Category: saas

Posted on

Update your Mac to keep getting Office application updates

Microsoft’s upcoming November 2020 update has some direct impacts to users running macOS, especially if running macOS 10.31 or earlier. As of November 10, 2020, existing Microsoft 365 for Mac users running macOS 10.13 or earlier will not receive any further Office application updates. If the machine is upgraded to macOS10.14 or later, updates will be allowed to proceed on that computer.

With the Microsoft 365 for Mac November 2020 update, users running macOS must be running 10.14 Mojave or later in order to continue to receive updates for Office applications, and any new installs of Microsoft 365 for Mac will require macOS 10.14 or later.

Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and OneNote are the applications included which will no longer receive updates – including security updates – if the macOS they’re running on is too outdated.

Among the benefits of using Microsoft 365 is that the software is always kept up to date, including enhancements and new features as well as security and safety updates that help keep the software (and the associated data) more secure. You may continue with the older version of macOS, and your Office applications will continue to work. But losing out on updates not only keeps you from benefitting from the most current capabilities of the software (and getting full value from your subscription), but it also puts your security and compliance at risk.

Microsoft 365 applications are continuously updated with new features, connected services and enhancements to security. Modern operating system platforms are necessary to support some of these improvements, requiring users to update their computer operating systems as well as the applications running on them. With the Microsoft 365 November update, Mac users need to be running one of the three most recent versions of macOS to keep their Office applications recent, too.

Make Sense?

J

Posted on

Office 2013 Loses Support for Commercial Office 365 Services

If you’re not on a subscription for your Office desktop applications, you may lose access to your email box and other services.  Why? Because Microsoft announced that, effective October 13th, 2020, Office 365 services (like OneDrive, Hosted Exchange and more) will only support client connectivity from subscription clients or perpetual clients with mainstream support.

Basically this means that Office 2013 is about to be no fun any more.

You won’t be able to use Office 2013 Outlook to connect to your Microsoft-hosted Exchange mailbox, and your Word and Excel won’t connect to OneDrive.  If you are with a hosting provider who supplies your Office licenses as part of the service, cross your fingers and hope that it isn’t Office 2013. It will be pretty frustrating if your Outlook suddenly has problems accessing your Microsoft-hosted mailbox.

Like many other products, a lot of the functionality in the desktop software has been turned into web service and the Microsoft Office applications are a great example. With cloud connectivity being the focus, desktop solutions are more frequently leveraging online resources to extend and expand their capabilities. This also means they’re more frequently turning from one-time software purchases to subscription service.

After October, Microsoft’s ongoing investments in the Office 365 cloud services – including Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, and OneDrive for Business – will be made based on “post-Office 2013 requirements”.  Now is the time to migrate your Office 2013 to Microsoft 365 Apps (formerly Office 365 ProPlus). We highly recommend this move anyway, so businesses can take advantage of using their Office applications seamlessly on Azure servers as well as their local PC desktops and mobile devices.

Users of Office 2016 and Office 2019 have a little more time before their software no longer supports the cloud services. That end date is currently October 2023. You can find the support lifecycle site for Office mainstream support dates here.

It isn’t that Microsoft plans to actively block older Office clients from connecting to Office 365 services. It’s just that older applications may have performance or reliability issues when they try to connect to the constantly-updated cloud services.  Increased security risks are certain and users may even find that they are no longer compliant with certain requirements. The big thing is that Microsoft support will likely not be able to resolve issues related to unsupported connections.

The days of buying software once and running it forever are just about over.

Developers have recognized that cloud services can expand and enhance their solutions in ways that static local installation can’t. For many businesses, it becomes easier and ultimately more efficient to migrate to subscription service for IT platform and software. Azure cloud servers, for example, allow businesses to always have modern infrastructure that is more fault tolerant and agile than on-premises hardware.

Combing these benefits with software that is cloud-connected and always up to date means the business never faces lost productivity or revenues due to outdated systems or lost compatibility with newer solutions.

Make Sense?

J

Posted on

QuickBooks changes and enhancements for 2020: My 2 Favorite Fixes and Let’s Talk Cloud Hosting

Accounting professionals and small businesses worldwide use QuickBooks software to manage business finances. Launching Basic and Pro versions in 2000 and increasing market share from 74% in 2004 to boasting more than 94% in 2008, Intuit continues to successfully serve the needs of small and growing businesses.

Over the past few years, Intuit has focused quite a bit on SaaS and online services, promoting QuickBooks Online Edition, mobile payments and full service payroll as solutions that can meet specific business needs and which drive new customer adoption of the products. While customers may initially attach to QuickBooks because of one of these capabilities, it is the richer functionality found in Pro, Premier and Enterprise which often causes the business to run the desktop editions.

Intuit knows that the desktop editions remain hugely popular, which is why they continue to be updated and supported. And this is also why payments, payroll and other functions supported by the product are handled as integrated service rather than software; It’s a great way to make sure customers upgrade their QuickBooks software regularly, even when it sits on the desktop.

qbwordle

The changes in QuickBooks for 2020 aren’t amazing… it seems like they are more tweaks and adjustments than real feature releases. I’ll list a few of the changes below, but first I’d like to point out the 2 changes that I think might make a big difference.

These are my 2 favorite changes with QB 2020

1. QuickBooks Enterprise 2020:  Landed cost

How did you get along without this before? Manual calculation, that’s how. Landed cost capability gives visibility to actual, complete product costs because it adds freight, duties, insurance and whatever other expenses relate to the purchase. Allocate the costs to item bills and you now have a complete view and tracking of the real cost of bringing in the product.

2. It is Now Easier to Reset the Admin Password

Yay! No more 20 questions! The Admin password for a company file may now be reset without having to enter a bunch of information and answer a lot of questions to verify identity.  The process now asks that the user pick their email address from a drop down list of emails registered with the QuickBooks license. A token is emailed to the address to use in resetting the Admin password.  The key here is to make sure your QuickBooks registration information remains up to date so that an email you can get to is used for this process.

Here’s the list of changes in QB 2020.

You can see more on Intuit’s website.

QuickBooks Desktop Pro, Premier, and Accountant

  • Automated Payment Reminders
  • Automatically add customer PO# to Invoice emails
  • Combine all invoices meant for a single customer into one email
  • Find and open your company files with the addition of a file search option
  • Enhanced Accessibility to improve usability for vision-challenged users
  • Collapse columns in reports
  • View detailed status of direct deposit payroll
  • Smart Help: Press F1 for improved content and search experience

QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions 20.0

Here are the changes specific to QB Enterprise

  • Complete picking and packing operations as part of single workflow
  • Track product landed cost
  • Manage product vendors with primary and alternate vendor selections

Intuit continues to do a fine job of making QuickBooks desktop the most useful and easy-to-use solution for small business finance, and we make it run best in the cloud.

Where QBO (the online edition) might work for very small businesses and those with very limited requirements, the real work gets done in the desktop editions. My team helps make running the QuickBooks desktop editions easier and even more useful in the cloud.

A quality cloud hosting approach can deliver anytime/anywhere access, greater IT resiliency and faster disaster recovery, but only if done properly (note my favor for private tenant hosting rather than multi-tenant or shared hosting). The wrong platform introduces poor performance, limitations on applications and breaks in processes and workflows, and may even compromise security and complicate recovery when something does go wrong.

QuickBooks desktop solutions are the right fit for many small businesses, and these businesses demand mobility, security and flexibility in their IT systems. Providing this is our way of helping make QuickBooks desktop a little bit better.

jmbunnyfeetMake Sense?

J

Posted on

Are You Prepared for SQL Server 2008 End of Support?

 

Everything gets old eventually, and now it is official for SQL Server 2008.

03-2012sean-phone-328-e1377042261105On July 9, 2019, support for SQL Server 2008 and 2008 R2 will end. That means the end of regular security updates and general support for the product. Are you ready?

It took more than 10 years for Microsoft to end support for our beloved SQL 2005 and version 2008 has enjoyed a similarly long reign. But it’s over and you need to get used to the idea. Even more, you need to get upgraded to a new version of SQL so your systems can still be patched, updated and supported. With all the nasty exploits out there, letting your software get out of date is more of a business risk than ever.

With cyberattacks becoming more sophisticated and frequent, running apps and data on unsupported versions can create significant security and compliance risks. The 2008 family of products was great for its time, but we highly recommend upgrading to the most current versions for better performance, efficiency, and regular security updates.

Now is a Good Time to Consider Azure

Microsoft is giving a present to businesses that want to migrate their workloads to Azure. For those customers that elect to take this as an opportunity to move to the Azure cloud, extended security updates will be available for free in Azure for 2008 and 2008 R2 versions of SQL Server and Windows Server to help secure workloads for three more years after the end of support deadline. Moving existing systems to the Azure cloud is a natural step in modernizing the business infrastructure and makes the next step of upgrading to managed database services and/or migrating to new Azure servers a lot easier.

Upgrading isn’t simply a matter of maintaining status quo, either.

Moving to new versions can be a foundation for new strategic capability and increasing overall business potential, powering new decision-making processes fueled by analytics and business intelligence.

The Microsoft Lifecycle Policy offers 10 years of support (5 years of regular support and another 5 years of extended support) for the 2008 and 2008 R2 versions of SQL Server and Windows Server. When the extended support period ends, there will be no patches or security updates, which always creates security risk.

If your business is going to remain competitive, you can’t rely on outdated systems.

Your business is tough enough to manage without having your systems work against you.  Software that prevents you from keeping up with demand, creates risk in compliance and security, and reduces operational performance is not what you need. Collecting, storing and rationalizing data takes power and speed, and securing your growing information warehouse requires vigilance in security and update management.

Use this opportunity to review your platforms and applications, and consider moving your on-premises or co-located systems to the cloud. The upcoming milestone is a great opportunity to transform applications and infrastructure to take advantage of cloud computing and the latest versions of SQL Server and Windows Server.

jmbunnyfeetMake Sense?

J

Posted on

Mobile IT for Contractors and Builders (for every business, actually)

The Trend Is Up For Single-Family Housing Market

Even as lot and labor shortages and other supply side constraints continue to impact builders, and while the cost of building materials continues to rise, the demand for housing continues to increase at a fairly consistent rate. “November’s builder confidence reading is close to a post-recession high-..” NAHB Chairman Granger MacDonald said in a recent release.

Supported by rising homeownership rates and a reduced number of available homes for sale, the trend up is expected to continue.

Increased competition for new business opportunities in the building market require that home builders and developers leverage available technologies and IT resources to improve operational performance and increase the profitability of every project. Applications for better estimating, project and cost management and accounting represent the foundations for information management and supporting the flow of work.Extending workflows to embrace mobile workers and remote offices is the next step to developing an efficient anytime/anywhere business. 92 percent of U.S. construction executives believe that technology will fundamentally change their businesses, and help them bridge the performance gap, according to KPMG’s Make it, or break it – Global Construction Survey 2017 report.

Collaborating while on the go and exchanging ideas and concepts quickly helps businesses be more agile and better-able to meet changing customer needs. Remote and mobile access provides businesses with mobile office options that allow users to get their jobs done no matter where they happen to be.

Business moves at a fast pace and working smarter means implementing the right IT to keep moving up with the demand and creating sustainability for leaner times.

Make Sense?

J

Posted on

The nasty surprises hackers have in store for us in 2018

“Hackers are constantly finding new targets and refining the tools they use to break through cyberdefenses. The following are some significant threats to look out for this year.

More huge data breaches

The cyberattack on the Equifax credit reporting agency in 2017, which led to the theft of Social Security numbers, birth dates, and other data on almost half the U.S. population, was a stark reminder that hackers are thinking big when it comes to targets. ..

Ransomware in the cloud

… The biggest cloud operators, like Google, Amazon, and IBM, have hired some of the brightest minds in digital security, so they won’t be easy to crack. But smaller companies are likely to be more vulnerable, and even a modest breach could lead to a big payday for the hackers involved.

The weaponization of AI

This year will see the emergence of an AI-driven arms race. Security firms and researchers have been using machine-learning models, neural networks, and other AI technologies for a while to better anticipate attacks, and to spot ones already under way. It’s highly likely that hackers are adopting the same technology to strike back…”

Source: The nasty surprises hackers have in store for us in 2018