Work Smart (by letting someone else do the icky document creation grunt work) – “Work Smart Productivity Guides” from Microsoft for your end-user training, re-use and tweaking pleasure

UK Further Education Blog - Ready-made IT user documentation

“When I started working at Microsoft, I hadn’t been in such an open, technology rich culture before. And with so many IT systems around, and so many different software resources, my head was buzzing. In fact, I remember that at the end of the first week, the number of links in my Favorites was massive – just to internal websites.

I’d never used internet telephony, encryption, instant messaging, live meeting, SharePoint or Groove before, so I was all at sea until I could play around and work out how they were supposed to operate. Meanwhile, people who’d been at Microsoft for a while were metaphorically whizzing past me, as they collaborated, shared, published and distributed information. Whilst I was trying to work out how to answer my desk phone.

One of the godsends for me was a set of documents called Work Smart Guides, which walked me through the basics of some of the new technology I was encountering.

…

The subjects covered in the step-by-step guides for users include:

• Environmental sustainability (hints like using Balanced power settings on your laptop)
• Protecting data with BitLocker
• Getting started with email
• Transfer files and settings to a new computer
• Collaborating with SharePoint
• An overview of collaboration tools
• Customizing SharePoint sites
• Integrating Outlook with SharePoint
• Basics of managing email (Are you a stacker or a filer?)
• Office tips
• Outlook email signatures
• New features for users in Windows 7

 

…” [GD: Post Leach Level: 70%]

TechNet - Work Smart Productivity Guides

“Microsoft IT Showcase

Microsoft IT created Work Smart productivity guides (previously Everyday Productivity Education (EPE) guides) to bridge the gap between technology and users. Work Smart guides provide employees with scenario-based, best-use productivity aids on Microsoft products and technologies. As more Work Smart guides are published, Microsoft IT expects to see more consistent, productive, and cost-effective use of products and technologies across the company.

Work Smart Productivity Guides
Download customizable versions of Work Smart materials to use as samples and reusable templates that specifically address the scenarios and processes in your information worker environment.

…”

I don’t know how many times I’ve seen IT, User Support, Training and Doc, etc groups create or buy general, end user documentation for basic things like Office, Windows, SharePoint, etc. Too many.

So when I saw this, I thought it too cool to not mention. What’s cool is that it’s in DocX format and you are not only allowed, but encouraged, to tweak it to fit your environment. Love that…

 

Here’s what you get in the 23MB zip;