Visit Derek’s web site dedicated to Windows Auditing and Security Tools, articles, books, forums, and more Contents of a Security Template All security templates are created equal. This means that each one contains potentially hundreds of settings that can control security on a target computer. Apr 06, 2010 Published: April 6, 2010| Updated: January 28, 2013 What’s New. The Windows Server 2008 Security Baseline is updated for Windows Server 2008. Oct 11, 2009 How to modify, import and export local security templates. Local security templates are great ways to set default security settings or policies. Nov 06, 2012 Does anyone know where there are any templates to work with besides the 3 that come on windows 2008, I am setting up security for our environment and I. The latest version, MBSA 2.2, includes support for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 machines. Security templates are the oldest Microsoft security management tool; Microsoft first included them in Windows NT. Administrators can use. Security templates to configure the security-related settings of. For all of the new security templates that are created, every setting is “Not configured” by default. This means that the security template does not change the settings on the target computer. However, with just a couple of clicks, you can easily configure many security settings that can change many computers at one time. As we analyze what a security template is, we need to understand that it is really a portion of a GPO. If you look at Figure 1, it shows a typical Local GPO security settings. Typical Local GPO showing the security settings for a computer. Now, look at Figure 2, which is a full list of the security template. Typical security template structure. As you can see, there is a direct correlation between the two. The reason for this is that a security template is nothing more than a text based file that can update all of these security settings in a GPO. There are some other subfolders and details under each section of the security, which we take a look at here. Account Policy The account policy section is really three groups of settings in one. The account policies control user passwords and when the user forgets their password at logon. • Password Policy – This configures the password itself, with regard to validity period, length of password, and complexity of the password. • Account Lockout policy – This configures how the password will react when the user fails to input their correct password multiple times. • Kerberos Policy – This controls the Kerberos ticketing for the domain communication. This is ONLY available for GPOs that are linked to the domain level. User Rights User rights control access to what a user and/or group can do on a computer. The user rights control the entire computer that it is configuring, not just a portion of it. User rights control administrative privileges such as logging on locally, backing up files, and changing the system time. The ability to control user rights in a security template breaks the old model where each computer needed to be configured individually to control user rights. Event Log The inclusion of event log settings in a security template adds a new dimension to the ability to control all computers’ centrally. In the past, the only way to ensure that the three default logs (application, system, and security) were configured properly was to configure each server separately. These settings that can be made to control the size of the log file, the retention method of the log file, and the number of days to retain the log, and whether or not the guests group can access the security log. Restricted Groups Restricted groups are designed to control the members of a group, either at the domain level or in the local SAM of domain members. Restricted groups can be confusing and have strange results. Therefore, it is suggested that you thoroughly test your desired results before your roll them out into production. The Restricted groups setting should be combined with the “Process even if the Group Policy objects have not changed” setting. This will keep the membership of the groups consistent, even if a local administrator decides to add more members to the group without approval. One more thing to keep in mind with regard to restricted groups is that you can’t combine different group settings from multiple security templates. This occurs when you import different security templates into GPOs linked to different levels in Active Directory. The result is that the last GPO and restricted group will be configured, removing all other group modifications in previously applied GPOs. System Services Before Active Directory and GPOs, you had to configure system services on each computer individually. Then, with the advent of GPOs, you could configure system services within the GPO to apply to multiple computers in a consistent manner. With security templates, you can configure the system services offline, test them, then roll them out with a GPO. You can control many aspects of System Services by using security templates. Here are the options that you can configure for Services from a GPO: • Startup mode – You can configure Automatic, Manual, or Disabled. • ACL – Each service has an ACL, even though you can’t see this from the Service itself. The GPO opens up this option. You can configure users or groups to have access to Start, Stop, Manage, etc each service. The configuration of the security template with regard to system services is unique. Depending on which computer you use to configure the security template will dictate which system services are available in the interface to configure. For example, if you configure the security template from a Windows XP Professional computer that has a default installation, you won’t be able to configure certain services in the security template such as IIS and File Replication Service. The solution to this problem is to create and manage security templates from computers that have all of the necessary services that you need to configure on the target computers. File and Registry permissions You can configure both the ACL and SACL for both files and Registry keys through the security templates. This gives you ultimate control over every file and Registry key, since the interface allows for you to browse for the file and key you want to control. You also control how the permissions act with the other subfolders and files and subkeys in the hierarchical structure of the file system or Registry. These settings include: •. Do not allow permissions on this file or folder to be replaced The target that you configure in these settings does need to exist or the target computer, or the setting might cause other settings to fail. Built-in security templates There are plenty of built-in security templates that you can choose from. These templates are categorized for, servers, and workstations. These security templates have default settings which have been designed by Microsoft. You can find all of these security templates in the C: Windows Security Templates folder. Here is a list of the security templates that you will find in this folder. Setup security.inf – This is used to reapply the default security settings of a freshly installed computer. Summary As you can see by this basic overview of security templates, they are used to centralize security on many computers at one time. The breadth that a security template covers is rather large, providing control over some of the most important security settings on any computer. With Microsoft providing you with a default set of security templates that can be used immediately or as a starting place, you can begin to centralize the security configurations immediately.
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Six years after launching, Microsoft Office 365 has become the most popular cloud- based productivity suite in the new World of Work. Software applications that give employees a leg up and help in the workplace have become an essential part in every organization. Over 60 million monthly commercial customers (and counting) choose to rely on some sort of Office product or service, including Office 365. During a keynote, Microsoft announced it has seen a whopping 340 million downloads of its Office Mobile apps. That’s a lot of users creating a lot of business documents and sending a lot of emails on the go. That sounds incredibly convenient and it is. Yet, in today’s fast-paced business world, we all know how it goes: designing business documents from step one for every new opportunity can quickly turn into a pesky activity wasting valuable time resources that could be spent on completing more business-crucial tasks. 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To use a template installed in your Microsoft Office Word software program, will give you instructions on how to create and print labels. For Libreoffice and openoffice. Applies To: Project Server 2007 A status report is a narrative description from team members about whatever subjects are relevant to your organization. When you set up a new status report for your team, you define what sections it will contain, who should fill it out, and how frequently it should be submitted. When team members go to the Status Reports page, they can enter their relevant status information by using the status report that you created. • Under Resources, click Status Reports. • Click New, and then click New Request. • On the Status Report Request page, enter the information that you want to appear on your team's status reports, including: • The title of the report. Tip: Since team members may see multiple status report requests, it is a good idea to include the department or project name in the status report title. • The frequency with which you want the reports to be filled out and submitted. • The names of the resources on your team who should fill out the report. • The topics (sections) that you want your team members to report on. Your team members' new status report request appears under the Requests section on the Status Reports page. Project Web Access automatically generates the first status report request on the start date that you specify when you set up the report. Thereafter, status report requests are generated on the first day of each reporting period. Note: To edit a status report that you previously set up, under the Request section, select the name of the status report, and then click Edit Request. To view the team members' responses to the status report, click View Responses. Why can't I perform some actions in Microsoft Office Project Web Access? Depending on the permissions settings you used to log on to Project Web Access, you may not be able to see or use certain features. Also, what you see on some pages may differ from what is documented if your server administrator customized Project Web Access and did not customize the Help to match. The Need for a Written Status Report Even if your supervisor, manager or client (let’s just use ‘manager’) only asks for an oral report, it is a good practice to create a anyway, if only for your records. You never know when you are going to be asked a question about what you did and when or when you spoke with so-and-so or when you requested something. Since everything that happens on a project doesn’t make it into your electronic calendar, a status report is as good a place as any to document project activities. Preparing a hard copy of your: • Keeps you focused on your progress as well as project deadline • Creates a written record of what you reported for the week, in case you need to refer to it later • Helps you stay on track in the status meeting To help you remember what you did, make quick notes during the week regarding your production, any unscheduled meetings you attended, the problems you solved, the new issues you uncovered, and the people who helped you. Sample MS Word Status Report Form I designed this when I worked for a company that didn’t ask for status reports, neither written or verbal. For six months I worked by myself as a lone writer and Web designer. I created these reports and filled them out because I wanted to document what I was doing week after week. Even though no one asked for them, I attached a hard copy of the status report to my monthly invoice. ------------------------------------------- Name Reporting Date Project Name / Number Project Due Date Project Deliverable Description Main Contact Secondary Contact ____________ number of pages written or revised ____________ number of screenshots taken, revised, resized and placed ____________ number of HTML pages created SME input received from ________________________ SME input needed from _________________________ Highlights of work accomplished this week Highlights of work to be accomplished next week Any complications or setbacks dealt with this week? Select the statement that best describes the current status of my work on this project: a. I am right where I’m expected to be at this point b. I am slightly behind, but expect to make up the time by c. I am ahead of schedule d. I am behind schedule and need help with _________________________ ------------------------------------------- Most of the time I could get this report onto one page, sometimes one and a half. A status report template is a document which finally tells us about any situation for a particular time period either it is a cash status report or a project status. Construct daily reports more precisely via our daily report templates. One can download daily report templates in all formats such as in Microsoft word, Microsoft. **Be sure to read the entire series on the AD Upgrade** • • • —————————————————————————————————————- If you’ve been managing an Active Directory infrastructure for the last 5-10 years, you might have noticed that the pace of change has rapidly increased. After surviving the migrations from Windows NT to Windows 2000 and then Windows 2003, we settled into a nice lull for about 5 years. Suddenly Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows Server 2012 released in about a four year time frame. Now the rumors around the web are hinting at another new version of Windows. As a lover of technology, all this new stuff is exciting. As a support professional who has to help customers implement all this change, I can understand that you may feel overwhelmed. Can you imagine trying to manage and upgrade an AD infrastructure that has domain controllers running a mix of one/more/all of the following: Server 2003, Server 2008, Server 2008 R2 and Server 2012? Now is the time to start planning and build your roadmap for moving forward. Don’t worry, because we’re here to help. Computer objects, adding new, 306–307 Computing Center Management System (CCMS), 542 Conf.adm template, 401 Configuration containers, 491. See also DNS namespaces Control Panel container, 511 convergence, network, 13–14 cost-benefit analysis,Active Directory project, 50–51, 50–52 budgeting and, 63–64. Summary: NPC utilizes a Microsoft product, Active Directory. The total cost of this project, which consists of the Statement of Work and software purchase, is. Active Directory Migration and Standardization. A choice might be Microsoft's ADMT or QMM by Quest. FirstAttribute wins project 'Active Directory Redesign'. AskPFEPlat has already given you a great look. Greg’s even given you some practical information on. What we’re going to deliver to you now (and in some soon-to-follow blogs), is everything you need to know about the upgrade process in general as well as some great specifics. I know that there is already and elsewhere on the internet. What we have to offer is comprehensive and practical information based on our experiences helping hundreds of customers through this process. An Overview of the Process Let’s start by talking about a framework to manage the process. At the end of the day, it is simple: Start by assessing where you are today with your Active Directory infrastructure. Specifically: • Document your current Architecture, Design and Sizing. Where, how many and how big are your current domain controllers? • Research and document your dependents. Which applications in your environment depend on AD? What applications run the business, and what dependency, if any, do they have on Active Directory? • Discover and document your current Domain Controllers configuration. Any non-default configurations that you need to carry forward? • Research the changes to the default OS behavior in the “new” versions of Windows. Do you know what these are, and how they might affect you? • Inventory other applications/services that are running on your DCs. Don’t forget that these might need to be migrated as your old DCs disappear. Plan Your Upgrade Now think about where you’re going, and what you have to do to get there. Use your assessment data to drive the plans. Specifically: • Decide which version of Windows Server you are heading for – Windows Server 2012? • Determine whether you are ready for this new version of Windows. Do you have a tried and tested build? • Document your desired architecture. Are you going to carry your current architecture forward? Do you have the right number of DCs in the right place of the right capacity? • Decide if the type of DC you deploy will change. What about Read-Only DCs, or Virtual DCs? Should they play a role in your new infrastructure? • Research which of your dependents are compatible with these new types of Domain Controllers. • Determine which application/client dependents need to be tested against new DCs. • Plan to manage the behavior changes in the default configuration of the new the OS. Will you roll these changes back (can you roll them back?), roll these changes forward before you deploy new DCs, or let them trickle in as new DCs are deployed? • Sequence the introduction of new DCs. Where will you start, and how quickly will you introduce them? • Sequence the retirement of old DCs. How will you migrate “other” services off of these DCs? Do you need to move IP addresses (or hostnames) from old DCs to new DCs? Test Ideally, you test every proposed change. Practically, you need to determine what you must test and what you can test, and how you will test. In some cases you will test in a lab, in other cases you may test in production (with a pilot or limited deployment, for example). • If you haven’t already introduced the new OS into production elsewhere, test your server build for the new OS. • and other changes made to the Active Directory database (aka ADPREP), especially since these are irreversible. • Decide which applications or clients that depend on Active Directory need to be tested. • Test your migration plan for other services like DHCP, WINS, or IAS that may be running on your current DCs. Deploy Now that you’ve done your homework, phase your deployment into stages. Some of the milestones you will set, include: • Preparing the Active Directory database for the new DCs (aka ADPREP). • Deploying the first Domain Controller running the new OS. • Deploying additional Domain Controllers and retiring old DCs. • Deploying the final new DC, and retiring the last old DC. • and implementing new features. I know this is a lot to take in, and we’re not sharing technical details here. However, once you have the framework for the upgrade process, you just have to fill in the blanks. Stay tuned for future blogs that will cover these phases in much more detail. Doug “I’ll drag you along the AD upgrade, Kicking and Screaming” Symalla. Good post Doug, I'd add even before the Assessing phase there is the 'Selling/Buy-Off' phase. Compile a list of why the organization should go to 2012 (or any new version). What are the benefits, what will the organization gain? Projects like this are much easier once you have management sign on to the project. Sometimes I see people trying to upgrade for the sake of upgrading without giving upper management a good reason as to why they should allocate money, time, and resources to a big project. @David The upgrade from Windows Server 2008 or Server 2008 R2 to Windows Server 2012 is a bit more 'complicated' (not technically complicated, but a more nuanced decision is required). On the upside: -Server 2012 is a much better stand-alone OS. Things that jump to the top of my head are better remote management, PowerShell Cmdlets and the easy transition to/from Server Core. -On the AD side, specifically, Server 2012 offers (among other things) better protection for Virtual DCs (if hypervisor supports VMGenID), group managed service accounts, easier delegation, better/stronger/faster Kerberos and support for Dynamic Access Control. On the downside: -It takes resources -May be hard to justify another upgrade if you just finished the upgrade to 2008. 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The necessity to recover individual emails instead the whole mailbox is usually the decision point when seeking for backup/recovery solution for MS Exchange. Altaro VM backup –. Check it out! The free version can backup just 2 VMs per host. All interesting features are in the more advanced, Unlimited edition. But you can start with the free one. The Free edition does not provide offsite backups, file level restores or a possibility to restore on a different host either. Check the edition compare and pricing. Vembu Free Edition – Vembu Technologies releasing new Vembu VM Backup Suite Free Edition for VMware, Hyper-V, KVM and physical environments. The latest release of their software is v3.7. We have reviewed one of the previous releases of Vembu product here –. The free product compared to the full, licensed product, does NOT allow you to use, Scheduler, Forever Incremental/reverse incremental, Retention policies, Reconfigure backup job(s), Replication, Failover and Failback,, Disk level recovery, Automated Backup verification, Offsite DR Replication; Cloud DR Replication; WAN acceleration, Bandwidth throttling. Interested in Vembu? Check out their website and Free SoftEther VPN Server – The product consists of several modules (server, client, bridge) and is available for Windows (including ARM machines), Linux and MacOS, or Android/iPAD. I’m usually not a much into a VPN software solutions, but this one seems to be quite different. It’s built by Japanese university of Tsukuba and covers multiple use cases and has some built-in utilities for Dynamic DNS (no need for external IP being Fixed IP) and free Microsoft Azure VPN. • Free OpenSource Software • Resistance to highly-restricted firewalls. • Windows, Linux, Mac, Android, iPhone, iPad and Windows Mobile • SSL-VPN (HTTPS) and 6 major VPN protocols (OpenVPN, IPsec, L2TP, MS-SSTP, L2TPv3 and EtherIP) are all supported as VPN tunneling underlay protocols. Read more Snapwatcher for VMware – snapshot detection for VMware infrastructure. Can detect invalid, broken snapshots. Easy to install the app. Which can also fix and delete broken snapshots from within the console. It’s possible to hook several vCenter servers and have the whole environment being monitored. Download from • Monitor snapshots across VMware infrastructure – can connect to multiple vCenters at a time to give you an overview of snapshots usage, size, history • Gain precious space on your storage systems – Provides Top 5 by size, to find the most space taking snapshots from within your infrastructure. • Fixing Broken Snapshots – deletes a broken, old and invalid snapshots with a single click to gain space. • Delete VM Snapshots within the main console – several vCenter servers or individual ESXi hosts can be managed with single pane of glass LPAR2RRD – The tool offers you end-to-end views of your server environment and can save you significant money in operation monitoring and by predicting utilization bottlenecks in your virtualized environment. You can also generate policy-based alerts, provide capacity reports and forecasting data. It is Free Performance and monitoring tool distributed via GNU v3. For customers under support, there is distributed the enterprise edition with additional. (paid support). The tool supports IBM Power Systems™ and VMware™ virtualization platforms. It is agent-less (it receives everything from the management stations like vCenter or HMC). The collected data set can be extended with data provided by the OS Agents or NMON files. The product can be installed on Linux, Unix or AIX systems. Or you can use VMware or Microsoft Hyper-V. PoshPAIG – free utility called PoshPAIG ( PowerShell Audit Installation GUI) is developed and maintained by Boe Prox. Download from the product. The tool allows you to Audit installed patches, Install patches remotely. The possibility to export the results to CSV files is also included. This very interesting feature for doing PowerShell Audit and Patch Installation on windows server systems, where you need to gather a list of patches deployed etc. You can also remote – reboot the managed servers. Read my article on how to install and use this tool. Veeam Endpoint Backup – destined for physical PCs/ laptops. Can do a volume or file level backups. The restore of Full PC/ laptop or individual files is possible. The product is free and will stay free. Recently updated to support Windows 10, the of partition when restoring option and Universal restore (to dissimilar hardware) options enhancements. Adds e-mail reports or possibility to eject the USB disk after backup – additional protection against Ransomware! Veeam Endpoint Backup is destined to protect physical computers/laptops by creating image level backups (note: can also do file level backup but is slower) where the 1st backup is Full and the next backups are incremental. Veeam FastSCP for Microsoft Azure – Veeam FastSCP for Microsoft Azure is meant to be used by developers willing to copy a file to and from VMs running in Microsoft Azure. So you can copy files to and from the inside of a VM, which is normally not so fast, and it’s painful if, for example, you do it through RDP. It’s standalone and Free tool from Veeam. No integration with other software products from Veeam. Check the detailed post and download link Extrasphere App – Migration of VMDKs, VMs between hosts without vCenter (even with Free ESXi Hypervisor) • VM disks migration to another datastore located on the same host (NO downtime). Basically, a storage vmotion, without vCenter, without svmotion license • VM migration to another standalone host using shared storage (NFS) – suspend/resume used • VM migration changing both host and datastore – suspend/resume used Get the App from website and (with video) about the utility. —————————————————————– Lightweight VMs for Home lab and Nested lab MicroCore Linux (with open-source VMware Tools) – source: Mike Laverick’s blog. The author is who put it together. Size: 64MB RAM/SCSI HD (LSI Logic) 1GB (Thinly Provisioned) Root Account Password: root SSH account: VMware1! SSH password: VMware1! MicroCore Linux – in OVA Format VMware OS Optimization tool – The tool has been newly updated. It’s fast utility which can optimize different settings which slowing down the VDI desktops when using default settings only. Many services, registry settings, scheduled tasks etc. The latest release has updated templates for Windows 7/8/10/Server – based on VMware’s OS Optimization Guide, New templates for Windows 2008/2012 RDSH servers for use as a desktop, Single portal EXE design for ease of deployment and distribution, Combination of Remote and Local tools into one tool, Better template management, with built-in and user-definable templates, Results report export feature. Various bug fixes, usability enhancements, and GUI layout updates. Get your copy of VMware Os Optimization utility. Free Backup Tool for Desktop OS – software from Keriver is able to do a full, incremental or differential images of the underlying OS. If you look for a tool which does provide some kind of central management console, this is not the tool you should be looking for. It’s a rather simple tool for few individual desktops. In the past, I’ve been using the well-known names like Norton Ghost or Acronis, which are a long time being on the market, but today I stumbled through this too and I thought that it’s worth sharing VDI calculator – VDI calculator allows is used for VDI projects for sizing and calculating VDI environments. This tool which was previously Flash-based online tool can be now executed offline, without an internet connection. Provided as a free tool online, by Andre Leibovici – www.myvirtualcloud.net. It helps to do calculations concerning the sizing of your VMware View Infrastructure. The VDI calculator is targeted for VMware View designs, however, you can use the tool for any VDI running on top of the vSphere infrastructure. The latest update includes the metrics for VMware Storage Accelerator – Content Read Based Cache (CRBC). Starwind Starwind Virtual SAN – Free version (limited to 2 hosts). The free version of offers some good possibilities: Data Deduplication, Unlimited storage capacity & an unlimited number of supported concurrent iSCSI connections. Full Production use is allowed. StarWind Virtual SAN Free is completely unrestricted: it is allowed for production use, supports all usage scenarios of the commercial version, has a perpetual license, and is not feature- or functionality-limited version of. • No Capacity Restrictions – you can use as many capacities for your mirrors, as you like (previously restricted) • No Scalability Restrictions – as many nodes as you like. (previously limited to 2-nodes only) • No Time Limit on License – The Free license if for life. After 30 days, the only management option you’ll have is PowerShell or CLI. • Production use – can be used in production, but if anything goes wrong, you will only find support through community forums. • PowerShell Scripts – StarWind Virtual SAN Free is shipped with a set of ready to use PowerShell scripts allowing users to quickly deploy the Virtual SAN infrastructure. • No StarWind Support – only community-based support. • StarWind HA – The shared Logical Unit is basically “mirrored” between the hosts, maintaining data integrity and continuous operation even if one or more nodes fail. Every active host acts as a storage controller and every Logical Unit has duplicated or triplicated data back-end. • No virtual tape library VTL as on the paid version. Caching – a multi-level cache mechanism can use gigabytes of RAM and converts it into extremely fast level 1 write-back or write-through cache. Continuous Data Protection and Snapshots that are completely compatible with VSS (Volume Snapshot Services). ISCSI boot is fully supported with iSCSI boot capable NIC. Download your copy of. Check out my articles and. Check the latest PowerShell Plus 4.7 – professional tool from Idera. There is a free tool from Idera which has appeared recently on my radar, and even if I’m not a PowerShell guru, this tool might make me “like” the PowerShell thingy a bit more than usual. Read my detailed article about PowerShell Plus 4.7. Download Free PowerShell Plus 4.7. Microsoft It’s fairly difficult to get SQL Express with or without the management studio, with 3 different versions (2008, 2012 and 2014.). I gathered the links to this 6 direct downloads links (x64 bit versions only!!) SQL Server (Express version) with or without Management Studio – direct Download links: • 2008R2 SP2 –. • 2014 – or • 2016 – SQL Express 2016 or () • 2017 – SQL Express 2017 After downloading the small installer, execute it and chose Download Media option. (see bellow) Uninstall Office 2016, Office 2013, or Office 365 Using the Easy Fix Tool The tool is in CAB format and you can use this fix from Microsoft to uninstall Office from a central location on a single PC or multiple PCs at once. WSUS Offline Update Free Utility Allows “Offline” patching of Windows systems. Client and server OS are supported. There is also patches for Microsft Office and in different languages. • Client OS – Windows 7, 8, 10 patches • Server OS – Windows Server 2008 R2, 2012, 2012R2 or 2016 patches • Office – where there are 2010, 2013, 2016 with different languages • Legacy products – Vista, Server 2008, Office 2007 • Options to verify downloaded Updates • C++ Runtime libraries and.NET • Microsoft Security Essentials • Windows Defender definitions • Create ISO (or USB) image – per selected product and language OR per selected language • Copy to directory – this option allows you to copy the patches elsewhere. • Option to specify your local WSUS server is handy too where you can save your time and just “collect” what you need from your WSUS server running on your LAN. Windows Management Framework 5.0 Has updates to Windows PowerShell, Windows PowerShell Desired State Configuration (DSC), Windows Remote Management (WinRM), Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI). • Download the correct package for your operating system and architecture from. The following architectures are supported. • Windows Server 2012 R2 • x64: W2K12R2-KB3094174-x64.msu • Windows Server 2012 • x64: W2K12-KB3094175-x64.msu • Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 • x64: W2K8R2-KB3094176-x64.msu • Windows 8.1 • x64: W2K12R2-KB3094174-x64.msu • x86: Win8.1-KB3094174-x86.msu • Windows 7 SP1 • x64: W2K8R2-KB3094176-x64.msu • x86: Win7-KB3094176-x86.msu • Close all Windows PowerShell windows. • Instructions specific to Windows 7 SP1 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 • Ensure following prerequisites have been met: • Latest service pack is installed. • is installed. • WinRM Dependency: • Windows PowerShell Desired State Configuration (DSC) depends on WinRM. WinRM is not enabled by default on Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. To enable WinRM, in a Windows PowerShell elevated session, run Set-WSManQuickConfig. Core Configurator 2.0 – free config tool for Windows Server 2008R2 Core – works with Windows Server 2008R2 x64 core only. The tool is provided as an ISO, so to run the Core Configurator 2.0 just mount the ISO and run Start_CoreConfig.wsf. Here is the link to the developer’s page: VMware (This tool is getting old). VCenter Pre-Upgrade Checker – The VMware vCenter Pre-Upgrade Checker not only detects problems but also miss-configuration and can avoid performance problems after the upgrade. The tool produces an output single zip file. Inside of this zip file, there is the database signature file and also the message log from running the upgrade checker tool. AOMEI PE Builder – Supported on Windows 7/8 based systems (x32 or x64) but also on Windows Server 2008/2012 based systems. The server platform support is a good thing in the case that you’re system administrator and maintaining physical server boxes. It allows creating Win PE bootable environment without installing Microsoft WAIK. The tool has also some built-in tools and additionally, you can add your own utilities very easy which gets exported to the final ISO. Note: You can install it only on Win 7/8 (not 8.1) or server 2008/2012 (not R2). But once created you can use it to boot systems from windows XP/2000/Vista/7/8/8.1 and Server 2000/2003/. WinDirStat – Windows Directory Statistics. This free software helps you to find out where all your disk space has gone. It is free and open-source graphical disk usage analyzer for Microsoft Windows. We have previously reported on a different, but similar, software called which has also a paid alternative. WinDirStat was re-programmed for Windows from Linux by Bernhard Seifert. The original program is based on Stefan Hundhammer’s program KDirStat. The software is distributed under GNU General Public License v2. Depending which user you are, your Windows OS can become slower and slower over time and is eating more and more disk space. One day you might wonder Where all my disk space is gone? The files can be literally anywhere, usually hidden in sub-directories. To check all different sub-trees and folders manually and see if there are some high capacity files, it’s impossible. One would have to open and collapse hundreds or thousands of directories. Download Page of. PuTTyTray – It’s a free tool which can be personalized and which is cool. One of the personalization possibilities is, as you can imagine and according to its name, to have it running in Windows tray with eventually an option to open the window with a simple click. The personalizations can be done via Right clicking the app > Change settings. Receipts can be outlined in Microsoft Word for easy use and access. Since there are templates readymade for receipts, this makes the work lesser and time saving. Knowing that receipts are important for both seller and buyer for it serves as a record of details of every transaction done. Receipt Format Template in Word Receipt Template in Google Docs, iPages Receipt Template Word Free Receipt Template > Sample Receipt Template Sample Receipt Template in Word Simple Receipt Template in Pages for Mac Best Sample Receipt Generators – Are you looking to draft receipts and need ideas on the right format? You can go for sample receipt template samples over the web that will help you with ready-made receipt structures that are free to download. You can modify these online receipt templates just the way you wish to. > Donation Receipt Template Donation receipts are offered to donors on part of the charities. Does your charity need to prepare such receipts for an upcoming fundraising event? Well, in that case, you can go for the online donation receipt template options which come up with a ready made and customization free download receipt structure. Donation Receipt Template in Word Donation Receipt Letter Non Profit Donation Receipt – > Rental Receipt Template If you run a rental agency say for cars or equipment, you would have to extend a rental receipt to your clients when they pay you the rental charge. Sales receipt (Sienna design) Word Sales receipt (Rust design) Word Sales invoice (Rust design) Word Sales receipt (Green design) Word Service invoice (Green design) Word Sales receipt (Blue Border design) Word Receipt (starting number 1001, 3 per page) Word Donation receipt Word. Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint File Formats. MS Word Receipt Template Software. MS Word Receipt Template Software $19.99. These free receipt templates can be opened up in Microsoft Word or another word processing program and be customized with your own information. Templates; Receipts. Microsoft in education; Office for students; Office 365 for schools; Deals for students & educators; Microsoft Azure in education; Enterprise. Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint File Formats. MS Word Receipt Template Software. MS Word Receipt Template Software $19.99. If you need help in creating such receipts, you can go for a rental receipt template available online which offers a readymade structure that can be modified easily. Rent Receipt Template in Google Docs House Rent Receipt Rent Receipt > Car Sale Receipt Template If you have a car sale dealership you would need to offer receipts to your customers whenever they pay the agreed buying sum or down payment. In case you need assistance in creating these receipts fast, the best way is to go for pre-designed and customizable car sale receipt template samples online. Car Sale Receipt Template in Word Car Bill of sale > Cash Receipt Template Cash receipt is one of the types of receipts we encounter every purchase of items, goods or services to a business dealer or company seller. As the term implies cash means the amount of money given by the customer to the seller in the transaction made between them. Thus, templates for receipts just like cash is useful to have in order to keep track, provides easy access and validate the amount of money received from different clients at the end of the day. Cash Receipt Template in Google Docs Cash Receipt Format Cash Receipt Form > Sales Receipt Template Sales receipt serves as a proof of purchasing an item or service made by the buyer to the seller. It is an official document that must be carefully recorded. Sales receipt templates is beneficial to make a sales receipt easily and fast. Also these templates are readily available in Microsoft Word or Excel format. Sales Receipt Template in Word, iPages Sample Sales Receipt Template in Google Docs Printable Sales Receipt Template > Delivery Receipt Template Shipping of items or products to the address specified by the customer must have a prepared receipt form. This is known as delivery receipt wherein the purpose is to let the receiver of the purchased item delivered sign the receipt as a documentation that the item was brought already to the customer. Since there are samples displayed in the website using a template, it helps the company to make a proper delivery receipt as part of keeping record purposes. Delivery Receipt Template in Word > Blank Receipt Template Do you have to create a receipt? It could be for your tenants or your store. To make your work simpler, you can opt for an online blank receipt template that arrives with a readymade receipt structure that you can easily modify as per your needed requirements. You will get such templates for free. Blank Receipt Template in Google Docs Blank Receipt For Sale of Vehicle – > Hotel Receipt Template When you go on a holiday or vacation, you’d obviously look for a hotel stay. Irrespective of your stay’s length you’d like to be given a hotel receipt that contains details and costs of all the services the hotel has meted out to you from the day of your check-in until the check-out. Check out receipt templates which you could use in hotels. Hotel Receipt Template in Pages for Mac Sample Hotel Receipt Template in Google Docs Hotel Receipt Format > Taxi Receipt Template A person who travel agency with the use of a transportation vehicle such as taxi needs to receive a receipt form from the driver or owner of the business transportation. On the other hand, the receipt form serves as a transaction document for the owner of the taxi. Receipts for taxi can be found as one of the samples of template in the website, where it is very easy to create a taxi receipt and allows to customize the format and layout. Taxi Receipt Template in Word > Daycare Receipt Template A daycare receipt is basically a document which is used by daycare facilities to record the services rendered to each and every customer. An original copy of the receipt is handed over to a customer, while the carbon copy of the same stays with the daycare centre. Having a receipt-system ensures that there is record of every transaction that has taken place. If you reckon you need a receipt template to use in your daycare unit, this is the place ice. Daycare Receipt Template in iPages > Deposit Receipt Template Deposit receipt can be seen mostly in financial institutions such as bank, loan firm or even the property owner where they use this kind of receipt after the customer paid the amount which is for deposit transaction. The receipt template for deposit can be very helpful to provide format and layout to create a receipt according to the business type. This receipt will then be given to the client as a proof and assurance that there is a settlement of money made for deposit. Deposit Receipt Template in Google Docs Security Deposit Refund Receipt – > Generic Receipt Template Generic Receipt Template is used by any business either small or large company owned for the purpose of creating and preparing a well content generic receipt for every deals regarding business projects, works and assignments. It is needed by the company for regular basis and it is considered as universal receipt where all transaction details are stated. General Receipt Template in Word Generic Receipt Template > Restaurant Receipt Template Restaurant management prepares a receipt after the service given to the customer for availing the restaurant menu list. This implies that the customer purchased a service from the restaurant and received a receipt after paying the total cost. With the help of a receipt template, it makes the workload of the restaurant lessen and creating a well designed receipt that is free of charge. Restaurant Receipt Template in iPages Restaurant Bill Receipt Template in Google Docs Restaurant Receipt Maker – > Service Receipt Template Service Receipt Template is useful for the business owner who offer different service type to the customer or company. After rendering a service chosen by the client or requested by the company, a receipt will be given by the business owner as a proof of business deal. Sales Service Receipt Template in Word Service Report > Tax Receipt Template Tax receipt templates provide details of the tax that obliged an individual to pay. These templates are used to create a proper tax receipt where it serves as an important document for an individual. This is to keep track of the recorded tax transaction that has been made every time. Tax Receipt Template in Google Docs School Fee Receipt Template in Word Medical Receipt Template in Google Docs > Itemized Receipt Template Do you have to draft itemized receipts from scratch? Well, if you want to make the process more convenient for you, the online itemized receipt template options would be really helpful. You will get a pre-designed and customizable structure here – that will relieve you from creating the entire thing from scratch. Itemized Receipt Example – Itemized Invoice Receipt Template Download What is an Itemized Receipt – Free Receipt Template Free receipt template is one of the forms of template usually seen in the website for easy access and creation of receipts. There are various types of receipts that the company, organization or even individual seller utilized after the buyer settled for purchasing an item or service. The free receipt template means a lot to choose any designs and layouts that we can download for free. We can have a free receipt in Microsoft Word, Excel or in PDF format and customize the samples provided by the template website. House Rent Receipt House Rent Receipt Format – > Business Receipt Template Business receipt is just like any other receipt for every transaction done between the concerned parties involved. In the receipt, the item or service purchased by the buyer to the business company, amount of money and other details proving that there is a settlement made are stated clearly. This serves as an important document for both buyer and seller. Through the use of a template for receipt, the seller can prepare a good format and official form of business receipt by having a basis for reference. Receipt Format in Excel – > Email Receipt Template An email receipt template provides the proper and ideal format for email receipt that serves as an email reply after receiving several email notification. This is considered as a transaction between the receiver and the sender. Not all is blessed with a full time internet access for creating an email message receipt, that’s why template for email receipt is the best thing and accessible to have. > Receipt Template Sample Receipt template sample offers different types of receipts as a sample based from the needs, requirements and preferences of the business owner or business company. This will provide proper and well organized receipt form to the customer after transaction is done. Receipt template sample will be the basis or a reference to guided to construct a receipt for every business deals. Plumbing Invoice – > Constructor Receipt Template If the customer is requesting for a constructor either a carpenter, mason or related to this kind of work for certain project or task, and properly discussed the agreement and conditions between the customer and the constructor, then there must be a prepared receipt for this type of service. The receipt for constructor service with the use of template serves as an official document that there will be a construction to be made and the mode of payment has been settled. How to Design a Receipt Template? A receipt comes in handy as a dark proof of a sale being made and the money being received by the seller. Thus every business from grocery store to supermarket and mobile recharge bill shop needs a receipt. Even a weighbridge slip is quite similar to the receipts issued in shops. No wonder then that sample receipt templates like are so popular these days. These comprise of the perfect format along with the required sections that should be included in a receipt. The user can download these and make changes to these as per his requirement. However, if a person wants to design a receipt without any help, he can do so using the Table feature in MS Word or MS Excel. What’s more, these comprise of receipt templates that can be customized by the user. Tips Irrespective of what kind of a receipt you are designing, you can surely get some help in designing the layout by taking a look at the and other such templates that are available online. However, when it comes to the design, a few tips of the side can surely be of some help. Give below are a few tips. • Make sure that irrespective of what the size of the receipt the available space is utilized in the best possible manner. • The information that you intend to provide on the receipt should be grouped in a proper manner. • Though it is a good idea to add a watermark to the receipt, make sure that you don’t overdo it. • Ensure that all the text is legible. • Important information should be put in bold such that the recipient does not miss out on it. Not sure how to design a receipt for your business or store? We have a wide range of sample receipt templates like. With a huge collection to choose from, finding the one that would be perfect for your business is easy. These templates have been designed by experts and thus help you come up with the most professional looking receipt document. Easy to download and personalize, designing a unique receipt for your business would seem like child’s play. Download Chart PowerPoint Templates / PPT. Office Applications WPS Office Tab Office to PDF Microsoft Office to PDF Word to PDF Excel to PDF PowerPoint to PDF. To select all used cells on the worksheet, place the cursor in the first cell of the used range (press Ctrl+Home to get to A1), and then press Ctrl + Shift + End to extend the selection to the last used cell (the lower-right corner of the range). Inset the chart in Excel worksheet To add the graph on the current sheet, go to the Insert tab > Charts group, and click on a chart type you would like to create. In Excel 2013 and Excel 2016, you can click the Recommended Charts button to view a gallery of pre-configured graphs that best match the selected data. In this example, we are creating a 3-D Column chart. To do this, click the arrow next to the Column Chart icon and choose one of the chart sub-types under the 3-D Column category. For more chart types, click the More Column Charts link at the bottom. The Insert Chart dialog window will open, and you will see a list of available column chart sub-types at the top. You can also choose other graph types on the left hand side of the dialog. To immediately see all available chart types, click the Dialog Box Launcher next to Charts. Well, basically, you are done. The graph is placed on your current worksheet as an embedded chart. Excel Graph Chart Templates Microsoft chart templates Chart Chooser: Download Editable Excel and PowerPoint Chart Templates. Excel Graph Chart Templates. When making graphs for presentations. Using the cliparts and animated business chart templates for. Forms Guides & Templates; Images; Keynote; Microsoft Office. Here's the 3-D Column chart created by Excel for our data: The chart already looks nice, and still you may want to make a few customizations and improvements, as explained in section. Create a combo graph in Excel to combine two chart types If you want to compare different data types in your Excel graph, creating a combo chart is the right way to go. For example, you can combine a column or area chart with a line chart to present dissimilar data, for instance an overall revenue and the number of items sold. In Microsoft Excel 2010 and earlier versions, creating a combination chart was a cumbersome task, the detailed steps are explained by the Microsoft team in the following article:. In Excel 2013 and Excel 2016, those long-winded guidelines turn into four quick steps. • Select the data you want to plot in your chart. In this example, we select the following Fruit Sales table that lists the amounts sold and average prices. • On the Insert tab, click the Dialog Box Launcher next to Charts to open the Insert Chart dialog. • In the Insert Chart dialog, go to the All Charts tab and select the Combo category. At the top of the dialog, you will see a few pre-defined combo charts to get you started quickly. You can click on each of them to see the chart preview, and there's a good chance that you will find the chart to your liking. Yep, the second graph - Clustered Column and Line on Secondary Axis - will do nicely for our data. Given that our data series ( Amount and Price) have different scales, we do need a secondary axis in one of them to clearly see the values for both series in the graph. If none of the predefined combo charts Excel displays to you has a secondary axis, then simply select the one you like the most, and check the Secondary Axis box for one of the data series. If you are not quite happy with any of the pre-canned combo charts, then select the Custom Combination chart (the last one with the pen icon), and change the series to the desired chart types. Remember to select the Secondary Axis option for one of the data series. • Click the OK button to get the combo chart inserted in your Excel sheet. Finally, you may want to add some finishing touches, such as typing your chart title and adding axis titles. The completed combination chart may look similar to this: Customizing Excel charts As you have just seen, making a chart in Excel is easy. But after you've added a chart, you may want to modify some of the default elements to create an exquisite eye-catching graph. The most recent versions of Microsoft Excel 2013 and Excel 2016 introduced many improvements in chart features and added a new way to access the chart formatting options. Overall, there are 3 ways to customize charts in Excel 2016 and Excel 2013. • Select the chart and look for the needed options on the Chart Tools tabs on the Excel ribbon. • Right-click an element on the chart and select the corresponding context menu item. For example, here's the right-click menu for customizing the chart title: • Use on-object chart customization buttons. These buttons appear in the top right corner of your chart as soon as you click on it. Chart Elements button. It launches the checklist of all the elements you can modify or add to your graph, and it only shows those elements that are applicable to the selected chart type. The Chart Elements button supports Live Preview, so if you are not sure what a certain element is, hover the mouse on it and you will see what your graph would look like if you select that option. Chart Styles button. It lets you quickly change the chart styles and colors. Chart Filters button. It allows you to show or hide data displayed in your chart. For more options, click the Chart Elements button, find the element you want to add or customize in the checklist, and click the arrow next to it. The Format Chart pane will appear on the right of your worksheet, where you can select the options you want: Hopefully, this quick overview of the chart customization features has helped you to get the general idea of how you can modify graphs in Excel. In the next tutorial, we will have an in-depth look at how to customize different chart elements, such as: • • • • • • • • Saving your favorite graph as Excel chart template If you are really happy with the chart you've just created, you can save it as a chart template (.crtx file) and then apply that template to other graphs you make in Excel. How to create a chart template In Excel 2013 and 2016, to save a graph as a chart template, right-click the chart and pick Save as Template in the pop-up menu: In Excel 2010 and older versions, the Save As Template feature resides on the ribbon, on the Design tab > Type group. Clicking the Save As Template option brings up the Save Chart Template dialog, where you type the template name and click the Save button. By default, the newly created chart template is saved to the special Charts folder. All chart templates stored to this folder are automatically added to the Templates folder that appears in the Insert Chart and Change Chart Type dialogs when you create a new or modify an existing graph in Excel. Please keep in mind that only the templates that were saved to the Charts folder appear in the Templates folder in Excel. So, make sure you don't change the default destination folder when saving a template. If you downloaded some chart templates from the Internet and want them to appear in your Excel when you are making a graph, save the downloaded template as a.crtx file to the Charts folder: C: Users User_name AppData Roaming Microsoft Templates Charts How to apply the chart template To create a chart in Excel based on a specific chart template, open the Insert Chart dialog by clicking the Dialog Box Launcher in the Charts group on the ribbon. On the All Charts tab, switch to the Templates folder, and click on the template you want to apply. To apply the chart template to an existing graph, right click on the graph and choose Change Chart Type from the context menu. Or, go to the Design tab and click Change Chart Type in the Type group. Either way, the Change Chart Type dialog will open, you find the desired template in the Templates folder and click on it. How to delete a chart template in Excel To delete a graph template, open the Insert Chart dialog, go to the Templates folder and click the Manage Templates button in the bottom left corner. Clicking the Manage Templates button will open the Charts folder with all existing templates. Right click on the template you want to remove and choose Delete in the context menu. Using the default chart in Excel Excel's default chart is a real time-saver. Whenever you need a graph in a hurry or just want to have a quick look on certain trends in your data, you can make a chart in Excel with a single keystroke! Simply select the data to be included in the graph and press one of the following shortcuts: • Alt + F1 to insert the default chart in the current worksheet. • F11 to create the default chart in a new sheet. How to change the default chart type in Excel When you make a graph in Excel, the default chart format is a two-dimensional column chart. To change the default graph format, perform the following steps: • Click the Dialog Box Launcher next to Charts. • In the Insert Chart dialog, right click the chart (or the chart template in the Templates folder) and select the Set as Default Chart option in the context menu. • Click OK to save the changes and close the dialog. Resizing the chart in Excel To resize the Excel graph, click on it, and then drag the sizing handles to the size you want. Alternatively, you can enter the desired chart height and width in the Shape Height and Shape Width boxes on the Format tab, in the Size group: For more options, click the Dialog Box Launcher next to Size and configure the needed parameters on the pane. Moving the chart in Excel When you create a graph in Excel, it is automatically embedded on the same worksheet as the source data. You can move the chart to any location on the sheet by dragging it with the mouse. If you find it easier to work with a graph on a separate sheet, you can move it there in the following way. • Select the chart, go to the Design tab on the ribbon and click the Move Chart button. • In the Move Chart dialog box, click the New Sheet. If you plan to insert multiple chart sheets in the workbook, give some descriptive name to the new sheet and click OK. If you want to move the chart to an existing sheet, check the Object In option, and then select the needed worksheet in the drop-down list. To export the chart somewhere outside of Excel, right-click on the chart border and click Copy. Then open another program or application and paste the graph there. You can find a few other chart saving techniques in the following tutorial:. This is how you make charts in Excel. Hopefully, this overview of the basic chart features has helped you get off on the right foot. In the next tutorial, we will provide the detailed guidance on customizing different chart elements such as chart title, axes, data labels and so on. In the meantime, you may want to review other chart tutorials that we have (the links are at the end of this article). I thank you for reading and look forward to seeing you on our blog next week! You may also be interested in: • • • • • • •. Hi, I am trying to build software in excel that can help keep my renovation companies accounts etc in order. I have student version of office 2007 that I bought brand new unopened recently at a garage sale for 5$. I have some experience in excel from back in college. I can and have built invoice sheet no problem. I have also built a sheet that handles my business expenses/tax return database etc. I have also built a customer profile page. What I would like to do between the worksheets is have a customer profile page with name, address, city, postal code, phone number etc. I want a 2nd sheet that does the invoicing. The 3rd sheet is my expenses / tax sheet. I have the customer profile sheet feeding info into the invoice no problem automatically. What I cant do is get what ever invoice I am making, to have its total cost of the job, go down into my business expense/tax return database under income where it can be added into my gross income on the tax sheet. Basically if I have invoice 50, all its info needs to feed directly into my expense/tax sheet showing the job cost/income, and the customer's name. Then when I do invoice 51, all its info needs to feed directly into my expense/tax sheet right under the last one and so on and so forth with each corresponding customer's name beside the job cost. There may be free templates that do the above but hoping I can learn to build it myself please. Thru the years, Microsoft improved the programming capabilities of the newer charting object. And the big advantage of the newer charting objects were the much better looking charts and chart types. Till today we never had a good replacement of the newer charting object to replace the older Microsoft Graph object, and this because of one reason. When the data on the datasheet of a given chart is updated by our code, you will always see the Excel-like datasheet opening and flashing. For real-time and data driven slideshows, you can imagine that we don’t want to see a datasheet flashing on top of our slideshow or on our screen. We have been working hard to avoid this, but without success and even worse, it caused charts to get corrupted. Current status Our DataPoint technology is totally depending on the PowerPoint features that the Microsoft team provides. When we are missing functionality in PowerPoint, then we can develop a tool like our DataPoint product, to extend the standard functionality of PowerPoint, that serves our needs. But we cannot influence the existing features of PowerPoint itself, since we are not in control of the source code. We are working with Microsoft’s development team on this charting automation failure that we experience and we hope that Microsoft is coming up with a fix or workaround soon. We hate to see that our clients are getting corrupted slides because we try to avoid the opening and flashing of the datasheet. Therefor we made a very drastic decision. Believe it or not, but we integrated the old Microsoft Graph object back in your DataPoint. The good news is that the older Microsoft Graph object is still present in the current Office 2016 installation and earlier versions, probably because of the backwards compatibility. Conclusion We are sure that the newer charting shape that was introduced in PowerPoint 2007, and further developed by Microsoft for the newer PowerPoint versions, is much better for all of us, compared to the older Microsoft Graph object. But, as we have learned, the updating of the datasheet without the datasheet flashing, is technically impossible at this moment and causes corruptions. We are continuing our search, together with the Microsoft PowerPoint development team, to find a way to update the data of a chart, without flashing the datasheet on your television screen. Hope that this will be available soon. We will let you know when when we have more news on this. Definition of the word ‘process’ is contextual to the subject in which it is used. Simplest generic definition of process made in the dictionaries is ‘a series of actions that produce a change or development’. After studying and gaining experience in various facets of software development, I have arrived at a definition that is more comprehensive than the one mentioned above. I prefer to define it as an ‘ Ordered set of activities that are performed once or optionally, iteratively in a predefined environment, by people playing different roles that produces desired artefacts, with the help of appropriate tools’. This article is published from the November 2012 Edition of the DNC Magazine – A Free High Quality Digital Magazine for.NET professionals published once every two months. The November edition featured hot topics likeProcesses using TFS 2012, Knockout JS in ASP.NET MVC, Azure IAAS, the Roslyn project in action, Creating Visual Studio 12 extensions, Notifications and Live Tiles using WinJS and more! Last but not least, our special guest in the Interview chair, Jon Galloway! Thus managing the entire ‘Software Development process’, is certainly a non-trivial task. Microsoft Team Foundation Server (TFS) facilitates execution of activities of the software development process and manages that result into desired artefacts (or artifacts). Those artefacts usually are featured products or services but may also include many other things like release notes, documentation, user manuals, installation & maintenance manuals, administration utilities etc. Let us now check how TFS 2012 facilitates us to implement two of the most popular software development process variants. One is CMMI that is based upon the traditional waterfall model and the other is SCRUM, that is one of the most popular implementations of Agile methodologies. Ordered Set of Activities Both CMMI and SCRUM are collection of many processes. For example, there is a set of activities that a software architect executes to transition the requirements into physical design. One example artefact is a UML diagram and Visio is a tool to do that. Another example is creation and execution of a test case by a tester. Any of those processes need to be managed – planned, monitored and controlled. TFS 2012 facilitates this process management with the help of hierarchical work items. Activities are always represented by tasks. In TFS 2012 tasks are an important type of work item. First level of classification of tasks supported by TFS 2012 is through iterations and area. Iterations are natural part of Agile as well as adapted in CMMI. TFS 2012 allows us to classify each task into various time bound iterations. In SCRUM, they may be called Sprints but conceptually they remain same. Areas in TFS 2012 are logical grouping of work items. Freedom is given to the manager to decide the logic of grouping. I have seen areas created for modules under development and physical tiers in which the developed component may go. Tasks can be managed using convenient software like MS Project or MS Excel. TFS 2012 seamlessly integrates with those software so that planning, scheduling, monitoring status and editing them becomes easy through the interface that is commonly used. Prioritization is done with the help of either priority given to the task work item or that given to the parent of tasks, which can be Requirements, User Stories or Product Backlog Items (). MS Project also facilitates relationships like predecessor – successor that are effectively replicated in TFS 2012. In this way, the project manager in case of CMMI, or a team in case of SCRUM, defines the order in which the activities will be done. Tasks are assigned to various team members so that those team members will execute those tasks at the scheduled time. In case of CMMI, as the tasks are closed by each team member, their status is reflected in TFS and there onwards, in the MS Project; being used by the project manager. SCRUM (task) board is a facility provided in TFS 2012 that allows the team members to move tasks to the columns of appropriate status (From ‘To Do’ to ‘In Progress’ to ‘Done’). Roles and Members In any process, each team member does not have the same ordered set of activities as others, since they play different roles. This role differentiation is more pronounced in CMMI than in SCRUM. TFS 2012 supports any role that is required to be present through groups. In TFS 2012, user grouping is present at three levels – At overall TFS level, Team Project Collection Level and Team Project level. Aim of grouping is to define different activity streams for each group and to provide appropriate permissions to features of TFS to them. Various services of TFS expose different permission types. Source Control service has permissions to access each object like branch, folder and file that can be granted or not granted to various groups. There is further granularity of permissions, for example in a project, it is possible to define who can check-out files and who can check-in, which group can edit labels and which group is not allowed to do that. Work Item tracking service has permissions based upon the queries that show results of filtered set of work items. TFS 2012, to support SCRUM, also allows us to define teams that are brought together for implementing a set of features for a product. Many customers are upgrading from TFS 2010 or earlier versions to TFS 2012 and in near future will upgrade to TFS 2013. As Microsoft making the upgrade process of TFS. I have been using Team Foundation Server (TFS) for managing Agile projects, and I would like to share my experiences. I use TFS along with MS Project and MS Excel for Backlog Planning. TFS projects are created using MSF for Agile Software Development 6.2 Template. Below are the steps to follow for. Agile Project Management using TFS 2012. Use Team Foundation Server 2012 to manage. Processes using Team Foundation Server 2012 and the Scrum template. Defined teams can then be used to do Product Backlog planning, Sprint Planning and load balancing. TFS 2012 facilitates sprint planning and load balancing to be done by the teams with a graphical view that highlights the areas of overloading and under loading while the load assignment is being done within the team. Membership of groups and teams is based upon the security principals like domain (active directory) or windows where TFS is installed. This allows the authentication to be delegated to the proper authority and reduces any chances of user database being hacked. Authentication mechanisms supported are NTLM and Kerberos depending upon the operating systems and option selected at the time of installation of TFS. Artefacts Process of developing software generates many types of artefacts. Some of them are in the document form and others are in the source code files form. Documents further can be categorized as living documents which get changed during every phase of development or static documents that are created and then never changed. Any artefact that is a living document can be defined in TFS 2012 as work item type. For example, a requirement document may contain requirements or stories for implementation. Both of these are created at certain point in time during the process of software development and once created, they live an entire lifetime passing through many phases which finally terminates in Closed state when that requirement or story is completely implemented. This lifetime of the requirement or story is captured in the work item of those types. They pass through many states and while being in those states, collect a lot of relevant and related data. TFS 2012 supports many types of work items that are commonly used. They are grouped for the methodology that the organization would want to follow. In case of Agile methodology, it has built in definitions for User Story, Task, Test Case (and related Shared Steps), Bug and Issue. It supports SCRUM with work item types for Product Backlog Item, Task, Impediment, Test Case and Bug. Under the process template of CMMI it allows the creation of Requirements, Tasks, Test Cases, Bugs, Risks, Change Requests and Reviews. Other types of living documents are the reports that are created to show progress done and health of the project. These reports are based upon the data that is collected by Work Items that have lived or are living from the start of the project, till the moment that report is generated. This data is stored, analyzed and made available in report form by TFS 2012. Some reports are also based upon the source that is under the source control. This is a very efficient way of reporting and effortlessly provides all necessary reports for the management of project, productivity and quality. Some documents that are created but vary rarely changed if at all, are provided by TFS 2012 in template form. For example, there are documents for Project Management, Audit Plans, Documentation Plan, Risk Management, Security Management and many other related subjects. All these documents are created and versioned in the libraries of portals created for each project on a linked SharePoint server. TFS 2012 is a complete set of ALM services. Source control is one of the major services out of that. Every source file of the project can be kept under the source control of TFS 2012. Tools TFS 2012 and Visual Studio 2012 are the largest set of tools that are created for supporting Application Lifecycle Management. MS Office components can also be integrated with TFS 2012. With so many tools to choose from, the user can use the tool of choice, and with which they are comfortable with to interact with TFS and to improve productivity without compromising quality. Requirement gathering and analysis The task of requirement gathering and analysis is done by the Business Analysts. They are usually comfortable working in MS Excel so using the same tool, they can elicit requirements and stories as work items. They can also check the status of requirements and stories by synchronizing the same worksheet with the work items data from TFS 2012. In addition to work items for requirements or stories or PBIs, it also provides a tool for storyboarding in collaboration with MS PowerPoint. Using this tool not only can you create storyboards that depict the flow of user interface but also get a feedback with corrections in it from the customer. Project and Program Management Project and program management requires a manager to plan, monitor and control the efforts, quality (tests and bugs), risks, impediments and issues. Effort planning is facilitated by TFS 2012 through the work item type Task. Work break down can be done using either MS Project or MS Excel and then the result of that WBD is published in TFS 2012 as Task work items. These tasks are assigned to appropriate team members. These team members update status using other tools like Visual Studio 2012 to reflect the real efforts that have taken place. Managers get update in their project plan since they are synchronized time to time to get the latest status from TFS 2012. Quality Managers may use MS Excel to do the test case planning. But, using Microsoft Test Manager 2012 (MTM 2012) is more productive and intuitive way of doing it. MTM 2012 has the ability to do the test case planning and monitoring the test results. It also has a built in feature to run the manual tests more efficiently. Risks, impediments and issues are managed using the Team Explorer or a browser based client of TFS 2012. Sprint Planning and Running The biggest enhancement in TFS 2012 in comparison to TFS 2010 has happened in this area. TFS 2012 has built in support to do the sprint planning. While doing the sprint planning, it also allows the team to do the capacity balancing. To run the sprint, TFS 2012 has a built in, interactive sprint board where team members can view the status of various tasks as well as move the tasks to appropriate areas. Architecture, Development and Testing Visual Studio 2012 supports these role specific tasks by providing best of the industry tools. These tools improve the productivity of the team and also maintain consistently very high quality of output. Build and Deployment Build service of TFS 2012 incorporates build administration as well as build workflow execution. It supports advanced concepts like Continuous Integration, Gated Check-in and verification of build using unit tests (either Microsoft or third party), send appropriate notifications when the build completes and call external tools to do additional tasks. We can also use custom activities of the workflow to package and deploy the built software. Feedback from client In SCRUM it is necessary to get feedback from client at the end of the sprint for the incremental release that was completed in that sprint. With TFS 2012 Microsoft has introduced a software tool to request feedback from client. Using this tool, it is possible to request a feedback post deployment from the customer. A free feedback client part of the tool allows customer to view and run the deployed software and provide feedback in the form of text, voice, video, annotation on screens etc. This will complete the loop that is started for the sprint. Conclusion All this discussion has shown us how strongly Team Foundation Server 2012 supports the implementation of SCRUM and CMMI processes by providing the process templates that package these ordered set of activities, roles and artefacts. TFS 2012 with the help of Visual Studio 2012 and MS Office provides all the necessary tools to implement these process templates in real life. This support means an increase in productivity and quality for the customers who adopt those. The scrum template has been created specifically to follow the scrum process and terminology as closely as possible and was built as a collaborative effort between Microsoft and scrum.org. The MSF for agile template was originally created as a generic process template for agile development. If you will be doing Scrum, which at the moment is the most common agile process, then the scrum process template is the most logical choice. If you want to follow another agile process, then MSF for agile might be a better fit, since it should be usable in most agile processes. The naming might not completely match, but the process can probably be mapped to it. Differences are explained here. |
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