On the Internet, one of the only ways to identify yourself is through accounts to various sites. These accounts all have a password which you use to confirm that it is you who is trying to access the site. Unfortunately, there is big business in stealing passwords which means it's a good idea to change them on a regular basis; to minimize the chance of having information stolen.

Here's how you can change the password for your Google account.

How passwords work with Google As you probably know, Google offers a wide variety of services and chances are high that if you have a Google account, you use more than one service. You'll also know that you only have to log in once to get access to almost any Google app.

This is because Google uses Single Sign-on (SSO), which is an access property that allows a user to enter a password once and gain access to all related services. This is meant to make the 'Google experience' seamless and more efficient.

While this is useful, it can also be a bit of a security issue. If someone was to get a hold of your Google password, they will have access to everything on your Google account. It would, therefore, be a good idea to change your password on a regular basis - at least every three months. Luckily, Google has made it easy to change it, and offers two main ways to do so:

Change your password from Gmail You can change your password from Gmail by:

1. Logging into Gmail and pressing the cog on the right-hand side of the window (Below the black bar)
2. Selecting Settings from the drop-down menu.
3. Clicking on Accounts which will be on the horizontal menu bar in the window that opens.
4. Clicking Google Account Settings followed by Security from the menu bar that opens.
5. Selecting Change password and entering your current along with your new password.
6. Pressing Change password.

Change your password from the Accounts tab You can also easily change your password by:

1. Going to accounts.google.com.
2. Logging into your Google account.
3. Clicking on Security from the left-hand menu bar.
4. Selecting Change your password and entering your current along with your new password.
5. Pressing Change password.

When changing your password, it is best to pick a new password, don't simply add on a character, letter or number to an existing password. If you would like to learn more about the security of your online accounts and how we can help, contact us today.

WorkSmart’s mission is to work closely with clients and partners to enable their success and to create an invigorating and enjoyable work environment. With colleagues like Bracey, we accomplish this mission.

According to his coworkers, Bracey is “Fast, sly, and spot-on” and is known for his expertise in Mac and Linux operating systems. “Bracey is a great team player and a great guy to have around,” says support center colleague Zach Miller.

But Bracey isn’t all business, he’s also an avid video game enthusiast. He owns a “museum” of vintage titles, which he regularly discusses in his video blog, which also highlights his video production and voice-over talents.

In order for you to get to know him better, we asked Bracey a few questions. Here are his answers:

Hometown: I was born in Lumberton, NC, but spent a lot of my childhood growing up in Michigan before coming back down to NC.
Favorite Kool-Aid Flavor: I like that Blue Raspberry one that makes your mouth blue for like a week.
Favorite Favorite Beverage: Mountain Dew. I honestly don’t know if I can live without it. I’ve had withdrawals in the past.
Would you change your name? If so, to what? No, actually. I appreciate my name as an adult. I was actually given my grandfather’s last name as my first name, and he was an amazing man.
Any cool or “hidden” talents? Oddly enough, I’m really good at narration; like for video work. I didn’t find that out until just a few years ago, but I had a ton of people start to tell me I should do more voice acting or narrating.
A TV show you’d like to be on: Wheel of Fortune, but not to win the game. I’ve always wanted to look over at the other contestants when they have 3 letters left on the puzzle and say “Why are you buying a vowel? What’s wrong with you?! Just solve it already!”
Favorite Hobby: Well, I really like playing older videogames – the stuff I grew up with. Takes me back to a time before all of the responsibilities of adult life.
Sneakers or flip flops? Sneakers most definitely. Skate shoes preferably, though I don’t skate. I just like the shoes.
If you could be any animal, what would you be? Tough call, but I think I would have to go with an otter. I saw them at the zoo again recently and they always look like they’re having a ton of fun swimming around and being silly.
Favorite board game: I would say Scrabble, but now that my wife completely destroys me every single time we play, it’s not that fun anymore.
Do you have or wish you had a catch phrase? Not so much a catch phrase, but I could really go for entrance music. You know, where you get a theme played whenever you walk in. Maybe some pyrotechnics to really pull the whole thing together.
Favorite day of the week: Saturday. Nothing beats the feeling of being able to turn that alarm off the night before and sleep like you’re preparing for a harsh winter.
Do you play any musical instruments? I do. I’ve played the guitar as long as I can remember, but my true passion is playing the drums.
What is the color of your car? Nighthawk Black Pearl according to the official documentation.
Can you sing? Yes I can. As a matter of fact, I’ve sung in several bands over the years.
One place you could travel to right now: I’ve always wanted to go to Japan and stay for maybe a year or 2. I feel like anything less wouldn’t give you the full experience.
What do you wish you were doing right now? Fishing. That’s the one thing I always wish I could do more often, but never really get the chance to anymore due to time constraints. I love the peace and tranquility that comes with it.
Favorite Quote:“Harry, I’m going to let you in on a little secret. Every day, once a day, give yourself a present. Don’t plan it, don’t wait for it, just…let it happen. Could be a new shirt at the men’s store, a catnap in your office chair, or two cups of good, hot, black coffee.” – Special Agent Dale Cooper, Twin Peaks
Anything else you would like to comment on? I would like to thank WorkSmart for the opportunity to come here and make some great new friends, all while learning something new each and every day.

Business intelligence is the study of a company's data with the goal of enabling managers and owners to make better decisions. One section of business intelligence commonly talked about is business performance, more specifically the tool used to measure it - Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). Do you know what KPIs are?

Below is an overview of KPIs for business.

Define: KPI The Key Performance Indicator (KPI) is a tool used to measure performance of a business or employees. Many businesses use this tool to look at either the overall performance and success of all or specific operations. To many, the terms performance and success are synonyms.

How do KPIs work? Most modern versions of this tool come in the form of software applications that track specific data and criteria set by managers or owners. The software allows them to compare these criteria, commonly referred to as Score Cards, with the established goals and gauge overall performance or success.

This data, usually collected from spreadsheets, databases or even manual data entry, is displayed to the user in an easy to read format called a dashboard. The dashboard is typically a graph or similar visual display.

A common dashboard is the traffic light. Let's say for example that a company is measuring the success of their latest marketing campaign. A green light indicates that the expected number of conversions is being met or exceeded, yellow means actual conversions are slightly below normal and red means actual are well below expected.

Benefits of KPIs The biggest benefit of these tools is that they allow users to easily gauge the performance of a business. Beyond that you can set many KPIs with triggers that will alert you when the measurements are poor. This will allow the company to figure out ways to fix issues before they can cause bigger problems.

Effective KPIs For many businesses, effective KPIs are tailored to the needs of the business. For the majority of businesses, KPIs need to be: Measurable, achievable, specific and result-oriented. The best way for a business to figure out the which will be the most effective is for the manager or owner to look at the aspects that are most important to a business.

This can be hard to figure out, especially for business owners who often think that everything related to their business is important. A business intelligence expert or IT partner can help define what really matters most and help to implement the tools needed.

If you are looking for a better way to measure the success or performance of your business, please contact us today.

One of the keys to a successful PowerPoint presentation is to have a solid outline from which to build your slides off of. A good outline provides you with a direction and a clear idea on the information you will present. The thing with PowerPoint is that it can be a bit tough to actually create an efficient outline. No need to worry however, as you can create it in Word first and then import it to PowerPoint, which will then automatically create the slides for you.

Here’s how to use Word to create a PowerPoint presentation.

How does this work?

The idea here is to use Word to establish the outline and basic text of a PowerPoint presentation. This outline can then be opened in PowerPoint and converted into slides. The way the program does this is through the use of heading styles in Word. Assigning a different heading style (we’ll explain how below) will create the outline of your presentation. For example, Heading 1 will be the title of each slide, while Heading 2 becomes the text.

There are two ways you can create an outline. Here’s both:

Using Outline view

1. Open a new Word document.
2. Click on View in the menu bar and select Outline.
3. Type your outline – enter the title of each slide, hit Enter to create a new entry. You can also enter the text in the slide under each title.
4. Select each line and hit either Promote or Demote (they look like the indent text buttons, and are located in the Outline menu bar).
5. Click on File and Save As when you have finished the outline.
6. Name the file and under the Format section select Rich Text Format (.rtf). You can also just save the document as a normal Word File, but saving as a .rtf file will ensure that PowerPoint can read the outline properly.

Using Heading styles

1. Open a new Word document.
2. Enter your outline. The best way to do this is to enter the slide title, hit enter and insert the body/bullet points. Don’t leave empty spaces as these may be read as empty slides.
3. Highlight the first title and look at the main ribbon for the Styles section. Press the down arrow beside the box that says body and select Heading 1.
4. Highlight the related body text (if any) and press Heading 2. This should be just below the Heading 1 option above.
5. Repeat for the rest of the slides.
6. Click on File and Save As when you have finished the outline.
7. Name the file and under the Format section select Rich Text Format (.rtf). You can also just save the document as a normal Word File, but saving as a .rtf file will ensure that PowerPoint can read the outline properly.

Creating the presentation

When you are ready to create the presentation you can:

1. Open a new PowerPoint presentation.
2. Create the title slide and in the navigation bar (left side of the window), click on it.
3. Click on the gray arrow beside New Slide which is located in the Home bar, under the Slides section.
4. Select Insert Slides from Outline.
5. Locate the outline file you saved and double click on it.

The slides should automatically be created below the title slide. If you didn’t apply any formatting to the text, it will likely show up in a slide on the left-hand side with no spacing. You will have to go in and edit it.

By creating an outline in Word first, you can cut down the time needed to format and edit slides in PowerPoint. Of course you will have to edit the slides and add color, themes, images, etc. But, this should help you create more professional presentations.

If you are looking for more tips on PowerPoint, Word or any of the other Office programs please contact us today.

 

There are many features that make up any social network, with posts likely being the most important. This is where you share information, and interact with followers/friends/other users. For businesses like yours, each post is the key to your online presence, as such it needs to be engaging. If you use Google+, there are some built in features that allow you to make your posts more engaging.

Here’s four things you can do to make your Google+ posts more engaging

1. Use formatting
What many users don’t know is that they have text formatting options that allow you to put emphasis within the body of the post. For example you can:

• Bold words - If you put an asterisk on either side of the text, it will be bolded. e.g., bold will show as bold in the post.
• Italicize words - Putting an underscore before and after text will italicize them. e.g., italics will show as italics in the post.
• Strike through words - Placing a hyphen around a word/word will strike through the text. e.g., -strike- will show as strike.

Using proper formatting, especially bold or italics, will draw a reader’s attention. For example if you write a post about an upcoming company event, you can bold the date, or put the name of a book, show, video, etc. in italics.

2. Post something and then comment on it
Social media, especially Google+, is all about interaction. You want to communicate with your followers or be the conversation starter. One commonly observed trend about Google+ is that its users tend to be more interactive than on platforms. As such, it would not be good idea to just post a link on your profile and leave it – you’ll be missing out on potential interaction!

Instead, when you post a link, share content or another post, share it first and then comment on it. Ask your circles for their opinion, thoughts, ideas, etc. When they interact with you, be sure to reply and keep the conversation going.

If you notice that you have made a mistake or grammar gaffe, hover over the post and select the downward facing arrow in the top-right of the post box. Click on Edit Post to make changes.

3. Tag people
There will be times when you mention specific people or companies in your posts. Why not create this into a potential for engagement by tagging them? You can do this by putting an @ or + sign and typing the person/company’s name. Just make sure there is no space between the @ or + sign, and when you type the name, a pop-up box should show up and allow you to select the profile. Clicking on it will add a link to the profile in the post and will also automatically share it with them when you hit Share.

4. Vary your content
A key to an engaging profile is that it needs to be varied. Don’t focus on sharing links or just pictures as this will eventually cause users to stop interacting with you. A good mixture of shares, +1s, images and original content with links will keep those in your circles much more interested.

While Google+ isn’t the most popular social media platform today, Google is investing heavily in it, and it appears to be paying off. If you are looking for ways to get your profile and presence established before the big rush, let us know, and we may be able to help.

While being one of the most useful business tools ever invented, email can also be a hinderance. Because of its generally open nature, when anyone can get an email address, criminals have taken their operations online in the form of email frauds or scams. This can be a big issue for business owners, and knowing how to determine if an email is legitimate or not is important.

Here’s five tips to help you spot email frauds or scams.

Look at the email address
One of the easiest ways to spot a fraudulent email or scam is by looking at the email address of the sender. Many credit card application scams use third party email services like Gmail or Yahoo. Some scammers go so far as to set up accounts in the name of the company e.g., AMEX_121@gmail.com.

Sophisticated scammers will actually try to copy the legitimate company’s email account – a practice called spoofing. They will usually have a few changes like a missing letter from the address, or an extra . added.

The easiest thing you can do is look for the sender’s site on the Internet. For example: You get an email from AMEX OPEN (American Express’s small business credit card) and notice that the sender’s email address just doesn’t look right. Go to Google and search for amex fraud. You’ll likely find the fraud page which tells you exactly how the company sends emails. If the sender is a smaller company, most of these will have email contact addresses right on the site, take a look and compare the two. If they are different, the email is likely a scam.

Look at the sender’s website
If you think an email is fraudulent, try looking up the website associated with the sender. Should you be unable to find the site, it’s likely a scam.

If you find a website, click through some pages to see if there is anything that looks out of place. For example a website selling a new financial service has pages with Coming Soon or you get errors when you try to load the page. If it looks fishy, it likely is – delete the email.

It would also be a good idea to go to archive.org’s Wayback Machine, copy and paste the website’s URL into the The Wayback Machine Search bar and hit Take me back. This will bring up previous versions of the website. If you see that the site in question was something completely different a few months to a year ago (e.g., it is a financial services page now, but six months ago it was a page selling prescription drugs), chances are high it’s a fraud.

Call them
Many scammers will put phone numbers into emails to make them look more legitimate. If you are unsure about whether this email is legitimate or not, why not try calling the number? Many scammers run more than one fraud operating at the same time and may answer the phone with another name, or not at all.

Similarly, if you call a local number of a supposedly small business and get routed directly to voicemail, it’s likely fraud.

Look carefully at the body of the message
The body of the email can also be a great way to suss out email scammers and potential fraud. Because many fraudulent emails originate outside of the major English speaking countries, there will often be language that just sounds different from the way people write in your area. One great example of this would be a line like ‘We wish to sell you a great product.’

You should also look for spelling errors, grammar mistakes or inconsistencies. While some fraudulent emails will have minor spelling inconsistencies, others will spell common words wrong. If you see mistakes like ‘our product are a great deals’, this should raise a warning flag.

Spelling and grammar errors are a part of business communication, so don’t expect a perfect email from all companies, especially if you see that the company is located overseas. It’s the emails with mistakes supposedly coming from companies in your area that should really raise alarm.

The sender asks for money or passwords
It’s kind of an unwritten rule that when sending out emails you never ask for a person’s credit card number or account passwords. Banks, large companies and many social networks will never ask you for passwords or account information, credit card numbers, pin codes, etc of any kind over email. If you notice that an email selling something asks for you to reply with a credit card details so you can make a purchase, it’s best to delete the email as it’s likely a fraud.

Email fraud is a big deal, and unfortunately it will likely become even more common in the near future. This means you should be able to spot potentially fraudulent emails. If you think an email is a scam, it’s best to just delete it immediately. Don’t respond or forward it to colleagues or employees. If you need to let people know, write another email that describes the suspected email but has no links. You can also forward a screenshot to your colleagues or friends to illustrate the scam.

Looking for more ways you can protect your company? Contact us today. We can work with you to develop a security system that will meet your needs.

If we were to ask you to name five common business buzzwords of the past couple of years, chances are high that collaboration would be one of them. It seems like almost all tech, cloud services especially, talk about it. Possibly the biggest enabler of collaboration is Google with services like Drive. While we are told that Drive can help foster a collaborative environment, many are unsure how.

Here’s an overview of how collaboration works within Google Drive. Before we look into it however, it’s a good idea to define Drive. Launched last year, Drive is a cloud based document/file sharing and storing service that also has an attached office productivity suite. The easiest way to think of Drive is as an online hard drive with an office suite – similar to Microsoft Office. When you create a new document, it is automatically saved on your Drive, much like saving a document to your computer.

1. What exactly is collaboration to Google?
From Google’s viewpoint, it appears that the main idea of collaboration is to breed greater efficiency in organizations. This means sharing files with other users who can edit/work on them in real-time. There is essentially one version of the document that all users see which means not having to send the different versions to each other and no confusion over which is most up to date.

In practice, it’s interesting. Say you have a Google Doc that will become a report. You can share it with your team, divide the sections up and all be writing at the same time. This could drastically reduce emails sent back and forth requesting for information and updates, and increase overall efficiency of your team.

The storage side of Drive allows you to create folders similar to those on your hard drive. Where Drive differs is that you can share these folders and the files within with specific users, customers or your whole organization.

2. How to share documents
One of the key features of Drive’s collaborative functions hinges on the ability to share documents and files. There are at least five sharing options including:

• Private - The file/document will be only be shared with specific people you invite, or only you.
• People within the organization with the link - Will give anyone in your organization access to the document as long as they click on the URL link to the document. You will have to send them the link to the individual users.
• Everyone in the organization - Anyone within the company can search for, and access the file on Drive.
• Anyone with the link - Anyone with the URL link can access the document. You will have to send the link to the people you want to access the file.
• Public on the web - The file can be searched for using Google Search and can be accessed by anyone.

You can share individual documents by clicking on the blue Share button in the top-right of the Spreadsheet, Document, Presentation or Form. You can then select the sharing option, or enter individual email addresses by entering the address in the bar labeled Add people:. By default the user will receive an email with a link to the document.

3. How to see revision history
One of the downsides of collaboration in Drive is that because it’s done in real-time, it can be tough to see the changes that have been made. Drive does store the changes however, all you have to do is look at any document and press File followed by See revision history.

You’ll notice a bar on the right pop-up with the last ten major changes. Clicking on the individual change will show you the changes that were made to the document in a different color. You can select Restore this session to revert the changes.

4. Using in-document chat and comments for better collaboration
If you are working with people who aren’t in the office, Drive has integrated chat into every Document, Spreadsheet and Form. If other users are looking at the file, you will see their name under the Share and Comments buttons. If you click on the black triangle, the chat bar will open to the right of the window. This will allow you to talk with the other users from within the document – there’s no need to switch browser tabs.

If a user has written something you aren’t sure of, or would like more information on you can highlight the text and press the Comments button – the dark grey highlight box that looks like a speech bubble in the menu bar above the text entry field – to leave a comment. All users who you have shared the document with will get an email with the comment.

Google Drive is a great way for companies to collaborate both within and outside the organization. When used properly, you should see an increase in the productivity and efficiency of your employees. If you would like to learn more about how Google Drive and other Google Apps can help your business, please contact us today.

Robert Gefaell of Plexus Capital, Beth Snyder of Stancil & Company, and Doug McConnell of WorkSmart’s Philadelphia office are the winners of the 2013 WorkSmart March Madness contest.

Robert received one of the two $25 iTunes Gift Cards for having the Best Answer to the question “What is your Favorite Team and Why?” His personal story about his son’s 8 y.o. basketball team resonated with many.

Beth was selected for the second $25 iTunes Gift Card by random drawing among all who voted on the Best Answer to the question mentioned above.

And as you probably already know if you were checking the CBS Sports brackets site, the winner of the 2013 March Madness bracket challenge is WorkSmart’s own Doug McConnell, from our Philadelphia office. Doug had a score of 300, and got 42 selections correct in order to secure first place. Doug took a minute to pose with his prize, a new iPad mini.

Thanks to all who participated, and congratulations again to the winners!

There are numerous ways a business can build a brand and ultimately grow. One of the most popular tools to help with this is social media, of which there are numerous services. The newest social media service is Pinterest which is dedicated to the sharing of images. Pinterest has recently been updated with a new layout and features that businesses with profiles will benefit from.

Here’s a brief overview of the new features introduced with Pinterest’s recent layout changes.

How to get the new layout

Before you can use these features, it would be a good idea to upgrade to the new layout. While, like other social media services, this will be happening automatically over time. Unlike other platforms, the new layout is available for all users to switch to when they feel ready, however when you switch to the new layout, you will not be able to go back to the old one. Here’s how you can switch:

1. Log in to Pinterest.
2. Hover your mouse over your profile/business name at the top-right of your profile.
3. Click Switch to the New Look.
4. Select Get it Now. Note: If you press this, you likely won’t be able to switch back to the old layout.
5. Press Okay from the Welcome to your new look! pop-up window.

When the new layout loads, you’ll notice that the pins are bigger, the category button has been moved to the left side of the profile beside the Search bar. You’ll also notice that the comment button has been moved from the pins, you can access it by clicking on the image. On top of cosmetic changes, two useful functions that businesses will find beneficial.

Discovery

Now, when you look at an individual pin (click on the image), you will notice a number of changes.

• You can see all pins on the same board.
• You’ll also see pins from the same website. For example if you pin something from a restaurant, you’ll now see similar pins from the same website.
• Most importantly, you’ll now be able to see what other people have pinned along with the same image.

This will make it easier for users to discover what other people are pinning. For your business this means potentially higher exposure. Think of this as something similar to the way Facebook works: If a person likes you, the chances of this like showing on their friend’s profile, and that friend visiting your Page is higher. It’s kind of like easy brand exposure.

Analytics

Arguably the most useful feature added recently is Pinterest Analytics, which allows you to see if your pins are being clicked on or shared, and the general success of your activities. This will go a long way in helping you determine the overall success of your Pinterest oriented efforts.

The main caveat with this is that your profile/business’s website needs to be verified and connected with your profile. If you have an unofficial Pinterest account, you can change it to a business one by:

1. Logging into your Pinterest account and going to business.pinterest.com.
2. Pressing Convert your existing account and choose your type of business.
3. Entering the relevant account information like the name of your business, address and website.
4. Agreeing to the new Terms of Service.

If you would like to have a new username or account simply go to http://business.pinterest.com/ and press Join as a Business. You will be asked to set your account information, username, etc. You will need to verify your account which will involve you having to download a file and upload it to the server that hosts your website. We, or your web hoster can help you with that.

After your account is verified, you will notice that if you hover your mouse over your account name a drop-down list should pop up with Analytics being about half way down. Click on that to be taken to the section.

This section will display a bunch of graphs including:

• The number of daily pins and pinners on your site.
• The number of re-pins you have done.
• How many times your content has been repinned.
• The number of clicks and website visits.
• The most clicked and repinned pins.
• The number of times your pins have been seen.

Overall, Analytics is a useful tool that will give you a clear picture of what is working and what isn’t. If you pinned a picture of a dog and noticed that it got zero pins while another got hundreds, it may be a good idea to create/look for more similar content.

If you are looking to integrate Pinterest into your business’s social media strategy or would like or learn more about how to use the service, please contact us today.

 

If you were to ask business owners or managers the number one program they use on a regular basis, many would probably say the spreadsheet. This versatile program helps managers and owners keep track of various information but some spreadsheets can reach such massive sizes that they become unwieldy. Excel has a function that can help you easily pull data from a large spreadsheet - the pivot table. While useful, the pivot table isn't perfect and will usually require a some formatting.

Here's four ways you can modify Excel 2013 for Office 365's pivot tables to meet your needs.

Make your tables look good

When you first create a new pivot table you may notice that the numbers aren't formatted properly, or the table didn't pull the format from the base spreadsheet. They may have too many decimal places, or are lacking currency figures. You can make edit this by:

1. Selecting any of the numbers in the Value field.
2. Clicking on the Analyze tab from the tabs above the table.
3. Pressing on Field Settings in the Active Field group.

This will open the Field Settings panel and allow you to edit the whole Value field, which means that if you change numbers, location, etc, the formatting will stick. Pressing Number Format will bring up the Format Cell window where you can apply numbers, currencies, decimal places, etc. Pressing Ok will apply the formatting you have selected to the whole field.

You can also apply color schemes or styles by pressing the Design tab and selecting the theme that looks good to you. This will not usually change the layout, just the color and style.

Change the name of the table and fields

If you are going to be sending the table to clients or colleagues, you may want to change the name of the table and fields to something a little more user-friendly. You can change the names by:

1. Clicking on the cell/name you would like to change.
2. Pressing on the Analyze tab.
3. Looking at the Active Field area of the Analyze tab and double clicking on the cell's name. You can also click on the box beside Pivot Table Name if you want to change the table's name.
4. Entering a new name.

Add gridlines for easier viewing

If you need to separate the information in the cell, the easiest thing to do is to add gridlines. This can be done by:

1. Clicking on a cell in the table
2. Selecting the Design tab and choosing any style aside from the first one.
3. Looking at the PivotTable Style Gallery and ticking the box that says Banded Rows.

Change blanks to 0s

There may be an issue where the data that's used to create the table leave blank spaces when they should be 0s. This isn't a big deal, but it would be a good idea to ensure that, for consistency, blank cells are represented as a 0, especially if other related cells are numbers. You can force Excel to fill blank cells with a 0 by:

1. Right clicking on the table.
2. Selecting Options followed by Layout & Format in the pop-up window.
3. Entering 0 beside the box that says For empty cells show
4. Pressing Ok.

Excel and the pivot table bring some excellent functionality to the spreadsheet, and having a properly formatted pivot table could go a long way in ensuring the information shown is easier to read. If you would like to learn more about how Excel or any of the other Office 365 programs can help, please contact us today.