Microsoft Courses

Overview: Microsoft Excel is a spreadsheet program that can be used for storing, organising and manipulating data.

This Excel introductory course will enable delegates to gain a good general understanding of the main features of Microsoft Excel, giving them the ability to produce standard spreadsheets, create formulae and format and print spreadsheets.

Overview: In Microsoft Office Excel Level 1, delegates created, edited, formatted, and printed basic spreadsheets. This course will enable delegates to streamline repetitive tasks and display spreadsheet data in more visually effective ways. The target students for this course are students who desire to gain the skills necessary to create spreadsheets from scratch using more advanced functions and formulas, sort and filter data, analyse data and present data in visual and vibrant ways.

Overview: This course will benefit those who are already up to speed with Microsoft Excel but would now like to automate some common tasks and apply advanced analysis techniques to more complex data sets. This Excel course is aimed at anyone desiring to gain the skills necessary to create macros, audit and analyse worksheet data, create Excel PivotTables and Excel PivotCharts, use lookup tables and import and export data.

Overview: Power BI Desktop is part of the suite of tools from Microsoft which enable data to be analysed and published from a variety of sources.

With Power BI Desktop, you get a report authoring tool that enables you to connect to and query data from different sources using the Query Editor. From the datasets you build with Query Editor you can create Reports and Visualizations or dashboards within Power BI Desktop. Reports can then be published.

This course covers the use of Power BI Desktop to connect to data, create Visualizations, query the data and publish reports.

This course does not cover MS Power BI Pro, Power BI accessed via Office 365 or SharePoint Services.

Overview: Many of us use Outlook every day but that doesn't mean you're getting the most out of it. As the versions progress new features are introduced and there are also some hidden features too that you wouldn't stumble across unless you went looking for them. This course will help you work better, faster and more efficiently ensuring you get the most out of Microsoft Outlook.

Overview: This course is aimed at those new to PowerPoint, or who have limited knowledge of the package. During this course delegates will explore the PowerPoint environment and create presentations.

Delegates will format text on slides, add graphical objects to a presentation, modify objects on slides, add tables to a presentation, add charts to a presentation and prepare to deliver a presentation.

Overview: Microsoft Publisher is an easy to use desktop publishing application that helps you create, customise, and publish materials such as newsletters, brochures, flyers and catalogues.

In this Publisher course, delegates will create a publication from scratch as well as using some of the hundreds of business and personal designs available in Publisher. This course will enable delegates to create, design, and edit publications.

Overview: This course is for delegates who want to learn to be more productive with Microsoft Word. Delegates will learn how to use the essential day to day functions of Word including how to create and edit documents and use character and paragraph formatting. Delegates will also be shown ways to ensure word documents are consistent and engaging using headers and footers, SmartArt and many other design features.

Overview: This Word course covers the advanced features of Microsoft Word for delegates who need to work with forms, large or complex documents, and sharing documents among multiple team members.

Overview: This one day course is designed to familiarise the SharePoint user with the basics of creating, permissioning, populating and managing a SharePoint Team Site

Overview: This course is aimed at those who would like to develop their skills and knowledge of VBA programming in Access application development.

Overview: This course is aimed at those people who find they have reached their limit with the menu items of Excel and need to modify Excel to be better suited to their environment, by creating their own functions and procedures.

Overview: This course is designed to help experienced Word users automate common tasks and create end user systems. The user does not have to be a programmer to benefit from this course but any programming experience will be of value

Overview: Visio provides a dedicated, familiar, Microsoft drawing environment, complete with a broad range of templates, shapes, and sophisticated tools designed to make creating a wide variety of business and technical diagrams easy, giving business and technical users the power to visualise and communicate ideas, information, and systems.

Delegates will learn basic concepts for creating flowcharts, cross-functional flowcharts, and organisation charts. This includes learning the basics for using and creating shapes, printing drawings, creating custom stencils, and many time-saving shortcuts and techniques designed to increase user productivity.

Overview: This Microsoft Access course is for delegates who have sound skills in the use of MS Access and are now ready to expand their knowledge into some of the more specialised and advanced features of the software. This course will provide delegates with the skills needed to create complex queries, create macros to automate tasks, enhance forms and reports and use the Access programming language Visual Basic for Applications (VBA), enabling delegates to really take control of their databases.

Overview: This Access course enables delegates to progress from the one level databases associated with holding data in Microsoft Excel, to multiple table relational databases, covering all the basics including the advantages and disadvantages. This course is a perfect starting point for a future in data manipulation.

Overview: ChatGPT is a revolutionary technology that’s reshaping the world of work. Everybody is talking about it, but most people are not using it effectively.

ChatGPT gained 100,000,000 users in less than 60 days but 99% of people don't know how to use it to its full potential.

This course will help you harness the full potential of ChatGPT. It’s designed to take you from beginner to expert.

Overview: The aim of this course is to educate users in the basics of using Office 365 and its services and cover basic administration processes.

Aimed at the user wishing to acquaint themselves with the basic features and administration of Office 365. The course stresses the role of OneDrive, SharePoint and Teams in document management.

Familiarity with the basics of Windows is highly recommended to get the most out of this course.

Overview: Online meetings often fall short. Discover how you can make your meetings more interactive with Zoom and MS Teams.
This course looks at best practice and how the tools in Zoom and MS Teams can help you achieve this.

Overview: This course is designed to introduce you to the Macro environment of Excel, it will provide you with the confidence to record macros in Excel and then be able to gain a better understanding of the code and make changes to it.

We even teach you some commands that cannot be recorded, such as how to show a message to the person who runs the macro.

It will not turn you into a fully-fledged programmer, but you will feel more confident in the Visual Basic Editor, and thus be able to explore more aspects of programming in Excel.

For example, if you record a macro before the course and you make a mistake in the recording, you invariably have to start the recording again. After this course you will be able to step through the code, decide what you wish to keep and what you wish to get rid of, then record an extra part and add it to the code you kept thus running all the code at once.

Important Note : An Excel Macro is created from lines of code of Visual Basic for Applications. These lines of code are stored in a collection called a 'Macro' or a 'Procedure'. It all depends on which angle you are coming from. If you're a programmer, you call these lines of code a Procedure; if you are an advanced user of Excel you call these lines of code a Macro.

Overview: This outline below contains an overview of a wide range of features within Excel that when used together can be used to create interactive visual reports and dashboards. The course will show delegates how these features can be used individually to present data but can also be used in combination to make powerful and insightful reports.

The course content has been pulled from a mix of our Excel courses, some content will be recapped to ensure all delegates are at the same level as they are used in conjunction with each other to effectively present data and build reports.

Overview: This course is split into 3 main areas:

1. Get and Transform (Power Query)
2. Power Pivot - Data Models and DAX calculations
3. Dashboard Creation with Pivot Tables, Charts and Slicers

It is aimed at users who want to analyse data from multiple sources and want to create effective data dashboards.
This course will be delivered on Excel 2016 or above and using generic data files that aim to appeal to a wide audience.

Overview: This course is designed to help users get the most from the advanced functions in Excel. Advanced Lookup and Reference functions to help you gather data, Text functions to organise and validate the data, Logical functions to analyse the data. You will use the advanced features of Microsoft Excel to attain a high degree of proficiency as an Excel power user within the area of writing functions.

Overview: This one-day course is designed to help business users understand the basics of Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365, a productivity tool that uses artificial intelligence to provide real-time intelligent assistance within Microsoft 365 productivity apps including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Teams and Outlook. It is designed to transform productivity, creativity, collaboration for users, teams and organisations.

The course is beginner-friendly and requires no previous AI expertise.

Overview: The Technical overview of Microsoft 365 Copilot for the IT Professional Course, delves into the capabilities of Microsoft 365's AI-powered feature designed to enhance productivity and efficiency within organizations. This course will explore the following key areas:

Microsoft 365 Copilot Features: Uncover the ways in which Microsoft 365 Copilot can streamline tasks across applications such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams (and many more applications!). Understand Microsoft 365 Copilot functionality including content generation, summarization, text refinement and tone suggestions via natural language prompts.

Microsoft Business Chat, an innovative cross-app experience unlocking capabilities to improve information discovery and context across multiple apps including calendar, emails, chats, documents, meetings and contacts. Microsoft Business chat is available to users from Microsoft 365.com, Bing (when signed in with a work account), or within Microsoft Teams.

Microsoft 365 Copilot Architecture: Gain insights into the inner workings of Microsoft 365 Copilot as it harnesses vast language models (LLMs) and organization's data via the Microsoft Graph. Discover the power of Microsoft Semantic Index, a cutting-edge technology facilitating swift and accurate retrieval of contextually relevant information.

Microsoft 365 Copilot Prerequisites and Licensing: Navigate the technical prerequisites and feature enablement necessary for an organization to leverage Microsoft 365 Copilot's potential. Explore pricing and licensing options for both Microsoft 365 Copilot and Business Chat.

How Microsoft 365 Copilot ensures enterprise-grade data security and privacy through integration with Microsoft 365 security and compliance features including Data Loss Prevention, Sensitivity Labels, Defender for Cloud Apps File Policies, Data Access Governance Reports

Microsoft 365 Data Collaboration, Classification and Reporting features to identify and protect sensitive data including Collaboration Insights, Sensitive Information Types, Microsoft Syntex and Microsoft Priva.

IT Professional's Readiness and Deployment Tasks for Microsoft 365 Microsoft 365 Copilot: Understand required the skills and tasks to ready your organization for Microsoft 365 Microsoft 365 Copilot's integration. This includes configuring permissions, managing administrative controls, change management, promoting adoption, and overseeing usage monitoring.

Upon completing this course, you will possess a holistic comprehension of Microsoft 365 Copilot and its potential transformative impact on an organization and requirements as an IT Professional to deploy, secure, manage, promote and support a Microsoft 365 Copilot Deployment.

Overview: This Microsoft Forms Essentials course covers how Forms, SharePoint and Power Automate integrate into data collection and storage solutions in Office 365.

Overview: This course covers how Forms, SharePoint and Power Automate integrate into data collection and storage solutions in Office 365.

Overview: As desktops has evolved, so have methods for deploying and updating them. In this course, you'll learn how to plan and implement an operating system deployment strategy. This course will help you understand the various methods available, the scenarios they're suited for, as well as how to deploy Windows using modern methods. This course will also cover planning and implementing an update strategy for Windows.

During this course, you’ll be introduced to key components of modern management and co-management strategies. You’ll examine what it takes to incorporate Microsoft Intune into your organization and how to use it to manage modern desktops and devices. You’ll also learn about methods for deployment and management of apps and browser-based applications.

In this course, the student will be introduced to the key concepts of security in modern management. This course covers authentication, identities, and access, as well as about how to protect these categories. The student will be introduced to Azure Active Directory and learn how to use Microsoft Intune to protect devices and data with compliance policies. Finally, this course will cover key capabilities of Azure Information Protection and Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection and how to implement these capabilities.

Overview: Power Apps is a suite of apps, services, connectors, and a data platform that provides you with an opportunity to build custom apps for your business needs.

This 1-day course explores the basic building blocks and allows you to create your own Apps and understand how to develop your skills to the next level.

Overview: This course is available on a private course basis only.
We run the Microsoft Power BI Desktop course as a public scheduled event and also as a private course.

This 4-day course is intended for anyone who is new to designing and implementing self-service Business Intelligence (BI) solutions using Microsoft Power BI Desktop and the Power BI Service. It is ideal for anyone who needs a total immersion in the subject matter as the course structure is very comprehensive. The training is delivered with plenty of illustrated examples and augmented with practical hands-on exercises to enhance the learning experience. Also, as Power BI Desktop and the Power BI Service are continually evolving, this course is regularly reviewed and updated to keep the delivered content as fresh and relevant as possible, thus ensuring maximum productivity from the learning experience. Due to the very comprehensive nature of this course, the content delivered may vary depending on new and updated features, delegate requirements, and course objectives.

This course is also commensurate with the “PL-300 Microsoft Power BI Data Analyst” course and serves as ideal preparation for the Microsoft PL-300 exam. In addition to providing the knowledge required for this exam, this course takes a broader and more practical approach to Power BI, demonstrating useful techniques that will prove extremely helpful in the workplace.

The first part of the course introduces the capabilities and components of Power BI Desktop before delving into the realms of discovering and loading data from a variety of sources. Primarily focussed on using Power Query to create queries for implementation in data models, students will learn how to shape and transform loaded data, mashup data from various sources by merging and appending data, and manage, structure, and parameterise queries. Delving behind the scenes, students will also be introduced to the M language, highlighting ways in which existing code can be tweaked and how user defined code and functions can be implemented.

Part two of the course introduces students to tabular data modelling concepts, preparing the data in readiness for use in reports and dashboards. The importance of implementing relationships is also covered. In order to enhance the data model, students will be introduced to the DAX expression language to enable them to implement calculated columns, measures, and tables. Consideration is also given to implementing time intelligence in the design of data models.

In part three, you will learn how to create and design reports and implement visualisations. We will first look at text-based visuals before moving on to graphical components like charts, gauges and KPIs (Key Performance Indicators). The implementation of maps in reports is also given coverage. To create interactivity in reports, students will also learn how to implement various types of filters and slicers.

Finally, in part four, we turn our attention to the Power BI Web Service. Attendees will learn how to publish reports to the Power BI Service and how to organize and secure content. The creation and use of dashboards will be considered, and the sharing of content will also be given coverage. We will look at user accessibility issues and consider how users, including mobile users, can interact with report content. Managing and refreshing datasets in the Power BI Service is also included.

Additionally, with the course structure being fully modularised, customised versions of this course can be devised and delivered to suit individual requirements – just ask for details.

Overview: Power BI Desktop is part of the suite of tools from Microsoft which enable data to be analysed and published from a variety of sources.

With Power BI Desktop, you get a report authoring tool that enables you to connect to and query data from different sources using the Query Editor. From the datasets you build with Query Editor you can create Reports and Visualizations or dashboards within Power BI Desktop. Reports can then be published.

This course covers the use of Power BI Desktop to connect to data, create Visualizations, query the data and publish reports.

This course does not cover MS Power BI Pro, Power BI accessed via Office 365 or SharePoint Services.

Overview: This two day course is designed for individuals who will use Microsoft Project as a tool to assist them in managing projects. The topics in this course cover the critical skills necessary to create and modify a project plan file that contains tasks, resources, and resource assignments.

Overview: Microsoft Sway is a presentation program that allows you to create interactive reports, stories, presentations and more

Sway can include text, pictures and media, pulling content from a variety of locations, including your own device, network or internet source.

Sways are stored on Microsoft's servers and tied to a Microsoft account, although more content is available when accessing through an Office 365.

Overview: This course is for users wishing to acquaint themselves with the basic features of Microsoft Teams in Office 365. The course stresses the role of Teams, Channels, Files, Meetings and Chat.

Overview: This Microsoft Office 365 course is aimed at the Office 365 user wishing to manage their Office 365 Tenancy and the major Applications within it as well as automating business processes in Office 365.

Overview: This course is aimed at those wishing to setup Office 365 and keep it running.

Overview: This course is aimed at the user wishing to acquaint themselves with the basic features of Office 365. The course stresses the role of Outlook as an "All in One" messaging, SharePoint for Team collaboration and Lync 2010 for unified communications.

Overview: This course is aimed at the user wishing to acquaint themselves with the basic features of Office 365. The course covers the role of using the Office Online Applications to create, edit, comment and share documents.

This course can be tailored to meet your organisations requirements.

Each topic area is 90 minutes. Choose 4 x 90 minute modules for a 1 day course, or
2 x 90 minute modules for a half day course

Overview: This 1-day course is designed for anyone new to creating and implementing flows in Microsoft Power Automate. The content will introduce delegates to the key concepts of Power Automate, with the goal of empowering them to design and implement their own solutions in the workplace.

At course completion, attendees will possess sufficient knowledge to work with Power Automate to automate and manage common everyday business processes. Delegates will understand when and why Power Automate should be implemented and be able to create practical and useful flows to suit individual requirements. In essence, all the skills necessary to help them design and develop their own office automation solutions.

The course includes automating processes in Microsoft SharePoint, Outlook, Excel Online, OneDrive, and Microsoft Teams.

Please note, this course is about automated cloud flows. In other words, automation in the cloud, not desktop automation.

The training is delivered with plenty of illustrated examples and augmented with practical hands-on exercises to enhance the learning experience. Also, as Power Automate is continually evolving, this course is regularly reviewed and updated to keep the delivered content as fresh and relevant as possible, thus ensuring the best return on investment from the learning experience. As such, the content delivered may vary slightly from the advertised course outline depending on new and updated features.

Overview: This course is aimed at those already familiar with PowerPoint. During this course delegates will go beyond using the standard layouts and designs offered by PowerPoint, to creating their own designs.

Delegates will integrate current design trends into their presentations to create modern but professional slides and learn some of the tricks and short-cut methods for doing so. You will create a presentation containing a variety of slide layouts which can used as a template for future presentations.

Overview: The goal of this course is to take you from Zero to Hero and provide you with the knowledge required both as an end user and as a site administrator or owner of Microsoft SharePoint sites to understand, use, create, configure and manage SharePoint Sites in Office 365/Microsoft 365.

Note – If you are a ‘back end’ SharePoint Administrator looking for training on the SharePoint Admin Center, you should attend
Mastering SharePoint Online Design, Architecture and Best Practice Administration

This course is a combination of the following two courses:
Mastering SharePoint Fundamentals
Mastering SharePoint Online Site Administration

The course emphasises hands-on experience, with a series of self-guided exercises integrated into the training.

Day 1
The first day is designed for users who are new or have basic skills with SharePoint and want to understand SharePoint and be able to use SharePoint.

You will discover and understand:

What SharePoint is and how it fits into Microsoft Teams and Microsoft 365
Key benefits of SharePoint
What is a SharePoint Site and what are is the difference between a Team Site and Communication Site
SharePoint Document Libraries and Microsoft Lists
SharePoint Document features including versioning, metadata and co-authoring
SharePoint Pages, News, Events, Spaces
Extended SharePoint functionality via apps
SharePoint permissions and sharing with people inside and outside the organisation
Microsoft Search to discover information within SharePoint and across Microsoft 365

Day 2-5
The next 4 days of this course take you from being a user of a SharePoint Site to being a Site Owner/Site Administrator

You will understand and learn how to create, configure and manage:

What are SharePoint Site Administrators’ roles and responsibilities
SharePoint Evergreen model and how to keep up to date with changes
SharePoint Site Use cases and templates
SharePoint Administrators vs Site Administrators vs Site Owners
Top-Level Site vs Subsite Administration
Creating Sites and Site Designs
Creating, configuring and managing Site Pages
Understanding Lists vs Libraries
Creating, configuring and managing Site Lists
Creating, configuring and managing Site Libraries
Creating, configuring and managing metadata: Site Columns, Content Types, Managed Metadata
Document Sets
Document ID aka Durable links
Creating, configuring and managing Site News
Creating, configuring and managing Site Events
Creating, configuring and managing Site Spaces
Creating, configuring and managing Site Navigation: Site Navigation, Home Sites and Global App Bar
Targeting Content and Navigation using Audiences
Understanding Creating, configuring and managing Hub Sites
Understanding and configuring Site Permissions
Understanding and configuring External Sharing
Creating, configuring and managing Site Libraries
Extending SharePoint Site Functionality using Apps and Features
Understanding and configuring Site Settings

Overview: This course will provide you with the basic knowledge and skills to create queries using Transact-SQL. It will teach you how to select, filter and sort data from multiple tables and how to use views and stored procedures.

Overview: This 5 day course is intended for students new to querying and programming with Microsoft SQL Server products who need a total immersion in the subject on a SQL Server 2016 or 2017 platform. This is a very comprehensive and intensive course with plenty of illustrated examples and augmented with practical hands-on exercises to enhance the learning experience.

Additionally, with the course structure being fully modularised, customised versions of this course can also be devised and delivered to suit individual requirements. In fact, specific content from this course could also be combined with material from other related courses to produce a bespoke training package – just ask for details.

Overview: This 3 day course is intended for students who need to learn the essential skills necessary to maintain a Microsoft SQL Server 2016 or 2017 system infrastructure. Being concise and hands-on, it is aimed at quickly getting students familiar with the Microsoft SQL Server administration concepts, tools and utilities. The installation of SQL Server, covered in the first module of the course, is optional and can be omitted to free up time for other topics if desired.

The course focuses on managing a single on-premise SQL Server Database instance and does not delve into more advanced enterprise features such as high availability and replication. Neither do we consider cloud-based solutions in this course. That said, for delegates looking to get a strong grounding in SQL Server architecture and administration, perhaps before advancing on to more advanced features, this is an ideal course upon which to build.

Attendees will gain insight into the infrastructure and architecture of SQL Server, enabling individuals to fully understand the product with which they are dealing. Configuration of server instances and databases is given full treatment, as are database transaction logs, and the creation and maintenance of indexes. Concise treatment is given to managing SQL Server security, including both at the server and database level. The focus then shifts to examining how best to move and protect data, such as when importing or exporting it between heterogeneous data sources, backing it up to external media, and restoring data from a backup. Many tasks involved in the day to day administration of a SQL Server instance can be performed automatically, making an administrators life potentially simpler, and such is the subject matter in the module dealing with SQL Server Automation. The final part of the course looks at monitoring and troubleshooting SQL Server performance and related issues.

Overview: This five-day instructor-led course teaches IT Pros how to deploy and configure Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) in a distributed environment, how to implement Group Policy, how to perform backup and restore, and how to monitor and troubleshoot Active Directory–related issues with Windows Server 2022. Additionally, this course teaches how to deploy other Active Directory server roles such as Active Directory Federation Services (AD FS) and Active Directory Certificate Services (AD CS).

Please note, this course is also applicable for learners using Windows Server 2016 and Windows Server 2019

Overview: This five-day course is designed primarily for IT professionals who have some experience with Windows Server. It is designed for professionals who will be responsible for managing storage and compute by using Windows Server 2022, and who need to understand the scenarios, requirements, and storage and compute options that are available and applicable to Windows Server 2022. This course is also applicable to learners using Windows Server 2016 or Windows Server 2019.

Overview: This five-day course will provide you with the knowledge and skills required to configure the networking features in Windows Server 2022, to automate and consolidate networking processes and resources, easily connect private clouds with public cloud services, and connect users to IT resources and services across physical boundaries. You will learn how to configure some of the key networking features, such as IP addressing, IP Address Management (IPAM), Domain Name System (DNS), and Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP), Remote Access technologies, such as Virtual Private Networks (VPNs). You will learn how to integrate your branch office networks and network infrastructure with Hyper-V and use advanced Hyper-V networking features. You will be introduced to software defined networking.