Tweaking Office 2013

Ok, time to make the switch to Office 2013.  After installing, the number one complaint (according to hundreds of message boards on the topic) is that the applications seem to have taken a huge step back in the "look and feel" department.  There are even complaints that the white and gray color scheme is causing headaches.

While I agree that the default UI is strangely bland (considering the candy-coated colors of Win8), like any other MS transition, with a little poking around we can find ways to tweak office to make most users happy.

1. Hiding the start page.
The Start page is the page with the really huge icons that displays each time you open word or excel. If you are like me, it would save you a mouse click to just jump to the blank document 99% of the time. So here is how we hide it:
a. Open the office app
b. Click the blank document icon
c. Click File > Options > General
d. Uncheck the "Show the Start screen" option (it is in the same place for excel)

2. Getting your ribbon back
When I first started up word, the ribbons were hidden.  It can be annoying to have to click on the ribbon tab to display it each time.  To make it stick around:
a. First click on the ribbon tab (such as HOME)

b.  Then click the pin on the right bottom of the ribbon

 

 

3. Change the Default Save location

When you click save as, it will default to sharepoint or skydrive.  If you would like to change the default option that comes up and save another mouse click:

a. Go to Options > Save

 

b. Check the box for Save to Computer by Default and set the default file location



4. Remove the all-caps from the ribbon tabs.
If you are tired of the flaming all caps ribbon tabs, here is an easy way to change them.  I was able to change all but the FILE tab.  It is amazing how much more readable the tabs are with this simple change.
a. Go to Options > Customize Ribbon
b. In the right hand pane, right click on each ribbon name you want to change and choose rename
c. The name should already be in upper/lower case.  Type a space after the name and click ok

5. Change the information your status bar displays
Yes, the little bar at the bottom of the your app can display lots of helpful info and functions.
a. Right click on the status bar and choose the options you want.  I like to display line numbers in word and add num-lock and caps lock in excel.

6. Color scheme
Now for the most annoying part.  The extreme white-out color scheme.  The issue is really not the lack of color, but the high contrast color scheme.  No additional color schemes have been offered, so there is not really a good fix, but here are some things you can try that might make it more tolerable for you.
a. Turn down the brightness on your monitor.
b. Go to File > Account and try a different color scheme.  Granted, there is only white, light gray, and dark gray, but pick the one that is best for you.
c. In outlook, select view > View Settings > Other Settings and set the grid line style to solid.
d. In outlook, select view > View Settings > Conditional Formatting.  For the unread messages, change the font to bold italic to help differentiate new messages.

7. Reclaim some screen real estate in outlook.
By default the new outlook places a one line preview on each message in the preview pane.  This greatly reduces the number of messages you can see at once in the list and causes lots of scolling.  To turn this off:
a. Click the View Tab
b. Choose Message Preview
c. Choose Off

Change view to compact
a. Click the View Tab
b. Click Change View
c. Choose Compact

Remove the Profile Picture from the email
a. Click File > Options > People
b. Uncheck show user photographs

Shrink the Task Bar at the bottom
a. Click the ellipse on the task bar and choose Navigation Options

 

 

b. Edit the display order if you like and choose compact navigation.  This option will shrink the task bar and limit it to the left pane, reclaiming almost an inch of screen space in the reading pane.

 

 

Change to Reading Pane on the right layout.

a. Click View > Reading Pane > Right

Being a longtime "reading pane on the bottom" guy, it really ticks me off, but the engineers and testers have admitted that they all use reading pane on the right mode, so they didn't notice the severity to which they screwed up the other options with things like the email header that the user can't remove.  Indeed, when you change it to the right, it is imediately apparent that the entire outlook app layout was redesigned to accomodate only this view.

 

 

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To embed or not to embed?

Here is a good read on the pros and cons of embedded  in SSRS reports.
http://www.sqlchick.com/entries/2011/4/4/pros-and-cons-stored-proceduresvs-embedded-queriesvs-views-i.html

In a nutshell, the pros to embedding the SQL are:
Pros to developer:

• No “Create” permissions needed on the source database
• One-step deployment

Pros to user:

• None

Now lets look at the pros to using stored procs or views for the datasource.
Benefits to developer:

• Can reuse the same stored procedure for more than one report, so less code to write in the long run, and fewer bugs to track down in the short run
• DBA can tune more effectively, if needed
• Permits the DBMS to secure the object, if needed
• Provides a layer of abstraction between the database tables & the report (for example: you can alias column names, create derived fields, minimize the effect of other physical object changes, or show less fields to simplify the reporting process), so less code to write in the long run
• Provides an additional layer of security since "Execute" permissions are required for either the user running the report, or an impersonation account
• Ability to query system tables to find usage of tables & columns, so easier change management
• For a minor change, permits the ability to alter the stored procedure without requiring the RDL to be redeployed, so no time wasted redeploying the rdl
• Can be used for gathering data in applications or smartlists with 100% assurance that the data matches what is on the report.
• Views give you one more in that they don't need execute permission to run

Benefits to user:

• Performance: Stored procs can take advantage of quey re-use plans to increase performance.
• Flexibility: can base ad-hoc reporting (such as smartlist) on the database object that generates the report, rather than having to muddle through table joins.

Now that is a pretty lopsided set of lists.  However, in my opinion, good reports make happy users.  The report is the end product of the user's work, and for many managers, reports are their only interaction with software systems. 

So from that perspective, we should throw away the lists pertaining to developers and just look at the lists of benefits to the users.  That is when we can truly see that stored procs win this battle hands-down.



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Using dataset from stored proc in another proc

There are times when it is really convenient to gather data in a view and then use that view in one or more stored procs to build a complex dataset.  Sometimes, however, that base dataset can run much more efficiently if you use one or more temp tables to join data.  Views can;t handle this type of logic, but stored procs can.  Historically, it was difficult to use the dataset returned rom a stored proc in the logic of other stored procs, but nowadays it is relatively easy using temp table variables.

Say we have a stored proc that returns a dataset like this:


create proc myBaseData(
 @param1 int,
 @param2 datetime
)
as
begin
 select @param1 as int1,
   @param2 as date1
end
go


Now say we want to call that proc and use the dataset in another proc, but we don;t want to save the records to a physical table.  We can insert the proc results in a table variable like so:

create proc MyCallingProc(
 @param1 int
)
as
begin
 declare @mytable as table(
  col1 int,
  col2 datetime
 )

 declare @d datetime
 select @d=convert(varchar,GETDATE(),112)

 insert into @mytable
 exec myBaseData @param1,@d

 select * from @mytable
end
go


We can then execute it as follows:

exec MyCallingProc 1

The big bonus here is that I don;t have to create a view and take the performance hit of filtering it every time I join it.  The params on the proc can be used to filter the results before joining.

Another bonus is that I can set a primary key (unique index) on the table variable, which is something I can't do in the view.

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