when we designed the product. And this is why we are now introducing the ability to configure email format directly within the alert, without creating a separate mail template. The old mail templates are still there and you can still use them (in fact, there are many scenarios where they would be the preferable option). We added a new switch on Mail Templates tab of Alerts.

Configure for alert (default) - you specify the email format directly inside the alert. No separate mail template gets created and the whole process contains fewer steps. However, only one format is supported, so if you want New and Edit to send different messages, this solution is not for you (you can always create them as separate alerts though).
Link reusable templates - same as it worked before, you select from predefined templates created by you or an administrator. Also access the template creation/editing pop-up.

Built-in templates contain the same exact features as reusable templates, except for the abilty to reuse and share. You do not have to make any changes to your existing alerts, they will just continue working the same way as before. So when to use which? Generally, if your alert needs to have its own look, just define the email format within the alert itself. It's easy and is now the default option. But when you have many similar looking alerts on multiple lists or you want to ensure a certain branding standard, reusable alerts are the way to go. I would recommend an administrator to create a set and share with everyone, it will save a lot of time. Hope you enjoy the new feature!

SharePoint and Ultimate forms ability to facilitate project tracking

2022-12-13T16:01:32Z

Project tracking is an essential part of managing successful projects, and having a proper system in place can help to ensure that projects are efficiently managed and completed on time. This article will explore the basics of project tracking, including what it is, why it's essential, the most common methods of tracking projects, and how SharePoint with Infowise Ultimateforms can add value to project tracking. By the end of this article, you should understand how a proper project-tracking system can help your organization succeed.

Build Your Own Project-Tracking Solution with SharePoint and Infowise Ultimateforms

If you are eager to begin, I'm happy to oblige; before exploring the advantages of using SharePoint and Infowise Ultimateforms for project tracking, here is a link to a presentation that will show you how to construct your own project-tracking solution. Once you have mastered it, you can start building your own!

Let's start by defining what a project-tracking solution is?

A project tracking system is a tool used to monitor, report and analyze the progress of projects. The purpose of this system is to provide visibility into all aspects of the project, from deadlines and tasks to resources, budgets, and timelines. This helps organizations track progress and ensure that projects are completed on time.

The importance of having a proper project-tracking system

A proper project tracking system ensures that all tasks, deadlines, and milestones are organized, monitored, and accounted for. A sound project tracking system allows an organization to stay on top of the progress of its projects, identify any potential risks and ensure that deadlines are met. This is particularly important in complex projects involving multiple teams, resources, and stakeholders.

What are the most common methods of tracking projects?

The two most common project-tracking methods are manual and software-based systems. Manual tracking can involve spreadsheets, whiteboards, or even paper documents to track progress. Software-based tracking systems use project management software such as Microsoft Project, Basecamp, or Trello to manage tasks, resources, and timelines.

Why is SharePoint an excellent tool for tracking projects?

SharePoint is a powerful collaboration platform enabling teams to work effectively on projects. It provides features such as documents: task management, and project planning. In addition, SharePoint allows organizations to efficiently monitor project progress, adjust schedules, and track resources.

Infowise Ultimateforms enhances SharePoint's ability to facilitate project tracking

Infowise Ultimateforms is a powerful add-on for SharePoint, which enhances the platform's ability to facilitate project tracking. It allows teams to track project progress and collaborate on tasks within SharePoint easily. Its features include task management, timelines, dashboards, and reports. This enables teams to manage projects more efficiently and stay organized while ensuring deadlines are met.

Conclusion

In conclusion, a proper project-tracking system is essential for successful project management. It provides visibility into all aspects of the project, from deadlines and tasks to resources, budgets, and timelines. This helps organizations track progress and ensure that projects are completed on time. Having the right project tracking system in place can help organizations to stay on top of their projects and ensure they are completed on time. SharePoint with Infowise Ultimateforms is an excellent tool for tracking projects, as it provides users with the features they need to manage tasks, resources, and timelines more effectively. In addition, its task management, timelines, dashboards, and reports enable teams to quickly identify potential risks and take necessary action before those risks become an issue. As a result, organizations can ensure that their projects are completed on time and within budget by tracking and monitoring progress.

Ultimate Forms for SharePoint is an excellent tool for creating a multilevel task management system

2022-12-05T18:27:24Z

Task management as a business process

As I mentioned in past articles, we will be focusing on project management for the month of December; for that reason, I thought it would be fitting to continue sharing a few pointers about Infowise product Ultimate and how it can help you streamline your project management processes. First, let's look at task management as it is an essential component of project management. Task management consists of setting goals and objectives, assigning tasks to team members, tracking progress on completed assignments, delegating responsibilities, and scheduling resources. Before we go into this article, let me share some necessary resources we have at infowise that can get you started immediately:

Follow our trainers as they present how you can quickly create a task management solution
Browse our solution templates, download and repurpose them to your business needs

Why SharePoint is a great tool on which task management processes can be built

SharePoint is a great platform to work on as it offers several advantages, such as providing an online workspace for teams, collaboration tools, and document-sharing capabilities. SharePoint also allows task management processes to be automated, which means that tasks are assigned faster, and errors are minimized. Moreover, SharePoint's workflow engine ensures that tasks move between users efficiently and consistently. SharePoint's task management system also provides users with an easy-to-use set of tools for managing tasks, including assigning tasks to multiple individuals and tracking progress on those tasks. The SharePoint Task Management System offered by Infowise Ultimate Forms makes it easier than ever before to streamline your task management.

Infowise Ultimate Forms is an excellent tool for creating a multilevel task management system

Infowise Ultimate Forms SharePoint Task Management System helps create a multilevel task management system. This system allows you to assign tasks based on each member's expertise and track progress with visual indicators. In addition, SharePoint task management integrated with Ultimate Forms also gives users the tools to create project task lists, assign tasks to team members quickly, and track progress on completed tasks. Ultimate Forms SharePoint Task Management System also offers email notifications for task assignments and reminders and a simple list view checklist for high-level management. Moreover, SharePoint Task List integrated with Ultimate Forms provides a detailed custom form for precision task management.

Conclusion

Task management is critical to the success of any organization. The SharePoint Task Management System offered by Infowise Ultimate Forms can help streamline this process, making task management more accessible and efficient than ever. With SharePoint's robust task management tools, you can easily create project task lists and assign tasks. Plus, SharePoint's workflow engine ensures tasks are moved between users quickly and accurately, speeding up task completion. SharePoint Task Management integrated with Ultimate Forms makes it easy to create complex task lists and manage them efficiently.

Download a free task management system template!

In conclusion, Sharepoint is an effective tool for managing tasks, providing users with various tools that make task management more effortless. Furthermore, the SharePoint Task Management System template is offered for free, follow this presentation, and you can download a free template!

SharePoint combined with Infowise Ultimate Forms an ideal toolset for launching business process solutions

2022-12-05T18:16:18Z

Infowise Ultimate Forms is an ideal toolset for launching business process solutions. It provides SharePoint users with a wide range of features to help create SharePoint-based solutions without writing a line of code. With Infowise Ultimate Forms, you can develop solutions such as SharePoint project management, helpdesk, document management, and a plethora of other solutions required for the day-to-day management of business and organizational processes. With Infowise Ultimate Forms, you can turn SharePoint into a powerful business process solution launching pad!

Sharepoint project management is our blog posting focus for December!

This December, we focused on using the combination of SharePoint and Ultimate Forms to build a powerful project management system. With Infowise Ultimate Forms, you can easily create a complete SharePoint-based solution for managing all your projects from one centralized location. The toolset enhances SharePoint's native features, allowing users to manage budgets, health, hour, and cost assignment; create and track tasks and issues; track employee time spent working on projects; even track project status with actual hours/cost vs. budget and identify problems straight away. The great thing about this system is that it's entirely based on regular SharePoint lists, so anyone can extend or adapt it to their needs without any development costs.

Benefits of using Infowise Ultimate Forms for SharePoint

Using Infowise Ultimate Forms for SharePoint project management offers many benefits. It allows you to easily manage customers, projects, tasks, and work hours from one centralized location. You can assign budgets, health, hour, and cost assignments and quickly create and track commissions and issues. The system also tracks employee time spent working on projects so you can accurately monitor progress. Additionally, it enables users to track project status with actual hours/cost vs. budget to identify problems before they become more significant issues. Finally, SharePoint lists provide an easy way for users to extend or adapt the toolset to fit their needs without any development costs. With Infowise Ultimate Forms for SharePoint project management, you are equipped with the feature-rich tools to manage projects successfully from start to finish.

The system is comprised of the following modules:

Dashboard, Customers, Projects, Tasks, Work Hours, and Reports. The Dashboard module provides an overview of all the projects, tasks, and issues with color-coded indicators. The Customers module allows you to enter customer details in SharePoint lists that can be extended anytime without taking the system offline. Projects enable you to assign employees, hour reporting, budget control, and status. With Tasks, users can subdivide their projects into tasks and track each separately, so they know which task is within budget. The Work Hours module lets employees report the work hours spent on each project and has customizable columns such as manager approval or overtime reporting capabilities. Finally, the Reports module allows users to view reports of entered information like total work hours submitted by any employee or the total number of projects completed for a given customer.

Get started!

Infowise Ultimate Forms offers a convenient SharePoint-based project management solution that is both efficient and comprehensive. You can take advantage of our free prebuilt solutions for a 30-day trial period to get started. Go ahead and download the solution, repurpose it for your business requirements, and let us know how it works for you!

SharePoint for effective project management solutions

2022-12-05T18:05:54Z

This December, we will demonstrate the power of SharePoint and Ultimate Forms to create powerful project management solutions. SharePoint is an invaluable tool for managing projects and fostering collaboration. It enables teams to work together more effectively by streamlining processes, which translates into faster project delivery. Utilizing SharePoint, organizations can develop sites that facilitate content.

SharePoint for project management empowers collaboration

One of the main benefits of using SharePoint is its ability to empower collaboration. SharePoint supports multiple users working on a project simultaneously, as well as enabling teams to keep track of each other’s progress easily. This makes it easier for team members to stay connected, even when they are working remotely. Additionally, users can access SharePoint from any internet-connected device, making it easy for teams to stay in sync no matter where their members are located.

Data Sharing in a secure environment

SharePoint also makes it easy to share data, documents, and other project-related information with stakeholders outside the organization. With SharePoint’s built-in security features, users can control who has access to certain documents and data and set expiration dates for shared documents. This helps ensure sensitive information is not accessible to unauthorized personnel.

Streamline workflows and optimize resource

Finally, SharePoint project management can streamline workflows and help optimize resource utilization. By using built-in templates, teams can easily define their tasks and assign roles to ensure tasks are completed promptly. SharePoint also makes it easy to track project progress, assign accountability, and report on performance metrics. This helps organizations stay on top of projects and makes it easier to track progress, identify potential problems, and make necessary adjustments.

Discover what Infowise Ultimate Forms can do for your organization

At Infowise, we provide users with powerful and intuitive tools to help manage their project management needs. Our Ultimate Forms solution allows organizations to quickly and easily build forms, workflow automation, and advanced reports on SharePoint. This helps teams efficiently organize data, track progress, and better utilize resources throughout the life of a project. Additionally, the solution allows users to customize their forms and workflows, allowing them to tailor the application to meet their specific needs. We are excited to show you how Ultimate Forms can help your organization achieve its project management goals. Go ahead and try a prebuilt solution and kickstart your project management solution-building process. With Ultimate Forms, you can take your projects to the next level!

Conclusion

To Summarize, SharePoint helps organizations maximize their project management capabilities, enabling teams to collaborate more effectively and deliver better results faster. By using built-in templates to organize tasks and assign roles, tracking progress in real-time, and sharing data securely with external stakeholders, SharePoint makes it easy for organizations to optimize their resources, budgets, and workflows. Moreover, with its robust security features, teams can be sure that their data is always safe and secure. As a result, SharePoint is an invaluable tool for project management and collaboration.

Advanced import options for Exchange Online

2022-11-29T20:30:16Z

Hi, Import is able to import emails from Microsoft 365 (Exchange Online) without any complex configurations, by simply providing a permissions grant. But in some cases, your environment might require custom settings. You will have to configure advanced settings if the following apply to you:

You are running an on-premises version of Ultimate Forms
You are running a standalone version of Ultimate Forms
You are running a Salesforce app version of Ultimate Forms
You want to import from a tenant that is not your current one
You want to configure your own custom permission settings

Normally, Ultimate Forms will use an Azure AD enterprise app provided by us that will grant it access to Exchange Online in your tenant via Microsoft Graph API. This app, named Infowise Ultimate Forms: Import, is granted access to read and write emails in all mailboxes of your tenant. A global administrator in your organization can grant this permission either beforehand in Ultimate Forms via Global Settings -> Import or upon creation of first import profile that uses Microsoft 365 email provider. The administrator can then also limit which specific email accounts will be allowed to import from, for an additional level of security. When you configure access in the advanced mode, you are required to create your own enterprise application and provide its settings to the import profile. The enterprise app is created on the tenant from which you are planning to import. It can be any tenant, not necessarily your own, as long as you have administrative access to it.

Creating Enterprise App

Log into the Azure AD administration site. You can access it from the general admin page or directly via URL: https://aad.portal.azure.com/.
In the left menu, click on Azure Active Directory, then on App registrations.
In the toolbar, click on New registration.
Enter a meaningful name and click Register.
Click on API permissions, then Add permission.
Click on Microsoft Graph, then Application permissions.
Scroll down to Mail section and expand it.
Check Mail.Read permission. If you are planning to allow Import to delete messages from the server, check Mail.ReadWrite instead (optional).
Click on Add permissions at the bottom.
Click on Grant admin consent to approve the permissions for the tenant. Application permissions are granted once and allow an application to gain access at any time, without user interaction.
Click on Certificates and secrets to configure how the application is going to be accessed by Ultimate Forms. You can choose from two options:
- Certificates (recommended) - upload a certificate, which will then be configured in the import profile. Read more regarding configuring certificates in the next section below.
- Client secrets - similar to passwords, secrets are simpler to configure, but not as secure and will expire after a certain time period. Only recommended to use when the import needs to be run for up to 2 years. Make sure to store the secrets in a safe place and renew as required. Secrets will be shown only once upon creation.
Your enterprise app is now configured. Switch to Overview page and take a note of client and tenant IDs, we will use them later for configuring the import profile:

Creating Self-signed Certificate

NOTE: authenticating via a certificate is the recommended approach as, unlike secrets, certificate are not short-lived and need not to be frequently renewed. You can use both self-signed and commercial certificates. Make sure your certificate contains both public and private key and is password-protected. To create a self-signed certificate on Windows, search for PowerShell, right click and select Run as administrator. Enter the following lines, substituting the bold values with your own: $date_now = Get-Date
$extended_date = $date_now.AddYears(25)
$cert = New-SelfSignedCertificate -certstorelocation cert:\localmachine\my -dnsname infowise_test -notafter $extended_date
$pwd = ConvertTo-SecureString -String 'samplepwd' -Force -AsPlainText
$path = 'cert:\localMachine\my\' + $cert.thumbprint
Export-PfxCertificate -cert $path -FilePath c:\infowise_test.pfx -Password $pwd Where:

25 - number of years the certificate will remain valid
infowise_test - name of the certicate
samplepwd - certificate password, up to 30 characters
c:\infowise_test.pfx - export path

IMPORTANT: make sure you store the certificate and its password in a safe place. Next open the export folder and double-click the newly-created certificate. It will start the import wizard. You can use the default values, except for the password:
Once the certificate is imported, you need to export it in .cer format. For that, search Windows for Manage user certificates, expand Personal, then Certificates. You should be able to find it here:
Right-click on the certificate, then All Tasks -> Export. It will start the export wizard. Leave all default values, only specifying the export location at the end. It will create a .cer file, containing the public key of the certificate. Now we can upload the certificate to our enterprise app.

On Certificate and client secrets page of the enterprise app, make sure to switch to Certificates tab, then click on Upload certificate.
Select the .cer file we just exported and provide a meaningful name

Once the certificate is uploaded to the enterprise app, it can be used by import profiles.

Configuring Import Profile

Open Ultimate Forms and select list, form or object where you want to set up an import profile.
Click on Import to switch to import settings.
Click on Add new profile, then enter a name for the new profile.
Switch to Data provider tab.
Select Microsoft 365 (advanced) protocol.
Enter the email address you want to import from (by default, your own email is already entered).
Enter tenant and client ID of the enterprise app. Unless the mailbox is located on GCC High government cloud, leave Public checked.
Choose to either use a certificate or a client secret.
When using a certificate, upload the .pfx file and specify the certificate password.
When using a client secret, provide it.
Click on Connect. If you provided correct values, Actions tab will become visible. Otherwise an error will be shown.
Delete messages from server option can only be used when you previously granted Mail.ReadWrite permission to the enterprise app.
Enter at least one action and save the profile.

NOTE: Certificates and password are stored encrypted in our system and are never visible after being entered. You do not need to re-enter them again, unless you want to make changes to those credentials themselves. This capability is already available in SharePoint Online and standalone versions of Ultimate Forms, it will be added to the on-premises version in the next release.

Ultimate Forms is the perfect companion to SharePoint when you need to build an approval system

2022-11-10T17:08:29Z

A SharePoint-based Approval System can be a great way to streamline your business processes. You can create a central repository for all your documents and approvals using SharePoint. This can make it easier to track and monitor your approvals and ensure that all of your approvals are processed promptly. Here is a typical workflow for a SharePoint-based Approval System:

The first step is to create a SharePoint site for your Approval System. This site will serve as the central repository for all of your documents and approvals.
Next, you must create a list or library to store your documents. This list or library will be used to track and approve your documents.
Once you have created your list or library, you will need to add your documents to it. To do this, simply upload the document to the SharePoint site and add it to the appropriate list or library.
Once your document has been added to the SharePoint site, you will need to assign an approver(S) to it. To do this, simply go to the document's properties and select the approver from the drop-down menu.
The approver will receive an email notification informing them that they have a document pending approval. The approver logins to the SharePoint site and view the document. If they approve it, they can check the box next to it; if they reject it, they can uncheck the box next to it.
Once the approver has decided, the document's status will be updated accordingly. If the document is approved, it will be moved to the next workflow stage; if it is rejected, it can be removed from the workflow.
Depending on your particular workflow, additional steps may be involved; however, this is generally how a SharePoint-based Approval System works. Using SharePoint, you can create a streamlined and efficient process for approving documents.

Ultimate Forms is the perfect companion to SharePoint when you need to build an Approval System, and here is why? Ultimate Forms is the perfect companion to SharePoint when you need to build an approval system. Ultimate Forms allows you to add customizable forms and workflow processes to your SharePoint site, giving you complete control over the approval process. Ultimate Forms also includes many features that make it easy to manage approvals, including email notifications, task assignments, and document attachments. Whether you're looking for a simple way to approve documents or a comprehensive approval system for your organization, Ultimate Forms has the features you need. Find educational and support resources on our website to help you build an efficient Approval System. An Approval System can be an excellent tool for managing your business. It can help you track what needs to be approved and by whom. It can also help you speed up the approval process by automating some of the steps. However, building an Approval System can be a challenge. That's why we've created a resource center to help you. You'll find educational articles, support documentation, and more in our resource center. We're here to help you build an Approval System that works for your business. Are you ready to take a dive and learn how to build your own SharePoint approval system? If the answer is yes, here are some excellent resources created for you by our expert team members;

Here is a step-by-step demo by our own Will Cooper on how to create an approval system using Ultimate forms and SharePoint.
A great short article by Phil Gold on the added benefits Ultimate provides when creating an approval system.
Here is a comprehensive tutorial by Wil Cooper on how to create an approval system

------------------------------------------------

Get started with Ultimate Forms;
30-day free trial!

If you're looking for a powerful yet easy-to-use process solution for SharePoint, then Infowise's Ultimate Forms is definitely worth checking out. Best of all, you can try it free for thirty days. After that, just download the trial version. Once you try Ultimate Forms, you'll see how it can streamline your solution creation process, whether you're building a simple or a complex solution. You can quickly create and deploy these solutions without writing any code, So why not try Ultimate Forms today?

------------------------------------------------------------- Other educational resources created by Infowise experts to help you in your journey At Infowise, we pride ourselves on being experts in SharePoint and creating innovative solutions that help organizations get the most out of their investments. We also believe in sharing our knowledge and expertise to help others succeed. That's why we offer a range of educational resources, including Ultimate Forms training, webinars, tutorials, and prebuilt solutions. Whether you're just getting started with Ultimate Forms or looking to take your skills to the next level, our team is here to help you every step of the way. So explore our resources today and start your journey to becoming an Ultimate Forms expert! Looking for the best resources to build an Approval System with Ultimate Forms? Look no further than Infowise! Our team of experts offers a wide range of educational and support resources that make it easy for you to get started quickly. We also have prebuilt solutions, webinars, tutorials, and more to help take your skills to the Conclusion SharePoint is a powerful tool that can be used for a variety of purposes. One such purpose is creating an approval system. Infowise Ultimate Forms is a great resource for creating forms and workflows in SharePoint. The combination of SharePoint and Ultimate Forms can be used to create an efficient and effective approval system. By using an approval system, you can save time and ensure that tasks are completed efficiently and effectively.

What is a SharePoint-based approval system, and how does it work

2022-11-08T17:11:04Z

SharePoint is a versatile platform that can be used for various business needs, including document management and collaboration. It is also a popular choice for developing custom business applications. One of the most popular uses for SharePoint is creating an approval system. SharePoint-based approval systems can streamline the process of document review and approval, making it faster and easier to move important documents along the chain of command, hence getting these documents approved, revised, or rejected.

How does a SharePoint-based approval system work?

When a document is ready for review, the author uploads it to a SharePoint list or library. The document is then routed to the appropriate reviewers. The reviewers can add their comments and feedback directly to the document or leave comments on the SharePoint site. Once the review process is complete, the document is either approved or rejected.

The benefits of using a SharePoint-based approval system

SharePoint is a powerful tool that can help organizations keep track of documents and approvals. A SharePoint-based approval system can streamline the process of document approvals, saving time and energy. SharePoint approvals can be routed automatically to the appropriate individuals, and the system can keep track of who has approved what. In addition, SharePoint offers a degree of flexibility that is not always possible with paper-based systems. For example, SharePoint approvals can be assigned to groups rather than individuals, making it easier to ensure that all relevant stakeholders have a chance to weigh in. As a result, a SharePoint-based approval system can be a valuable asset for any organization.

SharePoint-based approval system using Ultimate Forms

Ultimate Forms offers a complete set of features for approvals, electronic signatures, task assignments, alerts & notifications, and more. As an added benefit, you get a workflow history log with every change made to an item.

Step-by-step on how to build your own SharePoint approval system

Are you ready to take a dive and learn how to build your own SharePoint approval system? If the answer is yes, here are some excellent resources created for you by our expert team members;

Here is a step-by-step demo by our own Will Cooper on how to create an approval system using Ultimate forms and SharePoint.
A great short article by Phil Gold on the added benefits Ultimate provides when creating an approval system.
Here is a comprehensive tutorial by Wil Cooper on how to create an approval system

------------------------------------------------

Get started with Ultimate Forms;
30-day free trial!

-------------------------------------------------------------

conclusion

In conclusion, SharePoint and Ultimate forms offer a comprehensive and user-friendly solution for creating an approval system. By using SharePoint and Ultimate forms, you can easily create an approval system that is tailored to your specific needs and requirements. With SharePoint and Ultimate forms, you can streamline your approval process, improve communication and collaboration, and reduce the risk of errors. Ultimately, SharePoint-based approval systems can help your organization to become more efficient and productive. And Ultimate forms offer a powerful and flexible solution for creating an approval system.

What are business process solutions, and how do they work with SharePoint

2022-11-07T21:27:58Z

SharePoint is ubiquitous

SharePoint is ubiquitous; with the number of seats across the globe estimated to be 190 million, SharePoint is evident everywhere in business. It's used across departments and functions and is versatile enough to work with any workflow or system. It helps organizations follow good governance practices, maintain a consistent user experience, and stay within their budget.

Business process solutions are the key to unlocking SharePoint's full potential

Business process solutions are the key to unlocking SharePoint's full potential. They help businesses streamline workflows, improve accountability and visibility into tasks, and make critical information more accessible across departments and locations. With a business process solution in place, organizations can fully harness the power of SharePoint to improve operational efficiency, meet compliance requirements, and increase profitability. However, SharePoint is not a one-size-fits-all solution, and businesses often need to customize SharePoint to meet their procedural and operational needs. Business process solutions builders are specialized software applications- one can think of them as add-ons- that work with SharePoint to streamline specific business processes. One example of a business process solution builder is Infowise Ultimate Forms, a SharePoint-based toolset that makes creating and managing solutions easy. With its seamless integration with SharePoint, Ultimate Forms enables users to quickly and easily develop advanced forms and workflows without requiring coding or IT expertise. Thus, business process solutions can be a valuable tool for enhancing the efficiency of SharePoint-based operations.

The benefits of using SharePoint for business process solutions

SharePoint is a versatile platform that can be used for various business process solutions. One of the benefits of SharePoint is that it offers a flexible and customizable workspace. This means that businesses can tailor SharePoint to their specific needs and requirements. SharePoint also provides a wide range of features and modules, making it an ideal platform for process solutions. For example, SharePoint can be used to create online forms, track and manage workflow, and generate reports. Ultimate Forms by Infowise is a SharePoint add-on that provides even more capabilities for business process solutions. Ultimate Forms offers a drag-and-drop interface for creating forms and a wide range of form templates. It also includes features for managing workflow, approvals, and document management. As a result, SharePoint combined with Ultimate Forms is a powerful solution for businesses looking to streamline their processes.

Examples of business process solutions created in SharePoint

include but not limited to: - Task management and tracking: SharePoint can be used to manage and track tasks across multiple departments or locations, making it an ideal tool for improving operational efficiency. - Helpdesk and issue tracking: With the help of SharePoint, businesses can create online forms and workflows to manage customer support requests better and resolve issues. - Data collection and reporting: SharePoint can be used to gather and analyze data across multiple departments, making it an ideal platform for business intelligence tools and reporting. - Electronic forms: such as customer feedback forms or HR intake forms - Workflow tools for tracking and managing tasks, approvals, and other business processes -Document management systems: SharePoint can create an online repository for storing and managing documents, contracts, and other critical business information. - Audit trails and compliance: SharePoint's built-in tools for tracking changes and approvals can help businesses stay compliant with regulatory guidelines. - SharePoint-based HR solutions: include HR portals, self-service tools, and employee onboarding platforms. SharePoint is a powerful platform for businesses looking to create custom business process solutions that meet their specific needs and requirements. With the help of specialized software applications like Ultimate Forms by Infowise, organizations can fully leverage the power of SharePoint to streamline keys.

Ultimate forms offer a simple, intuitive, and quick way to build SharePoint-based solutions

Infowise's Ultimate Forms is the leading solution for building custom forms and applications in SharePoint. It offers a simple, intuitive, and quick way to build solutions without code and provides all the features you need to create sophisticated forms and applications. Infowise Ultimate Forms is the perfect choice for businesses of all sizes, from small businesses to large enterprises. Infowise Ultimate Forms is easy to use and easy to deploy, making it the perfect solution for businesses of all sizes. Contact Infowise today to learn more about Infowise Ultimate Forms and how it can help your business.

Ultimate forms can be downloaded as a trial for thirty days

Business process solutions are a great way to automate and optimize your business processes using SharePoint. By leveraging the power of SharePoint and Ultimate Forms, you can streamline your processes and improve efficiency throughout your organization. Getting started with business process solutions in SharePoint is easy, and there are many success stories to learn from. If you're looking for a powerful yet easy-to-use process solution for SharePoint, then Infowise's Ultimate Forms is definitely worth checking out. Best of all, you can try it free for thirty days. After that, just download the trial version. Once you try Ultimate Forms, you'll see how it can streamline your solution creation process, whether you're building a simple or a complex solution. You can quickly create and deploy these solutions without writing any code, So why not try Ultimate Forms today?

Infowise Ultimate Forms and SharePoint creates a powerful, yet easy-to-use, solution for banks and financial institutes.

2022-10-18T18:38:22Z

Finance is an essential aspect of business, and success in this domain hinges on efficiency and accuracy. In order to minimize waste and missteps, financial institutions must demonstrate the same level of diligence when managing resources and administering their business activities. This can be accomplished by using the right tools and approaches in all aspects of the enterprise. Whether dealing with financial matters or other business activities, successful organizations recognize the importance of diligence and focus in order to achieve their goals. In today's competitive business environment, businesses need to find every advantage they can to stay ahead. Not only can they benefit from improving their offerings to customers, but they can also reap the benefits of improving efficiency within their organization. Many business processes, such as resource management and collaboration, can be greatly enhanced through the use of specialized tools and technologies. Whether it is a digital tool or simply a more optimized approach, businesses that utilize effective tools and techniques to manage their operations will be better positioned for success.

Sharepoint For Business Processes

Microsoft’s Sharepoint is one such tool, allowing its users to share documents over a customizable intranet structure. Sharepoint is a powerful and incredibly useful tool out of the box, allowing for a degree of collaboration that until recently was impossible. That being said, its interface is geared primarily toward sharing files and not meaningful process interaction. Conversely, there are a variety of enterprise tools that are built from the ground up to fit the niche, but they lack deep integration with the rest of the Microsoft environment and don’t use the same excellent infrastructure that SharePoint does.

Enterprise tools and Sharepoint

Whether connecting teams over an intranet or streamlining business processes specific to your particular institution, Ultimateforms has the flexibility and robust infrastructure necessary to handle your business’s needs. It introduces dynamic data forms to the Sharepoint environment that can hold and transmit data across the network, interacting with other forms and processing data seamlessly. The result is that businesses can use this expanded Sharepoint network to handle just about any business process task conceivable.

Prebuilt Sharepoint Business Process Tools

The toolset comes equipped with various premade forms ready to tackle all of the most common business processes straight out of the box. With tools like Project Management, HR Recruitment, Sales Quote Generation, Help Desk, SOP Read and Sign, Expense Reimbursement, Leave Request, Lead Management, and much more, your financial institution may need to do little to no customization to fulfill its requirements. But if you need bespoke and specialized forms for other processes, Ultimateforms is made for that too.

Highly Customizable Enterprise Solutions

Ultimateforms is fully customizable and modular, meaning that no matter what the process, the software can be modified and designed to serve your exact needs. Run a lean enterprise admin software package devoid of the unnecessary bloat typical of other software in the field; Ultimateforms was designed modularity such that only what is useful needs remain. Individual forms can be customized, added, or removed at your convenience. The back-end development and customization process are code-free, meaning that professionals with no experience in IT can quickly learn and administer completely customized networks and pipelines of processes from complex onboarding to simple leave request systems.

Intuitive Sharepoint User Experience

The User experience in Ultimateforms is highly intuitive and requires little to no additional training on the end user's part. The software was built to emulate the user interaction of the Microsoft software we are all already familiar with, meaning that it is abundantly approachable and exceptionally easy to learn. Employees with no experience in enterprise software can be brought up to speed in mere minutes in the Sharepoint environment, and those with any experience at all will require little to no training; it’s that easy to navigate,

GSA Certification

Infowise is a recognized GSA IT Schedule 70 vendor and has been vetted to ensure that our products are secure and comply with industry standards. Your financial institution likely has unique compliance and security considerations that are handled internally, but for the purposes of document management, resourcing, project management, and other general enterprise administration processes, Ultimateforms is trusted by institutions ranging from universities to banks across North America and the world. Perfect your institution's business processes, elevating accuracy, efficiency, and structural integrity, with Ultimateforms. Whether your financial institution requires extremely unique and niche tools or general-purpose business process management software, Ultimateforms is made for the task. Apply our prebuilt solutions out of the box, or customize our software in a code-free environment. Produce entire networks of connected forms, automating complex business processes with ease, all from the familiar environment of the Microsoft 365 workspace. We welcome you to demo our software or speak to our team of Sharepoint experts. Explore our archive of extensive documentation, case studies, webinar demos, and much more here at infowisesolutions.com!

Thank You pages in modern forms

2022-10-03T17:09:00Z

Hi, When you create an item in a SharePoint list using a form, such as modern forms created in Ultimate Forms, you are normally redirected back to the list itself. But there are cases where you want the users to be redirected someplace else, such as creating another item, editing the item just created or even some custom page. A common requirement is to be redirected to a Thank You page, especially in cases where you don't need the user to see the actual list of items. Up until now, you could create the thank you page as a custom page (outside of Ultimate Forms) and configure the page's URL as the redirect target. Unfortunately, it's not always easy for everyone and in some scenarios, such as external forms, might be even simply impossible. We are happy to announce the addition of Thank You pages directly to our Form Designer. Now you can define your own Thank You page as part of the actual form, preserving its look & feel. You also have the full set of features of modern forms at your disposal, such as buttons, rules, column values, etc. You can create great looking, dynamic Thank You pages in literally minutes! I will now guide you through the process. I am using our Bug Tracker pre-configured solution. You can install this solution from the Solution Gallery directly in your Ultimate Forms app.

Enter Form Designer for the list, you will see the option to switch to Thank You page design mode in the bottom right corner.
As you can see on the left, most columns and controls are available and can be added to the design canvas of the Thank You page.
My Thank You page will contain two controls, Header and Fragment. In the fragment i will be using column values from the form to make it individualized and dynamic.
Next, I want to style my page. Using Styles toolbar button I opened the Styles pane and added background image from the gallery and content section's inner padding
I also added a Button Bar, renaming Edit button to "Modify submission" and Close button to "Return to list". You can also see my header here.
Now it's time to allow the form to use our new Thank You page. I modified the Redirect for New form to point to the new Thank You page
I also want the form to be accessible to customers outside of the organization (this part is of course optional). To achieve that, I enabled External form functionality

Here I allowed external users access to New form. You can also copy the form URL from here to be provided to the external users. Note that I didn't configure Redirect URL, external forms use Thank You pages automatically.
Publish the form and it's ready to be used.
I'm filling out the form.
Once I save it, I am shown the new Thank You page

As you can see, Thank You pages are extremely easy to configure and deploy, yet they provide another powerful tool for creating engaging, dynamic forms! Note: SharePoint uses service worker cache to store and serve pages and resources from a local cache. That can prevent the latest version of our script from loading and you won't be able to see the latest features in action. If that's the case, click F12, switch to Console tab, paste the following and click Enter, it will clear that cache: caches.keys().then(function(names) {for (let name of names) caches.delete(name);}); Enjoy!

Transforming paper-based banking processes to paperless using SharePoint and Infowise Ultimate Forms- Part two

2022-09-21T16:28:21Z

Dear Readers, how have you been? It's almost a week since I started my digital transformation
journey with Infowise Ultimate forms, I am happy to report that it is progressing so well.
Our team is adapting to the new way of working, and we are excited about the possibilities
that Infowise Ultimate Forms offer us.

Recap: how it all started

Last week, I created a document repository to add all the documents and segregate them into
various categories. Infowise made this process easy by creating a beautiful form where users can
easily update their documents and categories.
Read more about it here.

The next steps

I started by creating the most used processes with a list of available forms from the document repository.
First on my agenda is an Account statement request process that many people will find themselves
asking for before long- after all,
they'll need one eventually!

Account statement request process

An account statement request is a formal document that an individual or organization submits to their bank
to request a copy of their account statement. The account statement will show all transactions that have occurred
in the account over a specified period. The process for requesting an account statement is usually relatively simple and can be done over the phone
or in person at a bank branch. In most cases, you will need to fill out a short form or make a request with
a customer service representative. Once the request is processed, the statement will be mailed or delivered electronically to the account holder.
The account holder can then review the information and look for any discrepancies.
The account holder can contact their bank to resolve the issue if any unusual activity is found.

Current Process

When a customer requests an official bank statement, the front desk officer shares this form with them and helps fill it out.
The filled-in paper copy is then circulated to two different levels for review before being sent to your local branch office for processing! The issue that we faced included:

Missing information: The customer might forget some important information
Error while entering the details: The customer might enter the wrong information by mistake
Lost forms: The front desk office might lose the filled-in request

My Digital Transformation plan

To fix these issues, I started with a plan.

We can create a form online that is easy to fill and add validation, so you don't have to worry about manual requests!
Create automated emails as well as approval processes for your customers for they receive their requested
information quickly without any hassle
Make sure all responses are replied to automatically through these correspondence channels.

Step 1: Create a Form

I started by creating a form on SharePoint and added the relevant fields. To make my form aesthetically pleasing and user-friendly, I decided that adding some JSON formatting would be a perfect way.
The header looked great, but the options were minimal.

To find a better design, I started exploring Infowise Ultimate Forms. It is straightforward to start;
you can click the design button to open the design studio. You can find more details about how I got started here.

Step 2: Designing the form

Designing the forms on Infowise's design portal was simple and intuitive. I decided to make it as easy for my users,
so they can add information without feeling overwhelmed by all those options available in each field.
This tabbed form made things even better because now people know where their next steps are located! I dragged the accordion control from the left-hand control panel. I was able to add a modern theme.
I quickly renamed my sections as Customer Details and Account details. I was surprised by the number
of options available to customize the form. I quickly made my form collapsible and added the navigation buttons with a click of a button.
I also had an option to choose where the controls were located. I decided that I wanted them at the bottom. There is also an option to add a CSS Class to create a custom design for the layout.
I loved how easy it was to customize the form. I also like that I could add permission on the view and add more rules and styles. Once I was done, I clicked Publish. This is how my form looked once I updated it in Infowise Ultimate Forms.

Step 3: Adding validation to the form

When I was happy with how my forms looked, it was time to add the next steps.
The most important thing is that we always have values for our fields so they can be filled out correctly
and efficiently without additional work! I was glad I could easily add validation from the Infowise Ultimate Forms.
I started by making sure that the account number was Numeric. This validation would mean no one
could enter text instead of a valid account number. Infowise allows us to choose from some of the predefined patterns to create a quick validation.
I can choose a numeric field or email pattern by selecting the options from the dropdown.
I can also make my pattern to define a complicated condition.

Another benefit is that I can easily change the SharePoint Column settings from the Infowise Forms design page.
I can click on configuration settings and change the default SharePoint list settings.

Finally, I published my forms again. One of the things I enjoy is that I can easily and quickly create forms and track submissions without relying on paper records.
This usage of Infowise forms is a huge time saver for my team and me. Infowise also has a very detailed library of help files. If you are stuck, you can always find easy-to-follow tutorials.

Infowise Ultimate Forms has helped me a lot in my digital transformation journey, and I am sure it will help you, too, in your journey.

Transforming paper-based banking processes to paperless using SharePoint forms- Part One

2022-09-12T20:26:30Z

Dear readers, how have you been? It's been a long time since I last blogged here at Infowise,
and I think today I have an exciting case study I would love to share with you all.

Paperless Banking

I recently started working on a banking project where we wanted to create a paperless office.
While this may be an ideal that many businesses strive for, it is not always easy to achieve. To start the process, we outlined the significant challenges of the change.

Challenges and solutions

One of the main challenges companies face when implementing a successful digital transformation strategy
is getting employees to change their habits and begin using SharePoint forms instead of paper-based ones.
The transition from an old-school mentality towards one that's more tech-savvy may seem complicated,
but with careful planning, it can become relatively easy!
I had used Infowise Ultimate Forms before and wanted to use it again.
I realized this would help me create something simple and user-friendly to make the employees' lives easier.
You can read my previous blog post here.

Action Plan

I charted out a plan of action, and the first step was to classify similar forms. I decided the following:

Define the various parameters or metadata used to classify the documents.
Create a Document Library to upload all the available forms and documents to create a repository.
Classify the documents based on various metadata.

This data classification would help us understand the forms better and allow us to have a consolidated repository of documents.

Getting started with Infowise Ultimate Forms

Infowise provides two different options to get started. I choose the second one. I wanted to use it in my environment, and I was excited to learn that it is straightforward.
I don't even need to provide my card details for the trial. It allows a manual and a wizard to add the Infowise app to the site. You can also choose
to install any of the predefined templates like Project Management. All you need to do is to provide the URL of your site. I loved the fact that it was so easy to install. I got the updates on progress as well as the post-install steps. Any time I got stuck, I could follow the links with steps on how to proceed.
I love that Infowise Ultimate Forms are very user-friendly. Once I completed the API access, I went straight to the Site contents of my site.
The Infowise Ultimate Forms app is already available on my site.

Defining the metadata and exploring additional menu items for Infowise

Since the first step was to classify my data, I started by defining the various metadata we might need. Firstly,
I added a new list called Categories Master to store the multiple categories I would use this metadata to classify
the document that is available in the document library. However, I was surprised to see two new options on the toolbar.

Print
Alert

Print Menu

I clicked on print to check what it did. Well, lo behold, it has a ton of options. I could

Print out my lists
Create a PDF document
Download it as Excel
Download it in Word
Email the document

There are also some filtering options available to filter the data before sharing.

Difference between the print menu in Infowise Solution and export to excel

I have used the download as an excel option before. However, that would either download a CSV file or download a query. iqy file. Once you click on the query file, it will create the excel. I have faced a ton of questions from my end users about this. Someone who has not exported it to excel before thinks it might be a virus. They would, in turn, contact IT, increasing the number of service tickets. On the other hand, the Infowise solution allows users to download filtered data, making it easier to collaborate between stakeholders.
I don't need to download it in excel, transform it as a table and filter the data before adding it to an email and sharing it. It is a two-click process with Infowise.

Alert Menu

Imagine creating alerts and defining the kind of information you would like to share without using Power Automate.
Well, that kind of alert is precisely what Infowise Ultimate forms do. I enjoyed the zero code solution, and I think this simple process will help user adoption.
Even a new alert menu is available when we add Infowise to our solution, and it has many options. You can read more about alerts here.

Difference between the alert menu in Infowise Solution and the alert in SharePoint

I know what you might be thinking. You can create alerts in SharePoint too. However, the options on the default SharePoint
environment are minimal. It doesn't allow you to create email templates. For one of the Knowledge management projects I worked on, the end users wanted a preformatted email.
I made a Power automate Flow to send a notification based on the users or the team they choose.

Infowise allows all of it. I have a choice of using a predefined template, or I can create my template by clicking on Add or update mail template.
We don't need to open any other application or page. Also, each page links to help documentation. If you are stuck at any point, you can click on help and follow the step-by-step instructions to solve your issue.

Creating a central repository for documents and designing my form using Infowise UF

Then, I created a document library and added the category as a look-up table and a mandatory field. I wanted to create a more user-friendly form to update the values in the document library. I thought of using the design option of Infowise forms.

Infowise Form editing app

The design option redirects us to the Infowise Ultimate Form app. This app provides a lot of customization options.
It also provides predefined templates to create some processes like Project Management. Since I wanted to create a form for my document library, I selected Modern Forms. This option allows me to create quick forms. I can choose between a blank form or making a form directly from the fields in the document library. The form is easy to create with a lot of options. I quickly removed the fields I didn't need by clicking on the delete button. I also used the preview option to view the form on various devices.

Next Steps

Once I had my form ready, I wanted to explore all other options to customize and publish it. Follow me along my journey as I use Infowise Ultimate Form with SharePoint, which will enable us as a company to use paperless methods for our banking processes to move towards a more efficient way of doing business!

Create great looking multi-step forms for SharePoint

2022-07-25T21:58:34Z

Hi, As form designers, we are always torn between two opposites: trying to include all the necessary columns in our form and trying to create a form that is as short and simple as possible. Using modern forms in Ultimate Forms you can leverage the power of our Tabs control to subdivide the form into mutliple tabs, each containing a set of columns describing the same topic or area of the form. To make it even simpler and easier for the customers to navigate the form, we can implement button navigation between tabs, clicking on Next after filling out columns on the current tab. Plus, we have the added benefit of always knowing at what stage of the form filling process we currently are. With our brand-new Progress theme for our Tabs control, the multi-step form is becoming even more visual and user-friendly. As you can see, the tab headings are now providing simple visual cues, guiding the user through the form. The buttons at the bottom are set to provide the sole means of navigating between the tabs, to ensure the users are filling the form step-by-step, as we intended. Let's take a deeper look into how such a form can be configured using Ultimate Forms' Form Designer.

I am using a regular SharePoint Contacts list, but of course any list will do.
Click on Design on the list view to enter Ultimate Forms, then go into Form Designer.
On the design canvas, drag a Tabs control from the gallery on the left.
Click on the Tabs control to see its settings on the right.
First define the names of the tabs you want, then configure navigation options.
Things to notice here:
1. Theme is set to Progress. There are several visual themes available for Tabs (and you can always use CSS to configure your own unique look), but Progress, our newest theme, is the most visually suitable for multi-step forms, in terms of its visual language, although the functionality always remains the same, regardless of the theme.
2. Enable the option to show navigation buttons.
3. Enable the option to only allow navigation through buttons (in this case, I'm only using this option in New form, but it's up to you).
Once done, you can further define the actual tabs. Click on the tab surface. If you end up selecting a column on the tab, you can always click on Tab in the breadcrumbs at the bottom of the canvas to reach the tab itself.
Here we can define the layout of the tab, as well as the icon and the callout (dynamic help). I defined a suitable icon for each tab.
Drag the columns from the gallery on the left into each tab. You switch between tabs by clicking on the tab header within the canvas.
I also aligned the buttons to the right by clicking on the button bar and configuring its settings.

You can also modify the button set and add your own buttons.
The last thing I did was selecting a different theme for the whole form.
Publish the form, it is ready to be used!

As you can see, the form will display the process progress in a simple and obvious way, while guiding the user towards the next steps of the process. This blog illustrates a simple multi-step process. Tabs control offers many other amazing features, such as hiding or showing tabs based on conditions, automatically opening a specific tab on form open based on conditions and many other powerful features we did not cover in this blog, but there are many other blog artilcles available. Note: SharePoint uses service worker cache to store and serve pages and resources from a local cache. That can prevent the latest version of our script from loading and you won't be able to see the latest features in action. If that's the case, click F12, switch to Console tab, paste the following and click Enter, it will clear that cache: caches.keys().then(function(names) {for (let name of names) caches.delete(name);}); Enjoy!

Infowise resources available to our educational affiliate partners

2022-07-25T09:51:30Z

Infowise Solutions proudly announces the soft launch of its new affiliate partner program. This program is designed to reward our partners for their referrals of new customers to our business. We are excited about this new opportunity and believe our partners will also find great value in it. In principle, as an affiliate partner, you can expect the highest level of commitment from us, just as in the case of our implementation and resellers partners case; as an affiliate partner, we will accompany you every step of the way. You can always count on our support and advice, providing the highest possible value. Below are some resources you can leverage to build your client list.

Infowise Blog

Infowise blog is an excellent resource for partners who want to learn how Infowise can be used in various business setups and ways Infowise Ultimate Forms is used to solve daily business painpoints. The blog covers topics such as:

Ultimate Forms- Infowise flagship products, and blogs by experts cover an overview of the products, its features, and use cases
Infowise Solutions – how Infowise can be used to solve various business problems
Development Tips – tips and tricks for developing with Infowise
Product Updates – information about new releases and features
And much more!

Infowise YouTube Channel

The Infowise youtube channels are a 24-7 training ground for partners who want to learn how to use Infowise products in their environments and share them with their potential clients. The channel includes:

Product Demos – demonstrations of how to use various Infowise products
How-To Videos – step-by-step guides showing how to complete specific tasks using Infowise products

In addition to the shorter how-to videos, the Infowise YouTube channel also includes longer form tutorials. These tutorials provide in-depth training on a specific topic and can be used as a reference guide long after watching the video or attending the live webinar.

Webinars

We provide recordings of our past webinars for partners who want to share Infowise with their clients but can't attend a live webinar. These recordings can be used as a self-paced training tool or shared with clients who want to learn more about Infowise products before making a purchase. To access the webinar recordings, log in to the affiliate portal and click on the “Webinars” link in the assets section.

Infowise free product demo

The Infowise free product demo is the perfect way for partners and potential clients to get a feel for how our products work in a real-world environment. The demo provides access to a fully functional version of the Infowise Ultimate Forms product, which can be used on an existing SharePoint site or a provided test site.

Infowise graphics library

The Infowise graphics library is a collection of images, illustrations, and infographics that partners can use to create marketing materials, blog posts, social media posts, and more. The library includes:

Screenshots of our products in action
Infographics explaining the features and benefits of Infowise products
Illustrations depicting common business scenarios
Logo and branding assets
And much more!

To access the Infowise graphics library, log in to the affiliate portal (tapfiliate in our case) and click on the “Assets” link in the main navigation. For further information on abtaining educational content for your affiliate clients, feel free to contact me at amirs@infowisesolutions.com

How to be an Infowise educational affiliate partner and make a steady income

2022-07-22T11:47:25Z

Are you a SharePoint expert, a Microsoft MVP, a tech whiz, an avid technology blogger, or a passionate affiliate marketer with a decent online content following? Do you want to leverage that influence and earn handsome passive income? If you answered yes to any of the above, then becoming an Infowise affiliate partner might be just the right thing for you. It's a win-win situation – we get more exposure for our products, and you get to earn some extra income by simply sharing your knowledge and expertise with others. Infowise is a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and a leading provider of intelligent business solutions based on Microsoft SharePoint and Office 365. The company has been around for over 15 years and is known for its user-friendly, no-code solutions that make working with SharePoint more accessible and more efficient for over a million end-users in 28 countries around the world.

How does one become an Infowise affiliate partner

So how does one become an Infowise affiliate partner? It’s actually quite simple. All you need to do is promote Infowise products on your blog, website, or social media channels, and whenever someone clicks on your affiliate link and makes a download, purchase, or demo request, you earn a commission. It’s a great way to earn a passive income because you get to do what you love (i.e., write about or talk about SharePoint solutions and add-ons) and get paid for it at the same time.

Infowise support for educational partners

At Infowise, we are dedicated to supporting our educational partners. We offer a variety of resources and support to help you succeed. From marketing materials to full access to discounted training packages and webinars to a dedicated partner support team. Becoming an affiliate is easy – simply sign up for our affiliate program and start sharing your unique affiliate link. You'll earn a commission whenever someone clicks on your link and makes a purchase. Plus, our affiliate program has plenty of resources and support to help you succeed. To start building your Infowise Ultimate Forms educational packages, we have a dedicated team to help you every step of the way. Our team will provide you with everything you need to get started, including training templates, content direction, and support. Webinars are a great way to showcase your expertise and get Infowise Ultimate Forms in front of potential customers. We offer a variety of webinars that are already in youtube format. In addition to that, and if you qualify, we can design packages of short demos and tutorials for your clients.

About Infowise affiliate partner program

At Infowise, we offer a variety of partnership programs to work with specialists and consultants and promote our products and services. Our affiliate program is an easy way for you to earn commissions on every sale you generate. Plus, we offer resources and support to help you succeed. Infowise has a couple of different partnership programs, such as implementation partner and resellers; both programs require a different set of skills and resources; however, if you think you qualify for either or both, feel free to apply here! For further information, contact our partnership manager Avi Pagi at avip@infowisesolutions.com

Infowise Solutions proudly announces the soft launch of its new affiliate partner program

2022-07-19T12:17:26Z

Today, Infowise Solutions proudly announces the soft launch of its new affiliate partner program. This program is designed to reward our partners for their referrals of new customers to our business. We are excited about this new opportunity and believe our partners will also find great value in it.

Who qualifies for Infowise affiliate partner program?

Software solutions providers

Any business that is in the business of providing software solutions to its customers can qualify for this program. This includes, but is not limited to, system integrators, software resellers, independent SharePoint, Admins, and consultants.

Content Publishers as affiliate partners

You may also be eligible for this program if you are a technology content publisher. This includes, but is not limited to, bloggers, podcasters, and YouTubers who produce content focused on technology in general, especially Microsoft SharePoint and Office 365.

Trainers and educators

We will certainly work with you if you are an established trainer with an online platform. The same goes for educators using our solutions on any digital or social media platform.

Why become an Infowise affiliate partner?

Industry’s Most Generous incentive structure

Our incentive structure is one of the most generous in the industry. Earn every step of the way: downloads, subscriptions, and renewals. You keep on earning as long as the product is in use.

Promote a highly in-demand business toolset

Promote a powerful set of tools that is used by over 1,000,000 end-users in government, banks, universities, healthcare facilities, and research institutes.

Extensive Affiliate Marketing Content

As an affiliate, you have unfettered access to all our educational content; tutorials, documentation, webinars, blogs, and an extensive library of videos, promotional graphics, and banners.

Dedicated Affiliate Management Team

As an affiliate partner, you can expect our highest commitment, accompanying you at every step. You can always count on our support and advice.

As an Infowise affiliate partner, you will be entitled to a commission on any new Infowise customer you refer to us. In addition, you will be able to take advantage of our marketing resources and tools to help promote Infowise solutions to your customers. For more information about marketing assets and how you can leverage them to gain more affiliate conversions, please contact me at amirs@infowisesolutions.com

We're on Tapfiliates

We are on Tapfilate, a platform that allows our partners to track sales, grow their client list, manage campaigns, and access assets. Become brand ambassadors for Infowise and get rewards for every new customer you bring in. It's simple: the more customers you refer, the more rewards you earn! The Infowise affiliate partner program is off to a great start, and we are excited to work with our partners to help them grow their businesses. If you are interested in learning more about our program, please contact us today. We look forward to hearing from you!

Register for alert from forms

2022-07-07T21:40:43Z

Hi, Today we are announcing a new feature in Ultimate Forms: the ability to sign up for alerts on the current item while creating or editing it in a form, directly from the form itself, without having to create the alert manually. We will create an alert for the current item, according to pre-defined configuration, specified by the form creator. The alert creation process can be either fully transparent, without any user-interface or require a confirmation by the user.

Open the form in Form Designer. In the Controls gallery on the left, find the new Alerts control.
Drag it on the design canvas and place where you want within the form.
Click on the control to see its properties on the right. Configure how you want the alert to be create, such as sent when item is modified or according to a date in a column. The alert will be created for the user who saves the item and that user will also be added as the recipient of the alert. Although created by the form, the generated alert is exactly like any alert you create through the usual user interface. You can aslo modify it later through Alerts page.

You can specify any label you want your users to see when they are asked to confirm creation of alert. The label can also be localized to multiple languages. When confirmation is disabled, the alert will always be created without any user input.
Publish the form and create/edit an item in the list. Make sure to confirm alert creation, if enabled.
By going into Alerts page of Ultimate Forms, you should be able to see the newly created alert.
The alert is created only for the specific item.
You can modify any settings of the alert, as well as delete it.

The idea is to streamline your processes and ensure specific and timely notification. Enjoy!

How to streamline your HR processes with SharePoint Infowise Ultimate Forms

2022-06-23T13:26:05Z

When it comes to SharePoint, there are endless possibilities for how you can use the platform to create solutions for your business needs - including human resources (HR) management. And when you pair SharePoint with a tool like Infowise Ultimate Forms, you can take your SharePoint-based HR solutions to the next level. Infowise Ultimate Forms is a powerful SharePoint add-on that allows you to create custom forms and workflows - perfect for streamlining HR processes like onboarding, performance reviews, time-off requests, and more. In this post, we'll show you how to leverage the power of SharePoint and Infowise Ultimate Forms to create some typical HR solutions/processes.

Creating an Employee Onboarding Process with SharePoint and Infowise Ultimate Forms

One of the most critical HR processes - and one that SharePoint and Infowise can help you streamline - is onboarding. A well-run onboarding process sets new employees up for success by providing them with the information, resources, and support they need to hit the ground running in their new role. SharePoint's out-of-the-box features (like document libraries, lists, and workflows) can be leveraged to create a custom employee onboarding process that's tailored to your specific needs. And when you add Infowise Ultimate Forms into the mix, you can take your SharePoint onboarding solution even further by creating custom forms and workflows that streamline and automate key steps in the process.

Here's an example of how you could use SharePoint and Infowise Ultimate Forms to create a simple yet effective employee onboarding process:

- New employees fill out an online form with basic information like their name, contact info, start date, etc. This form can be created using Infowise Ultimate Forms' drag-and-drop form builder.

- Once the form is submitted, a SharePoint workflow is triggered that automatically assigns tasks to the appropriate people (e.g., someone from HR needs to send the new hire their employee handbook, someone from IT needs to set up their computer account, etc.). These tasks can be created and assigned using SharePoint's out-of-the-box workflow functionality.

- As each task is completed, the responsible party marks it as complete in SharePoint. This allows everyone to see at a glance what still needs to be done and who is responsible for doing it.

- When all of the tasks have been completed, the workflow automatically sends a notification to the new hire (and their manager), letting them know they are all set to start their first day on the job.

Creating a Performance Review Process with SharePoint and Infowise Ultimate Forms

Another common HR process that SharePoint and Infowise Ultimate Forms can help you streamline is performance reviews. Performance reviews provide employees with feedback on their work and identify areas where they need to continue to improve. They also give managers the opportunity to recognize employees for their successes and hard work. SharePoint's built-in features (like lists, views, and alerts) can be leveraged to create a custom performance review process that's tailored to your specific needs. And when you add Infowise Ultimate Forms into the mix, you can take your SharePoint performance review solution even further by creating custom forms and workflows that streamline and automate key steps in the process.

Here's an example of how you could use SharePoint and Infowise Ultimate Forms to create a simple yet effective performance review process:

- Employees fill out an online form with their self-assessment of their performance. This form can be created using Infowise Ultimate Forms' drag-and-drop form builder.

- Once the form is submitted, a SharePoint workflow is triggered that automatically assigns tasks to the appropriate people (e.g., the employee's manager needs to fill out their assessment of the employee's performance, the HR department needs to review the form, etc.). These tasks can be created and assigned using SharePoint's out-of-the-box workflow functionality.

- As each task is completed, the responsible party marks it as complete in SharePoint. This allows everyone to see at a glance what still needs to be done and who is responsible for doing it.

- When all of the tasks have been completed, the workflow automatically sends a notification to the employee (and their manager), letting them know their performance review is ready.

By leveraging the power of SharePoint and Infowise Ultimate Forms, you can create custom HR solutions that streamline and automate key processes like onboarding and performance reviews. And because SharePoint is a flexible platform that can be customized to meet your specific needs, the sky's the limit when it comes to what you can create. So if you're looking for ways to improve your HR processes, consider using SharePoint and Infowise Ultimate Forms to create custom solutions that will save you time and money.

Here are Infowise resources you can leverage to have a strong start when creating your Hr Solutions Sharepoint site:

Ultimate Forms one-month Free trial

Prebuilt Hr Solutions

Premium Hr Solutions

Webinars

Conclusion

SharePoint Infowise Ultimate Forms will help you streamline your HR processes, making them more efficient and effective. With our easy-to-use forms builder, you can create custom forms for any HR process, without having to write a single line of code. Plus, our powerful workflow engine will make sure that your forms are processed automatically, so you can focus on your business goals.

Tenant-wide settings for Print in Ultimate Forms

2022-06-17T15:39:28Z

Hi, Great news! You now have the ability to control layout and look & feel settings of your print-outs from one central location for the whole organization. A SharePoint (or Global) administrator is able to create multiple settings profiles, that can then be used by print profile creators througout the organization. Any changes to the settings profile are immediately implemented by any print profile that uses those settings, without any need to perform any local updates. Similarly to the recently released global Alert settings, Print settings are also accessible only by Global or SharePoint administrator through the gear icon on the far right end of the toolbar within Ultimate Forms. As you can see, both Alert and Print settings are on the same page, this is going to be the central location for all global settings for our components. Switch to Print and export tab Here you can create multiple profiles. Each profile contains a combination of header and footer, CSS styles, font size and watermark settings. Once you have created at least one profile, Print profile creators will be able to select them in their Display tab. When a settings profile is selected, those settings are locked for editing inside the Print profile. Settings profiles are an optional feature and do not have to be used. When used correctly, they can introduce uniform branding to all your print-outs.

Tenant-wide settings for Alerts in Ultimate Forms

2022-06-14T15:47:59Z

Hi, Alerts is one of the main components of Ultimate Forms. It offers a wide variety of features that make sending fully-customizable, highly-relevant alert notifications as easy as it should be. It grants users a lot of power and flexibility, while giving the administrator the necessary tools to control and even limit the capabilities in accordance with the established corporate rules and regulations. The administrative settings are tightly integrated into the app and available to site collection administrators as an extra tab on the same Alerts page. Using these settings, admins are able to completely prevent regular users from creating alerts, limit the mail template creation, specify authorized From account and configure many other settings. Until now these settings were on per site collection basis and could be configured by a site collection administrator. Now we are adding an ability to configure tenant-wide settings that are only accessible to Global or SharePoint administrators. Accessible through the new gear button on the right-hand side of the toolbar, they establish the company-wide policy, with or without giving the site collection administrators the right to override those settings at the site collection level. If the tenant-wide settings are set not to allow overriding, site collection settings would be blocked and immediately stop being used, even if they were defined. Please note that to be able to see the gear icon, the current user must be a Global or a SharePoint administrator in the tenant. Also note that for the app to be able to execute this permission check, access to Azure Active Directory (AD) must be granted once under Alert -> Administration from any site collection by a Global Administrator.

GSA-approved Ultimate Forms is the smart way to automate SharePoint for government

2022-06-14T09:12:17Z

How can government agencies take advantage of Infowise's products?

Expedited acquisition process through single-point access for GSA agencies and partners
Multiple implementation partners in the US who can rapidly deploy products and train staff
Built-in value in cost-effectiveness and a great many savings designed for GSA clients
Intuitive products that are easy to use and require no programming or code customizations la carte purchase options.
Seamless integration within SharePoint
Fantastic customer support
Easy to learn and use

Not a Government Agency, and you would like to partner on a GSA project?

As our partner, you receive:

Technical support throughout the bidding process
Discounted training packages to your team and client
Co-visitation and on-site training when required
Partner discount on all your purchases
Free license to demo our products
Dedicated support every step of the way

Do you want to become an Infowise partner? Please contact our partnership program Director, Avi Pagi: avip@Infowisesolutions.com

Infowise - The Smart Way to Automate SharePoint.

How can SharePoint help government agencies

2022-06-13T13:57:19Z

SharePoint is a powerful tool that can help government agencies create process solutions. By leveraging the sharing power of SharePoint and Microsoft 365, government agencies can create efficient workflows and process solutions that save time and money. SharePoint provides a central repository for documents, files, and information, which can be accessed by authorized users from anywhere in the world. This makes it an ideal platform for government agencies who need to share information securely and efficiently. Using SharePoint, government agencies can create custom applications and workflows that are tailored to their specific needs. This flexibility means that government agencies can use SharePoint to streamline any number of processes, from document management to case management to records management. SharePoint also offers robust security features that can be used to protect sensitive information. Government agencies can choose from a variety of security settings to ensure that only authorized users have access to the information they need. By leveraging the power of SharePoint, government agencies can improve their efficiency and better serve the needs of their constituents. SharePoint is an essential tool for government agencies that want to work smarter, not harder.

SharePoint offers government agencies a number of benefits, including:

Improved communication

SharePoint makes it easy for government agencies to communicate and collaborate. Agencies can use SharePoint to create websites, share documents, and track tasks and issues. SharePoint also offers robust security features that can protect sensitive information.

Increased efficiency

SharePoint helps government agencies work smarter, not harder. SharePoint enables agencies to automate processes, track goals and progress, and manage documents and records. SharePoint also offers powerful search features that make it easy to find the information you need.

Enhanced security

SharePoint offers government agencies a number of security features that can be used to protect sensitive information. SharePoint supports Active Directory authentication, which allows only authorized users to access SharePoint sites. SharePoint also offers encryption and virus scanning capabilities that can help keep information safe.

Improved collaboration

SharePoint makes it easy for government agencies to collaborate with each other and with external partners. SharePoint sites can be used to share documents, track tasks and progress, and hold virtual meetings. SharePoint also supports real-time editing of documents, which makes it easy for teams to work together on projects.

Flexibility

SharePoint is a versatile platform that can be used to build a variety of solutions for government agencies. SharePoint sites can be customized to meet the specific needs of an agency, and SharePoint applications can be developed to automate processes or provide agency-specific functionality

Integration

SharePoint integrates seamlessly with other Microsoft products, making it easy to create a complete process solution for your agency.

Infowise Ultimate Forms and SharePoint for Government

If you are looking for a versatile SharePoint solution for government agencies, Infowise Ultimate Forms is a perfect choice. Infowise Ultimate Forms is a SharePoint add-on that provides a wide range of features and capabilities to SharePoint, making it an ideal platform for creating process solutions. Infowise Ultimate Forms includes a powerful drag-and-drop form builder, workflow engine, and much more. SharePoint and Infowise solutions for government agencies can be a great way to improve efficiency and save time. With Infowise Ultimate Forms, you can create complete process solutions quickly and easily, without the need for coding or programming knowledge.

Infowise Ultimate Forms is available in both on-premise and Microsoft 365

10 Ways SharePoint and Ultimate Forms can help government agencies create process solutions

2022-06-13T08:56:47Z

Government agencies are under constant pressure to do more with less. At the same time, citizens are increasingly expecting more from their government in terms of services and transparency. How can your agency meet these demands without spending a fortune on new technology?
Government agencies are under constant pressure to do more with less. At the same time, citizens are increasingly expecting more from their government in terms of services and transparency. How can your agency meet these demands without spending a fortune on new technology?
One answer is to make better use of the technology you already have; SharePoint, augmented with a powerful companion, such as Ultimate Forms.

Ultimate Forms is a SharePoint companion that provides government organizations with the tools they need to streamline processes, improve collaboration and communication, and save time and money. Here are just some of the ways SharePoint and Ultimate Forms can help your government solutions:

Streamline operations

One way that Ultimate Forms can help your government agency is by streamlining operations. Our product includes a wide range of features that can help you automate tasks, manage information, and improve workflows. For example, our workflow engine can be used to automate approval processes, while our document management capabilities can help you securely store and share files.

Improve communication with citizens

Another way that Ultimate Forms can help your government agency is by improving communication with citizens. Our product includes a number of features that can help you engage with citizens, including a citizen portal, an online form builder, and a notifications system. With these tools, you can easily keep citizens informed about important issues and events and collect feedback via online forms.

Ultimate Forms for SharePoint is easy to implement

Another benefit of using Ultimate Forms for government solutions is that it can help you quickly create and implement solutions. Our product includes a number of features that make solution creation and implementation quick and easy, including pre-built templates, a drag-and-drop form builder, and an easy-to-use workflow designer. With these tools, you can quickly create custom solutions without the need for expensive consultants or lengthy development cycles.

Ultimate Forms for SharePoint is intuitive

Ultimate Forms is a highly intuitive no-code solution that is easy to use, even for users who are not familiar with SharePoint or web development. As a result, you can create and implement solutions quickly, without the need for expensive consultants or lengthy development cycles.

Ultimate Forms for SharePoint easy to learn

Ultimate Forms was built with non-developers in mind. The drag-and-drop interface makes it easy to learn and use, so you can create custom solutions quickly and easily. Ultimate Forms has a multilevel training package available, so you can get up to speed quickly and easily.

Ultimate Forms for SharePoint is also very cost-effective

Ultimate Forms for SharePoint is also very cost-effective, especially when compared to other similar solutions on the market. This makes it a great choice for government organizations who are looking for an affordable way to improve their SharePoint solutions.

Infowise partners can help your agency implement customized solutions

If you're a government agency looking for ways to improve your SharePoint solutions, consider using Ultimate Forms. Our partners can help you implement solutions quickly and easily, without the need for expensive consultants or lengthy development cycles. Contact us today to learn more about how our globally distributed partners can help you get the most out of SharePoint.

Great Support for SharePoint and Ultimate Forms for government agencies

As a government agency, you have different requirements and needs than a commercial organization. To help you get started with using Ultimate Forms in your environment, we've put together a few educational resources specifically for you. Visit our resources area and find our tutorials, training, and documentation available for you 24/7.

Infowise offers an expansive library of templates for government agencies/solutions

If you're looking for a way to save time and money while also improving communication and compliance, SharePoint and Ultimate Forms is the answer. With our expansive library of templates and solutions for government agencies, you're sure to find what you need. So why wait!

Contact Us Today!

If you're interested in learning more about how SharePoint and Ultimate Forms can help your government organization, contact us today! We'll be happy to answer any questions you have and provide you with a free consultation to get you started.

So there you have it – ten ways that SharePoint Ultimate Forms can help your government agency achieve its goals.

On premises components .Net Framework update

2022-06-08T12:59:45Z

As our customers know, all our components are designed and built to support SharePoint versions going back to SharePoint 2013. The minimal .Net Framework requirement for this SharePoint version was 4.5, so this is the framework we had used to build all of our on-premises components. .Net Framework 4.5 had reached end-of-life more than six years ago, and so most of the 4.6.x versions, so we had decided to upgrade the framework on which our components are built to version 4.8. This will provide our components with official framework support, more secure libraries, and more programmatic capabilities to build our features on. So, starting June 1st, 2022 every new release of our components will be built on Microsoft .Net Framework 4.8, it will also be mentioned in each component version history, here on our web site. By now most of the SP farm servers should've received this framework update by windows updates or installed manually by their farm administrators, but just in case before installing the new component versions, you will need to ensure that .Net framework 4.8 is installed on your farm servers: Determine which framework versions are installed. Download information can be found here: Microsoft .net framework 4.8 Thank you and keep enjoying our products!

Use Sharepoint to manage time tracking

2022-06-01T08:41:21Z

Use Sharepoint to manage time tracking

In this era of fast-paced and dynamic commerce, time tracking is as essential as its ever been. Whether it's documenting billable hours for clients or tracking hours worked for internal payroll, accuracy and ease of use are absolute musts for any effective time tracking system. Mistakes mean wasted resources and, more importantly, wasted time; for this reason, the use of enterprise tools, especially digital ones, is not only beneficial but almost essential in the current business climate. As enterprise system developers we recognized this need and addressed it with our Ultimateforms toolset, an expansion that introduces interactable and highly customizable forms to the already robust and powerful Sharepoint. Where Microsoft’s Sharepoint provides the structure for intranet and collaboration, Ultimateforms integrates the ability to conduct various business functions. The toolset is a simple, intuitive, and exceptionally quick solution to a wide variety of logistical business functions, including Time Tracking. Time Tracking of any kind can be managed in Ultimateforms thanks to its highly customizable nature, and rest assured that it can integrate seamlessly with the rest of your Sharepoint environment.

An exceptionally simple solution to Time Tracking with Sharepoint

The complexity of conducting business is already high, why introduce tools that will add further hardship and confusion? Ultimateforms is exactly as complicated as you need it to be, and no further. We value simplicity above everything but functionality, and for that reason, we designed Ultimateforms with simplicity as a primary objective. Our toolset is built in a modular structure, meaning that individual modules can be designed and implemented either independently or integrated with one another according to your specific needs. This allows for the system to be especially uncomplicated such that it deals with all the problems you want it to and none that you don’t. This structure stands in contrast to the all too common needlessly complex and bloated enterprise software solution, terribly overcomplicated and dense toolsets that seem to solve countless problems you may not even have. Ultimateforms is as simple as possible while maintaining absolute effectiveness so that it is as easy to use as it is powerful, and that methodology extends to Time Tracking.

Intuitive and easy Time Tracking

Ultimateforms’ simplicity contributes to it being a highly intuitive system. The toolset is very much an approachable piece of software that anyone from IT experts to absolute laypeople can engage with effectively and with a minimal learning curve. The system requires absolutely no coding and is designed to be easy to learn, both for end-users and administrators. the modularity of the system means that data can be passed from one form to another very easily, and customization can be done without any special effort. If an employee is capable of navigating and engaging with the existing Microsoft Office Suite, Ultimateforms will be a quick and easy adjustment. Employees can input hours in a calendar format is mere minutes before returning to their responsibilities, and managers can view time tracking data easily in an aggregated format.

Stunningly quick customization and application

Ultimateform’s intuitiveness and simplicity lend themselves to Ultimateforms’s strikingly quick use. The toolset is so quick that a viable solution to Time Tracking can be produced and applied in as little as 20 minutes. Ultimateforms is not only able to be customized quickly, it also comes prebuilt with a wide variety of ready-to-use solutions, including a time tracking solution. Whether you need to solve a particular problem or revamp your business management system, Ultimateforms is quick in either area and can achieve excellent results more quickly and with a lower learning curve than

See if Ultimateforms is the right fit for your business

We understand that searching for new enterprise tools can be a daunting task, so we urge all of our potential clients to trial our tools before buying them. We want you to get the most out of Ultimateforms, so we offer guided demos lead by our team of in-house Sharepoint experts as well as customization services should you need any special solution or even if you just want a second set of eyes as you develop. We use both a cloud-based sandbox version of Ulltimateforms and a downloadable trial version so that you can be absolutely sure the toolset serves your needs before making any commitments. Feel free to browse our extensive catalog of webinars and documentation to learn more about Ultimateforms.

Integrate charts in modern SharePoint forms

2022-05-31T21:47:49Z

Hi, Associated Items column is the cornerstone of any business application in Ultimate Forms. It allows creating relationships between lists to mimic the relationships in the real world. It makes it easy to implement single-to-multiple as well multiple-to-multiple connections within any form, such as line items in an invoice. Being one of the central components, it offers a very wide variety of features and the list just keeps growing. Our latest feature is the ability to display associated items as a chart, to make it easy to analyze the current status of associated items at a glance. I am going to demostrate this with an example: I am managing a list of projects, where each project contains multiple tasks. I want to show a pie chart that displays percentage of tasks by status, all within the corresponding parent project. This is how my Display form is going to look. But when I go into the Edit form, I will be showing the regular task grid, with the ability to add and manage tasks.

First, we create a list of Projects. It's a simple list, I didn't even add any additional column, beyond the built-in Title column.
Open Ultimate Forms from the list by clicking on Design button on the toolbar.
Next click on Form Designer to start creating our Modern form. Choose to generate the form automatically, it's the easiest way.
Under Columns in the left pane, click on New Column and choose Associated Items as column type
Under Date Source click on New to create a new child list, then select Tasks under Type to use Tasks list template. Enter a title for the list (I'm using Tasks for both column and list titles here).
Save the column settings, it will now appear under Columns.
Click on the gear icon next to the name of the column to edit its settings (we need to do it again, because when we first defined it, Tasks list didn't exist yet). Next switch to Charts tab.
Toggle Allow displaying as chart. This will reveal chart settings.
Select Status as our X axis column (what the values will be grouped by).
Add at least one series, in our case we will count items by ID.
Select Pie as chart type, toggle Show legend.
Toggle Show values and then Show as percentage.
Save the column settings.
In the left pane click on the lock icon next to Columns section title. It will unlock the ability to place the same column more than once on the design surface of the form. We need that to show once as chart for the Display form and the regular grid for New and Edit forms.
Drag our Tasks column to the form twice.
Click on the first one and select Display as chart.

Note that the column won't be displayed as chart unless this is activated, regardless of the chart settings being configured. It allows us to place multiple instances of the column on the form, with different permissions.
Add a permissions rule for the chart version of the column to only show it in Display form

Note that the corresponding Hidden rule is not needed, as it will be implicitly hidden when the Write rule doesn't apply.
Do the same for the second instance, choosing New and Edit forms
Publish the form and that's it! Now it will display as chart when read-only and editable in grid otherwise.

Note: SharePoint use service worker cache to store and serve pages and resources from a local cache. That can prevent the latest version of our script from loading and you won't be able to see the latest features in action. If that's the case, open F12, switch to Console tab, paste the following and click Enter, it will clear that cache:

caches.keys().then(function(names) {
for (let name of names)
caches.delete(name);
}); Enjoy!

Project Management with Sharepoint and Ultimateforms

2022-05-23T13:53:08Z

Project Management is the practice of overseeing a team through the process of working towards and achieving predetermined goals. Whether it's a small project like fulfilling a service contract or something more significant like developing an entirely new sales strategy, good project management is imperative to the success of all businesses. Managers oversee all aspects of business, but project management is about management concerning a particular predetermined end result and, in that way, is highly goal-oriented and thus more logistical than managing generally. As with all aspects of business with a logistical dimension, project management benefits from the use of tools, digital tools in particular. Digital tools allow managers to behold project execution holistically so that they can analyze the scope, dedicate resources, delegate tasks, track status, and much more in one place. Project management tools aggregate all the relevant information a leader or manager needs in one place to facilitate the most efficient execution possible. Microsoft's Sharepoint is an incredibly powerful intranet and collaboration tool, but it isn't built out of the box to deal with problems like project management. That's where Ultimateforms comes in. Ultimateforms is an extensive expansion to SharePoint, allowing the software to handle just about any enterprise solution you can throw through a dynamic form system. Project management is one such area of enterprise that is perfectly served by Ultimateforms and can be dealt with Simply, Quickly, and Intuitively.

An exceptionally simple solution for project management with Sharepoint

Ultimateforms is exactly as complicated as you need it to be, and no further. The complexity of conducting business is already high; why to introduce tools that will add further hardship and confusion? We value simplicity above everything but functionality, and for that reason, we designed Ultimate forms with simplicity as a primary objective. The system is built modularity, meaning that new modules and variables can be introduced in customization, and modules and variables that do not directly serve your aims can easily be removed, leaving you with a perfectly simple solution. Many other tools available, on the other hand, are highly complicated and rife with redundant features that bloat the software and don't add anything other than complexity to the system. Ultimateforms is as simple as possible while maintaining absolute effectiveness so that it is as easy to use as it is powerful.

Stunningly quick customization and application

Ultimateforms' simplicity lends itself to very fast customization and application process. Not only is the toolset highly customizable, but it also comes with a wide array of pre-built solutions for all kinds of enterprise needs. Whether you need a project management solution or an entire collection of various logistical solutions, the prebuilt tools that come with Ultimateforms can be a quick way to hit the ground running. Should you need to customize anything to suit your business's particular needs, customization is easy and fast to customize. Someone with no technical experience could put together a robust solution in Ultimate forms in hours; someone with even a little experience in Ultimate forms could put something together in a matter of minutes; it's that fast. Don't waste time building something from the ground up or whittling away at ridiculously complex and inefficient tools; deploy exactly what you need quickly with Ultimateforms.

Intuitive and easy Project Management

Simplicity and Quickness of use are both byproducts of Ultimate forms' high degree of intuitiveness. The Interface is code-free for admins and users, meaning that even an absolute non-specialist could customize an entire network of solutions without having to overcome any extreme earning curves. In addition, Ultimateforms is a highly approachable, no-nonsense, straightforward toolset. Little to no extra training is required on the user end, and the learning curve is about as steep as that of any other Microsoft Office app, which is to say, not very high at all. We set out to create something not only efficient and effective but also accessible, and that is what makes Ultimateforms so intuitive.

See if Ultimateforms is the right fit for your business.

We recognize that searching for new enterprise software can be a daunting task, so we urge all of our potential clients to trial our tools before buying them. We use both a cloud-based sandbox version of Ultimate forms and a downloadable trial version so that you can be sure the toolset serves your needs before making any commitments. We want you to get the most out of Ultimateforms, so we offer guided demos led by our team of in-house Sharepoint experts and customization services should you need any particular solution or even if you want a second set of eyes as you develop. In Ultimateforms, you will find a simple, quick, and intuitive solution to your project management needs, as well as solutions to many other business solutions, should you choose to use it for those as well. Feel free to browse our extensive catalog of webinars and documentation to learn more about Ultimateforms.

New features in Connected Lookup column

2022-05-18T17:14:49Z

Hi, Connected Lookup is the first ever component that we released. Amazingly, we used to have a version of it for SharePoint 2003, at the time when developing custom field types wasn't even supported by the SharePoint platform! Over the years we've added more and more features to this powerful column type, such as the ability of adding and previewing new items on the fly, sorting, filtering, auto-complete, etc. But the core functionality has always remained the same. What the column is most commonly used for is displaying a lookup, where the options are filtered by another, parent lookup. For instance, a list of subcategories is controlled by the selected category value. It is extremely useful when there are many subcategories available, but only a small subset should be picked from, making data entry simpler, faster and less prone to errors. Although you could always have multiple levels of lookups filtering each other, each lookup could only have one parent and that parent had to be another lookup in the list. In some scenarios though you might want to have more than one parent, each filtering according to its own parameter. The current release adds the ability of having multiple parents. Additionally, parent columns can now also be Choice columns, not just Lookups. Let me start with a simple example. In my list of Sales, I want to select a product based on:

Category - product category, such as Electronics or Dairy. This is a lookup column.
Region - where the product is made, such as Asia or Europe. This one is also a lookup column.
Quality Level - this one is a choice column with values such as A, B and C.

By selecting the desired Category, Region and Quality Level, I'm filtering the list of options in Product to only include the products I really want. First, let's see how my Products list is defined: Here too, we have the same columns as in Sales: Category, Region and Quality Level, defining each product. These are regular SharePoint column, nothing special about that. Back to Sales list, let's go into Ultimate Forms by clicking on Design button, then click on Connected lookup under Columns. Here we will add our Product column and select the following configurations (note that I'm showing an existing column in Edit mode, so Site and List settings are now locked, they cannot be changed for an existing column): Select the List and Display column, that's easy, next, ensure Filter according to parent lookup is checked. Now comes the new part. You can enter more than one Parent column and you can also select Choice columns here, not just Lookups. Let me explain our terminology a bit:

Parent column - another column in the same list (Sales) that will control (filter) the values available in the current column (Product).
Relationship column - column in the lookup source list (Products) that specifies the parent column value for each item. So in our Products list we will have a Lookup column for Category that will assign each product to a category (multiple selection is also supported). In case of Choice column, it has to be a Choice column as well.
Allow empty - when parent column value is not set, show all values, unfiltered by that parent.

When you configure your own column, you will see additional features, such as the ability to filter and sort by view, add new items, and so on. These are all described in our documentation and are not covered in this blog. As you can see, although the change is quite small in terms of user interface, it introduces a whole wealth of new and exciting opportunities to build even more advanced solutions for your enterprise!
The feature is now available in both Classic and Modern form in SharePoint Online and will be available on premises in the next release. Enjoy!

Easy Task Management in Sharepoint with Ultimateforms

2022-05-13T20:58:06Z

Task management, both as a field and as a topic of conversation, has seen a meteoric increase in popularity in recent years, and for a good reason. The field revolves around analyzing, planning for, and administering tasks, no matter their respective domains. For this reason, strong task management practices can be applied across a wide variety of enterprise domains and in that way can benefit businesses in profound and far-reaching ways. Whether it's resource management or employee onboarding, businesses stand to benefit from taking heed of best practices with respect to task management and by extension using the best and most appropriate tools. The ideal task management operation plans for and administers the task from “started” to “finished” and accounts for every step along the way, and so too does the ideal task management tool. At Infowise, we have developed a Sharepoint expansion that allows for the customization and application of highly capable task management tools and much more. This toolset, called Ultimateforms, is a simple, quick, and exceptionally intuitive system that can benefit businesses in all areas of logistical consideration.

An amazingly simple solution for Task Management

Simplicity is critically important to making a tool useful to the average end-user. Ultimateforms was designed with this principle in mind and is made in such a way that both admin and end-user use are uncomplicated and approachable. Our system is structured modularly, meaning that individual elements can stand alone and function together by passing data among each other. This design choice minimizes the type of bloat that is typical of monolithic enterprise solutions that try to solve every problem in one indivisible software solution. Conversely, it also allows for a streamlined system-building approach that many pigeonholed systems are incapable of, allowing for enterprise solutions to communicate with one another rather than being totally detached from one another. Ultimateforms can be as rudimentary and low-profile or as ubiquitous as you would like for it to be; you, as the administrator are in complete control. This control over scope and function maximizes the simplicity of the system by minimizing all the junk you don’t want and simultaneously providing you with all the customization latitude you could possibly need.

Quickly manage tasks with Ultimateforms

Task management should not be a burden to your workforce and managers; rather, it should elevate your institution’s output without demanding much additional time or effort. Ultimateforms was designed such that it comes pre-equipped with a variety of prebuilt and ready-to-use or nearly ready-to-use solutions. Task management is one such area of operations that is addressed effectively by the default builds we provide and requires very little customization at all to be released to your employees. The systems are built with dynamic Sharepoint forms and can be customized without any code or technical expertise at all, so a non-specialist could purchase the software, customize it, and release a task management solution in mere hours. Not only is administration quick, but end-user use is also very fast, requiring little to no extra training.

A Highly intuitive solution to task management in Sharepoint

Ultimateforms owes its ease and quickness of use to its highly intuitive design. The toolset is built with the layman in mind, both as the admin and the end-user, meaning that no task is particularly complicated, and people with absolutely no technical expertise at all can customize and use the software with a minimal learning curve. Customization requires absolutely no coding whatsoever, and the vast majority of business considerations and practices can be solved by using variations of the standard solutions that Ultimateforms comes pre-built with. As far as intranet functions are concerned, wherein multiple solutions are connected to transmit data to one another; integration is also exceptionally intuitive. Individual systems can be integrated to solve large enterprise problems easily and again with absolutely no coding at all, thanks to a simple and highly modular design.

See if Ultimateforms is the right tool for the job

Searching for the right digital tool for the job is a daunting task, even for those who have extensive experience with software. We understand this, so we have attempted to make the process a little more approachable by developing a complete online demo system. This demo is a cloud-hosted sandbox environment that allows prospective clients to test the software, customizing and using their own solutions before having to make any commitments or downloads. We also offer an extensive guided demo program that connects our team of Sharepoint experts with customers as they explore the various features of Ultimateforms. Infowise also maintains a network of trusted partners, all of whom are Sharepoint experts with extensive experience developing Sharepoint solutions for a wide array of businesses, so if you require further support or professional customization, someone will always be accessible to you. Ultimateforms is an elegantly simple, exceptionally intuitive, and stunningly fast solution to the task management problem, give it a try today! If you’d like to further learn about the various solutions we offer at Infowise, you can explore our extensive archive of webinars, online demos, and expert-written articles. For a quick and strong start, we invite you to visit our quick start page.

Past Webinar on Task Management in SharePoint

Use the quick, simple, and intuitive Infowise Ultimateforms to create an effective Reservation System

2022-05-13T14:16:12Z

Management of reservations, regardless of type, are a critical element of resource management and failures and missteps when dealing with them unavoidably create waste. Without an effective reservation system, resource allocation will inevitably see employees and managers make missteps as they plan what tools or resources they need, in some instances planning to use the same resource at the same time and kneecap one project or another. An ideal reservation management system would be easy to use and highly effective, reducing waste and eliminating instances of over and under-reservation of resources. We set out to create a series of enterprise solutions for this very sort of issue, and what we came up with is Ultimateforms . Ultimateforms is a multi-use Sharepoint overhaul that allows businesses and other institutions to customize and administer simple, quick, and intuitive tools to deal with a variety of enterprise processes, including reservation management.

An intuitive approach to Systemized Reservation

The process of reserving particular resources is, on its face, an exceptionally simple task. At Infowise we try to ensure that our tools are highly intuitive so that we don't overcomplicate things that don't need to be complex. This methodology encompasses all facets of the Ultimateforms system, from customization to end-user use. Ultimateforms is so intuitive on the admin end that it can be customized and administered with no coding at all, not one line. We designed the toolset so that even the inexperienced user could quickly produce a complete enterprise tool such as a reservation system with a minimal learning curve. Additionally, our support staff is deeply engaged in ensuring all of our users are effectively supported, so whatever doesn't come naturally can be supplemented intuitively by our dedicated team of experts.

Simplify the Reservation Process

As I mentioned previously, reservation of resources is an exceptionally simple thing to do. That being said, its logistical nature necessitates accuracy and minimization of mistakes. For this reason, digital tools are well suited to the task. We design our tools to keep simple things simple and make complex things simpler, and hat same fundamental approach is true for reservation resources. Ultimateforms is highly customizable, to the point that a business could produce a practically institution-spanning network of tools that manage all logistical processes. That being said, it is also very well-suited to individual tasks. The toolset comes prebuilt with a variety of ready-to-use solutions including a robust and capable reservation system. With little to no customization, the solution can be applied to manage all the reservation needs of most businesses. Should a business needs change over time, customization can be carried out dynamically at any stage without interruption to service.

Quickly develop a reservation system

The intuitive and simple nature of the Ultimateforms toolset means that its use is quite stunningly quick. Whereas most enterprise software requires a lengthy build phase and a dedicated IT admin team of experts to oversee ongoing use, Ultimateforms is lightweight and easily deployable. A first-time user with absolutely no experience on the software could build and deploy a complete tool for something like a reservation system in a few hours; an employee with even minimal experience on Ultimateforms could accomplish the task in as little as 20 minutes. Additionally, Ultimateforms can be used iteratively, meaning that a minimum viable product can be deployed very quickly and subsequently refined into the future.

See if Ultimateforms is the right tool for the job

It goes without saying that researching and shopping for the right enterprise solution can be a daunting task even for a team with extensive experience in the area. For this reason, we encourage prospective clients to demo our software in order to see if it's the right fit. We’re confident that Ultimateforms is equal to whatever task you need it to carry out, but we want you to make sure all the same because we want our clients to get the most out of our products and for all of their needs to be fulfilled. We invite you to speak with our team of Ultimateforms experts to discuss your needs and how we can serve them. Reservation systems are an area that Ultimateforms comes prebuilt to handle, but should you desire for our team to build your business or institution a bespoke solution or set of solutions, we can do that too; we maintain an extensive partner program of accredited Ultimateforms experts that are ready to help you develop the perfect tools for the job. If you’d like to further explore the various solutions we offer at Infowise, feel free to explore our extensive archive of webinars, online demos, and expert-written articles. Otherwise, we invite you to sign up for a free demo.

Build a Learning Management System with Ultimateforms and Sharepoint

2022-05-12T13:31:47Z

A quick, simple, and intuitive SharePoint toolset for enterprise administration.

Infowise's Ultimateforms Sharepoint toolset is a dynamic multi-use enterprise solution that enables businesses to streamline and maximize the various logistical aspects of day-to-day business. Ultimate forms is a highly customizable, modular, and exceptionally lightweight toolset that allows for quick, simple, and intuitive development and application of tools. Whether it's onboarding, leave requests, training, flight booking, budgeting, or anything in between, Ultimateforms can be customized with little time and effort to facilitate whatever process your business needs it to. One such business process that Ultimateforms is perfectly suited to is the administration of Learning Management Systems.

Simple development and SharePoint application of Learning Systems

The Ultimateforms toolset is stunningly simple, especially with respect to how powerful it is and how diverse its uses are. The system is modular and in that way is designed to be approached module by module, so admins and managers can customize solutions for their exact needs without being forced to use overcomplicated and bloated tools for otherwise simple tasks. Software purpose-built strictly for learning management, for example, are generally highly specialized and less customizable. In these systems, the admin has very little control over what data is used in the system and the system can often be greatly overcomplicated due to the fact that these systems are generally built for complex and specialized curricula. Ultimateforms does not suffer this problem and is approachable for both admins and end-users.

Quickly deploy an efficient and effective SharePoint Learning Management Tool

Ultimateforms is by design, a highly customizable and dynamic toolset. That being said, it comes out of the box with a wide array of prebuilt and completely ready-to-use enterprise tools. A Learning Management System is one of those prebuilt tools and can manage just about any learning management task with little to no customization. With a relatively knowledgeable Sharepoint admin, you can have a learning management solution for your business or institution up and running in as little as 20 minutes. Even a non-developer with little experience in enterprise software can quickly get a solution up. Not only is development quick, but the application and end-user use is also speedy and simple. There is no learning curve for end-users; if an employee has any experience with rudimentary computer applications, they will be able to navigate Ultimateforms with ease, saving businesses and employees time and avoiding the need for longwinded systems training.

An intuitive SharePoint solution for Learning Management

Ultimateforms, in design and use, is a particularly intuitive program. It is so intuitive, in fact, that absolutely no coding, not a single line, is required to either customize or administer any tools made with it. This means that even an HR officer with absolutely no technical background whatsoever, for example, could single-handedly customize, release, and oversee individual Ultimateforms or even an entire network of solutions. Ultimateforms is purpose-built to be, above all, intuitive for both admins and end-users, and its quickness and simplicity contribute to that. Its modularity means that data can be transferred from tool to tool seamlessly, so something like an onboarding tool, for example, could use the data from a learning system to factor where a hire stands in the onboarding process. Likewise, it also allows users to create bespoke tools whose scope does not exceed the operation's needs, meaning that Ultimateforms will never be unintuitively overcomplicated, Whether you need to build a one-off and very simple learning management system, or an entire network of interconnected enterprise solutions, Ultimateforms is intuitive on both small and large scales.

See if Ultimateforms for SharePoint is the right tool for the job

We understand that shopping for and committing to software is a rather difficult process as a business. For this reason, we've developed a rather extensive Demo and partnership system that allows prospective clients to trial the software and communicate with our team of in-house SharePoint solution designers as they determine whether or not our products are a good fit for them. We feel that our offering is exceptionally versatile and fulfills the needs of the vast majority of businesses in the market for solutions in this domain. That being said, we want to ensure that it fits like a glove and that your business will benefit as much as possible from the use of our products. for this reason we urge our clients to consult with us and demo the full software free of charge and without commitment. If you’d like to speak with one of our experts, we urge you to reach out to our team at support@infowisesolutions.com or fill out the form to request and schedule a demo. Ultimateforms is a powerful and intuitive toolset; we hope it's the right fit for you.

New features update April 2022

2022-04-29T21:29:29Z

Hi, A couple a new and exciting features I would like to share with you. First, Color Choice column now offers the ability to update value in a list view, without having to open the item for editing. It's great for quick change of status. It's super easy to configure, just set the checkbox in the column settings: Another feature is the ability to only display Indicator column values when needed, based on conditions. Such as here we are displaying the progress bar when Status is Active: Here too, settings are super easy and familiar: No complex configurations, no JSON to update. Enjoy!

Ultimateforms is a quick, simple, and intuitive platform for creating enterprise solutions

2022-04-18T13:23:42Z

Welcome to Ultimateforms, a multi-purpose and phenomenally intuitive digital toolset that can be applied to a wide range of administrative and logistical tasks. The system is highly modular, absolutely customizable, and requires absolutely no coding. Ultimateforms is Quick, Simple, and Intuitive; see whether or not it is the right fit for your institution today.

Quick

Ultimateforms, both in the building of solutions and their subsequent use, is a wickedly quick piece of software and was purpose-built to be exceptionally efficient. The software's simplicity and intuitiveness contribute to this ease and speed of use, allowing everyone from non-developers to experts in navigating and manipulating solutions with varying degrees of ease of use. The system comes out of the box with a variety of prebuilt and ready-to-use solutions spanning from onboarding to leave requests, meaning that for basic enterprise logistics needs, the default software is often adequate for the job. Should further customization be required, the process is exceptionally simple and in that way quick and is built in such a way that producing a minimum viable product for a solution can take as little as or even less than 20 minutes.

Simple

We service multinational institutions spanning everywhere from the financial sector to education. These institutions of course, don't build their digital enterprise solutions in under 20 minutes, nor should they; there is no magic bullet, complex institutional structures by definition, require at least moderately complex solutions. That being said, we have made it our mission to simplify these logistical design processes as much as possible and have arrived at a toolset that we feel provides businesses large and small with the ability to create solutions for whatever problems they may face. The heart of our design philosophy has been to create systems that are exceptionally simple and easily scalable, meaning that small and medium-sized institutions don't have to purchase software they have to grow into. Large institutions don't have to waste time with unnecessary bloatware ill-suited to dealing with the minutiae of daily operation.

Ultimateforms owes its simplicity to its exceptional modularity. We built the software so that solutions can be built and then connected to one another into a robust network of interconnected tools rather than the needlessly complex approach of a catch-all tool with a needless and confusing level of complexity. With Ultimateforms, your solutions are as complex as they need to be, and no further while still connecting seamlessly with one another to produce a complete and holistic enterprise solution environment. In the event that a business needs a particular solution to a specific problem and nothing more, Ultimateforms is well suited to that, too, in that individual solution structures are in and of themselves completely customizable.

Intuitive

Intuitive use has been a core pillar of our design philosophy since we first began the development of Ultimateforms, and pervades everything from the use of the software itself to our demo and licensing process. We want the Ultimateforms experience to be as easy as possible for everyone, from end-users to systems administrators. Customization and management of the software itself can be carried out without even a line of code and is approachable and learnable for everyone. In practice, customizing and administering Ultimateforms is about as complex as Excel or perhaps even less so. Connecting forms to one another is also incredible and intuitive and really is a no-nonsense process of dictating what information goes where and for what reason.

Try Ultimateforms!

We understand that shopping for and committing to software is a rather difficult process as a business. For this reason, we've developed a rather extensive Demo and partnership system that allows prospective clients to have a free trial of the software and communicate with our team of in-house solutions support as they determine whether or not our products are a good fit for them. We feel that our offering is exceptionally versatile and fulfills the needs of the vast majority of businesses in the market for solutions in this domain. That being said, we want to ensure that our solutions are the right fit and that your business will see benefits upon implementation of our products. for this reason we urge our clients to consult with us and demo the full software free of charge and without commitment. If you’d like to speak with one of our experts, we urge you to reach out to our team or fill out the form below to request and schedule a demo. Ultimateforms is a powerful and intuitive toolset; we hope it's the right fit for you.

Automatic content translations part 2 - Azure Cognitive Services

2022-04-07T21:07:41Z

Hi, Yesterday we announced support for content and document translations using Google Cloud Translation service. Today we are adding another translation provider - Azure Cognitive Services. With this provider you will be able to translate any kind of text field data (single and multiple lines of text). Unfortunately, we only support translation of documents via Google. First you need to create a Translator in your Azure, then configure a Copy list item action that will copy an item while translating its field values.

Log into Azure.
In the search box type Translators.
Click on Create.
Enter the required information. For pricing tier breakdown, go here.
Review and create your translator
Go to the new resource and click on Keys and Endpoint on the left
Copy one of the keys and the location, you will need both when you configure your action.

Next you configure your Copy action.

Under Action settings toggle Enable automatic translation on
Under Provider select Microsoft Azure Cognitive Services
Enter your key, location and desired target language

That's it, your action is now ready and will be automatically translating your content!

Automatic content translation in Actions

2022-04-06T18:47:15Z

Hi, We are now adding a new and exciting feature that will enable integration of automatic content translation into our Actions. You will be able to execute a Copy action, while automatically translating text field values, and, in case of document libraries, supported file types as well (Word, Excel, PowerPoint and PDF). In the initial release we are supporting Google Cloud Translation service, with support for Azure Cognitive Services coming in the future. Note that these are paid services and you need to establish a payment profile with the provider, although small monthly volumes might fall under the free tier. To start implementing this new functionality, you first need to configure the service under your Google Cloud account.

Log into your Google Cloud Console
Start with a creation of a new project. I called mine Translations, but you can use any name you like. You can also leverage an existing project if you have one.
Take a note of the Project ID, we will require it later.
Next click on Enabled APIs & Services of the project, then click on ENABLE APIS AND SERVICES
Search for "translation"
And choose "Cloud Translation API"
Click on Enable for the API
If you haven't previously enabled billing on your account, you will be prompted to do it now. Translation is a pay-as-you-go service. See pricing here under Advanced section.
Next click on Credentials in the left menu to generate credentials that the app will use to gain access to the service
We need to create a new service account, so click on Create Credentials, then Service Account
Click on Create and Continue, then enter Translation in the search box for the role and select Cloud Translation API User. That will ensure the service account is allowed to perform calls to the translation service.
Once you create the service account and see it in the list, you can generate keys, which will then be given to our app. Click on Manage Keys under Actions
Then click on Create new key under Add key
Create a new key in JSON format. It will download a text file to your computer, make sure to keep it in a safe place.
We are done on the Google side. Now go into your list or document library, click on Design -> Actions -> and start creating your new Copy list items action
Under Action settings, toggle Enable automatic translation on.
Under Project ID, enter the project ID from google, as we created it earlier.
Under JSON credentials, past the contents of the JSON key file we downloaded.
Select the translation target language and save the action.
I created my action as a manual action that will translate a document into French and place the translated copy under French folder
Once I execute my action, I can go French folder and see my new document there

As you can see, all text columns are translated as well, as shown here with Title column.
And if I open the document itself, I can see that it's in French

Note that I used part of our blog article as source, read it here

I hope you find this new feature useful, enjoy!

Creating relationships between SharePoint lists is now much easier

2022-03-16T15:16:40Z

Hi, All data we work with in the real world is relational, most commonly in a single-to-multiple relationship. For instance, each department employs multiple people, each product category contains multiple products, and so on. Our SharePoint lists are supposed to represent this real world data in the truest and most convenient form. Unfortunately, SharePoint handles relationships in quite a rudimentary fashion. That's why years ago we developed our Associated Items column type, that allows creating relationships between lists that are handled seamlessly within regular SharePoint forms. Creating repeating items within a parent item became easy for everyone! Since then we have introduced a vast number of improvements and features, to better suit the wide variety of our customers' needs. Be it sorting, paging, summaries, grid entry mode, the list just goes on. The only issue that many new user would be stumbling upon was the initial configuration. We establish the relationship in two possible ways:

Using our special content types ("Infowise Associated Item", "Infowise Associated Document", "Infowise Associated Task")
Using a regular lookup column in the child list pointing to the parent

I won't be discussing pros and cons of each approach here, we have existing training documents that delve into this in great detail. I will just say that both approaches require quite a few manual steps to get things going and unexperienced users might find it a bit challenging at first. We are now introducing a few feature that will make it so much simpler and streamlined. Now we can optionally perform all the manual tasks for you, when you create a new column, including creating the child list (or document library), replacing the content type and adding a lookup.

Go into Associated Item column settings page in the main page of Ultimate Forms (you can also add columns directly in Form Designer, whatever is more convenient)
Click on Add new column
Enter the column title
Under Data source, you can switch to New to create a new list.
Choose from list type, we support Custom list, Document library or Tasks list.
Provide a title for your list (in most cases, you want it to be the same as the column title, but it doesn't have to be). If you already have an existing list with the same title, you will be prompted to enter a different one.
Optionally choose to use a lookup and provide a title for it. There are specific recommendations on what approach to use for the relationship, but in general, use a lookup when you want to export you data to Excel or other 3rd party applications and do not use it when you want to add child items in the New form of the parent (for instance, when creating an invoice, it is advisable to allow adding line items before you save the invoice, so don't use a lookup there).
Under Optional settings tab, you can configure a number of settings related to styling and functionality

Generally, you don't have to change anything here, but I'd like to mention a couple of significant ones:
- Display in form format - instead of displaying child items in a table view, repeat them in their own form layout, stacked within the parent form.
- Allow adding new items - allow users adding new child items from the parent.
- Enter data using grid - new items are added in the grid itself, instead of using a pop-up form. Makes sense when your child list only contains a handful of simple columns.
- Open forms in a dialog - opens child items in a pop-up window instead of navigating to them.
Once you save the column settings, it will generate the new list and then create the column to link it to the parent.
Now you need to add the column to the form (I'm showing it in Form Designer for modern forms, which is the recommended approach for all new forms, but you can use classic forms as well, they are still fully supported)
Once you open Form Designer, your new column will appear in the List Columns gallery on the left, ready to be dragged onto the form design canvas. You can now just click on Publish, next steps are for information purposes only.
Click on the column to see the configuration settings on the right.
You can change settings of any existing column directly from here.
This is the exact same page we used earlier (of course, the New option is hidden as we are configuring an existing column here). See the option Design data entry form. It allows you to create a special form for the child list to be used with this column only. There are scenarios where you want to use a simpler shorter form when entering data into the child list from the parent, this is how you design such a form.
Once you publish in Form Designer, you form is ready to be used. Here you can see the parent form item "Dairy" with the new Subcategories column and a number of child subcategories. We are in the middle of adding a new subcategory using a pop-up form.

As you can see, it's now so much easier to create a new relationship. I'm sure it's going to save you a lot of your precious time and allow you to focus on other tasks instead. Enjoy!

Develop a Leave request system with Ultimateforms on Sharepoint

2022-03-15T15:31:33Z

I think we can all agree that the team management and employee scheduling paradigm has shifted pretty drastically since the pandemic. The way that we work and plan has undergone deep changes due to the need for remote work that arose two years ago. Many employees and managers the world over have realized that completely on-premises work is often unnecessary, and as a result, workforces have naturally become less immediately accessible than they once were. This has in turn affected the way that we as managers need to approach HR solutions, and has made HR scheduling and human resource management more important than ever. The nature of management has changed and maintaining a cohesive work unit with only traditional means and methods is not only inefficient but often insufficient. As you may have read in some of our past pieces on resource management failure to optimize logistical processes in the realm of resource management is tantamount to waste and loss. Not only are you failing to achieve optimal performance, but you also risk losing what efficiency you currently maintain. Many processes that could once have been achieved with a simple colloquial conversation now must be dealt with more precisely, including processes in the area of personnel management. Leave requests are one such area of personnel management that requires increased accuracy and consideration now more than ever. As portions of your workforce work from home, contributing their input remotely and digitally, it can become increasingly difficult to keep track of not only who is doing what but also who is even working at any given time. Without a sufficient leave tracking system, you are liable to inadvertently under schedule and leave gaps in your output capacity. For instance, if you over-grant leave on a particularly busy week you may not have the manpower necessary to achieve your allotted tasks. Likewise, you may accidentally schedule a work package during a period when an employee necessary to the completion of that work package has been given leave and is unable to complete it. both scenarios create waste and in fact, may damage your image as a business, and both scenarios are the fault of the scheduling manager and can easily be avoided with capable leave management or leave request system. Leave scheduling, like so many other aspects of business, is primarily practiced in logistics, and so we must apply a logistically sound approach, a methodical one that minimizes the possibility of mistakes and miscalculations.
And with that, we arrive at leave request tools. Enterprise tools and especially digital enterprise tools provide management and employees with a structured workflow that acts to reduce missteps. Digital tools are now a nearly ubiquitous element of daily business operations and have benefitted businesses almost incalculably. These tools should be leveraged in all areas that their benefit exceeds their cost, and that extends to personnel logistics and leave request systems. Here at Infowise, we are particularly partial to Sharepoint. Microsoft’s offering is a powerful multi-use enterprise intranet and collaboration tool with vast capabilities out of the box. That being said, we felt that we could further improve it for institutional and business use, so we created the Ultimateforms platform. Ultimateforms introduces the ability to create and interact with fully customizable and fully integrated dynamic forms and connects seamlessly to the rest of the Office 365 environment. In simple terms, Ultimateforms introduces the ability to create and apply custom solutions to all of your business’s logistical needs. Leave request systems are one such area that Ultimateforms is perfectly suited for and can easily be dealt with even out of the box with no customization at all. The product comes pre-equipped with a complete leave request solution that can be further customized at your behest depending upon your institution's exact specifications. Our expert in-house Sharepoint development team released a webcast on this topic recently, so I urge you to take a look at that for a complete breakdown of how the system works. If you would like to schedule a complete Demo Ultimate Forms now! of the system so as to determine whether or not it is a good fit for your business, we offer an extensive demo program, so please feel free to sign up for that- Until next time!

Learning management and professional development with Sharepoint

2022-03-13T18:48:58Z

As I’m sure you know, and as I have already written on extensively, the importance of the workforce cannot be overstated in. Finding and hiring the absolute best people for the job, regardless of the field, is a perpetual desire of any manager, and works to maximize your business’s potential. A few good hires can revolutionize the way your institution operates, and mean the difference between profitability and loss. In our past articles, we’ve explored the hiring process extensively and touched on onboarding a handful of times; but now I thought it would be appropriate that we explore various ways your employees can improve their individual skills and expertise. Hiring should not be the end of the process as far as an employee’s skills are concerned. There is of course the onboarding process which usually contains some form of training and orients employees to their new role and introduces them to your prescribed workflow and best practices, but following the onboarding process management should not be content to idle their workforce. Rather, management should promote constant improvement through professional development and training programs. Whether it's onboarding training for new team members or professional training for veterans, learning and professional development should be a constant progression in a business. We all know that in basically all fields enterprise changes rapidly, perhaps now more than ever. For instance, processes that only a year ago were industry standards could become obsolete and dated seemingly overnight. Likewise, team dynamics and general principles of leadership and communication can always be improved. For these reasons it is important to nurture your team’s development and to ensure that you are providing them with the training and guidance, they need to succeed in your area of practice. Your competitors are very likely developing their teams’ skills, so in order to remain competitive or to gain an edge, it is prudent for you to do the same and constantly seek to improve the abilities of your team. Owing in large part to the increasingly niche skill-sets required of employees, keeping track of who to train, how to train them, and how to track their training can be a rather complex practice. As with just about anything else in business, learning and professional development are best managed with a logistical approach. Whether it's simple onboarding training or advanced strategic professional development, you are best served by applying scrupulous planning and tracking practices to ensure the best results and to provide you with the information necessary to further develop your training programs. You may be wondering how exactly a logical and scrupulous approach can be applied in the domain of training and professional development, so to you, I would offer digital enterprise, and specifically Sharepoint. Microsoft Sharepoint is a powerful multipurpose intranet system that connects employees and employers over a completely digital environment and is absolutely excellent for collaboration. Here at Infowise, we’ve developed an expansion of Sharepoint called Ultimateforms which introduces to the program the ability to create and customize dynamic forms that integrate seamlessly to the broader Sharepoint and Office 365 environment. You can solve just about any logistical problem possible in this workspace with Ultimateforms, and that includes professional development and training logistics. With Ultimateforms, you can create a complete professional development center that tracks the development of each employee and aggregates all progress data for the viewing of management. Delivery of and review of the training content can be all be done in Ultimateforms and can integrate with existing onboarding or other systems relevant to professional development. We understand that your business may require specific customized forms based on its unique needs, but if you are looking for a more general solution, Ultimateforms comes with a myriad of prebuilt business solutions as well, including solutions geared towards professional development. Our in-house Sharepoint experts have produced a series of webinars on various Ultimateforms solutions, including professional development, so if you would like to learn more about the software I welcome you to take a look- Learning management on Sharepoint. We also offer a rather extensive demo program so that prospective clients can determine whether or not Ultimateforms is the right tool for the job before spending, so I welcome you to sign up for a demo as well. Until next time!

Employee Onboarding on SharePoint made easy

2022-02-25T15:58:26Z

As I’m sure you well know, the hiring process can be a very difficult task in mid to large-size businesses. finding the right candidate can feel like looking for a needle in the haystack, a mad search for an acceptable prospect with the right qualifications who will be a good fit for your team. Once you finally do find the right person and set about hiring them, the next step in the process involves settling them into the team and delineating the responsibilities of their new role. This step is generally referred to as onboarding and is an absolutely crucial responsibility of your HR team. Onboarding sets the tone for a new employee's future tenure as part of the institution and can either set them on a path towards success or failure in their role. For this reason, it is very important that when a new employee is onboarded, the process is done prudently and with great care. Poor onboarding practices can result in a variety of negative effects on a business, the first of which is a confused and ineffective employee. An employee who is hired without effective onboarding is likely to have an unclear or incomplete understanding of their responsibilities as well as optimal workflow and best practices. This can range from not knowing which software to use for a particular task to not knowing which employees to collaborate with on a given task. Generally speaking, this sort of confusion introduces a significant risk of the new employee underperforming due to the fact that they don’t know exactly what good performance entails or don’t know how to achieve it. Another issue that may arise from poor onboarding practices is that new employees can become confused about their responsibilities in their new professional environment and can quickly lose morale and become fearful that they are underperforming (and in this circumstance they probably are). This alienation drives productivity down and acts to create an uncomfortable work environment and also puts management in a position where they have to constantly chastise new employees. The pitfalls of poor onboarding are rather apparent, so now let us explore how to avoid them by developing a strong onboarding strategy. As with any element of business, the ideal approach to onboarding is a methodically created and complete strategic structure, in this case, one that addresses all of the most significant friction points of the journey from new hire to assimilated and effective employee. These types of “cover all bases” strategies can be difficult to formulate and even more difficult to properly implement, so I recommend the use of digital tools to get the job done right. Using some form of tool makes identifying and then addressing each sticking point much easier due to the fact that all relevant information is consolidated within the tool. The alternative of just developing a plan freely outside of any sort of structured tool is prone to missing important considerations and only realizing too late or even not at all. Here at Infowise we saw the issue of onboarding and decided to develop a solution to it among many other business considerations with the Ultimateforms expansion for Microsoft Sharepoint. Ultimateforms is a complete enterprise tool that addresses all logistical elements of business through the excellent intranet capabilities of Sharepoint. It comes prebuilt with a variety of onboarding-relevant tools with everything from CV submission to employee training and beyond that to basically every other aspect of an employee’s day-to-day operations and can be configured and customized such that entire work pipelines can be developed all without any coding at all. We know that each business has its own unique needs, so we created a system that allows for every individual business or institution to be able to develop its own solutions. The development of a complete onboarding pipeline in Sharepoint using Ultimateforms is something our in-house Sharepoint experts can help you with when the time comes, but in the meantime, I invite you to watch a webinar segment on the topic and sign up for a free live demo. Our demo program is a rather extensive offering that allows us to share our tools with potential clients in order to see if we are a good match for one another. The demos can be guided by our team and should give you a good idea of whether or not our systems will be a good fit for your business. The key to good onboarding is a step-by-step methodical approach that spans from hiring to settling into work, and we feel that the Ultimateforms toolset is an excellent way to oversee the process. In our next installment, I’ll be exploring some employee feedback tools, but in the meantime, I urge you to explore our excellent catalogue of webinars and articles which can give you some insight into what we do here at Infowise. If you have any questions or would like to participate in a demo, please reach out to us. Until next time.

Partners for success- an open invitation to all SharePoint developers and implementation teams

2022-02-17T17:50:28Z

Greetings one and all, and welcome to our brief introduction to the Infowise partnership program. As we all know, a collaboration between peers can be a highly beneficial practice for all parties involved in a great many fields. From simple sales synergies to complex research efforts, diversifying approaches by teaming up with outside entities can make meaningful impacts on the efficiency and effectiveness of work. As a career team lead working primarily in the tech industry, I have seen firsthand the benefits of collaboration between business entities, so I am a real proponent of this particular project. Upon examining our marketing and sales practices, we determined that the distribution of our software is one such area where collaboration with peers could create a great benefit for both us and potential collaborators. With this potential upside in mind, we set about developing our partner program. In this article, I'll explain just what our partner program is, how exactly it can benefit you as an enterprise solutions expert, and finally, how to get involved in the program. Without further ado, let's begin.

Infowise Partner Program

I'd first like to touch on what the program is, exploring how it works as well as the levels of partnership that we offer through the program. The Infowise partner platform is a curated network of IT solution professionals and businesses that have taken the step of enrolling. Through enrollment, they connect with us directly through an enrollment form after which we generally get into contact with them. Our partner pool is made of up three groups of partners; Registered, Certified, and Premium. The registered group is the basic level of partnership and only requires registering with us. The certified partner group consists of registered partners who have undergone additional training through infowise. This is a way for us to ensure that you as a partner are well versed in the application of our tools. The premium partner group is made up of the most effective partners in the program and is the highest possible partnership tier. The premium partner tier is reserved for partners who have demonstrated an exceptional aptitude with our products and have an extensive successful track record.

Benefits of Becoming an Infowise Partner

Now that we know the basics of how the partner program works let's explore the various benefits of enrolling as a partner. -The first and most immediate benefit of the partnership program is that enrolled partners immediately receive professional discounts on infowise products. These discounts will enable you to offer our products to end-users at competitive rates while expanding our reach as a business, benefitting us both. Furthermore, you will have access to free demos of the software so that you can find what solutions gi the needs of the end-user before you purchase them. -The second benefit of the Infowise partner program is an enhanced support system. We understand that as a business that may be dealing extensively with our products, you may have an increased need for hands-on support as you develop solutions for the end-user. For this reason, we place a high priority on providing quality support to our partners and will work with you every step of the way, from initial training to solution delivery. -Thirdly, the partner program allows for us to synergize with you on sales. This means that we will demo products to your customers for you, showing them the various benefits of the software before passing you the reigns to develop the customized solutions. We benefit from you using our products, and you benefit from us connecting with the end-user; the partnership facilitates this collaboration. -The partner program allows you to provide input on current and future tools, enabling you to influence what you can bring to your customers. We value the opinions of our professional partners very highly, so this part of the partner relationship is of particular importance to us and benefits both parties. -The final benefit of the partner program is the addition of your company and contact information to the Infowise global partner database. We run a successful sales operation in-house through our sales team and website, so we have good traffic and interested leads. For this reason, addition to the list may gain you, new customers. There is also significant value in being cosigned by the company whose software you administer, so your legitimacy as a business or professional is bolstered in the eyes of the consumer by being added to the database. Partner with us; join our community of high-caliber professionals, and reap the various benefits that come with it. We want to create and maintain strong symbiotic relationships with the people who use our products, and we want to be involved and to help you administer them. We're in your corner and want to see you succeed with our products in hand. The enrollment process costs nothing and creates nothing but upside for either party, so don't worry about hidden fees or slick sales approaches; this is not that. We simply want to connect with the industry experts that actually used our products. For more information about the partnership program please visit the partner's page If you are ready to take the leap, go ahead and fill out the partners' enrollment form If you have any questions about the program, please feel free to reach out to our program manager Avi Pagi at avip@infowisesolutions.com
Until next time!

Demo our Performance Management tool today

2022-02-17T17:43:13Z

In this day and age, you'd be hard-pressed to find an even moderately sized business that does not rely substantially on digital software of some form or another in their day-to-day operations. It goes almost without saying that digital tools have absolutely revolutionized the ways in which we conduct business. From mundane aspects like POS systems to abstract elements like machine learning AI in ad targeting, business, and structured institutions more generally, have transcended the analog and instead depend on sometimes highly complex frameworks of interconnected digital tools. If you're reading this article, you probably already understand the various advantages of leveraging digital tools to serve your institution's needs and realize that not doing so would put you at a significant disadvantage in the current landscape. That being said, it can be incredibly difficult to find the right software for the job, and countless hours and dollars can be (and all too frequently are) wasted on acquiring and then subsequently jamming the wrong tools into the gaps you need to be filled.

This difficulty in the acquisition of tools extends to HR tools, including Performance Management solutions. As you may have read in some of our past articles, there are a number of benefits to the application of performance management strategies in business. They provide leadership personnel with the ability to conduct oversight actions that help to improve efficiency and effectiveness in all aspects of enterprise. Without an adequate oversight mechanism in place, mistakes are bound to happen, and resources will be wasted at an elevated rate. At Infowise we believe that demoing of eligible software should be a priority during the research phase of software acquisition, and that same philosophy goes for Performance Management software. Solutions that deal directly with the human power of your business are by their very nature nuanced, so getting a hands-on and highly involved perspective on prospective products is essential when deciding which software to buy and subsequently implement. For this reason, we have developed a full demo offering for our newest product line: the Infowise Performance Review and Management Solution. This product is unique in that it includes extensive customization services from our dedicated software developers. We know the product inside and out, so who better to customize the base product to fit your business's exact needs than us?

This product handles 3 key aspects of performance management: Performance review, Goal setting, and Culture and values. We feel that these are the key elements of an effective performance management strategy and therefore have built our tool around them.

Performance review is the heart of this product. This tool allows for the collection and storage of performance review data as well as its seamless integration into other elements of the Ultimateforms SharePoint environment. The system is discrete and partitioned so that only those who are cleared to see performance review information are privy to it. As with the rest of the tool, the performance review section can be modified to fit the precise needs of your institution.

Goal setting is another hugely important element of performance management and one that we included in the foundation of the tool we developed. It is a predicate of the entire performance management process, and failing to goal set properly will kneecap not only performance management but your entire operation. Goal setting unifies your team's work and steers it toward a central institutional goal. The tool we've produced enables leadership to develop and clearly delineate goals iteratively using information gleaned from performance reviews all in the same digital environment.

The final element of our performance management system, and a consideration we abided by throughout the course of its development, is its potential to shape culture and values within your institution. An absolutely rigid and inorganic review process stifles company culture and can have a chilling effect on communication, so we ensured that our product would not exacerbate and would, in fact, improve company culture. This consideration allows leadership to study and then steer company culture and values in a direction that promotes prosperity and high morale.

These three core elements are built into the software and can all be customized by our team to suit the precise needs of your institution. As you well know, performance management is a powerful tool for executives and leaders in modern enterprise. It enables you to truly get a clear picture of just how your organization functions and can play a large part in prosperity and success. I invite you to sign up for a software demo today where our development team will walk you through a demo to see whether or not we are a good fit for one another. If you would like to read more about performance management, please take a look at some of our past articles on the subject, or reach out directly to get in touch with us.

Add signatures to SharePoint items with DocuSign

2022-01-18T15:03:39Z

Hi, Electronic signatures has been a feature of Ultimate Forms from the very beginning. It's easy to sign SharePoint list items and document metadata using any of the available signature providers and then automatically track any changes to the signed information. Our customers have been successfully using it in a variety of applications, including regulatory compliance. We've long been asked about the ability to add signatures within documents themselves. Our signature implementation does not allow it, as it adds a signature to list items only. We are happy to announce that through a partnership with DocuSign we are now able to implement this functionality! You will be able to use our Print functionality to generate documents in various formats, then send them to DocuSign for signature collections. Our initial version will allow to add one or more signatures by a single signer and store the signed document within DocuSign. You will need a subscription with DocuSign online service to be able to leverage this integration. Let me show you how I implemented a simple process of requesting a manager signature within a PDF document I'm generating based on some list item column values. First, we will need to create a new Print template. Go into Ultimate Forms -> Print and export, then click on Add new profile. Note that I'm using Advanced edit mode, so I'm able generate my document in the exact format I need, as we all placing signature placehoders where I want them. I decided to use the word Signature where I want users to place their signatures. I do not have to use any particular word, it's my choice to use the word Signature. Once I've created the print template, I will now create a Print action to implement the actual process. Go into Actions, then click Add new profile. Choose Print list items action type. I'm calling my action Authorize, note that I unchecked all Events, as I want to trigger this action manually. Under Advanced settings, I'm checking Manual execution. It allows users to trigger the action either from list views or from forms. Under Action settings, select the Print template we created earlier, PDF format (although you may also use any other format, as well as Word format based on a pre-defined Word document. Under Target select DocuSign: request signatures via email. Under To, select our signer, that will be the value of Manager column, this way we are determining the value dynamically. Subject field will contain the email subject (and it's also used as the file name of the signed document). Under Signature indicator enter the same exact signature placeholder we decided to use in our print template. I've create a form for the list item using Form Designer and added a button of type Trigger action, binding it to the newly created action. That allows users to trigger the signing process directly from the form. When the user clicks on the button, the process is started and an interactive progress window is shown. Same can be done from list views by selecting a list item, clicking on Run Actions from the toolbar, then clicking on our action. In this scenario, custom form is not required. Once the action is completed, an email is sent to the manager, inviting them to review and sign the document. Under each Signature placeholder they will be able to place their digital signature, then click on Finish. A signed document is delivered to the action creator in PDF format. As you can see, the process is quite simple and doesn't take more than just a few minutes to implement, while allowing you to integrate advanced functionality in your system. Digital signatures are becoming a crucial part of any business process in today's world and it's essential to be able to integrate them into your processes in fast and efficient manner, as I showed you today.

We're Rolling Out a Performance Management Solution

2022-01-17T19:06:33Z

Announcing our new custom product line:
Performance Management System

Infowise

As a software development firm, we here at Infowise are proud to have created what we believe to be the finest SharePoint toolset geared to modern businesses in Ultimateforms.

With its high customizability and modularity, we believe that it can be not only applicable but highly effective in almost all areas of logistical procedure in any given institution. The software comes prebuilt with a variety of solutions, and many businesses may find that they need to do very little customization at all, but if they do in fact, need to make changes, the process is exceptionally streamlined and easy. In short order, our customers can install and then customize Ultimate forms to the exact needs of their business, all without any coding expertise or experience, no matter what the industry is.

Our new product line

As customizable and as Ultimateforms maybe, sometimes the needs of our clients are so specific and complex that the input of a career expert is prudent. We’ve listened to input from some of our valued customers and identified an area of service that we feel we can fill. Whether you need results quickly, your business does not have staff capable of the task, or your business’s structure is too complex for the laymen to design around, we’ve got you covered. Shortly, we will be rolling out a new line of products that come customized to your particular business or institution. Whether you represent an energy company or an educational institution, our software engineers will administer surveys and analyze your institution’s unique structure and needs, and then produce a tailored Sharepoint toolset built on the Ultimateforms platform. These solutions come with 24 hours of dedicated customization support so that together we can ensure that the solution is properly launched and administered. This new product line is a surefire way to get the exact results your institution needs because the development process will be carried out under the purview of our dedicated software experts. As the creators of the Ultimateforms platform as well as the many solutions that come prebuilt with it, we know it inside and out, so we can identify your needs and design tools to your exact specifications better than anyone else.

The first of these products that we plan to release will be an employee review management system. This system will be tailored to the needs of the individual client and, like any other Ultimateforms tool, can be dynamically integrated into the rest of the Sharepoint ecosystem. In recent articles, we’ve extolled the many benefits of the performance review as part of a broader performance management strategy, and with the tailored review management system, the effectiveness of the process can be maximized.

The product will feature:

Customized review tools

These review tools will be tailored to the context of your particular business

Goal setting

Contextualized goal-setting capability, a tangible way to steer the overall direction of work output, will be built into the product

Safe and secure data management

As an employer, you have a responsibility to manage your employees’ information with care and caution. This product will be designed with privacy in mind, and we’ll work with you to ensure that it is secure.

Workflow analysis and approval

the methods your employees use to complete work are determinant factors in their overall output. With this product we will give you the tools necessary to analyze workflow and either approve or revise work plans.

Feedback

What good is a performance analysis and review without feedback? Ensure that

get the most out of your findings with dedicated and custom-built feedback features.

The performance review and analysis element of performance management is a crucial oversight tool in the toolbelt of any executive or HR department, so putting your best foot forward with the best digital solutions is prudent. This product will be the first in a series of out-of-the-box customized solutions that we will develop and release in subsequent months, so stay tuned for further product releases. In the meantime, if you have any questions about the platform or performance management, please reach out to us here at Infowise, or explore our extensive documentation archive.

Building a strong to performance management system

2022-01-14T18:53:40Z

Performance management is a corporate business practice that entails the monitoring and maximization of employee work output by management and leadership. The practice can take many forms (one of which is performance review, a topic that we are releasing articles on concurrently), but the key principle of performance management is to get the most out of your business by using analysis and strategic modification of workflow. The idea of performance management is to view the business’s function macroscopically and to tweak particular elements of its function in order to align it and maximize its progress toward a given goal. This goal can be as broad as minimization of waste or as fine as increased sales in a certain sector over a given quarter, but the key is that performance management is carried out relative to an overarching goal.

Goal Setting

From the perspective of the manager, performance management starts with a clear and well-defined goal or set of goals. Each level of a business’s power structure can apply performance management principles to the personnel they manage, so each stratum in the hierarchy must have a well-defined goal or series of goals to work towards. For instance, The highest level of a corporation’s hierarchy could set more general goals for mid-level management whereas middle management could set more specific goals that are relevant to their respective departments. All this is to say that goal setting is an antecedent and foundational action required to make any real headway with performance management. If goalposts are not clearly defined, the analysis of performance that you subsequently carry out will lack meaningful context and will be of little use, and may even serve to your detriment if acted upon. Goal setting starts at the absolute highest level of authority in a business, where executives must clearly delineate the general direction of the institution to their subordinates. From there, the direction trickles down and is transformed for all levels and departments. In the performance management sphere, One key permutation of goalsetting called the Absolute performance standard is used frequently as a guideline. The absolute performance standard is a hypothetical performance standard wherein efficiency is absolute and there are no wasted actions and no losses. if this standard were to become a reality, a business would perform at 100% efficiency and all employees would output at their highest potential. This hypothetical is of course impossible, but it is used as a touchstone with which to analyze efficiency in a system. If performance management staff can move a business closer to their absolute performance standard, they are succeeding in their task of making the business more efficient. The absolute standard doesn’t have to be a rigid goal, it can even be something as simple as the sales department closing 100% of leads. The idea is to provide your team with an ideal scenario to work towards. In this way, the absolute performance standard is a great way to give context to more concrete goals like quarterly sales goals or loss limits.

Performance Review

After goal setting, another major component of any competent performance management system is the performance review. Performance reviews are a practice in which the superior or dedicated HR staff carry out a review of an employee’s output and impact on their business. These reviews are an opportunity for the personnel responsible for performance management to interface directly with their human power and an excellent place for the two parties to discuss direction and goals. This interaction is to be used as a data point that fits into the overarching performance management strategy of the business and can give great insight into how employees are outputting relative to the aforementioned goals of the business.

Culture and Values

Core values and by extension company culture are often overlooked yet very powerful driving forces in a business. A company culture that promotes and rewards excellence is likely to produce higher-caliber employees that output more effectively. Performance management is an excellent way to promote that winning culture because it adequately recognizes good work. In a business where there are no strong review processes, there is no real incentive for good work, so one can’t really blame an employee for not outputting at a high level. promotion of strong corporate values and culture are components and in a way results of a holistic and strategic performance management system, and can bring powerful positive change to a business. Performance management is a very important tool in the executive's toolbelt in this day and age and really can make all the difference in a business. All institutions, whether public or private, require oversight and performance analysis in some way or another in order to be the best possible iterations of themselves. Without performance management, businesses subject themselves to directionless listing and coasting, wasting time and resources in sometimes terribly inefficient workflows without making any real progress. You would never run a business with weak or nonexistent fiscal oversight, so why do the same with personnel and workflow? As you can imagine, there are various digital tools on the market today that can facilitate the performance management process in ways that analog approaches just cannot match, and in the next article I’d like to explore some of the best options; but for now, if you have any questions or would like to read further, feel free to reach out to us or explore our extensive archive.

Just Released!
A customized solution designed for your precise business requirements

Performance Management System is a crucial oversight tool in the toolbelt of any executive or HR department, so putting your best foot forward with the best digital solutions is prudent. This product will be the first in a series of out-of-the-box customized solutions that we will develop and release in subsequent months, so stay tuned for further product releases. In the meantime, if you have any questions about the platform or performance management, please reach out to us here at Infowise, or explore our extensive documentation archive.

A guide an effective performance management system

2022-01-14T18:48:58Z

In this day and age, data collection and analytics is not only prevalent in the modern enterprise, but it is also the norm, and that truth extends to personnel management as well. If you don’t apply the same methodical approach you use in other areas of the business to employee performance and efficiency, you’re leaving chips on the table. This article is the second part of a three-part series I’ve been writing on performance review in business and will provide you with a few key considerations to make when planning for and carrying out performance reviews with your employees. As a career team leader and executive in the tech industry, I’ve done many performance reviews and have seen the benefits that come with the process. I’ve learned a great deal about how to perform them as well, and feel that I’m relatively well versed on the subject. The review itself is naturally quite intimidating both for the employee and superior, but I hope to remove some of that stigma with this article and elucidate some of the nuanced differences between a good performance review and a bad one. If you’d like to read my article about the various benefits of the performance review, CLICK HERE; otherwise, without further ado, let’s get into the article. Before even thinking about doing performance reviews, and generally starting with the onboarding process, you need to ensure that you have expressed clearly what you expect of your employees so that the performance review can actually bear fruit. If you carry out performance reviews on an employee that has unclear expectations placed on them, the results from the performance reviews will be varied and skewed towards negative through no fault of their own. If upon reading this you come to the realization that perhaps you have not clearly defined the employees’ roles in your business, formulate those roles and instruct them, then plan for performance reviews in the next quarter so that the instructions you have given can bear fruit. As a corollary of that point, make sure that before carrying out performance you have a clear idea of the direction and ideal state of your business so that the information you collect and the interactions you have can be properly contextualized. With those two points out of the way, I’ll now list 1 Formulate a plan for your review that touches on information that is relevant to the overarching goals of the business. In a way, this point extends upon the introduction section about understanding your goals, but in the context of formulating the actual review. Always write questions with the ultimate goal in the back of your mind. At the end of planning the review, reread all the questions and if the potential answers to those questions aren’t likely to support the main goals of your business, scrap them. 2 Performance review questions should be informed by real-world examples and actual performance data rather than arbitrary metrics. You need to ground your reviews in reality so that the information gleaned is relevant and useful. In many circumstances, the role of an employee transcends just the direct development of profit, so applying for example profit-centric analysis on support staff would yield unfavourable results because the context of the review is not properly defined. Performance reviews are scary and can be terribly unpleasant if done incorrectly. make sure that you remember that the employee sitting across from you is a human being with complex needs and desires. Try to put yourself in their shoes and while both writing questions and carrying out the review and make sure that you are polite and personable to make the experience less intimidating and to alleviate some of the stress involved. If the experience is well received, they will be more forthcoming in the future and the culture around review will become more positive in your business. Now if the employee is negligent and lazy, no matter what you do the review will be unpleasant for them, because their shortcomings will come to light, and I’m not saying cater to them and tell them everything will be okay, my point is that you need to approach the review with equal parts analysis and humanity. 4 Performance reviews should be a conversation, not an interrogation As a related but separate point from the last, reviews should be an open conversation where information flows between you, not a one-way street where you constantly pull things out of your employee. They should be able to ask questions and converse with you about the metrics you are tracking, and you should offer advice on how best to approach the review and the job itself. A review is a place for you to learn about the employee's work and a place for the employee to ask you questions and grow from your input. 5 Conclude the review with concrete next steps This step is absolutely crucial. Performance reviews should end, either immediately after the review, or as soon as possible once you have looked over the information, with next steps for the employee. Advise them on how they can correct some of their missteps, or how you’d like them to pivot to a different focus for the sake of the business, or that you feel they deserve a promotion or whatever it may be; just ensure that the information you have received is processed effectively and transmitted back to the employee in a way that is useful to them. 6 Follow up After having completed the performance review and given next steps, follow up with the employee to see their progress down the line. Make sure that they have applied the advice or instruction you have given them, and guide them and advise them if they need help. The performance review should be a component of a holistic leadership strategy, not a one-off data collection event. These are, in my opinion, the most important considerations to make when formulating and carrying out a performance review. In the next article, I’d like to explore some of the various tools available on the market in the realm of performance review and personnel management, and that piece will be coming soon. In the meantime, if you have any questions about performance review or logistical tools for business, please reach out to us here at Infowise or browse our extensive archive of articles and demos. Until next time.

Just Released!
A customized solution designed for your precise business requirements

Resource booking with Infowise Ultimateforms for Sharepoint

2022-01-05T22:44:22Z

Hello and welcome to the second and final part of our short series on resource booking. In our last entry, we defined resource booking and presented a few key reasons why it is so important in business today. In this article, I’ll be exploring the various resource booking tools available today along with how they work and how you stand to benefit by using them.
As you may remember from the last article on resource booking, there are three main reasons why it is important to develop and implement an effective booking strategy for your business. These three reasons are: Reduction of waste Reduction of waste by way of eliminating unnecessary mistakes in planning and booking ie. double booking and underbooking. Analytics The use of a well-organized resource booking strategy is an excellent way to collect relevant performance data for analysis after a job is completed. Booking tools consolidate this information into one place Ease of operation Applying a strong booking strategy produces ease of operation for team members and customers and as a result improves morale internally and eliminates image damaging mistakes externally. As the benefits are very clear and apparent, you’re probably now wondering what exactly a strong resource booking actually looks like. A common theme in the articles I’ve written here is that it is important to acknowledge that logistical functions in business can truly be difficult. Business is complex in this day and age, and keeping track of everything is a trying bureaucratic process that can drain time and resources. For this reason, it is important to leverage the best tools at your disposal. Sometimes the easiest way isn’t necessarily the best way, but thankfully in this case easy and effective happen to align. There are many powerful tools available in the market today (the best of which are all digital of course), but to us here at Infowise one stands out above the rest; that tool is Sharepoint. Sharepoint is an intranet and cooperative work environment created by Microsoft and is a multifunctional digital enterprise tool used by countless institutions around the world. We’ve created a product that bolsters the user’s ability to customize the SharePoint workspace, and added the ability to create interactable and dynamic forms that collect, compute, and apply inputs. One of the use cases of this added functionality is the ability to create resource booking systems within Sharepoint using this product which we’ve called Ultimateforms. Ultimateforms comes prebuilt with a variety of resource booking tools out of the box, which oftentimes is more than adequate for the average business's needs.
Here are some typical asset management solutions : Room and Equipment Reservation Vehicle Reservation Hotel Reservations Flight Reservation

Webinar Registration More solutions These formatted forms all come predesigned with all relevant data fields and are capable of passing to and receiving from other forms and components in the SharePoint workspace. This functionality allows for forms to, for example, be distributed to team members to be filled out, and then for all the collected data to be aggregated and passed to the department responsible for applying the information collected, or even to automatically apply that information to an entirely separate form. In this way, a sort of web is created wherein resource planning is facilitated by these connections, and the confusion involved in modern business logistics is alleviated through the automation aspect of the toolset. These pre- structured forms can be customized to fit whatever needs a business may have, or built from the ground up for completely unique roles. The dynamic interactions that the collected data is used in are also completely customizable and can be connected to any other custom or out-of-the-box form in the workspace. Think of these predesigned forms as templates and jumping-off points that can either be used as they come or customized to fit niche roles that fit your business specifically. Now that we’ve discussed some of the various resource booking templates Ultimateforms comes with, I urge you to try a few out for yourself using our online demos. They’ll give you a better idea of exactly how the tools look and work. We made them in a way that no coding is required on the user end and all customizations can be made in the SharePoint interface, so there isn’t much of a learning curve when booting Ultimateforms. Thanks for stopping by to view this article and if you have any questions for me or the team please feel free to reach out or browse our rather extensive online documentation database. Until next time!

The Benefits of Strong SharePoint Resource Booking Solution

2022-01-05T22:39:26Z

Resource management is a topic we have explored in depth in our past articles. The reason that I have written so extensively on the subject is that I as a career team leader and manager have seen firsthand the important role it plays in a business's success or failure. Businesses can see amazing growth and prosperity if their leadership makes prudent resource management decisions and employs intelligent strategies. Conversely, otherwise strong businesses with excellent products and capable team members can be brought to their knees if their leadership fails to carry out effective resource management strategies. As a refresher, resource management is the application of and planning of the application of resources at the disposal of a business. These resources encompass everything from team member skillsets like the expertise of an engineer to tangible assets like the use of a piece of machinery. The practice is very much logistical in nature and is predicated upon strong analytics. The goal of resource management is to apply an institution's resources effectively to solve that institution's problems. Resource management also includes resource development, but that's a topic for another day. As you may remember from past entries time allotment is one of the key pillars of resource management and is probably the most recognizable step for the layman. Resource booking, our topic for today, is time allotment in practice and entails planning exactly what resource will be used to solve a problem and for how long. In this article, I’ll be exploring just why effective resource booking should be an ever-present goal for modern business. The first and most obvious reason to create a resource booking strategy is to ensure that mistakes arent made in planning, such as double booking or over-application of resources. Booking is a way to ensure that a business doesn’t cross its wires in a way that will be detrimental. Team members are not capable of and should not be expected to, for lack of a better term, freestyle planning of the operation of a business, so it is important that leadership provides them with the tools and strategies necessary to effectively book. Failing to do so leaves time and money on the table. Booking strategies and processes protect the business from unnecessary waste and damaging failures by providing your team with a way to make sure things will be done right when the time comes to actually apply the resources in question. Resource management, like so many areas in business, is made better with strong analytics. We all intuitively understand that learning from past mistakes and successes is a core function of improvement, and the same principle applies here. Analysis of the effectiveness and efficiency of resource application is a surefire way to improve future applications and can be facilitated by a strong booking process. If a business responds reactively to its needs without planning in advance and documenting its planning process, it will hamstring its ability to learn from those applications because the relevant data will only exist in the minds of the team rather than in a centralized place. For example, if a construction company is tasked with paving a given stretch of road, and its management arbitrarily sends two paving machines which turn out not to be enough for the task without planning and documenting through a centralized booking strategy, their failure will not be readily available as a data point to analyze for future reference. The idea of booking is to set logistical decisions in stone in order to be able to refer to them in the future. This booking process is also useful for compliance purposes and creates a record that is easy to search through and refer to. A sound booking strategy also eliminates the often frustrating and confusing elements of logistical practices by providing team members with an easily approachable and centralized resource planning method. This ease of operation along with the reduction of planning missteps is a powerful way to improve morale internally and reduce image damaging mistakes externally (in the eyes of the consumer). Providing team members with a way to do things right the first time, thereby eliminating the hurdles of correcting, benefits everyone from the owner to employee. There are a variety of reasons why resource booking is an important consideration in resource management and by extension in business generally. As you have read, efficiency, analysis, and morale all benefit from sound booking strategies and are likely the primary reasons why a business would be motivated to take a look at its current workflow. As you can imagine, resource booking is a very involved and often complex task, so many powerful digital tools have been made to facilitate the process. In my next article, we’ll be taking a deep dive into the various available tools and taking a good look at Sharepoint, our preferred tool here at infowise, and the program we’ve built our business around. If you have any questions regarding resource booking or management, please feel free to reach out to us here at Infowise or browse our extensive documentation. While reviewing these introductory articles, please take a look at the technical resources that our team has created to help you better manage your resources. Thanks for stopping by, and see you in the next one.

Infowise UF and Sharepoint Project Management delivers advanced capabilities

2021-12-06T19:59:55Z

Hello and welcome to this short article on the use of Sharepoint in resource management and scheduling. As you may already know from the last two articles posted, Resource management is a crucial practice in enterprise management and encompasses a wide variety of planning and implementation functions. From the development of resources such as employee training and real estate development to analysis of task outcomes, resource management is perhaps one of the most far-reaching areas of focus in business and one that truly can mean the difference between prosperity and failure. So how can you as a leader manage such a task in this era of highly complex business processes? The answer truly is enterprise software of some form or another. Now I acknowledge that there are many options for enterprise software and toolsets, but I contend that the Microsoft office 365 suite, and especially Microsoft Sharepoint, is the most well-rounded and multipurpose offering available in the market today.

Resource Management Using SharePoint

Microsoft is, as we all know, a massive multinational and one of the most ubiquitous tech companies to ever exist. This is not the case by chance, it has continuously innovated since its conception, contributing scores of both physical and software products that have changed not just business but contemporary life indelibly. The Windows operating system alone has solidified Microsoft as an absolute titan of tech, boasting a user base that encompasses the majority of personal computer owners. That being said, for business enterprise purposes, their organization-wide software solutions are what set them apart from the competition. Their most popular offering, the office 365 suite, is a powerful, multifaceted toolset that includes various tools ranging from text programs to complex social platforms for businesses. Sharepoint, in particular, is extremely useful for business as it enables team members to share files and data seamlessly in their digital workspaces. Out of the box, it serves as an intranet system with some upgrades, but our team at Infowise saw potential in the Sharepoint platform. We decided to build an upgrade that takes Sharepoint from an already powerful intranet system to a complete business logistics solution. We called this upgrade Ultimateforms, as the software introduces a form system that allows users to both use and create custom forms relevant to any particular aspect of the business. As I always say, the difference between a prosperous business and a struggling one can be absolutely minute, so leveraging every possible advantage is prudent in this era of extreme competition and saturation in any given area of business. One such area I'm talking about today is resource scheduling, and Sharepoint, in tandem with Ultimateforms can be a true boon to your logistical practices, including resource allotment and planning.

Ultimate forms Sharepoint Project Management

Here I'll introduce the project management resource planning tool that you can download for free from our solutions page, and in the next one, I'll explore some of the other resource scheduling form templates that come with Infowise Ultimateforms for SharePoint.

The Project management tool is a macroscopic resource scheduling and management form that deals with the broad strokes of task planning and tracking. It contains 6 data fields that are arrayed as follows:

- Customer

This field is used simply to document the customer for whom the project is being undertaken.

- Project

We recommend that this field be used to denote the particular project that the entry was written in regards to. What you deem to be the project is an arbitrary decision that you must make, but generally speaking, it should be precise enough that the resources in use in the project can be tracked accurately. In other words, the bounds of the project should not be so broad that you cannot clearly delineate its edges.

- Task

This field is for the particular task in question for the entry and can be thought of as the individual module of the aforementioned project that the entry is written about.

- Description

This field is in place to allow the managing staff or employees to describe the task so that it can be referred to and analyzed after the project's completion.

- Date

- Hours

Conclusion

The project management form is a basic catch-all resource scheduling tool, but Ultimateforms comes with a variety of more situationally specific tools relevant to everything from overtime tracking to resource booking. The beauty of Ultimateforms is that it is fully customizable, meaning that you can create completely new forms or alter existing forms as well as customize and manipulate the way that they behave and treat data. In my next article, I'll be exploring some of the other resource scheduling tools and forms that we offer here at Infowise, but for the time being, if you have any questions, please feel free to contact us or explore the rest of our extensive tutorials and documentation. See you in the next one!

Free pre-configured business solutions in Ultimate Forms

2021-11-30T17:40:42Z

Hi, Ultimate Forms is a complete no-code platform for implementing any type of business solutions, based on SharePoint sites, using just your browser. It's fast and easy to build any business process you need, from a simple Vacation Request form to a full Help Desk solution. Best of all, you need no tools and you don't have to be a developer! And to make life even easier for you, we developed a collection of pre-configured business solutions that you can install and use for free, with a single click, regardless of whether you are on SharePoint Online or on premises (make sure you are running a relatively recent version though). Dozens of solutions are available; use them directly, modify according to your needs or just reference them when building your own solutions from scratch! How do you install these solution? It's incredibly easy! When inside the app, you will notice a button Install Business Solutions in the main toolbar. Click on it to view the available solutions. You can select from one of the available galleries. The first gallery, Infowise Solutions, contains the business solutions, while the second one, Infowise Webinars, contains demo sites used in our webinars, that you can install as well, to make the learning process much more interactive. In the future, more galleries will be available, offering solutions developed by our partners. Use the category selector and the search box to filter the available solutions, helping you find what you need. Click on the solution you want to install to see its full details and to start the installation. It is recommended to install solutions as brand new sites, under the current site. You can also modify the current site, but be warned that if your site already uses lists with the same names as in the solution, they will be modified and you might lose your data!
Click on Install and confirm. You will be presented with a progress dialog that will indicate, in real time, what steps are currently being performed. Allow up to a couple of minutes for the process to complete, depending on the complexity of the template you chose. Once the process is complete, you will see a green success message. Clicking on Close will redirect you to the brand new site with the solution already configured. You can start working with the solution. If you want to make any changes to it, make sure to install Ultimate Forms first, you can do it by clicking Design button on any list's toolbar. Business solutions provide you with a great way of becoming immediately productive and using the extensive knowledge we've acquired over the years to your advantage!

Using SharePoint and Infowise UF for Resource Management and Scheduling

2021-11-16T15:46:36Z

Hello and welcome to the second part of our two-part series on resource management in the modern enterprise. Though I will be continuing with some ideas from the first part, you’ll find that this article also stands alone as it pertains primarily to Resource scheduling, an offshoot of the broader topic of Resource Management. So, without further ado, let’s get into the article.

As you may remember from the last article, I am an executive and frequently act as a project manager in the software-as-a-service area of tech marketing. I have around a decade of experience in the field and have worked on small startups to multinational companies. Resource management is, in my opinion, one of the absolute most important tasks a leader must deal with, either directly or indirectly. As a summary of the last article, Resource management is the practice of planning, scheduling, and allotment of human and financial, and technological resources to a project or program. Resources can include Human power as well as tangible assets.

Resource Scheduling is a specific facet of resource management that pertains to the physical element of the application of resources. Resource management as a field includes everything from the planning, development of resources to budgeting. Still, that temporal aspect of planning the application of the resources your business has available is a significant logistical undertaking in and of its self. As you probably know by now, doing so without any dedicated tools is almost impossible beyond a very small-scale operation. Even managing personal scheduling without digital tools can be challenging, so the difficulty is increased exponentially across an entire business. Many software development businesses have seen this need in the market. They have answered it by developing enterprise tools that either have dedicated resource scheduling functions or are designed entirely for that role. Microsoft Sharepoint is one such tool and is capable of many functions, including and beyond resource management and scheduling. Here at Infowise have designed an overhaul that improves that original software that many businesses already have by introducing the ability to create and use interactable forms that can hold and transform data within the Sharepoint workspace. This toolset, which we’ve called Ultimate forms, comes with a collection of ready-to-use forms that can immediately be deployed, many of which are designed for resource management. I’ll get into those forms soon enough, but for now, let’s talk about the practice of resource scheduling and important considerations during the process.

The first stage of scheduling comes before any resources are actually allotted. This preliminary phase pertains to the analysis of the task and is crucial to ensuring that a sufficient quality and quantity of resources are committed in the scheduling process. This analysis should include calculations on the duration of commitment to serve best the function of the temporal aspect of the scheduling process. Without effective analysis before commitment, your scheduling process is bound to either waste resources or under-commit them.

The primary phase of the scheduling process is the logistical planning phase, wherein resources are strategically scheduled to fulfill roles in the solution of the predefined task. Constant considerations of overextension and under-commitment must be made in this phase and should be informed by the information gleaned through analysis of the task. Depending on the field of practice, this stage can vary drastically. In one case, scheduling could involve committing a certain number of employees to a task, whereas in another, you may be scheduling the use of server space. The critical part of this phase is applying information gained from the analysis of the time element of the task. Goalposts need to be set so that the job can be successfully closed in a reasonable timeframe; otherwise, you risk project creep and wasting resources that could have been used elsewhere to benefit the business.

My final phase for resource scheduling comes after the completion of the task for which the resources were scheduled, and that phase is the analysis of the success and accuracy of scheduling. This is an important step for future scheduling procedures because, just like the preliminary analysis, it can provide important information on how your resources actually perform in real-world deployment rather than in hypothetical planning. This information is invaluable, and failing to collect data from it is exceptionally wasteful. SharePoint and

Infowise UF for Resource Management and Scheduling

The Ultimateforms Toolset can, of course, aid you in analyzing the task, scheduling resources, archiving, and analyzing said data, so naturally, in my next series, I’ll explain just how those tasks can be accomplished. Still, for now, I’ll leave you with this. Do not underestimate the importance of tidy and prudent resource scheduling because those few wasted hours or under-committed employees can mean the difference between profitable and not. Big victories are won in small increments, so ensuring that you do your due diligence is very important in the logistical end of your business.

I look forward to connecting with you in the next article, and in the meantime, if you have any questions or would like to try the Ultimateforms toolset for Sharepoint, either contact us or try one of our many online demos. Until next time!

Resource management with SharePoint

2021-11-16T15:39:13Z

Resource Management, an Overview

As a professional working in a managerial role, I can confidently say that resource management is undoubtedly one of the most critical aspects of business management today. I think we can all agree that as technology has advanced, so too have business structures, enabling us to reach new markets, offer groundbreaking products, and conduct our internal operations more effectively. With that being said, in my opinion, the complexity of business structures has also increased. Thus, the stakes are now higher than ever. It is increasingly getting difficult to maintain operational business processes in the face of such complexity, especially from a logistical standpoint, so tech companies worldwide have contributed to the field by introducing digital tools to help companies manage their affairs effectively. Microsoft is one such company and has developed and released a wide variety of business solutions, but the one that we feel is most powerful is SharePoint. In this two-part series, I'll be introducing the concept of resource management as well as the use of digital tools to facilitate resource management in your business. In this first piece, I'll explore the fundamentals of resource management and why it is such a crucial business enterprise area. In the following article, I'll steer us towards the particulars of resource management, especially resource scheduling, but for now, let's try to better understand the term in general.

In the context of organizations and business structures, resource management is a term used to define the process of developing and applying the Resources of a business to meet its goals and objectives. Business resources encompass everything from IT services, human to financial resources. They can be defined simply as anything a company or organization has control over and can fulfill the needs of the business. Whether it's a vehicle that your business owns or a unique skill set that one of your employees has, if you as a leader can allocate it to benefit your business, it can be considered a resource within the context of resource management. The idea of grouping personnel with objects and other non-human entities may run counter to the common understanding of "resource," but just as in the Human Resource field, it is often more productive to approach the management of your workforce from a more logistical perspective, at least for the purposes of planning. If your human power outlook is quantified as well as qualitative, you can allocate them more effectively towards individual projects without losing perspective on the entire business.

Proper Planning of Business Resources

The first and most immediate goal of resource management action is to apply resources accurately. This, of course, primarily entails ensuring that your business applies Sufficient resources to the effort such that the task can be achieved in a timely fashion. This aspect involves properly analyzing the task in order to make a reasonable decision about what resources to apply. Making errors in judgment during the task analysis is a surefire way to miss-allocate resources in a way that is either insufficient or inefficient. Not only may you allocate an insufficient quantity or quality of resources, but you may also over-allocate, thereby creating waste. A perfect balance must be struck where you don't over-commit, creating waste or under-commit, creating unnecessary hurdles for your team.

Have a look at a few solutions developed by Infowise to help organizations better manage their resources
Project Management
Equipment Reservation System

See more Resource Management Solutions

Development of Resources

The second aspect of resource management that often gets overlooked is the Development of resources. This is an absolutely crucial consideration and can produce either prosperity or turmoil depending on how well you navigate it. As resources are expended, and the scope of work expands, the Development of new resources and the improvement of existing ones is the only thing that will keep your enterprise moving forward. Suppose you choose to act reactively rather than proactively regarding your resource development. In that case, you will constantly hit roadblocks and have to wait for your resource to catch up to your operations and rate of allocation. Imagine an army on a campaign of conquest. An over-eager general commands his men to press on but fails to call for an extension to his supply chain. The army marches until they run out of food and then wait in place while the supply chain struggles to catch up. This same concept applies to business; if any one aspect of your resource development operation falls short, you are effectively hamstringing your entire business until such time as it catches up.

Have a look at a few solutions developed by Infowise to help organizations better develop their resources
Employee Training
See more Resource Management Solutions

Infowise Resource Management System

Now that I've explained just why resource management is so important to modern business, you're probably wondering what methods you should use to handle it properly. As I briefly touched on in my introduction, there is a multitude of tools on the market today to facilitate strong resource management. Here at Infowise, we are rather partial to SharePoint, and have even built a powerful companion for it called Ultimate forms. It introduces many features that the base software doesn't have out of the box, many of them pertaining to resource management. I say all this to say that there are certainly tools for the job, and in my next article, I'll be exploring the various resource management tools on offer, along with how exactly they can benefit your business. Thanks for stopping by; if you have any questions, please reach out to us here at Infowise or explore further in our extensive documentation collection.

Explore more Resource Management Solutions by Infowise

Redirect options in modern SharePoint forms

2021-11-01T21:37:27Z

Hi, When you create a modern form using Ultimate Forms, you have a variety of ways to control what happens when a user saves or cancels the form. The default behavior is to return back to the list, but in some scenarios, you might want to change that. For example, you might want to show the created item in a Display form or redirect to some custom "Thank you" page. Let me explore the possibilities with you, to help you create forms that precisely match your needs. First, there are two types of redirects on the form. One controls the global redirect, for example, when saving the form from the toolbar or default Save buttons. The other one is attached to a specific button on the form, so for example, you can have both Save and Save and Edit buttons and you let users choose what they want to do. For the global redirects, you have several options to choose from:

Default - just preserves the default behavior of returning to the list
Display - shows the added/updated item in a Display form.
Edit - shows the added/updated item in an Edit form.
New - opens a New form
Custom - redirects to a custom URL that you provide.

As the latest addition, you can now specify separate redirects for Save and Cancel events, so a user can be redirected to different place depending on whether or not the item was saved.
When you added buttons to your form, you have several options to choose from in terms of what the button does.

There are two types of save-related buttons, regular Save and Action and Save. The regular Save button can perform just the save operation and rely on the global redirect settings, or it can perform its own redirect to Edit or New forms. Action and Save button first performs an action on the form (automatically sets column values based on functions and calculation results). It can also optionally redirect to Edit or New form. Button redirects always take precedence over global redirects. Of course, there are also other button types that are not related to saving the item, such as Action (just sets column values, but doesn't save), Trigger action (triggers a varierty of backend actions, such as communicating with line-of-business applications) or even buttons executing custom scripts. The idea behind all these options is provide you with the most versatile toolkit that allows you to build just the forms you need!

Adding loops to Actions

2021-10-29T20:01:49Z

Hi, We are announcing the addition of loop functionality to the Actions component of Ultimate Forms. Now you will be able to execute a single action or a group of actions several times, based on a range of numbers or dates, while passing the current value of that number/date to the action to be used for value assignment, as part of expressions/function or even in conditions. In the example below, I'm automating setting up a set of weekly "checkpoint" tasks for a project, based on its start and due dates. The number of tasks created is determined by the length of time between the dates.

First, we need to create two lists, Projects and Tasks. I'm using regular lists for both, adding Start Date and Due Date columns to Projects list.
Next, replace the default Item content type in Tasks with our Infowise Associated Item content type. For that, go into the list's Advanced Settings, allow management of content types there, add Infowise Associated Item and delete Item.
Next, add Due Date column to the Tasks list.
Go into Projects list, click on Design to open Ultimate Forms and add new Associated Items column.
It will automatically discover and suggest Tasks list as the child list. I also disabled adding new items, as I want to do that through Actions only.
I also designed and published a simple modern form for Projects list. Note how I'm using a container to place both dates on the same row.
Now we can start with the actions. First, create a new Create list items action. Remove all events from the first tab, then switch to Action tab.
Here, change List value to Tasks (as that's where we are going to be creating the new items). Map Values to set. Note that at this point you cannot yet map Due Date, as the loop value is not configured yet. Just save and come back to it later. Note that I am setting Parent field name to Tasks (which is the name of the parent column in the parent list), that will ask the action to establish a relationship between the two items.
Now create a new Action Group. Under Events on the first tab leave only New, switch to Action tab.
Add our create action to the list of actions in the group (it is probably already selected, just click on the plus icon on the right). Once you do that, a new section will appear and you can now configure your loop settings
As you can see, I'm looping through the dates between Start Date and Due Date and executing the actions in the group for each weekly value.
Once the action is saved, go back to your Create action, you can now map the loop value to Due Date.
That's it! Now when you create a new project, it will automatically add a set of weekly tasks.

There are probably numerous other scenarios where loops can be beneficial, explore and enjoy!

Filling Word template with SharePoint data

2021-10-26T22:11:28Z

Hi, Print component of Ultimate Forms is a versatile tool that makes it easy to produce printouts and generate various types of documents based on SharePoint (or even any other kind) data. With a simple click of the mouse your template will be filled out with data and then converted to HTML, PDF, Word or Excel format. You can then print it, download as a file or email it directly from the browser. And using integration with Actions component, you can completely automate this process and trigger it based on column value changes (such as Status changing to Approved) or on the timer (such as 2 weeks after approval date). We have been offering support for Word documents for a few years now, but our document generation has been always pretty basic. We simply embedded a simple rich-text content block within a blank Word document, without the ability to use any of the advanced features of that application, such as headers and footers, styles, etc. I'm happy to announce that that is changing now. You can now create your own Word document, add placeholders for column values, upload it into the print template and it will be used for Word document generation instead of the old approach. The old approach will still work though and the change is 100% backwards compatible. Let me show you how easy it is!

Create a Word document template using any format you want. Just make sure to sprinkle in placeholders for values (simply column names surrounded by double square brackets).
Enter Ultimate Forms, switch to Print, create or modify a print template based on Item (we currently only support document generation for single item templates)
As long as Type is set to Item, the new Word tab will appear. Switch to that tab and toggle Use MS Word template on:
Click on Upload and choose your Word template file, then save the profile
Return to list/library, select an item you want to print, click on Print, then click on the Word icon in the top right corner
A new Word document will be generated and downloaded to your computer
As you can see, the placeholders were replaced with actual column values from the item, while the layout of the template was fully preserved.

For Actions intergration, go into Actions, then modify or create a new action of type Print list items. Under Action settings, choose your print template and ensure Word is selected as output format:
Choose to make the action manual or run on event/timer, that part is up to you. Here how it would appear for manual actions:
That's it. Your generated Word document will now be emailed, stored in a document library or saved as an item attachment, that's your call. One thing I want to mention. When you create your template, make sure not to add any styles within the placeholder itself, always surround it with styles, so our Print component is not confused by any unexpected characters within the column name. If you see that your placeholder does not get replaced, try to clear any styles by selecting the text in Word and using the menu bar to clear formatting: Another remark - we do not yet support including image colums of any kind within the generated document. Your template can contain its own images, but we cannot bring in images from the SharePoint item. This new feature is already available in SharePoint Online and will be implemented for on-premises customer in the next release of our Print component. Enjoy!

Using camera in SharePoint forms

2021-10-21T20:43:04Z

Hi, A common requirement coming from our customers is to be able to quickly and easily take a photo with the cellphone camera and upload it as part of a SharePoint form data. There are already several ways to do that, such as taking a photo first and then uploading or even going directly into the phone camera when clicking on the Upload button. The problem with these approaches is that many high end modern phones will take pictures in such a high resolution that it takes a lot of time to upload the resulting large file. And because usually these photos are taking at some remore location, with mediocre cellphone coverage, it can really be quite a burden. This is why we decided to improve the Image column type that is available in SharePoint Online. Normally, the column allows you to upload an existing image (or take a photo on the cellphone). The new feature allows you to preview video and take still images directly from the form, without having to open the camera. And, as an additional bonus, you can control the resolution of the image! We will start with creating a new Image column. You can do it directly from Form Designer of Ultimate Forms, just click on Add New Column under the column gallery on the left and choosing Image column type: The new column will now appear in the column and you can drag it on your form. Once on the form surface, click on it to view its properties on the right: Here you can toggle Use camera setting and then select the image size. Publish your form and you're ready to go! Click on the camera icon to take a picture, then approve or cancel image upload. The image will be create in the resolution you specified in the column properties, regardless of how it appears on the screen. Just a couple of things to note:

Only one browser can be showing the camera output, so do not try to open in more than one browser on the same computer at the same time, it will be blank.
On a PC, it will use the front facing camera, on a phone, it will use the rear facing camera, as you will normally be using it to take pictures of objects.
Enjoy!

Associate items Form in Forms Example

2021-10-08T20:12:44Z

Leveraging a custom Associate Item form with in your Parent form Using Associated items is a great way to provide customers with the ability to record multiple records of data that relate to one record. Like having 1 customer contact record related to multiple sales calls recorded or orders. The traditional method is to use a pop-up dialog form to fill in the information. Or to use the grid format to enter the info line by line, these are great ways to get that information but they have some draw-backs. Using the Grid entry creates a way to stay on the form to enter the multiple order/sales lines but you cannot use the dynamic rules or permissions that are available on the form. Also, using the pop-up form allows for use of the dynamic rules and permissions but it takes the focus off the main parent form. Well what if you could have both, this is where the setting Forms in Forms comes in. You can use a form as if it were a grid and you full capabilities of the dynamic rules, permissions as you do with a regular form. In my example below I use the Pizza Order Solution to demonstrate this capability. In this solution the customer provides some basic contact info and has the ability to review the menu. When they are ready to place an order the items they order are using the associate Item setting of Form in Form. The Associate Item form I designed here provides the ability to calculate the price of the pizza from the per slice price to the Party size. Also it provides the customer with the flexibility to order a custom pizza with additional toppings for extra cost. At the bottom of the Order form the customer can see the Total cost of all items and the Final sale price including the tax. How to Design the dynamic form for use in the Associate Item Field Below outlines the process to create these dynamic forms that show directly in the parent form. To allow the Form in Form feature you need to turn it on in the field configuration of the associate field. Then you need to click on Design Data entry form at the top. This will bring you to a new form designer page Now you can design how you associate item form will look In the parent form when using form in form. Once you are finished designing this when all the settings (permissions, dynamic rules, styles, css, etc…) you will need to publish this form and when that is published click on the white < in the top blue menu bar to go back to your parent form. In the parent form I always publish that one to be sure that the two forms are tied together. (Not sure it's needed but it doesn't hurt). And now when you start to use the form it will have the child forms showing in on the parent form. Other customizations for this application This Template comes with basic lists and configurations, you will need to provide the data. Also, any other settings as describe below are suggestions that we cannot setup for you since they are highly dependent on your organizations setup and configurations (i.e. the paypal payment, email settings, etc.) Once the order has been submitted the customer is send his receipt (if prepaid via payment option, you would need to setup your paypal options) or the invoice is sent via an alert. ( Note: you would need to add these settings for your environment) . Also, the Order is emailed to the restaurant to fulfill the order. Note: this too you need to provide the process for. Some additional notes to this application is that you can add additional actions and processes to track the quantity of ingredients used for each order so that it can update your inventory control systems. Also, you can build a monthly reporting system to track the financial reporting that your restaurant may need for accounting and reporting. The menu list is fully customizable to add more items. You may need to adjust the pricing rules on the item order form. For different plate options. Just remember, You image filenames need to match the name of the menu item. And the .jpg images as that is the current image format that is accepted in this application. This application is available as one of our Business Solutions templates. You can create a new site (or subsite) add the infowise app to your site contents. Then open the Infowise interface and go to business soluitions and look for Pizza Order app. Play around with it and customize it to you needs. Buon Appetito!

Sharepoint sales solutions with Infowise Ultimate Forms

2021-09-09T11:27:59Z

The sales force of your business truly can make or break your operation. A failing sales department can sink a business faster than just about anything else the market can throw your way. If you aren’t developing or converting enough quality leads, your operational costs will inevitably exceed your profits and sink your ship. Conversely, a thriving sales force with excellent closing rates and high sale volume can bring your business prosperity almost overnight. For this reason, as I mentioned in my previous article about automating part of your sales processes, is a highly important target as companies worldwide have funneled considerable time and resources into developing effective solutions to the constant challenge of turning a profit through consistent sales strategies and techniques. The sales aspect of your business is, for lack of a better term, close to the money. It is the function that turns what you sell or offer into money in your and your employees’ pockets, and for that reason, it is absolutely crucial that you put your best foot forward in that arena. Another reason your business handles sales is so important is that, unlike more ancillary business functions, the way your sales team presents your business directly impacts the way the consumer perceives your operation. In sales, missteps can burn bridges where potential clients can pass over you if you don’t present well the first time.

Like just about everything else in business, Sharepoint can be used to improve your sales workflow dramatically. Sharepoint is Microsoft’s business logistics solution that enables organizations to collaborate seamlessly in a digital environment using cloud networks. Sharepoint is a powerful software out of the box. It will almost definitely solve many of your business logistical challenges. Still, we here at Infowise identified a series of functionalities that we believed would improve the usability and effectiveness of the software, elevating from collaboration and file-sharing software to a complete business solutions building environment. Our expansion, Ultimate Forms, introduces fully customizable and dynamically integrated forms for just about every business function you can think of, up to and including sales. Our sales form lineup is as follows:

Sales Quote generator

This form format is a tool that allows your sales staff to create attractive sales quotes in a matter of moments easily. The form is broken into three sections; customer, products, and terms. These categorizations of information allow for both the sales personnel and the potential customer to navigate the quote with ease. The form also features an attachment section for relevant external files such as PDFs and images.

Download Sales Quote generator by Infowise

Lead management

The lead management tool is powerful; lead prospecting solution that facilitates lead development and tracking dynamically from research to closing and beyond. It is an easy-to-use but especially capable tool in our sales solution arsenal. I recommend that you explore the live demo here as it is a wide variety of built-in features that are easiest to understand by demoing.

Download Lead Management by Infowise

Helpdesk

A helpdesk solution is a tool that allows your sales and customer service departments to track customer complaints and administer active support. Sales doesn’t end with the close; it should be maintained so as to cultivate repeat business which bolsters stability and longevity. With the help desk solution, you can provide your team with the right tool to keep customers happy into the future.

Download Helpdesk solution by Infowise

Project management

This solution is a logistical tool that allows your business to track customer service once sales are closed properly. In addition, the form enables your sales staff and fulfillment managers to work in concert, making the handoff from sales to project completion much smoother.

In this day and age, sales, just like almost everything else in business, can be streamlined and improved through the use of digital tools. Sharepoint is one such tool and has an extreme amount of potential natively. That being said, we saw a few opportunities to enhance its abilities, in this case in the context of sales, so we introduced them in the Ultimate Forms expansion. These tools, among others, have been specially designed to enhance your sales department, regardless of the size of your business. If you have any questions or would like to try demos of the Ultimate Forms suite, please feel free to reach out to us here at Infowise or explore our site!

Download Project Management by Infowise

Timers and stopwatches in SharePoint forms

2021-08-31T18:20:35Z

Did you every have the need to setup a process where you can track time while working in the form? Recently I was asked about if Infowise forms had the ability to performs some type of stopwatch capability. The answer to that is yes there are date and time functions avaliable for this type of functionality. There is one caution though, you won't see a timer counting live on the form, that cannot be done. However, we can track time with custom buttons and functions. With Infowise Modern forms, Dynamic rules and custom button controls you can build these type of processes easily. Below is a form that puts these idea in to action to implement a form of stopwatch with a lap timer. This type of timing system is used in downhill ski races and rally races where tracking the time a participant crossed several checkpoints on the course is as important as the time it takes to cross finish line. Each participant can have several (mostly 3 to 4) runs and their times will be averaged to determine the final placement of the winners. Fro the purpose of this blog we are just going to focus on the stop watch functionality. Stop Watch Timer Timer Buttons Start The Start button begins the timer when the participant starts the course. This will track in the Recorded Times the start of his particular run, Lap Time A lap timer is a kind of stop watch that records the time a participant crosses a course checkpoint without stopping the clock. Pressing this button saves the time event recorded event with the current duration and reopens the form to keep tracking other checkpoints on the course so the clock does not stop at this time. This would be similar to a user completing a task. Stop This button works similarly to the Lap Time button but it completes the time trial of the participant as the participant crosses the finish line. The Custom buttons are defined as Action, Save, and Edit buttons. This gives the ability to modify the details on the form to provide the updates before the save and edit functions. Some of the Dynamic rules are there to control when the different fields can be written too. For instance, Record Time is a Yes/No field that sets the permissions for Duration Completed and Recorded Times to allow to be written to or not. Duration Completed uses a dynamic rule to get the seconds from Start Time to the current time stamp. There are several dynamic rules that help to control the form and how it records the times.

StartTime (a date/time field) is set to display:none to facilitate the calculation of Duration and is set by dynamic rule to [Now] when the new form is opened.
The custom buttons for the stop watch all perform some updates to field before executing a save and edit function.
Each time the form opens there is a dynamic rule that sets the Record Time to No
When a timer button is pressed the Record Time is set to Yes before the values are written and the form is saved.
Duration Completed is only calculated when StartTime has been established and uses a Dynamic rule formula $Seconds([StartTime]|[Now])

Ultimately this is just an example of what you can do with dynamic rules and date and time functions to track time. However, with some adjustments these function could provide some insight into response times or other time sensitive applications. This example is available as a template solution for M365 if you are interested in applying it to a new site. To install select the Stopwatch and Timers template from the template solutions from your Ultimate Forms Interface.

How Infowise Ultimate Forms and Salesforce can works together to help you land new customers

2021-08-23T12:35:54Z

There was a point in the past when sales was based almost entirely on personal relationships, but as time goes on that era fades into memory. Don’t get me wrong, personal connection is a powerful dynamic in commerce, but as businesses grow and change, evolving in scale and scope, that type of customer acquisition can become almost impossible. For this reason, experts from a wide array of fields ranging from data science to software engineering have brought their talents to bear on the age-old challenge businesses have always and will always face; how do they consistently acquire new customers. Sales may seem at a glance like a field of soft skills and intuition, but in reality, it can be simplified and broken down into a practice of logistics like just about anything else in the business. Sales processes vary quite drastically depending on the area of commerce and the size and notoriety of the business, but one characteristic is shared among them all; converted sales start with good leads. The modern sales process, regardless of field, is generally built around the development of viable leads with high conversion rates, so the application of logistical processes such as categorization and analysis lend themselves very well to optimizing the process. Whether you sell software-as-a-service or physical merchandise, applying a logistical approach will almost certainly benefit your sales force and increase your sales numbers. When business processes benefit from a logistical, quantitative approach, it’s safe to assume there is a tool somewhere out there to facilitate the process, and that rings true for sales as well. In this article, I’ll be introducing the application of business logistics solutions to sales and customer service processes. In the future, I’ll be doing some in-depth pieces on the various tools available, but for now, let’s keep it simple with an overview. Around the turn of the century as business along with just about everything else became digitized, Microsoft saw an opening in the business world. The internet had at the time revolutionized the way that we connected, but there were no real easily applicable solutions for private or closed networks. To fill that gap, Microsoft developed and released Sharepoint. Microsoft Sharepoint is a software that enables its users to create, administrate, and use custom intranet and cloud structures with relative ease. These networks allow institution members to share and access information relevant to their work efficiently. Sharepoint boasts a few major benefits over other network solutions, the first of which is its powerful scalability. Whether your institution is a 20 employee strong small business or a ten-thousand strong multinational corporation, Sharepoint can rather easily be scaled to fit your exact needs. Another major benefit of Sharepoint is that it synergizes and connects seamlessly with the rest of Microsoft’s business solutions (such as Office 365 and MS teams) which have become the industry standard in professional business software. Sharepoint can be used as a tool to maximize the effectiveness of your sales force through its ability to aggregate information and connect employees’ efforts to one central hub, and Infowise has come up with a few solutions to improve its capabilities even further through our Ultimate Forms Sharepoint expansion. Ultimate Forms is a solution that adds completely customizable and integrated forms that allow various kinds of information to be entered and shared within the Sharepoint network. These forms bring a higher level of usability to Sharepoint, allowing your team to create forms for use cases specific to your business. For example, your sales team could easily make a form to track the origin of leads based on a survey administered to customers after checkout, or a form to track customer holdouts and reasons why sales aren’t being converted at close. This ability to apply customizable and easy-to-use forms makes Sharepoint an effective tool for not only sales but just about all other facets of business as well. From HR to Accounting, Ultimate Forms transforms the already incredibly useful Sharepoint into a complete top to bottom business solution. I urge you to check out some of our many webinars on Ultimate Forms or to give the software a try using the many live demos available on the site. In the near future I’ll do an in-depth breakdown on Ultimate Forms and sales, including the integration of salesforce with our software, but until then if you have any questions, I welcome you to reach out to us here at Infowise. Until next time.

Suggestions function in modern SharePoint forms

2021-08-11T16:45:22Z

Hi, There are many situations in which users will be entering data that might already exist in the system simply due to lack of knowledge. For example, a user might be submitting a support request in the help desk system that has already been previously resolved in another ticket. This of course generates unnecessary delays, occupies resources and causes general inefficiencies in the business processes we are trying to improve. This is why we are introducing the new Suggestions feature in our Form Designer component of Ultimate Forms. This component listens to the data being entered into the form in real time and presents relevant existing items, in preview mode, that match the data being entered. The items could come from the current list (such as existing support tickets, containing resolution steps) or from any other list, such as Knowledge Base, it's really up to you (and why not do both? :)). And as with all our features, it's ridiculously easy to set up!

Create your Support Tickets list. In my example, it only contains Title and Description fields, but of course in your case, there could be any number of other fields, it doesn't have to have anything to do with support tickets either.
Click on Design on the toolbar of the list to enter Ultimate Forms, then click on Form Designer. Allow it to create a form for you automatically or design your own.
Locate Suggestions under Controls on the left and drag it on the form.
You should now see the preview on the form.
.Click on it to see the properties on the right. Let me explain them here
1. Title (optional) - any message that appears above the results. You can also create messages in different languages, when creating multilingual forms.
2. Search according to data in columns (required) - select at least one column on the form. The text being entered into that column[s] by the users will be used by Suggestions component to runs its search. When multiple columns are selected, it will search based upon the concatenation of text in all of them.
3. Minimal characters to start search - how many characters does the user need to type in to start the search. There is no clear rule here, it depends on what kind of data you are working with. The more characters you require, the more precise the search will be, but of course it depends on how many meaningful keywords are being used.
4. Maximum number of results - how many results to show. You don't want to overwhelm with too many results, but still give enough options.
5. Search in list - select the list to search in, by default it will be the current list, but you can select any list within the site.
6. Show creator and creation date - whether or not to show the item creator and date created below each result.
Once you are done and published the form, add some existing items, so search has something to work with. Note that because we are using SharePoint's search engine here, there is a bit of a delay between the time an item is added and when it starts appearing in search results, but we are talking something like 5 minutes, at least from our experience.

As you can see, this could be a very valuable piece of functionality that makes your business processes a lot more efficient!

Infowise Ultimate Forms solutions for HR management

2021-08-11T14:49:28Z

The HR management unit of your business is responsible for managing the human capital of your organization. This is to say that your HR team concerns itself with the efficiency and effectiveness of the human component of your business. As you know, perhaps the most difficult aspect of management is dealing with the nuances and complexities of the people under your leadership. In this day and age, with remote work and the digitization of business, HR responsibilities can become very difficult, especially from a logistical standpoint. How do you keep track of the endless stream of expense reports, leave requests, travel reservations, and so on? Such an undertaking requires a robust toolset capable of handling all of it. We here at Infowise have tasked ourselves with making HR management easier for you and your business with Ultimate Forms. Ultimate Forms is a Microsoft Sharepoint expansion that turns the base software into a fully customizable business logistics system that can help you manage everything from HR to delivery schedule. At some point in the future, I’ll explore some of the other applications of Ultimate Forms, but for now, let’s stick to HR management, starting with:

1: Expense reimbursement

This solution is a complete internal expense reporting tool designed for employees. It contains fields for everything from department to text boxes for business purposes. This format is a complete solution for expense reimbursement. It allows your accounting department or management staff (whoever is responsible for approving and reviewing business expenses) to review entries within the Ultimate Forms system. Like many other solutions we offer, it has a field for digital attachments as well, so receipt pdfs can be attached to the form entries for easy proof of cost.

Download the solutions

2: Leave requests

The leave request format is a simple but important solution that allows employees to request lengths of time off within the Sharepoint app. This functionality synergizes well with the rest of the system, enabling managers to easily plan scheduling and other logistical matters in the context of all the other information available to them in the Ultimate Forms ecosystem. In addition, the form includes important fields like text fields for leave type and description.

Download the solutions

3: Employee feedback

This form is particularly interesting because it utilizes matrix survey questions to gather data about how employees feel about their roles. This solution can be customized in various ways, but the most common customizations will probably be modifying and adding questions. With this tool, your HR experts can get a data-based understanding of their employees’ attitudes towards their jobs. The form also includes a text field for additional comments that the employee thinks are relevant to the feedback exercise.

Download the solutions

5: Training Feedback

This solution is similar to the employee feedback solution in that it also uses a matrix-based question format. Still, it differs in that it comes preformatted with an array of questions about a training session or class the employee is supposed to have completed before filling it out. The solution is designed to give the HR department insight into how effective the training was from the standpoint of one of the pupils. Teaching is nuanced and difficult, so we created this tool to take some of the guesswork out of knowing whether or not it landed the way your HR team wanted it to. Like the employee feedback tool, the training feedback tool also has a text field for additional comments.

Download the solutions

6: Hotel and reservation

These solutions are logistical tools we created to facilitate travel reservations internally in your business. The idea is that should your team need to travel to conduct business; they can book internally using this toolset. From there, your HR department or office manager can forward the data to a travel agent or book the travel accommodations themselves. This saves time and money by consolidating the booking process to one point, rather than the entire company going through the hassle of booking with an agent or online. This solution can also be customized to have an approval process complete with digital signatures should you require them.

Download the solution We believe that for a business to run smoothly, its human capital must be leveraged effectively and with as little waste as possible; that's why we made these tools. These are just a few of the relevant tools Infowise has produced in the realm of HR, but they should give you a good picture of how Ultimate Forms can improve the capabilities of your HR department. In my last article, I touched on the tools relevant to onboarding, so in this article, I saw fit to explore some of the tools we’ve created that you may want to use after the onboarding process and into the future. In the near future, I’ll touch on some of our other Ultimate Forms tools. Still, in the meantime, if you have any questions or would like to try out any of these forms yourself, I welcome you to reach out to us or explore our solutions further on our site; on the site, we have fully functional demos of all of our forms to give you a better idea of how they work, so give them a look. Thanks for reading, and see you in the next one!

Parameters in manual actions

2021-07-30T15:53:27Z

Hi, Using the Actions component of Ultimate Forms is an easy-to-use alternative to workflows and PowerAutomate, that allows you to implement advanced business logic without being an expert in workflow design. Unlike traditional workflows, you do not need to configure complex multistep flowcharts to be able to add automation to your business processes. All you do is configure a set of separate actions, each with its own triggers and conditions, without having to worry about dependencies, states or other workflow attributes that can be confusing to non-technical users. Actions have a variety of triggers that activate them:

Events - actions are executed when items are added, update or deleted in your lists or document libraries
Timer - actions are executed according to a date in the item's column (for instance, 2 weeks after creation or 2 days before due date) or daily/weekly/monthly
Manual - actions are triggered by users via buttons on forms and/or list views

Up until now, manual actions could be triggered, but you could not pass any user-entered data to those actions. You could use information already present in the item or perform calculations/functions, but you could not request the user for some additional details. Now we are changing that! With the new Parameters feature, you can define one or more parameters of different types, which will be presented to the user as a form when the action is triggered. The inputs will be passed to the action that will use that data in its processing. For example, you can use it to set status. Currently we are supporting the following parameter data types

Text - free text input
Number - any number or currency
Date - date, and optionally, time
Yes/no - checkmark for entering yes/no values
Choice - selection from a number of predefined text choices

What is great about it is that the parameters behave just like regular columns. You can set default values, make them required and so on. Let me show how it's done:

Start configuring a new action. The simplest and most common action type would be Update list items action that updates one or more items in a list/document library
Switch to Advanced configuration tab and enable Manual mode for the action
Notice Parameters section there, let's create a few parameters
Clicking on Add new column will reveal the selection of supported column types. As I mentioned above, parameters are identical in their definition to columns and are configured in the same way, except they are stored by the action definition and are not added to the list itself.
Once you click on the desired type, an entry form for the column configuration will be presented, it's basically identical to the form for creation a column in the list.
Once you've configured all the parameters you want, you can use them for mapping of column values you want to update. Your parameters will appear first, in blue, with @ character preceding their name. Note that you can use them just as you would any other column, so feel free to use calculations or functions.
Once your action is configured and saved, it's time to trigger it manually. You can do it from the toolbar or ribbon. When triggered from a list view, make sure to select one or more items first, to make the button appear. Here how it would appear on a modern form:

And here is the same button on a list view, notice that I selected an item in the view:
Once I click on the button, a pop-up showing a selection of manual actions configured on the list is presented:
Actions without parameters are executed once you click on them, but if your action has parameters, a form is generated and displayed instead:

Note how the value 'Totally' comes prefilled via the default value setting of the parameter.
Fill in your values and click on Save, it will then trigger the action with these values. Note that if you do not provide a value for a parameter, it will use empty value to set in the action, it will not ignore the parameter. So it makes sense to make your parameters required if an empty value is not an option.
Instead of using toolbar buttons, you can embed button directly within the form and trigger your action from those buttons. I recommend it as a better and more user-friendly approach!
Go to Form Designer and add a new button to your form
Click on it and set its settings on the right
Give it a meaningful label, then set the button type to Trigger action and select your action from the list. Once done, publish the form.
Open an item for display, then click on the button. A floating form will be generated and displayed:
Enter your values, then click on Submit. The action will be queued for execution and you will be presented with real time progress indication
Note that unlike the toolbar button, this way of execution will also reload the item once the action is done, so any updates it's made will be visible to the user!

As you can see, the possibilities here are endless. Use this feature to perform bulk updates, to interact with external applications, for one click approval and so much more! Enjoy!

HR tools for onboarding: the Ultimate Forms solution

2021-07-29T16:02:18Z

Your business is, at its core, the workforce that you have hired and lead. You need to be able to depend on them and trust in the quality of their work. Together, with your leadership and their dedication and teamwork, your business is destined for success. This is only possible if you have the right people working for you; not just anyone can fill the roles you need to be filled; finding the right fit takes significant time and effort. Missteps in all domains of business and professional dealing are inevitable, but hiring is one internal affair that you should be especially careful about. The hiring and subsequent onboarding process can be quite arduous, and without the right HR tools, significant time and resources can be wasted on situating the professionals you bring on. For this reason, we here at Infowise have used our proprietary Sharepoint tool, Ultimate forms, to create a series of digital HR solutions that drastically simplify the hiring process. From logging of applications to SOP Documents and signature collection, the Ultimate Forms suite covers most logistical practices of HR with easy-to-use flexible templates. In this article, I’d like to explore the various tools available, explaining their use cases and features.

1: Multistage HR recruitment

This solution is the foundation of the entire Infowise HR onboarding process. The HR recruitment tool is a powerful multistage logistics tool that tracks the process of hiring a candidate from initial application through to HR approval and onboarding. Starting at initiation into the pipeline, the candidate’s journey through data collection, interviews, and onboarding is consolidated into one unified tool that allows leadership and HR to collaborate seamlessly. Like all other Ultimateforms tools, the Multistage HR recruitment tool is completely customizable, meaning that any piece of the tool can be altered to suit your business’s structure and needs better.

2: SOP read and sign

This tool is a simple and effective way to administer standard operating procedure documents and other documents that have to be signed by newly initiated team members. This tool can be used for everything from internal SOP regulations to industry-wide safety standards and consolidates information about what documents have been read and signed into the greater HR infrastructure of Ultimate Forms. No matter what your business does, your new employees will almost definitely need to read and sign documents once you’ve hired them, so we’ve tried to make that process just a little bit easier.

3: CV submission

This solution is a simple external-facing form that allows your business to accept CVs and job applications effortlessly. The CVs can then be accessed and reviewed by the person or team in charge of hiring and integrated into the Multistage Recruitment Tool if need be. Like all other Ultimate Forms tools, the CV submission solution is completely customizable, so regardless of the type of candidate you are looking for, this tool can simplify the process of receiving their applications.

4: Employee training

Our employee training solution is a multifaceted tracking tool that can help your HR department or leadership with the training aspect of onboarding. it is a simple but effective way for employees to access training materials and for leadership to track results as well as analyze the effectiveness of their training pipeline. The training tool arrays training elements into courses and then attaches relevant information to the course, consolidating all important information into one form. The Ultimate Forms templates I’ve listed above provide our users with a thorough but straightforward toolbox with which to carry out the various due diligence of hiring and onboarding. These four tools should cover any regular needs your HR team will have when it comes to hiring, but if they do not, or if any of the tools need to be modified, that can easily be done too. In addition, the Ultimate Forms platform is completely customizable and requires absolutely no coding knowledge, meaning that anyone from your team can set about customizing bespoke HR and logistics tools straight out of the box with Sharepoint if the need arises. Whether these tools are sufficient for your needs or you require other special tools, Ultimate Form is a powerful tool that can handle just about any logistical problem you can throw at it. In my next article, I’ll be exploring the various HR tools used for maintaining your workforce once you’ve hired and onboarded them using the tools listed above. In the meantime, if you have any questions or would like to read further, I welcome you to explore the many resources we have on our site, including expert seminars by our founder and other Infowise pros, or to reach out directly!

New action type - Manage Teams

2021-07-22T15:18:25Z

Hi, Great news! Today we're introducing a brand new action type in Ultimate Forms: Manage Teams. With this action, you can easily manage different aspects of your Microsoft Teams environment:

Teams
1. Create a new team
2. Update a team
3. Delete (or archive) a team
4. Add members to a team
5. Remove members from a team
Channels
1. Create a channel (standard or private)
2. Update a channel
3. Delete a channel
4. Add owners to a private channel
5. Remove owners from a private channel

As any other action, it can run on various events, on timer or manually, so you can easily integrate into your SharePoint-based business solutions. For example, imagine a list of projects, where whenever you create a new project, a team is automatically set up in Teams and all the relevant members are assigned to it, without any manual steps. For my illustrations, I'm going to be using a simple list that holds all the relevant information for team and channel creation. Our actions will then be added to the list and executed from it (manually for this particular example). So this is my list item:
Note Email column, it simply holds the email nickname to be assigned to the team. If none is provided, we will do our best to generate one from the team title. Each team in Teams is required to have one, as each team is always backed up by an Azure AD group. Next, I created a set of actions:

Create team - creates a new team based on the list item properties

I simply mapped the column values to the action properties. Note Owner field. Each team requires at least one owner. You can either select users directly on the left or select a column that contains users, as I'm doing here. If none is provided, we will use the identity of the user who created the action, as at least one owner must be present in a team. Note that during team creation only the first owner can be specified. If more than one is received, only the first one is used. Additional owners can be added using Add members action subtype.
Create channel - creates a new channel in a team

Note that you have to map a name for an existing team, the action cannot create both team and channel in one go, but you can combine multiple actions together in one action group to accomplish that. Also note that when you mark your action as Private, you also need to specify owners (one or more) for the channel, these are your members.
Add members to team - adds members to an existing team

You can add multiple members with different levels of permissions. Note that the action simply receives email addresses, so it can be mapped to a Person/group column, as well as any other column type that would return emails (such as single line of text, if you so choose).

Once our actions are created and set to be manually executed under Advanced settings (of course, they can also run on events, I choose Manual for testing/illustration purposes only), we can click on Run Actions button on the item and see all our new actions there, ready to be executed
I then went in and clicked on each one in sequence. Then I went to my Teams app, and voila, it's all there!
Enjoy!

Helpdesk: a streamlined issue tracking solution for modern business

2021-07-13T14:34:15Z

Welcome to the final article in my three-part series on issue tracking in modern business. Part one laid out important foundational information about issue tracking, as well as introducing issue tracking software built on the Microsoft Sharepoint platform. In part two I took a look at Infowise’s various issue tracking solutions built with their Ultimateforms Sharepoint toolset, which adds a high degree of user-friendly customization to the powerful but often difficult-to-use Sharepoint. In this final part, I’m going to break down the Helpdesk tool from Infowise, our flagship issue tracking theme and in some ways the basis for our other issue tracking solutions. First I’ll start by reviewing a few fundamental considerations of issue tracking, then we’ll move to a breakdown of the helpdesk tool along with its many uses in issue tracking. Whether your business is a multinational giant or a budding startup, an efficient and effective issue-tracking process (both internally and externally) is an absolute must in the modern business space. If you fall short either internally or externally, your organization’s productivity will steadily decline and your image will suffer in the eyes of both your collaborators and clients.

An introduction to the Ultimateforms Helpdesk tool

Helpdesk is a digital issue tracking tool built on Infowise’s Ultimateforms platform, our third-party Sharepoint overhaul that makes the base program more capable and customizable. The helpdesk form itself contains 8 entry fields on the first tab titled details, and six on its second tab titled resolution. Let’s start with the fields on the Details tab before we move to resolution: 1; Customer A text field to identify the customer who is experiencing the problem. 2; Service Request A text field that you can think of as the subject field of an email. A place for a concise identification of the problem. 3; Details A large text field in place so that the person entering the information can give a more detailed and complete description of the problem sufficient for the individual or team tasked with resolving it. 4; Priority
A dropdown menu where an internal priority level can be set for the ticket. The higher the priority level, the more pressing the problem and the need for a solution. 5; Service representative The service rep who entered the ticket leaves their name here before submitting the ticket so that the process can be tracked from end to end. 6; Assigned to This field is in place so that the chain from service rep to assigned employee is complete and accountability for the solution is enforceable. 7; Keywords A field for relevant keywords for query searches and categorization. 8; Attachments field This field is a container that can hold relevant file attachments of the ticket such as screenshots or images of the problem. The second tab, titled resolution, is geared towards the tracking of the issue’s solution and contains 6 entry fields. These fields are as follows: 1; Status This field is a dropdown with options to show what stage of resolution the ticket is in. 2; Comments This field allows for employees to write comments about the issue and solution to be viewed internally. 3; Tasks The task section is a dynamic field populated with tasks assigned to employees by managers regarding the particular ticket in question. Think of this section as an assigned schedule for the employees tasked with solving the issue. 4; Resolution date To be filled when the matter has been closed. 5; Related articles Employees and managers have the ability to enter relevant resources and sources in this field. 6; Attachments A space for relevant files such as screenshots or text documents. As you’ve probably gathered based on the descriptions of the details and resolution tab, the Helpdesk solution is a fully fleshed out digital issue tracking tool that can take your customers and employees efficiently from identification to the solution. The Infowise team has worked diligently to ensure that this tool is complex enough to handle your issues but simple enough to be easily customizable if the need arises. If for whatever reason you do need to modify Helpdesk to suit your particular issue tracking needs as a business, we have a wide array of resources including seminars and one on one sessions to guide you. The great thing about the Ultimate Forms platform is that basically everything is customizable, so making a bespoke logistics platform on SharePoint with it is fast and easy. That being said, our team has worked to exhaustively design as many templates for our users as possible, so you may not even feel the need to really change anything. Either way, The Ultimateforms suite for SharePoint, of which Helpdesk is a part, is a powerful tool that will elevate your business logistics practices efficiently and effectively. If you have any questions or would like to talk to one of our team members about Helpdesk or any of our other Sharepoint solutions, please reach out to us or feel free to continue browsing our resources online!

Sharepoint and Infowise Ultimate Forms; a quick solution to Issue Tracking

2021-06-28T17:06:20Z

As you may have read from my most recent article, Issue Tracking is in my opinion one of the most important quality control tools available to modern business. Issue tracking allows you to keep a close eye on problems, helping you ensure that they are resolved effectively and in a timely manner, so as not to negatively affect your business’s prosperity. What was once a highly involved and rather difficult logistical headache has now become a streamlined and efficient process with the help of digital issue tracking tools. In this article, I’ll be exploring one particular platform for issue tracking, Microsoft Sharepoint, along with a series of issue tracking and quality control tools our team here at Infowise has built to make SharePoint even better. If you want to learn more about issue tracking from a broader standpoint, I invite you to check out my last article, which is the first in a three-part series on the subject. Without further ado, let’s check out some of Infowise’s Sharepoint issue tracking tools.

1: Helpdesk

Helpdesk is for all intents and purposes the basis of all our issue tracking solutions. It is a dynamic form format created with our proprietary Ultimateforms software and includes standard fields for issue tracking along with integration through email. The Helpdesk solution is a general-purpose issue tracker that can be used for a variety of scenarios, including both internal and end-user problem-solving. The default ticket layout includes two tabs, one with fields for relevant information on the issue, and one for the status of the solution. I recommend Helpdesk as a good place to start with general issue tracking as it is rather flexible and can work with most businesses. The third part of my series on issue tracking will be specifically on Helpdesk, so look out for that if you are looking for a more in-depth exploration of the product. Download HelpDesk

2: Audit Management

The audit format is similar to Helpdesk except that it is geared toward internal analysis of workflow and employee action. Auditing is a business’s time to introspectively analyze its patterns and actions in order to gain a better understanding of its shortcomings, and Infowise’s audit tool will allow you to do just that seamlessly through Sharepoint. This tool, like all others on Ultimateforms, can be customized to suit the exact specifications of your business; and in the context of an audit, likely will be. Download Audit Management

3: Bug Tracker

This Ultimateforms tool is similar to helpdesk except that it is designed specifically for identifying and solving software bugs in a given digital product or workflow. Bug trackers of some sort or another have been used since the very beginning of computation due to the fact that so many problems can come about when dealing with the complexity of code. Our Bug Tracker is a simple and effective way for your team members to identify issues so that your team can get to work resolving them. Download Bug Tracker Now!

4:Feedback and Guestbook

The feedback and guestbook forms are not necessarily Issue Trackers per se, but they can help your team identify shortcomings and then act to resolve them. These tools enable your customers to provide valuable input, both negative and positive. This information can be used to lean into strengths or patch up weaknesses, ensuring that your business presents its best face to future customers. Download Feedback Form Download Guestbook Form

5:Customer Complaint Form

Customer complaints are usually urgent issues, as the customer has gone out of their way to create a complaint and likely feels slighted in some way. The Ultimateforms customer complaint form facilitates fast and effective identification and tracking of the customer’s issue, allowing the team to learn about and then update the ticket as it moves from complaint to a solution. Complaints have the potential to hurt a business's reputation if left unchecked, so it’s important to use a tool like our issue tracker to make sure your team is able to put out fires as quickly as possible. Download Customer Complaint Now!
Infowise recognizes the importance of issue tracking in business today, and because of that, we have made a series of tools to enable businesses to effectively deal with their problems. In a time where online reputation can make or break a business and word travels at the speed of a review post, solving issues quickly and completely has never been more important. Infowise has created a collection of template tools that can be used, but Ultimateforms is highly customizable and can be configured to suit your exact needs as a business, so whether you use a template or customize something new, Ultimateforms will undoubtedly benefit your issue tracking process. If you have any questions about issue tracking or Ultimateforms, please feel free to contact us here at infowise, or read on in the three-part series I’m doing on issue tracking in business!

SharePoint issue tracking, an overview

2021-06-23T16:20:43Z

In a perfect world, business would be carried out flawlessly, and everything would go exactly as planned. Development of products, services, projects, and everything else your business concerns itself with would move from ideation to perfect completion without a hitch. As you well know, this is not a perfect world. As a project manager who spent years putting out fires big and small, I know how frustrating it can be to keep track of and efficiently troubleshoot and address issues while maintaining your business's daily chores. In this article, I'll explore the topic of Issue Tracking, from problem identification, through the various tools available and all the way to solution execution.

Key Terms

Let's start by defining a few key terms. Issue tracking is the practice of identifying, logging, treating, and ultimately solving issues that stand in the way of your organizational goals. These problems can be generated by internal or external factors that act as roadblocks and need to be overcome to continue growth or progress. Software development companies like Microsoft realized that corporate consumers stand to benefit from digital products that can make the issue tracking process easier, faster, and more effective, releasing tools called Issue Tracking Software.

Issue Tracking Solutions

Issue Tracking Software are digital tools that streamline the process of Issue tracking, facilitating effective tracking from end to end. They generally work on the principle of consolidated and well-ordered dynamic lists. As the problem is diagnosed and the solution is applied, the issue entry, usually called the Ticket, is updated and maintained until the problem is solved and even stored afterward for archival purposes. Issue Tracking Software allows teams to consolidate and effectively collaborate on finding solutions. These applications deploy a powerful outcome-oriented approach to development. Issue Tracking is a crucial facet of resource allocation and priority management and is an apparatus that must run smoothly for your organization to function efficiently.

Use Cases

The practice of Issue Tracking, and by extension, Issue Tracking Software, are used in a wide variety of contexts from individual contractors and vendors to the very largest of businesses and institutions in the world. One of the most common use cases for Issue tracking in business is its application in customer service issues. Customers are issued a ticket upon the first contact, which contains information about the customer as well as the issue they are experiencing. This Ticket moves through the solution process within the organization, passing from desk to desk until the matter is resolved to the degree that satisfies the organization's customer service best practices. All the while, the customer experiences a unified and concerted effort to fulfill their needs. Another use case for Issue Tracking is in internal problem tracking. This practice involves members of a team utilizing the issue tracking workflow to log their issue and then track progress on the solution in a way that aggregates important information to be viewed by both their peers and their superiors. This provides managers with a powerful tool to diagnose and then remedy bottlenecks and recurring issues by making relevant information easily accessible. Issue Tracking and the software that helps accomplish it raise the caliber of work output by identifying shortcomings. Issue Tracking is used frequently in both waterfall and agile workflows and acts as a check and balance for internal and external matters.

Examples:

In order to draw a clearer picture of what exactly issue tracking looks like in practice, I'll lay out two example scenarios; one internal and one external.

A man is having issues filing his taxes and is advised by his family to call the government body responsible for tax collection in his country. He calls and is connected with a service representative whose job is to help the man file his taxes. The representative, at this point, immediately creates an issue ticket, populating it with all relevant information about both the customer and the issue in question. She determines that she cannot solve his problem by herself, so she tells the man that he'll receive a call from a supervisor at a later date. When that date arrives, the supervisor analyzes the Ticket that the representative wrote and sets about solving the problem, contacting the man, and troubleshooting with him until the matter is resolved. The Ticket provided continuity throughout the process and made the external issue easier to resolve.

A software developer is working on a work project when she realizes that there is a recurring issue with a recent update. She creates an issue ticket and publishes it to her peers, logging what the issue was and what triggered it, along with all other relevant information. At the next staff meeting, the developer and her peers communicate about the Ticket, discussing possible causes and getting to work trying to solve the problem. They continue to update the Ticket until the matter is completely resolved. This internal use of Issue Tracking makes the logistical headache of keeping track of and communicating complex information more efficient and less disorganized.

Issue Tracking Software

Issue Tracking was at one time done with a pen, and slips of paper (hence the word ticket) were passed from desk to desk in an office setting. Thankfully this is no longer the case, and there are a variety of Issue Tracking Tools available to the businesses of today to help them solve their problems. Infowise's help desk framework for our flagship product, Ultimate Forms, is one such tool. Ultimate Forms is an overhaul for Microsoft Sharepoint that adds a high degree of user-friendly customization, allowing you to create and manage logistics systems designed specifically for your organization. Helpdesk is a template created by our software developers here at Infowise to kickstart your Issue Tracking workflow. It Is a completely plug-and-play solution to Issue Tracking that can be further customized to suit your needs. If you have any questions about Issue Tracking, Help Desk, or Ultimate Forms, please feel free to reach out to us here at Infowise, or check out some of our other articles about Issue Tracking on the site. This is the first part of a three-part series on the topic of SharePoint Issue Tracking, so keep an eye out for the next two entries!

Microsoft Teams as a timely collaboration tool during a global shutdown

2021-06-11T14:16:24Z

“Microsoft Teams is becoming a central tool in almost every organization, especially considering the ongoing health crisis. Here, at Infowise, we also use it extensively; I would even say it's our main tool!” Vladi Gubler, CTO, Infowise As you well know, the pandemic has created significant flux in all facets of life globally. The past year and a half have seen society shaken, causing deep and lasting changes to how we as professionals conduct business. After having been forced to work remotely during the pandemic, a growing contingent of businesses have realized that remote work through collaboration software can be just as effective as the traditional in-person method, all while saving businesses money on office space expenses. Emily Courtney, a writer at Flexjobs, recently compiled a list of businesses moving towards either partial or complete remote employment. From that list, I’ve picked a few standouts that may surprise you. Shopify, for example, one of the world's largest e-commerce businesses, has pivoted to a completely remote workforce indefinitely and is offloading its property holdings. Dropbox, one of the world's most valuable startups with a valuation of over 10 billion dollars, has also moved to a completely remote workforce. Even Facebook, the most prolific social network ever, is moving towards a more remote workforce, projecting that 50% of its employees will continue to work remotely even after the pandemic. The world’s ability to adapt to the pandemic through remote work has proven to workforces that much of the hassle of on-site work is completely unnecessary. For this reason, many reject the idea of returning to the office. Bloomberg Wealth’s Anders Melin and Misyrlena Egkolfopoulou explore this sentiment of resistance in their article about remote work after the pandemic. The poll that the authors cite in the article has some pretty astounding results that tidily encapsulate the significance of the shift in workplace culture that has taken place since the pandemic: “A May survey of 1,000 U.S. adults showed that 39% would consider quitting if their employers weren’t flexible about remote work. The generational difference is clear: Among millennials and Gen Z, that figure was 49%, according to the poll by Morning Consult on behalf of Bloomberg News.” Just a few years ago, such a monumental shift in the way businesses operate would have been difficult to fathom; but with the accelerated development of communications technology starting with the advent of the internet and culminating in complete virtual office workspaces, completely and partially remote workforces are not only viable but in some cases favorable. Microsoft Teams, one such virtual office space, has experienced a meteoric rise in popularity since the beginning of the pandemic. It has grown its user base from around 32 million users to over 145 million in less than a year and a half, surpassing its nearest competitor Slack’s daily user numbers in early 2019. Teams’ rise during the pandemic was no coincidence; it was poised to become the standard in collaborative professional software; the pandemic just acted as a catalyst to accelerate its proliferation.

According to Flex Jobs, 93 of the world's fortune 100 businesses trust Teams to collaborate. The logistical changes that the pandemic caused are proving to executives that remote work is efficient and effective, and Microsoft is reaping the benefits of that revelation through Teams. Microsoft Teams is Microsoft’s proprietary digital collaboration and communication environment. It acts as a hub for teamwork, allowing leaders to effectively group their team members and provide them with a virtual workspace. In this digital space, teammates can communicate through real-time video meetings and instant messaging, plan using a shared calendar system, share files, and much more with the myriad of additional apps that integrate with Teams. One of the major advantages of Teams over other collaboration software is that it seamlessly integrates with the entire Microsoft 365 environment, which is arguably the standard for general professional software. For this reason, users can work collaboratively on projects using 365 software remotely. This integration even includes Microsoft Sharepoint.

Teams’ ability to integrate with Sharepoint, Microsoft's advanced document management and storage system, is one of its most compelling strengths, allowing for collaborators to use the highly customizable platform in conjunction with the already powerful Teams, all within a unified workspace. Put; Teams is a digital approximation of the office. From shared calendars and bulletin boards to face-to-face meetings, Teams is a complete hub for teamwork that can either augment your current in-person workflow or facilitate an evolution towards remote work. In this digital transformation era, where enterprise mobility is becoming increasingly important, Microsoft has brought its considerable experience and expertise to bear on the problem of remote work. The solution that is produced and that is taking the business world by storm is Microsoft Teams. Here at Infowise, we recognize the power of Teams as a collaborative tool, especially in conjunction with Sharepoint. For this reason, we’ve developed a variety of integration solutions to improve this already exceptional system further. From simple vacation request forms to complex logistical solutions, we’ve applied our years of experience improving Microsoft products to bear on Microsoft Teams, and we’re proud of the results!. If you have any questions about our tools or services, please contact us or check out some of our other articles about how teams and SharePoint can benefit your organization.

Here are few links to resources showing the intersection between Infowise products and Teams
Custom Forms in Teams
Adding Forms to Teams

New visual design capabilities in Modern forms

2021-06-08T15:09:22Z

Hi, A form that looks great is so much more appealing and inviting for users! With our Modern forms, we pay a great deal of attention to styling abilities:

Themes - with a selection of pre-defined themes, it's easy to apply a complete look & feel to the form.
Style rules - any element on the form can have one or more conditional style rules applied to it. This feature is especially useful when you need to highlight a section based on the user selection.
CSS - you can specify your own CSS class name for any element on the form. You can then use the CSS module to either define those classes directly on the form or link to a shared CSS file (which is very useful when you want to apply the same look and feel to all your forms with minimal effort.

Now we are adding a brand new capability that makes creating great looking forms even easier! With the new Styles configuration, you can easily customize the look and feel of your form without having any experience with CSS.
Want to create a form that looks like this? With the new feature, it's ridiculously easy! Let me show how.

Create your form by dragging your columns to the design surface of Form Designer. As always, use Containers to control layout in an easy and responsive way. it will automatically look great on any type of device!
Click on the Styles button on the main toolbar to open the Styles side pane
Here you can either apply one of the theme or generate a Style, which is what we are going to be doing.
First, we are going to be picking a background image from the gallery. There are already about 30 different images there to choose from and we will be adding more. Alternatively, you can reference your own image by URL address
Once we've selected an image, we can customize the following settings
1. Padding for the image (space between the form boundary and the boundary of the inner form background). You can even specify different padding on different side of the form.
2. Background color for the form background (the box inside, where the actual form resides)
3. Opacity - how opaque/transparent the form background is. I suggest making it slightly transparent, so the background image is still visible, but the form is still easy to use. Something like 80-90% is a good value, but it's really up to you.
4. Inner padding - space between the boundary of the form background to the actual form controls.
Publish your form, it's now ready to amaze your users!

We also added the abilty to choose an image from a gallery to our image control, so it can be used as a banner on the form. Sometimes, just a banner is enough for your form and you don't want to put a background image over the whole form. Same idea here, place the image control on the form, select an image, specify alignment and height of the banner and that's it! I hope you will find these new features useful when designing your forms!

Remote collaboration tools in an era of a global pandemic

2021-05-27T13:28:14Z

Strong communication allows for teams of employees to exceed the sum of their parts, operating as a cohesive unit rather than a group of disconnected individuals. For this reason, the creation and subsequent maintenance of robust and efficient communication infrastructure is perhaps the single most important auxiliary task businesses carry out today. Regardless of the managerial model, breakdowns in communication always lead to waste and hamper your team's ability to do the work you need them to do.

Thankfully, technological advancements from email to cloud storage have solved many problems in the domain of corporate communication, allowing businesses to operate more effectively than ever before. Microsoft is well known in the field as the gold standard of corporate collaboration systems. It has created a vast ecosystem of tools your team members can leverage to streamline their communication and collaboration. Understanding which ones are best for your business can be a little tricky, but I assure you, spending the time to learn about and then deploy the tools that fit your team will inevitably strengthen your business.

Microsoft has created six collaboration tools, each with its own use cases and specialties. Though some of them overlap, they each have their own niches and are frequently used in combination to maximize the efficiency of communication.
These six software are as follows:

#1 One drive

One drive is a streamlined cloud file hosting service and a key collaborative element of the Microsoft Office Online ecosystem. It allows users to upload and download files from a shared cloud storage space,

#2 Outlook

Originally called Hotmail before it was acquired, Outlook is Microsoft's in-house email solution that incorporates mail, calendaring, contact, and task planning service. This extended mail service in and of itself is a capable collaboration tool depending on the needs of the business.

#3 Skype for business

Skype for business, just released in December of 2020 as the Covid-19 pandemic began to ramp up, is an Instant messaging and web conferencing platform designed to compete directly with Zoom.

#4 Microsoft teams

Teams is Microsoft's flagship collaboration and communication tool for businesses. This past year, due largely to the Covid-19 pandemic, Microsoft teams have grown its user base by a factor of over seven, and for a good reason. It is an excellent and complete collaborative experience, connecting team members seamlessly and efficiently.

#5 Sharepoint

Microsoft Sharepoint is a powerful document-sharing intranet solution and the gold standard of logistical/technical collaborative tools. It has a high degree of customizability and can be tailored to suit your business's exact needs.
Sharepoint is unique among these as modular and highly customizable through its use of add-ons. It stands out among the rest and is generally the most impactful and wide-reaching tool of the bunch, capable of changing the way you conduct your business for the better. It is not only a collaboration tool but also a powerful logistics platform capable of a wide array of useful functions. It is often used in tandem with other Microsoft tools. Microsoft Teams is one such tool and synergizes very well with Sharepoint, allowing teams, even those working remotely, to communicate instantaneously through both video meetings and instant messaging, all while sharing project elements through the Sharepoint system, carrying out other tasks through whatever customized version and add-ons apply to their work.
Microsoft's Rob German explains how Sharepoint and Teams can be connected through their respective organizational trees as follows:
"Both Teams and SharePoint team sites are organized by topic, project, organization, or some other focal point for a team of people. Hence, in any given organization, Teams and channels will often follow a similar structure to SharePoint team and project sites."

When deciding which Microsoft collaboration tools will serve your business best, it is important to analyze the scale and function of your business; for example, skype for business and teams overlap in a variety of ways choosing between the two is very difficult. Now is a particularly good time to introduce effective digital collaborative tools into your team's workflow, as coming together to work in the traditional sense has been hampered drastically by the pandemic. Due to the specialized nature of this realm of management, it is often best to consult with an external firm to both advise you on what tools best suit your business and then to work with you to customize the tools in a way that best serves you and your team.
Here at Infowise, we use Microsoft Teams for most internal communication that requires an instant response. I personally find it to be an effective tool. We've seen firsthand how businesses can benefit from its use. That being said, every business is different, so making sure you make the right choices on your journey to upgrading your team's collaborative capabilities is paramount to the success of the systems. If you have any further questions about either Sharepoint or the greater Microsoft collaborative tool ecosystem, please feel free to reach us here at Infowise.

Embedding images in SharePoint's multiple lines of text column

2021-05-05T17:31:40Z

Hi, One of the most versatile column types in SharePoint is the multiple lines of text column, especially in its enhanced rich text mode. You can add any type of text, links, images and other visual elements, as in any text editor. Unfortunately, SharePoint's support for this column type is far from being perfect, especially in the Modern UI. For example, try to paste an image there. Although it will look fine while you are editing the column, you could be in for a surprise when you save the item. Unless you uploaded the image first, it will be simply gone from the column! Not exactly a user-friendly experience. This is why we enhanced the column in our modern forms and made it super-easy to embed images without any additional steps. Simply specify a document or image library in the column settings on the form and it will automatically upload your embedded images and use the image URLs, in a way that will prevent SharePoint from removing the image from the value. Your users don't even need to know all these details! How can you configure that?

Create a multiple line of text column in your list (or use an existing one). Make sure Enhanced rich text mode is enabled
Go into Form Designer and select the column there, in the column properties select a document or image library to store your images. I suggest that you create a new one, as images are going to be uploaded into generated folders that won't make much sense to users.
Publish your form. Now go to your list. Copy any image from anywhere (I was using my trusty screenshot tool).
Save your item, as you can see, the image is now visible in the list views.

Images are uploaded into folders with unique names, to ensure one item doesn't overwrite images belonging to another item. You are going to have lots of these folders, so the library won't be of much use when accessed directly by the users, that's why I recommend designating a special library for this (it can be used by all lists within your site).

How to embed YouTube videos inside forms

2021-05-03T19:39:58Z

Hi, Today, something simple but still very useful. Add an embedded YouTube video to your form in a couple of easy steps.

Find the video you want to embed on YouTube
Under the video, locate the Share button
Click on it, then switch to Embed mode
Copy the HTML snippet (you can also adjust some of the settings here, such as size)
Now get into Ultimate Forms and click on Form Designer for your list. Locate the Fragment control on the left
Drag it onto your form, click on it to select, then click on Edit content
Click on </> to directly edit the HTML
Delete all existing content and paste the copied snippet
Click on </> again to exist the HTML source edit mode. You should now be able to see the embedded video
Close the editing pane, the video should now appear on the design surface of the form itself
Publish your form, it's done!

Enjoy!

SharePoint automation Post-COVID in 2021- Part 1

2021-04-29T13:14:49Z

The COVID-19 pandemic has been wreaking havoc around the world. Disrupting day-to-day operations and routine tasks and rendering human contact taboo and a crime in some cases, but like everything else, this too shall pass. Once it does, we'll see significant change. Along with remote work, automation adoption will be one of the major focuses of businesses in the post-COVID world.

Predictions for Automation in the Post-COVID World

No-code automated machine learning to increase use cases

Automated machine learning, also known as AutoML, will dramatically fast-track the machine-learning model's development compared with the traditional coding approach. In the post-COVID-19 world, businesses lagging will leapfrog their competitors by using AutoML to implement as many AI use cases as they want. According to an estimate, AutoML allows data scientists to implement eight times the number of use cases aimed at personalized customer experience or operational efficiency since they can configure parameters and run thousands of experiments in a single go. In simple terms, AutoML will significantly amplify the impact of digital transformation post COVID.

Intelligent document extraction to become a focus of investments.

Even in the pre-COVID world, intelligent document extraction platforms (IDEP) focused on investments as they allow businesses to classify multiple types of documents and enhance document management easily. Machine learning combined with computer vision makes these platforms easy to build and maintain; thus, their value will significantly increase in the post-COVID world.

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) to become more common in intelligent automation suites.

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) was strongly emerging before the pandemic due to high market demand, commoditization, specialization, major enterprise software acquisitions, and new marketplace entrants. Post COVID-19, just like machine learning, RPA will become embedded in several intelligent automation suites that enable digital transformation.

Commercial drones to automate specific business operations

The commercial drone market is booming due to the rapid growth of the consumer drone industry. While limited human contact remains is a factor in increasing drone usage, two more factors will increase the demand for drones in the post-COVID world.

The fast evolution of 5G and computer vision will enable real-time drone intelligence over low-latency and ultra-reliable communications.
Better regulations crafted by governments around the world will facilitate drone commercialization and adoption.

Intelligent Automation to support at least 25% of the workforce

As companies are highly likely to stick to the work from the home model or adopt a hybrid model, almost three times more workforce will work from home most or all of the time. Post-pandemic, organizations will implement new automation technologies to support at least 25% of the remote working employees. Direct support may remain rare, like giving a bot to every worker to support their daily journey, but indirect support will increase. This type of support will include intelligent automation handling line-of-business tasks often invisible to remote workers, documents for employee support, employee questions, and benefits, along with customer experience and service.

Rush to Automation will cause notable failure.

The COVID-19 pandemic significantly increased the investments in automation technologies and digital transformation. More than half of the organizations that weren't equipped to support remote work broke down due to the pandemic and were pressured to adopt automation solutions. Haphazard and rushed Automation expose the automation technology and the businesses adopting it to high risk, which can cause monumental failures that can harm an organization's reputation, limit the overall trust in Automation, and damage customer trust due to media scrutiny. Post-COVID, around 30% of businesses will increase their focus on quality by proper due diligence and planning and testing Automation before deployment for both employees and production.

The focus of Automation in the Post-COVID World

Manufacturing line

Regardless of the business's size, the manufacturing line is the core process that must be structured, transparent, and optimized for growth. When we say manufacturing line, we mean everything that makes manufacturing possible, including vendor communication, invoicing, inventory management, order processing, and in this area, Automation has become essential.

Automation technologies can help businesses to cut costs and increase efficiency as they improve forecasting potential. With automation adoption, businesses can also keep promises to customers by ensuring timely delivery. Furthermore, machine learning solutions allow companies to anticipate customer needs, identify customer trends, and avoid over or understocking supplies. Due to all these reasons, the manufacturing line will be the major focus of post-COVID Automation.

Accounting

When it comes to accounting, manual and labor-intensive processes are highly prone to errors. Automation technologies, however, can whisk these troubles away. Advanced accounting automation software enables accounting teams to simplify the entire process by speeding up and securing transactions and invoicing, eliminating paper-based accounting, and automate recurring transactions. Due to these benefits, accounting systems will be a focus on post-COVID Automation.

Reporting

In the post-COVID world, organizations continuing remote work will implement automation technologies to enhance reporting. Cloud-based automation technologies can answer any necessary questions like time spent on a task and increase visibility with dashboards. In addition, these automation solutions can generate comprehensive reports by processing data with a single click, eliminate useless information, and increase transparency, all of which are necessary to achieve growth.

Customer experience and support

Human contact has become forbidden due to social distancing roles, potentially damaging customer experience and support. However, thanks to automation technologies, the lack of human contact don't seem to be a problem for customer experience and support. Automated solutions for customer support were gaining popularity even before the pandemic. Still, post-COVID, their demand will significantly increase as more brands look for an automated yet humanized customer communication method.
These are some of the predictions and main focus points of Automation in the post-COVID business world.

Upgrading to Modern forms

2021-04-21T16:12:18Z

Hi, It's been almost two years since we debuted our Modern forms in Ultimate Forms. They are a huge upgrade for the form building experience in SharePoint and were enthusiatically received by our customers! Unlike our classic forms, they are not bound by the various limitations of SharePoint and let you build your forms with the level of flexibility simply not possible before.
Some of the features are:

Fully flexible layout system, using nested controls, letting you build exactly what you want
Fully responsive forms that automatically adjust and look great on any device
Cascading, multi-level permission rules, allowing you to dynamically control permissions at any nested control level
Conditional styling on any level
Multiple themes for that sophisticated look and feel
Scripting support, already built-in
Actions integration, trigger Actions with buttons directly on the form
External forms, allowing you to expose your lists outside of your organization in a secure fashion
Export/import of form settings for replication between lists or environments
Data connections, allowing you to create forms that work with external, non-SharePoint data
Drag & drop Form Designer with all capabilities in one location, including the ability to create and modify columns
Payment integration, because why not? :)

As a lot of our long-time customers have already made significant investments in the classic forms and are running complex business solutions using this technology, we are not planning to make it obsolete. But we do want you to use the wealth of features modern forms have to offer! This is why we built an automated upgrade feature right into the classic forms. With a click of a button, we will generate a modern form for your list, based on your classic form settings. We will create tabs, assign columns to tabs, add permissions, validation rules and default value rules. In most cases, the automatic conversion will be enough! Some adjustments might be needed if you are using some specific stylings though. How is it done? Just head over to Tabs and tab permissions, switch to General tab and click on Upgrade to Modern. In just a few seconds, a new modern form will be generated and published for you. You can then go to Form Designer to make any adjustments you need. If you want to roll back, click on Reset on Form Designer's toolbar and the modern form will be disconnected from your list (do not click Publish or Save after Reset!). If you want to work on the form without publishing, click Reset, then leave Form Designer and go back to it. You will see the modern form again, not published and you can make any changes you want. Once you're happy with it, publish. Until you publish, your old classic form is in effect. Enjoy!

Best Practices of Business Process Automation

2021-04-20T17:42:21Z

It's safe to presume that most business managers are involved in some cost-cutting and productivity enhancement projects. Business Process Automation is one tool that can provide business managers with practical solutions to enhance productivity and reduce costs. More than ever, businesses are opting for strategies, such as BPA, to save time and money. Want to know what business process automation is all about? Read on to learn what benefits BPA has to offer.

What is Business Process Automation?

If we delve deep, we know that BPA provides companies with different ways to execute recurring tasks efficiently. Not only that, Business Process Automation greatly reduces common human errors that result from manual executions. First propagated by Henry Ford, BPA automates time-consuming tasks and encourages workers to perform duties that require communication, dexterity, and human judgments. As we mentioned in our past articles, there are four types of automation:

Basic Automation
Process Automation
Integration Automation
Artificial Intelligence (AI) Automation

Best Practices of Business Process Automation

Opting for certain software or technology isn't enough. Having a comprehensive and practical approach to business process automation is essential. Some of the best practices of BPA are as follows: Choosing the proper process and tools: Start automating small tasks, along with that, try the most compatible technology to the current one you are using for your daily operations. After deciding on the automation process, you will have to choose a tool. While there are various tools, remember to go for the one that is appropriate for your business. Defining roles and goals As soon as the automation becomes functional, changes will occur as far as people's roles are concerned. The next step is defining the goals, as it aids in implementing automation and achieving the tasks cautiously. It is essential to plan each step in case some problem occurs. Guiding employees through the BPA modifications: Some workers might fear that automation will leave them jobless, so it is essential to explain the positive changes that automation can bring and how it can escalate the organization's productivity. Focusing on constant development: Remember that automation is an ongoing process, and only regular monitoring of the results can increase efficiency. Gauging automation's performance and making adjustments will give the best possible outcome. Having a backup plan: At times, you might experience some technical problems, but that shouldn't hinder your work. In such times, you'll require your workers to take over and handle the task manually. A Road Map to Successfully Implementing BPA Now that it is established that a worker's time and abilities should not be wasted on achieving a certain task manually, it is crucial to ensure a positive implementation. Here's how you can get it right:

The first step is to recognize the exact processes that have the most potential for improvement.
Ensure whether your prospective technology partner understands what the issues are and is willing to provide appropriate solutions.
There is no harm in starting small. You can later reconfigure any altering requirements that you may have.
Make sure that you and your solutions partner form an understanding of compliance with regulatory requirements and how implementing business process automation might affect them.

Benefits of Business Process Automation

This software not only increases efficiency but also enables business development. After you've implemented BPA, you will more likely observe the various benefits.

Enhanced access results in advanced productivity. Cloud-based BPA tools aid in storing the information in a central databank, allowing you to access the data from any place or device.
Transparency is ensured. It becomes easier to track and observe procedures while running, hence improving accountability.
Frequent monitoring will benefit in finding errors and fixing them without any delay.
You will observe a drop in costs because of lesser manual interferences.
Based on the concept of uninterrupted process development, skill levels will keep on growing.

Infowise

Infowise has been providing automated business solutions for almost two decades. These solutions are easy to deploy; they require minimal training and can be customized and up-scaled according to your business needs. With Infowise, you can create your own customized solutions without writing a single line of code all through your web browser. You can automate multiple business processes, including task assignment, list generation, form creation, alerts, calendars, etc. To learn more about our business processes and workflow automation solutions, download the free trial or request a free demo.

Manage attachments - new action type

2021-03-29T16:57:53Z

Hi, As you know, documents can be stored in SharePoint in two ways:

In document libraries
As list item attachments

Each one of these has its own pros and cons, such as documents in a document libraries can have versions and metadata, whereas attachments are linked to an item and displayed in its context. Ultimate Forms already gives you additional capabilities, such as Associated Documents, when documents in a document library can be listed within the parent list item, and Document Link column, which provides lightweight linking and uploading of documents through a list item. In some cases, you want to be able to convert your existing documents, for example, promote attachments to a document library or copy/move documents from a document library and create list item attachments from them. Until now it was not an easy task, basically requiring manual download and upload of documents. With the new Manage attachments action type, it's now super easy! What can it do?

Copy/move attachment to document library - take your list item attachments, all of them or filtered by file name and/or size, and copy them to the specified document library. They can be placed in the root or in a specific folder (folder can be automatically created when needed). You can also specify any additional metadata based on the list item properties. Optionally, you can link the documents to a Document Link column within the item.
Copy/move from document library - specify query conditions and then copy/move those found documents into attachments.
Delete attachments - delete all or filtered attachments.

I'll give you a simple example. We will be promoting all attachments that have the word "instructions" in their names to be documents in a document library, while specifying the target folder, setting some metadata and even linking those documents, in their new location, back to the item using Document Link column.

First, let's create a new action. Choose Manage attachments as your action type and enter some meaningful action name
Next, we need to select what list items we want to run on. By default, it will already select the current item (the one on which the action runs) by specifying ID=[ID], but you can affect any number of items in any site:
Next, optionally specify filters based on attachment file name and size:
Now we need to specify the target document library. It can be found on any site. You can even specify dynamic runtime site URL and library name:
Optionally set the folder path (from the root of the library) and map any metadata you want to set. In our case, we are setting the document description and folder, specified dynamically based on the list item title.
I'm using a Document Link column called DLF here. Promoted documents' links will be automatically stored here so you can easily access them from the list item:
And this is how it will appear in the list item (didn't actually filter the attachments by name when running my example)

As you can see, it's easy to work with, yet incredibly powerful! One possible usage could be in conjunction with Import. Normally, when you set up an import profile on a document library, only the first document is taken from the email. If your emails contain multiple attachments and you want each to become a document in your document library, you can set up your import on a list and add an action on New to then to move list item attachments to the document library, each one will become a separate document!

Integrating online payments in forms

2021-02-10T20:53:30Z

Hi, Many of the forms you see everywhere on the Internet have something to do with money: payments, donations, bookings, etc. Although Ultimate Forms is not an e-commerce product, we want to offer our customers the ability to add simple payment processing abilities to the forms they create, which can be used inside the organization and, using External Forms, when interacting with the outside world. We are offering PayPal integration as our first step, as it's the most widely used online payment platform. Make sure to sign up for an account with PayPal before you continue. You can add the new Payment control to your form and be ready to accept payment in just a couple of minutes. I am going to be showing how it works using a super-simple example of a sandwich ordering form. Nothing fance here, just your name, date and the quantity. Of course, it's easy to leverage the full power of Ultimate Forms by adding line items, price lists and totals, but it's not the purpose of this particular demo. This is the end result. Basically, the form is already pre-filled. All you need to do is change the quantity and maybe choose the vegetarian option. The total is simply the quantity multiplied by $4, can't get simpler than that! Click on one of the payment buttons and enter the payment details. You can pay with or without a PayPal account, there are many options available, including credit cards and direct bank withdrawals. And once you pay, the form is locked down and doesn't allow any additional changes: Let's see what is going on here. Basically, there is a very simple list underneath (BTW, it doesn't even have to be a SharePoint list, it can be any data provider, including REST API or Salesforce). All we need is a few columns:

Invoice ID (in this case, I simply renamed the Title column). This is where the payment module is going to store the invoice ID it generates. We do not need to show this column on the form, but it's required for the payment to work correctly, as well as for cross-referencing with PayPal data.
Ordered by - person column. I added a default value rule to set the current user's name.
Date - here I configured the column to default to today's date.
Quantity - a number column, I configured it to display as a slider (fancy!).
Total - currency column, I added a rule to calculate based on Quantity.
Vegetatian only - boolean (yes/no) column.

Just going to go over some of these settings, for clarity. This is how I made the Ordered by field default to the current user: And this is how I made Quantity appear as a slider: This is how I configured Total to always be read-only (as we set its value through a rule): And this is the calculation rule itself: Now let's talk a bit more about the configurations on the PayPal side. Log into the Developer Dashboard and create a new App. Take a note of Client ID it generates, you're going to need that in your form. Make sure to use the sandbox Client ID, so you can test your form without any money actually changing hands. When ready to go live, you can switch to the live Client ID. Drag Payment control onto your form and click on it to go into properties (it will complain about Client ID being missing, we are taking care of that in a sec) A couple of things to pay attention to here:

Enter Client ID you copied from PayPal (remember use Sandbox one and only switch to Live when ready).
Select your Amount column, this is the value we will be passing to PayPal for payment.
Optionally, select a different currency.
Select our Invoice ID column to store the invoice ID. This column doesn't need to appear on the form, but is required to know that a payment has been made.
By default payment will save and close the form, you may want to disable that in some cases, for now, leave it as it is.

Now, let's add permission rules to make the form read-only when it's already paid. I'm adding the rules directly to the container control that holds all the other controls and columns, this way I only need to do it once: This is the Write rule, it specifically checks that the Invoice ID column is empty. Read rule is even simpler and has no conditions (Write rule is stronger, so Read only applies when Write is blocked by the condition). By default, the form is going to reside within your site. If you want external users to be able to use it, enable External Form functionality, then copy and share the URL. You can either let us host it or get the script snippet and host it on your own page. Note: in External forms, you probably want to remove the default value rule from Ordered by, so it won't show SharePoint App as default. Also, if you don't want the toolbar with Save/Cancel buttons to appear at the top, disable it: Publish your form and you're done! Test it with one of your test PayPal accounts, once ready to go live, replace the Client ID and re-publish.

Integration of Actions and Forms

2021-02-03T21:58:54Z

Hi, Ultimate Forms components can be broadly divided into two categories:

Front-end components - visible to user, they help enter and view data. Forms, column types, Calendar, Print and Charts (and some others) belong to this category.
Back-end components - execute business logic behind the scenes, configured by administrators and usually invisible to end users. Actions, Alerts, Import and Item ID are some of these components.

Back-end components are usually executed indirectly (although for most manual execution options are available as well). Triggers for execution can be various events (whenever an item is added, modified or deleted) and timer-based triggers (2 days before due date or every 15 minutes). As you can see, front-end and back-end components normally do not interact directly, but through changes in data: forms update the data and that triggers some back-end execution. In some scenarios however we do want to trigger actions directly from the form, without relying on events. For example, some event types do not exist in SharePoint list, such as the common requirement of logging when users view an item. Another reason could be that the list undergoes frequent massive automatic updates, that would cause the actions to be throttled when used with events. We now support triggering actions in two ways:

Via buttons - there is a new button type "Trigger action"
Via form events (such as form opened/close and item added/modified)

I'm going to present an example of form-triggered action. We are going to increment a number column "Views" each time someone open the item in Edit or Display form.

Create a simple list and add a number column called Views.
Click on Design from the toolbar of the list, then click on Actions.
We are adding and Update list item action that is going to increment Views column value (Views + 1)
Under Action settings we will enter Views = [Views]+1, this is our formula.
Under General settings make sure to uncheck all event types. We are going to be triggering this action from the form, so we don't want it to then trigger again through events.
Once we've created our action, let's design our form. Click on Form Designer and create a form similar to this:
We will set permissions on Views column to make it hidden in New form and read-only in Edit and Display forms, as we don't want users to modify its value directly.
Now, click on Actions button on the top toolbar.
Here select our action under Form is opened event. Note that you can of course use Form is closed as well, but note that it will not execute the user simply closed the browser or navigates to another page without using buttons.
Publish the form and create our first test item in the list.
Open the item for display a few times and see the Views counter updated (allow a few seconds for the action to run, it is not immediate).

I'm sure you will find this new feature useful for various scenarios you are implementing using Ultimate Forms!

Importing SMS text messages into SharePoint

2021-01-08T16:05:09Z

Hi, Import component of Ultimate Forms allows you to set up an automated, background import process of data from a variety of external data sources into SharePoint. We support emails, various databases and Excel files, REST and SOAP web services and even text files. The process runs automatically in the background, looking for new and updated items and then using that data to create and/or update list items and documents in SharePoint. More and more of our customers are incorporating SMS text messages into their business processes. It's a fast and reliable way of sending notifications and information to employees, customers and vendors. One of the recommended ways of incorporating SMS messaging is using Twilio, the world leader in SMS intergration. With their ease-to-use API, the integration is simple and fast. I already blogged in the past on how to use our Actions to send SMS messages through Twilio. Now we are announcing a new feature, the ability to use Import to import messages sent and/or received via Twilio. You can now integrate incoming text messages in your business solutions, for instance, implement approvals via text messages. Let me guide you through the integration steps. In this scenario we are simply going to import all messages from Twilio, incoming and outgoing. But of course, you can set it up in a much more sophisticated ways.

First, let's create a list in SharePoint where we are going to store the messages. I'm using a simple generic list with the following columns:
1. Body - this is the built-in Title column, I simply renamed it.
2. From - single line of text, I will store the sender phone number here.
3. To - single line of text, I will store the recipient phone number here.
4. Date Sent - date/time, I will store the date/time message was sent.
5. Direction - single line of text, I will store the message direction here (incoming or outgoing).
6. Status - single line of text, I will store the message status here (success or error).
You don't have to use an exact same list structure. Import allows flexible mapping of data as you will see later.
Sign into Twilio. If you don't have an account yet, create one.
Go to Settings and scroll down to API Credentials section. You are going to use Account SID and Auth token.
Return to your SharePoint list and click on Design to enter Ultimate Forms.
Click on Import under Import and export
Click on Add new profile
Enter profile title of your choosing.
Start date value controls which messages will be imported. To be imported, message has to be received after this date. By default, the value is set to the current date/time. If you want your profile to import past messages, change the date to be earlier than the first message you want to import.
Polling frequency controls how often the profile will automatically log into Twilio to search for new messages. The default is 15 min, but you can change it to any other interval, as well as None, which means the profile has to be executed manually. You can also contact us to sign up for High frequency polling option, a premium feature that sets the interval to 2 minutes.
Switch to Data provider tab.
Switch Type from Email to Application, then choose Twilio under Application type.
Enter your Account SID and Auth token you copied from Twilio.
You can limit the import to message only sent or received from a specific phone number. I'm leaving this field empty.
Update date column controls what property we use to check the date on the item and only import new items during each run. We are leaving the default value here.
Switch to Actions tab.
Actions specify what we do with the messages that are being imported. You can use actions to create and/or update list items in SharePoint using the data from the imported messages.
Create a new Create list item / document action, give it a title of your choosing.
Map columns in the message to the columns in the list. In my case, I'm simply doing a direct one-to-one mapping. You can use our Value Builder to use expressions and functions to manipulate the values.
Save the action, then save the profile.
If needed, send or receive message in Twilio to ensure there is something to import.
Wait for the profile to run automatically or click on Run now.
You can open Import history to view the execution steps of the run.
Once the profile is completed, go back to your list, you should now be able to see the newly imported items.

As you can see, it's a simple and straightforward process! You can add your own conditions, functions and mapping to ensure it integrates into your business logic. You can also add Alerts and Actions to trigger additional steps. Have fun exploring the possibilities!

Rating scale columns in forms

2021-01-06T19:26:42Z

Hi, If you've used Survey lists in SharePoint, you are probably familiar with the nifty little column type called Rating Scale. A matrix of subquestions and numerical ratings, it allows you to quickly and easily provide feedback on various aspects of a question. For instance, you can rate the product you purchased based on Design, Reliability, Easy of use, etc. As you can see, it's very useful and can certainly serve you well not just for the purpose of surveys (which are way too specialized as list types go to be truly useful), but in a variety of applications. Unfortunately, the column type is only available in surveys. Today we are adding support for this column type in our Modern forms. We are also adding the ability to create and modify such columns directly from Form Designer in any type of list, so you can leverage this incredible functionality in all types of solutions you build. Let me guide you through the process of utilizing the column type.

Go to your list and click Design in the toolbar to open Ultimate Forms.
Click on Form Designer under Modern forms section.
In the left pane, under Columns, click on New column.
Choose Rating scale under Type
Enter your designer questions, choose range and labels for left and right sides of the scale
You can also specify if you want to include N/A (not applicable) option and/or make your column required.
Save your column and drag it to the form.
Publish your form, go to the list (you can click on the list title in the top left corner of Form Designer) and click on New to add a new item.
Save your item. You can now click on it to display it as well. Note that the columns are now read-only.

Super easy! I hope you will find this column useful! NOTE: the column can be used in our Modern forms only. The column cannot be used in list views, it will appear blank there. We are currently working on adding support for the column type in the rest of our Ultimate Forms components, such as Print and Alerts.

Use buttons to navigate tabs

2020-12-31T17:10:27Z

Hi, In some cases, you want to create a form where the user is guided through the process, step-by-step. Especially in complex forms, it is easier and more user-friendly to logically divide the columns by category into tabs or accordion panels, without overwhelming with the sheer number of columns you might need. Additionally, you might only want to show some columns when specific values were entered in other columns, completely hiding irrelevant columns using dynamic permissions. Although both Tabs and Accordion control were made available in Modern forms from the very beginning, there wasn't way to navigate between the different tabs using Previous/Next buttons. You could click on the tab header to switch to that tab, but you could not require a particular order of progression, users could jump between tabs as they saw fit. Of course, it's perfectly fine for some cases, but it's also sometimes desirable to enforce more strict order. We are releasing a new feature, which allows you to add navigation buttons, as well as force navigation only through the buttons in one or more form types. This feature is avaible for both Tabs and Accordion with Collapsible setting activated (meaning only one tab is allowed to be open, opening another tab collapses the currently selected one).

Open your form in Form Designer.
Click on your existing Tabs control or add a new one.
In the property pane on the right, enable navigation through buttons.
You can also choose to force users to only use buttons for navigation in one or more forms.
Button Bar will be added below your tabs. By default, it contains Previous, Next and Save button.
You can rename the buttons, control their style, provide translations into additional language. At run-time, the form will automatically display only the buttons relevant for the current tab (for example, Previous button is not displayed on the first tab). For advanced scenarios you can switch Button Bar into Custom mode to add/remove additional buttons. Note that in Custom mode only Previous/Next buttons are conditionally shown based on the current tab.
Publish your form.
Go to your list and create an item.
You will see that tab headers are no longer clickable and Next button is displayed on the first tab. Start filling out your form, clicking Next when done with a tab.
When you rich the last tab, Save button will be also displayed.

As you can see, it is very easy to implement this exciting new feature and we hope it will help you do more with your forms!

Top Automation Trends To Watch In 2021

2020-12-30T20:12:13Z

Automation Trends To Watch In 2021

The COVID-19 pandemic made everyone question their business models. A majority of organizations weren’t equipped to face the challenges brought on by the pandemic, such as remote working. However, with time, businesses started to control the situation by leveraging automation technologies, artificial intelligence, and machine learning tools. As a result, we see the following automation trends around the world.

Hyperautomation to Become Inevitable in the Market

For the past couple of years, Hyperautomation has been gaining a lot of attention. It is an advanced type of automation that completes processes and tasks at increased speed, with fewer errors, and it does so by combining automation tools with several packaged software and machine learning applications. Based on the current data, we predict that automation's scope will shift towards automating knowledge work from rigid and static rule-based distinct transactions and tasks. However, this will require a new automation strategy focused on digital process optimization from IT infrastructure using customer-facing applications. Hyperautomation brings integration, management, monitoring, and DevOps together on the same page allowing a full life-cycle of automated processes and enables businesses to automate end-to-end workflows managing complex support across different platforms.

Hybrid Digital Infrastructure Management

The practice of assessing and monitoring all the IT infrastructure, including networks, servers, and storage within an organization, is called Hybrid Digital Infrastructure Management (HDIM). As IT systems are becoming increasingly complex, a platform that allows the management of workloads, resources, and processes across distributed and diverse environments is becoming integral for IT teams. By the end of next year, around 20% of enterprises will use HDIM systems to some extent for optimizing workload over the edge, on-premises, and cloud environments.

Acceleration of Collaborative Automation

The collaboration between humans and robots at the workplace is inevitable in the future, and in 2021, we’ll see a rise in collaborative automation. Humans will work together with automation technologies, computers, and software. Artificial Intelligence (AI) has already become a part of our daily lives, and unlike the concerns of some people, it is not here to take over humans. Sure, intelligent automation has the potential to replace humans, but that’s not the intent of it; it is supposed to improve the way humans work. So in this context, companies will implement the highest levels of automation technologies to perform repetitive work and menial tasks to free up employees to focus on more integral tasks.

Heightened Adoption of Automation

Due to the alleged human replacement factor, automation wasn’t the priority of the leaders. Due to the COVID outbreak, however, things have changed. Business and leaders are now more inclined towards integrating automation technologies to prevent the business processes from collapsing. Due to disrupted business workflows and the cash crunch it creates, companies worldwide are laying off employees in large numbers. To prevent further damage, businesses are turning towards automation tools and process automation to ensure business continuity. A more hostile demand for automating the business process will erupt in 2021 as countries and organizations grappling from an economic downturn are looking for a solution to alleviate themselves from this uncertainty.

Democratization of Automation

Automation technologies like robotic process automation (RPA), machine learning (ML), and artificial intelligence (AI) were already becoming important, but due to the pandemic, they became essential. In 2021, we’ll see the digital transformation at its peak as the concept of democratization of automation is becoming a reality. Effective automation strategies need extensive human support and participation, so with democratization, companies will be able to empower non-tech users and automate mundane tasks. Every new approach has its own set of challenges, and automation’s democratization is no exception. Businesses, however, can address these challenges by developing and implementing a systematic automation strategy.

Automation Fragmentation

The automation market is becoming increasingly fragmented due to the escalating numbers of vendors providing automation solutions. Although this provides a broader choice for the people, it also creates challenges for choosing the right automation tools. This creates more frustration and confusion for businesses seeking to improve their automation coverage or invest in new tools. So it is indispensable for businesses to implement a bulletproof automation strategy to navigate this challenge and choose the right automation tools according to their business needs.

The Arrival of Intelligent Process Automation (IPA)

Businesses were already benefiting from artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities, but in 2021, they’ll experience the full benefits. Using AI, this new capability will significantly patch the robotic process automation (RPA) called Intelligent Process Automation (IPA). Which is a collection of different technologies that work collaboratively to automate, integrate, and manage digital processes. It also combines fundamental process redesign and machine learning with RPA, enabling it to improve and learn over time. In 2021, the RPA adoption will grow significantly, and the IPA market will become even more viable. According to estimates, in a short span of five years, IPA investments and investments in other similar automation technologies will reach $232 billion, and a large scale adoption is expected across several industries.

New AI-Influenced Robotics Applications

AI-based solutions were already making headway into manufacturing and automation. In 2021, AI will significantly reduce failure and mechanical issues by analyzing data and sniffing out patterns using advanced sensor technology and more connected systems. The analyzed data will serve as fuel for predictive applications that use AI to detect patterns and direct a robot about required maintenance. Such applications can automatically alert and guide engineers about the steps they need to take to repair a piece of equipment before breaking down, saving businesses from costly downtime.

Growth of Cloud Automation

Process automation may seem like it’s only about technology, but it is actually more about digital transformation strategy. Organizations moving towards cloud-based data centers for data management can use cloud automation as it is the best choice for them. Organizations can enhance employee experience by easily accessing the data from cloud infrastructures using a cloud automation system. Cloud automation requires specialized tools and expertise as it is not built directly into the cloud. This automation technology is publically available from vendors including Azure, AWS, etc.

Infowise

Control current form tab via rules

2020-12-29T20:01:44Z

Hi, Tabs and Accordion controls are extremely helpful when you build complex forms. By separating multiple columns into different tabs, you can create forms that are smaller, easier to navigate and clearer, while still collecting all the information you need. Tabs have another, equally important purpose. By assigning different permissions to tabs, you can designate each tab as a stage of your business process, hiding and locking tabs based on the current user's identity, type of form and column-based conditions. For example, you can place all the approval related columns on the Approval tab and only allow managers edit columns on that tab and that only when the status of the form indicates that is it being submitted for approval. In some cases, you want the form to open with a certain tab being active (such as the Approval tab for the manager) or maybe you want to switch the current tab dynamically, based on the values you enter. And now, you can!

Open your form in Form Designer. Add a Tabs control if you don't already have one. You can also use an Accordion control with Collapsible mode enabled. Add your columns to the tabs based on your business requirements.
Make sure the Tabs control is selected (selected control has a blue border), click on it to select.
In the right pane you will find Rules section.
Add a new rule. In my case, I want the Approvals tab to be selected in Edit form when the Approval column value is N/a (not available).

Note: rules are not really aware of tab names, as those might change. Instead, the rule sets the tab based on its position. If you change order of tabs, you need to update your rules.
Save your rule and publish your form.
Go to your list and open item, it should now open with the active tab set according to your rules.

This is another great and useful feature that helps you create amazing forms that your users will love!

Learning Management System In SharePoint

2020-12-24T22:15:30Z

A training plan and an efficient way to track training is the need of every organization that invests in their employee success. To effectively do that, you need a learning management system or LMS. Pre-made learning management can be effective for this; however, it may lack certain areas, including customizability. SharePoint, on the other hand, allows organizations to create a highly customized learning management system that acts as a central hub and provides the following features;

Create and Manage Training Content

SharePoint seamlessly integrates with Office 365 apps and productivity tools. So when you use it as a learning management system, you can easily create training content and lessons that include audio, image, or video right within SharePoint. SharePoint as an LMS also allows you to create libraries that include links to multimedia files and text documents. Meaning that you can even add content from other websites like YouTube or Google Scholar to improve your lessons and training materials. Trainers and teachers can also create and store bite-sized micro-learning modules like blogs, daily tips, job aids, podcasts, videos, etc. This allows trainees and students to refresh their knowledge once the training ends. Aside from allowing users to create training content that includes rich media, a SharePoint-based learning management system provides centralized storage where you can store the training material. You can link metadata to the content and leverage the powerful search feature to find the required content using keywords. Users can customize the basic list view in SharePoint. They can filter content, change the order, hide or show particular columns; this further helps them easily find the content they need. In a SharePoint LMS, teachers and trainers can also restrict access to teaching aids and test answers and prevent the students or trainees from viewing and modifying them.

Manage Trainees and Trainers

By using a SharePoint based learning management system, you can allow trainees to enroll automatically into a course according to their knowledge assessment and skills. According to their organizational unit, you can also assign training courses to employees, connect a discussion to a specific course, and enable automatic adjustment of training needs according to team changes, promotions, and transfers. SharePoint also offers several options to enhance file exchange and the interaction between users, including blogs, group sites, forums, discussion boards, wikis, chats, etc. As mentioned earlier, SharePoint also allows trainers to set up permissions regarding the content trainees can view, edit, and share.

Make a Course Calendar

The out-of-the-box SharePoint allows trainers and teachers to set up a calendar to schedule training and other relevant events, including exams, tests, and assignment deadlines. Trainers and trainees can also sync SharePoint with their Outlook to access the events market on the native Outlook calendar. They can also drag and drop events and reminders into the SharePoint calendar from the Outlook calendar and vice versa. Color coding allows users to differentiate between events from different calendars. The overlay feature of SharePoint allows trainers to combine their calendar with a group of trainees. This feature is beneficial as it allows trainees to see other events and courses and schedule and attend training accordingly. The overlay function is also effective for integrating the Exchange calendar on top of the SharePoint calendar view.

Automate Notifications

One of the best features of a SharePoint learning management system is that it allows users to set up automatic notifications. The notifications are sent via text messages or emails. They are triggered by changes in the e-learning content or events like finishing a topic, failing or passing a test, or enrolling in a course. SharePoint also allows users to preschedule notifications for deadlines, training, meetings, exams, etc.

Enable Assessment

With a learning management system based on SharePoint, teachers and trainers can assess the knowledge of students and trainees through simple tests. Using the list functionality, you can create yes or no or multiple-choice questions, score the training results, and designate either a pass or fail grade. You can even build dashboards according to the test results with just a single click.

Enable External and Remote Training

In a SharePoint learning management system, training coordinators can create a workflow that automatically enrolls employees into external training. Using SharePoint Online, trainees can take part in training regardless of their location. They can access and download training materials from their mobile devices and enjoy the same benefits as they would on a desktop system. The co-authoring feature of SharePoint allows users to collaborate on the same document and make changes simultaneously; those changes are reflected in the document in real-time. Once the training is complete, managers can create surveys to test employee knowledge and get employee feedback.

Gamification, Certification, and Competency Management

Trainers and teachers can grant badges and achievement points for things like passing an exam, completing a course, mastering a new skill, and generate leaderboards with employee scores. This gamification feature goes well with the social side of corporate life and can complement the company’s recognition and reward policy. In a SharePoint LMS, trainers can automatically add certification tests to an employee to-do list using the workflows. Once the employee passes the test, they can add an e-certificate to the employee’s profile. Trainers and teachers can easily catalog, search, and manage the skill sets of individual employees in a SharePoint based learning management system. Managers can build a database with employee skills and competencies and anticipate HR needs and efficiently manage recruitment by enabling search.

Feedback, Analytics & Reporting

Trainees can assess the materials of finished courses in a SharePoint learning management system. They can provide feedback in real-time on the learning materials by implementing tags and ratings. The courses with the highest rating appear on top of the search results. SharePoint can also help track employees that underwent training, those who finished the courses on time, and more by automatically generating reports. It also allows organizations to track the course registration rate of a particular trainee, their engagement with course materials and content, progress, certifications, competencies, and generate interactive dashboards in real-time using the data.

Increase Your LMS’ Functionality With Infowise

Infowise designs and provides customized solutions for SharePoint and Office 365, and these solutions can significantly improve your SharePoint experience. You can easily integrate Infowise’s solution into your SharePoint-based LMS and unlock features like enhanced forms, process automation, highly customized alerts, task assigning, automated list creations, list conversion and printing, design a shared calendar, and more. It is a no-code solution, which means that you can customize the solution according to your needs without writing a single line of code and all that through your web-browser. The solution is agile and can seamlessly integrate with your current business solutions. You can request a free demo or download a free trial to learn more.

4 Easy to Implement Process Automation

2020-11-19T20:32:35Z

"Infowise's Ultimate Forms solution offers several advantages in addition to the SharePoint platform, either Online or On-Premises. Some of the key advantages of the solution are No-code...The benefits of Ultimate Forms solutions are endless and after 16 years of experience in SharePoint, we think we have found a tool worthy of our requirements." – Infowise review by CANDI We discussed the basics of business process automation in our previous article, "Guide to an Effective Business Process Automation." This article is a follow up of that article and will tell you about 4 of the easiest to implement business process automation.

Helpdesk

Infowise Help Desk Site Template Help desks serve as a single point of contact for customers and end-users to get assistance regarding troubleshooting, problem-solving, and their questions. If you rely on manual workflows for the help desk, you may lose.

Time
Energy
Market reputation
Projects and issues
Fixes and knowledge
User satisfaction, trust, and confidence

All these inefficiencies will ultimately cause financial damages to your company and damage your well-earned reputation. Automating the help desk will allow you to improve customer satisfaction by reducing response times, unlock accurate reporting by avoiding inconsistencies and human errors, easily keep customers and end-users informed by improving user communication, improve productivity by efficiently fulfilling the request and resolving incidents, and reduce the cost of higher turnover and improve staff satisfaction by automating repetitive, mundane tasks. Infowise provides SharePoint based, no-code help desk solutions that you can use to implement cost-effective workflow automation. The solution is self-installing and self-configuring and you can use it through your web browser. Here are a few features of the Infowise help desk solution.

Service representatives or end-users can enter service requests; end-users can also email service requests. End users can edit subsets of columns relevant to ticket creation and services representatives can set-up automated alerts to notify the support team about the new ticket.
If a specific person is responsible for resolving the issue, you can set up a custom email that is automatically forwarded to the responsible person.
After the support team receives a request, they can enter the resolution steps they need to take to fulfill the request. The support team can break down the process into a set of tasks and individually track the progress of each task. You can also assign different team members to each task and create different due dates.
After resolving the issue, you can use the service requests to create a knowledge base (KB) articles. Infowise help desk solution allows you to generate new KB articles containing resolution steps with just a single click. If you want, you can edit the article's text separately from the ticket and use the ticket as a reference. You can also use keywords to reference requests and KB articles and view the popularity of each keyword and assign experts to them. You can also create a FAQ section for self-help.

Project Management

Guide: Infowise Project Management & Timesheet
In project management, you use your skills, knowledge, techniques and tools to carry out activities to fulfill the requirements of a project and manual project management is like squeezing blood from a turnip. Manual project management is time-consuming, lacks security, and increases costs and errors. By automating project management with Infowise SharePoint and Office 365 based project management solution, you can manage cost and hour assignments, budgets, and health. You can also create a centralized location to manage all your projects, create and track issues and tasks. You also have the ability to track project status, the actual cost in reference to the budget, the time employees spend working on each project, all of which allow you to identify problems right away. The project management solution has the following modules.

Dashboards
Customers
Projects
Tasks
Work hours
Reports

The best thing about the SharePoint project management solution is that you can scale and customize the solution according to your needs without any development costs since it is a SharePoint list based. You can also enhance the solution by adding Smart Print Pro or Smart Alert Pro.

HR Onboarding

Webinar: Build a Dynamic SharePoint Onboarding System Introducing new employees into your organization through onboarding is important as it helps introduce them to understand their job requirements and new position. The manual onboarding of new employees is inefficient and challenging. It lacks accuracy, affects employee retention, damages your reputation, and increases costs. With Infowise ULTIMATEforms, you can create a user-friendly – interactive SharePoint site that supports advanced HR processes and helps manage the onboarding process more efficiently. By automating the onboarding process, you can enhance employee retention, significantly minimize costs, improve productivity, increase ROI, and protect your reputation.

Approval System

Webinar: Build your own SharePoint Document Approval System Manual approval systems are extremely tedious and can waste a lot of your time and as a result of poor document management, you may miss delivery of goods, payments and bear the damages of a non-uniform approval process. Manual document approval systems may cause compliance issues since they are less transparent and may keep employees in the dark about the processes. With Infowise ULTIMATEforms, you can build an efficient document approval process that works according to your needs. You can define your own system and make it work exactly the way you want. With an automated document approval system, you can reduce errors, increase security, assign authority, digitally sign documents, set-up alerts, maintain records, create a centralized document library and more.

Takeaway

SharePoint and Office 365 based solutions help businesses to automate their workflows, increase productivity, reduce errors, and eliminate inconsistencies in a cost-effective manner. With Infowise, you can further enhance your Office 365 and SharePoint experience.

Guide to an Effective Business Process Automation

2020-11-14T16:45:23Z

Guide to an Effective Business Process Automation

Businesses are pursuing process automation more actively due to increasing competition and digital transformation in the age of industry 4.0. If you are also considering business process automation and want to know more about it, then here’s your guide to an effective business process automation.

What is Process Automation?

Business Process Automation is the use of technology to automate repetitive tasks and streamline systems and personnel workflows. Process automation results in huge productivity gains and can cut operating costs by 90%. BPA goes beyond traditional data and document management and includes advanced systems and solutions that integrate all your business solutions. Automation software enables organizations to get one step closer to digital transformation and maintain control over multiple factors, including customer service, sales, analytics, standardization, development automation, and planning. Business process automation targets complicated information technology tasks like network issue troubleshooting and system user management and email marketing services. Automation software supports your team’s knowledge and reduces operational costs by providing valuable insights and freeing your employees to focus on more crucial tasks. Due to the enhanced customer service with no human errors, your clients will be happier with your assistance. Even though automation software is a program, it can still improve human interaction and decision making by providing real-time transparency. There are four main types of automation, each more complex than the previous one.

Basic Automation

Basic automation streamlines simple jobs within your organization and provides a central location for information, data, and document storage. For instance, using a centralized platform for sharing messages or information on a particular topic within a group enables transparency and increases visibility, which isn’t possible in email communication.

Process Automation

Process automation software stores and manages your business processes to enable transparency and consistency—dedicated apps and software control process automation, and it is significantly more robust than basic automation.

Integration Automation

Integration automation is more complex than process automation and leverages machine learning to observe the tasks humans perform and replicate them. Humans define the rules for integration automation. For instance, you can integrate process automation systems with your customer service software, which will allow you to create an automatically process-able customer support checklist for each complaint and assign personnel whenever necessary.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) Automation

AI-based process automation systems allow your tech to make decisions similar to humans. AI automation uses data to make decisions after constantly processing and analyzing. AI-based automation is highly beneficial for small and large corporations and can reduce supply chain forecasting errors.

Best Practices of Business Process Automation

Only signing up for an advanced business process automation software may not lead to success. Instead, you need to take a practical and thorough approach to automate your business process and workflows effectively. Here are a few best practices of business process automation software implementation.

Gain a clear understanding of the tasks you need to automate, who will take responsibility, and when each task will execute.
Ensure that you clearly define your business process automation goals as it enables you to save a substantial amount of time in course correction.
Implement a phase-wise approach to measure results. Several organizations feel disappointed when they don’t see improved progress overnight.
Remember that your employees may take a few days to adjust to the new system, so be sure to provide adequate employee training.
Leverage 3^rd party solutions wherever you can.
Take on a long-term approach to experiencing a good ROI.

Determining the Business Processes for Automation

You can automate all your business processes, but if you are starting your digital transformation journey, the best thing to do is to determine the areas requiring automation more than the others. To determine the business processes for automation, look for the following factors.

Higher task volume
Time-sensitive tasks
Frequent audit trials and need for compliance
Several team members executing a single task
Significant impact on other systems and processes

If you see any of the factors mentioned above in your business processes, consider automating them. Most common processes that business automate include;

Payroll
Invoicing
Collections
Sales orders
Procurement
Lead nurturing
Product launches
Helpdesk support
Call center processes
Backup and restoration
Employee leave requests
Push notifications and emails
Time and attendance tracking
Making customer case studies
Data migration and aggregation

Benefits of Business Process Automation Software

Business process automation software ultimately allows you to increase efficiency and unlock business growth. A majority of business process automation focuses on continuous process improvement, which enables increased efficiency levels. After automating business processes, you will see the following benefits.

Cloud-based automation software stores your data at a central location, enabling productivity boost due to enhanced access. This allows you and your team to access data from any device and location.
Automation software helps make your business processes more transparent. The software allows you to monitor and track processes as they are running and improve visibility and accountability.
Could-based automation software allows you to monitor workflows and processes on the go, find errors, and fix them as soon as you find them. You can also gain valuable insights with performance reports and take necessary measures to prevent recurring errors.
Automation software means fewer manual interventions, and from a long-term viewpoint, you will start noticing faster turnaround times and reduced costs.
Business process automation allows you to enhance workforce allocation as the automation software will handle the repetitive manual tasks. You can free up your employees to cater to more crucial tasks that require human judgment and effort.

Takeaway

Business process automation is for businesses looking to cut costs and gain a competitive edge. When automating business processes, the only thing to remember is that you have to choose the right automation software and choose the appropriate process to apply the software. Infowise provides business solutions with automation capabilities. These solutions are SharePoint and Office 365 based and cover everything from Helpdesk, Leave Management Systems, to Vehicle and Facility Reservation Systems.

Microsoft 365 and SharePoint for Accelerated Lean Manufacturing

2020-11-10T16:59:20Z

Lean manufacturing is essential for manufacturers seeking to gain a competitive advantage. The methodology focuses on reducing waste while simultaneously increasing productivity within the manufacturing system. There are five main lean manufacturing principles: defining value, creating value stream, creating flow, establishing pull, and pursuing perfection. To implement these principles in the modern era, manufacturers must leverage advanced technology solutions, including Microsoft 365 and Microsoft SharePoint. These tools allow manufacturers to enable business process automation, enhance the user experience, ensure security and compliance, increase productivity, and enable real-time communication and collaboration. Let's take a look at how Microsoft 365 and SharePoint accelerates lean manufacturing.

Quickly Find Manuals and Documents

Quickly finding required information is the biggest challenge a majority of manufacturers face when implementing lean manufacturing principles. This may not seem like a big issue but let me paint a picture for you. Suppose a single component of your product line malfunctions and forces you to stop production, and you need to find the documentation to fix the machine. The longer it takes you to find the manual, the longer your production will remain at a halt; this will cause financial damage. Since the suspension is unnecessary or wasteful, it goes against the lean manufacturing principles.

Microsoft 365 and Microsoft SharePoint both have a powerful and advanced search feature that simplifies the search process and allows you to quickly find the manuals and documents you need. With metadata and filters, your manufacturing team can save crucial time to find the necessary documents within seconds.

Enable Real-Time Communication and Collaboration

A vast majority of employees in a factory work on their feet instead of sitting at their desks, so they don't get a chance to check and respond to the thousands of emails they get. They may check their email at the beginning of their shift, respond, and then check their emails the next day; this results in a communication lapse that goes against the lean manufacturing principles.
With Microsoft Office 365 apps like SharePoint, Microsoft Teams, Power BI, Dynamics 365, you can enable real-time communication and communication. Since Microsoft Office is mobile-friendly, your manufacturing team can communicate and collaborate regardless of their location using their mobile phones. Managers can use SharePoint to broadcast news, employees can use Microsoft Teams to chat in groups (teams), stakeholders can use Dynamics 365 to follow processes, and managers can use Power BI to generate reports in real-time. Apart from efficient communication and collaboration, managers can leverage Office 365 apps to assign tasks; this results in a significant increase in productivity and a decrease in waste.

Collect Ideas for Improvements

Continuously improving the system to achieve perfection is one of the most critical components of lean manufacturing. It is impossible without collecting waste reduction ideas from employees working on the factory floor. Microsoft 365 and SharePoint can help managers to gather ideas from their team. For instance, if an employee notices small metal shavings getting swept up and thrown in the trash, they can recommend measures to prevent it from happening again and suggest reusing the metal using a SharePoint forum. With Microsoft Teams, managers can set up a group where team members can share ideas, and with mobile support, they can share it as soon as they think of it. Managers can also set up a forum on SharePoint where team members can submit ideas. To moderate ideas before adding them to the final list, managers can use Dynamics 365 to create a flow. This also increases the visibility of ideas, allowing team members to polish each other's ideas to increase productivity and eliminate waste. Managers can use Microsoft Flow to automate routing; they can easily send ideas to people who need to see, review progress, and provide feedback.

Automate Business Processes to Cut Waste

Automation is the essence of lean manufacturing, and without it, manufacturers can't cut waste effectively. Microsoft SharePoint and Microsoft Office 365 enable business process automation most cost-effectively. Manufacturers can automate data collection in SharePoint lists, Power Apps to create customized Mobile Apps, Microsoft Flow to create and automate workflows, etc. Several other Microsoft tools allow managers to automate business processes to improve productivity without compromising on quality.

Ensure Security and Compliance to Avoid Pitfalls

Manufacturers have to comply with federal, state, and local regulations to operate; otherwise, they may face legal action. Failure to comply with rules may require you to stop production, which goes against the lean manufacturing principles. With Microsoft SharePoint and Microsoft Office, 365 manufacturers can follow all the necessary regulations. This allows manufacturing to continue seamlessly and helps you implement lean manufacturing principles. Microsoft Office 365 and all the other apps have some of the world's best security, so manufacturers don't have to worry about security lapses. Microsoft also provides easy access to the tools and data you need to ensure your organization's compliance via Microsoft 365 compliance center.

Accelerate Lean Processes with Infowise

By integrating Infowise ULTIMATEforms into your Microsoft Office 365 and SharePoint, you can enable business process automation and workflow creation. The solution is designed to support lean manufacturing as it is easy to deploy and can be customized according to your organizational needs. The best feature of ULTIMATEforms is that you don't have to write a single line of code, and you can do everything you need via your web browser. You can enhance forms, automate processes, set-up customized alerts, assign tasks, automate list creations, convert and print SharePoint lists, design a shared calendar, and more. You can request a free demo or download a free trial to learn more about the solution.

Multilingual SharePoint forms made easy

2020-11-06T20:42:06Z

Hi, More great news for Modern forms user in our Ultimate Forms! You can now provide translations to all the visual controls on the form, so it will load in the user's preferred language automatically. For instance, you have users in the US and in France. You want to collect information using the same form, but you want each user to have the best possible experience, with column names, headers and descriptions in the language they are most comfortable in. The following controls now offer translation capabilities:

Columns - if you are already using SharePoint's own column name translations, they will be respected, but you can also provide form-specific labels, in multiple languages, as well as translated descriptions. If you are using validation rules, the error message in the rule can be translated as well.
Headers - header text itself, as well as callout (additional descriptions shown when you click on the info icon).
Tabs and accordions - tabs names as well as callouts.
Fragments - complete fragments can be translated.

Each translatable property will have a globe icon next to it, to provide access to the translations pop-up. The only exception is Fragments where the translation are built directly into the editor. Translations are optional, the default value will be used when no translations are specified or there is no translation available for the current user's language. Let me give you a little example. This is my simple form: I want to translate the header and the fragment below it. Once I click on the header, I can see the property pane on the right, allowing me to make my changes. Click on the globe icon next to the Content field. Here I can specify translations for the text. I don't need to provide English as that's my default and it will use the default value set directly in the pane. Once I'm done, I can take care of the fragment. Here I simply switch the language at the top and provide my translation. All done? Just click on Publish and you're ready to go. NOTE: column values will not be automatically translated. Your site needs to have multilingual interface enabled in the site Language settings and the supported languages need to be specified.

Roadmap towards lean manufacturing in the digital age

2020-10-22T15:11:30Z

Lean manufacturing is more relevant today than it was a few years ago. The fourth industrial revolution or industry 4.0 uses digital technologies to improve the production flow (digital transformation) and as we all know, digital transformation and lean principles provide the same benefits; cost savings, eliminating waste and increasing value and productivity. This blog is going to show you the roadmap to implement lean manufacturing in the digital age.

The Phases of Lean in the Digital Age

Successful implementation of lean principles in industry 4.0 requires a structured approach. This approach may include the following three phases.

Innovate

The first phase of implementing lean manufacturing in the digital age requires innovation and to innovate; you need to determine your business needs and challenges. You must also determine the areas that can use improvement and the magnitude of support your existing digital technologies can provide for lean manufacturing. You'll have to develop a comprehensive assessment tool to identify improvement priorities and the current implementation stage. You also need to train a few key team members to use state of the art digital technologies used for implementing lean in the digital age. There are workshops where you can experience these digital technologies and learn how to improve your business processes. Here are a few innovations that can help you implement lean more efficiently in the digital age.

Using digital technologies to connect smart devices throughout the production system for easily sharing information and data.
Leveraging augmented-reality (AR) and cloud technology for SOP compliance and improving operators' productivity.
Using digital performance boards and real-time KPIs for accelerating response time and reducing cycle times.
Integrating industrial 3D printing technology for in-house production of spare parts for the production system.

Pilot

During the second phase, you need to come up with a pilot plan to apply the insights you gained during the first phase. Instead of full-scale deployment, it's best to test the waters first, choose a specific part of the production system and deploy a pilot there. The pilot must be a minimum viable solution that you can improve after gaining insights about its performance. This initial pilot allows you to showcase the opportunities for value creation (an integral part of lean principles) and validate your approach. Once the pilot starts performing optimally, you can deploy other enablers of lean in the digital age.

Scale

In the final phase, you carry out the full-scale deployment of digital technology and solutions in the production system that you tested and refined during the second phase. Since lean manufacturing focus on eliminating waste, the rollout should be carried out in a logical sequence that assures deployment and integration of the solutions without disrupting the production system. Constant tracking is a must during the final phase.

Benefits of Using Digital Technologies for Lean Manufacturing

Flexibility

Every manufacturer wants flexible operations that allow them to use the same production system to manufacture multiple products, but without digital transformation, this isn't possible, at least not efficiently. Without digital technologies, you'd have to perform manual and time-consuming changeovers, which infringe upon the values of lean principles. Digital manufacturing, however, allows you to eliminate activities that don't add any value from the changeover and significantly reduce the change over time, providing unmatched flexibility. Industry 4.0 digital technologies like sensors and automation solutions can automatically distinguish different products that you make, load the required program, and line-up the tools without any human intervention. This frees up your team members to focus on tasks that add value for you and your customers.

Productivity

Equipment failure or breakdown can happen at any time and it reduces productivity and leads to high inventory levels. In a digital manufacturing environment where preventative or autonomous maintenance is implemented, the overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) is high, and equipment failure chances are low. In small factory settings, operators are responsible for carrying out minor DIY maintenance, which significantly reduces the equipment downtime. Industry 4.0, however, uses sensors to collect data and leverages machine learning techniques and advanced analytics algorithms to analyze that data. The data helps predict potential breakdowns before they occur and allows the stakeholders to carry out timely repairs. As a result, the company can save a significant amount of time and resources. Mobile-friendly solutions allow the maintenance team to access necessary information from remote locations, promoting continuous improvement and increasing the effectiveness of the implemented digital solutions.

Speed

Traditional lean manufacturing tools may be ineffective for increasing the number of product variants while reducing batch sizes. Manufacturers can remedy that ineffectiveness by leveraging digital technologies. Certain algorithms can help overcome challenges of product and production management in real-time. Furthermore, manufacturers can also accelerate and enhance continuous improvement efforts with real-time data. Data can also help you reduce response and reaction time if you have real-time monitoring in place.

Quality

Data and analytics can help manufacturers carry out self-inspections, leading to zero defects as it identifies the root cause of errors. Digital technologies of industry 4.0 provide unmatched tracking capabilities and reliable context data, which can significantly increase your products' quality.

Safety

One of the most important KPIs in lean manufacturing is safety. Digital technologies allow you to identify risk areas or areas for improvement by tracking near misses and incidents. Low-cost wireless sensors, an integral device in a smart factory, can help increase your factory's safety. You can even use virtual reality (VR) to train workers and prevent accidents that affect productivity.

Infowise and Lean in the Digital Age

Infowise has been providing automated business solutions for almost two decades and these solutions are more than capable of supporting lean in the digital age. The solutions are easy to deploy; they require minimal training and can be customized and up-scaled according to your business needs. With Infowise, you can create your own customized solutions without writing a single line of code all through your web browser. You can automate multiple business processes, including task assignment, list generation, form creation, alerts, calendars, etc. To learn more about our business processes and workflow automation solutions, download the free trial or request a free demo.

Process Automation is a Principle Tenet of Lean Manufacturing

2020-10-19T14:48:25Z

Many often disregard process automation when implementing lean manufacturing principles. They usually opt for automating the production line and forget the fact that eliminating waste requires process improvement throughout the production system. If you are also overlooking process automation when implementing lean manufacturing, then continue reading to find out the benefits you'll miss.

What is Lean Manufacturing?

Lean manufacturing is the methodology of reducing or eliminating waste while maintaining or increasing productivity. Your business processes become efficient and more effective when you apply lean manufacturing principles, and as a result, your business gains an edge over competitors. Lean manufacturing principles aren't limited to the manufacturing business; you can apply these principles to any business type. There are five major principles of lean manufacturing;

Identifying value
Mapping value stream
Creating flow
Establishing pull
Seeking perfection

What is Process Automation?

Process automation or business process automation or digital transformation means using digital technology to automate complex business processes. It involves using software applications and reconstructing labor resources to benefit the production system, inventory, supply chain, management, administration, IT, sales, and marketing. Lean manufacturing principles are significantly less effective because process automation is absolutely singular when it comes to eliminating waste and reducing cost.

Benefits of Process Automation in Lean Manufacturing

Implementing process automation in lean manufacturing provides the following benefits.

Eliminating Waste Becomes Easier and Faster

There's no match for process automation when it comes to eliminating waste. By properly setting up your process automation program along with an automated production system, you can eliminate waste and the amount of scrap you produce during the manufacturing process. Manual systems can't offer the same efficiency even if every single member of your team is highly skilled. Automation systems simultaneously perform multiple tasks, which are impossible in manual systems.

Reduces Costs

Process automation allows you to maintain or improve productivity while freeing up the workforce and reducing the number of resources required throughout the manufacturing process. An automated production system, along with an efficient automation system and skilled operators, is the best way to reduce costs and eliminate waste.

Internet of Things (IoT)

Manual systems require significant efforts to report the production status, but by linking your production system with an efficient business automation system, you can easily generate reports in real-time. The IoT that process automation provides frees you and your team to focus on more crucial work that increases customer satisfaction and efficiently take care of all the time consuming – repetitive tasks.

Increases Worker Safety

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, around 2.9 workplace injuries occurred in 2015. As we all know, workplace injuries are a nightmare, not just for the injured employee but also for the business. Implementing process automation can partially or completely eliminate the need for human intervention, making the workplace safer and significantly reducing the number of injuries.

Maximizes Productivity

Employee absences and leaves can negatively impact your overall productivity, and effectively managing the workforce can be a bit hard. But by implementing process automation, you can efficiently manage your workforce, streamline time-consuming and repetitive tasks, and eliminate overhead, all of which maximizes productivity.

Improves Accuracy

By automating your business processes, you can get a clear, complete, and accurate view of your workforce, which leads to reduced overheads and costs and an increase in productivity. With an efficient employee management system (EMS), you can easily automate attendance management to ensure compliance with federal, state, and local regulations, ensure internal policy compliance, etc. You can also generate real-time reports and compare productivity with labor-related expenditures, which also reduces waste and improves productivity.

How to Implement Process Automation in Lean Manufacturing

Implementing process automation for lean manufacturing can be tricky; however, you can avail of a consulting company's services that can tailor a solution specifically for your needs. The implementation usually includes the following steps.

Review Business Processes

The first step of implementing process automation for lean manufacturing is to review and identify business processes that aren't as efficient as they should be. Lean manufacturing goals are to reduce or eliminate waste, generate value for the customers, and improve productivity, so identify the process that isn't helping you achieve the goals mentioned above. Then you need to devise a plan to either automate (if integral) or eliminate those processes. Choose automation systems that are flexible and scalable; this will allow you to adapt to the weathering changes of the workflow easily.

Identify Internal Talent

Identifying capable team members within your facility is very important when it comes to implementing process automation, even if you are hiring external consultants. These team members can help you identify the business processes that require changes and act as a buffer for communication between you and your workers. Process automation is often met with resistance from the workers because they feel like they aren't valued and needed anymore. Still, when you have a spokesperson on the inside, then you can maintain an open line of communication and let the workforce know that they are valued and vital.

Review Tools and Tech

Process automation isn't about automating processes without onboarding the people who have to work with the automation solution. You need to choose the tools and tech your people are familiar with and can easily learn. Process automation is supposed to support your employees' work, so process improvement should be its main focus. Opt for the tools and tech that require minimal training and don't disrupt your business processes.

Process Automation with Infowise Solutions

With almost two decades of experience, Infowise is one of the industry-leading providers of process automation solutions. Our solutions are easy to learn and can deploy with minimum effort. Team members can learn how to use our solutions with minimum or no training. The best part about Infowise Solutions is that they are easy to scale and can be customized as per your needs using your web browser. Without writing a single line of code, you can automate multiple business processes, including task assignment, list generation, form creation, alerts, calendars, etc. To learn more about our business processes and workflow automation solutions, download the free trial or request a free demo.

Lean Manufacturing: Definition, Principles, and Benefits

2020-10-07T16:33:11Z

"These Infowise tools cover an enormously wide range of features... so many that even having used them for hundreds of clients over several years, I still learn new features every day. At the same time, they are easy to use and understand. The documentation on each tool's function is priceless... with such a far-reaching and detailed set of tools, without the great documentation provided in the application, I would struggle to remember every nuance. The support team at Infowise is always responsive and helpful. If you are looking for a powerful set of tools that is easy to use for all levels of users... you've found it... you won't be disappointed."

– Eric Dickerson, SharePoint Consultant. Lean manufacturing is the methodology of reducing waste without sacrificing the productivity of the manufacturing system. The principles of lean manufacturing are based on the Japanese efficiency model created by Taiichi Ohno, the father of the Toyota Production System, and continuously seek to reduce waste. Basically, lean manufacturing promotes system-wide efficiency by continuously improving the manufacturing system. What the customer would pay for a product or service defines the value, and by implementing lean management, you can identify, reduce or remove redundancies that don't add value. If one part of the value chain isn't as productive as the other parts, then the system's overall productivity can be reduced. That's why lean manufacturing principles promote equal productivity throughout the value chain instead of focusing on individual productivity. By implementing lean manufacturing principles, you can streamline the manufacturing process, from raw materials to finished products and gain a sustainable advantage over your competitors. Lean management helps build a well-adjusted manufacturing process with reduced waste and cycle times and increased customer satisfaction and quality.

Principles of Lean Manufacturing

There are five main principles of lean manufacturing.

Identifying Value

The first principle of lean manufacturing is value; customer's needs for a particular product defines the value. In order to define the value of a product, you'll have to ask questions like what important necessities or specifications must be met? What's the price point? What's the timeline for production and delivery?

Mapping Value Stream

After determining the end-goal or the value, you have to map the processes and steps required to turn raw materials into final deliverable products, which is also known as the value stream. Even though mapping the value stream is straightforward, it can reveal all the steps a service or a product takes through every process. These processes can be in design, procurement, manufacturing, delivery, customer service, administration, or HR. In this step, you map out your manufacturing process flow, identify redundancies and inefficiencies, and eliminate or reduce those redundancies and inefficiencies. This process is often called process re-engineering, and the goal of this step is to develop a better understanding of all business operations.

Creating Flow

After identifying and removing the waste from the value stream, you must make sure that the remaining phases flow efficiently without bottlenecks, interruptions, or delays. The goal is to make sure that the steps that create value occur seamlessly in a tight sequence so you can smoothly deliver your products or services. One of the biggest challenges of lean management is making an effort to become cross-functional across all departments and break down the silo mentality. However, studies show that this will result in massive efficiency and productivity gains that can sometimes go over 50%.

Establishing Pull

By improving the flow, you can significantly improve your time to market, which will make it easier for you to manufacture and deliver the required product in a timely fashion. This allows the customers to "pull" the product from you whenever they need it and eliminates the need for you to store and build materials and products in advance, create and manage extensive inventory. As a result, all parties, including you, your providers and your customers, save a significant amount of money.

Seeking Perfection

Once you apply the aforementioned principles of lean manufacturing, you must seek perfection by incorporating process improvement and lean thinking into your corporate culture. Always remember that lean management isn't a static system; it requires continuous effort and constant improvement to remain perfect. Some lean management experts suggest that a process doesn't become lean until it has gone through at least half a dozen value-stream mapping.

Benefits of Lean Manufacturing

Lean manufacturing provides the following benefits.

Improved Product Quality

By improving manufacturing or production efficiency, you can free up resources and employees to focus on quality control and innovation, both of which get compromised in an inefficient manufacturing process.

Better Lead Times

By streamlining the manufacturing processes, you can easily respond to fluctuating market variables and demand, which results in better lead times and fewer delays.

Increased Profits

By implementing lean manufacturing principles, you can reduce waste and increase productivity and quality, leading to increased profits.

Sustainability

Lean manufacturing helps reduce waste and increases adaptability, which enables your business to become more sustainable and thrive in the future.

Employee Satisfaction

Employees become unproductive when their work routine is bloated and full of repetitive and unnecessary work. By implementing lean manufacturing principles, you can bring employees out of the jam and boost productivity.

Infowise Automation Tools and Lean Manufacturing

Infowise has been providing business processes and workflow automation solutions for several years to companies around the world. Our solutions are designed for easy deployment and can be customized as per your needs through your web browser and don't require you to write a single line of code. With our solutions, you can automate processes, enhance forms, assign tasks, set-up alerts, automate list creations, design a shared calendar, covert and print SharePoint lists and more. You can request a free demo or download a free trial to learn more about the solution.

Preview forms for lookup columns

2020-10-07T15:17:27Z

Hi, I love lookup columns in SharePoint! They make it so easy to manage a master list of values (say suppliers or contacts) and then reference it from different lists within your site (or even a site collection). Because the values are maintained in one centralized location, you have a single source of truth, which is often one of the biggest challenges in any information system. Our Ultimate Forms fully support lookup columns. Not only that, but we also add a bunch of additional features to them, such as cascading parent/child lookups, adding new values on the fly, filtering by view, auto-complete mode and more! And now we've added another great feature - preview forms! Lookup columns show just a single column value in the form, which might not be enough. Say you are using a lookup column for Contact Person. You choose to use the Full Name column as your display column, but what if you want to know more about that person, for instance phone number or email? Of course you can just click on the link, but then you are redirected to the contact person's form and lose your context. With preview forms all you need to do is hover over the link. It will open a small preview form with all the details, while still keeping your main form in the background. But what happens when your lookup item contains a large number of columns and the display form is huge and complex? You don't really need all that information now (like your communication history, for example). We help you with that too! You can define a special preview form for this particular lookup column instance and choose only the columns you want to appear. So instead of the full display form, we will use this small, concise form. If you don't define one, no problem, we will use the full form. And if the list doesn't have a modern form defined yet, we will generate one on-the-fly as well (might not be the best option though, so we do encourage you to create one of your own). So how do we configure a preview form? When you edit the lookup column settings, you will notice the new link, "Design preview form". Click on it and you will be taken to Form Designer and you can start designing your preview form (notice that the header of Form Designer will indicate that you are currently designing a preview form). Don't forget to click on Publish when you're done! To get into editing the column settings you can use one of the following approaches:

Click on Connected Lookups on the main page of Ultimate Forms (make sure that the right list is selected first).
When in Form Designer, in the list of columns on the left you will see a Settings icon for the column.
You could be already using the column on the form and it won't appear in the list of columns (notice the lock icon at the top, it means that each column can only be used once on the form, you can always unlock and re-use your columns for more complex form designs). In this case, click on the column within the design canvas of the form, column properties will open on the right and you will be able to go into the configuration settings from there.

Easy and powerful! I hope you enjoy this great new feature!

Microsoft 365 Apps and Tools for Distance Learning

2020-09-17T14:48:53Z

"Office 365 has created a more effective means of reaching and communicating with our students and staff. The implementation of the Office suite has ensured all of our students have access to the tools they need to complete their coursework. The cloud feature has worked flawlessly, and it creates a greater peace of mind knowing I can recall documents from years ago with zero issues." — Office 365 Review by A Higher Education Professional. Microsoft Office 365 for Education provides value to students and teachers around the world and enables an invaluable remote learning and remote teaching experience. The basic version of Office 365 is free for students and teachers belonging to an institute that is enrolled in the Microsoft Education Program. Furthermore, Microsoft offers multiple free resources on a daily basis to enhance the experience of educators and students using Office 365. Let's take a look at some of the apps and tools of Office 365 for Education that help create a digital classroom.

Microsoft Teams for Education

Remote learning and remote teaching would not be possible without Microsoft's collaboration and communication platform called Teams. It includes all the essential tools that the teachers and students require for an optimum distance learning experience. This ultimate distance learning tool acts as a hub for apps, discussions, course materials and content, and assignments and helps teachers and students to build a lively digital classroom. Teachers can connect with other teachers around the world to share experiences and insights. Students and educators can create groups (teams) to collaborate on projects and other course-related work and easily connect with each other. Microsoft Teams syncs seamlessly with other Office 365 for Education apps, including OneNote. This sync feature increases the capabilities of the MS Teams; for instance, with OneNote, students and teachers can create class notebooks, share files like presentations and assignments, teachers can grade student tests, etc. Teachers can use Teams to deliver interactive lessons and receive instant feedback from the students with OneNote Class Notebooks and built-in assignment management tools. School management can use Staff Teams to collaborate, converse and share announcements with the teachers of the school. Teachers can also create Professional Learning Communities in MS Teams to share instructional material with others.

OneNote for Education

OneNote is essentially a digital notebook that enables teachers and students to organize their work easily. This classroom organization tool works as a personal workspace for students and teachers where they can collaborate for creative activities and lessons and create a content library for handouts. This app is designed to empower students and educators to do their best work. OneNote for Education also enables educators to compile lesson plans and course material into cloud-based storage, which allows them to organize the classroom more efficiently and helps them keep track of all the course-related materials such as assignments. OneNote isn't just a note-taking app that enables efficient classroom organization; it is much more than that. The OneNote app included in the Office 365 for Education suite also enables educators and students to create sketches and diagrams, take handwritten notes, produce videos and illustrations, and more with the digital ink feature. OneNote also includes the powerful search feature of Office 365, which makes it way easier for both students and teachers to find the files they want to use.

Minecraft for Education

The education version of Minecraft is specially designed for the classroom. The game-based learning solution works as an immersive digital environment where students can unleash their creativity, learn problem-solving skills, and collaborate with one another. Recently, Microsoft added an Hour of Code lesson in the platform, which helps students to learn code in a fun way. According to Microsoft, Minecraft for Education is being used by educators in over 115 countries for teaching students about science, environment, urban planning, geography, etc. Teachers using the learning solution report that it helps increase students' interest in learning, increase their confidence levels and improve their problem-solving skills.

Immersive Reader Tool

The Immersive Reader Tool is another value-packed tool of the Office 365 Education suite. Teachers can use this tool to help students of all ages and learning abilities by implementing proven techniques that help improve reading and writing capabilities. The free tool also has a powerful Optical Character Recognition (OCR) feature that can decipher text from a picture, even those scanned from books. Non-English speaking, students can use this tool to improve reading comprehension and increase their English language reading fluency. Immersive Reader tool can also break words into syllables, change text spacing and size of the text, customize background color, read text aloud, change reading speed, etc.

Take a Test App

Teachers can use Microsoft Forms-based Take a Test App to conduct tests and quizzes and help students to work on their assignments easily. Office 365 for Education includes this feature to support remote teaching as teachers don't have to print and collect test papers. The best thing about this app is that it has a grade test paper feature that can automatically grade the tests that the students submit.

Microsoft School Data Sync

Microsoft School Data Sync, also known as SDS, reads school data and roster information from a Student Information System. This feature of Office 365 for Education is designed to automate the time-consuming and manual integration of data from the Student Information System and enable a single sign-in for third-party productivity apps. It also automates Team creation for MS Teams, Exchange Online and SharePoint Online Office 365 Groups creation, OneNote Class notebooks, and school groups for Intune for Education.

Try Infowise For A More Enhanced Learning Experience

Infowise is offering knowledge solutions that are designed to support students, teachers and school administrators with remote learning and remote teaching. Not only that, but it can also make it easier for the IT department of a school to develop and deploy customized solutions required by the faculty. Developers can use their web-browser to create powerful solutions without writing a single line of code with Infowise knowledge solutions. You can request a free demo or download a free trial to learn more about the solution.

Infowise

Here at Infowise Solutions, our client list includes some of the world’s best-known higher educational institutes, which is in addition to many school boards in North America, Europe, Australia, the Middle East and Africa. Our products that are used by the educational institutes are a cross-section of what we offer; workflow automation, process automation, advanced dynamic forms and document management and filing. We have helped thousands of schools and research facilities across the globe in leveraging the power of their Office 365 platform, to its fullest potential to quickly build a wide variety of modern solutions, tailor-made to meet their operational requirements. Through our implementation partners, we have been part of the digitization process for many universities and research organizations. Whether your preference is Microsoft 365 or On-premise our partners will assist and guide you on how best you can get your educational institution on the road onto a successful digitization process.

Remote Teaching and Learning in Microsoft 365 Education

2020-09-15T17:13:31Z

“Very easy to use and offers great tools for students, faculty, and staff to collaborate. Features like OneNote and your basic office software (Word/PowerPoint/excel) are great to have in a web version for easy and quick access without worrying about accessibility and compatibility issues. My office utilizes OneNote, to collaborate and train our employees on our team daily, while also utilizing it for note-taking and other options with outside vendors as well. OneNote is an amazing tool that is incorporated with Office 365 and it has helped our students remain organized and work in groups/collaborate in courses in an efficient manner as well. Word/PowerPoint/Excel have been around for some time, but the functionality and ease of using them in a web version has allowed our students, faculty, and staff to be more mobile and not stuck to a desk all of the time. The Office 365 software is great in a web/mobile version!” – Carissa J. – Director Enrollment for Higher Education. Things are slowly but steadily getting back to normal in several countries around the world after the coronavirus outbreak. As authorities continue to ease coronavirus restrictions, employees have started to return to their workplaces; while teachers and students are returning to school. However, several countries around the world including the United States, aren’t completely opening the schools just yet. In most states of the US, the reopening of the schools depends upon the school, district, and the decisions of local health authorities, while a few others are only allowing remote teaching and remote learning. In the states where hybrid or distance learning is allowed, students and educators are using Office 365 Education. Microsoft has been offering Office 365 for education for free to students and educators around the world for around six years, but recently, the Education version got a major revamp to support distance learning during the COVID-19 lockdowns.

The Basics

As mentioned earlier, Office 365 is free for students and educators belonging to the educational institutes enrolled in the Microsoft Education Program. Teachers and students don’t have to pay a monthly or yearly subscription fee for using Office 365 and they can enjoy access to a wide range of Office apps, including Microsoft Teams, SharePoint, OneNote, OneDrive, Forms, Outlook, Stream, Yammer, Planner, Learning Tools, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Other learning solutions like Minecraft: Education Edition are partially free; 10 students and 25 teachers can use the free trial of Minecraft, if they want to add more people, then they’d have to pay the subscription fee. The best part about Office 365 for education is that students and educators can use the desktop, online, or mobile version of the suite according to their convenience. Desktop versions of the Office apps are updated automatically, so the IT department doesn’t have to manually update the systems of students and educators every time an update rolls out. Microsoft also offers a wide range of free resources for educational institutes, teachers and students to make it easier for them to transition into the remote teaching and distance learning phase.

Collaboration with Office 365

Essentially, all the apps in the Office 365 suite are collaboration apps, and as we all know, collaboration is integral for distance learning and remote teaching. The collaboration features of Office 365 are way more enhanced than other suites. Let’s suppose a teacher wants to share a text file containing guidelines for an assignment with all the students of the class. Normally, they’d have to email the file to all the students, but with Office 365, the teacher can just upload the file on OneDrive, generate a shareable link, and share it with the students in the team group of the class. The teacher can also tag someone in the document using @ in the comment section of the document and can even direct them to a specific location. If the teachers and students collaborate on a file, the changes they make are reflected in real-time, along with the name of the person who made the changes. Version history is another great built-in feature of Office 365 as it allows admins to view previous versions of the file, review changes made by a particular person, and restore a previous version of a file. Teachers can also use Microsoft Forms to create quizzes and assignments. With PowerPoint, teachers can create interactive presentations and can use Microsoft Sway to create creative projects. Teachers can use Microsoft’s virtual chalkboard called the Microsoft Whiteboard during a Team meeting to deliver a more enhanced lecture. To make learning more interesting, teachers can invite guests and experts into their virtual classroom using Teams.

How Infowise Can Help With Remote Learning

Infowise has been providing various business solutions to companies around the world for several years, and recently, they started offering knowledge solutions to support remote learning. These knowledge solutions are designed to help developers to quickly deploy customized solutions so the students and educators can have an enhanced experience during remote classes. The solution allows developers to build useful apps without the need of code; they can do so using their web-browser. Furthermore, the solution can help automate processes, enhance forms, convert and print SharePoint lists and items, set up alerts, assign tasks, enable digital signature capabilities, automate the creation of lists, create shared calendars, and more. You can request a free demo or download a free trial to learn more about the solution.

Takeaway

Microsoft Office 365 is an excellent solution for both teachers and students, and the recent lockdowns proved it. Even after students and educators return to the classroom, they can continue their use of Office 365 and have an enhanced teaching and learning experience with increased collaboration.

Infowise

Working with data through external REST API

2020-09-02T20:55:54Z

Hi, There is a new feature that was recently added to Ultimate Forms (SharePoint Online edition only at this point, but coming on-premises as well). It is called "external data connections" and it allows you to work with a wide variety of non-SharePoint data sources via interfaces integrated in SharePoint, hosted on external pages or embedded on your own non-SharePoint pages. We currently support the following data source types:

Databases
- MS SQL (read/write)
- Oracle (read/write)
- MySql (read/write)
Web services
- REST (read/write)
- SOAP (currently write only)
Documents (stored in SharePoint document libraries or via FTP)
- Comma-delimited files (currently write only)
- Tab-delimited files (currently write only)
- Excel files (currently write only)
- Word files (currently write only)
Email (write only)

Once you create a connection, you can define forms for the connection and then either share the New form with internal and/or external users or share a data view, from which you can view and edit existing items, as well as add new ones. In this article I will guide through the process of creating such a data connection. I will be using the sample, but fully-functional REST API that we created and are sharing with our customers. It implements a very simple contact management API, allowing you to view a list of contacts, as well as add new contacts, view, edit and delete specific contacts.

Sample REST API

The API is hosted under https://www.infowisesolutions.com/samples/api/contacts. It exposes the regular set of operations (HTTP method and URL endpoint):

GET https://www.infowisesolutions.com/samples/api/contacts - get list of items
GET https://www.infowisesolutions.com/samples/api/contacts/1 - get item with ID 1
POST https://www.infowisesolutions.com/samples/api/contacts - add new item
PUT https://www.infowisesolutions.com/samples/api/contacts/1 - update item with ID 1
DELETE https://www.infowisesolutions.com/samples/api/contacts/1 - delete item with ID 1

Contact item itself has the following structure:

id - unique ID and primary key of the contact. This property is read-only and should not be set.
lastName - last name: text (up to 50 characters)
firstName - first (given) name: text (up to 50 characters)
dob- date of birth: date
active - boolean (yes/no)
units - number of installed product units: number

None of the properties are required by the API, but you can make any and all of them required on the data connection level.

Configuring External Data Connection

Once you open Ultimate Forms, click on External data connections under Modern forms section.
Click on Add new profile.
Enter a new title for your connection. It will be used as a page title in some scenarios, so give it a meaningful title like, such as Contacts.
Select REST under Type.
Check all forms and views under Allowed access as we want to allow both browsing existing items as well as adding new ones.
Enter https://www.infowisesolutions.com/samples/api/contacts under URL.
User name, password or headers are to be left blank as this sample API doesn't require any authentication
Under Columns enter the contact item properties as described above. Note the following:
1. id column needs to be marked as key (checkmark on the left of the column name).
2. Match the column type with the property data type as described above, for example, lastName should be mapped to Single line of text and dob should be mapped to Date and time. Incorrect mapping of column types will cause errors when interacting with the API.
3. You can change settings of every column, giving friendly title, defining columns as required, etc.
4. You can mark column as visible or hidden in View by clicking on the Eye icon next to column name. It doesn't affect the visibility of columns in forms.

Configuring Access Control

Access control defines where and how the data connection is exposed to users. You can use your data connection in 3 ways:

Within a web part on a SharePoint page
On a hosted page on our site
Embedded on your own non-SharePoint page (such as your external website).

If you are planning to use the hosted page, check Allow hosted forms and choose if you want to expose New and/or View (list of items), choose both options. After you save your profile, you will be able to view the actual hosted page URL here as well. If you are planing to view on a SharePoint page or embed on your own web page, enter the allowed page URL.

Configuring Forms

Once you've saved your profile, you can click on Design form icon to enter Form Designer. Accept the offered option of generating a form for you, it will add all columns to the form canvas. Make any adjustments you want and publish the form.

Using Your Data Connection

Edit your connection and switch to Access Control tab. Here you can copy the page URL for the View page. Open it in a new browser tab, your data connection is now ready to be used. External data connections are a new, exciting and easy-to-use way of interacting with your existing data and API, giving you powerful options of integration of your data sources.

SharePoint based—no-code helpdesk solutions by Infowise

2020-09-01T17:20:49Z

Infowise Provides SharePoint-Based No-Code Solutions for Help Desk Systems

"I had no experience with SharePoint or software development – but with Infowise, I can build solutions that would have taken a long time to learn if I had to use SharePoint Designer or other tools. Some of the things we do today can't be done without a tool like Infowise."

Mikkel Nygaard, Head of Process & Procedure Management for Global App Casting

Help desk solutions allow organizations to automate and improve customer care and other related issues. It generally includes three parts; ticketing management, optimization and reporting, and automation suite. An efficient help desk solution allows organizations to streamline all help desk processes with the help of automation, and provides advanced security features that aren't available in manual processing. An advanced help desk solution also provides online chat features and enables increased collaboration between multiple contact channels.

The Client

Global App Casting, headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden, is a group of companies that provide design and development AppCasting services to clients all over the world. The company leverages the cloud to connect owners and app-authors, provides media and digital solutions to multinational corporations, and delivers best practices tools and success plans to its clients.

The Issue

Global App Casting was using the out-of-the-box SharePoint and Office 365 for managing various aspects of the help desk, including communication and document management. The problem with the out-of-the-box SharePoint and Office 365 was that it was not meeting the needs of the company. They required a solution that could help them run their business, and their use of SharePoint and Office 365 was limited to spreadsheets and emails.

The Requirement

Global App Casting required an efficient help desk solution with advanced capabilities as the out-of-the-box solution was not meeting their needs. They required the solution to be custom made according to their needs and has the ability to integrate with their current solution.

The Solution

During the process of choosing a SharePoint developer, the SharePoint App store suggested Infowise ULTIMATEforms to Global App Casting. After reviewing the solution, they found out that ULTIMATEforms is highly customizable and does not require a single line of code, which is why they choose Infowise to deliver the help desk solution that they need. Infowise solutions has been delivering advanced solutions for over a decade and partners with some of the global industry-leading companies. Recently, Infowise Solutions received a five-year US General Services Administration (GSA) IT Schedule 70 contract to deliver SharePoint and Microsoft 365 based solutions. "We have been servicing various public sectors for several years, being listed as a vetted and approved GSA (General Services Administration) vendor only helps us to further focus our products for US government clients. We offer advanced and efficient collaboration solutions in an era where the digital workplace is becoming more and more necessary." — Avi Pagi, Partnership and Business Development Manager at Infowise. Few components of ULTIMATEforms included in the Global App Casting help desk solution are;

Smart Import Pro: Fetches data from other business solutions.
Smart List Pro: Ease of data entry and improves the quality of data.
Smart Action Pro: Defines and executes automated actions.
Smart Alert Pro: Sends automated alerts to dedicated users in case of a pre-defined event.

The Benefits

After implementing the customized version of ULTIMATEforms, Global App Casting experienced the following benefits.

Automation
A complete solution for managing all the aspects of the help desk
Flexibility to expand and develop the solution
No coding experience required
Integration with a current business solution, and more.

Conclusion

Infowise ULTIMATEforms is an easy to implement a solution that you can use to increase the efficiency of your existing – out-of-the-box SharePoint and Office 365. The team at Infowise can customize the solution for you according to your needs. Still, the solution is so easy to customize that you can expand it yourself without any coding experience. Furthermore, Infowise offers a pre-made helpdesk solution that you can implement as is and enhance the capabilities of your SharePoint and Office 365 based solution.

Infowise Provides Government Agencies with a Robust SharePoint Based Solution for Managing Ever-Growing RFP's

2020-08-26T17:41:14Z

"When it comes to extending and enhancing SharePoint, we partner with the best in the business to assist our clients to get the most from their investment. Our partnership with Infowise Solutions is critical to the way we do business and complements the depth and breadth of what we do best. We rely on Infowise for strategic tools that provide rapid application development. We have built many solutions that use their add-ons for enhancements. These tools are key to "no-code" solutions. Their support is amazing, whenever we have any issue or question they are there to assist to make our solutions the best they can be." — Jeanne Conde, SharePoint Solutions Architect. SimpleSharePoint An RFP (request for proposal) solution stores and manages all the documents and details about projects and to solicit bids from contractors. It is widely used in the government sectors around the world as it allows the stakeholders to examine the feasibility of the bids, the ability of the bidder to complete a project, and the overall health of the bidding company.

The Client

RePoint Technologies, LLC, is a technical service company based in Washington, DC. The company primarily works on government projects, which require the capability to track opportunities throughout the government proposal lifecycle. Apart from providing the ability to track various opportunities gathered from different websites, this tracking capability also makes it easier for the company to decide if a proposal is worth bidding on, and allow them to create a collaborative workspace.

The Issue

RePoint decided to create an opportunity tracker list in SharePoint, and even though the list was rich, it still lacked some areas.

Due to large and multi-line text boxes, the New/Edit form was too long.
Lack of color coding made it extremely hard to determine the task that most needed the attention – complicated view of lists.
Manual proposal site creation, which consumed a lot of time.
Difficult to manage and update Customer Relationship Management (CRM).

After determining the issues, RePoint decided to implement a more robust solution for themselves and their clients. The solution they required needed to have;

Highly customizable site templates.
Proposal site creation directly from the opportunity tracker list.
Advanced CRM capabilities.

However, in order to modify their current solution, they required services of a SharePoint developer, which would require a substantial amount of resources, including time and money, resources they prefer to spend on critical business processes.

The Solution

RePoint Technologies decided to leverage Infowise Solutions' ULTIMATEforms to build a more robust solution. Infowise solutions partners with industry-leading companies around the world and has been delivering advanced solutions for over a decade. Recently, Infowise Solutions was awarded a five-year contract of U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) I.T. Schedule 70 to provide Microsoft 365 and SharePoint-based solutions.

-------------------------------------------------------

— Avi Pagi, Partnership and Business Development Manager at Infowise.

-------------------------------------------------------

The Benefits

Within one day of implementing Infowise Solutions' ULTIMATEforms, RePoint Technologies was able to add advanced capabilities to their existing solution and streamlined their processes. Their solution now has;

Simplified opportunity tracking capabilities with color-coding.
Easier data entry enabled by custom form with tabs.
Opportunity status based dynamic proposal site creation.
Pre-bid proposal site creation (manual).
Automated alerts to relevant parties.

After collaborating with Infowise and using their solution, Repoint has now decided to add more capabilities to the solution. The new capabilities will take about a day or two to implement and will include;

Lead generation lists
Converting leads into opportunity list
A more robust CRM

Conclusion

After the implementation of Infowise ULTIMATEforms, government agencies can substantially enhance their SharePoint experience, just like RePoint Technologies. We are expanding the capabilities of their solution and will continue to do so as the technology gets more advanced. Head on to our quick start page to learn more about ULTIMATEforms.

Powerful SharePoint Solutions for Facility Management by Infowise

2020-08-24T19:37:48Z

"Ultimate Forms gave us the competitive edge to deliver to our customer's powerful SharePoint-based applications to solve their business-critical needs and helped us achieve a competitive advantage."

— Ed Taylor, CEO, Technical Assurance

ON-PNT solutions is a GIS (geographic information system) web-based solution for facility management. It works as a central solution for facility management companies and building owners to store their data regarding the inventory of building systems, ongoing construction, assessments, and similar relevant business processes.

The Client

Technical Assurance, Inc. is a Cleveland-based nationally recognized building enclosure consulting firm that's been operating since 1993. The company has over two hundred years of combined experience in construction, materials, maintenance, and maximizing the ROI of any major structural capital assets.

The Issue

Technical Assurance wanted to help its customers to efficiently manage their capital assets by providing improved maintenance via software that analyzes repair and repair cost, assures industry best practices, and improves the efficiency of several other business processes. Technical Assurance was using paper systems, which made it hard for them to perform day to day tasks because of manual processes and developing their own propriety system would require a substantial amount of resources.

The Requirement

Along with the features mentioned above, the solution also needed to have;

Ease of administration.
Ease of use for end-users.
Visualization capabilities to draw focus to areas of attention, including exception management.
Ease of access to contextual information.
Leveraged GIS data and mapping.
Reporting capabilities.
Contextual information.
Data acquisition from mobile clients.
Data and workflow automation.

The Solution

After looking at several options for four months, Technical Assurance chose Microsoft SharePoint; however, the out-of-the-box system wasn't fully capable of delivering all the components that they needed. Technical Assurance decided to customize Infowise Solutions' ULTIMATEforms to build a more robust ON-PNT solution. Infowise solutions partners with industry-leading companies around the world and has been delivering advanced solutions for over a decade. Recently, Infowise Solutions was awarded a five-year contract of US General Services Administration (GSA) IT Schedule 70 to provide Microsoft 365 and SharePoint-based solutions.

---------------------------------------

— Avi Pagi, Partnership and Business Development Manager at Infowise.

--------------------------------------- The customized version of ULTIMATEforms contained the following components;

Smart Action Pro: Defines and executes automated actions.
Smart List Pro: Ease of data entry and improves the quality of data.
Smart Alert Pro: Automated alerts triggered by a defined action.
Smart Import Pro: Imports data from different business solutions.
Associated Item: Enhances UX by allowing users to view relevant information with minimum effort.
Connected Fields: Automatically filters subsequent pull-down lists based on the previous pull-down list.
Indicator: Visual representation of data directly available in the lists.

The Benefits

After integrating ULTIMATEforms, the end-users of Technical Assurance's ON-PNT solution experienced the following benefits.

Ease of use.
Enhanced UX.
Quick Adoption.
Ease of scalability without expensive custom development.

The benefits aren't limited to the end-users; Technical Assurance also experienced some benefits.

Efficient RFPs.
Advantage over other solutions in terms of extensibility, functionality and ease-of-use.
Cost-effectiveness and increased profits due to low development costs.
More suited ON-PNT solution without spending a substantial amount of resources on the development of proprietary software.

Conclusion

ULTIMATEforms by Infowise can enhance the efficiency of your SharePoint based ON-PNT and other solutions. You also have the option to customize the components of ULTIMATEforms to suit your needs better. Head on to our quick start page to learn more about ULTIMATEforms.

Adding Forms to Microsoft Teams

2020-08-21T18:59:35Z

Microsoft Teams has experienced an explosion in growth with new features getting added all the time. It has been clear from the start that Teams is a very close sibling to SharePoint Online. In fact, when you first create a Teams site, it adds a new SharePoint site collection for storing documents and information. It also uses Office 365 Groups for security which is another feature shared by SharePoint. For businesses using Office 365 and SharePoint Online, it is clear that Microsoft Teams is going to be a major part of the platform. If your organization has already adopted Teams and is using it regularly, you will want to learn how to bring over Ultimate Forms features to your Teams site to create a seamless experience for your users. If you are new to Teams and just getting started, it is best to learn how to incorporate Ultimate Forms right from the start! The good news is that we have made it easy for you to take advantage of the integration features. The most important first step is to learn how to add a custom form list and related rollup view to a Teams tab. We have a new easy to follow tutorial to help you: » Adding your custom forms to Microsoft Teams It really is amazingly simple. Once you are comfortable with this part, the next thing to tackle is adding other custom Ultimate Forms Modern Web Parts to Teams. You can learn more about this in our other related blog post: » Ultimate Forms Modern Web Parts for Microsoft Teams Regardless of your exprience with Teams, if you are using SharePoint and Ultimate Forms regularly, you want to learn these features. Please try it out and let us know if you any questions.

Hosting forms on non-SharePoint sites

2020-08-19T20:23:16Z

Hi, Forms are everywhere. We use them to collect information from our customer, submit support requests, ask for sales quotes. Almost every website out there contains at least one form of some sort. Ultimate Forms allows you to easily create sophisticated dynamic forms based on SharePoint lists and, as a recent addition, based on external data sources, such as databases, web services, APIs and even simple files. Once created, those forms can be hosted:

On SharePoint pages themselves.
On Microsoft Teams tabs.
On pages hosted by our website.
Embedded into your own pages on your own websites.

Depending on whether you work with SharePoint lists or with external data sources, you starting point will be different, but we put in a tremendous effort to make the whole process as similar as possible.

SharePoint Lists

If you want to work with data stored inside SharePoint, you start by creating a list (or a document library). Create all the columns you need for your data (you can do it directly within the list or through Form Designer). Then design the form using Form Designer. Once you click on Publish, the form is ready to be used, inside SharePoint. If you want to be able to offer access to the form to people outside of your organization, you need to provide some sort of external access. You can always use the external sharing capability of SharePoint, but in many cases it won't be the right approach, as it still requires the user to log in, with their external credentials. Using External form functionality, built into Form Designer, you can expose your list on a page hosted by us or embed within your own page. People, who are not users in your organization, will then be able to enter information through the form, without having direct access to the underlying list.

External Data Connections

You can create connections directly to external data sources to create, view and edit information through form and list view infrastructure of Ultimate Forms, inside SharePoint sites, Teams, hosted on our pages and embedded into your own pages. Depending on the connection type, you might be limited to only adding new items (such as with Email or Document connections) or add, view and edit (database connections and soon, web services and REST APIs).

Hosted Pages

The easiest option to allow external access is to host your form on the pages we provide. Simply allow this inside your External form or External data connection settings, no additional configuration necessary. This option is best for quick and easy solution, but it provide very limited customization options.

Embedded Forms

You can embed forms inside your own pages using the script snippet we provide. Make sure to specify the page URL in the form or external data connection settings, to ensure it is allowed to load on your page. Copy the script snippet inside an element of your page that will contain the form (such as <div> element).

Security and Abuse Prevention

External forms allow external, anonymous users to submit information into your internal systems, thus secuity is of the highest importance. Let's review some of the security features we incorporated into the forms:

Limit type of access - by default, in External forms, only New form is exposed. You have to be a site collection administrator to enable Display and Edit forms. In any case, external users never communicate with your SharePoint directly. They communicate with our apps that first performs security checks on the requested resource and ensures that it is allowed by the external form settings.
Specify embedded page URL - only pages specified in the form or data connection settings will be allowed to load the form.
CAPTCHA, which stands for "Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart" is an automated mechanism that is able to determine if whoever is trying to submit a form is in fact a human or a bot. We use Google ReCAPTCHA v3, which is the latest iteration of CAPTCHA technology, that is able to conduct its task without requiring any user input, purely based on the way form is being interacted with. All pages hosted by us already have ReCAPTCHA built in. If you are embedding forms on your own pages and those pages are open to everyone, without any authentication, it is highly recommended that you enable ReCAPTCHA.
To do so, sign up for ReCAPTCHA v3, then specify Site key and Secret key in the embedded form properties. You can read more and sign up here.
Monitoring - site collection administrators are able to see which list within their environment have External form settings turned on. Just click on the Monitoring tab in the app, then switch to External form.

External access to both SharePoint and non-SharePoint data allows to further leverage technology to provide fast and powerful solution for your organization's challenges.

Associated Items with Just One Click

2020-08-18T16:03:29Z

Sometimes it can be the little things that make a difference. The addition of the Associated Items Button might seem minor at first glance, but it really saves time and makes for a better user exprience. I use Associated Items functionality in just about every kind of solution that I create. It is very often at the center of the functionality. Users need to add these records all the time. In general, it is a fast process, but sometimes we want to streamline and make things even easier. Especially in common scenarios where it is a common and expected record that is frequently added. In any kind of solution, we don't want to slow down the user with manual steps to add information that is already known. By using the Associated Items Button you can add child records with just one click. What I really love is that is so simple to configure this using the related dropdown pickers when in Form Designer. Think about common scenarios that come up repeatedly. In this example from a help desk ticket system, it is very common that a web meeting needs to be set up to review the problem. Since this is frequently added as a task on help tickets, making a button for adding that task is much faster than having users retype the information over and over again. We have a new tutorial which shows you the simple steps needed to create this handy functionality which you can access here: » Associated Items Button Tutorial

Export and import modern forms

2020-08-14T19:31:58Z

Hi, If you've started designing Modern forms using our Form Designer, you've already experienced how powerful and easy-to-use it is. You can create dynamic forms that implement advanced layout, sophisticated permissions and rules. One common improvement that our customers have been asking for is the ability to export form settings, so you can then import them to a different list. For example, when you develop a form in your development environment, you want to be able to quickly and easily transfer your work to the actual production list. And now this option is available! Just use Export and Import buttons on the top toolbar in Form Designer to store your current form as a file and then import it wherever you need. You can import into:

A different list within the same site
A list on a different site
A list on a site in a different site collection
A list in a different tenant
Between different versions of SharePoint: on-premises and online

Please note that we only export/import form settings. We do not replicate the actual list structure and will not create or modify any columns in the list. We expect the two lists to be of the same or similar structure. At least the columns used on the form must be of the same type and use the same internal names. Best would be to export your list as a template and then import it in another environment. Note that if what you need is to duplicate the whole solution, including all lists, forms, actions, alerts, etc. (and you're on SharePoint Online), you should use Template Manager instead. Get your credentials for it from us and start using it if you still haven't started.

Microsoft 365 for Education: Remote Learning Made Easy

2020-08-13T17:58:36Z

Microsoft has been providing technological solutions for decades. Now, as educational institutes, teachers, and students are searching for ways to enable remote teaching and remote learning, Microsoft has developed an enhanced version of Office 365 for Education. In addition to the basic features of Office 365, the education version provides a wide range of specifically designed tools for students and educators. These tools include but are not limited to OneNote for Education, Microsoft Teams for Education, Minecraft for Education, Immersive Reader Tool, Take a Test App, and Microsoft School Data Sync. In this article, we'll tell you all about these tools and how they help students and teachers.

OneNote for Education

The simplest way to define OneNote for Education is that it is your digital notebook, but it is so much more than that. It allows staff, students, and teachers to transform the way they collaborate and makes it easier for them to organize their work. Every student can create a content library for their handouts and create a space where they can easily collaborate about creative ideas and class lessons; simply put, it empowers students to develop the best version of their work.

Teachers can use OneNote for Education to organize the classroom by compiling course content and lesson plans in a cloud-based digital library, which allows them to keep track of assignments and other course-related materials.

In addition to organizing, OneNote for Education enables students and teachers to use digital ink for creating diagrams, sketches, handwritten notes, pictures, videos, etc. Microsoft's powerful search feature is built-in the powerful note-taking app, making it easier for users to find the content they are looking for.

Click here to learn more about OneNote for Education here.

Microsoft Teams for Education

Microsoft Teams for Education is an essential tool for remote learning and remote teaching, and it wouldn't be wrong to say that it is a complete distance learning solution. The digital hub brings together apps, conversation, assignments, and content under a single room, allowing teachers and staff to create vibrant digital classrooms for the students. Teachers and students can also create teams or groups for collaboration, and teachers can connect with other members of the teaching community around the globe.

Microsoft Teams enables educators to easily connect and converse with the students, create a Class Notebook (OneNote feature), share files such as assignments or presentations, grade papers, etc. Teachers can provide interactive lessons, timely and effective feedback as Teams have built-in assignment management and OneNote Class Notebooks. Using the Professional Learning Communities (PLC), teachers can share instructional material and use Staff Teams for collaboration, relevant conversations, and announcements.

Minecraft for Education

You may be wondering what a game is doing in this list of Office 365 Education apps and tools, but Minecraft Education Edition isn't just a game, it's much more than that. Educational institutes use this app as an inclusive way to teach students how to code and to polish their problem-solving skills.

According to Sean Arnold, a STEM coach and NYC special educator,

"Chat features are enabled with speech-to-text functionality, which lets struggling readers and writers participate with the community at their own pace. Minecraft: Education Edition gives students with physical and intellectual disabilities the opportunity to be creative, explore without fear of failure, and feel a sense of autonomy in the classroom…my students were no longer confined to wheelchairs or leg braces; they could walk, create, and even fly. It's a world where they are free from ridicule, free from their real-world struggles and free to create a world that they desire."

Teachers in Toronto have been using this app to teach students about the environment, geography, urban planning, science; they say that students have become more engaged in learning, their creative problem-solving skills have improved, and they have become more confident.

Immersive Reader Tool

The Immersive Reader tool allows teachers to implement proven techniques for improving reading and writing for students of all ages and learning abilities. This free tool helps students studying in different languages to increase fluency for reading the English language and helps them improve reading comprehension. It can also help new readers to build confidence to read at higher levels and help students with learning differences with the help of text decoding solutions. The best thing about this tool is that it's Optical Character Recognition (OCR) deciphers text within a picture, allowing this tool to work with pictures scanned from books.

With this app, students and teachers can change text spacing, size of the font, background color, break down words into syllables, and highlight sub-clauses, verbs, adjectives, and nouns, change reading speed, and read text aloud, and more.

Take a Test App

Take a Test App, powered by Microsoft Forms, allows students to take quizzes, tests, and complete their assignments with ease. It also allows teachers to save time by eliminating the need for printing and collecting test papers. Not only that, Take a Test App can even grade students' tests as it has a built-in feature to grade test papers.

Microsoft School Data Sync

Microsoft School Data Sync (SDS) is another great tool in the Office 365 Education; it reads roster and school data from the Student Information System (SIS) and automates the time-consuming process of importing and synchronizing data from the SIS. It also enables single sign-on for several third-party apps such as Edmodo, Blackboard, and Canvas. It creates class Teams for Microsoft Teams, Office 365 Groups for SharePoint Online and Exchange Online, school groups for Intune for Education, and OneNote Class notebooks.

Want Even More? Try ULTIMATEforms!

ULTIMATEforms is a versatile and effective solution that allows teachers and students to increase the capabilities of their out-of-the-box SharePoint and Office 365 for Education. Users can create powerful forms, automate processes, set-up alerts, assign tasks, convert and print SharePoint lists and items, automate list creation, enable digital signature capabilities, create shared calendars, etc. These are just a few of the things you can do with this powerful solution; request a demo or download free trial now to learn more about its capabilities.

Infowise

Everything You Need To Know About Microsoft 365 Education

2020-08-01T14:09:23Z

Everything You Need To Know About Office 365 Education

As educators, public health officials, and community leaders across the globe contemplate their next move due to the COVID-19 outbreak, it is evident that remote learning will be an essential part to any successful reopening strategy. Among such solutions, Office 365 Education is perhaps the best one as it has all the tools that students and educators require to transition into a virtual classroom.

Office 365 for Education Plans

There are three plans of Office 365 Education; Office 365 A1, Office 365 A3, and Office 365 A5. The A1 plan is the most basic one, and students and teachers can use it for free. If the teachers and students require additional features, then they can subscribe to the A3 and A5 plans available for $3.5 and $8.0 user/ per month, respectively. If you need the basic Office apps and services, then the Office 365 Education A1 plan will be enough for you, but remember that 4 out of 5 Office 365 applications in the A1 plan are online only. To sign up for Office 365 Education, all you need is your school email address. Once students and educators sign up for the A1 plan, they can access all Microsoft core collaboration and productivity tools via the cloud. They can enable cross-platform collaboration for remote learning and remote teaching using email, group collaboration, and chat tools included in the plan. Both teachers and students can access the tools and their data from any device as everything is stored on the Cloud, OneDrive, except Publisher. As mentioned earlier, the A1 plan is the most basic and free plan of Office 365 Education, and the core apps included in the plan are available for use in their online-only form; only OneNote is available on the desktop version. Not only an unlimited number of teachers and students can join on the Office 365 for Education A1 plan, but it also provides Professional Learning Community (PLC) groups, Class and Staff notebooks, eDiscovery center for compliance solutions, data loss prevention, rights management, and encryption.

Office 365 Education Apps

The A1, A3, and A5 plan of Office 365 for education offers the following apps and services. A1

Word
Excel
PowerPoint
Outlook
OneNote
SharePoint
Exchange
Teams
Forms
School Data Sync
OneDrive
Stream
Sway
Power Apps
Flow
Yammer

A3 All the apps and services included in the A1 plan +

Publisher
Access
Bookings

A5 All the apps and services included in the A3 plan +

PowerBI

These are only the apps and services that these plans offer; each plan has its unique features which you can review here.

Outlook

Microsoft’s organizational and business email, Outlook, is the equivalent of Gmail and works as your ID for all Office 365 Education apps and services. Teachers and students can sign-up for the Outlook Web Access for free, and with the A1 plan of Office 365 Education, they get a 50 GB inbox limit and unlimited email storage with legal hold and In-place archiving. Students and educators that already have an Outlook account can connect it with the OWA to use it for Office 365 Education.

Word

Word is Microsoft’s flagship desktop publishing and word processing application. Teachers and students on the A1 plan can use the web version for free and enable instant and simultaneous collaboration on their word files.

Excel

Teachers and students can use Excel to create spreadsheets and visualizations; they can also collaborate using the software and get AI-based insights. The A1 plan of Office 365 Education only provides the web version.

PowerPoint

Students and educators can use the web version of PowerPoint by subscribing to the A1 plan. The application provides a library of templates and graphics and allows them to create, edit, and collaborate on slideshows and presentations with cinematic motions, animations, and 3D models.

OneNote

Teachers and students can gain access to the desktop version of OneNote by subscribing to the A1 plan of Office 365 for Education. This note-taking app by Microsoft allows users to hand draw and annotate with a stylus, collaborate, and organize.

SharePoint

SharePoint is a must-have software for remote teaching and remote learning; it allows students and educators to collaborate virtually and seamlessly integrates with a wide range of Office 365 Education apps and services including Word, PowerPoint, Excel, OneNote, OneDrive, and more. If you want to get the most out of this platform, you can easily integrate partner solutions such as ULTIMATEforms.

Teams

The most important software for creating a virtual classroom Teams is a collaboration platform that teachers and students can use for free after subscribing to the A1 plan. Teachers can use it to conduct online classes, share study material, and conduct meetings.

OneDrive

OneDrive is Microsoft’s cloud storage tool that allows teachers and students to set a time limit for links, access whiteboard via phone, scan documents, and save results as documents. All the data stored on the app is protected by encryption and loss management, and users of Office 365 for Education get unlimited storage for their data.

Stream

In simpler terms, Stream is Microsoft’s YouTube, which teachers and students can use to create, share, and communicate using videos throughout the Office 365 Education ecosystem.

Flow

With Flow, teachers and students can automate repetitive tasks easily in real-time across multiple applications without writing a single line of code.

Sway

Students and teachers can use Sway to create visual and interactive stories; the app provides pre-designed packages and integrates with web and desktop-based applications.

Forms

Teachers can use the form to conduct tests, collect data, create self-marking quizzes, and create questionnaires. They can also integrate it with Excel to generate insights and seamlessly deliver data.

Yammer

Educational institutes can use Yammer as their internal social networking platform. It belongs to the same niche of software like Slack and does the same job as Facebook but with enhanced security and added functionality.

Power Apps

Power Apps allows teachers and students to create customized apps according to their needs without writing a single line of code.

School Data Sync

Included in the A1 plan of Office 365 Education, School Data Sync is a handy app that connects to your school’s Student Information System to read and integrate important information such as the school and roster data.

Infowise

Create associated item with a single click

2020-07-28T21:02:07Z

Hi, As you know, associated items column is a great tool for building real life business solutions. Everything in life is about connections and relationships and being able to create, manage and display associations is an essential and, probably, most commonly used feature of Ulimate Forms. Associated items are ubiquitous, they can be found in expense reports, quotes, project management solutions, helps desks, practically anywhere, which is why we provide first class support for this functionality within Ultimate Forms. Special support is provided in Classic and Modern forms, Actions, Alerts, Print and other components. We also provide multiple ways of creating and editing child items:

Via grid in forms
Via pop-up forms
In list views
Through Actions

And now we are introducing a new way of creating associated items, probably the easiest of them all. With just a single click of a button, we can create a child item, based on the column values of the parent item (directly and/or through expressions, calculations and function results). Let me give you an example. In our Employee Training solution (which you can install for free directly from within your Ultimate Forms app), we are providing the ability to sign up for a training course. Until now, it was only possible by running a manual action, which can be a little confusing, as you needed to open the manual actions pop-up and then click on the action. Not too complicated, but still requires explanations. Using buttons, it's just a single click! Our new button type, Create associated item, is here to help. Let me show how it is configured:

I have a list of Courses and a child list of Registrations. I will not be explaining how to set up the lists, there are plenty of tutorials talking about that.
Drag and drop a new button just above the associated items column. Actually, it doesn't matter where the button is located. Moreover, it doesn't even need the associated items column to be visible on the form, as long as it exists in the list.
In the button settings, set button type to "Create associated item". Then select the associated items column to work with and map the column values you want to set. Note that only associated items are supported, not associated documents.
Note that you can use our Value Builder here, so all functions and calculations are supported. Also, you don't need to concern yourself with actually generating the connection between child and parent items, it is done automatically.
Publish your form and voila! You can now simply click the button to create a new child item. Consider using permissions on the button to control who and when can see and use it

Create associated item button is great for scenarios when you need to create a new child item using pre-defined logic. Course registrations are a great example, as all we basically need here is the current user identity, which we can fetch using our [Current user] function. Another example could be creating a new child task based on the current status of a project. It's really up to you to decide what is going to be the scenario for you!

Infowise web parts in Microsoft Teams tabs

2020-07-24T20:30:12Z

Hi, A few months ago I wrote a blog article describing how you can integrate Ultimate Forms web parts in your Microsoft Teams. The approach I demonstrated in the article used the ability to use SharePoint add-in to display a web part page from SharePoint within Teams. By placing our web parts on the page, we are able to use them within Teams. This is a good approach that provides a high level of flexibilty. In some cases, it's even the only possible approach, for instance when you want to place more than one web part on the same page (dashboards anyone?). But with that, it's also more laborious and time consuming. A few days ago we performed an infrastructure update of our web parts. By using the latest SharePoint Framework infrastructure, we are now able to leverage the latest features of web parts, such as direct integration on Teams tabs. So instead of creating a special SharePoint web part page and placing the web parts on them, you can create a Teams tab directly from the web part, much easier! The following web parts are supported in Teams:

Charts - display data in a form of a chart
Rollups - combine data from several lists within one view + show list of items coming from an external data source
List Search - search information in lists
Calendar - display color-coded calendars from multiple sources
Form - display a form to submit data to external forms (submission to SharePoint list is also possible, for example using Add item button on Rollup)

You need to create at least one profile (set of settings) for the web part you are planning to use through Ultimate Forms app. Let me take you through the steps of creating a web part tab in Teams. Make you already uploaded version 1.3.0.0 or later of Extensions. Download Extensions

Sync add-in with Teams - once you upload Infowise Ultimate Forms Extensions.sppkg file into your enterprise catalog, you click on Sync to Teams button on the File ribbon
Once the sync is complete, the web parts can be found in Teams and added to tabs
Go to the team you want to add web part in and click on plus button to create a new tab
Use Search or browser to choose the web part you want
Proceed through the prompt to add the tab. Once the tab is created, you can configure the web part to connect to the data.
Most web parts will request a site URL and then load the available profiles from the site. You can connect to any site within your tenant you have permissions for, not necessarily the site linked to your team.
You can reconfigure your tab at a later time by opening settings through the dropdown menu located within the tab header.

Enjoy!

Detailed log now in Alerts

2020-07-22T16:05:30Z

Hi, If you use our Alerts component of Ultimate Forms (and you should, it's amazingly powerful!), you've probably noticed the Log tab. Of course, you do have to be an administrator for it :). There you can see which alerts were sent, when, to whom and if there was an issue, you will see failed attempts as well. It's a great tool for tracking your alerts! Until now, we only registered successful alerts and alerts that failed during the actual sending. There could've been cases, when you expected an alert to be sent, but it wasn't and there was nothing in the log. It could be for instance due to SharePoint list throttling or incorrect conditions, these kind of cases would not end up in the log, making tracking difficult. That's why we added the Detailed log toggle (already live in SharePoint Online and coming soon on-premises). When enabled, your log will show messages coming from different stages of the alert's life cycle, such as triggering, preparation, condition check and so on. You will also see more error messages and explanations why the alert was not sent (such as that the item didn't pass the conditions). In total, you could be seeing 5-10 entries per alert. You control if you want to see the original, concise log (which is the default) or the detailed version. Note for SharePoint Online - log entries made before the feature was added will only be visible when Detailed log option is turned on, it is related to the data format of the older entries. They were not removed, they simply cannot be filtered according to the toggle. As the log entries only stay in the system for one month, it's a temporary issue.

New version for Ultimate Forms Extensions

2020-07-20T16:09:34Z

Hi, A few years ago Microsoft started rolling out support for the new, Modern user interface for SharePoint Online (as, subsequently, for the latest on-premises versions). It presented a completely new, up-to-date look & feel, functionality and capabilities, bringing SharePoint in line with other modern web applications. Modern UI required a new type of web parts and customizations, incompatible with the old way of doing things. These new components, based on SharePoint Framework (SPFx), a client-side development framework running directly in your browser, opened a door to new, exciting opportunities for both developers and end users. Our product, Ultimate Forms for SharePoint Online, was first released over 5 years ago, prior to SPFx being introduced and was designed to support the old, classic UI. Once SPFx came along, we were eager to support it as well. That's why we developed Ultimate Forms Extensions, a companion add-in that provides support for Modern UI:

Client-side web parts - replace the existing app parts and add new ones, that were previously impossible to implement due to the inherent limitations of the old app part infrastructure
Column customizers- provide support for our custom column types, such as Color Choice, in modern list views
Modern forms - allow you to develop the next generation of our forms in Form Designer
Toolbar extensions - add our buttons to modern list view toolbar (such as our ubiquitous Design button)
Application extensions - add another layer of security by disabling editing list items through the side bar when custom forms are applied to the list

Why did we need a new add-in?

Couldn't we just add the new features to the existing one? Unfortunately, no. The SPFx solutions require a brand new add-in package format that is incompatible with the existing one. The new package creates a .sppkg solutions, while the previous one creates .app file.

Can I just install Extensions without installing Ultimate Forms?

No, Extensions is not a stand-alone app. It's just the extension of Ultimate Forms features into Modern UI. It cannot be used on its own.

New version of Ultimate Forms Extensions

SPFx is a brand new infrastructure and as such, is constantly undergoing upgrades, new versions are being released all the time. When we first released Extensions a couple of years ago, SPFx was still pretty young and used infrastructure components that were available at the time. Since then, several new versions have been released. Recently we decided that it was time for us to upgrade Extensions to take advantage of these upgrades in the underlying infrastructure components. That's why we released version 1.3.0.0. It uses the latest versions of TypeScript, React, SPFx and Fluent UI and opens up exciting new capabilities, such as tighter integration with Microsoft Teams. Normally, we make changes to Extensions on our side and they become immediately available to you, without any action required of you. The actual code of the add-in resides at an external location that we are able to update whenever we need. You've been enjoying bug fixes, improvements and new features without having to perform any manual updates whatsoever! But this time we do need you to upgrade the actual solution package. Due to the way SPFx solutions are designed, the solution file references the SPFx version it supports, so once we move on to the next version (which is obviously rare), you need to perform the upgrade the .sppkg file. Download Extensions

Do I have to upgrade right away?

As all new bug fixes and features will only be made available to the new version, upgrade is advisable. The old version will not stop working at any point, so you can schedule the upgrade when it is convenient for you.

How complex is the upgrade?

It's actually ridiculously simple, especially when the add-in is made available to all sites through your app catalog (which is the recommended approach). Download .sppkg file here and upload to your app catalog. Grant permissions in the pop-up prompt and you're done. If you didn't make the add-in available to all sites through the catalog, you will need to upgrade each site that uses the add-in individually through Site Contents. NOTE: for a brief period of time there was a typo in the .sppkg file name. Instead of saying Infowise Ultimate Forms Extensions, it said Utlimate :). Just delete the old file from the catalog if you see that there is one with the typo in the name as uploading the new one will not override it and you will receive an error saying that you already have a solution with the same ID.

Will anything break?

No! We tested the new package extensively and all the features are working as expected. In fact, there have been several bug fixes implemented!

Sync to Teams

You might notice a new button in App Catalog that says Sync to Teams. It's a new feature in SharePoint Online that allows client-side web parts to become available to be added to tabs within Teams. One of the features of the new version is the infrastructure update that allows us to leverage this capability. Using this feature, you can create tabs within Teams that host one of our web parts. And as always, we are here if you have any questions or comments!

Error about missing DLL after component installation

2020-07-14T10:17:40Z

The latest versions of Alerts, Import and Actions might introduce an error after installation. When entering the Actions administration page, an error is presented: Could not load file or assembly 'Microsoft.Exchnage.WebServices'.. Unfortunately, this error had been caused by our latest efforts to upgrade, unite and reduce component sizes - some environments fail to process the change in which 3rd part DLLs were moved from one SharePoint solution to another, thus not deploying the said DLLs to your farm servers. As it looks now, there is nothing we can do with the component installers to fix this error, but proposing the following course of actions to resolve the problem on your Farms:

Restart SharePoint Timer and Administration services on all of your farm servers
Uninstall the following components: Actions, Alerts and Import
Go into the central administration > system settings > manage form solutions
1. Locate the solution named: InfoiwseTrialHelper.wsp
2. Retract it
3. Delete it
Repeat step 1.
Install the components: Alerts, Import, Actions
Repeat step 1.

We apologize for the inconvenience with this upgrade and as always strive to make the update experience as smooth as possible.

Benefits of Remote Teaching in Microsoft Office 365 Education

2020-07-13T13:36:57Z

“The product from Microsoft is very easy to set up as it hardly takes 15 minutes to complete the whole process. Secondly, I have been using Office 365 for quite some time and have been just used to it. The products under Office 365 are very intuitive and value-packed. Overall, the product experience is really fantastic.”

– Ankit P., Education Management. The second wave of coronavirus is expected to hit countries this month, forcing them to impose restrictions once again. As a result, educational institutes will remain closed, preventing students and educators from engaging in in-classroom educational activities, but it doesn’t have to be this way. Teachers and students can use Microsoft Office 365 Education to enable remote teaching and remote learning. Office 365 for education offers several benefits to both teachers and students; a few of them are listed below.

Variety Of Apps And Services

Office 365 Education allows teachers to use several Microsoft apps and services for free and to provide students with an enhanced learning experience. These apps and services can help teachers to meet the educational needs of the students, whether they use it for individualized learning or interactive lessons. Thanks to the click to run technology, these apps can be used by anyone within a few seconds. The A1 plan of Office 365 Education is free to use for both teachers and students and includes;

Word
PowerPoint
Excel
Outlook
OneNote

The following services are also available for free in the Office 365 Education’s A1 plan.

SharePoint
Exchange
Teams
Forms
School Data Sync
OneDrive
Stream
Sway
Power Apps
Flow
Yammer

Cloud-Based Access and Storage

Office 365 Education is a cloud-based app, stored and supported by Microsoft, which means that teachers and educational institutes don’t own it; they only subscribe to it. This feature makes it easier for students and educators to afford and scale-up the app, if necessary. The cloud storage makes it easier for both students and teachers to access their data from remote locations. They also get unlimited space for storing data, which means that educational institutes don’t have to worry about building an in-house storage server. Under normal circumstances, teachers and students store their data on flash drives to bring it to school, and if they lose the flash drive, they lose hours of hard work. Thanks to cloud storage, teachers and students don’t have to carry a flash drive from school to home or vice versa; they can easily access the stored data from anywhere they want. In times of distance learning and remote teaching, this feature is integral and helps students and educators to stay productive while quarantining in their homes. The data stored on the cloud is protected by advanced encryption, which ensures the safety of the stored data.

Auto Updates

Updating systems and programs is a technically challenging process that consumes a lot of time and requires a substantial amount of resources. This can be a problem for both students and educators working with a limited budget, and in remote learning, it can be even more challenging to bring everyone on the same page. Office 365 for education is looked after by Microsoft and is stored on the cloud, which means that it gets automatically updated for everyone. Both students and teachers can enjoy the latest technology without depending on the IT team for continuously updating the systems and solutions, which is a great aspect of using Office 365 Education for distance learning and remote teaching.

Career Skills

One of the main goals of education is to prepare students to smoothly transition from the classroom to the workforce, which requires baseline technology skills. Using Office 365 for education enables students to use training tools to learn these baseline technology skills, such as learning how to use teams for meetings, create powerful presentations using PowerPoint, etc. All these baseline technology skills help students to become attractive prospects in today’s competitive job market.

Global Collaboration

With Office 365 Education, teachers, and students get the opportunity to collaborate and comminute with their peers around the world. Using PowerPoint, Word, or Excel, teachers can share information with a school in a different country; for instance, they can create a guide based on their remote teaching experience and share it with teachers that are just beginning to teach remotely. Using SharePoint or Teams, they can enable real-time collaboration and distance learning.

Free Services

As mentioned earlier, the A1 plan of Office 365 Education is free for students and educators; this plan allows teachers and students to continue classes during the coronavirus lockdowns. Basic apps and services are part of the Office 365 Education; teachers and students also get unlimited storage after five subscribers, and they can scale the platform whenever they can if the A1 plan doesn’t meet their needs.

Security and Data Control

Another benefit of using Office 365 for education is that it has built-in security and data control, which helps teachers and students to keep their data safe. Microsoft monitors their server 24/7 for threats and uses anti-malware and anti-spam protection so people can be sure that their data won’t be compromised. Office 365 Education also enables teachers to organize educational material and set-up data control features for the material. For instance, teachers are creating a test for the students using SharePoint, they can set-up data control, or privacy features for the file, assigning read and write privileges to only the teachers responsible for creating the test.

Infowise

Meet external data connections

2020-07-09T19:00:16Z

Hi, If you've used our Modern forms before, you know how powerful, yet easy-to-use they are. The sophisticated, responsive forms allow precise control over layout and look & feel, as well as advanced permissions and rules. Basically, you are able to implement a great deal of your business directly in the form, without much need for any backend workflows. Until now, the forms have been closely tied to the underlying SharePoint infrastructure. You could only create a form based on a SharePoint list or document library and the data could only go into that list/library. That is, until we figured you might want to leverage the forms to interact with data in other applications as well, making them the most versatile tool in your organization. This is way we added External data connections to Ultimate Forms. Using these connections, you can set up a form that submits data into a variety of other, non-SharePoint applications, as well as host those forms inside and outside of SharePoint. And, because we preserve the same familiar user interface, it's going to be easy and intuitive for both form developers and users. As our first step, we've developed the ability to configure data connections and forms that submit new items. The ability to view and edit existing items is coming.

Connection types

External data connections support a wide variety of data sources and protocols:

Databases: Microsoft SQL, Oracle and MySql
Web services: SOAP and REST
Documents: you can generate or update Word and Excel documents, as well as comma and tab delimited file, and upload them to SharePoint or to FTP
Email - you can send form data as an email (Exchange Online, Exchange on-premises and SMTP protocols are supported)

Security

The forms themselves have no knowledge of how to connect to your database or email server, that information is safely stored on our servers. The form submits to our servers only, which will then verify that the submission is coming from a human (no bots allowed!) and from a authorized URL.

Connection settings

The actual connection settings depend on the connection type you decided to use. For instance, when using SQL server, you specify the .NET connection string (if you're not sure, refer to this site: https://www.connectionstrings.com/sqlconnection/). Once entered, click on Connect and select one of the DB tables. The table columns are then shown and you can perform additional configurations on them, such as defining the column format (for example, you might want to display a text column as a choice of values instead of free form entry). Once you're done, save your settings, then click on Design form to be taken into Form Designer to visually design your form.

Form design

We are using the same Form Designer you are already familiar with, with some minor changes. For example, you cannot select the content type for the form (because, well, there are no content type outside of SharePoint). But in general, the experience will be almost exactly the same.

Publish your form

The form can be hosted in one of 3 ways (or all of them together):

In a web part on a web part page in SharePoint
Embedded on your own page (say your external web site)
Hosted on our page
NEW! On Microsoft Teams tabs

If you chose option 1 or 2, make sure to include the page URLs within Allowed internal page addresses under Access control of the connection. It ensures that the form author maintains complete control over where her form is going to be used. For option #3, you need to allow access for anonymous external users, also under Access control. Once the connection is saved and assigned a unique ID, you will be able to copy the form URL there as well.

Form web part

You can place the form on any web part page by including Infowise Form web part. In the web part settings, specify the connection ID that you copied from the settings page. Again, don't forget to include the page URL under Allowed internal page addresses, otherwise it won't load. External data connection allow you to provide modern and easy-to-use form interface for a variety of data stores, programming interfaces and applications that do not currently have such an interface, thereby leveraging your existing toolset and improving user experience. We will be happy to receive your feedback on this brand new feature!

Microsoft Teams With Infowise ULTIMATEforms For Public Sector

2020-06-23T18:55:11Z

"This has completely changed how we're thinking about forms, metadata collection, and how to use that for our company's benefit. Infowise's tool makes our forms smooth, so it's a lot easier to get end users adopted. Metadata is such a huge benefit, but not an obvious one to our end users, so our simpler forms will really help in that regard." – ULTIMATEforms review. Microsoft Teams, also known as the hub for teamwork in Office 365, is a chat-based platform that enables team members to work more productively by providing them with a secure, single platform for everything they need, including meetings, chats, calls, files, and other tools. Microsoft has built Teams to meet the government regulations and requirements for the GCC, GCC High, and DoD. By implementing Microsoft Teams in a government environment, organizations can easily increase collaboration and communicate effectively. They can streamline their daily work and increase efficiency for delivering necessary services to the constituents and citizens according to their mission.

ULTIMATEforms with MS Teams

ULTIMATEforms is the flagship product of Infowise Solutions, which allows you to build advanced business solutions using just your browser and without writing a single line of code. With ULTIMATEforms, you can build both simple and complex solutions required in the government environment while meeting the government regulations and requirements. From expense reports and vacation requests to project and help desk management, government cloud customers can easily create the solution they need and enhance capabilities of office 365 by integrating ULTIMATEforms. As a result of the ongoing health crisis, remote work with collaboration has become necessary for all industries in order to maintain business continuity. The government sector is no exception; it also needs an advanced business solution that allows team members to work remotely so they can continue to serve the citizens. They can use MS Teams and integrate it with ULTIMATEforms to create a powerful and secure solution that is compliant with regulations and fulfills all their requirements. The best part about ULTIMATEforms is that it is mobile-friendly, which means that government cloud customers can access necessary information from anywhere—anytime. By integrating ULTIMATEforms in Office 365, you can use key features of an MS app on a different MS app. For instance, you can bring SharePoint components, including web-parts, sites, lists, forms, dashboards, and much more into your MS Teams environment. If you want to learn how to use ULTIMATEforms to integrate components in MS Teams, click here.

Benefits of MS Teams in the Government Environment

MS Teams offers several benefits to GCC high and DoD and suits well in government environments where collaboration and communication are crucial. Here are a few of those benefits.

Efficient Time Management

When you use MS Teams for remote work, you can easily collaborate with team members, share files to work on, and increase productivity. For online meetings, you don't need to spend time setting up the solution or perform audio-checks, and you don't have to travel anywhere in order to meet with someone. These are just a few of the features of MS Teams that allow employees to manage their time more efficiently; there are several others.

Cloud-Based Storage

All the files and resources, including organization customer content, are stored on a secure cloud that meets the government regulation and requirements for cloud services. The files and customer content is restricted and can be viewed, edited, or shared by those who have permission. This central storage allows you to eliminate the need to send documents back and forth and makes it easier for remote employees to access the files that they need.

Security and Compliance

MS Teams was designed to meet the compliance required by the different industries. For the government sector, it meets requirements for cloud services, including FedRAMP Moderate and CJI & FTI (IRS-1075) data types that are necessary for federal tax information and criminal justice systems. It also supports the US Department of Defense Cloud Computing Security Requirements Guide for Level 2 systems. Screened Microsoft personnel monitor these servers for unauthorized access; these personnel meets GCC requirements to access customer content.

A Complete Solution

Another benefit of using MS Teams is that team members don't have to switch between multiple apps when working. Microsoft Teams have several applications with the tool, allowing employees to work from the Team environment. When you integrate ULTIMATEforms into your Teams, you can bring even more features and capabilities into your Teams, making it even more advanced and complete solution.

Conclusion

Integrating ULTIMATEforms with the Office 365 suite and MS Teams allows government cloud customers to enable remote work, increase collaboration, and enhance communication; features and capabilities that are becoming the new normal as a result of the coronavirus outbreak.

Infowise

Infowise has been servicing various public sectors for several years, being listed as a vetted and approved GSA (General Services Administration) vendor only helps us to further focus our products for US government clients.

At Infowise, we serve as a strategic partner, assisting public and private enterprises in their digital transformation endeavours with our scalable, smart, and robust tools, software, and applications. Our product Infowise UltimateForms Power Suite contains more than 15 standalone SharePoint applications developed to give you the power to innovate, automate, and scale up your processes. Ultimate Forms helps you create amazing, advanced business solutions based on your SharePoint list and document libraries, using nothing but your browser! Anything from simple Vacation Request or Expense Report and all the way to complex Help Desk or Project Management solutions can be built in minutes, without writing a single line of code.

Click here to download Infowise ULTIMATEforms 30-days free trial. Simple process. After you've installed Infowise UF, go ahead and create an unlimited number of Business Process Applications. Or even better, do you want to start with a ready template? Great, click here and download the ready-to-use template from our vast business process solution library, re-purpose to service your needs.

Avi Pagi, Infowise Business Development

Infowise provides optimum SharePoint solutions for GSA implementation partners

2020-06-05T20:39:54Z

"Ultimateforms helps you create amazing, advanced business solutions based on SharePoint list and document libraries, using nothing but your browser."

– Vladi Gubler, Chief Product Engineer at Infowise

--------------------------------------
I'm happy to tell you that our company has received a five-year US General Services Administration (GSA) IT Schedule 70 contract this month. This enables us to provide our services and products to local, state, and federal government and GSA implementation partners. We have been providing advanced IT solutions to our clients in various industries for several years, and through that experience, we designed our premium product, ULTIMATEforms. ULTIMATEforms, available for both on-premise and Microsoft 365, is a no-code solution that allows you to save time on debugging and development. It covers all the aspects of business solution development in SharePoint and substantially reduces the learning curve. You can create your own business solutions and eliminate the need for hiring a specialist by using pre-defined templates. You can also benefit from our support system, which includes blogs, documentation, demos, training, pre-configured solutions and much more. You can also reuse the templates you create using ULTIMATEforms and save on valuable resources. If you want us to customize an Infowise Solution for your GSA project, please fill out this brief form.

Why GSA Implementation Partners Should Choose Infowise

-----------------------------------
"We have been servicing various public sectors for several years, being listed as a vetted and approved GSA (General Services Administration) vendor only helps us to further focus our products for US government clients. We offer advanced and efficient collaboration solutions in an era where the digital workplace is becoming more and more necessary."

— Avi Pagi, Partnership and Business Development Manager at Infowise.

----------------------------------- We are a partner-first company and offer a full stack of services to our partners. There are 3 different types of partnership options available for you to choose from;

Registered: A partnership agreement enables you to get free NFR licenses and sales discounts.
Certified: You will receive referrals, leads, and additional discounts after completing our product training.
Premium: Awarded based on your good performance and track record.

After becoming our partner, you can avail of the following benefits.

Free demo licenses for our products
Technical support from the beginning to the end of the bidding process
Exclusive discounts on all your purchases and training packages
Exceptional support system including on-site training and co-visitation
Provide your input for the features of our future products
Online demonstration of our products for your customers

For GSA partners

Single-point access for the expedited acquisition process
Rapid deployment and staff training through our US implementation partners
Cost-effectiveness, built-in value and special savings

Types of Partners

You can choose to become one of the following two types of our partners;

OEM

If you want to maximize your return on investment, becoming out OEM partner is the right choice for you. By becoming our OEM partner, you can design your own business solution using our product, ULTIMATEforms. You can distribute the solution to multiple clients for both Microsoft 365 and on-premise. Furthermore, we'll provide you with all the necessary components and guide you on how you can sell your pre-configured solution.

Resellers

By becoming an authorized reseller of our products, you can sell our software licenses to our customers that require purchasing the solution from a regional reseller. We'll offer you our products on a marked down price, and you can resell them on an ongoing basis.

Infowise

At Infowise, we serve as a strategic partner, assisting public and private enterprises in their digital transformation endeavours with our scalable, smart, and robust tools, software, and applications. Our product Infowise UltimateForms Power Suite contains more than 15 standalone SharePoint applications developed to give you the power to innovate, automate, and scale up your processes. Ultimate Forms helps you create amazing, advanced business solutions based on your SharePoint list and document libraries, using nothing but your browser! Anything from simple Vacation Request or Expense Report and all the way to complex Help Desk or Project Management solutions can be built in minutes, without writing a single line of code.
Click here to download Infowise ULTIMATEforms 30-days free trial. After you've installed Infowise UF, go ahead and create an unlimited number of Business Process Applications. Or even better, do you want to start with a ready template? Great, click here and download the ready-to-use template from our vast business process solution library, re-purpose to service your needs

Contact

For more information about ULTIMATEforms and our partnership options, then feel free to contact me, Avi Pagi, Infowise Business Development and Partnership at apagi@infowisesolutions.com

SharePoint: a powerful solution for the federal government

2020-06-05T20:00:21Z

The modern workplace is not only limited to private organizations these days, but government agencies are also opting out for smart and effective solutions to increase their productivity and decrease errors. Recently, The General Services Administration and the Defense Department awarded a $7.6 billion DEOS contract to General Dynamics IT. Under the contract, the Pentagon will implement a full suite of Office 365 to streamline and increase the efficiency of their business processes. SharePoint and Office 365 is an optimum solution for government agencies, they can use it for building applications, as a document, project, and content management solution. Its capabilities are limitless, and if you feel that it lacks in certain areas, then you can easily integrate dedicated business solutions to your out of the box SharePoint. In this article, we'll review why SharePoint and Office 365 are a powerful development platform for the federal government.

Attractive and easy-to-use portals

Generally, government portals are not known for their user-friendliness and visual appeal, but government agencies can remedy that by creating SharePoint based portals. SharePoint portal building capabilities enable local, state, and federal government agencies to create easy-to-use and attractive portals. US Department of Treasury, Washington State, Bellingham, WA are a few examples of SharePoint based portals; there are several others. These portals offer a full suite of features along with appealing graphics, so people can enjoy these portals and get the information they need.

Automation

City, state, and federal government agencies have to process a substantial amount of data daily. From demographic data to traffic data, government agencies have to process it all, and even after taking up a substantial amount of time and resources, manual processing is still very inefficient. Government agencies can leverage SharePoint to create automated processes and reduce their chances of error, save time, reduce costs, and increase productivity. SharePoint and Office 365 can automatically capture data for your teams, which they can easily analyze and process according to the requirement of the workflows. Team members can also create dashboards in real-time with the captured data; this process is really helpful for creating reports. When you add an image into the document library, SharePoint automatically scans it and adds meta-tags and geo-location to support the search feature.

Cost-Effectiveness

Government agencies have to work within an allocated budget; that's why they require solutions that are efficient and cost-effective at the same. SharePoint and Office 365 are the most cost-effective solution available in the market in terms of functionality when compared with other solutions. Regardless of the size of the government agency, they can make their business processes more efficient at a cost-effective rate. Santa Clara County is a great example of government agencies implementing SharePoint and Office 365; with 15,000 employees, they gradually implemented the solution starting with email and then added other Office applications such as Word and Excel. Office 365 offers an extensive set of services, but if officials think that they don't require a complete business solution, then they can choose SharePoint. It is flexible and offers a vast set of features that are more than capable of meeting the needs of an organization.

Security

Government agencies often work with sensitive information that's why security is a paramount concern for them. And due to previous security breaches and malware attacks, they may be reluctant to implement a digital solution. But by implementing SharePoint, they can easily tackle the security issue; when you upload a file in the document library, SharePoint automatically scans it to make sure that it does not contain any malware. You can also assign sharing, reading, editing privileges according to your need and can even limit access to specific IP addresses. SharePoint also features Virtual Identity Server, which simplifies identity management. It allows you to set up one-time permissions and security settings that automatically update when data is changed.

Third-Party Integration

If a government agency considers that they need a more specialized solution for their business processes, they can easily integrate 3^rd party solutions to their SharePoint and increase its capabilities. 3^rd party GSA and Microsoft approved solutions such as Infowise's ULTIMATEforms can be a great addition to your out-of-the-box SharePoint environment. Here are a few ways the federal government can use their SharePoint after integrating a 3^rd party solution.

Customer Relationship Management
Enterprise Resource Planning
Enterprise Contact Management
Document Management System
Project Management System
Business Intelligence
Information Technology Service Management

Infowise for Federal Government

"We have been servicing various public sectors for several years, being listed as a vetted and approved GSA (General Services Administration) vendor only helps us to further focus our products for US government clients. We offer advanced and efficient collaboration solutions in an era where the digital workplace is becoming more and more necessary." —Avi Pagi, Infowise Business Development and Partnership Infowise Solutions was recently awarded an IT schedule 70 contract and is now listed as an approved vendor by the GSA. By using our flagship solution, ULTIMATEforms, government agencies can increase the capabilities of their SharePoint. ULTIMATE forms provide several features including;

Advanced Forms
Reports and KPIs
Integration
Business Process Automation
Approval Workflows

Federal government agencies can leverage their SharePoint to bring efficiency to the following areas.

Recruitment, Employee management system
Expense reimbursement
Compliance
Reservation
Quote Generator
Project Management Solution
Help Desk Solution, and much more

For more information about ULTIMATEforms and our GSA partnership, then feel free Avi Pagi, Infowise Business Development and Partnership at apagi@infowisesolutions.com

User Friendly Color Picker for Form Designer

2020-06-05T19:29:37Z

We've upgraded to a much improved color picker tool! As you can see below, there are two rows of color swatches totaling 20 options for one-click color choices for all the popular options. This really makes life easy so that you don't have to use hex color codes or RGB values except for precision control. Why is this a big deal? Because setting colors needs to be fast and easy. And now it is! What's great is that simple color assignments are fast but you have the ability for customization if you need it. Color settings are used all the time throughout the process of form design and now it is really fast. This is a great example of the type of "quality of life improvements" that are being rolled out monthly in Ultimate Forms.

Awesome New Public Form Functionality

2020-05-29T20:23:44Z

The new ability to set up Public Facing Forms is an awesome new capability that has been added to Form Designer. Note that this function is available only for Office 365 customers at this time. As with many new features, this might have flown under the radar for some users. In short, the added ability is a big deal! I have had many customers ask about doing public facing forms in SharePoint over the years. It is a common need. In general this hasn't been possible in SharePoint. In fact in recent years, you can't have any public facing content in SharePoint Online. Without Ultimate Forms, the opportunity to do this kind of thing isn't very good. I would probably tell a customer to use Microsoft Forms which is a very simplified form building tool similar to Google Forms. At first it is easy to create a form with those tools, but in these cases there are very few customization options and very few options for integration into other systems. You might have to build some kind of custom Power Automate script to route the responses to SharePoint creating extra work and maintenance. When learning about new functionality, I really do best by testing out the functionality with a simple example. We've added a very easy to follow step-by-step on setting up a custom Contact Form which you could use on a public facing web site. After doing this practice exercise, you are sure to realize lots of possibilities to gather information from customers and use that data to automate related processes. » Check out our step-by-step tutorial here

Introducing the new Stages

2020-05-27T21:02:29Z

Hi, Ultimate Forms components take care of the complete lifecycle of your SharePoint items and processes. With a combinations of different settings, you can create advanced forms, perform background workflows and updates, send emails, print and much more. With such a wealth of possibilities it might be sometimes easy to get lost, it's hard to manage everything in your head. But as always, we're here to help! Introducing Stages, new for SharePoint Online customers and redesigned for on-premises. Stages are groups of cross-application settings, combined by a specific set of conditions. You will see form settings, both Modern and Classic, Actions, Alerts and Item ID rules, all together on one page, with the ability to quickly switch to adding new settings or editing the existing ones. Why combinations of conditions? When you implement a business solution in your SharePoint list, you probably already have a distinct set of states in your head. For example, your expense report is first submitted, then approved. In this case, the Status value would be the condition that determines the current state of the report. Of course, in more complex scenarios you will have more states and more conditions. For each state, you might have column permissions on the form (both direct or through containers/tabs), alerts or actions. To see them all combined together on a single page is a great help! Regarding forms: as you know we support both the original Classic forms and the new Modern form. When you have a modern form configured for the list, it always takes precedence and any classic form settings you might have will not be used. You can always click on Reset to go bqck to your original classic form.

Infowise ULTIMATE forms an optimum solution for GSA government clients

2020-05-27T16:37:15Z

— Avi Pagi, Infowise, Partnership and Business Development.

I'm proud to announce that Infowise is now an approved GSA vendor and due to this reason, I think that it is the perfect time to give you guys a few details about ULTIMATEforms. That's why in this article, I'll tell you about the stand-out components of ULTIMATEforms and the advantages of using it to enhance your SharePoint and Office 365 experience. If you'd like to try ULTIMATEforms for yourself, you can download a 30-day free trial, or contact me via the information mentioned at the bottom of this article.

Components of ULTIMATEForms

----------------------------

"We have been working with international organizations and government agencies for several years, and through that experience, we designed a solution that is versatile enough to fulfill the needs of multiple departments and industries."-- Vladi Gubler, Infowise

----------------------------
Our team has designed ULTIMATEforms after considering the needs of various industries and departments; it allowed us to include all the necessary components in our solutions for SharePoint and Office 365. Listed below are the components that can increase the functionality of SharePoint and Office 365 for GSA government clients.

Forms

ULTIMATEforms enables you to use tabs and column permissions, custom input validation, permissions, wizard mode, and much more to enhance your SharePoint lists and turn them into full-fledged applications.

Actions

With ULTIMATEforms, you can automate advanced business processes using your browser and save crucial time. It also offers a range of advanced and fully customizable actions that enables you to implement advanced business logic.

Alerts

ULTIMATEforms enables you to set-up customized alerts that allow you to keep track of everything. You can set-up alerts with conditions, enable timed notifications, define mail templates and much more. By defining the parameters (time and process) for notifications, you can keep your inbox nice and clean and prevent irrelevant messages from flooding your inbox.

Associated Items

Using ULTIMATEforms, you can turn a simple list into a fully functional business solution. From the parent item or task, you can assign tasks to relevant persons, attach documents and items, manage the lifecycles of attachment and much more. Through this feature, you can increase the visibility of projects and eliminate the need for reviewing multiple pages to find the one you need.

Connected Lookup

You can create master-detail cascading links using ULTIMATEforms, between lookup columns in document libraries and lists of SharePoint. For instance, you can filter city column values according to the country and simplify the lookup process.

Print

ULTIMATEforms enables you to print and email SharePoint lists and items; you can also convert the lists and items into PDF folder.

Import

ULTIMATEforms takes the automation of SharePoint and Office 365 to the next level by automatically importing emails and database items. All you have to do is to set-up the import process, and the solution will automatically add emails and database into a SharePoint list or library.

Signature

The built-in digital signature feature of ULTIMATEforms is compliant with FDA CFR part 11 regulations, making it an efficient tool for government agencies looking to create a SharePoint based regulatory-approved system.

LOB Item Link

We have designed ULTIMATEforms to enable easy-to-use lookup into a database or line-of-business applications driven by web service; you can also link it with any list item or document. With ULTIMATEforms, you no longer have to define connections using External List settings or BDC; everything can be taken care of through your browser.

Calendar

ULTIMATEforms is equipped with Event Calendar Plus; it allows you to color-code different types of events and attach and assign tasks related to the event.

Rollups

We have designed ULTIMATEforms to create a fully-functional unified view of items found throughout your site collection based on specific conditions.

Charts

ULTIMATEforms is equipped more than 30 fully-configurable types of chart that increase the visibility of your progress by visualizing SharePoint list data in real-time.

List Search

You can easily find specific items in detailed lists within seconds using the advanced search capabilities of ULTIMATEforms.

Filters

With ULTIMATEforms, you can set-up several types of filters for any connected web part or list by customizing your own filtering panel.

Item IDs

ULTIMATEforms enhances your SharePoint and Office 365 experience by allowing you to create a custom document/item IDs based on functions, conditions, and column values as per your business rules.

Color Choice

The Bundle of Color Choice and Indicator fields in ULTIMATEforms allows you to color-code, customize icons, KPIs, progress bars and dynamic countdowns in any SharePoint item and view.

User Property

With ULTIMATEforms, you can make the process of entering data to a form by automatically filling out your necessary information, including name, phone number, etc. using the information already stored in the system.

Document Link

With ULTIMATEforms, you can link to one or more new or existing documents from within an item or a document. You can share the linked documents between items and efficiently manage them by leveraging the SharePoint document library capabilities.

Voting

Government agencies can enable voting capabilities for any document library or list using ULTIMATEforms and learn what the users think about the published information. You can also enable users to provide their feedback and have a discussion on the published information.

Advantages of Using Infowise ULTIMATEforms

"With Infowise ULTIMATEforms, government agencies will have a simplified acquisition process via person access processes."

With our versatile and effective solution, ULTIMATEforms, you can create a set of robust business processes by leveraging the collaborative power of your existing SharePoint and Office 365 platform. Here are a few advantages of using ULTIMATEforms;

Advanced Forms

With Infowise ULTIMATEforms, government agencies can create powerful forms for the public and internal employees as well.

Reports and KPIs

Government agencies can increase visibility, communication, effectively analyze performance using Infowise ULTIMATEforms.

Integration

ULTIMATEforms integrates seamlessly with your SharePoint and Office 365, saving you both time and resources. You can access ULTIMATEforms using your browser to create exceptional, advanced business solutions based on your SharePoint list and document libraries.

Business Process Automation

With Infowise ULTIMATEforms, government agencies can automate repetitive actions and enable automatic updates of data, both inside and outside the SharePoint. If you want to know more about ULTIMATEforms free-trial and how it can enhance your SharePoint and Office 365 experience, then feel free to contact me, Avi Pagi, Infowise Business Development and Partnership Manager at apagi@infowisesolutions.com

Infowise announces its GSA IT Schedule 70 contract

2020-05-22T15:29:41Z

"Infowise has been servicing various public sectors for several years, being listed as a vetted and approved GSA (General Services Administration) vendor only helps us to further focus our products for US government clients. We offer advanced and efficient collaboration solutions in an era where the digital workplace is becoming more and more necessary."

Avi Pagi, Infowise Business Development

Toronto, Canada, April 4^th, 2020- Infowise, the company that brought us ULTIMATEforms and several other business solutions, is now listed as an approved vendor by the GSA (General Services Administration) and has been awarded an IT schedule 70 contract. Although Infowise is a premier provider of business process solutions for several leading Global entities, including Dell, HP, Accenture, Citibank and many more, becoming a pre-vetted company further cements their position as a leading provider of SharePoint based process automation solutions.

What is IT Schedule 70?

Infowise Solutions Ltd. was awarded a five-year US General Services Administration (GSA) IT Schedule 70 contract to provide SharePoint and Microsoft 365 based process automation products to US federal, state and local government agencies. IT Schedule 70 is the federal government's largest procurement tool and the most commonly used IT services acquisition program. The platform provides government agencies with the tools and expertise to shorten procurement cycles and obtain the best value for innovative technology products and services.

Solutions for a digital workplace

Infowise has been providing advanced IT solutions to its clients in various industries for several years, and now, after getting listed on the GSA, federal state and local governments can also benefit from their services. A few of those benefits include, and not limited to;

Expedited acquisition process through single-point access for GSA agencies and partners
Multiple implementation partners in the US who can rapidly deploy products and train staff
Built-in value in cost-effectiveness and a great many savings designed for GSA clients
Intuitive products

How can Government Agencies take Advantage of Infowise's Products?

As stated by Vladi Gubler, Chief Product Engineer at Infowise, "Ultimateforms helps you create amazing, advanced business solutions based on SharePoint list and document libraries, using nothing but your browser!". To create a set of robust business processes, the user has to leverage the collaborative power of their existing SharePoint/Microsoft 365 platform and the versatility of Infowise ULTIMATEforms Here are a few advantages of using Infowise's solutions; Advanced Forms With Infowise ULTIMATEforms, government agencies can create powerful forms for the public and internal employees as well. Reports and KPIs Government agencies can increase visibility, communication, effectively analyze performance using Infowise ULTIMATEforms. Integration ULTIMATEforms integrates seamlessly with your SharePoint and Microsoft 365, saving you both time and resources. You can access ULTIMATEforms using your browser to create exceptional, advanced business solutions based on your SharePoint list and document libraries. Business Process Automation With Infowise ULTIMATEforms, government agencies can automate repetitive actions and enable automatic updates of data, both inside and outside the SharePoint. Approval Workflows Users can create multi-staged approval workflows for the approval of all types of processes using Infowise ULTIMATEforms.

Where can you Apply ULTIMATEforms Infowise ULTIMATEforms is a highly versatile software that is designed to integrate seamlessly with SharePoint. Hence, government agencies can apply it to bring efficiency to almost any of their departments, including finance, operations, HR, Project management and more. The processes ULTIMATEforms can help you with include but are not limited to;

HR processes: Onboarding, Management, Training and Evaluation
Document Management Systems; Compliance, governance, and guidance
Approvals Workflow
Project Management Solutions
Help Desk Solution, and much more

For more information about Infowise's GSA partnership, contact Avi Pagi, Infowise Business Development consultant at apagi@infowisesolutions.com

SharePoint Governance Plan

2020-05-22T11:44:47Z

"We can share the folders between our offices in different locations, and each one of us makes their necessary amendments according to their role. It made our process easier and faster." – Celine K., SharePoint Review. SharePoint and Office 365 are among the most effective and efficient IT solutions currently available in the market. From private to public sector, everyone can avail of the benefits SharePoint provides. Due to its familiar UX design, SharePoint has a higher user adaption rate. If it lacks behind in any way, you can easily sync site templates to your SharePoint solution and increase its efficiency. You can use it for project management, document management, employee management, and even to create and implement a governance plan. In this article, we'll analyze the SharePoint governance plan.

What is SharePoint Governance

SharePoint governance is a collection of policies describing the procedures, roles, and responsibilities, rules, and regulations in an organization regarding SharePoint user interaction. Regardless of users' roles and responsibilities in the company, their title, or their SharePoint access level, SharePoint governance applies to everyone.

Pitfalls of not having a defined governance strategy

The absence of a defined governance strategy can cause you to lose productivity and make your SharePoint experience inefficient. Fast and easy access to information, easy identification, and use of the content and data are key contributors to the productivity and effectiveness of an organization. The effectiveness of an organization can be significantly lowered without properly designed and regulated information architecture. Without a bulletproof SharePoint governance plan, organizations can face the following issues.

Difficulty in searching and comparing related content due to inconsistent use of metadata.
Increased numbers of duplicate versions of the same documents caused by a poorly managed and designed content storage. This prevents users from identifying the most updated version of the document.
Difficulty finding work critical information and sites due to a bad site navigation design.
Reduction in the ability of users to access the required information caused by the poor presentation of the information.

Benefits of a governance plan

The governance committee can avail of the following benefits by implementing a SharePoint governance plan.

Risk Management

Risk management enabled by a governance plan ensures that federal IT managers and leaders are informed about the risks associated with the IT projects and provide the framework for implementing measures to reduce risk.

Accountability

An effective governance plan enables accountability and transparency since everyone's role is predefined. This allows federal managers to enforce responsibilities related to the management of various IT programs.

Enforcement and Execution

A SharePoint governance plan provides the basis for the management of all IT projects and requirements to federal managers, via a central point where they are highlighted and addressed. This allows for the standardization of IT solutions and lets managers make educated decisions about IT programs.

Resource Management

Proper management of essential resources enables users to have leverage over the programs in terms of preparation and organizing. This gives federal managers the opportunity to ensure that the necessary resources for current and future IT projects are adequately available.

Decision Making

A SharePoint governance plan allows the leadership to consistently contribute to enhancing the control and efficiently manage the agency's IT operations.

Alignment and responsiveness

Governance and IT portfolio management works closely to match IT assets with the department's goals, enabling federal managers to improve problem responsiveness, monitor, and manage current and future IT projects. This enables transparency for IT investments of the agency and guarantees that taxpayer money is used according to the goal of the agency.

Why use SharePoint for creating a governance plan

An effective governance program is a must-have resource for government and private organizations as the pressure for compliance is increasing day by day as a result of frequently emerging and changing regulations. By creating a governance program in a SharePoint environment, organizations can ensure compliance while increasing the efficiency of their process. We recommend SharePoint because of the following reasons.

Plan creation, distribution, and retrieval

With SharePoint, you can create, circulate, and publish plans and policies covering various types of content, including audio, video, and images. These are the few features you can use for the creation, distribution, and retrieval of plans and policies.

Co-authoring

Users can collaborate and co-author the governance plan in real-time; this feature makes the plan creation process more efficient.

Search

SharePoint's state-of-the-art search feature makes it easier for users to find the required plan by using titles, keywords, and even a small part of the content.

Templates

In SharePoint, federal managers can create and store templates to re-use when making or updating the governance plan. Federal managers can also download and implement out-of-the-box SharePoint templates.

Workflows

Thanks to SharePoint's automated workflows, federal managers can automatically route new governance plans to all stakeholders.

Secure Storage

SharePoint enables federal managers to store governance plans in a central location and effectively manage them, with the help of the following features.

Audit trail

SharePoint allows federal managers to easily track who has access to the policies and who has made changes in it.

Permission-based access

Federal managers can assign permissions regarding the creation, access, or modification of the governance plan.

Version control

This feature of SharePoint allows federal managers to track policy versions and easy restoration of an accidentally deleted or overwritten document.

Tracking and Evaluation

SharePoint helps federal managers in the management of governance plans with the help of the following features.

Notifications and alerts

Federal managers can automate notifications and alerts with the help of SharePoint. For example, they can set-up their SharePoint solution to automatically notify the relevant authorities when a governance plan needs renewal.

Real-time dashboards

In SharePoint, users can generate dashboards in real-time for the dates of creation, the status of approval, and much more.

Assessment

You can create surveys and quizzes to test user compliance and knowledge regarding the governance plan.

Infowise

At Infowise, we serve as a strategic partner, assisting public and private enterprises in their digital transformation endeavours with our scalable, smart, and robust tools, software, and applications. Our product Infowise UltimateForms Power Suite contains more than 15 standalone SharePoint applications developed to give you the power to innovate, automate, and scale up your processes. Ultimate Forms helps you create amazing, advanced business solutions based on your SharePoint list and document libraries, using nothing but your browser! Anything from simple Vacation Request or Expense Report and all the way to complex Help Desk or Project Management solutions can be built in minutes, without writing a single line of code.
Click here to download Infowise ULTIMATEforms 30-days free trial. Simple process. After you've installed Infowise UF, go ahead and create an unlimited number of Business Process Applications. Or even better, do you want to start with a ready template? Great, click here and download the ready-to-use template from our vast business process solution library, re-purpose to service your needs

External forms for your SharePoint Online

2020-05-19T14:11:58Z

Hi, In today's world, you need to connect and integrate your information systems with your customers, vendors, subcontractors and other external parties to facilitate fast and smooth data exchange. SharePoint Online provides abilities to share your sites and lists with external users, it's a great feature and many use it successfully. Unfortunately, there are some scenarios where it just wouldn't work. What if you need to collect some information from a large diverse group of external persons, some of whom you might not even know? Or they might not have the necessary Microsoft credentials to use the external sharing feature? Or maybe you're trying to collect the information using a kiosk and having people logging in and out is simply not an option? This is the reason why we added External Forms feature to our modern forms in the SharePoint Online version of Ultimate Forms. And, as per our usual, it's ridiculously easy to use! Once you're done developing the form with Form Designer, you simply click on External form on the toolbar. You can expose the form to external users with a single click. By default, that would be only the New form, but you can also use the same functionality for Display and Edit forms, if needed. When you enable external forms, you are presented with a unique external URL. The form is located on our website and can be access from anywhere, without having to authenticate. The form does not expose your list to the outside world. Instead, it serves as a security barrier and ensures that only the permitted interaction with the list data is allowed to go through. For instance, when you allow New forms only, users will be able to submit new data, but won't be allowed to access the list or view any existing items. You can expose any type of form, you are not limited in any way. Any form that can be designed using Form Designer, can be exposed. And once you are done with it, you can stop exposing it just as easily, simply uncheck external access and that's it! Some ideas for what you can use it for:

Signups
Contact requests
Quote generators
Problem reports
Surveys
Anything else really...

Give it a try, that might just be what you're missing!

SharePoint and OneDrive now support 3D and DICOM file formats

2020-05-11T21:34:04Z

"With the majority of the country working remotely SharePoint is an easy solution to work collaboratively. We have been using it to share content updates, collaborate on documents (excel, word, more). Everything updates and saves in real-time. I recently downloaded the SharePoint application for my android and can honestly say I wish I downloaded it before COVID 19. It is so simple to stay connected to a project without feeling like you're married to your computer." — SharePoint Review Microsoft has always been an industry leader when it comes to providing efficient and effective solutions. Office 365, OneDrive for business and SharePoint are proof of Microsoft's commitment to delivering powerful tools for various industries that helps them to make their processes simpler and efficient. Previously, you had to buy and set-up third party software in order to view various file formats such as Photoshop and illustrator files, 3D files, DICOM, etc. But now Microsoft has added support in OneDrive for business and SharePoint for web viewing of over 250 file formats; ultimately increasing the management capabilities of the solution. In this article, we'll see what DICOM actually is, benefits of using SharePoint and OneDrive as a medical image sharing solution and various file types supported by SharePoint and OneDrive.

What is DICOM

Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine or DICOM is used by a majority of healthcare facilities around the world, and it is the industry standard for sharing and managing medical images such as X-rays or MRI, etc. It was developed by NEMA (National Electrical Manufacturers Association) and ACR (American College of Radiology). DICOM is the standard international for the management and communication of medical images and data. Its mission is to ensure that the systems used to generate, store, exchange, view, send, query, process, retrieve and print medical images are interoperable, as well as able to manage relevant workflows.

The benefits of using SharePoint and OneDrive as a medical image sharing solution

As mentioned earlier, SharePoint and One drive now support DICOM images and 3D files; making it an efficient solution for sharing and managing medical imaging. The following are the benefits of using SharePoint and OneDrive as a medical image sharing solution.

Quick Sharing

Healthcare providers can share digital medical imaging files easily and quickly with other departments or organizations by using SharePoint and OneDrive as a medical image sharing solution.

Tracking Capabilities

By using SharePoint and OneDrive as a medical image sharing, solution healthcare organizations can easily track patient progress throughout the treatment and evaluate the effectiveness of the treatment.

Reduces Duplicates

SharePoint and OneDrive as a medical image sharing solution give you the ability to access and view images from different healthcare providers, reducing duplicate imaging and decreasing the number of times a patient is exposed to the radiation. Also, the Affordable Care Act encourages healthcare providers to reduce duplicate imaging as much as possible. You can achieve both by using OneDrive for business and SharePoint.

More Connected Network

Using SharePoint and OneDrive as a medical image sharing solution allows physicians to increase volume as they can build stronger and more connected referral networks.

Better Care

By providing the ability to share medical imaging between healthcare organizations, SharePoint and OneDrive make it easier for patients to find optimum healthcare. It becomes much easier for them to find the care provider that provides quality care at an affordable price.

Supported File Formats

Onedrive for business and SharePoint now support more file formats than ever; now you don't have to install the app or software used to create the file. Both solutions support over 250 file formats for web viewing, making it the ultimate management solution. The solution currently supports the following file format for 3D Modeling, AutoDesk, Finale, and DICOM Medical Images.

3-D Modeling/Printing: 3MF, COOL, GLB, GLTF, OBJ, STL
AutoDesk: FBX
DICOM Medical Images: DCM, DCM30, DICM, DICOM
Finale: PLY

In light of the above article, and inline with our series of articles about remote collaboration using SharePoint and Infowise tools, it's important to highlight the fact that Infowise works great with Microsoft Teams. For more information, please refer to this informative blog by Vladi Gubler: Using Ultimate Forms in Microsoft Teams

Infowise

At Infowise, we serve as a strategic partner, assisting public and private enterprises in their digital transformation endeavours with our scalable, smart, and robust tools, software, and applications. Our product Infowise UltimateForms Power Suite contains more than 15 standalone SharePoint applications developed to give you the power to innovate, automate, and scale up your processes. Ultimate Forms helps you create amazing, advanced business solutions based on your SharePoint list and document libraries, using nothing but your browser! Anything from simple Vacation Request or Expense Report and all the way to complex Help Desk or Project Management solutions can be built in minutes, without writing a single line of code.
Click here to download Infowise ULTIMATEforms 30-days free trial. Simple process. After you've installed Infowise UF, go ahead and create an unlimited number of Business Process Applications. Or even better, do you want to start with a ready template? Great, click here and download the ready-to-use template from our vast business process solution library, re-purpose to service your needs

Scheduling shifts for healthcare staff with SharePoint and Infowise Forms

2020-05-05T15:12:24Z

I hope you all are doing good and taking care of yourself and all your family members. Covid-19 has changed the way we work. Every day there is a new challenge from our clients, as they face a new challenge area and work on resolving that with the help of technology. Collaboration is one such area where everyone is investing nowadays and looking for the best possible solution that meets their needs. In times of COVID-19, healthcare professionals are fighting in frontlines, and words are not enough to thank them for the sacrifices they’re making. Healthcare professionals are going on 18-hours shifts and sometimes without taking any breaks. The frontend is one side of the healthcare industry, there are management teams as well. In healthcare institutes mangers are equally working hard on ensuring the smooth flow of supplies, accurate planning of medical staff shifts, making sure all equipment and other needs are met within time and budget.

As, I was talking in one of my earlier blogs that due to COVID-19, we are getting a lot of requests from our healthcare clients to do their process automatons and building new applications that can help the hospitals in their daily jobs and helpful in compliance with social distancing.

With the impact of COVID-19, recently one of our clients came up with one of their need for creating an online application for their Staff shift schedule, I am writing this because I think this is one of the major requirement for the healthcare professional in these days, as they are putting extra hours and they need to know the schedule well in advance as well as in on the go. And there might be other people who are looking for the same solutions. I am writing the pain areas in bullet points so that you can get an idea about the problem statement. The client came up with one statement, and that was,

“We need something for scheduling our staff shifts”, this was the formal statement they send to us, and then we started discussing the details. As I always say, this is the comfort level with our client so that clients can trust us and come up with this single statement requirements, and all this is because of SharePoint and Infowise forms.

As we started discussing their process, we found:

They have a manual process of scheduling the shifts. With all manual activities, the system is challenging to manage. But, it’s working fine before the COVID-19 pandemic
After COVID-19 and lockdown and social distancing measures, the system is very difficult to mange
The healthcare staff is doing two shifts continuously, and unless an emergency they don’t have any leaves, and if anyone is on leave or need one shift off, it’s challenging to manage
The shift coordinator sends the staff either email or SMS for any urgent, immediate change
No way to get visibility of fellow staff shifts
Shift coordinator has to connect with the HOD’s to take any approvals in case of any shift change
Due to the manual process sometimes wrong shift communicated to the staff and due to that there are issues of availability of staff in a particular shift

The above points are some of the significant challenges of the manual process and looking into those we drafted the below significant needs:

Centralized System
Forms/interface for Shift coordinator and the staff
Notifications for all actions
Approval Process of Leaves/Change in shift
View of the shift of all the team members
View for the HOD’s and other stakeholders

Below is one for the initial system needs we have prepared for this application:

Below is the draft copy of the application flow :

Interface for Site Coordinator; site coordinator can use create a new schedule button from the staff shift app; the site coordinator has two options either he/she can create a schedule for a team/ group of staff or individual staff. Scheduling for a team/group of staff is very useful in this time of COVID-19, the hospital has created multiple teams, and they are asking the same team to work for one week for a particular shift to minimize the impact of COVID-19 (if any team member gets COVID-19, so it’s easy to identify who all are within contact with that staff and easy to manage the whole process of isolating the staff members), below is one of the draft interface design for shift schedule:

The form in browser:

Below are the fields which we have used to generate shift schedule:

Type	Field
Schedule For	Dropdown to select group or individual team member
Group Name	People/Group
Team Member Name	People/Group
Date	Date
Date	Date and Time
Time To	Date and Time
Notes	Text Multiple lines

The form is straightforward and easy to use; SharePoint with Infowise is a great tool to develop such applications quickly. SharePoint works great with Infowise tools, and it’s very quick due to the simple interface of Infowise forms and features.

We used the SharePoint calendar list to maintain the shifts and then customized that list form with Infowise form designer, Infowise forms give easy interface as well as the notifications functionality in fingertips. Below is one of the screens for the weekly schedule view:

SharePoint can do wonder in very little time, and with the help of Infowise forms, it’s like creating the whole application in days. Especially in COVID-19 times, where we need everything ready in days or sometimes in hours, SharePoint is a great tool; it’s great for process automation and collaboration within or internal and external teams. Infowise provides additional features as well as an easy interface to customize the forms and build required functionalities within SharePoint. If used as a combination, both the tools can fulfill all the rapid development needs for any organization.

Thank you for reading this, and I will come up with my new experiences in the future, till then take care and enjoy developing no-code solutions using Infowise and SharePoint.

Advanced styling in Modern forms

2020-04-29T17:36:31Z

Hi, Ultimate Forms' Form Designer is a fantastic tool for creating advanced, responsive modern forms in SharePoint (both online and on premises). Although simple and intuitive at the first glance, it is actually loaded with features that help you implement advanced, multi-stage business solutions directly in your browser, without any programming and, in most cases, without the need for complex workflows. In this article I will focus on the layout and styling part of the form design, without delving into rules or business logic. Let me show you how you can create great looking forms that will work equally well, no matter what type of device you are using. When you first open Form Designer, you will see that the main section of the screen is divided into three parts:

Design canvas - the largest part in the center. This is where you drag your columns and other components and visually design your form.
Left pane - here is your toolbox. All the columns in the list are there, waiting to be dragged onto the canvas. You will also see a selection of components, such as buttons or tabs.
Properties pane - this is where modify your column/component settings and add business logic rules.

Let's focus on the components first. First of all you will notice there is no table control. If you used to work with other form designers in the past, you are probably used to having to build a table-based grid and and placing your columns, labels and buttons within the cells of that grid. And now you should forget all about that! That's the old way of doing things and it resulted in rigid forms that where tightly tied to a specific device type (usually desktop) and looked horrible when viewed on a phone. In addition, this approach was a pain to use and required long and meticulous adjustments, setting pixel-level dimensions and generally wasting your time on something that computers are much better at than humans. Meet your new best friend, the humble Container! This little component will make creating sophisticated forms so much easier. As its name indicates, the container simply contains other columns/components within itself and controls their layout on the page. You can configure the container to display its child components vertically or lay them out side-by-side in 2 or more layout columns. Because containers are responsive by design, they will automatically adjust their content according to the device. So the same container will display 3 columns side-by-side on the desktop, 2 on a tablet and arrange them all vertically on the phone. No need to mess around with device-specific forms, no need to adjust width or add device-specific CSS. And because containers can hold other containers within them, it opens up unlimited design possibilities. For example, you can have one container with 2 layout columns and place another container with 2 layout columns within it. So now you divided the screen into 3 parts, half and two quarters! You can nest the containers as much and as deep as you need. Bear in mind that you can assign style and permission rules to anything on the form, including containers, so now you can create a fully dynamic form in minutes! Now let's talk about styling. There are several styling options that we have intergated into Form Designer, you will use the one you want for each partcular form (or a combination or 2 or more).

No styling - the form will already look great without any additional styling. It will simply take the styling from your site and just blend in. That's the easiest and most common approach
Themes - we currently support 3 themes (and additional 3 themes just for tabs and accordions). Themes control the general color scheme of the form.
Style rules - you can apply specific style rules to any column/component. You can control things like font, color, background color, border and much more. Style rules can also be conditional and maybe be applied only for specific users or under specific conditions.
CSS classes - add your own custom CSS classes to the whole form, overriding the default classes. You can assign a custom class name to any column/component to target it through your CSS classes. It's a more advanced option, that requires some knowledge of how CSS works. F12 is your best friend here.
CSS file - you can create a CSS file, place it in a document library (or on CDN) and reference it from all your forms. This is the best solution when trying to apply some sort of uniform look and feel in your organization. Again, you can specify custom class names for your components (basically anything you want, just no spaces) and target them through the CSS file.

Just to illustrate how an external CSS file would work like, this is my simple file's content: Once I add it to the form, it overrides the way file attachments look like (making them look huge, for no particular reason): As you can see, there are a lot of options to choose from. Try and see what works best for you in each particular case and, most importantly, have fun doing it!

SharePoint and Office 365 for Healthcare Project Management

2020-04-29T13:28:47Z

SharePoint and Office 365 for Healthcare Project Management in the Era of COVID-19

"Overall, it's been great to have a main hub for our talent acquisition department to use for SOP's, templates, documents, and everything else consistently referenced. It's a knowledge hub for us." – SharePoint Review The recent outbreak of COVID-19 has sent the healthcare industry into overdrive. Healthcare workers are sacrificing a lot, working extended shifts, avoiding going home, or quarantining themselves due to fear of bringing coronavirus home. Under these circumstances, the last thing they need is inefficient processes, preventing them from doing what they do best; provide optimal patient care. To eliminate inefficient processes, the healthcare industry can leverage advanced solutions such as SharePoint and Office 365. With SharePoint and Office 365, healthcare organizations can automate the repetitive and time-consuming process, ensure compliance, enhance communication and collaboration, and modernize and improve patient care. In this article, we'll review how healthcare organizations can use SharePoint and Office 365 to manage COVID-19 related projects and the benefits of using it as a project management solution.

Healthcare Industry can Leverage SharePoint and Office 365

Healthcare organizations can use SharePoint to manage all of their projects. Here are a few ways they can use Office 365 and SharePoint to manage COVID-19 related projects.

COVID-19 Specific Site

Healthcare organizations can create a separate site for COVID-19, where they can add relevant information, initiatives, guidelines, etc. They can further categorize the site for different stakeholders; they can create one for the general public and one for their staff. In the general public site, they can add information about the coronavirus, provide preventative measures, etc. They can publish online forms which patients can fill from their home in case they contract the virus. By filling out the forms digitally, patients and healthcare workers can save a significant amount of time. For the employees, they can add organizational policies, SOPs, and much more. They can even use SharePoint to let healthcare workers know about their work shift, even notify them about an appointment.

Self Screening Tool for COVID-19

Due to a limited number of test kits, coronavirus tests can't be performed on everyone, especially those feeling mild symptoms, as these symptoms are relatively similar to those of flu and cold. Health authorities of several countries have provided guidelines about the qualification of patients to get tested. By doing so, healthcare authorities are making sure that the tests are taken by those who need it. As an accessory of the COVID-19 test, healthcare organizations can create a self-screening tool using Office 365 so people can assess if they need medical attention or not. This way, a healthcare organization can prevent unnecessary movement of people and aid in the implementation of lockdowns while providing easy access to patient care.

Why SharePoint for Project Management?

The four essential elements a capable project management solution must have are;

Document Storage
Site collections, repositories, and applications
Customization
Permissions and security

With SharePoint you get all these essential elements and components in the shape of;

Lists
Web parts
SharePoint sites
Site collections

Lists

The resources you use to handle a project in the simplest sense are 'lists' of items; it could be a list of tasks, project statement, hazard list or hazard register, etc. You may also add a list for the following processes to a SharePoint account.

A list of tasks with the ability to indent / outdent, transfer tasks and organize a framework for work breakdown
Create a documents library with strong native SharePoint capabilities, including co-authoring, check-in / out, version control, etc.
Project Issues, Risks, Project Statement, etc.

Ultimately, with each list, you are adding project management processes that you need to your SharePoint site.

Web Parts

You keep track of the work and submit updates to your SharePoint Lists, but you need a way to generate reports on the lists to track your progress; that's what web parts are. They provide you with a dashboard of the tasks or items on the lists for easy monitoring and reporting of the progress. You can have web parts in your SharePoint reporting section for the following;

Open issues
Work Overdue
KPIs and traffic light indicators
Charts for reporting Tasks by Status, and more.

Sites

Through lists and web parts, you can easily monitor and update progress, and communicate through project management dashboards about what is happening in the project. With a SharePoint site for your project, you can bring all these separate components together, including all your lists, web parts, and document libraries, into one unified shared project site.

Site Collections

A site collection is a collection or group of multiple SharePoint sites. With the help of site collections, project managers can manage several individual projects in different SharePoint pages, and link them together in a list of sites. This provides easy access to all ongoing or finished projects within the project office.

Conclusion

Healthcare workers are our heroes, and we must do everything we can to make things easier for them. With SharePoint and Office 365, healthcare organizations can bring efficiency to their business processes and provide optimum patient care. They can use MS Teams for video consultation to provide support or to discuss the ongoing pandemic with health professionals around the globe to create effective solutions. The best thing about SharePoint and Office 365 is that it follows regulatory compliances, including HIPAA, which means that the healthcare industry can use it without worrying about compliance issues. Follow the guidelines provided by the authorities, practice social distancing, wash your hand, and wear a mask. Wishing you and your family the best of health!

Using Ultimate Forms in Microsoft Teams

2020-04-24T16:22:09Z

Hi, Microsoft Teams is becoming a central tool in almost every organization, especially considering the ongoing health crisis. Here, at Infowise, we also use it extensively, I would even say it's our main tool! Ultimate Forms helps you create amazing, advanced business solutions based on your SharePoint list and document libraries, using nothing but your browser! Anything from simple Vacation Request or Expense Report and all the way to complex Help Desk or Project Management solutions can be built in minutes, without writing a single line of code. So as you see, a combination of Teams and Ultimate Forms would be a killer! And so we tried that, found some issues, resolved them and are ready to show it to you. Let's start from the end result, so I don't try your patience: What you can see here is our Rollup web part that can be used to display information from one or many lists. We are going to be using this web part as our list viewer. This is a list item in our Modern edit form. Looks exactly the same as in the browser, right? And how about mobile? Well, here you go:

Pretty cool, right? This is actually a very simple form, without any of the fancy bells and whistles you would normally add, such as tabbed interface, column permissions, dynamic rules and so on, all the goodies Ultimate Forms is packed with!

And how about a dashboard?

OK, ready to build something like this yourself? Here we go!

First of all, this is really all Office 365 stuff. I'm not sure if it would work on premise, my understanding is that currently it's not possible. But if it ever is, we will be able to support that as well.

So the first thing we need to do is make sure our site has Ultimate Forms installed and Ultimate Forms Extensions are either installed on the site or deployed to all sites from App Catalog. Without these two components it won't work and no point in reading the rest of this article.

Good, so now we need to either choose a list we will be integrating in Teams or creating a new one. Once we have the list, we can create a Modern form for it using Form Designer (a component of Ultimate Forms)

Don't forget to Publish when done!

Next, we want to create a new Rollup profile. We have to use a Rollup to display our list information and not rely on the SharePoint list views, as regular list views won't be able to open Modern forms in Teams due to their technical limitations.

Click on Rollups in Ultimate Forms and create a new profile:

This is the first tab. The important things here are to enter a meaningful title, as we will need it later. Under Template List, select the list you chose or created. Rollup is capable of showing combined information from multiple lists, in which case we use Template list to know which columns to display in the view. In our case, we will be using just one list (but of course you can use more than one, it's up to you).

Under Grouping you can select Site, List or None. For a single list, None makes the most case. If you want your users to be able to add new item, mark that checkbox as well.

Now it's time to enter one (or more) data sources. These point to the list where the actual data resides:

A true wealth of options here! You can point to a whole other site, choose lists by type or template, or choose specific lists, that's the option we will be using here. So:

Site - current site, unless you want to do a cross-site rollup
Scope - Single site (that's the only option that allows selection of specific lists)
Locate by - Specific lists
Choose the list[s] you want. Generally for the purposes of this tutorial, it's the same list we chose/created earlier and also used as our Template list.

Save the data source, then save the profile. Let's now create a page for the Rollup. Once you created a page, add a web part to it called Infowise Rollup: Next, open the web part properties to select the Rollup profile we created earlier. Note that the profile selection dropdown might take a couple of seconds to fill up: Publish the page. You are now ready to add it to your Teams. Open Teams and go to your team (under Teams in the left menu). Next, we need to add an app to display our page. On the top menu of the team, click on the plus sign on the right to open the app picker: Choose SharePoint app here: Next, select the SharePoint page (assuming that the current team is linked to the site where the page resides: Or just enter the page URL directly: Save and that's it. You can now explore and work with your list directly from Teams!

Healthcare Project Management and Workflow Automation with SharePoint

2020-04-24T13:50:42Z

"We use SharePoint to share documents on our corporate homepage. It houses all of our corporate documents or documents by the department. It is an easy place to share and edit heavily used documents across our large organization. It integrates with Microsoft Office, which has been a great feature; each department has their own SharePoint site where you can limit and edit access to these points, and you can easily share and review documents." – SharePoint review by Alex R., Hospital, and Healthcare. Healthcare projects are increasingly focusing on implementing innovative technologies such as Office 365 and SharePoint to bring cost-effective improvement in inpatient care. Common healthcare projects include paperless electronic healthcare records, cloud computing, AI, and big data. Healthcare teams work within strict data and security protocols while following compliance, which requires a comprehensive risk management approach. Healthcare programs have to be delivered in challenging, heavily regulated, multi-stakeholder environments with finite resources. The healthcare industry experiences several obstacles and challenges, with effects on project teams, managers, and patients. Such challenges may include:

A continuous flow of new patients
Health staff scarcity.
Manual, time-consuming paper-based processes.
Outdated systems causing inefficiencies.
Insufficient access to medical records.
Communication gaps.
Inefficient collaboration between care teams, external stakeholders, and trustees.

SharePoint for Healthcare

By using SharePoint, the healthcare industry can streamline and automate inefficient processes in a cost-effective manner and improve patient care. The Healthcare industry can unlock the following benefits by using SharePoint.

Increased and Efficient Collaboration
Automated Workflows
Document Management
Permission Management
Security and Privacy

Increased and Efficient Collaboration

Create an intranet for your employees in SharePoint; they can access the intranet from any device to collaborate and work together. You can also create portals for patients so they can connect with their doctors and gain easy access to their information, i.e., medical records, test results, and more. The Healthcare industry can use SharePoint to unlock a collaborative approach for patient care. Care team members can share medical records with other doctors and consultants in a secure environment. It allows them to implement a patient-centred and value-based healthcare system with the ability to resolve challenges and limitations faced by the industry. Project administrators can create and customize dashboards for stakeholders according to their needs, providing them enhanced user experience.

Automated Workflows

There are several manuals and time-consuming processes in the healthcare industry, such as registration, documentation, filing, processing, and storing records. These inefficient processes consume a considerable amount of time of the care team members, which they can use to provide patient care. SharePoint tackles this problem effectively via built-in templates and clause libraries, which the care team members can use to create everyday documents, including contracts, admission forms, consent forms, and much more. With SharePoint care, team members can streamline processes, ensure regulatory compliance, and increase collaboration. You can track processes from anywhere you want, at any time, using any device. By automating workflow using SharePoint, you can enhance communication between team members and improve process efficiency. Hence, SharePoint as a healthcare solution enables you to save time spent doing manual and repetitive processes that you can use to provide patient care.

Document Management

A critical problem healthcare organizations are facing today is managing confidential and traceable healthcare records. SharePoint as a document management system allows the healthcare industry to create and maintain a centralized repository for storing different healthcare documents with fast and easy access. The healthcare documents can be of any kind, health records, prescriptions, doctors' notes, test results, etc. SharePoint's search feature allows team members to use keywords or full-text to search for the required content across integrated systems. Administrators can control the access and define the role of the team members for document access and editing within the company according to their position. Team members can improve patient care by sharing medical records and information with consulting doctors and other care members in a secure environment.

Permission Management

You can create a safe and secure environment in SharePoint by restricting or limiting user access, defining roles for downloading or editing of essential documents. SharePoint security management's user permissions function allows you to define roles and ensure your documents are managed safely. Privacy and security issues could drain your time, energy, and resources, but you can reduce your burden by choosing SharePoint as a healthcare solution. The best thing about SharePoint is that it is compliant with health industry regulations, including HIPAA, making it the perfect option for health care project management.

Security and Privacy

Microsoft has developed SharePoint and Office 365 to follow compliance by taking into account the pressing needs of security and privacy required by multiple industries, especially healthcare. Healthcare organizations can rely on SharePoint because the healthcare information stored within the system is secured and protected. Advanced Security Management, a smart feature of SharePoint, identifies sensitive information when uploading data, and sends notifications to end-users so they can block or allow the process. Hence, healthcare providers can conveniently ensure the quality and confidentiality of electronically protected health information (ePHI) in SharePoint. With SharePoint, healthcare providers can set up retention policies for records and ensure that the healthcare records are destroyed after six years, as required by HIPAA regulations.

Conclusion

SharePoint can be implemented in any department of any industry, from finance to HR; it can help bring efficiency to the business process through automation. You can use it as an employee management system, a document management system, a project management system, or any other way you want, rest assured that it's going to fulfill the unique requirements of your business process. If it lacks behind in some way, you can integrate SharePoint portals and increase the capabilities of SharePoint. The healthcare industry can benefit from SharePoint and Office 365, as they easily automate their processes and assure regulatory compliance without breaking their banks. Research institutes, University medical systems, and single physician practices are leveraging the power of ULTIMATEforms and the collaborative reach of the SharePoint platform to enhance productivity and maximize efficiency every day of the business calendars. Start a free trial today and contact us if you require further support or training.

Create new columns directly in Form Designer

2020-04-21T21:52:07Z

Hi, Since our Form Designer was released about a year ago, it's been very positively received by our customers. Being able to create advanced Modern forms both in Office 365 and on-premises, while still maintaining a clean and simple user interface is its main selling point, especially with novice users, while the actual wealth of features, such as conditional permissions, flexible responsive layout, sophisticated validation rules and styling, appeals to experts. And now it's getting even better! You can now create new columns directly from Form Designer, on the go, without having to interrupt your creative flow!
We support creation of built-in column types (text, number, date, lookup, etc.) as well as all our special columns, such as Associated Items or Signature. Just click on "New column" under your list columns in the left pane of Form Designer, it will open up the column creation form on the right. Choose the column type, enter all the required properties and click Save. The column will be created and added to the list of columns on the left, ready to be added to the form. You can later manage this column the same way as all the other columns, there is absolutely no difference! Enjoy!

SharePoint and Office 365 in times of the global pandemic of COVID-19

2020-04-20T16:48:07Z

"This has especially been a great asset during forced work-at-home time. It allows my team to continue to work together as if in person. I love that this enables our team, all working from various locations, to collaborate and work on the same things without having to use shared drives on our work computers."

– SharePoint review by Chelsea D., Clinical Manager

Due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 coronavirus, companies around the world are mandating remote work for business continuity. This led to an increase in the demand for tools that enable remote work and increase collaboration. SharePoint and Office 365 are among those high in demand tools that enable remote work, help team members to stay productive, and enable real-time collaboration. In this article, we'll review Microsoft Office tools and SharePoint for remote work and collaboration.

SharePoint

SharePoint has been around for almost two decades, and it is Microsoft's most popular enterprise-ready web service. It can be used for storing data, increasing team collaboration and for document management in high-demanding enterprise environments. Administrators can use SharePoint to create easy-to-use SharePoint sites for multiple purposes, including project management, employee onboarding, document management, and much more. With SharePoint you get the following benefits;

Unmatched Collaboration: Team members can stay connected from remote locations and collaborate on the assigned projects, thanks to co-authoring, multiple users can work on the same file, at the same time, with real-time updates in the file.
Customization: SharePoint is highly customizable; administrators can customize their SharePoint according to their needs. They can even integrate out of the box SharePoint portals according to their industry needs. If you are looking for easy to use, highly customizable SharePoint templates, try Infowise solutions.
Centralized Administration: Thanks to centralized administration, administrators can assign roles to team members. Assign sharing and editing roles as needed.
Security and Integrity: Not only is SharePoint follows compliance such as HIPAA, but it is also highly secure due to multi-layer security features like two-factor authentication, permission management
Easy to use: SharePoint and Office 365 are easy to use enterprise solution, which helps businesses save cost and time spent in training the employees to use the platform.

Microsoft Teams

Due to a sharp increase in the demand for a video conferencing tool, Microsoft has made the full version of Microsoft Teams available for free as part of their E1 payment plan for Office365. It is one of the most efficient software currently available in the market, allowing team members to stay connected and enabling collaborative work. With Teams, you can quickly reach out to any member of your team, share files with team members, conduct team meetings, and much more. It's an all in one solution for collaboration and remote work.

OneDrive

Unlike an office environment, you can't hand over a print-out of a file to your coworker when working from home. But with OneDrive you can easily share files and folders with your team members; the file type can be of any kind, whether it's a text document, audio, video, complete project or more.

Word and Excel

One of Office 365's advantages is its collaborative functionality integrated into native programs like Word and Excel. In Word, for example, you can add comments to your document so that others can respond and provide their input. This mimics the processes of a team meeting where many people can open the document at once and edit it at the same time when the document is uploaded to OneDrive or SharePoint.

OneNote + Outlook

Although you can eliminate the need for email if you are using SharePoint or MS Teams but still if you prefer email, you can use Outlook and pair it with OneNote (expected to discontinue in October of this year) during remote work. Why? Because It can get a bit hectic when you're working from home, and it may be hard to stay on top of the required work. Fortunately, you can use OneNote integrated with Outlook to help improve your collaboration via email. Outlook alone, as we've mentioned before, is a perfect way to communicate, but when combined with OneNote, you can do a lot more.

For example, team members can convert Outlook emails into notes, attach a message, and send it to fellow team members. If you use MS Teams or Skype (expected to discontinue in June 2021), you can share the OneNote file with your team members individually or with everyone during a team meeting. You can also add it to your OneNote notebook and take extra notes, and even use it to create tasks on Outlook.

Conclusion

This coronavirus outbreak is a test for all; businesses are required to pivot their processes into a collaborative remote working environment. To successfully achieve that, businesses must use the right enterprise solutions. SharePoint and Office 365 are more than capable of handling your remote working needs and providing unmatched collaboration. And with SharePoint's customization capabilities and industry-based or business process based SharePoint portals, you can enhance your SharePoint's capabilities even more. Business continuity is important in order to prevent another catastrophic situation of unemployment after this pandemic is over; that's why companies must provide remote work options if they can, instead of firing employees.

More importantly, we all must adhere to the guidelines provided by the local authorities, practice social distancing, wash our hands, wear a face mask, and care for those in need.

Wishing the best of health to you all!

Visitors Pass Application using SharePoint for Leading Hospital

2020-04-16T18:11:26Z

Hi Readers, I hope you all are doing good and taking care of yourself and your surroundings. In these times, it's imperative to take care of yourself and your family; this is the only way we can fight this pandemic.

I am writing this blog about one of my recent projects with a leading hospital. We have developed a Visitors Pass application using SharePoint and Infowise Ultimate forms. This project is a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Hospital was manually doing all the visitor entries, and sometimes they don't have a record of visitors like the vendors, contractors and temporary workers. So our new online system for visitor pass helped them to track each visitor and reduce human interaction, which is a primary requirement to minimize the spread of COVID-19.

Now it seems, Infowise forms are part of all my SharePoint projects. Infowise becomes my first choice when we need to create the forms. And with the available features and easy to use interface, it's quite time-saving and worth working with.

_________________________________

The pass is intended for visitors who come to the hospital for different purposes, such as business meetings, contracting, auditing, research associates, technicians of medical equipment, pharma sales agents, vendors and members from NGOs and community groups associated with the Hospital.
________________________

Technology is playing a very important role in this time of COVID-19. In the healthcare industry, where people depend on in-person meetings or manual processes, COVID-19 has changed all the traditional methods or workplace interactions. Due to COVID-19 spread, the client was looking for some solution that can help them to collect and keep up all visitor data so that they can trace them in the future if needed. As a precautionary step and a mandatory action for all public places, they wanted to track each visitor, and most importantly, they wanted to minimize or better eliminate direct human contact between staff and official visitors.

With that, they also want their team to be able to make some small changes in the future based on requirements without needing any help from IT support. As I mentioned in one of my previous blogs, managing the apps is very easy if you have used the Infowise Forms in your applications.

Visitor Pass, this needs to be a form for the gate coordinators. All the gate coordinators can use this information at their systems; also, if required, an alert can be generated for gate coordinators to give any more information about the visitor. This alert method helped a lot in COVID-19 impacts as the coordinator directly gets the alerts on systems, and they don't need to interact with the visitor for longer times. A printed copy of that gate pass needs to be provided to the visitor, and there should be a record of all the visitor passes generated for future reference.

To give you more context of the problem we were tasked to solve, this gate pass is not for visitors of patients. The pass is intended for visitors who come to the hospital for different purposes, such as business meetings, contracting, auditing, research associates, technicians of medical equipment, pharma sales agents, vendors and members from NGOs and community groups associated with the Hospital.

Below are the fields which we have used to generate a gate pass:

Field	Type
Visitor No.	Number type (auto-generated)
Visitor Name	Text
Visitor Contact	Number
Date	Date and Time
Meeting With	Text
Purpose	Text (Multiple Line)
Address of Visitor	Text (Multiple Line)
Estimated Visiting Time	Text
Appointment Confirmed	Choice (Yes/No)
In Time	Date and Time
Out Time	Date and Time
Valid Till	Date and Time

We created a SharePoint list and used Infowise forms to customize that, Infowise is made for this type of work, it's best suited and has all the required features which we need to develop this and complete the task.

Here is the Infowise form designer landing page:

Below is the screen which we have developed for gate coordinators:

In the above screen, we have fields to add visitor details. Using Infowise forms, we have the option to customize the form and get the desired UI. I remember how we used to do this in InfoPath and then in between we lost because there were some limitations that came in the middle of the projects while using InfoPath, people who have worked in InfoPath will understand this. Now, when we use Infowise forms with SharePoint, we don't have that limitation thing, they have added so much into this tool that I don't think it's possible to use all the features in one application. I am using Infowise for quite some time now, and I haven't used all the available features of this tool. With this, they always come up with a new addition to the tool, so it's always great to explore and use this.

The next screen we have created is for visitors. This is the gate pass which visitor will carry and show in different gates. This is the print view of the form, and we can easily generate this using Infowise, below is the screenshot of the print view.

Record keeping and using the information in the future is very easy in SharePoint, and with Infowise we have the option to display in our required manner. Using SharePoint lists and Infowise features, we have options available to show the reports in different ways, we can even create dashboards using Infowise charts, but in this case, we just need a database where they can see all the visitor pass generated. So we just used a report view of the list.

Below are screenshot setting alerts options:

This record-keeping is very important in hospitals because there are security issues, and multiple times they have to give this information to local government security agencies and so this needs to be updated and safe.

Finally, we have trained their team on how to use the Application, small changes that are not related to the application backend can be done by their team, and one of their team members was also trained in Infowise designer for forms. Which helps them in a great way.

Thank you for reading this, and I will come up with my new experiences in the future, till then take care and enjoy developing no-code solutions using Infowise and SharePoint.

Disclaimer: Images are taken from dummy applications.

Exchange and DB data source support in client-side calendar

2020-04-07T21:05:46Z

Hi, As you might know, some of our Ultimate Forms web parts in Office 365 come in two flavours:

Original app parts - this version uses the technology that was originally available with SharePoint apps. App parts are basically frame that display information from the app within the host site. Being frames, they are not able to intergrate seamlessly within the page, for instance, they do no resize properly. This technology is considered deprecated and the app parts only exist for backward compatibilty.
Client-side (SPFX) web parts - the new technology that uses a JavaScript framework to render advanced web parts directly within the browser. These web parts are installed as part of our Ultimate Forms Extensions app. We are only continuing to develop these web parts.

Calendar is one of the web part that is available in both version. Until now, the client-side version was in preview mode and could only access SharePoint data sources. Starting today, it can also access Exchange Online and DBs! NOTE: you must upgrade Ultimate Forms Extensions to version 1.2.0.0 or up to be able to access Exchange Online. Once you install the new version, you need to grant the app access to Microsoft Graph Calendar client API. You can do that under SharePoint Administration -> Advanced -> API access. When you add or update a new Exchange Online data source, you will be prompted to provide administrative permission grant to access your Exchange Online. It's a security feature intended to prevent unauthorized users from being able to set up calendars. Make sure to log in as a global administrator to be able to save your Exchange data source. To access DB data sources, you need to provide an ODBC connection string for your database. Note that the database must be accessible from the outside of your organizations, by our servers. You might need to add an exception to your firewall rules.

Work Remotely: SharePoint during the Covid-19 Pandemic

2020-03-30T17:04:21Z

“We like to give people the freedom to work where they want, safe in the knowledge that they have the drive and expertise to perform excellently, whether they are at their desk or in their kitchen. Yours truly has never worked out of an office, and never will.” – Richard Branson, Founder and CEO of Virgin The Covid-19 pandemic has taken the world by the storm; countries are implementing complete lockdown to contain the spread of the infectious disease. Schools have suspended their classes, factories are shutting down, and every single industry is getting affected by the Covid-19 outbreak. According to an estimate, the coronavirus outbreak may cost $2.7 Trillion to the global economy. During these hard times, previously considered as a luxury, remote work has become a necessity to keep businesses afloat. To enable remote work, Microsoft is offering its collaboration and video-conferencing tools free. A limited version of Microsoft Teams was previously available for free, but due to the Covid-19 outbreak, Microsoft has made the premium version of Microsoft Teams available for free, as part of a six-month trial offer for Office365. SharePoint and Office 365 are among the top options currently available in the market that enables remote work. And when you integrate add-ons, such as Infowise Ultimate Forms, SharePoint becomes a force to be reckoned with. SharePoint integrated with a dedicated Infowise’s solution provides several benefits, including.

Automation

Widely popular as a collaborative tool, SharePoint Online provides tools that help automate your business processes and empower end-users to create their own automated workflows in real-time with little or no technical know-how. Through its automation feature, SharePoint allows you to eliminate repetitive tasks and streamline your business process. SharePoint and Infowise Ultimate Forms integration help provide more stable and practical automation. Team members, as in the example in healthcare can build workflows with notification capabilities regarding insurance authorization approvals, or notify hospital staff about schedule changes.

Co-Authoring

SharePoint and Office 365 support co-authoring, enabling users to work together on the same document in real-time. During the Covid-19 outbreak, students can work together on their group projects from their homes by using the co-authoring feature. It is available for Word, PowerPoint, OneNote, and Visio and if your SharePoint uses Office Web Apps Server, you can co-author in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote.

Shared Database

OneDrive in SharePoint and Office 365 provides storage of up to 25 TB; you can store all your documents, contacts, profiles, responsibilities and more. The database is shared across the company, which aids in document management. To further facilitate document management, users can use the search and filter option to locate the required file quickly.

Industry-Specific Benefits of SharePoint

Healthcare and education are the two industries that require an urgent remote working solution. Healthcare, because the Covid-19 outbreak has forced healthcare workers to work overtime so they can facilitate patients. And as schools have shut down indefinitely, the education sector requires a powerful video conferencing and document management solution so that students can continue their studies from home. The reasons why you should use SharePoint and Office 365 for healthcare and education sectors are mentioned below.

Healthcare

A healthcare solution has to follow multiple regulatory compliances, including, HIPAA, SOC 1, SOC 2, SSAE 16, ISO 27018, ISO 27001, and EUMC. Office 365 and Microsoft Teams are part of the Tier-D category of security and compliance, which means they comply with all the compliances mentioned before. Ms Teams can be extremely useful for care teams to provide patient care to those suffering from the novel coronavirus or those who may think they are showing symptoms. As the governments across the world are asking patients to quarantine themselves, hospitals can use Teams to provide virtual consult to those in quarantine. The patients don’t require an MS Teams account to get a diagnosis; all they need is a web browser and an internet connection. By doing so, patients can eliminate the risk of spreading the virus to others and still get quality medical care. The quarantine can negatively impact the mental health of the patient; care teams can use MS teams to provide counsel and therapy to those in quarantine. The symptoms of Covid-19 are fairly similar to common flu and cold; people may get confused due to the similarity. Healthcare organizations can use Infowise Ultimate forms to create powerful SharePoint based forms to eliminate the confusion.

Education

The education sector has come to a stand-still since the Covid-19 outbreak; several countries have shut down schools and universities to protect the students. Because we still don’t know how long it will take to stop the spread of the virus, it is vital to adopt alternative means to provide education to the students. Educational Institutes can use SharePoint and Office 365 to facilitate students; MS teams can be used to deliver lectures. Two hundred fifty team members can join a video conference in MS Teams, which makes it easier for teachers to teach the whole class at the same time. The Mobile version of MS Teams is also available, which makes it perfect for remote work. Teachers can use SharePoint to create quizzes and tests. The tests can have multiple choice questions or simple yes or no questions. They can score the results, assign a pass or fail grade, and keep track of the students who have taken the tests and the tests they have completed.

Final Word

SharePoint, Office 365, Infowise Ultimate forms, these are solutions that can help you work from home during the Covid-19 pandemic, so the spread of the virus can be contained. These are tough times; we have to stay together and take care of each other. To do that we have to follow the guidelines provided by the healthcare authorities. Only together we can beat this virus, wishing you the best of health.

Agile Patient Management System using Infowise Forms and Features

2020-03-26T19:26:36Z

Infowise Forms and Features helped me to complete my project before scheduled time: Patient Management System

Hi Readers, I am writing this blog when we have a situation of COVID-19 all over the world. As I mostly work for healthcare systems, development of healthcare applications, portal, and in the area of their process automation, so it’s natural to be aware of this and read more and more about the same. At this time when all the organizations looking for solutions where they can minimize direct people interactions. In the healthcare industry, it’s very difficult to apply the same, as we need people intervention and communication without any failure, however, there are processes and some other work [the scale of this type of work is very large in modern healthcare industry] which can be done through the automated systems or modern tools. This is a vast topic and opportunity area that we may discuss in any other blog. Today I am trying to share some of my experiences from a previous projects for leading a hospital where we have successfully implemented an online portal for Patient management. I have already provided some details in my previous blog about the same, No surprise, the SharePoint solutions are built using Infowise forms, Charts and other Infowise features. And we used the Infowise features extensively to complete the portal before time, the easy and no code solution from Infowise helped us a lot and so I am here to share my experience with learnings. In my last blog I talked about some of the features which I have used in my project, one of the features is, Convert to PDF option. This is such a great feature and it can be used in so many places to complete client requirements for record-keeping or report generations. One of the other features which we have used is Infowise alerts and people can argue, why we need to use Infowise alerts when we already have SharePoint alerts. Here are my top 4 reasons to use Infowise alerts in place of SharePoint inbuilt alerts:

Customized Email Templates: Believe me if you have to develop the below mail template, SharePoint designer workflow is the option and you need to have advanced skills on that. In my project, there was a requirement to send a notification to different departments and the message and subject line needs to be different for each action. Like I said SharePoint alerts can be used but they don’t have basic message customization capability. Infowise alert feature is the answer to this. And certainly, SharePoint developer can create a customized message through SharePoint designer workflows. But think, once you have delivered the system and next day there is a need to add a different alert, in that situation, either we can ask the client to raise a change request and pay the contract amount or we can build a long-term relationship with the client and say, OK, you don’t need to come to us and it's easily manageable at your end. We have trained someone from there team and they can easily do that and this is, what customer is looking for in these days. They don’t want to raise a change request every alternate day.

You have the flexibility to add different templates for different actions, for item added, modified, deleted or for a specific date.

Business Days Alerts: This is one of the features which can save your development efforts many folds. In my Patient Management System, due to some maintenance activities, there is a need that they don’t want to send alerts on Sundays, this can be easily achieved in Infowise alerts and easy to manage as well. Think about this feature and think about how you will develop if you don’t have this ready to use and no code Infowise feature.
Add CC and BCC option in alert emails: we had a discussion with the client and in some cases, they wanted to have CC and in some specific cases they also want BCC, and when you look Infowise alerts all this is available just a click away.

4: Customized Condition for What to send: another option with Infowise alerts is: you can add a customized condition for what information you want to send The alert feature from Infowise helped me to complete my requirements before the time as I don’t have to code and the maintenance plan was also very easy for this. Another feature that I have used in my patient Management portal is the chart part. Infowise chart web part is very easy to use and configure. My only suggestion is, you need to work on your reporting structure first, you need to be very sure about what you need to display, draw a report and finalize that in Infowise chart web part, the time you will put in drawing your report. What all the fields you need? What information do you want to display in the report? Who is the audience? Then you can easily create a good report. Infowise gives you all the solutions and tools to develop your report, charts and dashboards. To cover all the chart feature I need a separate blog but to give you an idea I am sharing a basic report and how I developed that in my project, this is the basic report about patient details (below report is with dummy data, no actual patient details), the client wanted to look into the count of patients by age group for each doctor on daily basis, to develop this I did the following steps

I Already have Age fields in My form which is calculated based on User’s DOB
There is a date field in my patient registration form, I will use that to give the report.
All other data can be used from list as it is, it’s all available in Infowise chart options.
This is s real-time chart, as soon as we have a patient visit recorded in patient details, the chart gets updated.

Disclaimer -: These snapshots are taken from dummy applications.

Facilitating At-Home Workers in SharePoint

2020-03-23T13:56:28Z

It’s clear that we are facing a long-term period where most of the work force will now be working remotely using web platforms to access work and to communicate. Businesses need to adapt quickly and decisively to promote good communication and to help employees adapt successfully. It is imperative that businesses provide tools and structure in order to facilitate workers in getting information and managing work. SharePoint and Office 365 provide excellent opportunities to communicate to workers and to facilitate structure in work processes. Ultimate Forms provide additional capabilities to make these tools work great. Here are some recommendations on new processes and tools which should be implemented in SharePoint to promote effective communication and to facilitate remote work processes:

Company Announcements should be facilitated through the SharePoint home page using structure such as the News Web Part to provide daily updates to workers and inform of new policies and processes. This should be tied to automatic email triggers so that company-wide communications can be promoted on the home page as well as email in one coordinated process. This must be a priority handled by one manager giving daily updates to emphasize and promote the importance of these changes.
A smart FAQ System is vital to answer the questions that workers will have ongoing. This should be provided in a user-friendly interface where users can drill into specific information and not be overwhelmed with a “wall of text”. Accordion sections can be used to allow expanding information that is specific to the employee.
Team Sites are now a critical tool to manage sharing documents, tasks and information amongst team members. Team Managers should be trained and assisted to utilize these sites to promote communication and disseminate tasks and work on a team-wide basis through a central portal. Team Members should check this page on a continuous basis and provide updates to show status on work. It is especially important to show how these sites should be used as more than just simple document repositories.
Employee Portals should be created that act to manage providing information to employees and to ensure that all employees have reviewed all necessary updates. Like an Onboarding Process, it isn’t enough to just broadcast updates to employees. Proactive steps should be taken to ensure that employees sign off that they have read required information.
Guidance should be provided on using web meetings and preferred chat client since this is now a common and critical means of communicating with other workers. Training and instructions should be provided to help workers effectively participate in and organize these meetings.

Because these changes to our work have come so suddenly and in an unprecedented manor, we are all scrambling to adapt. Now is a critical time for those managing key technology platforms to address the needs of the business to solve these new challenges. Contact Infowise for a web demo so that we can show how our tools let you solve these key challenges.

Exploring the Print and Export feature

2020-03-18T19:45:32Z

I’ve been updating the tutorials on the Print and Export feature in Ultimate Forms, which has given me an opportunity to reacquaint myself with how cool it is. If you’re not familiar, here’s a quick overview: The feature allows you to create templates for anything from a simple printed table to very unique and brand-specific reports, invoices, or other documents. You can work with whole lists, list items, or even calendars. At its simplest, it’s as easy as selecting field names from a menu. Add a custom header and footer and adjust the look and feel for fonts and font sizes, colors, and even images using a standard rich-text format editor. You can also adjust margins and the orientation of the printout and make it ready for exporting as a document or email. You can also work from scratch to create exactly the artifact you need, using your own custom formatted HTML and styling. This gives you maximum flexibility for matching any corporate brand guidelines you might need to adhere to. Another nice feature is the ability to have a barcode or QR code automatically generated and added to your custom template. This can be handy if you’re printing out inventory lists or doing other tracking activities that need a easy reference. This all becomes even more powerful when you start incorporating printing and exporting into your workflows. Do you need to send out invoices to your customers? Why not create an Action which starts automatically when a sale occurs that then sends out a preformatted email to your customer with pricing and payment information dynamically added from your data? The possibilities are endless – all it takes is some imagination! Check out this feature today and start making your printed documents and reports not only automated, but also more pertinent, more info-packed and more eye-catching! For more information, check out these tutorials: Introduction to the Print & Export feature (video) Basic print formatting Custom Print Headers and Footers

User-defined CSS classes in Modern forms

2020-03-17T13:30:54Z

Hi, Since we first released our Modern form and Form designer just about a year ago, we've received a lot of praise as well as constructive criticism and improvement suggestions. Many of those suggestions have to do with the look and feel of the forms, customer are always trying to push the envelope and design even more visually-striking forms and we completely support and encourage their efforts! We already offer various ways of styling your forms:

Any component on the forms can have its style configured by adding Styles rule. Using rules, you can assign common properties, such as color or font, without having any background in HTML or CSS, as well as more advanced custom styles. What is amazing about style rules is that you can apply them conditionally, based on the current user and column values
Configuring and applying CSS classes you define to the whole form using CSS button on the top menu

Based on the user feedback, we've now added the ability to assign a user-defined CSS class name to any component within the form, allowing you to have precise control over the style, as well as applying classes according to HTML structure and inheritance. I am assuming some basic knowledge of CSS, you will need that to be able to implement advanced styling. Of course, none of that is needed to build regular forms, the forms will look great with no styling as well :) I would like to illustrate the new feature through an example. I would like to style the label of just one field on the form in a way that is not possible through Style rule. Style rules are applied to a wrapper that surrounds the whole control (for example, both text field itself and its label) and do not have the ability to modify just the label but not the text field. To achieve my goal I need to execute two steps:

Give the control a unique CSS class name, it can be anything you want, just don't use any spaces. Just click on the component within the design surface, then enter the CSS class name in the General section of the settings pane.

I'm calling it "funkyLabel", cause I'm going to make it look funky :).
Now, in the CSS settings I need to define what my CSS class is going to do. Click on CSS in the top menu bar and enter your CSS class definition

Remember to prefix class names with a dot. As I'm applying the setting not to the whole component, but to the label, I'm adding "label" tag name to the class name. This is a standard way of using CSS, if you are not familiar with it, I encourage you to read any of the numerous introductory CSS tutorials you can easily google.
In my case, I'm setting font properties, such as family, size, color and style.

That's it! Once I close the CSS pane, I can already see the style being applied in the preview of the designer
Now all we need to do is Publish our form and voila! The possibilities are basically endless, give it a try and let it help you design fantastic looking forms!

Modern Patient Management System using SharePoint and Infowise Ultimate Forms

2020-03-08T20:06:31Z

In one of my previous blogs, I have created hospital appointment apps using SharePoint and Infowise Ultimate forms, and now I developed a new blog on automation in the healthcare industry using modern tools and that too without any custom code. I am a big supporter of no-code solutions, and fortunately, the industry is moving towards the same direction, thanks to all the tech community for the same. The entire industry is moving to specialized, ready to use solutions and tools. In my 12+years of experience, I have worked mostly in SharePoint and related tools, and I remember how time taking the form creation task was, starting with .net solutions, HTML forms, SharePoint designer forms, InfoPath forms and many other tools. I have worked on all of those. One of the thing which is common in all of the above tools is either they are time taking, or they don’t have features to fulfill all customer requirement for example: convert to PDF or just a simple print option for forms takes a lot of time to adjust and make ready for printing.

When I started working with Infowise Ultimate Forms, I thought this would be like a new tool with old features for form creation, but I was wrong. Now it has been quite some time, and I have already delivered a lot of projects using Infowise forms with SharePoint. Moreover, I never face any limitation, the best thing is they update the app frequently, and you don’t need to worry about that, I remember in one of my last project which was a pure SharePoint work I struggle a lot to convert to PDF option, and with Infowise that option is in your tips, I don’t have to worry about that functionally anymore, why I am writing this because in my Patient Management System I have to generate a report in PDF and Infowise forms help me in that and if I have to create that in any other tools with SharePoint it may either take a long time or extra cost for a convertor.

Let’s see what we have built using SharePoint and Infowise forms for a leading hospital; I will share some dummy screens here, which will give you a fair idea about the application and design. The client is a leading hospital and uses a legacy application for their Patient Management, and half of the process is manual, there are operators who do that manual work daily to upload the bulk records, and doctors feedback because doctors cannot access the system and if they give access to doctors that application was designed so poorly that half of the doctors time get wasted while login and searching for patient data. So this comes as a new requirement to develop with the core needs of a patient management system and reporting.

I will add screens where we have used Infowise for form creation and reporting par,t; Infowise Ultimate Forms Forms are very easy to use and development, which saves almost 40-45% of our time over traditional models of form design.

Patient Registration Form using Infowise Ultimate Forms

Below are some of the filed in which we are going to use the inpatient registration form.

Date	Auto/date	Used Infowise built-in tools and feature to create the form
Patient Name	Text
DOB	Date
Contact No	Number
Email	Text
Address	Multiline
Patients ID proof number	Single line text
Upload Patient ID proof	Attachment
Medical History (If any)	Multiline
Patient Unique ID	Number (Auto Generate after form submission)

Using Infowise, I can easily design my list forms in just clicking on options or drag and drop mode

This form needs to be converted to PDF and send to the accounting team (Client has this specific need because of the compliance and they have to keep all patient data separately.)

Doctors Screen /View Patient data and write prescription:

Infowise Print capabilities inbuilt in the tool, need to enable the tool with the options.

Patient Name	Auto from patient data	Infowise provides get data from sources/ Style ,validation
DOB	Auto from patient data	Infowise provides get data from sources/ Style ,validation
Medical History	Auto from patient data	Infowise provides get data from sources/ Style ,validation
Doctor Name	Auto Fill	Infowise provides get data from sources/ Style ,validation
Prescription	Multiline	Infowise provides get data from sources/ Style ,validation
Tests	Multiline	Infowise provides get data from sources/ Style ,validation
Save and Print Button		Infowise Print capabilities inbuilt in tool, just need to enable the tool with the options.

Doctors Screen /View Patient data and write prescription: All the above features have been developed using Infowise forms and reports, the best part is we have a lot of features in Infowise so whenever there is a new requirement either inside the form such as changing field calculation or change in fields we don’t have to take an extended downtime, we can do that quickly and in no time also for some other routine works we have trained one user from hospital to work in Infowise, because of the easy designing techniques and features users can easily do their jobs and on the creation of new forms as well.

With this automation, if someone wants to audit what happens in the entire month or if there is a need to know what prescription was given by doctors to the patients, all the information is just one click/print away. Now when I see the system and the timelines in which we have delivered this, I don’t think that would have been possible without the Infowise forms. Infowise forms help us to achieve this in the desired timeline and with excellent customer satisfaction.
Thanks for reading the blog, and I will come with another success story in the coming weeks.

6 Reasons SharePoint Is a Powerful Project Management Tool

2020-03-06T19:14:10Z

"We use this for all of the projects in Human Resources. They each get a new "Share" and everyone involved is attached so that file and documents can be shared among the team and there is a commonplace to save everything that can be reached from anywhere." – SharePoint Review by Jared H., HRIS Senior Manager Microsoft SharePoint and Office 365 is a versatile business solution. From healthcare to construction, any industry can use it to make their processes more efficient, as it can handle almost any of your business processes. As a project management tool, it can do wonders for your business and provide you with tools that help your future projects to succeed. In this article, we'll review the reasons why SharePoint is a powerful project management tool.

Automation

Almost everyone is familiar with the automation SharePoint brings to the table. Organizations can automate their various tasks and processes of the projects and improve their efficiency and productivity. Team members can focus on critical work processes while the platform takes care of the repetitive work for you. Team members can perform consistently, and the project management processes become consistent as well when you apply workflows correctly.

Task Management

SharePoint as a project management solution makes it easier to track the progress of your project. A dedicated project site helps team members to connect with their work, automatically generated reports makes it easier for them to know the work they are responsible for. It can also send notifications to update team members about work overdue, future tasks, etc. The dashboard gets updated in real-time; when a team member updates their task status, the project manager can immediately see the progress of the progress.

Data Management

The On-premises version of SharePoint brings critical data management functionalities for your organization, including the revolutionary search feature, user permissions, and other security features. As a project management tool, SharePoint can be handy for your organization, especially if you belong to a highly regulated industry (such as healthcare) or work with sensitive data. These features are the reason that SharePoint premises version is widely popular among the healthcare industry, finance, government agencies, manufacturing, and many more. Although, both SharePoint Online and On-premises are competent business solutions, when it comes to data management, SharePoint On-premises takes the lead. Here's how; Microsoft is responsible for the security of the data stored on the cloud; that's why the controls are limited on the online version of SharePoint. On the other hand, in SharePoint On-premises, it's easier to control external access of data and maintain internal process governance. Because data is stored internally on the premises version, project reporting gets simplified; you can quickly generate drill-down reports and aggregate dashboards.

Customization

According to a SharePoint and Office 365 survey conducted by Sharegate in 2017, 82% of the total respondents were customizing SharePoint according to their needs. This number indicates the customizability of the on-premise version of SharePoint. Organizations are happy to invest their time and resources to develop in –house apps and complex workflows so they can manage their projects with more convenience. The customization makes it easier for team members to get familiar with the platform. Project managers can easily customize the project site to match their existing PM processes. With the help of multiple apps and lists, you can easily manage critical components of the project, such as status reports, project issues, task lists, risks involved, etc. Because the new project site will look like the old one, team members will easily get acquainted with it, making it easier for you to launch the project.

Remote Working

SharePoint allows team members to work remotely; they can access project information from any device they have access to, such as mobile phones, tablets. This feature can be highly beneficial, especially if your project involves on-site work, like in the construction industry. Team members can log into their account using the SharePoint mobile app and access the information they need.

Security

Another stand-out feature of SharePoint is security; both on-premise and online versions of SharePoint are highly secure. The security includes two-factor authentication, user/group permissions, encryption, and many more. On a project site, project managers can configure access, read/write, and sharing permissions of the site collection, a single site and even a single document.

Conclusion

SharePoint provides several benefits as a project management solution; the out-of-the-box capabilities of the platform allows you to manage projects effectively. It increases collaboration between team members and creates an environment where team members can efficiently manage and track their duties. It is a user-friendly, scalable and cost-effective solution, which improves the visibility of the tasks at hand and helps the team to work together.

Using Item IDs as more that just a tracking record

2020-03-06T16:37:17Z

One of the reasons I like Ultimate Forms is that the features are amazingly flexible. So much so, in many cases, that they can be used for solutions far larger than their initial base functionality. Item IDs are like that. At their simplest, the provide a way of creating custom ID schema that companies can use to manage records that goes beyond SharePoint’s built-in rigid sequential numbering. One of the most often used capabilities is adding a seed value to the ID, so that it starts at a number higher than zero. This is super easy to do – just add your base number in with the numerator in your ID pattern. You can pull both dynamic and system information into your schema, too. This allows you to do things like adding creation dates, user information, etc. into your patterns. There’s a blog that talks about using IDs as a daily counter – effectively moving IDs from strictly a tracking tool to a control tool as well. It’s still showing the older UI, but the principle is the same – and the pattern as shown still works just fine. Think of this scenario – when the counter hits a predetermined number, an Alert goes out to a designated person. This could be to check supplies, or bring in more resources, or change a price, or whatever – I can think of dozens of different reasons why you might want to know that “X” had been reached for today! Then we have one of the most exciting features – the ability to create conditional IDs – IDs that change depending on criteria found in the record. I featured this in a tutorial using the example of project types, but it works with almost any kind of information, allowing you to create IDs that give you an instant identification reference. And don’t forget – IDs are not just for lists! You can also use them for libraries, including page, asset, or image libraries (as long as you customize the settings to allow for your ID field and other metadata). I challenge you to think of possible uses:

Assigning case IDs for service tickets
Creating order routing numbers, purchase orders, or invoices
Creating contract or agreement numbers
Making IDs conditional on manager approvals (or assigning approval numbers)

My guess is that when you start looking at your processes, you’ll see lots of opportunities that you never realized were possible!

SharePoint a Powerful Platform for Project Management

2020-03-05T18:14:16Z

“Group projects are completed with less frustration, and everyone is able to get their input on every aspect of a project. This program is the definition of teamwork.” — SharePoint Review, Capterra. The capabilities of SharePoint and Office 365 are unmatched, the customization, collaboration, and document management capabilities of the platform make it the go-to solution for 80% of the Fortune 500 companies. SharePoint works well as a project management tool; project managers can create task lists for better task management. Create a project plan and a document library to store project documents within the project site. In this article, we’ll review the use cases of SharePoint for project management and the components that make it a powerful project management tool. SharePoint Project Management Overview From project initiation to the closing of the project, SharePoint facilitates for all the five stages of collaborative project management.

Project Initiation

SharePoint helps project managers to build a sturdy foundation for future work. At this stage, you’ll create a project site on SharePoint; the site can be shared with sponsors, making it easier to get approval, sponsorship, or resourcing. The project site features native SharePoint functionality, so the parties involved can work together to define the objective or the approach of the project. You can use the site to create a project charter and set the object, scope of work, and the timeline of the project.

Planning, Setting up

After creating a designated project site, team members can use SharePoint to create a document repository on the project site and create task lists. As the project progress, you can update the tasks and timelines. You can also use SharePoint to desk check the project plan by sharing it with team members and sponsors. You can also notify team members about their responsibilities and enable the acknowledgement feature to make sure they are aware of their assigned role.

Working

The project manager can display the task list on the homepage of the project site, increasing the visibility of tasks at hand. Team members can easily find their work and mark it complete after finishing the task. You can also generate reports and monitor the progress of the project.

Tracking and Re-Planning

SharePoint enables continuous monitoring of the project, making it easier for project managers to re-plan the project in case the project is not running according to the plan. You can pin the KPIs on the homepage of the project site, making it easier for everyone to check and understand the status of the project.

Closing

SharePoint simplifies the closing of a project; project managers can create a punch list, determine the course of action for future projects by creating a post mortem report. Project managers can mark the tasks completed on the project sites and update the relevant documents. You can also run a project retrospective and add a lesson learned document to the site.

SharePoint Components that make it a powerful Project Management Tool

The four key components that make SharePoint a powerful project management tools are as follows.

SharePoint Lists

Project managers have to keep up with all the components of the project for effective project management. SharePoint provides a convenient way for managing projects; users can create various lists for tasks at hand. Every time you add a list, you are adding a project management process to your SharePoint site. These lists may include;

Task lists with the ability to organize Work Breakdown Structure, transfer, shuffle, and indent or outdent tasks.
Document library with native SharePoint capabilities, including co-authoring, document versioning, version control, check-in, check-out, etc.
Other lists that project managers can create for effective project management includes project statement, projects risks, project issues, etc.

Web Parts

SharePoint lists are a convenient way to keep track of the process and enter project updates. On the other hand, SharePoint web parts allow users to track their project’s progress, with the option to report the progress directly on the list. Web parts make it easier to track and report the progress of processes on the list with the help of dashboards. You can use web parts to for.

Traffic light indicators
Open issues
Status reporting charts
Overdue work
KPIs, etc.

SharePoint Sites

SharePoint sites provide a one-stop-shop by bringing together all the components of your SharePoint project management tools, including libraries, web parts, lists. Each of your projects can have a dedicated project site, from where you can easily access reporting tools (web part), and update or track (lists) your work. These project sites are collaborative so that the project members can work together according to the roles assigned to them. SharePoint’s search functionality makes it easier to find a document without losing time performing manual searches across several folders or networks. A project site has all the key features of a SharePoint site, including templates, permissions and navigation.

SharePoint Site Collection

As the name suggests, SharePoint site collection is a collection of SharePoint project sites. In project management, a SharePoint site collection works as a portfolio where information from a variety of sources is stored in one place. This feature is handy, especially if each business unit of your organization has its own unique project requirements.

Conclusion

SharePoint as a project management tool brings a lot to the table; it provides a central location to manage, collaborate and track the progress of the project. Jessie Bell W., the owner of a construction company, has been using SharePoint for over two years. She says that SharePoint helps team members stay organized, keeps the remote team connected, and keep the project files documented. She further states that SharePoint helps keep the project managers and administrators accountable. Her team has a large number of her team members work from remote locations, but due to mobile access, they were able to maintain document flow.

Creating a Bank Deposits Dashboard with various Charts and Graphs using Infowise Ultimate Forms-2

2020-02-27T18:42:58Z

Dear Readers, I am back again with the second part of my article. I am building a bank branch dashboard to understand the deposits trends over the months.
Last week I started my project by designing the wireframe of my dashboard. Once I was sure how I wanted my charts, I began exploring options. I realized that the charts web part, which is a part of Infowise Ultimate Forms was the best options to create my dashboard. I created a proof of concept, to begin with, my development.
Read more about it here.

Defining the data schema

To begin creating a dashboard, I started by designing the table structure. We will use this table to create the charts. I added the fields: Branch Names, City, Country and Deposits of January, March, June, September and December. Once done, I included the most important thing that I need to create my graphs, data. Without data, there will be nothing to visualize.
In case you are just trying to create and check what your graphs might look like, don't forget to add some dummy data.

Creating a Line Graph

Armed with my knowledge that I gained by creating the proof of concept using the charts web part of Infowise Ultimate Forms, I wanted to create a line chart.
I started by clicking on design, which opens up the Infowise Portal. I love how easy it is to start editing on Infowise Ultimate Forms Portal.

I started by clicking on the chart's web part and creating a new profile. A profile defines all the parameters of a chart, starting from defining the type of the graph to designing it.
It has four tabs, with different configurations. I selected the type of chart as a line graph and added values for X and Y axis of my figure. I picked the name of the bank branches on my X-axis. For the chart's series, I chose the deposits over the months.
I then added the graph to my main page by adding Infowise Ultimate Forms charts web part and selecting the profile from the dropdown.

Creating a profile and adding a chart using Infowise Ultimate Forms Charts web part is very easy. You can configure and create a new chart.
Once I selected the profile that I created from the dropdown, my chart appeared. I could see how the deposits varied over months in different branches.

Additional Configuration for the Infowise Ultimate Forms Chart Web Part

Once I was done creating the chart, I wanted to add some colour to give it a nice look and feel. It's so simple to add a splash of colour to my graphs. I just went back to my Infowise Portal and edited my profile. I selected the Border and Color tab and added a background colour. I could add a gradient as well with a quick click. Once I save my updates and refresh my page with the graph, it automatically shows me the graph with a background colour.
There are also some other configurations available and can even a business user can update it easily.

SharePoint Chart Web Part

Though I completed my chart, I wanted to try out the SharePoint Charts web part. The default charts have minimal options, and I could only create a Bar Chart with only one set of data. Charts Filter using Infowise Ultimate Forms Charts Web Part
I completed my charts, and they looked beautiful. I was happy, and then I realized that I missed something. I needed a filter to display only the data I wanted.

I wanted to have a list of cities in a dropdown that I can use to filter the data for my charts.

Well, it was easy. I started by creating a new profile under the Filter tab. I defined the name of the filter and added a Filter Button and a Clear Butto,n.
However, there are other configuration options also available at the click of your mouse. Showing the sent value on the debug mode helps to find out the errors if any.

The second tab for the filter profile allows us to choose the kind of data filter we need. I can choose between a dropdown and a free text and also define if I want an exact match or not.
Another option that helps is the column to filter the checkbox. If the column name is not the same as the filter name, we can uncheck the box and update the column name in the column textbox.
For our current scenario, I wanted to filter the deposits over the months based on the Branch city. I created a dropdown with all the options for the cities.

To add the filter to our Infowise Ultimate Forms Chart, I edited my main page and added an Infowise filter web part. Like the Charts web part by Infowise, I added an Infowise filter web part. I then selected the profile I had created for the chart in the drop-down, and my filter was there on the page. Once I saved the page, I tried out the filter. It works perfectly.

It's very user-friendly. The process of adding a filter to a chart was quick, and it was very similar to the process of adding a chart. This ensures that the learning to use the Infowise Product is very easy.
Infowise Ultimate Forms is not only a useful tool for creating forms and processes, but it is also a fantastic tool for reporting purposes as well.
Now that I have everything in place, I am ready to put all the charts together to create my Branch Dashboard. Join me next week as I finish my project.

Another Take on a Project Tracking System

2020-02-20T21:19:16Z

I recently did a webinar where I demonstrated a different way of putting together a project tracking system. I came at this from the standpoint of not wanting to use the out-of-the-box SharePoint Task List; my logic was that that feature only allowed one project per list, although you could have multiple tasks. Instead, I opted to use the Ultimate Forms Associated List feature. This allowed me to have multiple projects included in a single list, with individual tasks and project documents as detailed “child” items. Using the Column Color feature, I dressed the list up a bit, too – adding icons to give a bit of visual pop. Naturally, I used the Ultimate Forms Form Designer to create a custom form – who wouldn’t when they’re so easy to build and use? Taking advantage of rules and permissions, I hid the third “History” column on new items – I’m a big fan of only showing the users what they need to see when the need to see it, and not cluttering up their experience with a lot of unnecessary stuff. Also as you would expect, I added Alerts for the Project Manager and Owner, as well as the individual Task Owners, to notify them of upcoming deadlines and project slippage. I then added a List Search. For me, this was the key to the entire edifice – and the reason I didn’t use Task Lists. The Ultimate Forms List Search enables you to easily find records within a large list. Using the more flexible Detailed format, you can search for multiple criteria at once, and the results are returned directly below the search. Click on a record and you go directly to it within the master list. When it came time to sling everything together, I chose to create a new Home page for the site, leveraging SharePoint’s Modern environment’s features. I added a Hero widget to the page, and built in quick links to the Project Library, the Master List, a Project Calendar, and a link directly to creating a new project. I also put the List Search onto the Home page, so users could find and jump to whatever project they needed. How long did this all take me? Honestly, about a day – but I changed my mind a few times, so there was a little back and forth going on. But only a day to build out a full solution? That’s pretty impressive, you have to admit. If you want to see the webinar walk through, it’s posted online. And an added bonus – this site is now available as a Business Solution template!

Infowise partner program is a new approach to building SharePoint solutions

2020-02-20T19:22:42Z

"

"The start of a partnership process is a simple one; all you need to do is fill an online Enrollment Form."

Avi Pagi, Infowise Partnership Program Manager
avip@infowisesolutions.com

"As a SharePoint consultant, my goal is to guide enterprises when SharePoint is a good fit for their requirements, culture and environment. However, one of the pain points for them is having the resources and SharePoint specific skills internally to put in place custom solutions when out of the box features can't meet the requirements. They don't want to be dependant on external consulting each time they need a custom solution. Infowise products provide this level of autonomy. The ROI for the product is a no brainer. With a small learning curve and guidance from the internal SharePoint governance, IT or power users can quickly build solutions that will be easy to maintain. Something that we don't often hear about SharePoint custom solutions..."

– Martin Coupal, IT Consultant. Unika Solutions Infowise ULTIMATEforms is the prevalent SharePoint, Office 365 Add-on for creating, managing forms, automating, executing business logic, and generating reports. It’s an undeniable fact that the Infowise UltimateForms makes working with SharePoint more efficient and fun. With Infowise ULTIMATEforms, you can create business solutions in Office 365 and on-premises with great ease and no need for coding at all. As we all know that SharePoint is a powerful platform, and a well-designed SharePoint site can be a powerful business solution. However, using out-of-the-box SharePoint can sometimes be a little frustrating. There are gaps in functionality and some things you just can’t do without time-consuming development or the use of complicated third-party tools. Infowise Ultimateforums is here to make the whole procedure easy for you. It is a no-code platform that makes it fast and simple to develop advanced business applications by the use of the browser. The flexibility of Infowise lets you add features and functionality by using an intuitive, form-based interface. In this regard, you have to select the options in the menu. The plus point is that no programming is required for this procedure

Three main areas of functionality

Infowise has three main areas of functionality. Here are they:

Forms and form permissions
Business logic
Reporting and display

Infowise allows you to create easy-to-configure forms that are not only attractive but provide real-life business functionality as well. With built-in dynamic features, you can start automating your processes to enhance speed and cut down errors.

Advanced permissions and Infowise associated items

The advanced permissions permit you to decide who can read, edit or even delete data. With Infowise, you can control this at the field level. Through Infowise associated items, you build parent and child relationship between list. Besides, adding multiple detail lines in a form is made possible via Infowise solutions that you are unable to do in SharePoint.

Infowise business logic functions

Infowise business logic functions blow the roof off of limited SharePoint alerts and workflows. Moreover, Actions perform a wide variety of tasks such as adding or updating records, flexible importing or exporting of data, and creating folder or sites. Almost twenty different functions with more coming all the time, and you set the action timing, conditions all with a simple menu-based interface.

Infowise alerts

Infowise alerts enable you to build customized messages for a wide variety of events and offer you numerous options. They control these messages and have a check on how they are sent and to whom they go. Infowise also ramps up your ability to provide reporting and visual indicators on your site. They include graphs, charts, countdowns, KPIs, set up and ready in minutes. And wherever you are in the Infowise tool, you are connected to useful context-specific tutorials that show you what to do step-by-step.

Leverages and resources of partners and end-users

It provides seamless integration into the existing user interface of SharePoint.
It develops your browse with no tools, programming and deployment.
With Infowise Ultimate Forms, you can make large selection fo building blocks for routine business activities. For instance, PDF conversions, approval stages, data import, repeating sections, etc.
The Infowise works with every version of SharePoint. There is no need for CALs or particular server licenses.
It builds, stores as templates and replicates site templates and functionality that is preserved in the list.
It enables users to generate powerful SharePoint applications with no custom-code.
It has a comprehensive process, library of forms and reporting components that are designed to work together flawlessly. Consequently, it will create reliable and easy-to-use solutions.
The business users will be capable of creating robust solutions quickly to stay focused on upgrading business value.

Build once but use multiple times

Infowise Ultimate Forms are made from the ground up to support this approach “build once but use multiple times”. After designing a business solution, you are able to package it as well as distribute it to a variety of clients. The bonus feature of this Infowise ultimate Forms is that it maximizes your investment. Both Office 365 and on-premises versions support templates. As you are our partners, therefore, we provide you with fundamental components and guides on how you can start selling your pre-configured solution packages.

How to become a partner with Infowise

As a partner-first company, we assist you in leveraging our proficiency and devotion to providing the best service for your customers. Becoming a partner is not an uphill task. All you need to do is to fill an online form that is available on our website. Then there is an agreement. After agreeing with our terms and conditions, you can be one of our registered partners. In the form, you will have to write your company name, contact person, email, phone number and remarks. Contact Partnership program manager Avi Pagi avip@infowisesolutions.com

Conclusion

Overall, Infowise Ultimate Forms is a complete package that delivers all the capabilities you need to build comprehensive business solutions at a fraction of time and effort, fast and easy with no code required.

Infowise

At Infowise, we serve as a strategic partner, assisting public and private enterprises in their digital transformation endeavours with our scalable, smart, and robust tools, software, and applications. Our product Infowise UltimateForms Power Suite, contains more than 15 standalone SharePoint applications developed to give you the power to innovate, automate, and scale up your processes. Our products have been designed for optimum interoperability and seamless integration within SharePoint. Altogether, they constitute the structural foundation for digitization and facilitate your transition to digital transformation. Click here to download Infowise ULTIMATEforms 30-days free trial. Simple process. After you've installed Infowise UF, go ahead and create an unlimited number of Business Process Applications. Or even better, do you want to start with a ready template? Great, click here and download the ready-to-use template from our vast business process solution library, re-purpose to service your needs

Build Sites Fast with Business Solution Templates

2020-02-20T18:06:31Z

I used to get asked a lot, “Can we copy Ultimate Forms Actions or Alerts or Forms from one site to another?” and, “Can’t I just copy a SharePoint site, so I don’t have to rebuild all my lists and stuff?” In the old days, the answer was a disappointing, “Nope, sorry.” However, good new is here! Ultimate Forms now includes prebuilt Business Solutions. Business Solutions are just that – solutions to common business problems and scenarios. They are entire SharePoint sites - templatized, with all the pertinent lists, libraries, pages, and navigation pre-created. Even better, they include customized Forms, Actions, column formatting, and other Ultimate Forms features as appropriate for the individual solution. For instance – the HR Solution includes the following:

Process initiation by either forwarding candidate’s CV via email or manually adding candidate to the recruitment list.
Five process stages: HR Recruiter, Technical Interview HR Interview, Division Approval, and HR Final Approval.
Auto rejection and job offers letters
Email notification at any stage
Track current stage with color-coding on the recruitment list.

The only thing that’s missing is the data. Installing the new site is super easy – just decide if you want to overlay an existing site or create a new one, give it a name, and away you go. Just one more little bonus – we are also adding sites that we use for demonstration purposes during webinars to the Business Solution templates. If you see something that grabs your interest during a presentation, you’ll be able to duplicate that in your own environment. Even if the templates don’t exactly fit your needs, they provide a great place to start from, with some of the work already done for you. And saving time is always a good thing, right? Check out Business Solutions today!

Using Power Automate with Ultimate Forms Actions

2020-02-19T16:31:37Z

How much learning have you done on the Microsoft Power Platform? This includes out-of-the-box tools available to you in Office 365 including PowerApps a form building tool, Power BI used for building reports and charts and Power Automate which is used for creating workflow. As a SharePoint solutions developer, I push myself to continuously learn and broaden my understanding of all available tools on the platform. Ultimate Forms has been at the forefront of my development activities and luckily I have found that these tools combine well with existing Microsoft tools. I should comment that until recently Power Automate was known as Flow. Just something to be aware of! The workflows that you create are still called Flows so that term hasn't fallen completely by the wayside. The most important attitude that you should embrace as it relates to all of these tools is that you shouldn't embrace one toolset exclusively. In all of your SharePoint related solutions, the data is stored in SharePoint lists. You can use Microsoft tools in combination with Ultimate Forms tools to build solutions. Understanding how to utilize all toolsets allows you to be more flexible and adaptable in the face of unique business requirements. Power Automate provides a robust workflow platform that can be used to drive automation based on triggers (or scheduled) both for activity in your SharePoint environment or even outside of that environment. In many cases Ultimate Forms Actions are an easier path to create this functionality. However, Power Automate provides support for connections with many other web based software systems and tools outside of SharePoint. Functionally there are some differences in constructing workflow as well. Using the For Each pattern in Power Automate lets you loop through records in a SharePoint list and perform various actions. The logical If constructor allows you to create branches in your workflow according to your conditions. A drawback to Power Automate is that it is more developer oriented requiring use of code snippets. These are similar to formulas that you would use in Excel. The best possible situation is to take advantage of the best of all toolsets combining functionality to use the best of what each has to offer. In both cases you can define trigger conditions and update SharePoint list data accordingly. Many people I talk to have not yet had the opportunity to learn Power Automate. Microsoft provides many different examples and videos to learn these tools. In my experience, the best possible situation is to do hands on learning by practicing creating your own Flows in connection with a practice SharePoint list. Come up with a simple task and figure out how to make a Flow to handle that task. Here is an example to get you started: Update a field "System Date" in a practice SharePoint list each night with the current date. Avoid passive learning! Watching videos give you some big picture information, but the knowledge it only truly earned by using the tools to build your own functionality. Watch for updates as we will soon be hosting a webinar demonstrating some use cases where you can combine Power Automate and Ultimate Forms Actions to build more full featured solutions!

Revamped Teams for the healthcare industry

2020-02-18T22:46:24Z

Ignite 2019: 11 New Features of Teams for the Healthcare Industry

Microsoft announced new exciting features for MS Teams at the Ignite 2019 conference. A detailed analysis of the features shows that it has got a lot to offer to the healthcare industry. These features provide a single hub where care teams can communicate and collaborate through chat and video, and easily access patient care information such as health records. To further benefit the healthcare industry, Microsoft enabled Teams app integration with healthcare apps and line of business apps. MS Teams aims to improve patient data hand-offs and cost management and reduce readmission rates through these newly added features. In this article, we’ll review the new features, their benefits and compliance. Ignite 2019: Microsoft Teams user tutorial and updates

Features

Virtual Consult

Virtual Consults provides a simplified way to schedule and conduct B2C virtual consults for the healthcare industry. Patients can easily join the virtual consult using their web browser without having a Teams account.

Patient Coordination

Healthcare professionals can digitize care information and streamline patient care using the new Teams. They can enter patient information into Teams and provide a central hub for care team members to communicate, collaborate, and improve care coordination.

Private Channels

In the new Teams app, healthcare professionals can create private channels within existing teams. They can also customize the privacy of their private channels and make it visible for only selected Team members or everyone.

Multi-Window

Healthcare professionals can now pop out separate windows for meetings, chat, documents, and even calls. This feature allows care providers to improve their productivity and streamline their workflow.

Pin Channels

For easier access to important channels, healthcare professionals will now be able to pin important channels at the top of their Teams list.

Message extensions

Healthcare professionals can now include Polls and Surveys in their Teams chat or channel conversation. This feature will allow them to get instant feedback on shared items or questions and enhance patient care coordination.

Advance Integration

· Outlook

Microsoft Teams makes it easier for healthcare professionals to collaborate due to its advanced integration. Healthcare professionals can opt to bring email conversations, including attachments from Outlook into a Teams channel or chat and vice versa. The new Microsoft Teams provides actionable missed activity emails to healthcare professionals so they can keep track of missed conversations. The email will include the latest replies from the conversation, to which care providers can directly respond to from their Outlook.

· Planning apps and forums

Teams will now be able to consolidate tasks from Team channels, Outlook, Planner, and MS To Do, allowing healthcare workers to get a unified view of their personal and assigned tasks within the Teams app.

· Yammer

The professionals can now use Yammer conversations, live events, and communities into their MS Teams. For easier access to Yammer, IT admin and end-users can pin it on Teams’ left navigation rail.

Whiteboard

Microsoft Whiteboards are an additional option to be used during Teams Meetings. Accessible through the share tray, this feature provides an infinite digital canvas to collaborate and enhance their meeting experience. Care teams can even share their analog whiteboards within Teams. A dedicated AI-powered camera will automatically focus on the whiteboard in the room, make the ink more legible, and even transparentize anyone standing in front of the whiteboard.

Live Captions

Live captions will revolutionize Team Meetings by providing healthcare professionals with another way to follow the conversation. This feature will convert speech into text in real-time to support users with different language proficiencies and hearing abilities.

Background Customization

Healthcare professionals will be able to customize their background during a video meeting and hide any sensitive patient data behind them.

First-line Workers Access

· SMS sign-in

The new Teams app will provide a low friction way for first-line workers to sign in to Teams. They can sign in through their phone number using a one-time 6-digit SMS passcode for authentication.

· Off-shift access

This feature will send a notification to first-line workers when they access their Teams account outside work hours. The IT admins can turn on this feature, after which the user will have to provide consent to the notification before accessing the app.

· Global sign-out

This feature will allow healthcare professionals to sign-out from all devices at once and help them save time and keep their accounts secure after accessing a shared device.

Benefits

The new Teams features announced during Microsoft Ignite 2019 provide the following benefits for the healthcare industry.

Productivity

Healthcare professionals can increase their productivity by using MS Teams as it provides a single platform for all their needs. They won’t have to switch between several apps to communicate, coordinate, and find the information that they require because Teams integrate with Office 365 apps and line of business apps.

Multi-Tasking

Thanks to the new multi-window feature of MS Teams, healthcare professionals will be able to work efficiently and handle multiple tasks at once.

Security

State-of-the-art security systems back MS Teams; the new access control features take the security of the platform to the next level and provide a safe platform for your care team to collaborate, communicate, and increase patient care.

Collaboration

The new features of Teams such as MS Whiteboard integration and live captions during meetings will allow healthcare providers to collaborate even more efficiently than before.

Teams and HIPAA Compliance

Microsoft Teams is already being used by renowned healthcare organizations such as St. Luke’s; they even demo the new Teams during Microsoft Ignite 2019.

Short Version:

Are the newly added features of MS Teams HIPPA-compliant? YES!

Long Version:

Compliance is one of the primary reasons healthcare organizations hesitate to deploy smart solutions for their business processes. MS Teams is part of the Office 365 suite, which follows regulatory compliance, including HIPAA. Microsoft Teams belong to the Tier-D category of security and compliance; security controls are enabled by default, and it meets standard demanded by HIPAA, SOC 1, SOC 2, SSAE 16, ISO 27018, ISO 27001, and EUMC. Tier D services and application have also passed the HITRUST CSF Assurance Program Assessment.

Infowise

At Infowise, we serve as a strategic partner, assisting public and private enterprises in their digital transformation endeavours with our scalable, smart, and robust tools, software, and applications. Our product Infowise UltimateForms Power Suite contains more than 15 standalone SharePoint applications developed to give you the power to innovate, automate, and scale up your processes. Our products have been designed for optimum interoperability and seamless integration within SharePoint. Altogether, they constitute the structural foundation for digitization and facilitate your transition to digital transformation. Click here to download Infowise ULTIMATEforms 30-days free trial. Simple process. After you've installed Infowise UF, go ahead and create an unlimited number of Business Process Applications. Or even better, do you want to start with a ready template? Great, click here and download the ready-to-use template from our vast business process solution library, re-purpose to service your needs

The Case for Microsoft Teams in Healthcare

2020-02-14T18:54:16Z

“I see Microsoft Teams right up there with the best - either as a screen sharing and audio/video conferencing tool or as a team collaboration tool. It’s awesome.” – Teams review by Shankar V. Over 500,000 organizations including 91 of the Fortune 100 are using Office 365 and Teams to assist their employees in different capacities, according to Corporate Vice President of Modern Workplace Verticals Emma Williams. In this article, we’ll explain what MS Teams is, how it is transforming the healthcare industry.

What is MS Teams?

Teams is a chat-based communication platform for businesses created by Microsoft as part of their Office 365 suite. Built to compete with platforms like Slack, Teams in its simplest form allows users to replace emails with group chat rooms or “channels.” Employees can work together within a single window to enhance collaboration and teamwork. Users can create several channels and can easily follow conversations due to conversation threading, new messages appending at the bottom, and update notifications. To facilitate one-on-one communication with other channel members, users can directly use video or voice chats with just one click. But Teams is not just a chat hub; it’s a platform well integrated with Office 365 online. The integration enables users to use other Microsoft’s services like SharePoint, Delve, Word, Excel, Planner, PowerPoint, OneNote, Power BI within Teams. Every shared file automatically gets synched and stored in OneDrive or a local SharePoint which provides access to the latest version to every Team member. Thanks to co-authoring, Team members can work on a single file at the same time and see other users’ changes in real-time.

Teams and Healthcare

In today’s complex care environment, healthcare professionals and institutions strive to provide the best care possible. Microsoft Teams provides healthcare professionals with a secure platform for communication, patient care coordination, and improvement in operational efficiencies. The unified interface of Teams allows healthcare professionals to focus on patient care instead of navigating through several systems to find the required information. Below are some features Microsoft Teams provide for the healthcare industry.

Secure Messaging

Teams allow healthcare professionals to send messages and capture and share photos within a chat. Because Teams meet security and compliance requirements, healthcare professionals can relay vital information instantly without worrying about safety and security.

Urgent Notifications

Healthcare professionals can mark their message as “urgent” in case of an emergency and let the recipient know that it requires urgent attention. The recipient will receive notifications every two minutes until they read the message.

Care Coordination

Teams have entirely transformed the way healthcare professionals communicate with patient updates. Line of business apps, connections of e-health records, and integration with Office apps enable healthcare professionals to share patient updates in real-time. They can also share, organize, coordinate, and prioritize care information in a single hub.

Meetings

Teams allow healthcare professionals to connect with each other even if they are working remotely. They can connect with anyone, anywhere with the help of audio and video conferencing/meeting features. Healthcare professionals can connect with staff, different departments, units, institutions, or even the entire healthcare network.

Streamline Workflows

Healthcare organizations can streamline their workflows and shifts by using Teams. They can create schedules for on-call care providers and share it, so everyone knows about shift changes. Organizations can make sure that everyone is updated on important information by sharing announcements across the organization.

Security and Compliance

Teams assist healthcare organizations with regulatory compliance because it built on the secure Microsoft Office 365. Teams are compliant with standards like GDPR, SOC 1, SOC 2, HITRUST, and HIPAA.

HIPAA Compliance and Teams

HIPAA is regulatory standards outlining lawful use and disclosure of protected health information (PHI). Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) regulates HIPAA, and it is enforced by the Office for Civil Rights (OCR). There are four main HIPAA rules.

HIPAA Privacy Rule: Patients’ rights to PHI
HIPAA Security Rule: Secure maintenance, transmission, and handling of ePHI
HIPAA Breach Notification Rule: Guidelines for covered entities and businesses to follow in case of PHI or ePHI data breach
HIPAA Omnibus Rule: Mandates that business associates must be HIPAA compliant and outlines rules surrounding Business Associate Agreements (BAAs)

Microsoft Teams includes a range of features to keep PHI or ePHI secure. In its security compliance section, Microsoft states that MS Teams is Tire-D compliant, which includes HIPAA, ISO 27018, ISO 27001, SSAE16 SOC 1 and SOC 2, and EU Model Clauses (EUMC). Teams enforce organization and team-wide two-factor authentication, Active Directory single sign-on, in-transit, and at-rest data encryption, and Cloud Security Alliance compliance. Files and Notes are stored in SharePoint and OneNote and are backed by SharePoint encryption and OneNote encryption, respectively. Data Loss Policies or DLP policies identify, monitor, and automatically protect sensitive patient information in the entire Teams’ environment. DLP prevents unintentional sharing of confidential patient information, such as social security numbers, health records, credit and debit card numbers, etc. In simple words, Healthcare organizations and professionals can use Teams without worrying about inappropriate sharing of PHI or sensitive data existing on consumer chat apps because Teams is protected and compliant.

Infowise

At Infowise, we serve as a strategic partner, assisting public and private enterprises in their digital transformation endeavours with our scalable, smart, and robust tools, software, and applications. Our product Infowise UltimateForms Power Suite contains more than 15 standalone SharePoint applications developed to give you the power to innovate, automate, and scale up your processes. Our products have been designed for optimum interoperability and seamless integration within SharePoint. Altogether, they constitute the structural foundation for digitization and facilitate your transition to digital transformation. Click here to download Infowise ULTIMATEforms 30-days free trial. Simple process. After you've installed Infowise UF, go ahead and create an unlimited number of Business Process Applications. Or even better, do you want to start with a ready template? Great, click here and download the ready-to-use template from our vast business process solution library, re-purpose to service your needs

Get real-time product updates right from Ultimate Forms

2020-02-14T16:12:35Z

Hi, We, here at Infowise, are committed to a constant and on-going effort of making our product better. If you've been tracking our blogs and product versions, you have probably seen that there something new and improved out at least once a week. Inside the app itself, we've had a dedicated section where we posted notifications regarding all the major updates, pointing to the corresponding blog articles. Now we want it to make it super easy for you to keep tabs on what is going on down to every single detail. We will now be posting info regarding every single update, be it a bug fix, an existing feature enhancement or a brand-new feature! Here is how it's going to work:

The existing Latest Updates feature on the homepage is renamed to Announcements. These are still links to the blog articles and you will be able to read about new major features and, (hopefully never) service disruptions.
There is a brand new section called Latest Updates under Support tab of the app, in the right pane. Here you will see the following:
- Office 365 customers will see an ongoing stream of latest updates, broken down by component. Only the latest 10 are shown.
- On-premises customers will see the latest released versions and version comments, broken down by component. Only the latest 10 are shown.

We are confident that our customers are interested in what is going on with the product on a daily basis and we are have to provide all the info we can!

SharePoint and Office 365 to deliver educational content

2020-02-14T01:56:20Z

Using SharePoint and Office 365 to Deliver Educational Content

“Better file distribution & collaborative editing abilities - Pliable and user-friendly mobile user interface - File storage & document capabilities of a fortune 500 companies without huge implementation overhead.” – SharePoint review by Brett C. The current trend of Industry 4.0 has made innovative training environments a new norm; the emerging Online Learning Solutions support innovative learning through rich media formats to break down complex data in easier formation. Among those solutions, SharePoint and Office 365, is becoming widely popular because of its versatility and user-friendly manuals. It is being used as a document management solution, a help desk and ticketing solution, a policy management solution, a learning management solution and more. In this article, we’ll review SharePoint as a learning management system, and see its document library feature, and will take into account how the users can activate video and rich media in SharePoint.

Learning management solutions

SharePoint and Office 365 can be used as a learning management solution or LMS by healthcare organizations to deliver patient education, push patient-focused guidelines, and video or rich media-based educational content. Here’s how SharePoint helps healthcare organizations to deliver educational content to healthcare professionals.

Automatic Training Schedules

Healthcare professionals have to receive regular training so that they can stay updated about contemporary insights in order to provide effective patient care. A SharePoint LMS assists healthcare organizations and professionals through its automatic training scheduling feature. Employees can view ongoing and upcoming training programs and enroll with just a single click. They can also view the strength of the training program and the waiting list.

Track Employee Training

Healthcare organizations can track the progress of employee training programs via reports. Using SharePoint LMS, not only they can see how many employees registered for the training program, but they can also track the number of employees that finished training or are on the waitlist.

Deliver Training Content

Healthcare organizations can use SharePoint LMS and save time by directly providing training materials to employees. The professionals working remotely can easily access training materials by using the SharePoint mobile app. The training material can be in any form, i.e., text, audio, or video for onboarding, patient-focused guidelines, educational training, etc. Healthcare organizations can also create an FAQ section and attach web links to assist the training process further.

Assure Regulatory Compliance

Healthcare organizations and professionals have to follow several state and federal regulations, such as HIPAA. SharePoint helps organizations to train employees to follow relevant regulations and make sure that the employees are adhering to them by providing a platform where they can share training content. The organizations can make sure that everyone receives training by activating the acknowledge function. They can even temporarily block user profiles to ensure further that everyone completes compliance training.

Evaluate Employee Knowledge

The healthcare organizations can use SharePoint to evaluate their employee’s knowledge through online tests on SharePoint soon after completion of respective training programs. The organizations can provide feedback on employee skills of differential diagnosis, problem identification, patient communication, clinical reasoning, and much more.

Create Surveys

Healthcare organizations can create online surveys in SharePoint and Office 365 to increase the quality of their training programs. They can use MS Forms to create online surveys and share it on a group, the homepage, or individually to all employees. Employees can answer those surveys and provide their feedback; as a result, the healthcare organization will learn about staff satisfaction with the training program and can tailor their training program accordingly.

What is a Document Library?

SharePoint provides a safe and secure place where you can store video and rich media files called document library. It supports co-authoring so you and your coworkers can work on the documents together from any location. There are four main types of document libraries.

Document Library: Stores documents only
Pictures Library: Stores images/photos only
Site Pages Library: Stores pages
Site Assets Library: Stores all types of content, i.e., text, audio, video.

Tutorial: How to create a document library in SharePoint

How to Enable Video and Rich Media in SharePoint?

Healthcare organizations can enable video, and rich media feature in SharePoint to deliver patient education and educational content. This feature allows them to activate a type of document library known as the asset library, where they can store and manage rich media assets. Here’s how you can enable it. Please note that to enable the asset library, you must have administrative privileges.

Go to the site settings page
Look for site collection administration and select site collection features
On the site collection features page, activate video and rich media
Set up an asset library
On the ribbon, click the new item or new document to add a file on the library page. You can upload, embed or link a video.

Using SharePoint to Improve patient care coordination

2020-02-13T15:26:44Z

Using SharePoint to Improve Patient Care Coordination

According to NCBI, the investment in the digital health sector jumped from $4.4 billion in 2016 to nearly $6 billion in 2017. The jump in funding was mainly because the users of healthcare systems started using innovative digital solutions like Google, Uber, Amazon, etc. Healthcare organizations operating on a limited budget can’t afford such expenses, so they need a solution that is both effective and affordable. SharePoint and Office 365 is the answer to their problems; by incorporating SharePoint, healthcare organizations can streamline several of their business processes.

Microsoft Teams Role in Healthcare

Microsoft Teams is a standout feature of Office 365, which is gaining popularity among innovative healthcare providers. Healthcare providers can easily video conference with patients using MS Teams and eliminate the need for meeting the patient physically. To prevent unwanted data broadcasting, healthcare professionals can blur their backgrounds. Teams can further help healthcare organizations to enhance communication between employees and assure regulatory compliance. Healthcare professionals can securely share image annotation and chat with fellow team members to facilitate patient care. They can push urgent notifications and even video conference with fellow experts to make efficient and effective care decisions.

Patient Care Coordination with SharePoint

SharePoint and Office 365 are widely popular as a collaborative tool mainly because they enable organizations to increase collaboration both internally and externally. Healthcare organizations can use SharePoint to enhance care coordination between employees (intranet) and to collaborate with third-party associates (extranet) such as insurance companies, labs, etc.

Intranet

Healthcare professionals can use SharePoint based intranet to improve patient care, employee engagement, and to increase the efficiency of their medical staff. An intranet-based on SharePoint enables health care organizations to.

Accelerate Internal Processes

Healthcare organizations can automate workflows and streamline processes like employee tracking, vacations and status changes, budget approvals, asset management, and much more. Healthcare professionals can increase patient care and productivity via mobile access. For instance, a patient discharge request can be remotely taken care of by using the SharePoint mobile app. Healthcare professionals can track their day to day activities by creating a SharePoint to-do-list; they can even associate the tasks with patient’s names, set up priority levels, and an estimated task completion time. Busy doctors and nurses can use forms and surveys to pre-order meals for a week.

Track Work Activities and Events

Healthcare professionals have a plethora of tasks to look after, such as training, surgeries, attendance, etc. Without a proper scheduling system, effectively managing these tasks may become overwhelming and decrease their productivity. Healthcare professionals can use SharePoint based calendars to schedule events, meetings, medical procedures, etc. Healthcare organizations can create an on-call scheduling calendar and enable employees to track schedule changes, replacement staff, and notify employees about shift change.

Track Announcements and News

Healthcare professionals can set up alerts and notifications in SharePoint, so they never miss a critical announcement such as hospital events, system outages, news, etc. SharePoint provides several options to convey alerts; it could be a push notification on the mobile phone or a banner on the intranet. Healthcare organizations can temporarily block employee access of the intranet until they read and acknowledge the message.

Manage Emergencies

Healthcare organizations can create a list of emergency color codes in SharePoint, along with quick links defining the course of action to handle those emergencies efficiently. Healthcare organizations can quickly reach an emergency response team or a care team by creating an emergency contact directory in SharePoint.

Support employee recognition

The turnover rate of the healthcare industry is growing, making employee retention a burning issue for several healthcare organizations. Healthcare organizations can use SharePoint to address this issue. Employee recognition nomination forms in SharePoint aids the employee recognition process. The recognition could be based on their length of service, extraordinary performance, or achievements. As a result, nominees will receive special badges that are visible to everyone on the intranet.

Extranet

Extranets streamlines care communication between healthcare professionals and their partners, eliminating the need for phone calls. A SharePoint based extranet provides a unified collaboration space for patient care interactions, making care communication more transparent and faster.

Single Source of Knowledge

A SharePoint based extranet creates a platform where external parties can gain knowledge about changes required in the medical supplies by the healthcare institution. The extranet enables suppliers to adapt to the changes quickly.

Exchange Information

Sometimes a patient might be receiving treatment in several healthcare institutions, and the lack of an effective collaborative platform could negatively affect patient care. A SharePoint site enables healthcare professionals to quickly and safely exchange protected health information, health records, or patient information with affiliated physicians. Different patient care teams can even set up a workflow to improve patient care.

Make Announcements

News and announcements are a part of the regular operations of a healthcare organization. Whether it is to notify about a policy change or create public awareness, healthcare organizations can use SharePoint based extranet to make these announcements.

Infowise

At Infowise, we serve as a strategic partner, assisting public and private enterprises in their digital transformation endeavours with our scalable, smart, and robust tools, software, and applications. Our product Infowise UltimateForms Power Suite, contains more than 15 standalone SharePoint applications developed to give you the power to innovate, automate, and scale up your processes. Our products have been designed for optimum interoperability and seamless integration within SharePoint. Altogether, they constitute the structural foundation for digitization and facilitate your transition to digital transformation. Click here to download Infowise ULTIMATEforms 30-days free trial. Simple process. After you've installed Infowise UF, go ahead and create an unlimited number of Business Process Applications. Or even better, do you want to start with a ready template? Great, click here and download the ready-to-use template from our vast business process solution library, re-purpose to service your needs

Creating a Bank Deposits Dashboard with various Charts and Graphs using Infowise Ultimate Forms

2020-02-10T17:04:33Z

Part 1: Creating a proof of concept for Charts using Infowise Ultimate Forms

Dear readers, how are you? I am currently in Dubai and waiting for Microsoft Ignite to start. Have you attended the tour? It is nice to see how SharePoint has changed over the years. Modern design has taken over Classical design, making it more user-friendly. This week I started working with something very new. I am planning to create a bank deposits dashboard to check how the deposits have changed over the years.

Planning the Bank Branch Deposit Dashboard

A bank branch deposit dashboard defines how the deposits across various bank branches have changed over time. To complete the dashboard, I needed four charts.

The first chart shows a summary of the total and increases in deposit throughout three years.
The second chart shows the changes in bank branch deposits over the years based on the country.
The third chart shows the changes in bank branch deposits over the years based on the city.
The fourth chart to define the trend over the years, based on the various filters.

To begin, I created a design I wanted to use.

I started with a simple design of bar graphs, stacked bar graphs, and a Filter based graph. Once I defined the design, I started to think about what will be the best way to create a dashboard. I wanted to create a Modern page and add the charts. I also wanted to use SharePoint Design principals of using layouts and columns to ensure a responsive design, which looks the same on any device a person uses.

Creating a Proof of Concept (POC) for a Bank Branch Deposit Dashboard

To begin with, I started by evaluating and eliminating options to create a quick and easy solution for my Bank Branch Deposit dashboard.

Using Quick Charts in SharePoint Modern Pages

One of the simplest options to create a chart is to use the quick charts web-part in a Modern Page. It is effortless to add quick charts web-part, and it offers an option of Bar Chart and Pie Chart. It gave me an option to connect it to a List or to add values manually. However, you can only add 12 values manually.

Though it's a quick option, it is not enough for my dashboard. I needed a bar chart and the line chart, which is not available.

Using Power BI Dashboards and integrating with SharePoint

Power BI would have been a very neat solution. However, I didn't have a license. I wanted to use something simple, quick, and less costly.

Using SharePoint Framework (SPFx) with Custom Javascript-based Charts

Another option to have a custom chart solution is to create a quick SharePoint Framework based web-part for modern pages. We can then use the REST API of SharePoint Lists to fetch the data and connect it with a javascript chart library. There are hundreds of javascript chart libraries available. I have used High Charts before, and it is straightforward to integrate.

However, this would mean we would need some hours for coding. Even updating the web-part, in case there are changes later would also need more staff-hours. I kept it as an option, but I wanted to find out other alternatives. My requirements were quick, simple graphs, with options to customize quickly and free or include in some other license. I then started exploring the chart options in Infowise Ultimate Forms.

Using Infowise Ultimate Forms Chart Web part

I was already using Infowise Ultimate Forms to create my end to end business processes. I just finished working on a Personal Loan application system. You can read about it here. I started by exploring the charts option for Infowise Ultimate Forms. The best part is I could use the same User Interface.
You can easily find everything at the same place while Infowise Ultimate forms. This feature is impressive because my Business Users are already comfortable using Infowise Ultimate Forms. If the charts are easy to use, like the forms, processes, and workflows, my end users can customize their dashboard.

Innumerable options for chart types

The first thing that impressed me was a large number of options for Chart Types. Check out the options below. These many options make life easy.

Creating a Bar Chart using Infowise Ultimate Forms Charts

Since I was still exploring, I started by choosing the Stacked Bar Graph as an option for my POC. It has loads of options to define the display of the chart. It also has an option to choose if I want it to be 3D or not. All with a click of a button.

Creating a Profile for adding Bar Chart using Infowise Ultimate Forms Charts

My first requirement to create a chart is to create a profile. A profile defines the configurations of any chart. We can then add the chart to any number of pages, and updating the profile will also update the charts in all the pages, making updating a breeze. To create a profile, go to charts and then add a new profile. Lists of all profiles created before are also listed here. This profile makes it easy to create multiple profiles from the same data to create a variety of charts.

As soon as you create a new profile, you get a large number of options for configuration. Few interesting configuration options include:

You can use the view for any list as a base for the data. For example, I can create a view which only displays Bank Branches in some predefined cities. Then my graph will only show the data related to the predefined cities.
You can create a series where the value on the y-axis is the sum of values. Like in the chart below, I can sum the deposits to be displayed for each year.
You can also update the size, color and dimension, making it easy to create fantastic looking graphs.

Adding a chart to the Home Page, using Infowise Chart Web part

Once we create the profile, it is effortless to add a chart to any page using Infowise Chart Web-part. The web-part comes with a drop-down option to select the profile. You can add multiple charts to your page and create different graphs by linking them to different profiles. If there is any change in the profile, the graph adapts automatically without any additional effort.

Final POC using Infowise Ultimate Forms Chart Web part

Once we select the profile, the graph is automatically populated. This process helps me to create quick graphs with many customizations. It is cost-effective. Also, I am sure I can easily train my end-users to create graphs on their own. Follow me as I continue to use my POC to create a Branch Deposit Dashboard

Defining Approval Process and Tracking Daily Approvals Using Infowise Ultimate Forms

2020-01-31T17:57:19Z

Dear readers, how are you? My Loan calculator, I was working on last week has been a success. Everyone appreciated how easily and quickly, I could create a form with a large number of fields. Well, it’s all thanks to Infowise Ultimate Forms. Read more about it here.

Adding Business Logic and Automating the Process

As promised, I will today document the next steps for my calculator. Once I completed the form with multiple fields, the stakeholders wanted to add some business processes and logic. After a quick discussion, we wanted to create an auto-approval, if the loan met specific criteria’s. If it didn’t meet the requirements, the request needs to be approved or rejected by an approver. Once approved or refused the Loan Requestor receives an email with the status of his application.

Auto-Approval for Personal Loan

Auto-approval is the process where you approve a request if it meets some specific requirements. In this case, we had two conditions:

The Loan requested is less than $1000
Salary of the requestor is more than $3000

Also, we need to run the same process if the application is modified. This time I wanted to try Microsoft Power Automate, which was previously known as Flow. I logged in to the Power Automate Portal and created a Flow. Once the Flow was completed, with all the conditions and auto-approval, I explained it to my business team. However, with the connectors and the logics, they found it very difficult. Using Power Automate meant that in case of even a little bit of change, they had to go back to the developers. We then tried the Business logic in Infowise ultimate forms. I was amazed by how easy and intuitive it is to create Business Logic with Infowise Forms. The User Interface is clean and easy to understand with checkboxes and tabs. The things I loved were:

Tutorials and Documentations

The right side of the application has a large number of tutorials and documentation relevant to the screen. The tutorials help the user to check out the processes if they are unable to figure it out. I came across a video tutorial, which described the process step by step, making my life so much easier.

Availability of a large number of options to “Run on Events".

Any action gets triggered based on some event like an item is created or updated. While creating actions in Infowise ultimate forms, I have an option to choose the events my response will be based on. I can also select multiple options, allowing me to run the same actions on different occasions like New, Edit and Delete, reducing my work.

I like the option to create an action is an attachment is created or deleted. It can help to track if someone wants an attachment to reviewed or if someone deleted an attachment accidentally. Timer-based Run on Events, allows us to run an action periodically. It is like a Timer Job and can be used to generate a report.

Availability of more Advanced Settings

I can choose more options from the “Advanced Setting” tab. Each option comes with a detailed explanation. Click on the "question mark" icon to check. Options that I can choose include:

I can manually execute the process, which might be a perfect option while I am testing my workflow.
I can also choose if the action is repeatable so that it executes every time I add a new item.
I can Log results, which is useful for debugging.
I can choose to stop the process if there is an error and send a message to the person responsible for the process, ensuring that immediate action can take place.
I can allow people to execute the action, even if they don't have sufficient permission or stop then from triggering the reaction.

Action Settings: to define the actions easily with “AND” and “OR” Operator

Once I had identified the events on which the work will take place and the other settings, I could create the conditions and results. I can choose the site and list and add one or more columns with the "Values to set" options to define the values that will get updated if it meets the condition. The values can be set as texts or as values from different columns. To set the condition, I can choose the columns from the dropdown and add them with “AND” or “OR” operator.

The only word of caution is that one needs to be a bit careful when setting up the conditions. Check out the Infowise Tutorial (https://www.infowisesolutions.com/training/article.aspx?ID=54), which defines how the system interprets the terms.
Import pre-defined actions

Infowise Actions also allows you to import actions that were defined before. If I already have action, I can import and reuse it for my current item. I quickly added all the actions and my auto-approval started working. My business team could now add new conditions if they wanted to.

Email Approval for Personal Loans

In case the personal loans were not auto-approved, the next option was to create an email notification to the approvers to approve the loan. I used the Alerts option that I had used before for sending emails. I just added the conditions and the emails started working.

Calculating Summary and Generating a Tracking report

Once the approval system was in place, I wanted to create an Approval Tracking report. Guess what I used to create my report: Infowise Ultimate Forms Actions. I created a list and three actions. The first one is a timer-based event, which creates a new record with a date every day at 6 AM. This action will ensure that my next steps will be able to calculate the summary and update the list for that date. Second and Third action items help to calculate the summary. So every time there is a new item in the personal loan list, it updates the number of loan items created. This process allows us to get a tracking report to understand the number of loans request made and the loans approved.

Further, we can use this tracking result to create graphs and charts to see which period has the most significant number of requests. Do let me know what you think about the Actions in Infowise Ultimate Forms as compared to the SharePoint Designer workflows or the Power Automate Workflows.

Configurable toolbar in Modern forms

2020-01-27T20:13:30Z

Hi, If you've used our Modern forms, you know that they are highly customizable. You can basically make them look exactly like you want, in terms of layout, which columns to include, what styles to apply and much more. You can truly create the interface you always wanted. The only thing that is not configurable is the toolbar we add to the top of the form. Through this toolbar you can always edit, save and close the form, as well as use various additional features of Ultimate Forms: print, alerts and actions. In the update released today you have complete control over the toolbar. You can hide it completely or you can hide specific features, such as Print or Edit. The ability to control the toolbar is added as a button to the top toolbar of Form Designer. The feature is already available on Office 365 and will be available to our on-premises customers in the next version.

Document Management System in Healthcare Industries

2020-01-23T16:54:54Z

Document Management System in Healthcare Industries

Hi Readers, Best wishes for the new year. This time I am writing on the importance of document management systems in healthcare industries. I have spent the right amount of my experience in healthcare industries.
Healthcare industries, including hospitals, clinics and individual practitioner needs to do lots of paperwork because of compliance as well as their needs for later reference. Documents are related to patient records, insurance details, pathological lab reports, diagnosis, billing details and many more.
I have seen in my career, even big hospitals are managing such documents in hard copy and piling them in files. I can visualize how tedious it would be to search records out of those pile-ups.

Need for Document Management System in Healthcare Industries.

Considering the above scenario, I strongly feel healthcare entities need a good document management system. DMS should help healthcare facilities for easy maintenance and retrieval of records or documents.
I have listed a few crucial reasons why healthcare industries should consider moving from traditional paperwork to modernize document systems.

Adherence to regulatory compliance
Several countries have rigorous policies against regulatory compliance, and significant focus is on keeping records secured, confidential and retained for a specific period.
In the US, many states have compliance with digitalizing the hard copy into electronic documents. With modern days DMS, we can assure that we are compliant with regulations and maintain confidentiality and privacy.

To rule out the human errors
When we work with such a large amount of files, there is always an excellent probability of human errors.
And I have seen cases where these types of human errors became fatal. Some of them are providing incorrect medical reports to the patient resulting in medicine dose given inappropriately.
Using the DMS, we can apply specific business validations to rule out these errors.

Maintaining versioning and audit trail
Versioning and audit trail is an essential feature of document management systems. Which is widely used by industries for adherence to compliance?

Environmental clause
We all know the use of paper harms our environment, and in the hospital industry, before document management system tons of paper were used, imagine how many trees were sacrificed due to this. I feel proud to say modern-day document management systems can go for zero paperwork, and everything can be automated.

Profitability
The well-designed document management system can save a lot of money; it may be because of reduced materials and equipment costs on papers, photocopier, cartridges etc.
One can also save costs on space required for storing file cabinets and also staffing needed to manage it.

Features of Modern Day Document Management System

I have implemented multiple document management systems, and all of them were based on SharePoint; these were both on-premise and SharePoint Online. An efficient document management system should have the following features

Easy to use – DMS should be user-friendly, and medical staff and other end-users should be able to use it with either no training or minimal training. Building DMS on SharePoint provides lots of flexibility to configure it easy to use for users.
Search- Search is a very critical part of any document management system; without effective search, DMS is of no use as it stores lots of data, and if that data is not searchable and retrievable, then it would become stale data. SharePoint is quite popular for its search after the takeover of Fast search. The search feature of SharePoint provides a true flavour to the document management system.
Security- Security is a very important aspect of DMS, and SharePoint provides very effective solutions for security compliance. Its granular permissions help to implement effective regulatory compliance
Audit Trail- DMS for healthcare need audit log to verify the past updates on the document; it is also very important for certain compliances. SharePoint has an OOTB feature using which we can quickly provide audit features to any DMS.

How Infowsie Ultimate forms can help you build document management systems

Although SharePoint alone is a very effective product to build a document management system but sometimes based on customer's requirement, we have to provide certain features that are not available easily in SharePoint, either OOTB or large development efforts are required.
In the market, there are some third-party tools available that help industries to develop customized DMS, which are easy to use and popular in the market.

One such tool is Infowise Ultimate forms, which is my all-time favourite because of its features, easy to use and support provided. Infowise Ultimate forms are elementary to configure and also their technical support is fantastic, which helps an organization to Onboard on this tool.
I am listing down the features of Infowise Ultimate forms, which would help any business to configure the efficient DMS.

Alerts – Infowise provides Alert features, which are very useful in notifying various stakeholders about any modification in the document or records and this is one of the requirements of compliance. Infowise alerts are very easy to configure, and its configuration information can easily be found on Infowise Ultimate forms documentation.

Search – As we all know that how much efficient search is important for any document management system, Microsoft has always focused on providing strong search features and has been continuously improving it since the beginning of SharePoint history. It has added a feather in its cap by acquiring FAST search and provided as an integral product from SharePoint 2013 onwards. Infowise Ultimate forms provide a good search web part, which can be easily configured and used on any SharePoint site\ pages. Print and Export features – In any DMS print and export functionality are the important features as it provides adherence to regulatory compliance and also helps integration with other systems available. Infowise provides the Print and Export feature, which can be utilized in any DMS to achieve such features. Importance and need of Document Management System were always there; in non-IT days, it was done with the help of papers and file cabinets and nowadays, using software, DMS is not only important for healthcare industries but for all and which could be further extended to the knowledge management system. There are platforms other than SharePoint, which also could be used for building DMS. Still, there is no match of flexibility and reach provided by SharePoint, and that's why you would see in majority cases SharePoint is used for building DMS.
In my upcoming blogs, I will be writing more about Document Management Systems and its importance in healthcare industries.
Thanks for reading my blog and to expedite your learning journey with Infowise, visit Infowise tutorials, webinars and documentation pages.

Updated Kick Start Training Now Available

2020-01-22T14:33:39Z

I'm glad to announce that we have released a newly updated version of Kick Start Training. This is an in depth training that covers building a Help Desk System from scratch using many key features of Ultimate Forms. Most importantly, this training demonstrates building the solution with the new Form Designer tool as well as taking advantage of web parts and list views using Modern pages. It is our goal to help those who are first learning Ultimate Forms to have the opportunity to ramp up quickly by providing many ways to learn the fundamentals and get started with their own solutions without headaches. Here is a link to the full training: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YEsUzFftJM Additional to Kick Start Training we have updated our Foundation Training content to also demonstrate use of the Form Designer tool and take advantage of Modern Pages. Head on over to our training page to get a full description of training options: https://www.infowisesolutions.com/instructor-led-training Tutorials have also been getting updates to help users take advantage of new features. It can be daunting to get started with a new toolset, but we want to lend a hand and help you to make quick progress in your learning. If you have any questions related to training on Ultimate Forms, please contact me directly at willc@infowisesolutions.com Happy learning!

How SharePoint and Office 365 Shaped the Modern Government Procurement Process

2020-01-14T17:59:47Z

Government procurement is a critical part of both state and local government operations. It fuels the government engine and empowers the public servants to deliver the required products and services to the public. Modern and effective government procurement requires a capable procurement system like SharePoint and Office 365. Sharepoint can be integrated with custom made portals that can substantially improve the business processes of any department. In public procurement, Sharepoint and its procurement portals provide the following benefits.

Increased Supplier Diversity

By using a cloud-based procurement system like SharePoint and Office 365, state and local governments can simplify the involvement of the new vendors. Procurement offices can create a self-registration form and collect all the information about potential suppliers at once without any hassle. A well-designed form will increase the accuracy and efficiency of the procurement processes and help procurement offices to engage with most suitable vendors. Free trial versions can be used to save taxpayers dollars, but they have limited functionality, so in the long run, the full version is the right choice. In public procurement, a large number of suppliers and vendors are involved, SharePoint and Office 365 can compile a shortlist of the preferred vendors. The procurement office can set up several parameters, including the type of business, price, location, payment, delivery dates, etc. Automatic alerts can be set up to increase the efficiency of the procurement process; the alerts can be made for critical dates such as contract expiry, bidding schedule, etc.

Better Vendor Management

When procurement offices use SharePoint and Office 365 as a procurement system, they can pre-assess the vendors with just one click on the vendors’ profile. The profile has all the necessary information of the vendor, including previous tenders, signed contracts, schedule of payment, invoices, procurement orders, etc. It may also have critical indicators and markers such as business age, recommendations, feedback on unsold/non-marketed products, discounts, support, etc. Specific information can also be covered in the profile, which may include.

Minimum batch requirement.
Quality standards being followed.
Storage Conditions.
Product life.
The technology used for the manufacturing process.
Description, certificates, test reports.
Terms of delivery and much more.

State and Local Governments can benefit from the automated performance reviews of the vendors. The procurement system will calculate the overall score of each vendor and even provide a history of previous business interactions, including deliveries, returns, and their reasons, inspection results, etc.

Competitive Bidding

Bidding is made stress-free when you use SharePoint procurement portals to manage the procurement processes. State and Local governments can publish the requirements and set the list of the related categories. All the information regarding the bid is kept in one place, so you will not lose time manually searching your inbox to find the relevant emails. Invitation statuses can also be tracked when you use SharePoint and Office 365 as a procurement system, and changes in a tender’s condition can be introduced immediately while making sure that the vendors see them. The procurement system automatically highlights the best options available according to their price and rating. It is also capable of organizing and comparing the bidders. The procurement office can create a Q&A section where bidders can find answers to common questions; by doing so, they can save several hours that they’d otherwise spend answering queries.

Stronger Community

SharePoint’s procurement portals allow you to create forums and Q&A sections through which you can create a strong community of your suppliers. The community shares goals and may have a desire to discuss and improve the quality of the products. SharePoint and Office 365 also enables users(both internal and external) to share their feedback and communicate their expectations to increase the level of co-operation. The procurement office can instantly reach any vendor using IM; it fast-tracks the negotiation phase of the procurement process, particularly relating to crucial decisions.

Motivate Suppliers

Using SharePoint and Office 365 as a procurement system allows the procurement office to provide feedback on the vendors’ performance. The vendors can view the selected vendors, bid winners, etc. this will enable them to develop their proposal accordingly. This healthy competition between vendors results in you getting the best value of your money.

Cost-Effective

Using a SharePoint procurement portal allows the procurement office to compare the prices of different vendors and even avail volume discounts. The visibility of the portal makes it easier for you to find what else to buy from a supplier to increase the volume to avail discounts. Even if you place these orders independently on the companies’ page, they’ll automatically appear in a single shopping cart of the vendor. The procurement portal also allows the procurement office to engage sub-suppliers in the supply of its vendors. This process optimizes the supply, helps reduce the production cost, and ultimately may result in a lowered price of the product for you.

Make Timely Payments

State and local governments can become reliable partners of the vendors by using SharePoint and Office 365 for procurement processes because of alerts and notifications. The procurement office will receive alerts for upcoming payments and can view the available payment options. They can even integrate payment systems and make direct payments.

Comprehensive Overview

SharePoint and Office 365 as a procurement system displays all relevant applications along with their status such as approved, open, pending, etc., Vendors selected or recommended, RFI/RFP, RFQ, LPO generated/sent, etc. The procurement office can also see where their involvement is required, which makes it easier for them to pinpoint unsolved issues, resulting in increased efficiency. SharePoint procurement system identifies trends such as company spendings, areas where budget exceeds, etc. The procurement system then processes the patterns and presents them in the form of tables, dashboards, diagrams, etc. The cloud-based SharePoint procurement system stores all the information on the cloud; this allows users to access the information from their mobile phones. This makes it easier for them to reach the required information and take care of the procurement processes regardless of their location.

Infowise

At Infowise, we serve as a strategic partner, assisting public and private enterprises in their digital transformation endeavours with our scalable, smart, and robust tools, software, and applications. Our product Infowise UltimateForms Power Suite contains more than 15 standalone SharePoint applications developed to give you the power to innovate, automate, and scale up your processes. Our products have been designed for optimum interoperability and seamless integration within SharePoint. Altogether, they constitute the structural foundation for digitization and facilitate your transition to digital transformation. Click here to download Infowise ULTIMATEforms 30-days free trial. Simple process. After you've installed Infowise UF, go ahead and create an unlimited number of Business Process Applications. Or even better, do you want to start with a ready template? Great, click here and download the ready-to-use template from our vast business process solution library, re-purpose to service your needs

SharePoint and Office 365 as a Lease Management System

2020-01-14T17:57:59Z

SharePoint and Office 365 is a complete management system, from lease management to providing better customer service to the clients; it can handle it all. It is a user-friendly management system that offers easy access to documents, increased efficiency, better security, prevents duplication, and much more. Today we’re going to review some of the basic features of SharePoint and Office 365.

Dedicated Project Site Pages

When you use SharePoint as a lease management system, you can have a dedicated portal for all your projects and sites. You can add images of the property or the location on the map. These sites can consist of the relevant contacts working on the project, documents related to the property, and even tags.

Synchronize Documents Online and Offline

When you have a lot of documents to work on, sometimes you can forget to upload it. SharePoint allows you to sync these documents with just a click of the button from your computer. This enables you to sync files directly to SharePoint when working on your computer. Another way of uploading files instantly to SharePoint is by creating a shared folder in the system. Just drop your files in the folder, and they’ll automatically get uploaded on SharePoint. You can also use OneDrive to create a shared folder, as it can be easily integrated with SharePoint.

Keep Up with Contract Renewals with Notifications

Another useful application of SharePoint as a lease management system is that you can set-up notifications for contract renewals. By doing so, SharePoint will remind you when the renewal date of the contract arrives.

Customer Portals

Using SharePoint and Office 365 for lease management, you enable yourself to provide better customer service to your customers by setting up customer portals. In these portals, you can add the details of the property, mortgage information, tax documentation, etc.

External Document Sharing

When it comes to document sharing, SharePoint and Office 365 can be highly beneficial for you. You can configure the external sharing option of the site, and when enabled, you can share the contracts and documents with external users easily. You can also dictate the privacy of the document and assign read-write privileges to users.

Metadata Management

When you use SharePoint and Office 365 for lease management, you can define tags and metadata for the document. Metadata could be keywords of the project and the department they relate to. You can set up metadata as Construction, Rent, Lease, Insurance, Operations, etc. You can even define metadata for the sub-items such as Plumbing, Electronics, Safety, etc.

Advanced Search

SharePoint and Office 365 takes the search capabilities to the next level because of its metadata repository. When you use it as a lease management system, you can easily find the documents you’re looking for. And document versioning makes it even easier for you to find the correct version of the document.

E-Signature

When you use SharePoint and Office 365 for lease management, you can easily integrate an e-signature application. This enables you to manage contracts digitally and eliminates the need for face-to-face meetings. This saves time for all the parties and streamlines the entire process.

Dashboards

SharePoint can generate real-time dashboards so you can monitor the progress of your projects. This tool makes SharePoint and Office 365, a powerful lease management system.

Conclusion

SharePoint and Office 365 is an all-rounder enterprise solution; if you are already using it to carry out some of your business processes, you should also consider using it as a lease management system. It is easy to use, and it can integrate with external software making your business processes even more efficient. There are several out-of-the-box portals available in the market that are designed specifically to enhance SharePoint’s capabilities; by using them, you can increase the overall efficiency of your company and maximize your output.

Infowise

At Infowise, we serve as a strategic partner, assisting public and private enterprises in their digital transformation endeavours with our scalable, smart, and robust tools, software, and applications. Our product Infowise UltimateForms Power Suite contains more than 15 standalone SharePoint applications developed to give you the power to innovate, automate, and scale up your processes. Our products have been designed for optimum interoperability and seamless integration within SharePoint. Altogether, they constitute the structural foundation for digitization and facilitate your transition to digital transformation. Click here to download Infowise ULTIMATEforms 30-days free trial. Simple process. After you've installed Infowise UF, go ahead and create an unlimited number of Business Process Applications. Or even better, do you want to start with a ready template? Great, click here and download the ready-to-use template from our vast business process solution library, re-purpose to service your needs

Personal loans calculator using Infowise Ultimate Forms

2020-01-14T17:06:31Z

Dear Reader, It's almost 15 days past the new year. Looking back, I think it has been a fantastic year. I travelled a lot, read loads of new books and found a secure form creating solutions using Infowise Ultimate Forms.

Today, I would like to share a calculator I have built for calculating Personal Loan interest using Infowise Forms.

What are Loans?

Loans are an essential part of retail banking. A bank loan is the most common form of loan capital for a business or consumer. Financial institutes are resources we turned to if we need money to buy a car or a house or to tide over some an extra expenditure in a month; one can apply for a loan, once the loan is approved and disbursed, one can pay back the loan after a pre-defined period, say five years or ten years, along with monthly interest.

If I take a loan of $50,000, for one year, at an interest rate of 12%, I can pay only $4442 per month, and at the end of the year, I can pay the principal amount. Loans help a person to spend more than they have and pay it back later with more convenience.

Why do banks provide Loans?

From a bank perspective loans help to generate income. I know it doesn't sound evident from a consumer viewpoint. I was also surprised when I read about the money multiplier effect of loans.

To clarify, banks generally have two primary purposes.

It allows people to save money and, in return, provides an interest.
It also lends money and receives an interest in return

A bank doesn't have any money of its own, so it gives to cash that is deposited by people. The interest that a bank earns helps them to pay interest on deposits. However, a bank cannot lend all its money. A depositor can come back any day to withdraw his savings. To solve this problem, banks assume that all the depositors would not withdraw their funds on the same day. They save a part of the deposits, and the rest they disburse as a loan. The preserved part is called the reserve.

Now, the banks calculate the amount of money that they receive from their loans.

Let us consider the scenario:

A bank has a deposit of $100, and it lends $99, with a reserve of $1. The loan gives the bank a total income of $105. Thus the change is $105-$99=$6. Thus, the bank increases the funds it had, thereby creating money. Now imagine all the banks lending innumerable people, it creates wealth for the banks.

However, it is significant for the banks that people pay their loans back. If not, then the bank will run into a loss and cannot pay back its depositor's money. Thus, the bank runs a very stringent check on the ability of the person to return the loan amount.

To create a personal loan calculator, I had the following requirements:

Gather all the information about the person applying for the loan, including personal information and also employment details.
Allow an option to upload documents.
Make it accessible on smartphones and tablets.
Please send an email to the user that his request is in process.
The bank employee updates the request with the result.

To begin with, I used the Form Designer from Infowise Ultimate Forms.

With a few button clicks, I could colour and design the page as per the colour and design I wanted. I also had options to add custom CSS and not just choose the pre-defined options. This helped me to design my form precisely the way I wanted, including the margin and padding.

To capture a large number of columns, I created a tabbed form. Tabs can be added very easily by dragging it from the controls on the form design page. Though I am very comfortable with tabbed types, sometimes accordion also works well with forms that have a large number of fields. You can also create an accordion or add images by dragging the controls.

I also added a tab to upload documents. The document tab allows the user to drag and drop the files they want to upload. It's exciting how Infowise Ultimate Forms fit into SharePoint with few clicks of the mouse.

Another feature of form designing that I appreciate and use a lot is validations. It's quick and easy to add validations for any field. I can also add permissions and rules. I can also choose which kind of form (Create, Edit or View) will have the validations. The preview button also makes it easier to check it on Smartphone and Tablets.

Once my form was completed and tested with the validation, I started by adding alerts to the form. I needed a simple email to tell the user that his request is in progress. If I were not using Infowise ultimate forms, this would be the time for me to open up a new application, SharePoint Designer or maybe Microsoft Power Automate, previously know as Flow.

However, with the Infowise Forms application, I can create alerts, without starting a new application. It is everything useful in one place. Also, it provides a dropdown based UI where it is straightforward to set the alert criteria. I can also see the alert I had previously set on a different form.

It also provides Tutorials and Documentation about alerts and what are the best practices. I created my alert and added the recipient as the one who created the item. I can also set the criteria based on which I can send the email and the email template. I can easily fetch dynamic data from the list to add it to my email template.

Have you tried the Infowise Ultimate Forms yet to design your forms quickly? Let me know how you find it?

Join me next week as I discuss more the personal loan approval and interest calculation, using the Business Process Module in Infowise Ultimate Forms.

Create a Centralized Search Portal with List Search

2020-01-14T16:09:13Z

Let’s say your SharePoint site has got 20 different document libraries and 30 different lists, all containing different data sets which different groups of users need to access. Wouldn’t it be great to have a single place where they could all go to find specific documents or records? Guess what, that’s totally do-able using the Ultimate Forms List Search web part. When you create the web part Profile in O365, you can include any or all of the libraries and lists on the site. You can also further filter your data by specifying views.

One recommendation I’d make – I think you should always opt for the “Advanced” search when you set up the app, since that provides much more data parsing power – and, you can toggle to the “Simple” mode on your page if you want to. It works a bit differently in the on-prem version, but you have the same level of flexibility with sources. The web part looks great on an O365 Modern page. In the Advanced mode, you can select up to five different value to search on, using “AND” and “OR” conditions. Clicking on the record will bring you to the item’s detail page in the list or library. You can also print your results or export them to Excel, or save the search for future use. The on-premise experience is a little different, but has the same basic characteristics. Either way, this is a powerful tool that can let your users find the information they need fast from a single, centralized location. For more information, check out the tutorials List Search (O365) and List Search (On-premises).

Using SharePoint and Office 365 to create a Purchase Order System

2020-01-10T18:00:55Z

Purchase Order System with SharePoint and Office 365

“Overall, it's a dependable system that I believe is the industry leader for a reason. The software is refined and getting better each year.”

– Office 365 review on Capterra by Nik K. A purchase order system is a must if you want to efficiently handle the purchasing process and maintain an accurate financial record. An efficient purchase order system can help you save time, assist in planning and budgeting, manage overages, reduce errors, and monitor progress. There are several out-of-the-box purchase order systems available in the market for SharePoint and Office 365, and not all of them are created equal; some are versatile, and some are limited. So how to determine if you need to update or automate your purchase order system?

Costly

Manually handling your purchase order system can be expensive; you will require to hire employees to handle the workflow, and as your business grows, the number of employees will grow as well. This can be difficult for many, especially if they have a limited budget to operate.

Time Consuming

If your current purchase order system is consuming more than the necessary time between order placement and delivery because of authorization, data entry, or request, then it is time for an upgrade.

Communication Gap

Effective communication is a must between departments to deliver the desired product or services to the client. In a manual purchase order system, the chances of miscommunication increases, resulting in ineffective processes.

Increased Errors

Increase pressure due to workload may result in errors in certain areas. If mistakes are made in data entry, your client won’t receive what they ordered, which can hurt your business. Pressure also tempts the employees to disregard essential SOPs of the purchase order system. If your purchase order system is facing these issues, then it is time for you to adapt to a new system.

Purchase Order System in SharePoint or Office 365

With SharePoint and office 365, you can address all the issues that your current purchase order might be facing. It can effectively handle all the processes of the purchase order system because of its built-in tools. Let’s review some of the best features you get by using SharePoint and Office 365 as a purchase order system.
Webinar: Improve Your Purchasing with SharePoint & Office 365 by Infowise

Order Tracking

The most stand-out feature of using SharePoint and Office 365 as a purchase order system is that users can track their orders every step of the way. Purchase requests can also be followed and stored on the platform, from request approvals to delivery.

Customizability

Every company follows different guidelines and have different processes, with SharePoint and Office 365 users can customize the purchase order system according to their needs. They can set-up the purchase request form, assign admin roles, set up multi-level approval, define purchase orders based on location, type, cost, etc.

Automated Communication

Another excellent feature of SharePoint and Office 365 is that it helps you communicate between departments without delays. Once a purchase request is submitted, the platform automatically sends out emails to the related parties. And when the client receives the product, all parties are notified.

Interactive Dashboards

SharePoint and Office 365 helps you to monitor the progress of the purchasing process by generating dashboards from the information. You can also track the history of purchase requests by each department, view approval and denial percentage, and the overall status. These dashboards are saved on the platform, so you can use them as references whenever you need them.

Integration with External Systems

Flexibility is another reason you should use SharePoint and Office 365 as a purchase order system. You can easily integrate it with external systems such as finance, equipment or asset, etc. This feature improves the overall efficiency of all departments in the company. For example, a department requests a printer; once the process is completed, the platform will automatically generate an entry in the finance system as an IT asset.

Sharing and Printing

When you use SharePoint and Office 365 as a purchase order system, you get the option to add a formatted template that can be printed and shared with others. It can include your company’s information, i.e., Company logo, address, phone, email, etc. and receiver’s information. It can also include a signature of the approving authority.

Infowise

At Infowise, we serve as a strategic partner, assisting public and private enterprises in their digital transformation endeavours with our scalable, smart, and robust tools, software, and applications. Our product Infowise UltimateForms Power Suite contains more than 15 standalone SharePoint applications developed to give you the power to innovate, automate, and scale up your processes. Our products have been designed for optimum interoperability and seamless integration within SharePoint. Altogether, they constitute the structural foundation for digitization and facilitate your transition to digital transformation. Click here to download Infowise ULTIMATEforms 30-days free trial. Simple process. After you've installed Infowise UF, go ahead and create an unlimited number of Business Process Applications. Or even better, do you want to start with a ready template? Great, click here and download the ready-to-use template from our vast business process solution library, re-purpose to service your needs

Benefits of using SharePoint and Office 365 as a Vendor Management Software

2020-01-07T18:32:16Z

Infowise Ultimate Forms

"The ultimate software for any business needing an all in one office solution.”

– Capterra Review by Matthew S. Vendor management empowers your company to take appropriate actions to control cost, reduce risk, ensure excellent service output, and generate mutual value from vendors. You would have to follow several processes for effective vendor management, including searching suitable vendors, finding and managing pricing details, measure the work quality, maintain business relations with vendors, etc. It can be daunting for many to keep up with these tasks, so to avoid a disaster, companies use SharePoint and Office 365 as a Vendor Management Software. By doing so, contract management becomes easy; companies can get a better selection of vendors, monitor performance of the vendors, assign goals for vendors to generate value, build long-lasting relationships, and much more. And today, we are going to review some of the stand-out features of SharePoint and Office 365 for vendor management, so let’s get started.

Integrated with Other Microsoft Apps

The most stand-out reason to use SharePoint and Office 365 for vendor management is that no other management software matches its level of integration with Microsoft Applications. This can be a convenient feature for you if you are already using other Microsoft apps such as Word, Outlook, Excel, etc. because you won’t have to train your team to use the new management software. You can save crucial time and increase your productivity by easily importing/exporting your data on the Office 365 platform. This will allow you to eliminate repetitive processes and bring some level of automation to your processes, making them more efficient. Your legal team can create, review, monitor changes, and manage user permissions for efficient vendor and contract management.

Shared Database

SharePoint and Office 365 come with OneDrive, which provides up to 25 TB for storing your contacts and documents. You can save achieved targets, responsibilities, profiles, and other relevant information in a single database that is shared across the company. The centralized search feature makes it easier for the management to search and filter documents across the platform. They can also create custom views for their documents to increase the search capability of their management software.

Enhanced Security

A data breach is one of the major concerns of many businesses, and it should be, as almost 60% of the companies in the US and the UK experienced a 3^rd party data breach in 2018. In vendor management, this risk increases substantially; that’s why a safe and secure management software is a must for your business. SharePoint and Office 365 have a state-of-the-art security system that allows you to keep sensitive information safe. You can set-up multi-factor authentication, create dedicated admin accounts, block malware, encrypt your data and messages. You can also configure Advanced Threat Protection against malicious files, websites, and phishing attacks. The audit trail allows the management team to view who gained access, made changes to the data, and other related actions.

Increased Collaboration

Collaboration is vital in vendor management; it can help you make an improvement to your existing processes, encourage innovation for products or services, etc., and SharePoint and Office 365 are widely popular because of their collaboration capabilities. It allows you to share sensitive documents safely both inside and outside the company. Office 365’s co-authoring feature is handy for contract management, different departments can not only review the records, but they can also edit and write contracts. The shared document database makes it easier for the contract team to increase productivity by providing real-time read-write access.

Document Versioning

Without efficient management software, it can be problematic for you to keep up with the contracts; you would have to search through documents manually, you can inadvertently update a document and rewrite over it. Subsequently, it’d be harder to determine the most updated version of the report, etc. SharePoint and Office 365 can effectively handle all these problems. Document versioning allows your vendor management team to track changes made to the documents in real-time, maintain a record of previous versions of contracts during the contract lifecycle, make changes to a report without worrying about overwriting/replacing the document, create a uniform file-naming system across the company, etc.

Manage Metadata

Metadata can be very helpful if your company is managing several contracts; with SharePoint and Office 365, you can create metadata for the document. Metadata can include the business area of the agreement, type of contract, the title of contract, number of the contract, assign start-end or renewal date, the value of the deal, etc. You can customize the metadata to search and manage the documents, and the centralized database allows the management to configure and apply changes to the contract across the company.

Expandability

A company’s requirements changes as they grow, they might require more storage space, install new software, etc. And if their current management system is limited, they’d have to adapt to a new system. With SharePoint and Office 365, you can scale-up your platform as your business grows. At least 500 million documents can be supported by the platform, which is more than enough for a large-scale enterprise. And if you run out of space, you can request additional space according to your needs. This eliminates the need to adapt to a new platform every time you upscale.

Advanced Search

As mentioned earlier, searching for one document among thousands can be problematic and kill productivity. SharePoint and Office 365’s search capabilities make it the undisputed champion among management software. Your team can search across a large number of documents from a single search bar, they can also create filters according to their need, and can even perform a multilingual search.

Infowise

At Infowise, we serve as a strategic partner, assisting public and private enterprises in their digital transformation endeavours with our scalable, smart, and robust tools, software, and applications. Our product Infowise UltimateForms Power Suite contains more than 15 standalone SharePoint applications developed to give you the power to innovate, automate, and scale up your processes. Our products have been designed for optimum interoperability and seamless integration within SharePoint. Altogether, they constitute the structural foundation for digitization and facilitate your transition to digital transformation. Click here to download Infowise ULTIMATEforms 30-days free trial. Simple process. After you've installed Infowise UF, go ahead and create an unlimited number of Business Process Applications. Or even better, do you want to start with a ready template? Great, click here and download the ready-to-use template from our vast business process solution library, re-purpose to service your needs.

Ultimate Forms rolling out to modern experience views in SharePoint 2019

2020-01-05T13:57:03Z

Hi there! At this point many of our customers have upgraded or built new SharePoint 2019 farms and some of them even want to use the new modern experience UI. Well at this point they had probably noticed that some features do not work as they used to in the classic experience or are working in office 365.. I am talking about our Ultimate Forms custom fields and ribbon customizations, that had to be adjusted to be supported in the new UI. At the bottom of this post I will be updating a table that will include each component support, but for now let's dive a bit and understand how this will work in your brand-new SharePoint 2019 farms. First of all, you should know that those features are implemented by an app package which built upon the new SharePoint Framework (just like in SharePoint online). Worry not, our trusted installers will do most of the work for you! More about the installers later, first there are some steps that you will have to do in order to allow apps deployment and activation: Install and manage apps for SharePoint Server When all the configuration stuff is over with, all you will have to do is download the latest versions of our installers and.. run them :) Each freshly built installer will perform the following:

Add and deploy our "Infowise Ultimate Forms Extensions" package into each of your app catalogs
Go over the sites you had selected during the installation and add the new app to each one of them

Each product installer released after December 19, 2019 will contain the app installation part in it and support for new experience of the relevant product (if applicable). Please mind that for now, the app will have to be added manually in to sites created after the installer ran. Just go into the new site content, click Add > App and look for "Infowise Ultimate Forms Extensions" in the search box. While this app is installed locally on your farm, the scripts it uses are hosted on our company servers, so in order for all of it to work, your client browsers must have access to the web. That is awesome!!! But what will you get from all of this?? First of all, we get all the ribbon buttons that got lost in the new UI: Print, Alert, Actions and Design.

And of course we will be able to see values in our favorite Infowise custom fields, like: Master-detail lookup, Associated items, Color Choice, Indicators and the rest..

Without further ado, the following list will show you which components are already released and supported in the new modern UI:

Ultimate Forms Design button	V
Smart Action Pro ribbon	V
Smart Alert Pro ribbon	V
Smart Print Pro ribbon	V
Electronic Signature Field	V
Color field and Indicators	V
Connected lookup Field	V
Associated Items Field	V
Document Link Field	V
LOB Item Link Field	V
User Property Field	V
Voting Field	V

Enjoy the new UI and thank you for reading!

Employee Management Solutions by Infowise and Partners

2020-01-03T17:51:02Z

SharePoint has become one of the fastest-growing workplace automation solutions; according to Microsoft market research, over 75% of Fortune 500 companies are using SharePoint to manage their business processes efficiently. Custom site templates and portals allow users to enhance the capabilities of their SharePoint platform, and today we’re going to take a look at some of those solutions.

ULTIMATE forms by Infowise

Infowise’s ULTIMATEforms is a ready-to-use solution that users can integrate into their existing SharePoint/Office 365 platform and increase the functionality of their management solution. Custom templates are available for various departments of a company, including HR/Finance, Operations, Sales/Marketing, IT/Engineering. Today we're going to focus on the HR templates that are created by Infowise team and some others that are a must-have for the HR department created by our partners such as SimpleSharePoint’s HR performance review and SP Marketplace’s Employee Self Service Portal.

HR Leave Request System

Conventional methods of leave management system such as paper forms, emails, excel sheets, etc. aren’t as efficient and user-friendly as an automated leave request system. Data can be lost, and it can be hard for the HR department to manage the leave processes in a manual leave request system. One of the main reasons companies choose to use an HR leave request system is that it provides accessibility for the employees to request leave, and the HR department can easily track the process. Furthermore, on a cloud-based solution, the data is secured, so the employees and the HR department can have peace of mind that their data will not be lost. The out of the box HR leave request system by Infowise isn’t as restrictive as other options available on the market, and it is flexible enough to provide companies with a solution that they can customize according to their unique needs. With Infowise’s leave request system, the HR department can track the approval rate of leave of each department, have KPI indicators to monitor employee attendance, filter the leave tracking calendar for each department. Here’s a demo of Infowise’s Leave Request System for SharePoint

HR Recruitment Process

Manual recruiting of the employees can become problematic for the HR department, especially if they are hiring at scale. Sorting potential candidates from hundreds of resumes can take up a lot of time for the HR department, and they might not be able to find the perfect candidate for the job. The HR department would also have to coordinate with the candidates via email or phone. All these processes can be efficiently handled via Infowise’s HR recruitment process site template for SharePoint. Users can forward the candidate's resume via email or add it to the recruitment list on the site, and the multi-layered recruitment process will start automatically. The five-layered process includes

HR Recruiter: The beginning of the process, filling out the information, etc., when this process is completed, the system sends an automated email to the relevant department.
Technical Interview: The second steps start with the automated email; the department head will see the candidate's details such as name, experience, education, etc. They can also see the details from the previous stages in read-only mode. Then they assign the role to the candidate. With the Infowise HR site template, they can select multiple roles for the candidate and can add new roles if they don’t exist.
HR Interview: Like the previous process, this process starts with the received email. The HR manager can view the history of the previous process and can approve the process to continue it. They can also add remarks if they want.
Division Approval: In this process, the department manager can select a job role for the candidate, select an approved salary, and approve the candidate to move the process further.
HR Approval: In the last process, the HR manager can choose the option to notify the candidate, both in the case of approval and rejection, select a hire date, select a job offer expiration date and give the final approval.

Color coding allows users to track the stage of the process quickly. When these five processes are completed, if the candidate is approved, they will receive an automatically generated job offer with details including, job role, department, salary, benefits, etc. Tutorial of the Infowise HR recruitment process site template for SharePoint

Employee Training

Training is key to business development; policies and procedures are always changing, and it’s essential to keep up with them so the employees can maintain or increase productivity. Employee training requires the HR department to define training requirements, assign tasks, deploy the training program, and log the results for each employee. Manual employ training is a time-consuming process, and it wastes a lot of time for both the employees and the HR departments. Companies can integrate their SharePoint with Infowise’s employee training solution, which allows them to create new courses, classify them according to the department, and set the number of training participants. Course materials can also be uploaded on the solution, users can also link them to the relevant course, and the employees can register to the course with a single click. After the session is finished, employees can submit their feedback so the training process can be improved if necessary. Another good thing about the Infowise employee training template is that it automatically calculates the top graded courses. Users can also view their past courses, the courses they teach, and upcoming courses with details of location, trainer, etc. Users can also access the training calendar, which makes it convenient for them to see and select a suitable course.

Demo of Infowise employee training site template

Help Desk

Manual processing of the service requests can flood your helpdesk, and a large number of applications might even become the reason for your helpdesk to need help. Infowise’s user-friendly helpdesk site template allows employees and users to make requests more efficiently, monitor the process, generate and track relevant tasks, and convert requests into a KB article. Requests can also be made via email, end users can edit a subset of the related columns of the ticket creation, and alerts can be set up to notify the support team on ticket creation. After the request is assigned, an automated email is sent to the person responsible for solving the issue. The resolution process can be broken down into a set of tasks and can be tracked individually; these broken down tasks can be assigned to different people and have an individual due date and progress status. Tutorial of Infowise help desk site template

Simple SharePoint Staff Performance Review

Manual processing of the performance review can be a dreadful process for both the employees and the managers; the HR department would have to collect the information from each department then compile it. This can waste a lot of time for both parties and end up becoming a bad thing. To avoid this, companies choose automated portals such as Simple SharePoint staff performance review portal; it allows the HR department to streamline the review process by providing convenience to track employee goals and accomplishments in a user-friendly interface, alerts and rating systems can also be set-up and customization of the HR portal allows users to tailor it according to their requirements. Simple SharePoint staff performance review portal also allows the HR department to search through multiple data fields, track and review status changes and audit history, maintain record of past reviews, assign appropriate access level to the departments, provide self-evaluation option for the employees which is submitted automatically, monitor progress and status with dashboards, assign access to edit the solution and request additional performance feedback via automated emails. Demonstration of Simple SharePoint’s HR performance review portal

SP Marketplace’s Employee Self-Service Portal

When a company grows, the individual departments in the company grow as well and form processes of their own to provide services to the employees. Because each department is different from the other, they may develop procedures that are poles apart from each other and can cause problems for the employees.
Guide of SP Marketplace Employee Self Service for Office 365 and SharePoint SP Marketplace Employee Self-Service Portal (ESS) allows the companies to provide a central point for the employees to access cross-functional resources, help and processes consistently. SP ESS is an Intranet that targets operational needs and offers employees with consistent access to documents. Employees can receive assistance through a centralized help desk, access business processes that are frequently used, such as submitting time off, travel requests, and filling out expense reports. Employees can also access policies and procedures libraries across all departments. Managers can also benefit from the SP ESS; they can approve requests from a central portal.

Extending SharePoint Patient Appointment App to the next level

2019-12-28T18:14:15Z

Hi Readers, I am back with my new blog, where I will be extending the Patient Appointment App I built in my previous blog.

I have been writing blogs about Infowise platform for a few months and primarily targeting the healthcare industry. I am writing from my experience in business process automation in the health care industry using SharePoint.

As you might have experienced, industries focus is shifting towards no-code or minimal code solutions due to various challenges associated with code developments such as code maintenance, specialized skills needed, and chances of defects in the solution. I found Microsoft SharePoint to be a robust platform, especially when combined with Workflows, InfoPath Forms, Powerapps, and Power Automates. The advent of third-party tools like Nintex, K2, and Infowise accelerated further the building no-code solutions on SharePoint.

I have worked on many business process automation processes in my 12 years journey with Microsoft SharePoint, and I can rely on a few of them, one of them is Infowise Ultimate forms. This product is easy to learn, even a person without a development background can start delivering in a concise time.

I have worked with other third party products or tools like Nintex and K2. Still, in comparison to them, I recommend Infowise considering its learning path, competitive licensing fee, features it provides, and its technical support. I have already written about the implementation of Infowise Ultimate forms in my previous blogs; you can visit my past blogs along with others in Infowise blogs under the resource section; this direct link will take you there.

Patient Appointment app

I have shown you the Patient Appointment App built on SharePoint using Infowise in my previous blog.

Please visit it under the blog section of Infowise for detailed steps.

Patient appointment app has the following metadata :

S No	Column\ Field name	Type of column	Remarks
1	Reserved for	Single line of text	Capturing patient’s name
2	Reserved by	People type	Who captured this request
3	Reservation for	Choice type	To capture booking choice from available medical practitioners
4	Reservation Slot Start Time	Date time	To capture Start time of reservation.
5	Reservation End Time	Date time	To capture End time of reservation.
6	Purpose of visit	Multi line text	To capture purpose of visit.
7	Remarks	Multi line text	To enter any remark about booking

And following features

Double booking check features – To avoid double booking on the same slot.

Email alert notifications- To inform the doctors and patients about booking confirmation.

Calendar view of reservations - To easily see the availability of slots.

Search functionality – to search the records for easy retrieval of booking information.

Taking the Patient Appointment App to the next level

Patient appointment app built in my last blog was complete in itself, but the customer had requirements to add a few more features such as following-:

Color-coded calendar view for various categories such as between physician, laboratory booking, etc. to easily differentiate between the types of bookings.

Charts – To show the numbers of booking categorized by daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly to give them an accurate picture of the number of bookings, the business generated, and other parameters.

Print and Export- As to fulfill the local authorities’ guidelines, the customer wanted to have the functionality of exporting data of bookings and print them for compliances.

Update Patient appointment app list data through emails – Customer still wanted to follow their patient appointment bookings through emails but was in a dilemma because of monitoring such emails and making entries manually. We suggested to them to automate this list item creation and updates through emails where no human intervention is required.

Appointment ID – The customer wanted to have a unique appointment ID for each appointment for later reference as well as for compliance.

Search records- Customers also wanted to have advance search besides basic search available out of the box; they wanted to search all bookings based on the patient’s mobile number, ID, etc.

Using Infowise Ultimate forms, we delivered above the requirements

We again went to our beloved friend, i.e., Infowise, for the above requirements, and thanks to easily searchable references to their study materials, we could find that the above requirement can be easily built using Infowise Ultimate forms.

Infowise Ultimate Forms provide various features to cater such requirements easily; we used the following features and steps to build the requirements mentioned above

Event Calendars – Infowise Ultimate Forms provides Event calendar web part under web part sections, using this we can easily build a color-coded view of the list, in our case we categorized bookings with different colors to easily present the type of booking.

This calendar web part could be added to any SharePoint page by editing the page and add the web part on it.

Charts- We used Infowise chart web part to build various reports based on list data; these chart web parts can be added on any page as a Webpart.

Print and Export- Infowise provides a Print and Export feature to print the list data in its own format; exported data can be converted to PDF or sent as emails easily.

Update Patient appointment app list data through emails – We suggested to use Infowise feature, which helps to create and to update list items based on email contents. This feature is called Import; it automatically creates items in the list based on emails.

Appointment ID – The customer wanted to have a unique appointment ID for each appointment for later reference as well as for compliance. We used an Infowise feature called Item IDs, where a unique appoint ID is configured.

Search records- Customer wanted to provide search functionality with the appointment ID, mobile number of patient or patient’s ID, Physician name, etc. We used List search web part for achieving this functionality; it was easy to configure and use. Once configured, it was added as a web part on the desired page.

Again with the help of Infowise Ultimate Forms, we could deliver to customer satisfaction along with the quality delivery. The customer was happy with the quick turnaround of the solution and helped us to win more contracts from it.

Thank you for reading my blogs, please share your views by writing comments below, it will motivate me to deliver more.

Keep reading and happy holidays, let us meet next year with some fresh ideas.

The case for Human Resources Processes on SharePoint

2019-12-27T18:48:26Z

“Excellent tool that accelerates the process of developing SharePoint solutions with no need for coding. Very simple to use, great training material and technical documentation, and a support service that works when you need it. You really start building your solutions since the first day.” – Infowise Ultimate Forms Review by Paulo Sergio Farias, Cloud Project Director SharePoint is a great tool; it allows businesses to bring efficiency to their business processes through automation and increased collaboration. SharePoint portals are designed to fulfill the needs of a specific department; an HR portal is intended to assist the HR department in managing their processes with increased efficiency, from recruitment to offboarding. HR portals can handle it all, and today, that’s what we’re going to review.

Recruitment

Recruiting new employees is one of the main tasks that the HR team has to focus on, and hiring on-scale can become a problem for the HR staff, primarily because of manual and poor management. The HR team can be swamped with thousands of applications and might miss the perfect candidate because of this, communicating with the candidates can also become a challenge for your HR team. SharePoint and its HR portals allow the HR team to manage the recruitment process more efficiently and find the best candidates for your company. HR portals enable the HR department to create an application database that facilitates finding the perfect candidate for the job. HR portals also automate the communication between the candidate and the departments; it sends an automated email to the candidates to let them know about the interview, a job offer if they are selected, or a rejection letter. HR portal automatically communicates to the internal department and allows them to choose a job role for the candidate, approve the candidate, and approve a salary for the candidate. The HR department and other internal departments can also view the history and details of the recruitment process.

Employee Onboarding

Employee Onboarding is a long process; it helps make the employee feel comfortable in a new environment and bring them up to speed with the workplace culture, their duties, etc. When managed poorly, onboarding can become a hectic process and may affect the productivity of the new employee; they might have to wait a couple of days to get system access and can’t start working because of that. To avoid similar situations, companies choose to use SharePoint integrated with HR portals, which allows them to monitor the onboarding process more efficiently. The HR department can create a knowledge base as well with all the essential information for the new employees, including job responsibilities, employee handbook, employee benefits, training materials, etc. Task completion can also be monitored under checklists. For example, IT set up a new workstation and created a work email address for the new employee.

Employee Training

Employee training is vital to develop your business; it allows the employees to gain new knowledge relevant to their current job role or for future growth. Manually training the employee can take up a lot of time for all the involved parties, and it might become hard for the management to track the training process of the employees. HR portals for SharePoint allow the HR team to create a central training site where employees can view and enroll in a training program. They can also see the programs they are involved in and the training they previously took part in. The managers of departments can crate training programs, which the employees can join with a single click. A shared training calendar makes it easier for everyone to view the ongoing and upcoming training programs; they can also filter the calendar to find relevant training programs.

Employee Evaluation

Employee evaluation and performance reviews depend heavily on the HR department to coordinate with the internal departments and collect the relevant information from each department, create tests, and take interviews, etc. This can become problematic because of conflicting work schedules or frequency of work. With HR portals for SharePoint and Office 365, the HR department can manage the evaluation and performance reviews efficiently. They can create a self-evaluation employee portal where the employee can easily evaluate themselves; this saves a lot of time that can be used to focus on work. The HR department can track employee accomplishments and goals. The HR team can also view the history of past reviews and monitor progress through interactive dashboards and assign author rights to the department managers.

Employee Management

Employee management can become tricky if the number of the HR department is disproportionate to the strength of the employees. Tracking employee information and requests can also pose a significant challenge, especially in a large organization. Manual document management can also become hectic for the department as there is no practical way of preventing unauthorized access and search through the employee documents. Document Management becomes more convenient with HR portals for SharePoint as they enable the HR department to search through the documents through a centralized search; they also safeguard the documents through encryption. Alerts can be set up in HR portals so the HR team can know when someone tries to access the documents. The HR team can also manage the preferences for document downloading. Request handling becomes more comfortable as well; the employees can request vacation and raise directly. The HR team can approve and track employees’ vacation, track bonuses, and benefits, review training progress, track changes, and view the history of employee documents, job roles, or employment contracts.

Conclusion

Integrating HR portals into your SharePoint can be highly beneficial for your business. They can empower your HR team to carry out their day-to-day process more efficiently and increase their overall productivity while saving time for both the HR department and the employees of your company.

6 Reasons that SharePoint is the Best HR Software

2019-12-23T17:38:18Z

“Safe, Secure, and one of the best Microsoft Products ever!”

– Reviewed by Muneeba F., Head of Operations

--------------------- If you’re a subscriber of Office 365, then you’d be familiar with Microsoft SharePoint. If you’re familiar with it and using it for your business processes, then that is great; if not, then you should start using it. Why? Because it is, without a doubt, one of the best collaboration tools available in the market. If you are already using SharePoint, then here’s a video guide for you where you can learn 10 easy improvements for your SharePoint Forms. Microsoft SharePoint is a cloud-based solution that can help you create a digital workplace where all your data is easily accessible to you from any of your devices. The HR department most commonly uses SharePoint because of its capabilities for document management and employee engagement. SharePoint allows the HR department to bring automation to their business processes and create team sites according to their needs. If you’re still on edge about using SharePoint as a human resources management solution, then well make that decision more comfortable for you as we're going to provide you with six reasons why SharePoint is the best HR software.

Best Collaboration Tool

Collaboration and communication are vital factors for a business’s growth. When companies expand, the partnership becomes more critical, and to do that, companies need an efficient collaboration tool instead of a simple shared server. Microsoft SharePoint has been around for almost two decades now, and over the years, they have perfected the management solution to a degree where no other software comes close to it. Collaboration is an essential aspect of the HR departments’ duties; they have to announce policy changes, conduct training tests, evaluate employee performance, etc. Microsoft SharePoint allows the HR team to create team sites/collaboration sites, lists, library, create a document workspace, document versioning, etc. through which they can bring efficiency to the business processes mentioned earlier. The HR team can customize the visibility of these team sites, they can share it with everyone, or they can share it with a particular department or group of employees. When the HR department creates and assigns a task to an employee, SharePoint automatically sends an email to them. The HR department can also create a shared calendar, an issue tracker, dashboards, automated workflows. SharePoint allows the HR team to manage the on-boarding/off-boarding process more effectively; they can assign tasks to the involved departments. When they assign the tasks, the platform automatically sends an email to all the concerned departments, to which those departments can provide confirmation for, this makes it easier for the HR to keep up with all the necessary processes.

Document Management

Handling employee documents is another vital part of HR’s job description, whether its managing resumes, contracts, appraisal, statuary, onboarding procedure documents, etc. Managing and searching through vast amounts of paperwork can become a problem for the HR department and will cause inefficiency. The cloud-based HRMS SharePoint is unmatched in its document management capabilities; unlimited storage is provided to the users so they can store all the documents they get. The HR team can create custom fields to search the document through meta-data that’s built-in with word files; this makes it easier to search for a single document among hundreds. The HR team can customize the metadata fields according to the type (healthcare, general, employee benefits, etc.), editor (name of the employee), etc. SharePoint also provides document versioning, which means that multiple versions of a single file are stacked on top of each other, you’d see the most recent one on the top, and when you click on the file, you can access the previous versions as well. The HR team can also manage the access of these files and versions of data they can provide read-only access or read-write access to the employee. For example, they can assign read-write access to HR members for the employee handbook and assign read-only access to the employees.

Compatibility with Office 365

A great HRMS doesn't only work efficiently on its own, but it can integrate with other software that the company uses. Microsoft SharePoint is easy to integrate with other applications of Office 365, which allows SharePoint to add the information to Outlook, Word, and other Office 365 apps automatically.

Customization

As mentioned earlier, in SharePoint, the HR team can customize the settings for the shared documents according to the employees’ needs. This allows them to deliver relevant content to the employees according to their roles. Furthermore, HR can customize the features of SharePoint for employees according to their job descriptions. For instance, they can allow the managers to access employee evaluation of their department and restrict access for the employees, or the HR can enable managers to evaluate the employees on their own.

Privacy and Security

HR handles a lot of sensitive and personal information of the employees; keeping that information is the HR’s responsibility. The cloud-based SharePoint platform is highly secured, so the HR team can store their files without having to worry about unauthorized access to the information. SharePoint and its HR portals allow you to set-up alerts for both authorized and unauthorized access to the data. The HR department can also set the privacy of the documents according to their company policy; they can create a group and allow them to be able to view the files or assign visibility according to the employee's position.

Ease of Access

Another feature of SharePoint that makes it stand out is its easy access; The HR team and the employees can access their files freely on any device. They don’t require a fully-loaded PC; they can access the data from their mobile phones, tablets, laptops, etc. This feature allows employees and management to work from any location they want. Real-time access allows the employees to get access to their files as soon as they get uploaded on the platform; this feature is invaluable, especially when you are in a hurry.

Create Cost-Effective HR Processes Using Office 365

2019-12-17T21:24:00Z

“Easy to use and good options for students, staff, faculty.”

– Reviewed by Carissa J., Director Enrollment
---------------------------------------- Cost-effective and efficient automation of processes has become a necessity for businesses so that they can remain competitive in the market. Office 365 is such a tool that helps companies to automate their processes with minimum cost. The user-friendly interface of office 365 requires minimum training and is one of the most-rich functionality tools available in the market. For the HR department, Office 365 has helped them perform various tasks efficiently while minimizing the room for errors and delay commonly found in manual processes. Let’s take a look at the HR department processes, to which Office 365 provides cost-effective and smart solutions.

Employee On-Boarding

Onboarding employees using traditional methods is a complicated process that takes up a lot of time for both the HR department and the new hires. Office 365 has made the process of employee onboarding so simple that the HR team and the involved departments can manage the process from their seats. The HR department can view the progress of the employee onboarding process on their screens, and because the information is on the cloud, it syncs automatically across all Office 365 apps. Onboarding tasks can be created and assigned to the relevant departments by using Teams. Sway can be used to publish the schedule on a website online. Try our own Office 365 based Employee Onboarding.

Employee Training

Training employees can be a costly procedure, especially if they are located overseas. With Skype for business, employee training has become so simple and cost-effective that more and more companies are opting out for it. The HR department can make the most of Skype for business by using it other Office 365 apps. They can schedule the training session with the relevant department, notify the employee, see the progress of the training session, test the knowledge gained by the employee from the training session by creating quizzes and view and share stats. All these processes are automated, so the HR manager has to create the task only, Office 365 will generate and send emails on its own. Auto-sync will synchronize the data across all apps and provide real-time solutions, i.e., stats, progress reports, etc.

Try our Office 365 based Employee Training solution

Employee Evaluation

Employee evaluation is a critical aspect of the HR department’s job; they have to evaluate employees for promotion, raise, etc. Manual assessment can take up a lot of time and sabotage productivity; the HR team would have to gather data in black and white from different departments, compile and file them, scan them so they can be emailed to the employee. Office 365 provides a convenient solution to this; the HR team can retrieve data from the Teams shared file folder and use Power BI to create infographics and get a clear picture of the employees' performance within seconds. Yammer can be used to post and announce out-standing performers and to celebrate the accomplishments of the employee.

Employee Separation

In the modern world, employee separation isn’t as simple as it used to be in the old days. The HR team has to perform several duties such as keeping track of the date, exit interviews, clearance, notify the departments, a farewell party if the employee is retiring, etc. The HR department can perform all these processes efficiently by using Office 365; they can set up notifications, generate and send emails automatically, conduct the interview using Forms, or Skype for business. The HR department can announce the departure of an employee who has been long-associated with the company using Yammer.

Leave Management and Attendance

Leave management systems of office 365 are incredibly convenient. The HR department can define leave according to the requirements such as sick leave, maternity leave, etc., let the relevant department know about the leave and get it approved from the department, and keep track of all the employees that are on leave. This makes it easier for the department to manage the personnel; they can mobilize employees to accomplish the work more effectively using Teams. Various HR portal such as Time-off manager (the basic version of time-off manager pro), automates the process of leave management. It allows the HR department to track leave requests and automatically calculate the remaining leave. Furthermore, the HR department can use the built-in time-tracking capabilities of Office 365 or integrate HR portals to increase the attendance keeping capabilities of Office 365. The Outlook Journal function can track employees' progress when enabled; it automatically generates logs of the work done on various Office 365 apps, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint. Some HR portals are so advanced that the employee doesn’t have to do anything to mark their attendance. If they have the portal or app on their phone, the system will automatically detect the employee through their phone as soon as they enter the workplace.

Try our Infowise Employee Attendance Management System

Employee Reimbursements

Even though the finance department handles employee reimbursement, the HR department has to be involved as well. Office 365 allows employees to apply for refunds, the HR department to request and coordinate with the finance department and monitor the reimbursement process. The department can also gain insights and keep track of unnecessary expenses using analytics apps such as Power BI.

Try Infowise Employee Reimbursement System

Employee Directory

There are many built-in tools that the HR Department can use to create and manage a detailed employee directory. Delve, Contact Cards, Teams, etc., can all be used to create an employee directory. These directories can be shared or stored in a shared file folder using Teams to increase collaboration between departments. This feature of Office 365 is cost-effective and saves a lot of time, especially if the offices are far from each other.

Conclusion

Office 365 is a revolutionary solution that is a must-have for companies. It is cost-effective and offers several solutions for every department; that is why it has become the top choice for many businesses. Users can integrate portals such as HR Portals by Infowise and enhance the functionality of their Office 365 for various processes, including recruiting and onboarding.

Office 365 as an HR Management System

2019-12-16T19:35:25Z

"There is no "I" in Team - Teamwork the MS way."

In the past, having multiple applications on various platforms to communicate effectively to my teams became a tedious challenge due to many variables. With Microsoft Teams, we have realized the benefits of a converged communications platform as we see our client service levels on an all-time high as well as our bottom line showing positive growth due to enhanced productivity and efficiency from our teams. This product is definitely away into the future for converged communications and shared cloud workspace solutions.

KREASAN M. – Business Development
------------------------------------

Nowadays, because of the growing competition, businesses need to opt-out for cost-effective solutions to maximize growth and maintain or improve their rank in the market. Office 365 is one of the most cost-effective solutions that work seamlessly to provide various HR services, including recruiting and onboarding, performance management, employee engagement, leave management, employee administration, etc. You can subscribe to Office 365 for a monthly fee and even add Dynamics 365 in your subscription to further enhance the functionality of Office 365.

Here is an overview of some of the useful Office 365 applications that can aid in HR management.

MS Teams

Employee onboarding, recruitment, and leave management are essential activities for the HR department; they require a lot of coordination, parallel operations, and timely execution. There are two sets of people that the HR department has to work with for employee onboarding and recruitment, the new hire themselves, and the internal departments that contribute to the onboarding activities. Emails are used to coordinate with others; too many emails can flood the inbox and mix-up the topics, leading to delayed responses, which can cause inefficiency.

Office 365's Microsoft Teams app effectively resolves this issue; it allows the HR department to correspond with others without using emails.

The HR department can create the onboarding and recruitment team in Office 365 by adding the point of contact from each department as members. Working with MS Teams is simple; post what you want to communicate as a conversation, and all the team members will receive a notification about it. Only the team members can see and respond to the conversation similar to personal chat apps like WhatsApp and Messenger. Compliance and archival allow new Team members to view past discussions and back-up everything on OneDrive. MS team provides a built-in shared files folder where you can upload files, and every team member will be able to see it. The planner tab in the Teams app allows you to create a shared task list inside the Teams app in Office 365, and you can also set a deadline and assign the task to the responsible authority. The tasks can be categorized in buckets(departments); everyone can view the progress report of the functions.

Yammer

Yammer in Office 365 allows the HR department to communicate with the new hires in real-time regarding onboarding schedules, venues, and logistics. Yammer is a social network that enables you to create a group and add new hires, where you can post the details. New hires will be able to see the posts and like, comment, and share them. New hires can post questions or share learnings with each other.

Sway

Another useful tool that makes Office 365 a remarkable solution for onboarding is Sway. It allows you to create professional webpages where you can post the onboarding schedule, without the need of an IT specialist. You just have to add content (pictures, text, and links), and Sway will manage the formatting automatically for you. Office 365's Sway not only creates the webpage; it also publishes it, and if you are not satisfied with the design, you can change it by using the Remix! Button. You can create a shareable link or a QR code to share your webpage with others.

Skype for Business

Skype for business is another excellent tool for effective communication; it allows the CEO or the department head to give a welcome address to the new hires even if they aren't in the same location. The Q&A feature on Skype for business allows the new hires to post questions and get answers. The hiring manager can conduct video interviews using Skype for Business.

Forms

To monitor the quality of onboarding training programs, the HR department requires to get feedback from the new hires. Forms in Office 365 allows you to add a question and create the forms online. HR management can share the link with the new hires, post it on Yammer, or generate a QR code at the end of the presentation to capture real-time feedback. Participants can fill the form using any browser on their mobile device, and the trainer/HR management will be able to see the data and analytics in real-time. The HR team can also create quizzes to test the knowledge of candidates or to test what experience did the employees gained from the training. HRM can create a poll as well that can help select favourable options regarding different decisions.

Power BI

Power BI is an analytics service that is based on the cloud, enabling the HR team to visualize and analyze data with higher speed, understanding, and efficiency. The Get & Transform option allows the HR management to import data from multiple systems and turn it into interactive dashboards by using formatting, graphs, charts. MyAnalytics will enable employees to learn about their productivity; only employees can see their data in this feature. Workplace Analytics, on the other hand, is used to evaluate team productivity, it pulls the information from MyAnalytics while keeping the individual's information private.

Conclusion

These are just some of the commonly used apps for HR management; there are many other apps in Office 365. When integrated with dynamics 365, Office 365 becomes a high performing HRMS. You can subscribe for a monthly fee of $9.99, and if you want, then you can even upgrade your package by choosing apps that are independent of the selected deployment option. It is a valuable tool that can substantially increase the efficiency of your business processes.

Infowise

At Infowise, we serve as a strategic partner, assisting public and private enterprises in their digital transformation endeavours with our scalable, smart, and robust tools, software, and applications. Our product Infowise UltimateForms Power Suite contains more than 15 standalone SharePoint applications developed to give you the power to innovate, automate, and scale up your processes. Our products have been designed for optimum interoperability and seamless integration within SharePoint. Altogether, they constitute the structural foundation for digitization and facilitate your transition to digital transformation. Click here to download Infowise ULTIMATEforms 30-days free trial. Simple process. After you've installed Infowise UF, go ahead and create an unlimited number of Business Process Applications. Or even better, do you want to start with a ready template? Great, click here and download the ready-to-use template from our vast business process solution library, re-purpose to service your needs.

Enhance SharePoint capabilities with HR Portals

2019-12-13T20:54:05Z

“SharePoint for the WIN!”

We are primarily using the system for document management. By connecting to a Microsoft Office server, we are able to create and manage all documentation within SharePoint rather than having multiple versions existing on individual PCs. The fact that we can share news and utilize a central corporate calendar are cherries on top.

– SharePoint review by Linda R (Procedure Control Manager)
--------------------------------

SharePoint is a revolutionary platform created by Microsoft used to enhance and simplify various operations of the workplace, including management and services. SharePoint is integrated with useful software, such as office 365. It is an intranet and content management platform used for document management and to manage employees.

Tutorial of an HR Portal by our partner SP Marketplace, available in classic and modern UI

SharePoint’s Limitations

Even though SharePoint can work as an excellent HR system on its own, there are still some limitations attached to it that requires attention.

Complex Set-Up

To configure SharePoint for HR, companies would have to hire specialized professionals. Modifications to the system would also require an expert; this can be an added burden, especially for small businesses.

High Cost

The total cost can become high for SharePoint; you’d have to buy the license, added fees of configuration experts, and pay for support and modifications to the HR system.

Generic

On its own, SharePoint isn’t tailored for a specific company or department needs. It can be used by any company and department of the company. This can be a problem as duties differ in various departments; it would require customization according to the department and the company’s needs. To do that would have to hire a professional again, which will add to the cost.

Adaption Issues

Hidden features can make user-adaption to SharePoint a bit difficult and time-consuming. Users would need to be trained to use the platform, which can be a problem for many small companies.

How to Overcome SharePoint Limitations?

Companies can overcome SharePoint’s limitations by integrating various SharePoint portals. Portals are designed according to the needs of specific companies and departments in mind. They can successfully address the short-comings of SharePoint and enhance its functionality.

If you’re looking for an effective HR solution, using an HR portal will provide you with a cost-effective and user-friendly system. Automating business processes by using HR Portals can be beneficial for your company and allow you to maintain the consistency of your digital workplace. Your HR team can track requests and policies, manage employee information and employee onboarding, recruiting, etc.

Infowise provides customized portals that businesses can integrate into their existing Office 365 and SharePoint platforms. HR portal by Infowise allows your HR team to boost their productivity and improve their business processes.

HR portals integrated into your current HR system can offer many advantages for your HR team, such as.

Increased Collaboration

HR portals integrated into your HRMS increases the collaboration between the HR team and the company’s employees. HR staff can deliver updates to the employees about policy changes, and share useful information and documents. HR portals efficiently bridge the gap between the HR department and the employees and save valuable time for both that can be used productively.

Enhanced Filing

Repetitive business processes are well-known for reducing the productivity of the employees. Empower your HR staff and make the filing process more manageable with an HR portal that is capable of document management and provides a vast storage option. Your HR staff can quickly locate documents by using the search option and save valuable time that they would’ve otherwise lost due to manual processing.

Personalized Experience

HR manager, HR staff, and the employees need different content according to their needs and job roles. The customization features of HR portals for SharePoint allows you to customize the platform according to the user’s needs so you can deliver relevant content.

Accessibility

SharePoint, on its own, is accessible from Computers, Smartphones, and Tablets. When you integrate an HR portal on your HR system, you’d be able to access the added feature from anywhere. This can be very useful if the employees work outdoor or in case the HR staff has to travel between branches, they can continue their work during the commute (as a passenger).

Ease of Use

SharePoint HR portal is easy to use, single sign-in to all Microsoft products saves the crucial time of the employees. The search options search for documents across the platform instead of a single site; this tool can save a tremendous amount of time for your HR staff.

SharePoint HR Portal Functions

SharePoint HR portals support the HR staff in several HR processes, such as.

Employee Recruiting and Off/Onboarding

SharePoint HR portals allow the HR team to conveniently recruit candidates and simplify the onboarding and offboarding processes by.

Building a resume database
Sending automated Emails
Reporting interview statistics
Monitoring task completion
Reviewing the onboarding process
Creating a knowledge base
Setting up workflows

Manage Employees and Documents

Document management becomes plainer for the HR team; they can manage employees more conveniently by using HR portals. These platforms transform the digital workplace.

Monitoring changes in employee documents
Generating alerts for unauthorized access
Encrypting employee information
Managing payroll
Managing timesheet
Increasing communication
Scheduling shifts through calendars
Approving vacations
Registering sick leaves
Enrolling training courses
Handling requests

Evaluating and Managing Performance

HR staff can assess and track employee’s performance by using SharePoint HR portals. These portals offer the following capabilities.

Generate reports
Create Tests
Performance feedback
Design Surveys
Track certification
Analyze competency

Engaging Employees

HR portals are capable of promoting corporate culture, Increasing employee engagement, and loyalty through.

Media galleries of events
Communities and groups of various interests
Employee discounts and benefits
In-house yellow pages
Announcements and news
Leaderboards

Managing Policies

Policy management is a critical aspect of the HR teams’ duties. HR portals make it easier for the staff to track changes in the labor laws and update the employees in case of a policy change. SharePoint portals guide the HR team with the help of.

Storing and associating policies with relevant regulations
Policy status dashboards
Compliance testing and training
Acknowledgment of policy compliance
Schedule notifications

Infowise

At Infowise, we serve as a strategic partner, assisting public and private enterprises in their digital transformation endeavours with our scalable, smart, and robust tools, software, and applications. Our product Infowise UltimateForms Power Suite contains more than 15 standalone SharePoint applications developed to give you the power to innovate, automate, and scale up your processes. Our products have been designed for optimum interoperability and seamless integration within SharePoint. Altogether, they constitute the structural foundation for digitization and facilitate your transition to digital transformation. Click here to download Infowise ULTIMATEforms 30-days free trial. Simple process. After you've installed Infowise UF, go ahead and create an unlimited number of Business Process Applications. Or even better, do you want to start with a ready template? Great, click here and download the ready-to-use template from our vast business process solution library, re-purpose to service your needs.

SharePoint is an Excellent Tool for HR Management

2019-12-12T21:01:04Z

HR team plays a crucial role in every business, whether small or large. Sometimes the work-load can be overwhelming, and manual processing can lead to errors. For efficient hr management, many companies now prefer human resource management systems. These hr applications are mostly built on platforms such as Microsoft SharePoint can dramatically improve the HR processes and increase productivity, fast-track growth, and enhance the performance of your company.

What is SharePoint

Microsoft SharePoint is an automated platform that allows companies to manage multiple aspects of their processes. It offers a plethora of functionality to businesses as a collaboration site, automated workflow engine, data storage tool, video conferencing software, and many others. Companies can customize their SharePoint platform according to their needs. They may choose from an extensive software library which includes, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Publisher, Access, Exchange, OneDrive, Skype, Microsoft Teams, Yammer, and Delve. Microsoft’s Partner Companies, such as Infowise, provides automated portals that companies can integrate into their SharePoint and take their platform’s capabilities to the next level. Three versions of Microsoft SharePoint are available in the market.

SharePoint On-Premise: Managed internally by your IT team.
SharePoint Online: Managed by Microsoft.
SharePoint Hybrid: Mixture of on-premise and online SharePoint.

SharePoint for HR Management

SharePoint is a versatile platform that any department can use and customize according to their particular needs. SharePoint human resources management system is used to simplify employee onboarding process, securely store personal information, update employees about policy changes, manage leave and attendance, conveniently manage the recruitment process, etc.
Companies can integrate Infowise custom build HR portals to enhance their SharePoint functionality. These HR portals can help the HR team in many areas, such as.

Employee Onboarding and Recruiting

SharePoint HR portals allow the HR team to conveniently power through a vast number of employee applications. Instead of reviewing hundreds of resumes in black and white, the HR manager can find the desired resume by performing a search in the database. HR management can keep track of completed tasks by reviewing the centrally integrated checklists. For example, multiple HR officers had to interview various IT specialists and select one; they can view if the job got completed by checking the checklist. Real-time dashboards allow the HR team and new hires to monitor onboarding progress.

SharePoint human resources management system can be used to generate reports and gather interview statistics of the candidates. It can also create automated emails for interview invitations, notify candidates about rejection, welcome, and farewell emails, and create reminders and notifications.
SharePoint users can create an extensive knowledge base and include all necessary information for the new hires such as company mission and guide, employee handbook, work responsibilities, benefits, and e-forms, etc.

Employee Management and Evaluation

HR staff can manage employee-related operations and contents by using SharePoint HR portals. Document management becomes easy for the HR team, as they can track changes and view the history of the employee documents, contract, or updated job description. Data encryption allows companies to protect employees’ sensitive information, control access, dictate document downloading, etc. SharePoint can also generate alerts about unauthorized access to employees’ information.

HR management can conveniently communicate with the employees through their profiles. They can also track and approve salary changes, monitor the attendance and working hours, keep track of leaves and absents, schedule shifts, enrolment for courses, etc.

HR portals also allow the HR team to evaluate employee performance conveniently; they can report on task completion, review performance, and training results. They can also conduct a test to assess employees’ knowledge and skills after training and provide their feedback to the employees. Conduct surveys and analysis to measure employee satisfaction and self-assessment questionnaires.

HR management can handle employees’ requests using HR portals. They can approve and track vacation applications, track bonuses, and benefits, change in employment status, the progress of training and development, etc.

Keep Track of Policies and Procedures

HR staff has to make sure that the company policy complies with the state, local, and federal labor laws. They also have to make sure that the employees are meeting the company policy. HR management can associate regulations with centrally stored policies and procedures. The status of the policy, active and expired certifications, etc. can be monitored through the dashboard. Employees can easily acknowledge compliance with training, policy, or regulations.

The HR team can schedule notifications to review and update policies or certifications that are about to expire. Audio, Video, and Graphics training materials integrated into the SharePoint HR portal allow HR management to conduct knowledge tests and arrange policy compliance training.

Conclusion

Automated and smart solutions have become a must-have in today’s competitive business environment. SharePoint and its HR portals can drastically improve the operations of your HR team and empower them to bring the best to your business.

Infowise

At Infowise, we serve as a strategic partner, assisting public and private enterprises in their digital transformation endeavours with our scalable, smart, and robust tools, software, and applications. Our product Infowise UltimateForms Power Suite contains more than 15 standalone SharePoint applications developed to give you the power to innovate, automate, and scale up your processes. Our products have been designed for optimum interoperability and seamless integration within SharePoint. Altogether, they constitute the structural foundation for digitization and facilitate your transition to digital transformation. Click here to download Infowise ULTIMATEforms 30-days free trial. Simple process. After you've installed Infowise UF, go ahead and create an unlimited number of Business Process Applications. Or even better, do you want to start with a ready template? Great, click here and download the ready-to-use template from our vast business process solution library, re-purpose to service your needs.

CSS in Ultimate Forms for Ultimate Control

2019-12-05T23:50:22Z

There’s no question that Ultimate Forms’ modern form designer provides a tremendous ability to configure forms right out of the box. And the addition of the “custom styles” controls adds a lot more fine-tuning capabilities than previous versions of the tool. However, there are some things where the ONLY way you can change appearance or behavior is by actually changing the CSS itself. For instance, if you use tabs or accordion sections, you cannot modify their color, font, etc. using the standard toolset. There are actually a few advantages to using CSS for styling:

Not all CSS attributes are available for modification using the custom styles settings
Changes to CSS elements are carried over to all tabs or sections, instead of being container specific as with custom styles settings
If you want to inactivate a modification, you can do so in CSS without deleting the code – just mark it as “memo” until you need it again, instead of deleting a style and having to recreate it

The trickiest part of modifying CSS, to me at any rate, is identifying exactly which element to modify. I’ve gotten a lot quicker at it with practice, though – so, my belief is that in time it will be much simpler and quicker than it is for me currently. But, once you’ve got the right element, you can experiment with changes in the developer Styles panel; once you find the combination you want, you can copy the code from there and paste it into the form designer’s CSS window. One thing to note – at this time, the UF CSS window will strip line breaks and indents from your code, so it will not have the standard CSS formatting conventions. Everything still works, it just looks a little different. And that’s a small price to pay for the flexibility and control you get in return! Take a look at a “before and after” comparison of a form I’ve been working with:
You have to admit, that’s pretty impressive. There’s a video online that provides an illustration of working with this feature that you may want to check out. And for those who are interested, here’s the exact code I used in my example above (in the truncated formatting, but including the rounded corners on the tabs):

.impactTabs .nav-tabs>li.active>a, .impactTabs .nav-tabs>li.active>a:focus, .impactTabs .nav-tabs>li.active>a:hover { background-color: #e4c189 !important;color: #fff !important; }

.impactTabs .nav-tabs>li>a { color: grey; border-radius: 20px 20px 0px 0px;border-right-width: 1px !important;border-right-color: darkgrey !important; }

.impactTabs .nav-tabs { border-right-width: 1px !important;border-bottom-width: 0px;margin-bottom: 0px; }

.tab-content .cont { background-color: #e4c189 !important;padding: 10px 5px 0px;margin-top: 0px;} In the right hands, this is tremendously powerful – it gives you complete control over the look and feel of your forms, letting you create a UI that is able to adhere to the most stringent design specs, and that makes the users’ job easier, too.

Patient Appointment app built on Infowise Ultimate Forms

2019-12-04T16:23:59Z

Hi Readers, in this blog, I am going to share another example from healthcare industries, where we did magic using SharePoint and Infowise Ultimate forms. As I have spent a good amount of my experience in healthcare industries, I have commonly seen requests from businesses for automating their appointment booking process. I decided to explore all possible ways of building it and have explored other alternatives like Infopath, Nintex and building SharePoint custom solution. But as it always happens, cost, rapid development, required skills and maintainability were the primary factors for making decisions.

I ruled out Infopath because it is deprecated from Microsoft, and there is no new version available for long. I thought of building a custom solution for it, but skills and code maintenance were the issue and also I wanted to build it rapidly. So, a custom solution is also ruled out. There are third party solutions available catering the similar needs, but the licensing cost was too high comparing to Infowise Ultimate forms.

As I have already worked with Infowise Ultimate forms on my last projects, I was aware of flexibility, cost-effective and supportive technical support offered by Infowise Ultimate forms. I have already written about Infowise Ultimate forms in my previous blogs; you can visit my past blogs along with others in Infowise blogs under the resource section, this direct link will take you there.

Patient Appointment App

As we decided to use Infowise Ultimate forms to build an appointment app, we explored its features such as Classic form designer, Column Validations, Alerts and notifications, search and calendar view web parts. Getting information about these featured were easy because of the detailed steps provided in knowledge articles by Infowise.

This patient appointment app is built on SharePoint using Infowise Ultimate forms. A patient would call the clinic or hospital and request a doctor's appointment, or a lab test, an operator on behalf of the patient, enter the request in the system and inform the patient of the available slots. After getting confirmation from the requestor or patient, the operator will block the slot. As a result, confirmation emails will be sent to the patient as well as requested doctor along with hospital administration with details about the appointment with unique meeting ID generated with the help of Infowise.

This app could be useful for clinics, hospitals and individual practitioners for booking appointments for their patients and definitely could be adopted by other similar business models like Dentists, saloons, Advocates and many more.

Steps to build a Patient appointment App

We need the following SharePoint Components for creating this app.

SharePoint custom list
SharePoint Columns\ fields
SharePoint List views
SharePoint permissions

S No	Column\ Field name	Type of column	Remarks
1	Reserved for	Single line of text	Capturing patient’s name
2	Reserved by	People type	Who captured this request
3	Reservation for	Choice type	To capture booking choice from available medical practitioners
4	Reservation Slot Start Time	Date time	To capture Start time of reservation.
5	Reservation End Time	Date time	To capture End time of reservation.
6	Purpose of visit	Multi line text	To capture purpose of visit.
7	Remarks	Multi line text	To enter any remark about booking

For creating this app, we have to first create a SharePoint custom list with the following SharePoint columns\ fields.

This app should have the following features.

Double booking check features – To avoid double booking on the same slot.

Email alert notifications- To inform the doctors and patients about booking confirmation.

Calendar view of reservations - To quickly see the availability of slots.

Search functionality – to search the records for easy retrieval of booking information.

To build the form along with the above features, let's open the design view of Infowise and easily add these features without code.

For adding emails and alerts notification feature, go to alerts under Business logic and configure it for sending emails to doctors and patients on confirmation of billing.

Configure the settings according to requirements, set the recipients, email body when this email alert should be triggered, and mail template can also be configured.

Calendar view, there should be a calendar view of the reservation system to get the complete view of the system. In Infowise there is a feature of configuring a calendar web part, which is very easy to implement, adding colour-coding to differentiate between doctor's availability.

This calendar web part could be added to any SharePoint page by editing the page and add the web part on it.

To add the search feature in the patient appointment app, we used the list search web part. Search is an important functionality of any application and using Infowise, it was very easy to built search.

For avoiding double booking for the same slot, we can easily show the available slots by calendar view web part; booking agent can easily see the updated value of the slot and avoid double booking, we used actions to create a trigger which will check the available slot and update the status as confirmed or conflict.

Finally, our patient appointment app is ready

Finally, our patient appointment app is built, and the amazing thing is that it was built without writing a single line of code. We could have used some other third party products for the same, but after doing a cost analysis and feature comparison among them, we decided to use Infowise Ultimate form, and after using it, we did not regret our decision. Configuration and installation were easy; training and other reference materials are easy to find on their website, and last but not least, their support is fabulous.

So, readers, I hope you enjoyed this blog, I am going to extend this patient's appointment app to advance level in my next blog, where we will have opportunity to explore advanced features of Infowise.

Please keep sharing your feedback through the comment section given below the blog.

Thanks for reading…

Successful examples of business process automation

2019-11-26T17:54:15Z

Even though many despise the idea of the latest business processes taking the place of workers, however, these innovative business processes bring more productivity and efficiency in an organization. Keeping that in mind, there are three successful examples of business process automation that boost up the productivity of an organization. In all of these below examples, we will analyze the case studies of their business process automation that were successfully spearheaded. We hope that this article to provide you with the utmost guidance to execute the business automation process in your organization efficiently.

Three Successful Examples of Business Process Automation.

1. No More Paperwork

A transportation business that was working with a field service management company, they are looking to increase their drivers from a mere 50 to 150 with no additional hiring of in-house staff. What exactly they needed is an efficient way that would boost up their overall proficiency. However, the biggest stumbling block in achieving that goal was the business processes of the in-house staff, which were performed manually. The drivers had to receive all the client’s information, such as payment details and used to keep track of their working hours manually. Furthermore, the collected information is either called or faxed back to the head office to have them entered manually into their accounting books, and further dealt from there. As you can imagine, the entire business process was utterly time-consuming and prone to mistakes. For instance, there were frequent errors due to overhearing on the phone, mainly due to a lousy landline connection. That was such a painstaking hassle for the organization to overcome. However, with the implementation of business process automation, the workflow had significantly been improved. The field service company came up with innovative custom software and assigned every driver a tablet with a pre-installed app. The app brings tremendously increase productivity by allowing the features of the ease of collection of clients’ information, as well as automatically tracked the working hours of the drivers. The collected information from the drivers was automatically delivered to the accounting department, which was synchronized with their QuickBooks system. Thus, making this one of the successful examples of business process automation as the company reached and exceeded its organizational goal. It also provides new insights to the company of the data from a driver’s end that opens the door for further streamlining the business process.

2. Mitigating Human Errors

Mitigating human errors is always the goal of almost every organization in the world. That can be easily achieved by implementing the business process automation. In this example, a business enterprise builds a complicated and extensive information system that includes medical, aviation, and military. They had collaborated with a firm to develop that provide the convenience of changing requests to the Medical Directory for Regulatory Activities (MedDRA). The previous business process was outdated, as well as highly complex, where the data used to go through several different systems manually in a muddled and inefficient manner. Generally, there weren’t any issues in the process; however, in one specific process, any sign of errors or mistakes could lead to disastrous consequences of non-compliance. By streamlining the entire business process via the installation and implementation of a single end-to-end system, the company retrieved the process approvals beforehand. As a result, it makes the company to easily keep track and prevent errors when the data wasn’t moved between systems adequately. This also makes it one of the successful examples of business process automation. It may be true that not everyone has the expertise of quality assurance and compliance. Nevertheless, there are some significant technical issues similar to this example that most organizations don’t pay heed to and sometimes suffer huge losses. Those processes include

Trusting on transferring information from one system to another (via emails).
Delay the process due to bottleneck in the system.
Need various manual steps that could easily be ignored or neglected during rush hours.

These kinds of outdated and inefficient business processes still exist in various significant corporations.

3. Workflow Management

Finally, the last but not the least of the three successful examples of business process automation is about a convenience food company that was having issues with their regional marketing teams to run a local promotional campaign to capitalize on their local circumstances. For instance, they were looking for running a promotional campaign for ice-cold drinks in Florida in February but not the same promotion in Vermont in the same month. Moreover, there is also a central marketing department that would give the go-ahead for each of these promotional campaigns. They also ensured that the promotional offered in Florida doesn’t have any confliction with the one in Vermont. The department oversaw that all the running promotional campaigns were up to the mark of the brand. Meanwhile, the convenience food company were running their business processes with a hodgepodge way of emailing and highly complex Excel spreadsheets to keep track of all the promotional campaigns of all the regional marketing teams. They were suffering from the slow approval from the central marketing department that was becoming a burden to the entire team. Then came one of the successful examples of business process automation by switching and allowing the approvals on the task assigned. In other words, the stakeholders were only allowed to view and give consent to the tasks which they were assigned. From there on, it started to build a system where it enabled different regions to share their idea for a promotional campaign. Its progression was approved by the assigned stakeholder efficiently within the same network. Furthermore, the system also sends a notification instructing the marketing team if there were any essential things to do. By adopting this business process, the client gained massive productivity and proficiency in the promotional campaign.

Conclusion

These are the three successful examples of business process automation that contributed immensely to their respective business enterprises. It matters not whether you’re looking to increase your on-the-field employees, reduces errors, or just want to get work done fast. The implementation of business process automation is imperative in the modern times of today.

Infowise

At Infowise, we serve as a strategic partner, assisting public and private enterprises in their digital transformation endeavours with our scalable, smart, and robust tools, software, and applications. Our flagship product Infowise UltimateForms Power Suite contains more than 15 standalone SharePoint applications developed to give you the power to innovate, automate, and scale up your processes. Our products have been designed for optimum interoperability and seamless integration within SharePoint. Altogether, they constitute the structural foundation for digitization and facilitate your transition to digital transformation. Click here to download Infowise ULTIMATEforms 30-days free trial. Simple process. After you've installed Infowise UF, go ahead and create an unlimited number of Business Process Applications. Or even better, do you want to start with a ready template? Great, click here and download the ready-to-use template from our vast business process solution library, re-purpose to service your needs.

Ultimate Guide for Creating Business Processes in Office 365

2019-11-25T18:49:40Z

In any organization, once the initial enthusiasm for implementing Office 365 has subsided, they will start to look for more ways they can optimally utilize Office 365.
Indeed, all the processes of the organization cannot be moved and switched to Office 365 overnight. Nevertheless, it is still imperative to detect and recognize all those areas of improvement where the organizations can have a smooth start by thoroughly implementing Office 365 in all their business processes.
Office 365 has a diverse range of tools with massive features. Therefore, it’s quite challenging to identify all of them to have an overview of its advantages and disadvantages that could have an impact on the developmental processes of the business.
To understand it fully, let’s have a quick look at some of the queries and questions that regularly comes up when reviewing the demands and needs for a business process. By going through the requirements, we will be able to determine how Office 365 would respond to each one of them.
While you’re reading this, it would be fun to wrack your brain in finding some of the business processes in your organization that require improvement.
In this article, we will focus on covering no/low-code solutions. That would be quite beneficial for your organization if they can afford custom development, as there will be plenty of things to consider.

Tools for Creating Business Processes in Office 365

When the clients are looking for improving or creating business processes in office 365 with a no or low-code tool, there are three options for them to choose from Microsoft Forms, SharePoint List/Libraries, and PowerApps.
The very first thing to do is to review the present state of the business process and its complications. If the business process is simple and easy such as entering data into an Excel Sheet with no overcomplicated formulae, we suggest Microsoft Forms be the best tool.
Running your business processes in Microsoft Forms is entirely stress-free and pretty much straightforward as it doesn’t require any technical expertise.
However, one of the prominent disadvantages of using Microsoft Forms is that it provides minimal field types and has limited options.
If the field types of an organization are quite complex, it is then implementing the Microsoft Forms may not the best option. The next course of action in creating business processes in office 365 is to go for the SharePoint list. It offers a wide array of field types as well as has excellent built-in features, including views and validation. SharePoint list also enables you to utilize other tools like PowerApps. If you think a document upload would initiate the business process, then it’s better to choose Libraries.

PowerApps is the most complex tools for creating business processes in office 365. Its use should only be chosen when the form’s logic becomes more complicated that SharePoint cannot handle. By using PowerApps, you would be able to perform things like repeating tables, cascading dropdowns, and also you can connect to data outside of the current list.
Moreover, with the implementation of PowerApps, you would also be able to implement mobile apps. Generally, if the current business process is a complicated InfoPath form, then the PowerApps is the right tool for creating business processes in office 365. However, there is a lot to learn when you’re switching from InfoPath to PowerApps. Get yourself acquainted with a technical expert is recommended.
You should also need to consider the audience for creating business processes in office 365. For instance, if your targeted audience doesn’t have the licensed external users, you may have to stay with Microsoft Forms or SharePoint Lists, as PowerApps doesn’t support external users.

Suitability for Your Business Process Flow

When the business process has been selected, then the next phase for creating business processes in office 365 is the flow of the process. The ideal tool is Microsoft Visio or any other related tool to streamline the entire process. When thinking about mapping out the workflow, several queries come to mind. Such as is there any approval phase? If there is, then how many? Is there a need for transferring of data upon the completion of the process?
One of the significant workflow tools in creating business processes in office 365 used to be SharePoint Designer. There has been a rapid increase in organizations that are switching from SharePoint Designer workflows to Flow.
Similar to PowerApps, you would probably require to learn about the Flow. According to us, it would take an immense amount of time and effort to learn and have the proficiency to run your business processes, especially if you were an avid user of Designer.
On the other hand, if you’re new to Flow, then this is the simpler and efficient version of SharePoint Designer.
From personal experience, there are plenty of loops in Flow; however, the new and improved logging assists greatly in those circumstances.
Flow offers a tremendous amount of nifty built-in templates for creating business processes in office 365. For instance, its template sends the data to Microsoft Forms automatically to a SharePoint list. This is ideal for anyone who’s looking for a user experience of Microsoft Forms but requires the data in a SharePoint list that could be utilized for reporting or for a more complicated business process.
One more thing, PowerApps empowers into building plenty of logic with no need of using Flow. For instance, it enables you to send an email directly inside the app, which reduces the expense of overseeing two tools.

Envisioning the Entire Process

When the desired creating business processes in office 365 completely implemented in your organization, the final phase is to make an impressive user experience. To efficiently achieve that, you can utilize the modern pages in SharePoint to render a personalized experience as per the user’s requirements. Generally, they are mostly referred to us dashboard pages that contain links to forms, gives a view of the lists and libraries.
You can embed the visualization of data from Power BI. However, you probably need to buy a license. This tool is quite helpful in providing prompt answers about your business process and its functionality.
Furthermore, Microsoft has recently introduced the connector web parts, enabling you to connect and showcase your data outside of Office 365.
We hope that considering all the benefits of improving and creating business processes in office 365 would give you a head start in getting solutions for your business operations.

6 Reasons to Consider Automation for Your Business Processes

2019-11-25T15:03:40Z

“There's a lot of automation that can happen that isn't a replacement of humans but of mind-numbing behaviour.” – Stewart Butterfield, Co-Founder of Flickr and Slack. Today’s market has become highly competitive; within a blink of an eye, you can be left behind in the dust if you’re unable to compete with rival businesses. Your business’ services have to be top-notch, all the while keeping the operational costs to a minimum and manage time efficiently. Business process automation can help businesses to stay ahead of the curve. Even small companies can automate their business, as business automation is not limited to installing AI-based machinery. Automation comes in all sizes and shapes; you can install automation software to manage your social media accounts more efficiently. To better understand the reasons why a business should consider process automation, we first need to understand what business automation is.

Business Process Automation

Process automation in business is the use of software to coordinate personnel and operations. In simpler terms, business automation (or business process automation) allows you to do all the repetitive tasks with the help of a computer or a virtual system. If you're on the fence about integrating process automation in your business, then these reasons are going to help you decide;

Saves Time

You might’ve heard the phrase “time is money.” Repetitive tasks kill the morale of employees, making the process more time consuming and forcing the employees to work overtime. An automated system can perform those repetitive tasks within the designated time and reduce human error as well, freeing employees to do the work that requires their attention more.

Cost-Effective

If a plethora of tasks is to be performed by your business, then you may recruit a large number of employees, enough to perform the tasks at hand and meet the deadlines of the busy workload. Some consider outsourcing the work, but that’s not the best solution to this problem. Process automation can help you save a substantial amount of money and efficiently handle the tasks. Moreover, you don’t have to cover the salaries and benefits of an automated system, allowing you to spend those savings elsewhere.

Customer Satisfaction

Customer satisfaction is critical to upscale your business. Manual processing can be irregular and prone to human error; on the other hand, automated systems can help minimize the error rate and provide regularity in services or products, ensuring customer satisfaction. For example: If a small scale business doesn’t have the resources to run a 24-hour call center, they can avail the services of an automated customer service software, which allows them to assist customers 24/7 without any additional costs. The customer won’t have to wait to get connected to an agent and will be satisfied with the quality of your customer service.

Better Analysis

Analyzing customer behaviour can help you understand what your customers want. With the help of analytics software such as Google Analytics and Microsoft PowerBI, you can effectively understand your customers’ needs and launch new services according to the results. These programs help you manage your data conveniently and provide visualization tools to simplify the process for their users.

Enhances Workflow

Workflow automation allows you to monitor real-time progress by bringing all aspects of the workflow into a single dashboard and simplifies process management for you by creating reviews, processing data, etc. You can also view previously collected data and compare it with the current data so you can make educated decisions and predict the future course of action of your business.

Happier Workforce

Repetitive tasks can be annoying and cause frustration among workers, making the employees less productive. With the help of automation, you can keep your employees happy and increase productivity by 12%, a recent study has found.

Conclusion

Manual processing has room for delays and errors; with the help of automated business processing, you can increase the operational productivity by assigning repetitive tasks to a computerized system. You can pinpoint the area where your company is lacking and work on it to improve your services. Start small when you automate your business processes, with the most straightforward methods first. Note how the workers react to the automation; this will make it easier for you to take on larger automation projects.

Infowise

At Infowise, we serve as a strategic partner, assisting public and private enterprises in their digital transformation endeavours with our scalable, smart, and robust tools, software, and applications. Our flagship product Infowise UltimateForms Power Suite contains more than 15 standalone SharePoint applications developed to give you the power to innovate, automate, and scale up your processes. Our products have been designed for optimum interoperability and seamless integration within SharePoint. Altogether, they constitute the structural foundation for digitization and facilitate your transition to digital transformation. Click here to download Infowise ULTIMATEforms 30-days free trial. Simple process. After you've installed Infowise UF, go ahead and create an unlimited number of Business Process Applications. Or even better, do you want to start with a ready template? Great, click here and download the ready-to-use template from our vast business process solution library, re-purpose to service your needs.

Fine-tuning Form look and feel with the Custom Styles feature

2019-11-20T00:02:50Z

The modern Form designer has so many cool features, it’s easy to miss them. Take styling the form, for instance. At the highest level, there are two themes – dark, and light. If you’re using tabs or accordion sections in your forms, there are also three built-in themes you can apply – which look different depending on whether you’re using dark or light modes. You can also use the Styles section in the right-panel to define: font face, color, and size; background color; and border style, color, and weight (yes, I know my example is gruesome, but it’s impossible to miss!). But I want to draw your attention to the “Custom styles” area in the style dialog. Custom styles allow for a lot more opportunities for defining the CSS attributes of containers and fields without actually having to write CSS. Custom style controls include background, border, font, margin, and padding controls – and that’s just the start. Since CSS typically allows you to define all four sides of a thing individually, it’s completely possible to have padding, for instance, that’s different top to bottom or side to side. There’s some arcane stuff included, too – things like cursor, or clip, or z-index. I’m not going to spoil your fun by telling you what everything is or what it does. Instead, I want to encourage you to check out the CSS reference page at W3Schools.com for a complete list of all the current CSS attributes and definitions – just click on the attribute to get detailed information on how to use it. Now, I’ll be honest – there are still some things you can’t do with custom styles inside the dialog. And, there are some elements of the form – such as tab button or input fields – that you can’t change using Styles. Luckily, for those things you can still actively edit the CSS within the tool using the CSS button in the menu bar – but, that’s a topic for a different day. If you’d like to watch a video demonstration of both custom styles and manipulating form CSS, check out Form Builder - Advanced Styling and CSS in the Ultimate Forms tutorials.

Creating a Sharepoint Patients Registration App using Infowise Ultimate forms - The Next Level

2019-11-19T17:21:55Z

Patient Registration Process to the next level

Hi readers, I have been writing about SharePoint and healthcare industries, and this is my third blog in a series on Infowise portal. I have written in detail about why I chose Infowise over other options available in SharePoint for building process automation, you can read this blog here. In my other blog, I discussed challenges in healthcare industries and SharePoint helping to resolve it. I took the example of creating a registration app for patients using Infowise Ultimate forms, discussed benefits of it and also added steps to troubleshoot the issues faced during installation of Infowise apps in my environment, you can read this blog here.

What Next…

In my next blog, I wanted to extend my patient registration app, which I created in my last blog to highlight the advanced features of Infowise Ultimate forms. To start with it, let us understand the process of the hospital’s operation. Once the patient is registered in hospital records, it should be stored for a long time depending on local authority’s compliance, and then the same record is updated and added with other details like doctor’s advice, diagnostic reports and billing history. In addition, these records should be easily available through search when required. I have listed down features requirements, which should be part of any patient registration app.

The patient’s record should be stored for a long time with appropriate security.
Doctors should easily search his assigned patient and could see the patient’s medical history and he should be able, to add his prescription.
Lab technician should be able to fetch details of medical tests prescribed by the doctor to patients. He also should be able to enter billing details for requested tests.
The patient should be able to download the reports and the doctor should have access to reports for his review.
All history should be stored securely and available for later reference.
Configurable alerts and notifications.
Electronic or digital signature
The app should be accessible through handheld devices such as tab and smart mobile phones.

Extending Patient registration app

I took the example of building a patient registration app in my last blog, I would like to extend the same app to the next level to add the above-listed features. Create all the required fields needed for Doctor’s form. In the doctor’s form, some of the fields like the patient’s personal details and previous medical history would be pre-filled from the patient’s registration form. Fields need to be created in the Patient’s record list are mentioned below in the table

Field Name	Data Type	Remarks
Doctor’s Prescription	Multi-line text	Used by the doctor to enter the prescription
Lab Test prescribed	Multiple-choice options	Prescribed Lab tests
Lab Test Conducted	Multiple-choice options	Lab Tests Conducted
Lab Test Findings	Attachments	Lab Test Results
Bill details	A single line of text	Billing details of the patient

The above fields should be in a repetitive section, as multiple entries could be made for a patient. For better placement of field, I thought of arranging different sections in different tabs for e.g. patient’s records in one tab, doctor’s section in second etc. Each section should be editable by respective stakeholders and read-only for others as per requirements.

How Infowise Ultimate forms helped to achieve complex functionalities

There were few challenges while extending the design of the patient registration app such as arranging forms in a tabbed view, applying for permissions on individual columns, Column value validations, View Permissions etc. As always Infowise came as a saviour in difficult times, All these functionalities\ features, are available and easy to implement. I used the following features of Infowise forms to achieve the patient’s registration functionalities. 1- Tab and Tab Permissions- For arranging and dividing fields per section.

2- Repeating section – For making multiple entries of prescription, lab tests etc. 3- Advanced column permission manipulation – Applying for permissions on fields 4- Column Value Validation – Applying column validation enforce business\ compliance rules.

5- View permissions – Doctor Views, Receptionist views and lab assistant views should have only access to their respective views only.

6- Charts – For providing a graphical representation of records to stakeholders for better decision making. 7- Electronic signature field – Get the e-signature for compliance purposes. 8- Smart Alerts – for configuring alerts and notification configuration. 9- List Search Web part- For providing search functionality to search the patient’s record on the patient’s registration list, it also provides the functionality of the advanced search feature. It was easy to configure the above features, thanks to well-documented tutorials and instructions available on Infowise portal. One can easily find detailed documentation here https://www.infowisesolutions.com/documentation/ The patient registration app is complete now. Comparing the other products available in market Infowise Ultimate forms was convenient and cost-effective. Thanks for reading my blog, I will be discussing more exciting features of Infowise in other projects implemented for healthcare industries.

Grid System Design for Fine-Tuned Forms

2019-11-18T15:27:10Z

We’ve been doing a lot of talking lately about how cool the modern Form Designer is, and here’s another reason to get excited. If you’ve been trying to recreate the look and feel of an existing form that you built in InfoPath or some other tool, Form Designer gives you a huge assist by using nested containers – containers within containers. Using the technique, you can control the structure of your forms to a very high degree. The trick is to use containers as rows in a form, and then insert additional containers within the columns. Those containers can then be columnized on their own, which lets you vary widths across the rows to suit your purposes. It also gives you better control over visibility and permission rules, too. Once you’ve got your grid laid out, it’s a quick job to drag list fields into place. Some tips:

If you’ve got an existing form, start by analyzing its structure for rows and columns. If you’re starting from scratch, drawing a rough diagram will be very helpful.
Adding fields to the same container will cause them to stack one on top of the other, which is useful in some cases.
If you want rows to stay level, it’s not a bad idea to nest a container into each column.
If you want to use tabs or accordion sections, set those up first - you can’t move containers! The good news is that if you need to redo anything, it only takes moments.

I’ve created a video tutorial using this method which you can watch to see a walkthrough of the building process. Give it a try – I think you’ll be impressed at how well the technique works!

Microsoft office 365 and digital transformation in manufacturing

2019-11-14T02:41:10Z

The modern workplace needs to change to survive in the competitive arena. Instead of working out of a physical office, at times, they need to work virtually, the system needs to be accessible outside of the office on the cloud and be available globally. Instead of working only on computers, you're expected to use your mobile devices as well. If a manufacturing corporation is embracing digital transformation with the assistance of Microsoft office 365, then they're able to provide their employees with emails and other team collaboration tools to store and share documents; employees are able to manage permissions with other co-workers. Project managers are able to automate processes and distribute workloads to all team members. Manufacturing corporations can create intranet portals to enable self-services for the different departments within an organization.

Microsoft office 365 provides integrated platforms that provide all the features you need to create a modern digital workplace. From Outlook, Word, PowerPoint, Excel, OneNote, Planner, SharePoint, Powerapps and many more, all these functionalities can conveniently be accessed with a single subscription of Office 365 suite. Utilization of all the aforementioned tools provides manufacturing firms with ample opportunity to grow in a decided manner towards full digitization. As a consequence, these businesses will benefit from increased visibility of processes, significant cost reduction, quicker product turn around cycles, in return, they become able to deliver excellent customer service and achieve higher customer satisfaction and even delight.

Industry in our mind conjures up classic machinery, thousands of employees, and tall smokestacks. However, the continuous development in software technology such as Microsoft Office 365, digital transformation in manufacturing is heading towards a new type of manufacturing industry that is 4.0. This digital Industry is transforming every stage of manufacturing operations from supply chain and enterprise to the shop floor and employees. The smart manufacturing connects factories electronically to central machine-linked networks, not only to automate but also to individually learn procedures, adapt to change, create requests, identify quality issues and even delegate tasks to other machines. The technologies used by the manufacturers in the digital Industry is improving every phase of production and are discussing below in detail:

1. Internet of things

The internet of things has been giving enterprises a competitive edge by reorganizing and simplifying operational processes with digitally connected machines. Its existence consists of widely used internet connection, sensors, and cloud computing. By providing real-time input and data, businesses are well notified to take decisions and decrease manual procedures. The internet of things and statistics have a significant impact on productivity. Hence, Microsoft Office 365 and digital transformation in manufacturing offers new chances to integrate activities and changes business procedure. Nowadays, consumers want natural products that enforce manufacturers to create software-based products.

2. Artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence refers to any device that responds to the environment and takes action to acquire its goal. This technology does not need any human assistance. Instead, it provides automation as Microsoft Office 365 and digital transformation in manufacturing are featured with several control systems for performing business operations smoothly by making decisions by themselves. Hence, it reduces not only manual work but maintains the appropriate workflow and enhances production capacity effectively. Besides, production costs have lowered down the downturn.

3. Robots

Robots are automatic machines that are specifically designed to operate specific tasks. Moreover, they are not only able to make decisions but alarm others in case of any mishappening. Their increasing use in the manufacturing industry has made the industries a better and safer place to work in. They can easily communicate with the members of the control board for the provision of required information and data related to machines and business operations. Fully equipped with sensors, these robots identify and fix issues to minimize delays in performing manufacturing procedures.

4. Cloud computing efficiency

To improve speed and efficiency, advanced engineering and robotics are critical to manufacturing companies. It is also streamlined in its infrastructure, and the employees will access the relevant data they want through geographical locations, allowing quicker, unified collaboration simpler. As a consequence, cloud computing is being introduced by a growing number of manufacturers for Microsoft Office 365 and digital transformation in manufacturing.

5. Data and statistics:

Experts predict that by 2020, digital content will be 50 times higher than it currently exists. Big data processing is difficult and time-consuming, with knowledge regarding users and services being handled, modified, and evaluated. Because of its potential to streamline information, facilitate teamwork, and increased visibility for all participants, manufacturers encourage cloud technology.

6. Augmented reality

Augmented reality (AR) presents digital content through a system in the real world, such as a mobile phone and unique eyeglasses. In the manufacturing industry, there are several different applications for this innovation, such as:

The processes, facilities, and techniques on the ground of the factory are often unknown with new hires. It is vital to provide new workers with instruction as soon as possible and as often as necessary to avoid security incidents. With AR, they may access text overlays and other virtual information to help them understand what's going on the ground without requiring additional workforce or output delays.
Manual reviews are required for most orders and deliveries at fulfillment centers and warehouses. This process is automated with AR to reduce errors, save time, money, and resources.
Maintenance crews save resources and reduce guesswork by using ar tools to provide equipment details such as preventive maintenance plans, potential problems, and the machine's service history.

7. Additive Manufacturing

Although companies are looking to expand the use of additive manufacturing in their operations, in three key areas, techniques such as 3d printing already play an essential role:

Thanks to the versatility of 3d printing technology, design teams may play in making increasingly complicated geometric shapes and frameworks.
3d printing is widely used to model, speed up project times, and reduce costs. In a controlled environment, companies are free to struggle easily and test multiple models before settling on the final designs.
3d printing is the most comfortable and most inexpensive form of production when only a small amount of material is required.

Infowise

At Infowise, we serve as a strategic partner, assisting public and private enterprises in their digital transformation endeavours with our scalable, smart, and robust tools, software, and applications. Our product Infowise UltimateForms Power Suite contains more than 15 standalone SharePoint applications developed to give you the power to innovate, automate, and scale up your processes. Our products have been designed for optimum interoperability and seamless integration within SharePoint. Altogether, they constitute the structural foundation for digitization and facilitate your transition to digital transformation. Click here to download Infowise ULTIMATEforms 30-days free trial. Simple process. After you've installed Infowise UF, go ahead and create an unlimited number of Business Process Applications. Or even better, do you want to start with a ready template? Great, click here and download the ready-to-use template from our vast business process solution library, re-purpose to service your needs.

Implementing a successful digital transformation in manufacturing: Microsoft office 365

2019-11-13T20:02:22Z

By now, it is evident that only those who adapt to change are the ones that are going to thrive in the new digital era. Practically what we do today is for a tomorrow. The advancement in the tech sector brought unforeseen improvements in production management and propelled businesses to achieve higher levels of efficiency. Several manufacturing corporations already enjoy the benefits of successful automation. However, the implementation of new technologies can disrupt the daily workflow. One of the biggest challenges faced by manufacturing corporations when implementing a digital transformation strategy is people. For that reason, leaders of change must understand the mindset of their own people and how they executed their daily tasks before the upcoming upheaval of full digitization. The second challenge faced by the manufacturing sector is aligning their business model with the newly acquired technology architecture. They both are the critical sides that need to be adequately considered during the planning of the digitization. At the end of the day, all change has to meet the business's overall goals and objectives.

Technology is ubiquitous, and this exposure to digital services plays a vital role in not only creating new products but transforming and accelerating innovations. The secret to a successful change, growth and development nowadays is to focus on recent trends in technology, what offered by Microsoft's Office 365 is a great example of such a shift in technology trends. From the proliferation of connected devices and other "stuff" within the Internet of Things (IoT) to increasing information mounds, the advent of advanced analytics, machine learning, and artificial intelligence, everything has reshaped the very face of industries. The industries are now more transformed, competitive and eco-system friendly.

Reshaping manufacturing by Microsoft office 365

Microsoft office 365 and digital transformation in manufacturing give enterprises the chance to ponder and act as digital firms through their interaction with their clients, empowerment of their staff, automation of their processes, and turning their goods into valuable products. Organizations doing this have reliable results: reduced costs, energy efficiency, higher profits, and improved operational efficiencies. The organizations that have successfully adopted a digital transformation journey generate millions of dollars more in additional operating income each year than those lagging. In this way, industries will be reshaped, and this era will be defined as transformation and disruption. Microsoft Office 365 offers services, solutions, and roadmap for successful separation and differentiation that lead to remarkable potential.

Mindset for a better tomorrow

In the past, an industry took twenty years to establish. However, due to implementing Microsoft office 365 and digital transformation in manufacturing, the time has been reduced to two-three years for launching a mega-size manufacturing business. But, to make the most of digital transformation, industrialists must reframe their goals and shift their thinking towards rapid growth through the diruption of current markets. Microsoft office 365 is a reliable agent for a successful transforming the industry by providing a unique collaboration of innovative technologies and equipment that automate all manufacturing operations. Hence, this digital transformation is leading enterprises to agile productivity with ease.

Digital change is a proposal for technology. Technology's influence on modern business is monumental. And, it is demonstrated in many ways; infinite computing power and limitless space that has become a reality today, as well as possibilities provided by disruptive innovations such as the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, profound learning, virtual reality, etc. Therefore, it is fair to say that innovation is going to change the world again.

Embrace the digital revolution, or else!

We are on the verge of a digital revolution that is going to change how we live, act, and connect fundamentally. The first industrial revolution benefitted humanity in automated steam power output, preceded by the second revolution that introduced electricity, and the third revolution came up with the introduction of information technology. As a consequence, we entered the era of massive mass manufacturing. The speed of current advancements and the exponential leap of disruptive novelties are now leading to the fourth industrial revolution. It is featured by extraordinary processing control, storage, data access, and line unclear between physical, digital and biological space.

Get onboard with innovations

For constructing a traditional technology corporation, the digital economy generates unprecedented demands for corporate structures and business resources. Its goal is to architect for agility and new business models, empowering employees and customers to innovate at a speed that was unimaginable in earlier generations. This transformation is due to the agile innovations such as machine learning, integrated significant data statistics, hybrid cloud computing, cyber-physical, machine-to-machine systems, etc.

Transforming industries via Microsoft office 365

The idea of becoming a digital business does not depend solely on technologies or equipment. A modern transformation strategy pays a lot of attention to controlled development, change management criteria, and comprehensive organic digitization that aligns technology with business goals and objectives. Sales, marketing, and human resource leaders, therefore, view technology as a core component of innovating their processes. Microsoft office 365 and digital transformation in manufacturing plays a significant role in a company, including transforming the company by managing infrastructure, working equipment, security, and serving in the role of advocating business customers by testing new software products, services, and providing feedback.

Empowering employees

Organizations cannot digitally change completely unless their staff and workers do. Microsoft office 365 and digital transformation in manufacturing outstrip the skill level of organizations and the ability of the workforce to become skilled with the new technologies. To meet all the needs of a modern economy, the willingness of the workers to have technical expertise is essential. As a result, many industrialists are now adopting technological education approaches, supplying them with instruction on how virtual devices function and coordinating projects to smooth their introduction to new technologies.

Re-inventing customer's engagement

The core focus of implementing Microsoft office 365 and digital transformation in manufacturing involves not only the running of business operations smoothly or generating valuable products but interacting with customers as well. With the rise of social tools, customers are now more commanding than ever. They can have access to every information related to services or products of industries in seconds. This has forced the industrialists to build a strong relationship with their customers. It includes recurrent online connections and solving their issues.

Infowise

At Infowise, we serve as a strategic partner, assisting public and private enterprises in their digital transformation endeavours with our scalable, smart, and robust tools, software, and applications. Our product Infowise UltimateForms Power Suite contains more than 15 standalone SharePoint applications developed to give you the power to innovate, automate, and scale up your processes. Our products have been designed for optimum interoperability and seamless integration within SharePoint. Altogether, they constitute the structural foundation for digitization and facilitate your transition to digital transformation. Click here to download Infowise ULTIMATEforms 30-days free trial. Simple process. After you've installed Infowise UF, go ahead and create an unlimited number of Business Process Applications. Or even better, do you want to start with a ready template? Great, click here and download the ready-to-use template from our vast business process solution library, re-purpose to service your needs.

How I quickly built a Customer Onboarding (Account Creation) Solution for a Bank using Infowise Ultimate forms

2019-11-11T20:08:00Z

Is it easy to build a Customer Onboarding (Account Creation) Solution for a Bank using Infowise Ultimate forms?

Dear Readers, it's almost a month and a half I have used Infowise Ultimate Forms, and I must say I love the convenience of having everything in one place. I can open up my Infowise Portal, right from my SharePoint, and create forms and processes easily and quickly.

Life without Infowise Ultimate Forms

Assume I was working without Infowise Ultimate Forms; I would need Power Apps or SharePoint Designer to create and update my form design and add the company logo and branding. Sometimes it would also be necessary to add bits and pieces to make responsive web pages. By responsive webpage, I mean an application that works well with all different kinds of devices.

We would also need SharePoint Designer Workflows or Workflows created by using Flows to make sure that the processes work well so that if there is an approval necessary, one would need to add items and create the structure.

Let's discuss the possible scenarios using an example, say Customer Onboarding in a Bank.

Customer Onboarding: How does an account creation work in a bank?

The process of customer onboarding begins with the request to open an account. Say an individual wants to open a bank account. He will either call or visit the branch. He then needs to fill-up the form and submits it to the bank. He also needs to provide a set of documents, commonly known as KYC or Know Your Customer Documents.

Once the bank receives all the documents, a team of Legal and Compliance officers checks all the information that has been provided by the customer.

If all the information is found current, a new account is created for the customer.

This the first step when a customer gets introduced to the banking service for any bank. It's is very important to have this process streamlined. If the customer is happy with the service, it will not only ensure his loyalty, but he might also recommend other people, thereby increasing profitability for the bank.

However, this is a very lengthy process and has multiple levels of checks and approvals by Legal and Compliance teams for the information provided.

Customer Onboarding: Forms and Process in a Bank

To create a Customer onboarding process, one of the most important things is to create a form, which will have all the information about the customer. Traditional consists of an innumerable number of fields and options. All information like the type of account, Branch details, Nominee information all gets stored here.

To create a form, with a large number of fields as the customer onboarding form, it is necessary to make sure that the form is interactive.

My requirements for the form include:

It must have the proper bank color branding and logo.
The form needs to be divided into blocks of information, using accordions and tabs. This will help us to segregate the information.
The fields need to update on the selection of a given field. For example, if my account type is Joint Account, I need to provide the name of another account holder. If it is a Personal Account, then I will not need another account holder.
Fields need to be viewed based on form type. As in the case of Account Number, New Item should not show account number, but Edit form needs to have an account number fields.
Field level permission to edit.
Once the form has been created, it needs to go through an approval system.

Customer Onboarding: Creating a solution using SharePoint, PowerApps and Power Automate (previously known as Microsoft Flow)

As soon as you create a list of items in SharePoint, by default, a complete set of forms (New, Edit and View) are created in SharePoint. Though the forms are responsive, it's very difficult to add features like hide/show on the selection of an item or hide fields on the type of action like New Item or Edit Item.

A solution for that is to use PowerApps. However, with PowerApps, we can either change only the form design or create a mobile/iPad based app. Though I can code the app to hide and show fields, based on conditions, a certain amount of coding skills is necessary.

Moreover, there is no easy drag and drop option to create tabs and accordions to arrange data or any quick custom CSS to change the look and feel.

Once the forms are created using Power Apps I nee,d to use Microsoft Flow to update the approval process. However, this also includes a learning curve and might not be a quick drag and drop solution.

This, in turn, means that I have to move between applications to create a perfect solution.

Customer Onboarding: Creating a process using SharePoint and Infowise Ultimate Forms

Infowise Ultimate Forms, on the other hand, solves my problem quickly. I could add CSS and quickly create a custom design and branding. Even the conditional show and hide of the account number field can easily be done using the checkboxes. I can add rules and permissions easily, even in each field. I can add custom style to my fields and not just forms and even custom notification.

Custom Validations and Rules can also be easily set on the click of a button. Best of all, everything is either drag and drop or clicks, something that an ordinary user can create. The Form designer also has good documentation, available just by clicking the help icon on the top right corner.

Infowise Ultimate Forms also come with a detailed section on Business Logic, where you can easily create alert and approval processes n the click of a button.

I can easily create my entire solution in SharePoint, without moving around to any other application. Thus it is simple, easy to use and convenient, even for a non-technical user.

I had fun mapping out my process using Infowise Ultimate Forms. What solutions are you guys working on? I would love to hear about them.

Join me next week as I share more about the data and charts-based application. I have been working on.

The Breadth of Features in Ultimate Forms

2019-11-07T17:20:48Z

One of the things that never fails to impress me is just how many different functions Ultimate Forms can handle. It’s easy to take this for granted. Typically, when someone is using UF they’re just solving an immediate problem – “Oh, I need a form,” or “I want to set up an Alert,” or something like that. But the wonder is that you can use the same tool to do such different and distinct tasks – and so many more as well! This really hit home for me recently as a result of two things. The first was the “Build It” session I recently did on setting up an automated site deployment system. This included creating a form, setting form and column views based on both permissions and form state (new, edit, or display), adding validation rules, creating actions that would update data columns automatically on new items, creating actions that would build new sites with dynamic information pulled directly from the input list … and more! The fact that you can perform so many tasks in Ultimate Forms is really more than a little amazing. And then there’s the new Business Solution Template functionality. I don’t know if you’ve had a chance to explore this yet, but in a nutshell, you now have the ability to use an existing site template to instantly build out a full featured business solution. Templates can include pages, libraries with folder structure already created, lists, and navigation – and, all the Ultimate Forms tools that have been built to support their operation, including Actions, Alerts, Forms, and more. The only thing missing is your data. I think the true value of this is that UF allows us to think a little bigger when we’re working with our sites. The next time you’re starting to build out a process, I want to encourage you to stop and think for a minute. In addition to the problem you’re solving in the moment, what is your ultimate goal - and what Ultimate Forms features can you take advantage of to get you there? If you’d like to see the Build It session on site deployment, it’s available to you online. You might also want to check out this blog and this tutorial regarding Business Solutions templates.

Sharepoint and Office 365 in Manufacturing

2019-11-06T20:19:50Z

Machines and assembly lines are humming across the globe, turning billions of capital dollars into millions of products every day. The manufacturing world is vast, and it is quite challenging to keep track of all changes and where you fit in as an organization. Manufacturing products involve various stages, such as research, design, development, prototyping, production, quality control, and marketing. The conversion of raw materials into useful products is a complicated process to manage. Controlling several interdependent production lines is a challenge on its own. Having been at one end or the other in the supply chain, you can quickly see how multitudes of compiling errors can happen. When such misfortunes occur, they are a cause of significant financial losses to the business and personal pain to all involved in the production process — and the importance of software that creates and manages your information becomes more evident than ever. SharePoint office 365 is a perfect information management software for manufacturing.
Office 365 and its various components not only assist enterprises in managing complicated manufacturing processes but enhances productivity through empowering personnel with open and shared knowledge systems.
SharePoint office 365 for manufacturing provides many services that enable industries to run administrative and operating processes smoothly. It assists enterprises in operating product manufacturing efficiently by improving visibility and quality tracking. Besides, it provides immediate access to experts by taking advantage of team sites where employees can not only share ideas but view product deliverables and convert resources to tasks. SharePoint office 365 for manufacturing makes industries free from manually managing complex documentation necessary for production and distribution processes. It stores data about product manufacturing specifications, contracts, reports, product histories, along with CRM processes.
SharePoint office 365 for manufacturing manages to streamline cash flows by tracking records of bills, shipment, and on-time delivery. It deals with overdue bills that can cause adverse effects on the productivity of the industries. The provision of business intelligence via SharePoint office 365 for manufacturing helps industries to cater to demands, identify trends, manage production strategies and maintain records for the progressive growth and development of the products. With this software, the trades can avail presentations, statistics, document templates, and product research. Hence, SharePoint with Office 365 software used for product manufacturing establish a strong relationship between seller and consumers.
SharePoint office 365 for manufacturing tackles manufacturing challenges by providing enterprises with distinctive sector-focused packages. The packages are super easy to install, update, and configure according to the demands of each enterprise. Due to the simplicity, mobility, and flexibility, this software is a top priority of business owners.

Following are some of the services/benefits provided by SharePoint and office 365 for the manufacturing sector:

1. Document Management

SharePoint Office 365 manufacturing software deals with complex documentation of the industries. This software offers a generous space to store data. It is a replacement of physical storage that does not need any manual effort. With this software, the industries can maintain seller/consumer contract documents, product information, track of equipment usage, and maintenance. It does not need any high reliance. Instead, it provides a platform to associate forecasting, organizational systems, and the shop floor. Hence, it reduces time and effort in documenting manufacturing processes and keeps the focus of the organization on the core activities of the product manufacturing.

2. Unified Platform

The miscommunication between cross-functional teams can lead the organization towards a downturn. Therefore, SharePoint with Office 365 provides a centralized platform where employees collaborate and share their ideas related to product manufacturing. It ends the repetition of common errors, duplicity, and misalignment. Through this platform, employees are well informed about their tasks. This software also provides a search engine through which employees can gather not only information about the product but can even know news, upcoming events related to the marketing of the products.

3. Mobility

In this era of digital transformation, the change and adaptation in business strategies and policies are necessary to meet the increasing challenges of product development and its marketing. So, SharePoint with Office 365 is empowering the sales team by providing enhanced mobility features. Through this service, the sales team can avail of every information about product manufacturing and its marketing on their mobile devices. In this way, a strong bond is built among the members of the sales team that enhances the credibility of the product and industry.

4. Vendors Portals

Industries are using web portals to communicate with stakeholders or trading partners for a better understanding of initiative, purpose, and launching of products into the market. SharePoint Office 365 for manufacturing software is used to create seller, consumer and employee portals. Through this software, the industries can administer, monitor and share contracts with their trading partners. It facilitates the trades to track performance metrics, purchase orders and on-time delivery of the product. In this way, not only the products grow and develop, but it gives a better view of the vendors to see the efficiencies of the industries that are serving them.

5. Product Cycle Mangement

SharePoint Office 365 for manufacturing software manages the product lifecycle, engineering change orders (ECO), and complex workflows. It is used to boost entrepreneurship, collaboration, and international communication. This makes SharePoint with Office 365 software a successful CIO’s top preference for product life cycle management. Besides, it provides information through an organized, search powered inventory that reduces the inconvenience of time taken requests from extended members and makes the team members of product lifecycle management stress-free.

6. Lean Manufacturing

Recycling of waste products is a challenge to the industries as these waste products are toxic enough to threaten our environment. Therefore, lean manufacturing is adopted by the industries to minimize the exposure of waste products in the environment. Through this process, waste products are recycled without affecting the growth and development of the product. By using SharePoint, the industries can digitize and control their manufacturing processes by utilizing built-in workflow capabilities. It eliminates waste produced by manual handling. This software is designed primarily to control manual processes such as stock transfer authorization, purchase request, vendor/customer system, item templates, and reimbursement of expenses, thus freeing up resources to assets to emphasis on core business.|

Infowise

At Infowise, we serve as a strategic partner, assisting public and private enterprises in their digital transformation endeavours with our scalable, smart, and robust tools, software, and applications. Our product Infowise UltimateForms Power Suite contains more than 15 standalone SharePoint applications developed to give you the power to innovate, automate, and scale up your processes. Our products have been designed for optimum interoperability and seamless integration within SharePoint. Altogether, they constitute the structural foundation for digitization and facilitate your transition to digital transformation. Click here to download Infowise ULTIMATEforms 30-days free trial. Simple process. After you've installed Infowise UF, go ahead and create an unlimited number of Business Process Applications. Or even better, do you want to start with a ready template? Great, click here and download the ready-to-use template from our vast business process solution library, re-purpose to service your needs.

The benefits of adopting SharePoint and Office 365 in Manufacturing

2019-11-06T19:45:47Z

With the increased use of SharePoint and Office 365 in the manufacturing sector, manufacturers had to reconsider roles, talents, and tools throughout their organizations. Technology adoptions provide employees with new digital and soft skills, encouraging workers to expand their technical horizons by providing them with modern tools, for immersive learning experiences.
SharePoint and Office 365 for Manufacturing are revolutionizing the sector by providing a simple management system for each phase of production. Consequently, it is not only increasing productivity but optimizing operations and unlocking new areas for growth. SharePoint and Office 365 for Manufacturing modifies and automates manufacturing processes by using integrated workflow capabilities and manual information handling. This digitization of industries assists in developing and validating processes that ensure the reliability of products. Manual processes such as inventory transfer approval, purchase requirements, seller/consumer operation, product set-up, and cost compensation are run by SharePoint and Office 365 for Manufacturing. Such granular control of the supply chain allows industries to concentrate on their core activities of customer satisfaction and delight.
Making people-centred data storage, communication of ideas across mobile devices, and access to information to every employee are the key features of SharePoint and Office 365 for Manufacturing. Office 365 and its components provide services such as design, infrastructure and application development, personalized workflows production, and managing and reporting on-going maintenance of machines. SharePoint and Office 365 for Manufacturing is super-easy to install, configure, customize and upgrade according to the need of the enterprise. Hence, SharePoint and Office 365 for Manufacturing, leading industries towards progress.

SharePoint and Office 365 in industries is capable of the following:

1. Paperless Documentation

The document management capabilities of SharePoint assist in keeping seller/consumer contract documents, product histories, and equipment commands. Hence, it reduces high reliance on manual documentation. Besides, ERP/ CRM can be integrated with SharePoint by using out-of-the-box connectors for managing and maintaining documents such as procedures, agreements, work orders, and compliance records. These documents are administered by resilient document management policies, for instance, versioning, preservation and record statement. SharePoint provides a medium to associate scheduling, administrative structures, and the shop floor.

2. Cashflow Management

SharePoint makes streamline cash flow by avoiding delays and reducing tasks' finishing time. It manages late bills, scheduled shipment, contested POs, and issues of shipping. In this way, SharePoint builds a strong seller/consumer relationship. The follow-up of the tasks and co-ordination among employees of the industry both have a significant impact on the growth and development of the products. Therefore, SharePoint deals with these impacts by providing item tracks through closure.

3. Business Intelligence

SharePoint is a software that transforms data into applicable intelligence and knowledge by estimating the needs of the products, identifying trends, controlling production development, and optimizing record levels. It is a fully-featured system that offers innovative BI self-service capabilities that work with a flexible array of applications by combining data from different systems. To improve inventory planning, this software provides front end input to a master production scheduling system. Hence, it increases product development effectively by planned decision making using real-time data.

4. Integrated Platform collaboration

SharePoint provides a unified communication platform to collaborate with cross-functional teams of the industry to remove duplicity, misalignment, repetition of common mistakes, and limited information dissemination. Various stakeholders can also communicate together via the SharePoint communication platform to discuss multiple processes involved in the manufacturing of the products, such as conceptual design, research, drafting, documentation, quality, and quantity.

5. Enhanced Mobility Features

SharePoint is an excellent medium that assists the mobile sales team. It benefits organizations with information on the products, metrics, presentation, case studies, document templates, and real-time production data on mobile devices. The provision of additional information is made possible by maintaining sales collateral that is essential to improve the legitimization of the industries.

6. Established Vendors and Clients Connections

Web Portals are necessary for the connection of organizations with trading partners to take advantage of collaborative opportunities and benefits. SharePoint provides web portals that build specific management tools and enable the organization to exchange contract reports, performance metrics, and purchase orders with their trading partners. It manages and monitors contracts with their suppliers and develops various contract management capabilities. In this way, SharePoint offers a better view of manufacturing processes to suppliers, which eventually increases their efficiencies in cater to your industry. Besides, SharePoint allows license holders to serve supplier portals with no additional costs.

7. Product Lifecycle

SharePoint has become the progressive CIO's top-priority for PLM/PDM. It is used to improve innovation, teamwork, and management on a global scale. Besides, it can also free PLM/PDM team members from the haphazard of time-consuming requests from extending members by providing information through a centralized and searchable database. In this way, members are encouraged to search the data themselves. SharePoint promotes the creation of collaborative work-spaces for work-in-progress projects and offers a database of mark-up comments for the preservation of virtual objects. To facilitate process-centred functions such as engineering change orders, the workflow of SharePoint is leveraged.

8. Higher ROI

ERP solutions are often generally developed for an industry with minimal adaptation to your enterprise. By using a generic answer, competitive advantage can be lost. ERP tools cannot fully support the business processes that have changed over time and are unique to your organization. Systems should be assisted by systems, rather than dictating which systems will operate. Adaptation of ERPs is often prevented and can be expensive. A cost-effective solution for customized business applications and particular business roles arrives with the SharePoint Framework. The flexibility and abundance of features of SharePoint's platform off-box reduce development times by 40 percent, thus improving ROI and market time.

Infowise

At Infowise, we serve as a strategic partner, assisting public and private enterprises in their digital transformation endeavours with our scalable, smart, and robust tools, software, and applications. Our product Infowise UltimateForms Power Suite contains more than 15 standalone SharePoint applications developed to give you the power to innovate, automate, and scale up your processes. Our products have been designed for optimum interoperability and seamless integration within SharePoint. Altogether, they constitute the structural foundation for digitization and facilitate your transition to digital transformation. Click here to download Infowise ULTIMATEforms 30-days free trial. Simple process. After you've installed Infowise UF, go ahead and create an unlimited number of Business Process Applications. Or even better, do you want to start with a ready template? Great, click here and download the ready-to-use template from our vast business process solution library, re-purpose to service your needs.

Create Fully Featured Sites with a Click

2019-10-31T23:29:56Z

The new Business Solution templates provide a fast way to roll out a robust tool.

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I have to say I’m pretty darned impressed. Even as someone who has known and worked with the Infowise development crew for some time, I have to admit that I’m a bit shocked at how well and how quickly the new Business Solution templates work. By using these templates, you can rapidly deploy a business solution that will include built-out pages, lists, libraries, and navigation. Not only that, but Ultimate Forms features like custom forms, Actions, Alerts, custom IDs, and on and on, will also be included. The only thing that’s not there is your data. You can build your new site as a subsite to your starting place, or replace the contents of an existing site with the templated information.

Once you’ve got your site, of course, you can modify it at will – change the look and feel, add more features, modify the Alerts or Actions, etc. But what an incredible boost to productivity to have your site 90% ready to go before you even start! The process is incredibly easy – you can see the tutorial online and see for yourself. In fact, the only thing that caused me the slightest moment of uncertainty was realizing that when I created a subsite from a template I still needed to install the Ultimate Forms app if I wanted to make any modification to UF features. What’s already created will work just fine even without this step though, so you can truly go from nothing to ready to add data in five minutes or less.

Business process solutions for banking services with multi-tabbed forms and multiple approvals using Infowise

2019-10-30T21:42:28Z

Hi there, this is Debolina again. I am back documenting my journey as a new user of Infowise Ultimate Forms.

It's almost a decade I have been working with SharePoint across various industries, especially banking. Today I would like to discuss a solution that we used to capture details about Vendors or Outsourcing Providers (osp). It was a solution based on a huge form with multiple tabs and sections and a large number of attachments. It also had various levels of approvals.

Looking back, I think my life would be so much easier if I had Infowise Ultimate Forms.

Before I started (Existing Scenario):

As a bank, one of the most critical concerns is data. With a huge amount of personal information about all the enormous customer base, one thing a bank cannot afford is compromised data privacy or data loss.

However, the entire banking industry is changing. Going digital is the key. With so many apps and internet banking, banks can't build everything. Generally, they would get different vendors or outsourcing providers (sp) to look after the different types of applications they make. These vendors would have access to the internal system, and thus, before onboarding a service provider, it is essential to capture all the details about the company.

Before we started, for each vendor, the bank will store all the details about their company, with all the documents required for validation. Once the file is created, the file will then be sent to three different managers for approval. Once approved it will be evaluated by the governance team before the vendor or the service provider is onboarded. These documents were also submitted to the relevant government offices. As a bank in Singapore, it came under the Monitory Authority of Singapore, and it was necessary to submit documents that comply with the standards defined.

Every month, invoices and other relevant documents would be added to their files. Sometimes, a bad review or good review would also be added to the file.

As you can imagine, that would be a huge number of documents in a file for even a single vendor. Moreover, with the innumerable number of departments in a bank, like credit and loans, customer service, etc., it was not only difficult to add vendor information. It was also very difficult to edit and update in case some of the vendor details got changed.

It also made auditing of records very difficult.

The Solution:

When we started the project, we faced the challenge of creating forms that were easy to use and had all the possible details of the vendors with attachments. We came up with a mockup as below with multiple tabs and sections to help easy the input of data.

I used SharePoint On-Premises 2013 and created the solution using Dot Net and jQuery. I designed the form and added the client-side libraries to create custom tabs and accordions. Then I mapped each field to the list and used SharePoint libraries to connect with the Lists of data. We also added options to add attachments that would get saved in the SharePoint Lists.

Furthermore, I used SharePoint Designer to add custom workflows and email notifications.

Our solution was a success, and we release the application one month before the delivery date. Moreover, our department was the first one in the bank to earn an ISO 9000:2015 accreditation, and this SharePoint based solution played a considerable role in the ISO certification process.

The application took almost one month to get completed with a waterfall development model. We went through a cycle of requirement gathering, development and testing.

However, I think if I had a solution like Infowise Ultimate Forms, things would have been so much easier. With a large number of stakeholders, it would be easy to develop forms based solutions using Infowise forms and agile methodology.

Guess how much time it took me to create the form below? 15 min. It's that easy. I created tabs, sections and added fields and attachment fields. I also tested my way on different screen sizes. I can add alerts, processes, permissions and even custom CSS without even using any other tool.

Also, don't forget to check the template manager. Infowise ultimate forms come well equipped with some predefined template-based solutions. It helps you to add predefines business processes to your tenant. It might be that the solution that you are trying to create already exists!

Have fun exploring. I will be back again with more scenarios where we can use Infowise Forms as I keep trying it out.

Infowise

At Infowise, we serve as a strategic partner, assisting public and private enterprises in their digital transformation endeavours with our scalable, smart and robust tools, software and applications. Our product Infowise UltimateForms Power Suite contains more than 15 standalone SharePoint applications developed to give you the power to innovate, automate and scale up your processes. Our products have been designed for optimum interoperability and seamless integration within SharePoint. Altogether, they constitute the structural foundation for digitization and facilitate your transition to digital transformation. Click here to download Infowise ULTIMATEforms 30-days free trial. Simple process. After you've installed Infowise UF, go ahead and create an unlimited number of Business Process Applications. Or even better, do you want to start with a ready template? Great, click here and download the ready-to-use template from our vast business process solution library, re-purpose to service your needs.

What is a SharePoint communication site

2019-10-29T18:34:49Z

A SharePoint communication site is a platform for publishing content in a visually appealing format for reaching a broader audience. It has always been at the heart of collaboration as it is a new vision of building team sites. With a smart intranet vision, you are now able to expand the tools to deliver an out-of-the-box experience for extensive internal communications.

SharePoint communication sites are simple, fantastic intranet interaction platforms that work across devices. These SharePoint sites offer new and creative designs to get started quickly and help integrate your look and feel. Furthermore, they easily create pages that use web parts from SharePoint to add rich functionality and pull data from other devices. By using SharePoint, you can connect with your readers and get their details along with information regarding the working of site and content.

Announcing events, launching products, or organizing campaigns can be done via SharePoint communication sites to get insights and expertise by the team on the subject. One of the significant aims of these sites is to communicate broadly and effectively.

A communication site can be launched in just a few clicks by using default site templates and selecting the appropriate page layout without any additional coding or complex customizations. They also provide images and videos to beautify your content as the showcase of rich content on the website is lucrative for readers.

These communication sites power the organization's intranet as they are default sensitive, and it does not require any effort to be used by mobile devices. This makes end-users and SharePoint developers happy. Consequently, it saves time for developing and fixing the responsive design.

Publishing content via SharePoint communication sites is prolific.

The SharePoint communication sites are brand new team sites that can be created from SharePoint home. They are used to create pages for agencies and archives for documents. These sites are mobile-friendly and are modified to showcase information visually beautiful. Site designs with web parts are an essential feature of these communication sites. Besides, "blank" is offered with customized editing to create the design of your choice.

The communication sites can modernize classical sites via Modern Pages as they are provided with a unique site template. The communication site designs are contemporary and broad screen sites for building beautiful and attractive pages. Besides, these designs have options such as Topic, showcase, and blank. These options have a variety of functions. For instance, by using "topic," you can share information such as news, updates, status, and events. Showcase is used for posting images, photos, or live stream videos for launching any product or organizing events. Blank is given to create the design of your choice. These site designs can be edited as well.

Each site design is provided with web parts such as the hero web part for bringing site emphasis and using visuals for grasping the attention of the readers. Another web part is the news web part for the winning team by publishing exciting content on site. For displaying detail about upcoming events, products, and campaigns, the event web part is used. The document web part showcases the default document library, which can be altered easily. Highlighted content web part is also preferred for displaying data from a library, site and site collection. Sharing a selection of images, photos and videos are done by using the image gallery web part.

Site creation from SharePoint communication sites may be embedded with the Yammer web part for extraordinary bi-directional communication features. This includes people's profile and comment section web part. By using people's profiles, you can add many readers as a team whose profile pictures will detail the information of the readers. Site creation via page templates is a direct link with your readers. The comment section is provided for encouraging readers to give suggestions regarding the content of the website. Also, you have an option of deleted comments.

Benefits

The communication sites are beneficial in many ways, with advancements and modernization over time. These benefits are discussing below:

The SharePoint online sites are provided with search engines for employees to find data.
Intranet communication allows users to communicate and collaborate on a broader level.
These sites are adaptable to many devices, such as mobile phones.
The authoritative sites have been revolutionized by using photos, images, and live stream videos.
The evolution of Share Point has advanced the interface, such as page layout, tools, and interaction design.
The development of SharePoint focuses on client development. Hence, it is increasing industry-standard practices extensively.
The use of the content on the website shows its popularity among readers that able you to tune your site by providing content for readers' interests.

How to create Communication sites?

Communication sites are created like Office 365 Group. The basic methodology of creating communication site is given below:

Choose and click SharePoint from the Office 365 App.
Select Create site.
You will have two options. Choose Communication Site.
Now, you have to choose a site template as it is a page layout that can be altered later. Therefore, choose Topic. In this section, you will be provided with photos and images for the setting of your page layout.
The right side of the screen shows site name, site address, site description, and select a language.
Write the name of your site in the site name. Next, put the URL in the site address. Then, write a description in the site description of your website, i.e., the purpose of this site.
Choose language and click finish.
Finally, the site has been built.

What sets communication sites apart?

The new communication sites are not provided with Quick Launch or left-handed side menu. Similar to Office 365 Group site, a new site is created as a separate site collection by using the SharePoint communication site. Besides, these sites are offered with new web parts, out-of-the-box site designs, topics, customized homepage, and a blank. These sites are convenient for broadcasting data. Hence, these sites are the future of website development as they mainly focus on building creative and extensive websites for communicating and collaborating with the broad audiences effectively.

Infowise

All you need to know about Microsoft Flow

2019-10-28T18:19:49Z

If you need your Apps and services to be integrated on the cloud so that they can connect smoothly with each other, then Microsoft Flow is your efficient tool. This article is all you need to know about Microsoft Flow. This cloud-based tool streamlines the processes by enhancing efficiency and productivity by enabling anyone and everyone within the organization to automate their daily tasks and processes without having to fill a ticket for a developer that comes in on the high horse.

By automating your daily business tasks, Microsoft Flow allows you to focus on more significant milestones. Flow links up different Apps on the cloud, collates data from them, gets them in-sync, sends you timely notifications and well, leaves a lot more to be done with it. It refers to automated workflows as “flows.” At present, Microsoft Flow assists you by linking apps and services such as Dropbox, Dynamics 365, Facebook, Office 365, OneDrive for Business, PowerApps, SQL Server Twitter, and many more.

It’s the triggers that Microsoft Flow operates on. After these triggers, it will initiate the responses, permitting apps to interact with each other. When a trigger occurs, – you might have gotten mail! – The corresponding app would transmit a signal to other apps saying that certain functionality was activated. These signal receiving Apps would then respond in accord.

How does Microsoft Flow Empower its Users

Microsoft Flow empowers you by making your life a little easier by automating your routine tasks such as data collection, notifications sorting, alerting, pinging, and whatnot. It does so by dividing its automation workflows into three main categories.

The first is automated Flow, and it gets triggered with the onset of a pre-selected event. For instance, a document has been updated by a user, Microsoft Flow will send a notification to all users signalling the document’s update. The second category is scheduled Flow, which, as the name suggests, is triggered at a specified time — for example, the users receiving a regular ping about an upcoming meeting. The third category is tagged as button flow, which relies on the touch of a key to trigger a positive flow.

Microsoft Flow’s Capabilities

Microsoft Flow’s capabilities are wide-ranging. You can start with the list of templates that they have ready for you to carve out an ample amount of time from your otherwise hectic routine.

Here is a sampling of ready-made templates

Template #1: Save Office 365 email attachments to OneDrive for Business

With this template, you would not miss any email attachment if you find yourself cluttered with emails. Through this template, any attachment in the incoming mails would get saved automatically.

Template #2: Get emails for positive tweets

This template lets you track the positive feedback on Twitter regarding any particular hashtag you are following on Twitter. You would receive a notification when any positive post is being tweeted corresponding to your interest.

Template #3: Create new events on Google Calendar from Office 365

Microsoft Flow will create a Google calendar event once an event is formed on an Office 365 Calendar. This way, you won’t miss any of your event commitments.

Template #4: Track your work hours and work location

This template will track your out-of-office timekeeping. With the columns, you will create yourself, such as date, timestamp, and location, Microsoft Flow will keep track of your current time and place. You will be receiving a push notification for all your work-related runs.

Template #5: Selectively post Instagram photos to Facebook

No need to switch apps when posting a social media update. Microsoft Flow will display the same photo (with caption) that you published on Instagram, on your Facebook account.

Template #6: Save tweets to an Excel file

With this Microsoft Flow template, you can track your tweets smoothly. Get all your work-related tweets automatically archived to an Excel File which you can create on Dropbox or OneDrive.

Learn more about Microsoft Flow templates

Microsoft Flow Use Cases

Microsoft Flow has a wide-ranging service provision. Because you can create your own flows, the uses cases opportunities are unlimited. It provides users with integration possibilities for Dynamics 365. The following are some of the use cases for how it accomplishes the integration.

Tailoring not-to-be-replied-directly emails with options buttons

Preloaded options are provided with every email sent out by the case managers as they want the customers to not reply directly to their emails. There can be a way for these case managers to send an email without having to tag an options button for the customers. By selecting the “send an email with options,” you will have the ease of setting up an option button. The email can also be tailored with corresponding actions or a time delay for shooting the email.

Customers are directed to a “confirmation screen” just as they respond to the email. If they select an option, such as closing off their case, then this selection would activate a workflow in Dynamics to do just that. But the cases cannot be closed directly with the update record action in Microsoft Flow.

Saving Storage by Shifting Attachments to SharePoint

Attachments in Dynamics 365 for Customer Engagement by Notes can take up a lot of storage. Microsoft Flow solves this problem by offering a way for these attachments to be shifted to SharePoint. Users start from a blank Flow template and then select for the Dynamics 365 connector. The Flow is then set to trigger the creation of a new record. Users can set a condition, after which the system checks for an attached document. Users are recommended to check Document Locations for a defined path. And then, affirm the records’ length stored presently. Next, the users select a SharePoint connector. Lastly, the action of updating a file removes the attachment, and it gets shifted to SharePoint.

Approving workflows in multiple stages

Often the users need to be notified in various instances – from numerous managers and stakeholders. The hierarchy of approvals can be mapped out with the help of the manager field in the User Entity. This use case is about setting up a multi-stage approvals system. The procedure gets initiated with the sales rep’s creation of the record in Dynamics 365, signalling that it needs approval through a custom field.

The Flow gets triggered, spotting the record, its creator, and the creator’s manager. It then formulates a dynamic approval email to convey it to the manager. There is a limitation to this Flow, which is that it cannot capture the CRM entity’s URL. This URL is usually provided in a custom field from where the Flow can register it. The entity’s approval email shoots out, and when it is approved, a signal is sent to the creator after the second person in the hierarchy supports it.

Microsoft Flow Plans and Costs

Microsoft Flow Pricing starts from $5.00/month. They have a free and subscription pricing model. They also offer a free trial without the need for the users to submit their credit card details. Following is a glimpse into their pricing plans:

Infowise

Your Short Guide to Microsoft PowerApps

2019-10-26T19:34:56Z

All about PowerApps

The creation of PowerApps is another innovative initiative taken by Microsoft. It gives developers and nontechnical users the ability to make mobile applications from a list of templates with the help of Microsoft Azure. It is a dashboard for various services, connectors, and data platforms, which gives the user the convenience for a swift application development environment to create a fully customized application.

With the help of Microsoft Azure and PowerAps, people can quickly develop, manage, and share business process applications on iOS, Android, and Windows devices. PowerApps is connected with a couple of Microsoft-based applications and also with other third-party apps that Microsoft developed, including applications such as SQL Server, SharePoint, and OneDrive in the Office 365.

Why Does Your Business Require Powerapps?

Microsoft developed PowerAppswas primarily to address productivity issues companies were facing. The principal objective of PowerApps is to allow companies to enhance their capabilities through the development of applications, without going through the hassles of coding or hiring someone expert in the field.

Just like in editing software, all you need to do is to insert all the necessary graphical and written content through the drag and drop and typing feature. These tools turned App development to a simple process similar to PowerPoint, very easy for nontechnical or technical users to use.

An Efficient Business Application for your Mobile Devices

PowerApps mainly functions as a medium of a service that allows you to create and operate your own business applications on a couple of software by Microsoft. Initially, this requires a lot of hard work and ideas for developing the application. However, once your application is developed its easy for you to keep a check on the information through it rather than filtering a lot of folders and files. These new PowerApps manages the whole application very efficiently by keeping everything filtered and gives you the advantage to focus only on operating the app. It contains a drag and drop feature, which makes it convenient for you to customize and design various things according to your own choices such as text, field, choice field, graphical content, forms, and other screens that will make your application complete in terms of every aspect. You can simply connect your business application with several other applications and data sources. All you need to do is develop an app and publish it.

PowerApps usecases

Pharmaceutical Distributor uses PowerApps to strengthen their customer relationships

Hawkary Pharmaceuticals, one of the largest pharmaceutical distributors in Iraq, are entirely dependable on their team of sales representatives to develop and retain good relations with doctors through direct one-on-one interactions. The sales manager took the initiative of developing a customized application where he can himself store data, and enhance communication with the help of Microsoft Flow.

He used the Application to determine the company’s sales representatives and their supervisor's performance and boost the efficiency of communication between doctors and sales teams.

After the functioning of the Application, the supervisors were able to perform various tasks in a timely fashion due to smart alerts and notification sent out by the Application. In addition to the fact that supervisors were able to make strategic decisions based on data available to them through the App. Based on data results, They were able to prepare better plans for their targeted regions and were capable of accomplishing a daily bunch of tasks.

Hawkary Pharmaceuticals is testing another App after witnessing the growing acceptance. He is building this new App so that the representatives can access consolidated information more conveniently within the DRM.

Custom Air Products and Services Manages HVAC Manufacturing Process Using the PowerApps Platform

The Custom Air Products and Services is a Houston based provider of heating, air conditioning, and ventilation solutions. They used the Power Platform for tracking sign-offs during the manufacturing process, managing the sales quotes, tracking and sending notifications about root cause analyses, and so on. The data for these apps are stored in SharePoint or their accounting software, Microsoft Great Plains. The solutions were built by some data analysts with no prior experience. The Power Platform solution has completely replaced the old paper-based sign-off process and is still functioning to retain their success.

Virgin Atlantic drives agile wins for its mobile workforce with the Power Platform

The manager of a quick-win development team entitled IT Lite at the Virgin Atlantic has a team of SharePoint and Dynamics experts along with full-stack .Net developers. They work closely with internal stakeholders and departments, enabling them to go on a journey towards a successful digital transformation. The manager was passionate about Office 365 and is now using the Power Platform in conjunction with Office 365 and Dynamic 365 to provide new ways of working with various business departments.

The business engagement manager for engineering learned about PowerApps and Microsoft Flow through his Office 365 and Microsoft blogs. He realized the need for a PowerApp and decided to build one powered by Power BI dashboard in a day. It transformed the way the aircraft engineers thought about IT development. It allowed them to re-engage with this area and have an application ready for testing by the end of the day. The Application turned out to be a success. Every engineer was given access to the App by incorporating it into their iPads. They were able to view the audits scheduled for them conveniently without any hassle.

Plans

All customers, whether they are new or old who wish to renew their plans, have the flexibility to decode Flow peruse or business process plans:

Flow per user plan:

Select individuals to form unlimited workflows and business processes based on their requirements. This means the existing flow P1 and P2 plans will turn down into one simple per-user plan with a price of $15 user/month.

Flow per business process:

It includes the implementation of critical business processes with capacity that serves teams, departments or the entire organization for unlimited users. The price is going to be $500 business process month/month for up to 5 active workflows.

Cost

External users (authenticated) will be $200 for 100 logins/month.

External users (anonymous) will be $100 for 100,000 web page views/month.

Internal users can access portals using a PowerApps per App or user plan as per above.

Infowise

At Infowise, we serve as a strategic partner, assisting public and private enterprises in their digital transformation endeavors with our scalable, smart, and robust tools, software, and applications. Our product Infowise UltimateForms Power Suite contains more than 15 standalone SharePoint applications developed to give you the power to innovate, automate, and scale up your processes. Our products have been designed for optimum interoperability and seamless integration within SharePoint. Altogether, they constitute the structural foundation for digitization and facilitate your transition to digital transformation. Click here to download Infowise ULTIMATEforms 30-days free trial. Simple process. After you've installed Infowise UF, go ahead and create an unlimited number of Business Process Applications. Or even better, do you want to start with a ready template? Great, click here and download the ready-to-use template from our vast business process solution library, re-purpose to service your needs.

Office 365 for single physician medical practice

2019-10-23T22:11:43Z

Healthcare System: office 365 for single physician medical practice

Information sharing and the aspects associated with collaboration is essential for every sector, including healthcare, as it allows the concerned authorities to execute the daily administrative operations in an organized manner. “The two areas that are changing... are information technology and medical technology. Those are the things that the world will be very different 20 years from now than it is today.” Bill Gates Whether its private practice setup or hospital, every healthcare system needs to be modernized and empowered with Office365. It provides the best possible, cost-effective healthcare IT solution FOR individual medical practitioners and healthcare providers.

Data and Record-Keeping

These modern diseases and new treatment methods required a superior approach to collecting data. Microsoft’s new features can help tackle some of these issues by empowering healthcare teams and allowing healthcare providers to collaborate and connect safely. Software now plays a crucial role in digitizing and maintaining patient records, hence, enabling various healthcare facilities to maximize efficiencies, reduce spending. All while allowing all health partners instantaneous access to precise patient details.

Cost Saving for Family Doctors, Single Physician Practice

Office 365 is an integrated experience that can help healthcare organizations improve patient care and reduce operational costs by enhancing collaboration and communication between doctors, nurses, staff, and independent specialties and healthcare professionals within single or multiple organizations.

Collaboration

· Teams for Healthcare

Built on Microsoft 365’s stable, compatible platform, Teams provide all healthcare workers with a common way to communicate in real-time, organize patient care, and maximize operational efficiency. “Based on our research, Microsoft Teams directly addresses the top challenges facing healthcare providers in electronic messaging in hospitals and health systems.” —Greg Caressi, Frost & Sullivan

Scalability:

Office365 allows to easily configure systems of a patient’s needs. As opposed to the hardware infrastructure, the ever-expanding patient data can be easily maintained and managed. Think about how much space you need to keep health records for five years. It allows us to virtualize and store the medical data in a protected cloud storage with the aid of secure computing and recover it in seconds.

Productivity tools:

Technology is already playing a vital role in digitalizing everything. Therefore the single medical practitioners are also getting benefits from it. Sometimes, the place in which you want to practice defines the performance of a solo practice. Rural or suburban areas tend to be more suitable for solo medical practice as medical needs are considerably less significant, and other medical resources are less contested. But on office365, you get productivity tools for yourself at your home. You can keep the data without travelling or having any trouble. It helps to enhance the decision making of a single medical practitioner. People now tend to work independently, and office365 provides a chance for this purpose. It offers flexibility in clinical practices.

· Safety and Security of Data

Just as in other sectors, service provision expectations were raised due to the arrival of highly efficient digital services, the healthcare system needed to be revolutionized. The new development enabled the latest technology of office365 to make its way into the healthcare system. Although confidentiality remains vital for health care providers, consumers can also take control to know more about how to use and maintain their electronic health records. You can use this handy guide to see what happens to medical information once it is connected to an online health record, whether you have new health insurance or have had insurance for years. Protection of patients’ privacy and making sure their PHI, i.e., Protected Health Information, remain safe and secure needs best HIPAA-compliant email providers. HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act 1996) is a data privacy legislation in the US that provides security provisions for safeguarding medical information. The HIPAA-compliant email providers allow electronic communication with patients. This software controls the content you send and allows you to encrypt HIPAA compliance information. It is easy-to-use-one-click-technology as the user does not need to switch email providers or the way they work to be HIPAA compliant. Good patient care starts with a clinician provided with direct access to the right records, the ability to communicate efficiently, and the peace of mind that all of these contacts are safe and consistent with the rights of patient data security. It was hard for the healthcare staff to maintain a combination of comfort and regulation. As a consequence, some physicians have switched to using consumer chat apps. Such an oversight can pose significant safety, enforcement, and privacy risks to patient data. And this can also lead to hefty penalties for inadequate information management and security in the hospital community or individual medical practitioner. Microsoft worked closely with health leaders such as Duke University and Emory University to develop its HIPAA Business Associate Agreement (BAA).

Conclusion:

Office 365 can be helpful if you do not already use a considerable email service or prefer to stay on a different site. Easy access via the secure portal is available for the practitioners. Outlook integration also helps in this purpose. More proof of the relations between competition in medical practices and prices paid for medical services could illustrate the impact on health care expenditure of recent changes in the medical organization and help guide health market competition policy. Data keeping has become easy and accessible through office365 for single practitioners, and they can record the data and save it easily.

Infowise

Get inspired with SharePoint modern experience

2019-10-23T20:25:59Z

SharePoint Modern Experience was built to be more persuasive, versatile, and useful. Recent experience facilitates the creation of beautiful, dynamic sites and mobile-ready pages for everyone. SharePoint is an intranet design that fits an organization's business and culture, but all too much time was spent applying arcane customization techniques that have accumulated over the years. With the SharePoint team site, you can connect with your team with content, information, and apps you needed daily. To create and manage lists of data or storage and collaboration of files, a team site will be a great help. It is the most uncomplicated and most innovative intranet for the modern workplace.

The main difference between classic and modern experiences is that the perfect experience is built on the grading system of site-collection and subsites, with inherited navigation, permission, and site designs. However, in advanced skills, the site is a collection of a series of places, and all of them can be connected to a central hub site, a flat layout with sites sharing access, branding, and other elements. This kind of design is much more flexible and adaptable to the organization's changing needs. The basic principle and excellent practices for any site and page navigation are the same in both classic and modern SharePoint experience.
However, the options and preferences for implementing navigation differ, based on the layout and framework of the site and intranet. The inherited shipping is the experience provided with the outstanding knowledge of SharePoint but not available in modern SharePoint experience. However, the cross-site navigation, which is provided by the hub-sites, is a feature that is previously available by the managed navigation and site hierarchies and classic SharePoint. Also, in traditional SharePoint experience, the organization's brand needed several sites of defaulted themes, and site designs require a considerable amount of personalization to match. Also, they are not very receptive, allowing different devices an inconsistent experience.

The other feature of SharePoint lists and libraries is the most talked about. The difference between the two is that the SharePoint lists hold the main content that is required. The material consists of rows, tables, and columns (like in excel) for data and metadata this table in SharePoint called a SharePoint list.
The calendar on the header is also part of the SharePoint list, while SharePoint's library is the exclusive list (only created to store document) that already exists in SharePoint as a particular web part for storing ENT document, and known as a Document library.

Some website branding includes unique master pages and alternate CSS implementations to be used. SharePoint Online offers an expanded set of standard web themes and (or templates) page layouts that are adaptive and look great on any device. With web themes, you can configure the emblem and colours of your page to match your product and brand. Website templates provide sites with unique configurations and other functionality. While updating SharePoint, the fear of losing any data is now solved with modern SharePoint, now personalized logo, themes, and site designs can be achieved in additional branding without breaking any update. To know more about advanced branding options in modern experiences, read and figure more about branding SharePoint sites. If you have publishing platforms and publishing-enabled websites in your company, you know the importance of building an enticing and productive website for a large number of people to facilitate information. The communication apps in modern experience make it easy to create beautiful, interactive, and powerful mobile-ready sites and websites. Nonetheless, there are variations from the classic publishing, though, and think about scheduling your transition to the new world of modern SharePoint experience.

SharePoint's most powerful pages (and websites in general) help users quickly find what they need, so that they can easily be informed to make their decisions, also being informed about the updates and access to the tools of their need and connect with people to help solve a problem. The communication, collaboration, and office work can be made much more easily adaptable and accessible with SharePoint modern experience.

Search is an important part of any website–you want people to find quickly and easily what they are searching for. SharePoint has both a classical and modern SharePoint experience, where the recent version is Microsoft searching in SharePoint. The most visible difference is that the search box for Microsoft is located in the header bar at the top of SharePoint. There is another distinction of personalization. The results you get, even when you search for the same words, are different from what other people have. Based on your previous activities and new links in Office 365, you will see findings once you start typing in the search box, and the results will be changed when you click.

The SharePoint homepage contains various default web parts. A news section is where you can place and display posts about essential or exciting items for the team or organization. Just by clicking the headline, you can see the news or entire article. You can easily edit, save, and change or publish the article by clicking on the edit button present on the top right corner of the page.

Office 365 groups is a powerful and generative platform for SharePoint online users that uses the calendar and chat together from outlook, information, or data from SharePoint online, tasks from Planner, and a shared OneNote notebook for single collaboration space for the team or organization. If office 365 enabled all new and existing team sites presented on office 365 groups. Office 365 is in the access of every group member and every group member an add additional document libraries lists or web apps as needed. A SharePoint group or a distribution list is not required.

If you have implemented publishing websites and publishing-enabled sites in your corporation, you know how important it is to build enticing and productive websites for a large number of people to facilitate information. Communication sites make it easy in modern practice to create beautiful, engaging, and productive mobile-ready sites and websites.

Infowise

At Infowise, we are serving as a strategic partner, assisting public and private enterprises in their digital transformation endeavours with our scalable, smart and futuristic tools, software and applications. Our product Infowise UltimateForms Power Suite contains more than 15 standalone SharePoint applications developed to give you the power to innovate, automate and scale up your processes. Our products have been designed for optimum interoperability and seamless integration within SharePoint. Altogether, they constitute the structural foundation for digitization and facilitate your transition to digital transformation. Click here to download Infowise ULTIMATEforms 30-days free trial. Simple process. After you've installed Infowise UF, go ahead and create an unlimited number of Business Process Applications. Or even better, do you want to start with a ready template? Great, click here and download the ready-to-use template from our vast business process solution library, re-purpose to service your needs.

Deploy Business Solutions in SharePoint Online with a Single Click

2019-10-23T15:50:21Z

Hi, Ultimate Forms is a great platform for developing comprehesive, yet easy-to-use, business solutions in SharePoint. Our customers and partners use it to build everything they need to run their organizations more efficiently, be it rather simple Expense Reports or advanced Project Management, HR or Help Desk solutions. We even offer some of the more common and widely used solutions for download, free of charge, on our website. Once you get one, you can further customize it according to your needs, using just your browser, no development skills of any sort required! Up until now, the installation process of these business solutions in Office 365 was a bit complex. You had to download a site template, create a site from it, install Ultimate Forms and then use Template Manager (an included component of Ultimate Forms you should really learn more about!) to apply the settings to the site. Not rocket science of course, but the multitude of steps and the implied knowledge of SharePoint inner workings make it less than ideal. There should be a better way! And now there is. Building upon the amazing technology we developed in our Template Manager, we are now able to replicate any site, including all lists, web part pages and Ultimate Forms settings across tenants. That means that you can replicate a business solutions we created (and in the future, one of our partners) and have it set up in your environment with a single click! We will create a site (or use your existing one), create/modify lists (including columns, columns settings, content types and views), create and update web part pages, set up quick links and apply all of our settings, including alerts, actions, print templates, forms and much more! It really is that easy! Let me show how it works. First, download and install Ultimate Forms in your Office 365 environment (sorry, this article is about SharePoint Online, our on-prem customers can already use a different, but equally simple, mechanism). Once you load up the app, you will see the new Install Business Solutions button on the top menu bar. Click on it and you will be taken to our Solution Gallery. Note the vendor selector at the top. At this point you can see our business solutions under Infowise Solutions and our webinars under Infowise Webinars (yes, you can now install the exact sites used in our webinars and workshops and try out what you were shown on your own. Isn't that cool?!) Here you can browse our business solutions. They are free of charge, all you need is a license for Ultimate Forms and you can install whatever you need. And, once installed, you can modify further to exactly match your requirements. Think of it as your starter kit for building advanced modern business processes in SharePoint. Click on the solution you want to install. Here you can see a detailed explanation of what the solution offers, as well as a tutorial video. In the top right corner you can find the installation settings. See the big blue "Install" button? That's basically all you need! You can choose to install as a new subsite under the current site (recommended) or to modify the current site. Note that when you choose to modify the current site, you should be aware that if your site already contains lists with the same names as the ones used by the solution, they will be modified and you might lose your data. You should really only use this option on new sites (and it should be a Modern site). Clicked on Install and agreed to the prompt? The process will start running now and you will be able to see the real-time progress. You shouldn't expect any problems, but as there are sometimes glitches in the SharePoint Online infrastructure, nothing is ever 100% :) Let's say, 99.9% is where we stand. It should take about 2-3 minutes for the process to complete, the longest part is the creation and setup of the various lists and document libraries the business solution uses. Plenty of time to get that cup of coffee you've been dreaming of for the past hour or so! And we are done! Click on "Close" and be taken to your newly created and configured business solution. You will also receive an email with the log. Now can there be anything easier than that?! We invite our partners and partners-to-be to use this platform to promote and sell their own solutions. We are working on a trial and licensing mechanism to be integrated as well. Like what you see and want to be able to develop and install business solutions internally? You already can! All you saw here uses our Template Manager component that you already have. If you haven't done so yet, contact us and get your own credentials free of charge. Log into Template Manager to create, manage and apply your own business solutions within your tenant. The complete deployment mechanism I just highlighted is at your disposal!

Patient Registration App on SharePoint using Infowise Ultimate Forms

2019-10-22T19:58:19Z

SharePoint in Healthcare Industries.

In my career span, I have worked on many SharePoint implementations for healthcare industries apart from other industries. These implementations were mainly ranging from intranet portal to business process automation for giant hospital chains as well as individual practices. Such frequent use makes me believe stronger that SharePoint is widely popular among healthcare professionals. Healthcare industries are one of the most regulated industries, which need adherence to regulations, and it makes a lot of data exchange between different stakeholders. Managing this large amount of data efficiently is challenging tasks and SharePoint, along with Infowise, provides good solutions, which are widely acceptable by CIOs of these industries.

Challenges faced by Healthcare Industries.

Real-time access to information and patient’s medical reports.
Integration with the various medical care system.
I am managing multiple document types.
Validation and authenticity of medical records are crucial in highly regulated healthcare industries.

Few examples of SharePoint solutions implemented for Healthcare Industries.

As healthcare industries restrict information management and its exchange due to strict regulations by authorities. It is mandatory to store information for a long time for audit purposes; at the same time, it needs to be easily and quickly accessible, retrievable and searchable. If I wish to categorize the solutions built by me on a SharePoint platform for healthcare industries, these can be broadly categorized as follows:-

Content Digitization and Management(ECM) – Image libraries, E- prescription, Patient scheduling, Patient billing reports, Physician referrals, EMR database, Templates, Forms, Patient Forms, Admission Forms, Insurance Forms, Diagnosis reports.
Enterprise Search – Document Search, Diagnostic reports search, Physician search, Patient search.
Hospital Process Automation using workflows- Admission procedure, Appointment procedure, Pathology reports, Discharge procedure, Patient-monitoring reports.

Patient Registration App on SharePoint using Infowise.

I am going to take the example of the Patient registration form, which is commonly used in both hospitals and clinics. I have listed the steps of creating a patient registration app using SharePoint and Infowise. I could have used other tools like Infopath forms, Nintex etc. but I wanted to build it rapidly, responsive and solution should be cost-effective and durable. As a result, I chose Infowise Ultimate forms, which did not disappoint me. Please refer to my blog for installing Infowise forms in SharePoint online environment.

Create a SharePoint custom list for Patient Registration App.

Kindly note all these steps are performed on SharePoint online for this example. As the first step, create a SharePoint list with the below-listed columns or fields.

Patient’s First Name - Single line of text
Patient’s Last Name – Single line of text
Are you Medically Insured? – Radio button Yes or No
Patient’s Gender – a Choice column for Male or Female
Marital Status – a Choice column for Married or Single
Date of Birth – Date Picker column
Age – Single line of text
Communication address - Multiline text box.
Same as communication address – Radio button yes or no
Permanent address – Multiline text box
Contact Number – Single line of text
E-mail address – Single line of text.
Any existing medical history? - Multi-line text box.
Any known allergies? - Multi-line text box.

Steps to design the SharePoint list form using Infowise Ultimate forms.

Follow the below steps to design the Patient registration app using Infowise Ultimate forms.

Click on Design, available in the ribbon on the SharePoint list.
Design the Modern Form, using Modern form designer.
Apply dynamic values to the column using default values and dynamic rules.
Use Column validation for applying custom validations on columns; I used for email id validation.
Themes can be applied to your form using Theme control.
Similarly, custom CSS can be applied to the form.
Once done with changes, publish the form.

Issues encountered and its troubleshooting steps.

Being my first app on Infowise, I faced a few issues while setting up Infowise, I must admit that Infowise has intuitive error messages, and their description is quite explanatory and easy to understand. As I am working on modern SharePoint sites, I was getting an error for enabling custom scripts on the site, as by default, custom scripts are disabled on SharePoint online, and this needs to be explicitly enabled through PowerShell script. Here is the script, which I used to enable custom scripting on my site. Set-SPOsite <SiteURL> -DenyAddAndCustomizePages 0 The above script may take 24 hours to get the change reflected on site. Refer https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/allow-or-prevent-custom-script for more details about it. This is how I built a simple patient registration app to show how quickly and easily this process can be automated using SharePoint online along with Infowise Ultimate forms, which is responsive, built quite rapidly and did not require complex development skills. In my future blogs, I will add more examples from healthcare industries. Keep looking on this page…

Microsoft Office 365 and SharePoint for Dental Practices

2019-10-21T19:45:06Z

Microsoft SharePoint is a web-based content and document management platform. It helps business enterprises to manage the archive, documents, reports and other types of content that are pivotal for their business operations. Generally, SharePoint provides a modern workplace to upload and manage your content, where it can be easily organized, shared, and can be accessed from any device securely. All you need is a web browser, whether it may be Microsoft Edge, Chrome, or Firefox, to start working on it. The modern SharePoint is explicitly made for the uncomplicated and error-free data collection, process, and storage. This original method of SharePoint enables every dentist or doctor for smart and quick assistance or administration. A dentist can avail of SharePoint's services like email or massive file transfer as a simple communication tool. With SharePoint, a dentist can audit or review access records to files and patient data. With a safe and simple online backup service, SharePoint secures the information or practice management. Usually, dental healthcare utilizes practice management software that resides on their databases and computers. Such records provide critical medical knowledge to run the business successfully. Office 365 is a clear and direct way for less time consuming dental service with satisfying patient's responses The need for revision and collection of information with discoveries and researches with maintaining a reputation in the career is the real struggle for many dental students or professionals. As dental students and practitioners have already involved with tremendous amounts of research. Therefore, maintaining all the information and documents is a real struggle for them They have a dire need for a more accessible user-interface to collect, store, organize a plethora of information and content. The integration of Office 365 with SharePoint made it a breeze for the dentists and practitioners to store and organize the data, not just of patients. It also enables them to make calendar lists, task lists, announcement lists, major appointments for the surgeries, and so much more. Increasingly sophisticated intruder threats, most dental practices see the need for more advanced security coverage. That’s why Microsoft has developed a new and risk-free security program for computers. The improved filtering system provides the following benefits with a security surface. It is quite evident that the Office 365 products have endless possibilities and services, but below are the few specific features that are most relevant for the dental practice today. ENCRYPTION OF EMAIL: It’s the cardinal practice of every practitioner, doctors, and physicians to not disclose any information of their patients with anyone — the loss of any sensitive information of the patient breach the trust of the patients. SharePoint offers encrypted emails to safeguard the sanctity of the relationship between the doctors and their patients. LARGE FILE TRANSFER: Dentists and practitioners have tremendous data to send and receive daily. Moreover, all of the data and information have the utmost importance for their respective patients. The files of the data are significant due to mostly scanned copies of the files, and the computer may hang from time to time, which is catastrophic for the operations. With SharePoint Server, all the data and documents are easily shared with any designated personnel without any delay or lag. EXTERNAL USERS FACILITY: A healthy and friendly relationship between the healthcare provider and the patient is always the main objective of the smart healthcare system. With SharePoint, a dentist, or any other healthcare provider can share files with external users by making them guests. Sign in, and password choice is available in Office365. More notable, a healthcare provider can ‘set expiration’ and choose how long, for instance, 30 days before the connection expires. ARCHIVING MESSAGES: There are several advantages to Microsoft’s Exchange Online Archiving. The email archiving meets the HIPAA standards. Emergency links to all the messages that are already sent and obtained with an exact copy of the address for the release of electronic records disclosure. In modern times of today, the primary concern of every business and healthcare enterprise is to have a safe and secure platform. The confidentiality of patient’s health information requires high tech data security. Poor communication or security can compromise the efficiency and productivity of the clinic. SharePoint provides a significant connection and collaboration system between patients and healthcare providers. SharePoint is a dynamic, open platform that makes it accessible from a single location to create and secure the patient’s information. SharePoint and Microsoft Office 365 binds healthcare professionals easily with the files, data, people, and projects they need to perform in their practice or dental service. Collaborative tools like Microsoft Teams fill the communication gaps and use technology to facilitate internal conversations among doctors or dentists.

Office 365 for Hospitals - Improving The Healthcare Sector

2019-10-21T18:50:49Z

Microsoft Office 365 is a suite of cloud-based collaboration and interactive tools that incorporate all of Microsoft's existing online apps (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, Publisher, Sway, and Access) into a cloud service. Office 365 is an automated software or integrated experience that can help hospitals improve patient care and reduce operational costs by enhancing collaboration and communication between doctors, nurses, staff, and independent specialties, health teams, and health care professionals in healthcare organizations. It is designed to help you achieve your passion for providing quality care and expand your hospital’s health insurance portability and accountability. Built on Microsoft 365’s stable, compatible platform, Teams provide all healthcare workers with a common way to communicate in real-time, organize patient care, and maximize operational efficiency.

“To all users of technology who are willing to take a chance, make a choice, and try a new way of doing things so that we can nurture and enjoy a happy, healthy planet.”— Katherine Murray, Microsoft Office 365

The latest and updated approach for the healthcare system is the Office365 for hospitals.

The intricate ways healthcare services has been conducted for many years has changed now. Microsoft technology navigated the administrating and accounting functions of the healthcare system to a new era of development and improvement. Medical care has evolved into team-based care, incredibly large medical specializations, electronic patient data storage, and regulations for patient's privacy. Healthcare organizations and centers are working by securely collaborating with Office 365 for better communication, security, and patient care.

Microsoft 365 has signed a complaint standard for the safety and security of patient records or health information, which shows that office 365 for hospitals is proven to be a useful tool.

The healthcare professionals, including doctors, surgeons, or nurses, have several concerns in their professional life. Their prime concern is to be updated with day to day new information related to the drug, modified techniques, and tactics of any surgery or any new research related to the human body. This daily need for being updated can easily be achieved through office 365 with its unique features and technology. The healthcare staff deals daily with new researches, experimentation, and testing. The office365 has easy access to daily workshops, internships, or assignments scheduled for discoveries. The stress of having updated information can quickly be solved with security and compliance served through office365.

The patient's accurate information and health history must be documented correctly is the patient's prime concern. The reliability of the patient's health information is the most crucial factor that medical health organizations care about. Microsoft teams succeeded in implementing a care market instead of the cure market, where the caretakers and healthcare providers are successfully being engaged in healthcare services provision aided by new technology. The current improvements have to to with proper services delivery. An example will be updates related to patient's medicine information shared with all care provider teams.

A healthy relationship between health care providers and patients can be maintained through persuasive communication. Office 365 enables healthcare providers or professionals to securely communicate or collaborate in real-time with patients or colleagues wherever they want. It also provides easy asses to schedule and links for both providers and patients for booking virtual appointments. Built on the secure, compliant Microsoft 365 cloud, the team gives all healthcare workers a familiar way to communicate in real-time, coordinate patient care, and improve operational efficiencies.

The improvements or productivity that office 365 provides to healthcare organizations include advanced level coordination, enhanced collaboration, and an agile healthcare team. A fully equipped and informed team is what a healthcare organization needed for a better and healthy future.

Healthcare organizations work more productive through a Microsoft technology created by the Microsoft Excel team. The efficacy and productivity of the overburden team decline with time. The Microsoft office enables the team to work efficiently in peak hours of a rush as well as in every emergency. The daily need for data entry, including the record of the patient's current status. Staff needs to collaborate with clients, patients, and their families to keep up the increasing demands and keep quality of service.

It enables users to collaborates or communicate or handling data or details in the strive of seeking quality or maintaining the quality indeed. The caretakers can have quicker information about any health alert, protocol, or in emergency circumstances or for better regulations. They will have easy access to information anywhere anytime. Caretakers, either in elderly care or home care, can have far quicker access to information.

Many patients choose hospitals based on the behaviour and reputation of staff and healthcare provides. A kind and friendly staff are more functional and skillful in public dealing. The overfull patients in healthcare wards or emergency departments are one of the many problems that nursing staff need to face; a systemized way is Microsoft office that enables the team to work with fewer errors.

At Infowise, we are serving as a strategic partner, assisting public and private enterprises in their digital transformation endeavours with our scalable, smart and robust tools, software and applications. Our product Infowise UltimateForms Power Suite contains more than 15 standalone SharePoint applications developed to give you the power to innovate, automate and scale up your processes. Our products have been designed for optimum interoperability and seamless integration within SharePoint. Altogether, they constitute the structural foundation for digitization and facilitate your transition to digital transformation. Click here to download Infowise ULTIMATEforms 30-days free trial. Simple process. After you've installed Infowise UF, go ahead and create an unlimited number of Business Process Applications. Or even better, do you want to start with a ready template? Great, click here and download the ready-to-use template from our vast business process solution library, re-purpose to service your needs.

Modern Form Designer is a Full-featured Framework for Fast Functionality

2019-10-14T15:01:34Z

If you’ve already started using the new Form designer with your Modern experience SharePoint sites, you’ve also probably noticed that there are some big changes in how you work with your list and form information. When you use the older style tab form builder, you get a nice-looking form, sure. And, you’ve always had the ability to do more advanced work with the list data by adding validation to column fields, or manipulating view or column permissions. You could even add dynamic rules and create default values for your form to ease the users’ jobs. These choices are all still available to you – they’re listed as features under “Classic forms” on the new interface. But the new Form designer doesn’t have these features listed. Oh, dear, what shall we do? Well, how about going into a new Form and looking – because all those features now exist within the Form designer itself! Personally, I think this is terrific. In addition to the usual controls over look and feel, the modern Form designer gives you all the other tools you need, too. And, because of the Form designer’s nested structure, you can apply permissions around visibility and different levels – showing or hiding entire sections, tabs or individual fields as is needed. I also find the new interface very easy to work with, although I’ll admit that I had a learning curve to get over. There is one place where you need to be a little careful. Since the form can contain multiple nested containers, it’s pretty important that you select the right one when you’re making changes – especially with permissions. There has been more than one occasion when I’ve made changes only to find that I’ve hidden an entire container rather than a single tab or a single field … hey, none of us are perfect, OK? The good news is that it takes just a minute to fix the problem and republish the form. Overall, the new UI provides a quicker, cleaner, and more logical approach to the whole process of form building and control.

Time to Get Modern

2019-10-11T23:36:59Z

When it comes to the SharePoint Modern Experience, there may be a little trepidation in embracing something that looks and acts so differently from the SharePoint we have known and loved all these years. But I have to tell you, as I’ve worked with it and continued to explore the possibilities, I’ve become increasingly excited about them. The SharePoint Modern Experience adds some exciting functionality. There are tradeoffs – some things work differently, and some customization features have gotten to be very difficult to do. But overall, the Modern Experience gives you newer tools and different ways to accomplish your business goals. The developers at Infowise have done a pretty good job at adapting Ultimate Forms for this Modern experience, too. Have you noticed that the “jigsaw” Design icon for Ultimate forms is now part of the Modern List menu bar? And a bunch of Ultimate Form web parts – things like rollups, filters, and charts – are available to add on Modern site pages. Of course, the crème de la crème is the new Form designer, which is a big upgrade on the old-style Form Tab feature (not to say that that didn’t work well, but this new tool is … wow!). And you’ve probably noticed how that UI is making its way through the rest of the application, such as on the Ultimate Forms feature page. You may also have noticed that when we deliver webinars these days, or publish tutorials, we’re tending to use the Modern experience in our examples. We even recently rewrote all the documentation we use for the workshop training we offer, setting all the labs up to use the Modern experience. This was quite a chore, but we felt it was important to help people understand how both SharePoint and Ultimate Forms are continuing to evolve by showing UF in action in the new environment. So, if you’ve been holding back, don’t! It’s time for you to Modernize yourself, and your organizations. I think once you get used to it, you’re going to be a convert like me. NOTE: Make sure you install the secondary Infowise Ultimate Forms Extensions app to make sure everything functions as expected in the Modern experience!

How I Quickly Built a Complete SharePoint Expense Claim with Forms, KPIs, Charts and Workflows

2019-10-11T17:29:08Z

Dear Readers, I have been trying out Infowise Ultimate Forms for a month now, and I must say it's very user-friendly. I don't even need to write any code.

Troubleshooting – Descriptive and user-friendly error messages.

Let's begin with my troubleshooting story.

I have been working on an expense claim form for a while, and today I deployed it to another site. However, as I opened my Ultimate Forms Design Page, I faced an error. It said that Custom Scripting is blocked.

I liked the fact that not only the error message was pretty descriptive; it also provided a link to understand the exact problem.

Needless to say, I quickly sorted the issue by running a quick command-line script. I was impressed by the intuitiveness of the app. Instead of me trying to deploy some form and then realize that it doesn't work, I realized the issue as soon as I logged in. It saved me debugging time.

Actions aka Workflows aka Process

Once my error got sorted, I started working on my Form. I had already added an email notification. However, I wanted my Form to have some business logic. I generally use SharePoint Designer or Microsoft Flows, but I wanted to give the Actions in Infowise Ultimate Forms a chance.

Trust me when I say this, you will not be disappointed. I clicked on Actions, under the business logic menu, and was redirected to a page where I could create my Workflow. I liked the tabbed clean page, which gave me simple options like Actions.

I could easily create or update a List item by selecting the Action type and the kind of events like Create, Edit, View or Delete I wanted to run the Workflow for. I could also add events like the addition or removal of attachments to trigger the flow.

I can also schedule by Workflow using a timer job, or I can run it manually by changing the settings in the advanced fields. Even defining conditions are really easy. You need to select the Conditions in the dropdown. For my current list, I want the expense to be auto-updated as 'Yes' if the Balance at the end of the Month is equal or less than the Maximum Budget.

Also, there are many Actions that a user can define. If my condition is true, I can create or update List items or create a document library, or I can all some stored procedures or webservise available at a different location. I can also mix and match the Actions to perform more than one Actions.

KPIs – Quick visuals using icons and colours

Once I defined the business Logic, I wanted my List to look nice. I know, nice sounds very vague, but I wanted to add some colours and icons so that anyone who sees the list can immediately understand the data. Something like, if the balance at the end of the Month is red, you would know that the employee has claimed more than his defined limit.

There are a large number of options available to solve this in Infowise ultimate Forms. I can colour code my fields, based on conditions or even add Icons. An icon like a Check Mark or a Cross, in my approval field, easily explains if the request has been approved or not. As they say, a picture is equal to a thousand words.

Charts – Simple, Intuitive and code-less way to create responsive data visualization

Often, I have been told that it is easier to have data in Excel. We can create a quick chart with data on a spreadsheet and visualize the data.

Well, I was in for a surprise when I started using Infowise Charts Webapart. It created a graph for me in minutes. I could define the type of chart I want, the values that need to be displayed on X-Axis and even the background colour and height and width.

This makes reporting much easier. Can you imagine how easy it is to create a management report? I can create a chart in a few minutes. It is also easy to update and is intuitive enough to be used by a non-technical person.

Thanks to Infowise Ultimate Forms, I completed my Expense Claim project in a very short time. I didn't need to create any custom Apps or use any other tool. I could easily create not only fantastic looking Forms but also attractive looking charts, without moving away from my SharePoint Environment. Moreover, it so easy to use; I can easily let my users create their forms and processes.

That's all for today, but follow me as I explore the Infowise forms features and train my users to create their Forms and processes.

Template Manager can now sync site structure

2019-10-09T18:15:48Z

Hi, Have you heard of Template Manager? If you haven't, you should really pay close attention! Template Manager is a component of the SharePoint Online version of Ultimate Forms. It lets you copy Ultimate Forms settings between sites with just a click. It's ridiculously easy to:

Replicate your changes in settings from your development site to production
Create multiple working copies of a highly customized site
Deliver prefabricate solutions to your customers (even across tenants!)
Copy your production site to another location for further development/testing

Template Manager is included with Ultimate Forms, all you need is to get your free credentials from us and you're good to go. Create your own templates or even use the prefabricated business solutions we offer free of charge. Consultants among you: just think of the possibilities of being able to rapidly replicate the same site to many of you customers! Template Manager is not a few feature, it's been around for a few years (albeit, somewhat hidden under the gear icon in our old user interface). It was specifically developed to allow our partners to easily deliver complex business solutions based on Ultimate Forms by automatically copying all our settings from the source, template site to the customer site. Forms, actions, alerts, you name it, get copied over and modified to reflect the specific URLs and list IDs of the destination site. You have the flexibility to choose what features of Ultimate Forms to replicate (maybe you need just Actions?) and also which lists to replicate (all of them by default, but you can also select specific lists). The only condition is that the two sites (source and destination) have the same structure (list and their columns). It was usually accomplished by saving the site as a template and creating a copy from that template. The new feature I would like to talk about today is really exciting! Template Manager is now able to also replicate the list structure. It will create lists, add/modify/update columns and content types, sync views and even sync Modern web part pages and left-side navigation! So now you can create an empty site and run Template Manager on it to generate a whole new business solution from scratch, with just one click. We will automatically scan the lists in the source and destination sites, create new lists if needed and then go over the contennt types, columns and views in the destination list, making sure they are identical to the source. NOTE: if the destination list contains columns not found in the source, template list, those will be removed. Exercise caution to ensure you don't lose any data. If you are planning to sync list structure multiple times, make sure to make no manual changes in the destination site. With the new UI we recently began rolling out, Template Manager is taking its rightful place as a first-class component of Ultimate Forms, you can easily find it in the top toolbar. If you haven't done so yet, request credentials from us (email sales@infowisesolutions.com) and make you work easier!

New version of Ultimate Forms Extensions

2019-10-09T16:49:00Z

Hi, As SharePoint user interface turns more and more into the Modern experience variety, more and more users are starting to adopt the new interface. Ultimate Forms users benefit from the amazing features of Ultimate Forms in the new UI by installing Ultimate Forms Extensions app. A companion app to Ultimate Forms, it provides integration and features geared towards the Modern experience:

Toolbar buttons for list views in Modern experience, such as Design, Print, Alert, etc.
A set of alternative modern web parts for Calendar, List Search and Chart components, as well as brand new web parts, Filter and Rollup.
Modern forms you can create in our Form Designer.
Support for Modern list views for our custom field types, such as Associated Items, Signature, etc.

We strongly suggest to always download and install Ultimate Forms Extensions when you use Ultimate Forms, even when you're not fully ready to completely switch to Modern. Just take a look at the amazing features of Form Designer! We just released a new version of Ultimate Forms Extensions, version 1.1.6.0, which adds the following features:

Toolbar integration into more list types.
Centralized deployment option - this is the big one. You can now deploy Ultimate Forms Extensions directly from the Enterprise Catalog, without the need of adding it to each individual site (Ultimate Forms itself still needs to be added though). When you upload your .sppkg file to your Catalog, you are presented with the confirmation pop-up:

Notice the option to make the solution available to all sites? When checked, the app becomes instantly installed throughout your tenant, no need to individually add to each site.

Note that if you already have the previous version added to the sites, you will need to remove it from each site, otherwise you will see duplicated toolbar buttons in Modern list views.

Note that because of the centralized installation option, we are no longer able to detect if Ultimate Forms Extensions is installed. Note that you MUST install it if you are planning to use Modern forms in Form Designer. Although you will no longer see an error message when designing and deploying the forms, they will simply not load.

If you recently downloaded Ultimate Forms, then it came in a zipped archive containing both Ultimate Forms itself (.app file) and Ultimate Forms Extensions (.sppkg file). Just unzip the file and upload each one individually into your Enterprise Catalog. Download the latest version of Ultimate Forms Extensions here!

Microsoft Office 365 in the classroom: An Overview of Tools and Methods

2019-10-02T16:39:22Z

Today’s modern classrooms can significantly benefit from Microsoft Office 365. Children from a young age can take advantage of the various tools and software that comes with Office 365 to enhance their classroom experience. Similarly, teachers and instructors can customize it to teach students most effectively. Microsoft provides a dedicated version of Office 365 for educational institutions called Office 365 for Education. Below we will detail how Office 365 brings classroom education into the 21st century.

Building a 21st-century classroom with Microsoft Office 365

Personalized Learning Initiatives

Sharing is Caring

Conclusion

Building a 21st-century classroom with Microsoft Office 365

Office 365 provides a robust set of tools to optimize classroom experience. OneNote, for example, can offer innovative ways to present notes, slides, hold class discussions, and more. Furthermore, it can improve grading, assignments and more to make sure the class time is dedicated to learning and discussion.

OneNote can transform into a digital notebook where teachers and instructions can store class notes and all relevant information relating to the courses they teach. It can link to web content for research and also become a collaboration space. The best part is that since everything is digital, there is no more worrying about running out of paper in physical notebooks. The information can be accessed at any time from any compatible device, which makes it all the more convenient for teachers.

PowerPoint slides have been used for years to deliver course presentations in class. While PowerPoint is still effective today, OneNote is equally better. Teachers can easily communicate more effectively with each other using OneNote. It’s an effective way to share lectures, course notes and such with each other and gain advice and feedback. It also allows for collaboration to make more innovative content for the students. Implementation of tools such as OneNote in the classroom boosts the productivity of teachers and students benefit from better teaching methods. The 21st-century classroom places a priority on convenience, productivity and innovative teaching. It’s all about clearing the clutter and making life easier for teachers so they can do the same for students.

The idea here is to transform the classroom so that students at a younger age can get a head start on computer literacy. It allows them to be more organized as they move up in education levels.

Personalized Learning Initiatives

Microsoft has been working with schools as part of their Personal Learning Initiative. Microsoft calls it blended learning. Blended learning helps students learn at their own pace. It allows teachers to customize their teaching for each student. It’s a lot more personalized, so each student gets the individual attention he or she needs. Depending on what assistance each student needs, instructors, can customize the curriculum so that students can succeed.

During each class, instructors can provide students with short lessons and then each student can work on his or her own. The instructors act as mentors and guides, helping students understand the course material at his or her pace. Students can get instant feedback between lessons. The learning of each student is divided into two components. There’s the physical classroom instruction component, and then there’s the online component that allows for more of a collaborative learning experience. The online and classroom instruction components work in tandem with each other, and it provides for innovative yet effective teaching and learning experience. The best thing here is that before each class session, students are suitably prepared and have digested the lessons well. They can then contribute effectively in classroom discussions and display their knowledge of the lessons taught to them daily. This is a good way for instructors to get regular feedback on students’ performance, and it would help them customize the learning accordingly. Students are more in charge of their learning, and they become responsible learners. It makes students more independent and utilizes instructors as and when needed. Microsoft is pioneering education in the 21st century to make learning more personalized for each student. While classroom instruction is here to stay, this integrated and collaborative teaching is the future of education. Teachers form meaningful relationships with each of their students. Students become independent, responsible and productive learners.

The Personalized Learning Initiative has already shown to be a success at the regional level. The Fresno Unified School District worked with Microsoft and found that student outcomes became a lot better with Personalized Learning Initiative. The mix of classroom and digital instruction is already proven to be a trendsetter in the field of education. One PLI teacher at Fresno is quoted to have said, “The feedback aspects have been incredible. When I stand at the front of the class and say it live, there are lots of problems with the ‘talking teacher.’ If I can spend time with them online while they’re writing, it affects change in real-time. The tone of the classroom is relaxed, constructive, and allows kids to hear the feedback in a new way. I talk less but give more feedback. And it’s working.” This is an evolution in classroom education, and teachers have shown to enjoy mixing it up for students so they can have an effective and enjoyable classroom education. Feedback is personalized, and the students can learn and grow better.

Sharing is Caring

While Microsoft’s Personalized Learning Initiative is still a relatively new concept in 21st-century education, software products like SharePoint have been around for some time. Microsoft SharePoint takes collaboration to a whole new level. In a time where the world is more connected than ever before, SharePoint has become the center of collaboration in the education sector. Whether it’s teacher to teacher or teacher to student, any collaboration or group discussion can happen via SharePoint. SharePoint Online takes center stage in Office 365 as it works in tandem with Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and more. SharePoint sites can become teaching portals and resources for students. Teaching and learning can extend beyond the classroom where students and teachers can collaborate from wherever they are. SharePoint has redefined classroom instruction and the approach to education today. Group learning and teaching can easily be enhanced by Microsoft Teams as well. Microsoft Teams is very powerful as it provides an all-in-one sharing and communications tool. It can complement SharePoint Online as well. Microsoft Teams offers groups to work together on different channels. Teams can be divided into smaller units and channels can be dedicated to them. Students assigned to the same Teachers Assistants can have a channel of their own, for example. When it comes to teachers, Microsoft Teams goes the extra mile. With Office 365 for Education, you can switch on the Assignments tab in Teams. The Assignments tab gives teachers and instructors a convenient way to assign grades to assignments and provide feedback to students. Quizzes can be administered easily, thanks to Office Forms. Office Forms keeps things organized for students and teachers. Instant feedback can be given, as well as an instant score at times. Students could see their grades online and at times, receive them instantly.

Conclusion

Office 365 for Education is the perfect solution for modern learning and classroom instruction. It provides excellent tools and software for both students and teachers. These tools help simplify tasks so that more time is spent on learning in the classroom. It allows for effective student-to-student, teacher-to-teacher, student-to-teacher collaboration and communication. It enhances classroom learning and teaching and takes it beyond the classroom. Education in the 21st century has been more connected than it ever was thanks to the power of Microsoft Office 365 for Education.

Apart from Office 365, Microsoft’s Personalized Learning Initiative is proving to be an excellent new way of classroom instruction. Personalized learning is helpful for both students and teachers. Teachers can provide individualized and personalized guidance to students and giving them appropriate feedback. Students can become responsible and independent learners with teachers and instructors acting as guides and mentors. Thanks to this collaboration of classroom instruction and technology, Microsoft is setting a new standard in the field of education.

Infowise

Here at Infowise Solutions, our client list includes some of the world’s best-known higher educational institutes, that is in addition to many school boards in North America, Europe, Australia, the Middle East and Africa. Our products that are used by the educational institutes are a cross-section of what we offer; Workflow automation, process automation, advanced dynamic forms and document management and filing. We have helped thousands of schools and research facilities across the globe in leveraging the power of their Office 365 platform, to its fullest potential to quickly build a wide variety of modern solutions, tailor-made to meet their operational requirements. Through our implementation partners, we have been part of the digitization process for many universities and research organizations. Whether your preference is Microsoft 365 or On-premise our partners will assist and guide you on how best you can get your educational institution on the road onto a successful digitization process.