Last month, OIT’s Microsoft Office Specialist program showcased SMU’s successes in bringing certification to campus at CERTIFIED, Certiport’s annual conference. The conference brings together educators and certification leaders from across the country. Laurene Klassen, Director of IT Training & Communications and CERTIFIED Ambassador, was able to share those wins with other educators and administrators in Grapevine, Texas, where this year’s conference was held. Continue reading SMU Showcases Microsoft Certification Model at National Conference
Category: Microsoft
Calendaring Best Practices for New Outlook
Microsoft is continuing to develop new features for the Office Suite, including Outlook. While these changes offer several improvements, there have been reports of side effects that may impact calendar synchronization across multiple platforms. Microsoft has released a set of best practices for calendar management, which we have compiled into a quick handout. It includes recommended approaches to recurring appointments, attachments, and delegation. Continue reading Calendaring Best Practices for New Outlook
Using Microsoft Copilot in Your Everyday Work
Many staff assume that Microsoft Copilot is off-limits without a premium license, but that’s just not the case. If you haven’t explored Microsoft’s AI tool yet, you may want to give it a spin. While I’m not a fan of Copilot for image generation, I’ve found it incredibly helpful for making meeting minutes more concise, drafting training materials, brainstorming ideas, and a whole host of other tasks. It’s the assistant I didn’t know I needed to help me work more efficiently. Continue reading Using Microsoft Copilot in Your Everyday Work
Quick Tip: Using Outlook Reactions
In more recent versions of Microsoft Outlook you may have noticed several new features. You may also have noticed that you’ll occasionally see emoji reactions on some messages in your inbox, like this:

What’s all this about? Outlook (both the desktop and web versions) have had the ability to “react” to messages as a quick reply for a good while now, and I’d like to show you the basics of how they work. Continue reading Quick Tip: Using Outlook Reactions
Understanding Calendar Delegation in Microsoft Outlook Due to Recent Changes
Calendar delegation in Microsoft Outlook enables employees to manage meetings and events for leaders across campus. For decades, Microsoft used a protocol called MAPI to synchronize calendars across various clients, devices, and delegates. However, around 2015, Microsoft introduced a new protocol for calendar delegation called REST, which Microsoft enabled as the default protocol in 2022.
Since the change in 2022, Continue reading Understanding Calendar Delegation in Microsoft Outlook Due to Recent Changes