O365 at UVic

What’s new in Microsoft 365 – you live, you learn, and you upgrade

We are approaching the third birthday of our UVic Microsoft 365 tenant!  We have come a long way since then (remember when we didn’t even have calendars in Teams?!) and we are happy to share that we are continuing to add functionality. 

All UVic students and employees* have been upgraded to an A5 Microsoft license. What does that mean, you ask?  It means that you get access to more Microsoft 365 apps, including: 

Microsoft Sway 

Does your department want to create an internal newsletter but you’re not sure where to start? You may be swayed by Microsoft’s relatively new app, Sway. Sway allows you to easily create and share presentations, interactive reports, newsletters, and more. See Microsoft’s documentation on Getting Started with Sway for more information and examples. 

Microsoft Power BI 

Power BI is a business intelligence (BI) platform that provides users with tools for aggregating, analyzing, visualizing, and sharing data. Power BI’s user interface is fairly intuitive for users familiar with Excel, and its deep integration with other Microsoft products makes it a versatile self-service tool. Some examples of what it can do are: 

  • Enable you to analyze data from multiple sources, like Excel spreadsheets and databases 
  • Create customized dashboards for your department team or research group 
  • Integrate with data models created with R programming language 
  • Publish data visualization reports that refresh automatically to stay up-to-date 

screenshot of power BI dashboard

Please note that Power BI is only available to UVic employees. See Microsoft’s documentation on Getting Started with Power BI for more information and tutorials.  

Microsoft Power Automate 

Are you looking for a way to pull Microsoft Form responses into a Microsoft List, or maybe one of your Microsoft teams? Power Automate may be the tool for you, as it helps you create automated workflows between Microsoft 365 apps and services. Some examples of what it can do are: 

  • Automate business processes 
  • Send automatic reminders for past due tasks 
  • Move business data between systems on a schedule 
  • Connect to every Microsoft 365 service 

screenshot of power automate page

See Microsoft’s documentation on Power Automate for more information.  

 

As always, if you have any questions about these new apps, please reach out to your Desktop Support Services consultant, your department IT support, or the Computer Help Desk.