A tisk-it a task-it: Automate Tasks from Slack to Asana Using Zapier

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Get Shift Done: Tips and Tricks

Even if you began using “team communication” tools with IRC, you can appreciate Slack’s virtues, such as automation features and connectivity with other tools. For instance, you can send a task straight to Asana (a full-featured task management system), which creates a solid connection between team communication and the action items on which to follow up.

Even better, using a tool like Zapier to connect Slack to Asana can save time and help with task delegation. Instead of adding a task to two separate applications — once to Slack and again to Asana — you can click on the star on the Slack item and Asana is updated.

It’s surprisingly easy to set this up, though the initial configuration includes a few steps to ensure everything is connected correctly.

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Find the Right Software, Wow Reporters and Never Forget an Appointment

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Get Shift Done: Tips and Tricks

Get Shift Done Weekly Roundup: Thursday, January 26, 2017

The Non-Techie’s Guide to Finding and Choosing Online Software


It’s easy to become overwhelmed when trying to find, evaluate and select online software for your business. That’s why I’ve created this six-step guide.

This process uses your specific business needs as a filter to cut through the noise and distractions so you can focus-in and find the right online software solution time-and-time again. Check it out…


Try These Top GSD Tips

How to Turn Google Calendar into an Information Hub

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How to Narrate Your Adobe Spark Video

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Get Shift Done: Tips and Tricks

Adobe Spark Video makes it easy to create compelling slideshow videos to share on the Web. But to make them really memorable, why not engage another of your viewer’s senses: hearing? Adding a recorded narration to a presentation reinforces your message, increasing the likelihood that your audience pays close attention to the lessons you need them to take away from the slideshow.

Here’s how to add good-quality audio to your Spark Video slideshow.

First of all, you need a microphone attached to your device. Most laptops, tablets, and all cell phones have built-in mics, so no problem there. However, if you’re using a desktop computer, depending on the model, you may need to connect an add-on mic. (Most simply connect to your computer’s USB port.) Be sure to speak into the microphone, and remember that narration should be significantly slower than your usual conversational voice.

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Set Up Reminders and Appointments (For You AND Your Team) in Slack

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Get Shift Done: Tips and Tricks

via Michael Arrighi, Flickr

We all have multiple systems and devices for reminding us about appointments and tasks. The one flaw in most of them however, is the fact that you can only set reminders for yourself. That’s no longer the case though because you can easily add high-impact, useful reminders, bit for yourself and your teammates, to Slack!

As you can see below, all it takes to set up a reminder in Slack is typing out /remind. In order to maximize your reminder potential, just follow this simple equation with your prompts:

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How to Turn Google Calendar into an Information Hub

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Get Shift Done: Tips and Tricks

Did you know that your Google Calendar can also be an information hub? You can add other calendars (other than those of your teammates), weather reports and other useful widgets. Here’s how to add a few specific widgets and where to find more.

Add Google Fit


Your health is important to being your best at work, so having your fitness information integrated with your Google Calendar can be super helpful. Google just released an update that lets you sync your Google Fit account and your fitness apps to your Google Calendar.

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Slack Hacks: Two Super Useful Time-Savers for SysAdmins

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Get Shift Done: Tips and Tricks

My network management and testing team has been using Slack recently for all the reasons so many other people have turned to the more grown up Slack messaging client. Among Slack’s attractive features is its ability to incorporate add-ins, and I’ve spent some time searching for bots that can help us manage the virtual machines for which we’re responsible.

Earlier, I focused on a bot called OpBot, which helps our team manage our NOC vSphere infrastructure directly from a Slack channel. It’s been quite handy. However, it’s far from the only Slack add-in that’s helped me be more productive with Slack.

In particular, there are two apps — not bots — that I’m falling in love with.

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How to Use “Slide Masters” to Customize Microsoft PowerPoint 365 Presentations

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Get Shift Done: Tips and Tricks

When you associate a slide master with a Microsoft PowerPoint 365 presentation, it stores information about that presentation’s visual theme and layout, including background images, fonts, effects, and placeholders. PowerPoint includes quite a few slide masters by default, but creating your own allows you to make global customizations to your entire presentation in a single stroke, saving an enormous amount of time and frustration.

Every presentation contains at least one slide master by default. To edit it, we must enter the Slide Master View. To do so, navigate to the View ribbon and select Slide Master within the Master Views group.


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It’s Hard To Do Advanced Search Inside Excel 365. But Here’s How (Stay With Us)

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Get Shift Done: Tips and Tricks

Large spreadsheets can quickly become unwieldy, especially when you try to find specific information buried within volumes of data. Since the Lookup Wizard was retired in Microsoft Excel 365, the easiest and most effective method of searching a spreadsheet is to use the powerful VLOOKUP and HLOOKUP functions. This article provides an overview of these functions and examples showing how to use them.

First is the VLOOKUP (Vertical Lookup) function. The sample worksheet uses a discount matrix for items purchased in bulk. We are trying to determine how much of a discount to give for a particular purchase order, based on the weight of the items purchased. The formula is:


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Integrate Google Drive to Share Files Inside Slack

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Get Shift Done: Tips and Tricks

Have you ever put the brakes on a Slack conversation so you could go look for an Google Drive link? Sharing your documents shouldn’t be so damn hard. Instead of emailing links back and forth you can share files in your Slack conversations by quickly integrating Google Drive into Slack.

Here’s how to do it:

1. Go to your file in Google Drive and click on the Share button.

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