Sharing Minds announces Training Services

At Sharing Minds we design, build and deliver a range of solutions that empower users to do their best work, with tools based on familiar platforms.  Once we deliver your solution, we know the job still isn’t quite done – as the people who support and use the solution still need to be trained.

Sharing Minds is pleased to announce our suite of Office 365 Training Services, available broadly from June 2018.  These services are designed to complement your technology and solutions, demonstrating real examples to increase user understanding and inspire innovative ways to use Office 365.

Would your team benefit from an instructor-led course or presentation, with real demonstrations from your own Office 365 environment?  Time spent with our instructors will help your staff embrace their new solution, and deliver the value we know is possible.

Courses include:

Introduction to Office 365, Introduction to SharePoint Online, Introduction to Microsoft Teams, Introduction to Microsoft Flow, Introduction to Microsoft PowerBI, Introduction to Microsoft OneDrive, Introduction to Microsoft Forms, Introduction to Microsoft PowerApps.

Booking guidelines:

• Training sessions can be procured individually or in groups, and the minimum booking is a half day timeslot.
• Training is conducted on your Office 365 environment and Administrative rights are required on a demo tenancy or Site Collection.

Click to open full brochure.

To find out more on our Training Services, please contact sales@sharingminds.com.au or call 1300 611 359

Published by:   Sharing Minds Communications Dept
Date:   Tuesday, 29 May 2018
Contact:   1300 611 359

SHARING NEWS - November 2017

It's been a busy time of late at Sharing Minds with industry events, a new Brisbane office, the Spring Racing Carnival, the busy period leading up to Christmas and some new faces around the office.

In August we moved into a new office at 527 Gregory Terrace, Fortitude Valley, as our team has been growing significantly over the last 12 months. Next time you're in the city please feel free to drop in and have one of the team show you around. 

In November we welcomed Ben Creamer to the team as General Manager, Carlos Garcia relocated his family to Brisbane and we farewelled our CEO Damien Neale.  Ben's addition to the team brings nearly 10 years of experience in consulting and service delivery and over 20 years across the Microsoft suite of products.  Ben's technical background also provides an understanding of the solutions our team develops to ensure everything we do is correctly aligned to our customers' requirements.

Damien's departure from Sharing Minds is to one of our key partners, LiveTiles, who deliver visually stunning, easy to use and intelligent solutions on SharePoint, Office 365 and in the Cloud.  Damien's energy, passion and commitment to our Partners and customers has helped grow our business and mature some of our service offerings.  As a Partner, Damien will continue to work with Sharing Minds where possible and we would like to take this opportunity to publicly thank Damien for his efforts over the last 18 months.

After an incredible year, we're looking forward to giving the team a well earned rest and keeping things quiet around the office.  Our doors will be closed from 12:00pm on Friday 22 December through to Wednesday 27 December, when the skeleton crew will keep things ticking.

Rest assured that the whole team will be (slightly tanned and) ready for a full return at 8:00am, Monday 8 January, 2018.

Please get in touch with your account rep prior to the shut down if you have any queries regarding your ongoing support or services during the break:  1300 611 359 or info@sharingminds.com.au

Find your nearest Sharing Minds office location.

Published by:   Sharing Minds Communications Dept
Date:   Tuesday, 21 November 2017
Contact:   1300 611 359

LIVE WEBINAR: TRANSITIONING TO OFFICE 365 WITH LIVETILES - MERCY COMMUNITY SERVICES

OCTOBER 2017 - BRISBANE

Sharing Minds is delighted to invite you to a new webinar we're holding in conjunction with LiveTiles, on Tuesday 10 October from 11:30am AEST (12:30pm AEDST).

In this webinar, Andrew Jolly (Senior Solution Architect, Sharing Minds) talks with Vincent Siataga (SharePoint Project Lead of Mercy Community Services, Queensland). 

Join us as we dig beneath the surface and learn how they created an engaging environment for their distributed workforce of hundreds of users, that spans multiple interfaces and devices, and make the most of the opportunity to innovate.

Following the chat with Mercy, we’ll be spoiled with a sneak peek at the LiveTiles bot, presented by Nick Rameka – Global Vice President of Marketing at LiveTiles.

There will be time for Q&A, so BYO lunch and stay tuned till the end for your chance to ask some questions!

Don't miss it.

Now available to watch on demand via GoToWebinar.

Published by:  Sharing Minds Communications Dept.
Date:  Monday 25 September 2017
Contact:  1300 611 35

WE’VE DUSTED OFF OUR RUNNING SHOES FOR MERCY COMMUNITY SERVICES!

AUGUST 2017 - BRISBANE

Sharing Minds is delighted (and ever so slightly scared) to announce that we’re participating in the 2017 Bridge to Brisbane fun run on Sunday 27 August.  We’ve collected quite a pile of dust as we’ve tipped out our running shoes and started peeling off our winter woollies for a great cause.

This year our fundraiser will be supporting the incredible work of Mercy Community Services in the area of family support. 

Mercy Community Services (MCS) supports a number of young people living with a disability who are unable to live with their parents and families and need specialised supports.

One young person they support – Tom* aged 10 – is unable to live with his family due to the nature of his disability and complex behaviours. He lives on his own in a customised apartment and receives support from MCS professional carers 24/7.

While Tom needs to live in this supported environment away from home, you can probably imagine his sense of loss and isolation at being apart from his parents and siblings.

To ensure Tom can maintain a connection with his family, MCS will work with Telstra Health to develop and install customised assistive and home automation equipment in both Tom’s apartment and his family’s home.

This technology will ensure Tom can regularly communicate with his family. He can utilise this amazing technology to see their faces and hear their voices and know that they’re there for him.

We are delighted to be able to fundraise for Tom and his family – to make such a significant difference in someone’s life with the aid of technology hit us right at our core.  

This technology does of course come at a cost. We need to raise $4,900 to make this happen. If you would like to help us connect Tom with his parents and siblings as he receives the intensive support he needs, please support us through our Bridge to Brisbane 2017 team fundraising.

Your support means Tom will have the best set-up to be able to maintain contact with his family while receiving the support he needs to live his life to his full potential. Please consider donating $20, $50 or simply the cost of one morning coffee to our campaign.

* Name and age has been changed to protect privacy

Published by:  Sharing Minds Communications Dept.
Date:  Thursday, 27 July 2017
Contact:  1300 611 35

MELBOURNE EVENT – LIVETILES AND SHARING MINDS TEAM UP AGAIN

AUGUST 2017 - MELBOURNE

We live in a rapidly evolving digital world, both in our personal and work lives. The unprecedented demand for workplaces to mirror the experiences that consumers enjoy in their personal lives is now at fever pitch. In fact, user engagement/adoption depends on it.

Sharing Minds and LiveTiles are teaming up again to present the User Engagement session to the Melbourne masses.  If you’ve found yourself asking, ‘Why aren’t my users engaged in our Office 365 environment?  What manageable and minor changes can I make that would turn all of my users heads? Can it be done on a small budget?’

You’ll love sitting back (or standing up if Owen’s in charge!) throughout this short, sharp session, as Sharing Minds and LiveTiles present strategies and hacks to help keep your organisation on track with its digital journey, while also staying focused on what a good user experience means for your people; from planning for mass adoption through to ensuring you have enough levers at your disposal to change direction at a moment's notice without incurring scope creep (aka exceeding budgets and resources).

RSVP on Eventbrite.

Follow our up-to-the-minute events and latest news announcements as they happen here.

If you’re keen to see a classmate’s notes from our Brisbane session in May, scroll down to review the Q&A.

Published by:  Sharing Minds Communications Dept.
Date:  Wednesday, 26 July 2017
Contact:  1300 611 359

EVENT WRAP UP: THE BRISBANE BREAKFAST EVENT WITH LIVETILES

MAY 2017 - BRISBANE

On Tuesday 16 May, Microsoft Brisbane graciously hosted our breakfast event with LiveTiles, where we began addressing some key questions around User Engagement and the User Experience within Office 365 and SharePoint.  

One of the huge challenges that organisations of all sizes face is user adoption within their technology deployments. With the recent pivot towards business-driven technology adoption, it was great to hear the experience of Andrew Jolly and Owen Brandt around strategies and tools to empower users to work where they want, when they want, how they want. 

We were delighted at the crowded room of keen attendees, and with numbers of this magnitude vary rarely seen, it's clearly a point of significant interest, Brisbane wide.

Andrew Jolly unpacked the principal issue of maximising user adoption by asking, 'If I build it, will they come? When they come, will they stay?'

A few broad points are below, however if you would like to see his full slide deck we're happy to provide a copy on request.  

• Understanding your users:  Some common reasons for disengagement 
• What is the value of sustainable user engagement?
• Some critical areas within modern information management
  • Competencies
  • Capabilities
  • Funding
• The value of good tools

 

LiveTiles Q&A

What versions of SharePoint does LiveTiles work with?

2013, 2016 and SharePoint Online.

Does it work with both classic mode and modern user experiences?

Yes it does.

Can I use SharePoint Web Parts in conjunction with LiveTiles pages?

Yes, there is a Web Part Zone LiveTile that provides the ability to use SharePoint's native web parts within LiveTiles Pages.

You might also be interested to read this LiveTiles blog article on SharePoint branding without custom coding. 

Can I show and hide tiles based on groups of users or individuals?

Yes, each tile has settings to control visibility by Group.

The User Experience – If modifications are made to a page while someone is browsing the live version of the page, does the end user experience any adverse efforts?

Users viewing pages don't experience any issues while someone is editing the page, should they refresh the page they will then see the new version of the page.

Reporting Capabilities – Does LiveTiles provide any user metrics or statistics, for example when a user has accessed training resources?

Not currently, but there are a number of resources being made available by Microsoft including Office 365 Adoption Pack which provides trends and traffic metrics.

Tile visibility if permissions applied - How do the tiles display if the user doesn’t have permission to view a particular tile?

The editing tools provide options of displaying blank space, or tiles will shift up to fill the space.

Installation – How does LiveTiles install within an Office 365 tenant?

It is an app installed via the app catalogue, and can either be deployed as a tenant wide app or made available to a single site collection.

Licensing model – How is LiveTiles licensed?

Based on employees, but there are a few different models based on category of workers (kiosk workers etc.).

Owen also mentioned the following points that often come up in questions and conversations:

General accessibility – Tiles can be designed to incorporate colours and sizes.  Generally speaking, it is possible to achieve pages to AA standard.

LiveTiles Ideas Portal – LiveTiles has an ideas portal that is open for submissions.  The team looks to this resource to determine prioritisation of the product roadmap.

Product updates and releases – LiveTiles aims to release new features and enhancements every 2 weeks.  

Owen showcased some of the capabilities within the upcoming LiveTiles MX functionality:

• Heatmaps of user activity for pages
• Page improvement suggestions
• A/B testing using Azure analytics

CONGRATULATIONS TO OUR GIVEAWAY WINNER! 

LiveTiles and Sharing Minds are delighted to award our giveaway to Jeff Horn of Parmalat:

• An extended 30 day trial key from LiveTiles (normally 15 day)
• Two free consulting hours from Sharing Minds to demonstrate the LiveTiles functionality in Jeff's workplace, and help with ways to increase user engagement 

For more information:

• Slides are available upon request:  olivia.clark@sharingminds.com.au
• Get in touch with Andrew Jolly, Senior Solution Architect, Sharing Minds
• Get in touch with Owen Brandt, Vice President Asia Pacific, LiveTiles

Published by:  Sharing Minds Communications Dept.
Date:  Monday, 29 May 2017
Contact:  1300 611 359

WELCOME ANDREW JOLLY

We are thrilled to welcome a new player to the Sharing Minds side, who brings a whole new level of expertise and excellence to the Team.  Andrew brings over 10 years of experience in designing and delivering solutions in the Microsoft space, in both the UK and Australia.

With a business focused and humanistic view of information systems, Andrew was acutely aware of the potential of the Microsoft platform early in his journey with the Microsoft SharePoint ecosystem.  Andrew's strongly held view is that information environments, particularly those that support productivity and collaboration, should be designed to be flexible, able to grow and change with the needs of enterprises as they utilise the platform over time.  Designing and planning environments of this nature requires a strong emphasis on understanding the business, the nature of the challenges to be addressed and the ability to guide and support organisations through the change that comes with transforming the way business is done.

When asked about his decision to join the Sharing Minds team, Andrew explained, "I met with CEO Damien Neale a number of times to make sure that I was the right fit for the team and the company -- I think the intention was for these meetings to be interviews, but each time we ended up in deep discussions on the Microsoft roadmap, how clients could extract value from the new world of offerings and where we anticipated challenges along the way.  It didn't take long for me to determine that I shared a similar vision to the team and I was drawn to prospect of getting involved and helping to shape the company and its customer's success".

For further information please contact the Sharing Minds team on 1300 611 359 or info@sharingminds.com.au 

Find your nearest Sharing Minds' office location.

Published by: Sharing Minds Communications Dept.
Date:  Monday, 20 March 2017
Contact:  1300 611 359

WELCOME WILLIAM CORNWILL

We’re delighted to get off to a roaring start in 2017, by announcing the opening of our Melbourne office, and the appointment of our new State Manager for Victoria.  Welcome to the team, William Cornwill.

William is a customer focused IT professional with over 20 years' experience, specialising in technical delivery, sales, presales and team leadership.  William has maintained varying roles from Developer, Analyst, Consultant, Project Manager, Sales and Business Development.  He has a deep technical background in content management systems including web content management, enterprise content, records management and business intelligence solutions.

In his own words, 'I am extremely excited to be commencing my new role with Sharing Minds, one of Australia's premium business productivity specialists'.  We share your enthusiasm, William!

'The opening of our Melbourne office and the appointment of William will allow us to capitalise on opportunities with new clients and provide even greater support to existing clients,' says Damien Neale, Chief Executive Officer, Sharing Minds.

For further information please contact the Sharing Minds team on 1300 611 359 or info@sharingminds.com.au 

Find your nearest Sharing Minds' office location.

Published by:  Sharing Minds Communications Dept.
Date:  Monday, 30 January 2017
Contact:  1300 611 359