Office 365 A1 Users will be Limited to 100GB OneDrive Storage and Receive Microsoft Copilot Starting February 1, 2024
On August 1, 2023, Microsoft introduced changes to storage across the Microsoft 365 for Education suite (MC664026, August '23). Effective February 1, 2024, users of Office 365 A1 licenses—a zero-cost subscription Microsoft donates to schools around the globe, inclusive of Office 365 A1 Plus—will be limited to a maximum of 100GB of OneDrive storage per user.
Beginning February 1, users will receive warning notifications when approaching the storage limit. The default notification level is at 90% storage capacity. At 100% capacity, the user's OneDrive will be limited to read-only access. Users won't be able to upload, edit or sync new files to OneDrive, and existing files will remain as read-only. Users can still download files, delete files, and empty recycle bins.
Recent Changes to Word, Excel, and PowerPoint Integration in Teams
Jul 15, 2022 - Word, Excel, and PowerPoint (WXP) are now available as Teams Personal Apps. There are no changes to the existing file open behavior for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint in Teams; however, there are new abilities that the WXP Personal Apps can provide. Additionally, this change comes with a number of UX improvements to the Office ribbon in Teams to provide a decluttered experience consistent with Office for the Web.
New abilities that WXP Personal Apps provide include:
Ability to pin the apps to the app bar for easy entry point.
Right click the app icon in the app bar to pop out documents in a new window, to allow multi-tasking between Teams chats and document editing.
App home page to navigate documents, view recommended files, or create new file.
Changes to the Office ribbon in Teams include:
Open in Browser and Open in Desktop App move to the mode menu.
Introduction of the Share menu, consistent with Office for the Web Conversation button is removed.
Introduction of in-app Search bar in app header.
(Updated) PowerPoint Live: Present to Teams from PowerPoint Web App
Aug 17, 2021 - This new PowerPoint for the web feature release will provide access to PowerPoint Live in Teams and with just one click, will make it easier for presenters to present their presentations from PowerPoint directly to their remote meeting audience.
While in a Teams meeting, users will be able to present their slide presentations with one click of the Present in Teams button in PowerPoint for the web to the remote audience in Teams in PowerPoint Live mode.
There are two access points users can choose from. One is in the top right corner and the other is under the Slide Show tab. Requirements:
Install the Microsoft Teams desktop app.
Files must be stored on SharePoint or OneDrive for Business.
Presenter must join a meeting or a call before clicking the Present in Teams button in PowerPoint.
Access Files Offline in Mobile
Apr 30, 2021 - The Teams mobile app now allows you to access files even when you are offline or in bad network conditions. Simply select the files you need access to, and Teams will keep a downloaded version to use in your mobile app. This is rolling out on the Teams Android App.
The updated app will be available in the Google Play Store. Teams mobile Android app users will be able to make files accessible offline and find them in the files section of the app.
(Updated) New Options for Attachments in Outlook on the Web
Apr 29, 2021 - This new Outlook on the web feature will bring users an updated experience when receiving email attachments. Microsoft is updating the look and contents of the attachments, and consolidating all options under a single menu (similar to Outlook for Mac and Outlook for Windows).
Additionally, users in tenants with OneDrive enabled will see new options in this menu and in the attachment previewer for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files. This will provide the ability to directly begin editing Office attachments in the corresponding browser or desktop app.
This release will enable users to better collaborate by expanding how attachments look (icons have been added to menu) and what users can do with them. The hover over menu has been replaced with a single, always present click target for all actions.
Users can access Preview, Edit in Browser, Edit in Word desktop app, Save to OneDrive and Download. Clicking Edit in Browser or Edit in Word desktop app, saves a copy of the file to OneDrive and opens it in the corresponding web or desktop app. Once users make edits, they can then share back collaborative links with co-workers so others can work on the same file in real time.
New attachments with always present click target.
Edit in browser is the new default option.
Edit in browser menu options.
Note: The change to replace the hover over menu with the always present click target will affect all users, not just companies with OneDrive. Non-OneDrive teams will not see the Edit in browser or Edit in Desktop app options in this menu.
Outlook Mobile Clients will Soon Provide Access to Delegate Mailboxes
Apr 12, 2021 - Soon you will be able to add and remove delegates from within Outlook for iOS and Outlook for Android. Delegates will be able to access those mailboxes on their mobile app as well. A delegate mailbox is a mailbox where users can provide access for others (delegates) to take actions on their behalf. With this update, users can manage delegates from within their Outlook mobile app. Colleagues with delegate permissions can add and view delegate mailboxes in their Outlook mobile app.
Outlook on the Web: Update in How Users Access Mail, Calendar, People, and To Do
Feb 16, 2021 - Microsoft is adding an app bar to Outlook on the web which changes how users access Mail, Calendar, People, and To Do functions. Users will access Mail, Calendar, Contacts, To Do, and other Outlook experiences along the left side of the folder pane. Users can also launch Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote on the web, Yammer, and other Microsoft 365 applications directly from the app bar.
Outlook - Retiring Support for Some Events from Email
Jul 20, 2020 - Microsoft will be retiring support for some types of events from our "events from email" feature. The release will being in late July and extend to all customers in mid-August. Once this change happens, users will no longer get those events automatically added to their calendars. These events were not enabled by default so this change will only be noticeable if users took an action in Settings to enable them.
The events that won't be supported anymore are:
Bills
Dining reservations
Events reservations
Service reservations
Outlook for Windows Introduces Roaming Signatures
June 2, 2020 - Outlook for Windows is introducing e-mail signatures that will be stored in the cloud rather than being stored locally on the user's Windows device. We will begin rolling this out in late July.
Traditionally, signatures were stored locally on a user's Windows device. With this feature, signatures will now be associated with an email account.
Signatures will be stored in the user mailbox and will be available on any devices running Outlook for Windows that has been configured with that email account.
When the feature becomes available, Outlook will read the existing local signatures. Outlook will copy signatures selected as default for New messages or Replies/forwards to the account mailbox, making them available across multiple devices.
Outlook on the Web: In-Product Notification of Full Inbox
May 28, 2020 - Whenever someone has used 90% or more of their inbox capacity, Outlook on the web will display a notification until the user reduces stored messages to below 90% of inbox capacity.
Users will see a notification in Outlook on the web that states that their inbox storage has reached at least 90% of its capacity. This message appears on the bottom of the folder column. It includes a direct link to settings, where the user can address the storage issue by deleting emails.
Should the inbox reach 100% storage, the user will no longer be able to send or receive email messages until they free up storage. To do so, they should click on "storage settings" on the notification or go to Settings > General > Storage and review which folders are taking up the most space and then permanently delete stored files.
Updated New Feature: Poll Added to Outlook
May 27, 2020 - You will no longer need to download the Quick Poll add-in from the store and manually install it in Outlook to create a poll after we pre-install the Poll add-in. We plan to withdraw the current Quick Poll add-in from the store in January 2021.
The rollout for Outlook on the web began the end of May and will be completed by mid-June.
The rollout for Outlook for Mac will begin in early June and be completed by the end of June.
We will communicate with you again when we have an estimated timeline for Outlook for Windows.
Your Outlook for Mac, Outlook for Windows, and Outlook on the web (desktop) users will soon be able to create a poll within Outlook without needing to find-and-install an add-in.
For Outlook for Mac, users will find Poll on the Message tab. After a user pins the add-in, it will appear under the contextual toolbar.
Outlook for Mac
For Outlook on the web, when users create a new email message, they can access the add-in under "…" > Poll.
Outlook on the web
For Outlook for Windows, users can accessPoll either via Insert tab > Poll or via Options> Use Voting Buttons> Poll.
Outlook for PC
Should Mac and Outlook on the web users not uninstall the Quick Poll add-in, the new add-in will be automatically installed when it is withdrawn from the store. When a user preemptively uninstalls the old add-in, the new Poll add-in will be automatically installed.
Updated Feature Update: Office.com Home Page Layout and Navigation
May 15, 2020 - Microsoft is updating the layout and application navigation for the Office.com home page and the Office app in Windows 10 based on customer feedback.
Currently the top section of the Office.com home page is comprised of a 'Start new' option(for creating new documents) and a horizontal list of core applications.
This horizontal top bar is being moved into a vertical navigation bar on the leftside of the page to improve usability. This update has no impact on Office.com or Office app functionality.
The current Office.com home page layout
The new Office.com home page layout
PowerPoint Live Presentations
April 30, 2020 - We will soon release Live Presentations for PowerPoint for web, which allows audience members to see slides and a live transcript of the presenter’s spoken words (including live translation) on their devices.
We will be rolling this out in early May. We expect the rollout to be complete by the end of June.
On the day of a presentation, the presenter selects “Present Live” either from within the Slide Show tab (in case of the Simplified ribbon) or from the View tab:
Simplified ribbon
Classic ribbon
Before starting live presentation, the presenter can choose who will be able to access the session:
Only people in your organization - Limits access to people signed in with accounts within the same Office 365 organization (work or school account) as the presenter.
Anyone - Allows access to anyone who has the link to the live presentation.
A live presentation allows each audience member to follow a presentation on their own device, whether laptop, tablet or phone. They can also choose live subtitles from more than 60 languages, navigate between slides, send real-time reactions and provide feedback to the presenter.
Updated - Get the Most Out Of Class Notebook And OneNote
April 29, 2020 - We are pleased to announce that the newest version of the Class Notebook Add-in for OneNote is now available. Review the blog to learn more.
As schools continue to implement and accelerate their remote learning initiatives, we are releasing a new and improved version of the OneNote Class Notebook Add-in. The new version of the Add-in, along with the most recent OneNote build, is expected to significantly improve your users’ OneNote experience. Additionally, we have identified that some teachers are unknowingly creating extremely large OneNote files which is impacting performance for all your users. To avoid impact we will be limiting the size of OneNote pages/attachments.
Attachments within OneNote are being limited to 50 mb. If users need to insert attachments larger than 50mb, they can choose the option to upload to OneDrive and insert a link to the file.
Page distribution sizes are also being limited to 50 mb. If a user attempts to distribution a page in OneNote that is larger than 50 mb, they will receive an error message.
New Feature: Review Mode in Word For The Web Prevents Unintended Edits
April 17, 2020 - When people share documents with Open in review mode only selected, recipients who open the document in Word for the web will be limited to adding comments or leaving tracked changes in the document. This can help prevent unintended edits to the document.
People who open the document in the Word desktop app instead of on the web will only be able to view the document. They’ll see a notification to switch to Word for the web if they want to make changes.
With this feature, file owners can have more control over new edits, and only file owners can accept or reject changes made by other people. If someone else leaves suggestions in the document, they’ll be able to reject their own changes but can’t accept or reject someone else’s changes.
Updated Feature: Updates for Time Management and Calendaring in Outlook Mobile
April 3, 2020 - We are making a few updates in Outlook for iOS that can help users easily schedule meetings, get additional calendar context at a glance, and show up on time.
1. Calendar week numbers.
We recently added the week number to three- and seven-day calendar views in Outlook for iOS. Next, we’ll add add it to the Month view.
2. Adding time zones to events.
In the coming weeks, we will restart this rollout. Users will soon be able to add a time zone to new events in Outlook for iOS. Support for an additional time zone in Outlook for Android remains on hold, but it is prioritized in our backlog.
3. Time To Leave.
Apple introduced a change in iOS 13 that restricts Outlook for iOS and other apps from using the device location in the background. As a result, Time To Leave notifications from Outlook will no longer be reliable. We will therefore disable the Time to Leave notification capability and remove the option to set this notification in Outlook for iOS Settings.
Effective the end of April, users who have Time To Leave turned on in Outlook and Notifications enabled on their device will no longer receive notifications about the best time to leave based on their location and the start time of calendar events that include rich locations (full addresses).
A time to leave indication will still be visible in the Agenda view in Outlook for iOS as well as in the event details page if Location Services are enabled in the device settings and the calendar event has a full, mappable street address.
Co-Editor Chat Access Directly from Office Word, Excel And PowerPoint Documents Has Been Retired
April 1, 2020 - Several days ago we announced that the ability to initiate a Chat directly with a co-editor of a Word, Excel or PowerPoint document would be retired over several weeks beginning mid-April (across web, Windows and Mac versions of Office). However due to continued issues with the feature, we made the decision to pull the retirement date in, rather than continuing to enable the current experience.
Moving forward, to communicate with others working in Office documents, we recommend using document Comments when you want to attach a comment to a specific selection within a document (on the Review tab on the ribbon), and Microsoft Teams Chat when you want to communicate with others immediately.
Once the change is implemented, when multiple people are in a document at the same time, you will continue to see names of co-editors at the top right of the document window, but the ability to initiate a Chat with one of the co-editors from this location will no longer be available.
Some users of Word, Excel, PowerPoint for Windows may temporarily continue to see a "Join Chat" entry point for document co-editors that launches a Skype or Teams application window when clicked or tells the user Chat is unavailable.
New Feature: Spaces Coming Soon to Outlook on the web
March 2, 2020 - Coming soon to Outlook on the web, is Spaces. With Spaces users can bring together information from different areas within Office 365 into one location. Spaces helps you organize your emails, meetings, and docs into easy-to-follow project spaces. Forget worrying about dropping the ball; Spaces helps you stay effortlessly on top of what matters.
Spaces can be found on Outlook on the web by clicking the sticky note with a push pin icon in the tool tray at the bottom left Outlook on the web screen. The feature is constantly being enhanced, and currently supports:
Emails
Calendar appointments and events
Sticky notes
OneDrive files
External Links
To-do lists
Deadlines
PowerPoint Presentations
Word Documents
Excel Spreadsheets
Weather forecast
In the future, Spaces will use AI to assist in discovering and grouping items into spaces.
New Feature: Outlook mobile Enabled Delegate Permissions for Mailboxes
Feb 14, 2020 - Delegates who have been granted full access permissions to send email and respond to calendar invitations on the behalf of another person will soon be able to do so from Outlook for iOS and Android.
We'll be gradually rolling this out in mid-February 2020. The rollout should be completed by mid-April.
This release affects only delegates who have full access permissions to the owner’s inbox; it does not apply to groups. Selective folder permissions will be supported in a later release.
Feb 13, 2020 - Currently, the Power BI tab in Teams displays a single report.
The new Power BI collaborative workspace lets users bundle a collection of dashboards, reports, and paginated reports into an app, which they can then share. With this update, Teams can display this new app in the Power BI tab. Consequently, the tab also supports paginated reports.
What do I need to do to prepare for this change? There is no action you need to take to prepare for this change, but you might consider updating your user training and notifying your help desk.
Feature Update: Tasks Powered by To-Do Generally Available
Feb 13, 2020 - As of July 2019, the new Outlook on the web is generally available. As we continue to evolve the experience we are announcing that the new Tasks experience powered by To Do is generally available. As part of this change we will be retiring the opt-in toggle for classic Tasks.
When this change is implemented, users will no longer be able to see the classic Tasks experience in Outlook on the web. The new Tasks experience is powered by To Do, so users will see all their tasks as well as lists of tasks they have created, any flagged emails, and tasks and lists they have created in the To Do app.
New Feature: Outlook on the web - New Experience in Mobile Browsers
Jan 24, 2020 - We are moving forward with making the new experience for Outlook on a mobile browser the default experience and removing the opt-in toggle.
We'll be gradually rolling this out at the beginning of February.The roll-out will be completed by the beginning of March.
Please click Additional Information for more info on the new experience for Outlook on a mobile browser.
New Feature: Outlook on the web - Add a Personal Calendar and TeamSnap Account
Jan 17, 2020 - Outlook on the web will soon give you the option to connect a personal calendar (Outlook.com or Google Calendar) to your Office 365 and Microsoft 365 accounts. In addition, you will be able to connect a TeamSnap account to Outlook on the web.
In addition, you will be able to connect a TeamSnap account to Outlook on the web.
After the connection, you will be able to view and interact with you personal calendars when you are signed in to your work or school account. However, in the case of TeamSnap, you will only be able to view calendar details for TeamSnap events. You will not be able to modify TeamSnap events from your work or school accounts.
Additionally, you may choose to have events from your personal calendar affect how others view your work or school calendar availability.
The default setting for personal calendar events to affect work/school calendar availability is On. You will need to turn this feature off if you do not want a personal calendar to affect work/school calendar availability.
Personal events will show as tentative, busy, or away in a work or school calendar. No details will be shared from a personal event to your organization, even if you have your work or school calendar set to “share all details” and even if you have a personal event set to “public” rather than “private.”
New Feature: Outlook on the web - Sync with Sticky Notes
Jan 7, 2020 - Once enabled, you will see a new experience for the "Notes" folder in Outlook on the web. Sticky Notes created in Windows 10 will continue to sync to this folder, additionally now you can edit a Sticky Note directly from the Notes folder in Outlook on the web and changes will be synced with Sticky Notes in Windows.
If you sign in with the same account across apps, your notes will sync across them like Sticky Notes for Windows 10, OneNote for iPhone and Android Phone, and Microsoft Launcher for Android Phone, Outlook for Windows, Outlook on the web.
Updated Feature: Email Notifications for Comments and @mentions in Word, PowerPoint, and Excel
Dec 19, 2019 - Currently, when you comment on a document, presentation, or spreadsheet and add the @ sign with someone's name (an @mention), that person may receive an email with a link to that comment. By clicking on the link, the mentioned person opens the document comment and enters that conversation.
With this update, when a user gets an email notification that someone has @mentioned them or who has replied to their comment, the email may now show both the comment thread and the surrounding document context without requiring them to open the document. In addition, users who receive the email will be able to reply to the comment without needing to open the document.
This update applies to these versions of Excel: Windows (version 1911 or later), Mac (version 16.31 or later), mobile, and web. For Word, this update applies only to mobile and web versions. For PowerPoint, this update applies only to the web version.
We will add additional support for PowerPoint and Word in 2020 and will notify you of those updates at that time.
Sometimes users may get email notifications that do not include the comment thread, context, or ability to reply from the email. This can happen:
When the file is marked sensitive via rules supporting Data Loss Prevention;
If the file is Rights Protected; or
If the person who left the comment is using a version of Office that does not yet support this feature.
Use Power BI Along with Excel to Increase Productivity
November 23, 2019 - Users may see a yellow message bar notification in Excel to encourage them to increase their productivity by using both Excel and Power BI together. We will be gradually rolling this out in early December. The rollout will be completed by early January.
This message will only be seen by users who are currently enabled to use Power BI.
November 19, 2019 - Soon we will be releasing additional intelligent technology in Outlook for iOS with suggested replies so you can quickly respond to email with short, relevant responses. This capability is similar to suggested replies in Outlook for Android and Outlook on the web. We expect to roll out suggested replies in Outlook for iOS in mid-December.
Once available, if your device language is set to English, Outlook will suggest three response options that can be used to reply to emails that can be answered with a short response.
By default, suggested replies will be enabled in Outlook for iOS and users will be able to manually disable (or re-enable) the Outlook mobile setting within the app unless their company modifies the app configuration settings.
New Feature: Outlook for iOS Launches Play My Emails
November 5, 2019 - Outlook for iOS is starting to roll out Play My Emails using Cortana. Play My Emails lets you catch up with new email in your focused inbox. We will begin gradually rolling this out on November 4, 2019. We expect the roll out to occur over the coming weeks.
With Play My Emails set up and turned on, Cortana will intelligently read your emails and share changes to your day when you start Play My Emails by tapping the play button in the menu sidebar. When you’re connected to a Bluetooth or audio device or the native iOS device speaker, start Play My Emails by tapping the play button at the bottom of your inbox or in the menu sidebar.
End users will see a message at the bottom of the inbox screen once they receive the app update with this feature. Tap the message to launch the on-boarding process.
End users can also opt in or out of Play My Emails by following these steps:
Open Outlook for iOS.
Go to Settings.
Select Play My Emails.
Turn off the toggle next to the account(s) you want to enable/disable
Play My Email is available Office 365, Outlook.com and Gmail accounts. However, you can play email from only one account at a time, even if you have Outlook set to All Accounts. Play My Emails requires an active network connection to the cloud.
New Feature: Outlook Mobile Lets You Know What’s Up Next
October 27, 2019 - We're rolling out a new feature for Outlook mobile that brings information from your calendar directly to the top of your inbox.
Outlook will begin surfacing information about what’s Up Next in your calendar to the top of your Inbox, 30 minutes before the start of the event.
If you have a commitment on your calendar (e.g., an event marked as ‘busy’ or a meeting you have ‘accepted’) Outlook will provide information about the event at?a glance. Touch the new card banner to open the event details, or swipe to dismiss the Up Next card.
In the weeks following the initial roll out, we plan to add a quick action Join button if your event is a Teams online meeting.
October 22, 2019 - You will soon be able to RSVP directly in the message list in Outlook on the web. Outlook will now show an RSVP button in the message list, enabling you to respond without opening the meeting invitation.
After you click on RSVP, you can accept, decline, or tentatively accept. You will also see a mini calendar to check for conflicts.
New Feature: Time-saving Updates for Outlook Mobile Help You Be Better Prepared
October 16, 2019 - We recently launched calendar updates to Outlook for iOS and Android to help manage meetings and get you to your events on time. We are now rolling out additional capabilities to help you be better prepared for meetings while on the go.
We'll begin rolling out Meeting Insights and time zone support in early November.
Introducing Meeting Insights
Email and documents that are relevant to your upcoming meetings will begin to appear in your Outlook calendar event details. When you open an upcoming meeting with attendees you regularly collaborate with, Outlook will insert your recent email conversations and shared files so you can quickly prepare for your meeting. Content shown as Meeting Insights is tailored for each user and will only be shown if it's available/accessible to that user.
Introducing time zone support
You will be able to designate a different time zone when scheduling a new event in Outlook for iOS and Android. This will make it easier to schedule events and meetings with co-workers in a different time zones.
Recent updates
We recently added the ability to RSVP as well as see the location and meeting time when you expand Outlook notifications on your device lock screen.
In addition, when you need to update a meeting series, you can do that with Outlook for iOS and Android and not have to go back to Outlook on the web or in Windows or Mac.
Updated Feature: Outlook on the Web - Changes in Tasks
October 10, 2019 - We’re updating Tasks in Outlook on the web to better reflect our commitment to the integration between Office 365 products.
n the coming weeks, Outlook on the web will update the name of the Tasks module and the Tasks tab in My Day. Both will now be labeled To Do. The Tasks experience in the new Outlook on the web is already powered by To Do.
Updated Feature: Mac Files On-Demand Enabled By Default
August 16, 2019 - For current OneDrive users on macOS Mojave, we’re enabling Files On-Demand by default. We'll begin rolling this change out soon.
Files On-Demand allows OneDrive users to access all their OneDrive files without having to use storage space on their device. OneDrive Files On-Demand enables users to
Save space on their devices by making files online only
Set files and folders to be always available locally on their device
OneDrive users on macOS Mojave will have Files On-Demand enabled on their machines by default unless an administrator has disabled Files On-Demand.
We will begin rolling out this change in mid-September as part of the OneDrive production update for all sync clients in version 19.123.0624.0005 or higher.
We will follow up later with the OneDrive enterprise update for all sync client versions 19.123.0624.0005 release.
New Feature: Dark Mode and Suggested Calendar Locations in Outlook for Windows
August 14, 2019 - Microsoft Outlook for Windows will soon release full support for the Black Office Theme with dark mode in the reading and compose windows and introduce suggestions for meeting and event locations in Calendar.
Black Office Theme. In Outlook for Office 365, the black theme includes dark mode, which by default provides a black background (instead of white) for the message window.
Users can disable dark mode in the black theme so that the message window default color is white. Users can toggle the message window background from black to white for individual messages.
Event locations in Calendar. For customers connected to Exchange Online, suggested locations will automatically show in the location field in the New Meeting or New Appointment forms based on available conference rooms or locations you recently added to meetings or appointments.
Update iOS 10 Devices to Continue Using Outlook for iOS
August 2, 2019 - On 9/3/2019, iOS 10 users will no longer be able to use Outlook for iOS to sync their email or calendar data. The client will not be able to connect to Microsoft services. As a reminder, support for iOS 10 users was retired from Outlook for iOS in November 2018.
Starting September 3rd, Users who do not update to iOS 11 or higher will no longer be able to sync their mailboxes with Outlook for iOS. Older clients lack the ability to connect using Microsoft Sync Technology, which is now required for Office 365 and Outlook.com accounts.
To fix this problem, users will need to update their devices to iOS 11 or higher. For the best experience, Microsoft recommends that users upgrade to the latest version of iOS. Users can find information on the latest version of iOS by navigating to https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201222/.
August 2, 2019 - We are adding an icon on the top-right side of the Outlook on the web ribbon, named My Day. When you click on it, you'll be able to see your calendar and tasks without leaving your email.
We'll be gradually rolling this out in mid-August. The roll out will be completed by the end of the year.
New Feature: Outlook on the Web - Recurring Series Room Availability
July 31, 2019 - We’re making the booking process easier by showing you,
when a room is free for an entire recurring series or
how many instances a room is free.
When you are creating a recurring series, room suggestions will show the number of times that a room is available. When a room is available for all instances it will display as 'available'.
We'll be gradually rolling this out in early August. The roll out will be completed by end of September.
Updated Feature: Outlook on the Web - More Controls for Events from Email
July 24, 2019 - Users will be able to control which events are automatically added to their calendars and which events will display a summary card at the top of the email confirmation. These options are in Settings/Calendar/Events from email.
We'll be gradually rolling this out in late July, and the roll out will be completed by the end of September.
Nail Your Next Presentation with Presenter Coach in PowerPoint for the Web
July 18, 2019 - Public speaking can be stressful. From boardrooms to classrooms, stepping on stage can cause our blood pressure to rise, but with a little practice, our belief is that everyone can improve how they present. Over the last few years we’ve have received feedback from enterprise customers, parents, educators, and students that people want an easy way to practice their presentations to improve their public speaking abilities. Today, we are making this a reality with the launch of Presenter Coach in PowerPoint for the web!
Based on academic research and field studies, we’ve integrated presentation best practices into Presenter Coach to help people give more effective presentations - all through the power of AI.
This feature allows people to enter rehearsal mode and while speaking they receive on-screen feedback about pacing, inclusive language, use of filler words like “um” or “uh,” culturally insensitive phrases and, if someone is just reading their slides. At the end of each rehearsal session, the presenter receives a detailed report that highlights additional areas of practice for improvement.
Presenter Coach will be available on PowerPoint for the web this summer.
New Feature: Outlook on the Web - New Cloud Doc Sharing Experience
July 16, 2019 - Outlook on the web is updating how you share cloud docs from OneDrive and Sharepoint. Now when you paste a link for a OneDrive or Sharepoint file in a message, it will replace it with the name of the file and the corresponding Office app icon. That link will also allow you to manage permissions for the file using a new sharing dialogue.
We'll be gradually rolling this out in mid-July, and the roll out will be completed by the end of September.
New Feature: Discover Office files in Outlook for iOS
July 11, 2019 - We are adding additional intelligent technology to the Search experience in Outlook for iOS by introducing a new Discover capability, powered by Microsoft Graph. Discover provides a feed of your company’s Office files connected to the people in your organization.
By tapping the Search icon in Outlook for iOS, you will see a new area called Discover. This feed uses machine learning to provide quick access to Office 365 documents that are popular among people close to you in your organization.
This can include both documents that you have seen or may not have seen before through and email exchange and document collaboration in Word, Excel, PowerPoint and other Office files that are stored in SharePoint and OneDrive for Business. This way, you quickly find documents you already have access to, no need to search through email content as an example, now you can simply look through your Discover feed to get to the files you need.
Discover will start to roll out on or after August 8th.
Updated Feature: Outlook for Windows Previews an Updated Shared Calendars Model
July 10, 2019 - Microsoft is continuing to invest in Outlook for Windows calendar capabilities to assist customers in managing their time and connecting with people who help them achieve more. We are introducing an opportunity for Office 365 customers to preview new shared calendar capabilities aimed at improving the speed and reliability of how they sync.
When you are the organizer of a meeting in a shared calendar – for example, on behalf of your manager:
You will be able to extend or end a recurring series, and it won’t impact the exceptions for that meeting that occurred in the past.
Outlook will automatically send updates to only those attendees you changed on a meeting list.
If you are drafting a meeting, it will not auto-save it to your Drafts folder, use the Save button or Ctrl-S instead. It will save as a draft meeting in your manager’s shared calendar.
If you’re an event or meeting attendee or a recipient of a shared calendar event:
When you choose “Do Not Send a Response,” Outlook does not send a response in an email, but the organizer and other attendees in Office 365 will see your response in the Tracking status.
When forwarding a meeting to a new attendee with attachments, you can’t attach additional files. The new attendees will be able to view all existing attachments when they receive the forwarded meeting.
This article and video detail the changes for people who share their calendar or who manage other people’s calendars. In a few months, we plan to make the new model the default experience.
Prevent/Fix: Reduced Functionality in Outlook on the web with Non-Supported Browsers
July 9, 2019 - Starting on August 8, 2019, you may encounter issues if you are using a browser that does not meet the minimum browser versions that fully support Outlook on the web. If you see the light version of Outlook, this means you're using an old browser that's incompatible with the Outlook on the web or with Outlook Web App. For the best experience, please update your browser to the latest version. Please update your browser to see the best Outlook on the web experience.
New Feature: Outlook on the Web - New Experience Roll Out
July 3, 2019 - Starting on July 22, 2019, the new Outlook on the web will become the default experience for Mail, Calendar, and People and we will remove the opt-in toggle. With this change users will not be able to move back or see the classic experience. The roll out will be completed for all customers by the end of September 2019.
New Feature: Outlook on the web - Calendar Quick Compose
June 3, 2019 - With this change, when users click on the calendar surface to use the quick compose form they will now be able to "add attendees" to that event and send an invite.
We'll be gradually rolling this out to customers in early June, and the roll out will be completed by the end of June.
May 29, 2019 - On the FileCard, you will now see a 'Time to read' estimate. In addition, via 'At a glance', you will be able to see key sentences from the document on the file card. This feature is available only for .docx file types.
We'll be gradually rolling this out in early June, and the roll out will be completed worldwide by the end of July.
Do more with OneNote for Android
May 22, 2019 - In case you missed them, we’ve put together a list of features that have been added to OneNote for Android over the last few months. From more natural inking capabilities to right-to-left language support and search improvements, these features are all currently available so feel free to try them out and let us know what you think!
Work naturally and seamlessly while inking
OneNote for Android now supports palm rejection for more natural and accurate inking.
Use the lasso tool to freely select your inking and effortlessly move it around or resize it.
Instead of having to select the eraser tool whenever you want to erase, if you’re using an S-Pen, simply press the button on your S-Pen while inking to switch to eraser mode and erase easier.
Capture diverse content in your OneNote
Insert file attachments and PDFs from your Android device. Click the attachment button on your Android command center above the keyboard and select the file you want to add to the page. For PDFs, you also have an option to add as a full-page printout right on the page.
The camera in OneNote can be a powerful tool in adding content to your notebooks. Try it today with even more capabilities, like inking on images, accessing the photo gallery from camera view, capturing with the front camera of your device, and easily selecting document boundaries and adjusting crop lines to the document’s edges.
Sometimes, you need to quickly capture a fleeting thought without organizing it. Sticky Notes is a perfect place for those quick notes and now you can access them anywhere through OneNote on mobile devices. Click on the Sticky Notes tab at the bottom right of the screen to access Sticky Notes synced across devices.
Other updates to your OneNote for Android experience
We’ve made some improvements to searching in OneNote for Android. Search results are now highlighted on the page, so you can easily find what you are looking for. On smartphones, use Find on Page to quickly locate search terms on the current page.
Right-to-left layouts are now supported for applicable. If your mobile device’s primary settings are set to a right-to-left language, your OneNote will now support a corresponding right-to-left layout.
The OneNote team is working to bring more and more exciting features to all the platforms so make sure to upvote or add any features you’d like to see in the product on Feedback Hub.
New Feature: Outlook on the Web - Bold Calendar Event Colors
May 17, 2019 - Users will be able to choose between bold and light colors for their calendar events in Outlook on the web. Users can toggle bold event colors in the Calendar settings by going to the gear icon or in Outlook settings.
We'll be gradually rolling this out starting in late-May, and the roll out will be completed worldwide by the end of August 2019.
New Feature: Favorite People and Notifications in Outlook for iOS and Android
April 25, 2019 - We are preparing to introduce new capabilities in Outlook for iOS and Android that supports selecting specific people as favorites for quick access to recent email conversations and provides additional notification options.
These capabilities will start to roll out in Outlook for iOS and Android in the coming weeks and expect they will take several weeks to deploy to all eligible customers.
Changing who you tag or the order of your favorite people (add, remove, reorder) will also appear in Outlook on the web.
Outlook for Android contact information will also be updated with details from the Global Address List for easy access to the information about people in your organization when you’re on the go. This includes your company reporting structure as well as insight into who the people in your organization work with, powered by the Microsoft Office Graph. You will also be able to easily add your company contact to Outlook for Android.
New Feature: Outlook on the Web - Meeting Insights
April 3, 2019 - With Meeting Insights, when you click on a meeting event in your Outlook on the web calendar, Outlook will show you relevant content (like emails and files) for your meeting, so you can easily find what you need to prepare. Content shown is tailored for each user and will only be shown if it's available/accessible to that user.
We'll begin gradually rolling this change out in early April, and we anticipate rollout completion by July 2019.
Sharable Links in Word and Outlook for Windows and Mobile
April 3, 2019 - In April, users of Outlook for Windows and Word will start to a new dialogue box when they chose to insert a link in an email or a Word document that lets them know that a sharable link is being retrieved.
Inserting a link for a shared document in email (including Outlook for iOS) and Word will continue to show clear, actionable text reflecting the file name as it exists in OneDrive and SharePoint.
The permissions for the links in email and Word will default to the organization’s Sharing settings, either “Shareable: Anyone with the link” or “Internal: Only people in your organization with the link”. The setting “Direct: Specific people” is not yet supported and the permission will default to the most permissive available link, if available. With this change, links will now almost always work for your email recipients.
New Feature: Smart Time Suggestions in Outlook on the Web
March 28, 2019 - Smart time suggestions in Outlook on the web is a new Microsoft 365 feature. We'll begin rolling this feature out soon.
With smart time suggestions, when you schedule a meeting in Outlook on the web, it will recommend days and times when your attendees are available to meet so you can easily find a time that works for everyone. Smart time suggestions will work only if free/busy information is available.
We'll be gradually rolling this out this week, and the roll out will be completed worldwide by the end of April.
New Feature: Automatic Processing of Small Changes in Meeting Details
March 28, 2019 - When an organizer changes non-critical properties of a meeting to which an attendee has already responded, the incoming meeting message update will be automatically processed without the attendee receiving an email in their inbox or having to take additional action. This means that the changes will be applied to the attendee’s calendar event while preserving their existing response, and the incoming meeting message update will be delivered to their Deleted Items folder instead of being delivered to their Inbox.
When the organizer changes critical meeting properties, there will not be any changes to the current meeting experience. Attendees will continue to receive the meeting messages in their Inbox.
The default list of critical properties is:
• Start date or start time • End date or end time • Recurrence pattern • Location
There are a few scenarios in which meeting messages will always be delivered to the invitees' inbox regardless of what was changed about the meeting. By default, meeting messages will always be delivered to the inbox if:
• The attendee is @mentioned in the meeting body. • The meeting starts within 15 minutes. In cases of recurring series, the next instance of the series is used to determine if the change occurs within 15 minutes. • The receiving user is a delegate. Whenever a meeting message is received by a calendar delegate, the message will be delivered to the delegate’s Inbox and will never be automatically processed.
We'll be gradually rolling this out in early April, and the roll out will be completed worldwide by the end of June 2019.
March 19, 2019 - We are adding an easier way to add and manage your tasks in Outlook on the web. You will be able to access a Tasks pane right from your Mail or Calendar, you can drag and drop emails in it to create a task or manage your tasks in it. Your tasks sync with the To-Do mobile app, so you can manage your tasks on the go.
You will find the Tasks pane access on the top right, next to Settings.
We'll be slowly rolling this out to Targeted Release organizations only. We plan to eventually extend this feature to all organizations.
New Feature: Open File Links Directly in Office Desktop Apps
February 21, 2019 - Microsoft gets mixed feedback from users about how their links to Office files should open. Certain users prefer the Office web apps, others prefer the Office desktop apps. We have designed an experience where users get to tell us what they prefer, and we will then open their links in their preferred mode - Office web apps, or, the Office desktop apps.
This way if you prefer to work in the Office desktop apps most of the time, you can get to work in fewer clicks by turning on this feature. (Note: if you open Office file links in the web (for example: SharePoint or Outlook on the web), these files will continue opening in the Office web apps for a smoother experience.)
Which apps does this work in?
This feature works on links to Word, Excel, or PowerPoint files, stored on OneDrive or SharePoint, that you click in Word, Excel, Outlook, or PowerPoint for Office 365 on Windows.
How do I turn this feature on/off?
You can change this setting, at any time, in any Office 365 for Windows app by going to File >Options >Advanced >Link Handling.
If this feature didn't work for you...
The following scenarios are not supported today, these will continue to open in the web:
If you're not signed into Office
Opening links from other 1st party Office clients like OneNote, Skype, Microsoft Teams, etc.
Opening links from 3rd party apps such as Slack, EverNote, etc.
Office for Mac
Links to files not stored on OneDrive or SharePoint
Links you receive for certain notifications such as @mention notifications
Updated Feature: Groups in Outlook – Easier Membership Management
February 21, 2019 - Microsoft is updating how owners of groups in Outlook can manage membership requests.
Powered by actionable messages, group owners will now have the capability to approve or decline membership requests right inside an email in Outlook on the web and in Outlook for Windows, without the need to navigate to other pages. Approved or declined requests will be visible to all the group owners. Owners can select one or multiple requests to approve or decline.
Microsoft will complete the roll out of this feature by the end of March 2019.
Outlook Mobile Supports Teams Meetings
February 20, 2019 - As announced at Microsoft Ignite, Microsoft will be rolling out native support for creating and joining Microsoft Teams meeting in Outlook for iOS and Android in late-March. The ability to create Teams meetings will be available to all Outlook mobile customers.
In late-March, you will start to see the option to add Teams when creating or editing calendar events in Outlook mobile. In addition, the option to create Teams meetings will replace the option to create Skype meetings in Outlook mobile. If you still need to create Skype meetings, you can continue to do so from Outlook for Windows, Outlook for Mac, and Outlook on the web.
Note: If you receive invitations to Skype meetings, there is no change to the current experience, and you will continue to see the Join button in those calendar events.
Clutter for Outlook is Being Retired Beginning January 31, 2020
February 15, 2019 - Microsoft will be retiring the Clutter feature from Outlook beginning January 31, 2020. To help our users manage their mail and be productive, Microsoft is leading with the Focused Inbox experience which provides a similar benefit as Clutter by showing less important and urgent mail in Other.
How does this impact me?
Microsoft will continue to make Clutter available to Office 365 customers until January 31, 2020.
To prepare for Clutter's eventual retirement, Microsoft has turned the feature off by default for new users. It's also deactivated for those with extremely low usage (less than 12 emails per month being moved to the Clutter folder), however they can re-enable Clutter at any time, if desired.
Updated Feature: New Tasks Module in Outlook on the Web
February 11, 2019 - Microsoft is excited to announce the new Tasks module in Outlook on the web as an updated Office 365 feature. They'll begin rolling this feature out in mid-March 2019.
How does this impact me?
Customers who opt-in to the early version of the new Outlook on the web will see a newly redesigned Tasks experience, powered by Microsoft To-Do. We'll be gradually rolling this out to Targeted Release customers in March, and the rollout will follow the general release timeline of the new Outlook on the web.
New Feature: Changes to PowerPoint and Word to Open Files Faster
February 1, 2019 - Microsoft is excited to release a new change to make documents saved to OneDrive and SharePoint open faster. They’ll be rolling this change out soon. Rather than always checking for updates for cloud files prior to opening, Word and PowerPoint will open any existing version on the user’s device and then sync updates immediately afterwards. This is already the behavior today for files saved to local OneDrive and SharePoint sync folders. This change introduces this behavior for files that are stored on the cloud but not synced to your device in a sync folder.
How does this affect me?
After this change takes place, while Word or PowerPoint checks for the latest version of a non-synced file, users will see the previous version of a document stored in the Office Document Cache. Users will be able to see the sync status of their files in the Status Bar (along the bottom of the window) and will be notified accordingly if we are unable to get the latest version. For example, for files that were deleted or moved on the server, the user will receive a message after opening the cached copy.
If the user has AutoSave turned on for the file, they will automatically see the latest changes. Otherwise, they will see it the next time they Save or click on "Updates Available" in the Status Bar. Users and automated scripts or add-ins should avoid acting (especially creating copies, printing, presenting) on files that are modified on multiple machines until the file is up to date.
This change updates the behavior for non-synced files to match the behavior of files stored within a user’s sync folders, which already open the version stored on their machine while changes are downloaded. This will apply to files opened directly from OneDrive, SharePoint (both Online as well as On-Premises) or Microsoft Teams that are not in a local sync folder.
By default, files are kept in the Office Document Cache for 14 days. Users can delete specific files from the Office Document Cache via the Upload Center. If files are deleted or if a user has chosen to automatically delete files from the Office Document Cache when they are closed, users will not be able to view files as quickly.
The New Outlook on the Web - Email LinkedIn Connections from Outlook
December 13, 2018 - This article explains how to connect your LinkedIn and Microsoft accounts, where you can see LinkedIn information in Microsoft apps and services, and what kind of LinkedIn information may show in Microsoft apps and services.
Note: You can connect your accounts and see LinkedIn information only if you or your organization have received an update that includes LinkedIn features, or if you've joined the Office Insider program. Some LinkedIn features are being introduced gradually, so the LinkedIn features you see may differ slightly from what is described in this article.
Even before you connect your accounts, you may see some LinkedIn profile information such as a person’s LinkedIn profile photo, name, company, and job title in your Microsoft apps and services. After you connect accounts, you may see additional LinkedIn profile information. For example, you can see things you have in common with others, such as that you attended the same school. When communicating with a colleague in Outlook, you can easily see if you and your colleague share a common connection on LinkedIn. Your LinkedIn contacts may also show up as suggested contacts in Outlook on the web. Over time, you can also expect your networking experience on LinkedIn to improve with information from your Microsoft account. For example, LinkedIn may suggest that you connect to some of your Microsoft contacts.
Here's an example of LinkedIn information on a profile card in Outlook:
Power and Simplicity: New Outlook Mobile Design Helps You Get Things Done Faster
December 6, 2018 - Microsoft rolled out exciting updates to Outlook for iOS with recognizable avatars and optimized swipe and scroll usability that reflects the continuation of our design-driven journey and helps you connect, organize, and get things done. We’ve been meticulously tailoring both Outlook for iOS and Android, making it faster than ever to achieve your goals and maximize your time while on the go.
Design is becoming the heart and soul of Office, something reflected in the Office 365 user experience updates announced this summer and the new icons we revealed last week. Outlook mobile will be among the first app to adopt its new icon, and, much like the entire Office 365 suite, design thinking and craftsmanship have been driving Outlook mobile forward. It’s a key reason why we’ve exceeded more than 100 million iOS and Android devices and our app store ratings are consistently above 4.5.
Great mobile experiences don’t just shrink desktop designs, they rethink the process by understanding mobile’s unique design opportunities and constraints. Unlike a desktop, our phones live with us in our pockets and purses. This proximity and immediacy create the need for more personal, efficient, and even playful experiences that require a mobile-first approach.
Mobile productivity increasingly happens through a series of micro-tasks that take place in seconds, not minutes. This makes it vital to design experiences with less typing and taps, where your attention is brought to what matters most, and where key context is always available at a glance.
By creating resonant experiences that cater to these micro-moments, Outlook mobile offers delightful, simple, and powerful experiences that ensure you get in and out of the app quickly, gracefully, and with ease. We do this by following our core mobile-first design principles:
Deliver uncompromised craftsmanship and attention to detail.
Microsoft is Releasing Multiple New Features for Outlook on the Web
December 3, 2018 - Microsoft is excited to announce that multiple new features are coming to Outlook on the web. When these features roll out to your organization, you'll be able to:
Sign into Outlook on the web at www.outlook.com: People with an Office 365 account that use Outlook on the web can now sign-in to their work/school accounts using https://www.outlook.com/. Sign in via www.outlook.com is not available for GCC, GCC High, Blackforest, or Gallatin sovereign cloud organizations.
Use improved response tracking: We've improved how Outlook handles meeting responses. Previously, when you selected "Don't send response" or turned off the "Notify organizer" toggle, Outlook wouldn't register your response to the meeting and the organizer wouldn't know your response. With this change, when you select "Don't send response" or turn off the "Notify organizer" toggle, Outlook won't email your response to the organizer but will update the meeting invite with your response. The meeting organizer and invitee both have to be in Office 365 for improved response tracking to work.
Use Teams for online meetings: After this change takes place, if your organization has enabled Microsoft Teams, the new Outlook on the web will use Teams as the default online meeting tool instead of Skype for Business. If your organization hasn’t enabled Teams, the new Outlook on the web will continue to use Skype for Business. This update will only show in the new Outlook on the web and not in the classic experience.
These features have begun gradually rolling out, and we anticipate rollout completion in January 2019.
Collaborate with Others and Keep Track of To-Dos with New AI Features in Word
November 7, 2018 - Focus is a simple but powerful thing. When you’re in your flow, your creativity takes over, and your work is effortless. When you’re faced with distractions and interruptions, progress is slow and painful. And nowhere is that truer than when writing.
Microsoft Word has long been the standard for creating professional-quality documents. Technologies like Editor—Word’s AI-powered writing assistant—make it an indispensable tool for the written word. But at some point in the writing process, you’ll need some information you don’t have at your fingertips, even with the best tools. When this happens, you likely do what research tells us many Word users do: leave a placeholder in your document and come back to it later to stay in your flow.
Today, we’re starting to roll out new capabilities to Word that help users create and fill in these placeholders without leaving the flow of their work. For example, type TODO: finish this section or <<insert closing here>> and Word recognizes and tracks them as to-dos. When you come back to the document, you’ll see a list of your remaining to-dos, and you can click each one to navigate back to the right spot.
Once you’ve created your to-dos, Word can also help you complete them. If you need help from a friend or coworker, just @mention them within a placeholder. Word sends them a notification with a “deep link” to the relevant place in the document. Soon, they’ll be able to reply to the notification with their contributions, and those contributions will be inserted directly into the document—making it easy to complete the task with an email from any device.
Over time, Office will use AI to help fill in many of these placeholders. In the next few months, Word will use Microsoft Search to suggest content for a to-do like <<insert chart of quarterly sales figures>>. You will be able to pick from the results and insert content from another document with a single click.
These capabilities are available today for Word on the Mac for Office Insiders (Fast) as a preview. We’ll roll these features out to all Office 365 subscribers soon for Word for Windows, the Mac, and the web.
Updated Feature: Calendar Sharing Performance Improvements for Outlook for Mac
November 6, 2018 - Microsoft is introducing a new syncing model for sharing calendars in Outlook for Mac. These changes will bring improved reliability and performance of calendar sharing in Outlook for Mac based on the use of REST technology.
In the past, the list of shared calendars was previously stored locally for each installation of Outlook for Mac. As a result of this upgrade, Outlook for Mac will now use the server-roamed list of calendars. These improvements, planned only for mailboxes hosted in Office 365, will sync calendars via REST rather than Exchange Web Services (EWS).
When migrated to the new calendar syncing model, customers should expect to experience the following improvements:
Consistent sharing permissions that matches the other modern Outlook clients (Outlook mobile, Outlook on the web, and Outlook for Windows)
The ability to share a secondary calendar without having to share a primary calendar
A quick action feature to accept calendar sharing invitations from the Inbox
View the same calendars in Mac as you see in all the other Outlook applications
Open and view any calendar, even if you only have free/busy permissions
Support for inline images in meetings and appointments
Updated Feature: Ribbon in Word Online, PowerPoint Online, and Excel Online
October 24, 2018 - Microsoft has simplified the Ribbon in Office Online to make the feature easier to use and to put the focus squarely on content and collaboration.
After this change takes place, you'll see a simplified ribbon where commands are laid out in a single row (screengrabs below). There is no change to the functionality of the ribbon, and you will be able to opt-out of this experience if you prefer the previous version. Microsoft will complete this feature rollout by the end of December 2018.
In Office Online the ribbon you're used to seeing looks like this:
Now you can choose to use the simplified ribbon, which looks like this:
October 23, 2018 - Microsoft is excited to share the latest updates for OneNote across Windows 10, Mac and online. From cloud file attachments, tag search, to Emoji keyboard and customizable autocorrect, we will be rolling out these updates in the coming weeks, so read on to find out more.
Keep your work in sync with OneNote
Ever wonder if you're looking at the latest version of a file? When you attach a file stored in the cloud (i.e. on your OneDrive) to your OneNote page, you won’t have to wonder anymore because your file will be synced with the latest changes through OneDrive. You can attach cloud files simply by enabling it in Settings and clicking Insert > File. Once your cloud attachment is on the page, OneNote will upload the file into OneDrive, which makes real-time editing and collaborating on the file easy. Your notebook will display a live preview if it is an Office document, so you can see changes made to the file in real time. For all other document types, the attachment will display a link, but because the files are uploaded to OneDrive, the link will always display the latest version of the file. Cloud file attachments are coming to OneNote for Windows 10 and Mac in the next few weeks.
Find what you need, when you need it
Based on your feedback (thank you!), we’re rolling out the ability to search for tags in the OneNote for Windows 10 and Mac over the next few weeks. Tag search helps you to stay organized and keep track of subjects that may span multiple pages, sections, and even notebooks. You can search for tags by clicking the magnifying glass next to the notebook name in the left-had navigation pane. Type in your search query and choose to search all notebooks or the current notebook, section, or page.
Create, express yourself, and collaborate in OneNote Online
OneNote for Windows 10 and Mac aren’t the only platforms to receive updates this month! Personalize and collaborate in OneNote Online with the features below – they are currently rolling out and will be available for all OneNote Online users to try in the coming weeks.
Insert pictures from camera Use the new insert picture from camera feature to create pages with more context and clarity. Click Insert>Camera to select camera mode. Snap a picture and click insert to add it to your page. You may have to enable camera support in your browser to use this feature. It’s really that easy.
Personalize with Emoji Keyboard This fun feature allows you to browse and insert the appropriate emoji to your notebooks. Click Insert>Emoji to see a sample of available emojis. To browse the whole collection, click “More Emojis” and the emoji keyboard will open for more ways to add flair to your content.
Customize AutoCorrect options OneNote Online is giving you control of your autocorrect options. To access them, click on Home>Spelling>AutoCorrect Options to choose how you want OneNote Online to handle each of the displayed options. Fun fact: autocorrect can convert punctuation smileys to emojis 🙂.
Copy and share link to section Easily share notebook sections for more collaboration: Right-click on a section you’d like to share and click “Copy Link to Section.” This copies a link that will render the section name when pasted into a OneNote Online document.
Microsoft hopes you love the latest updates to hit OneNote for Windows 10, Mac and online. We look forward to hearing what you think. Oh, and don’t forget if you have a particular feature request for OneNote, please add or vote for an existing request in the Feedback Hub.
New Feature: Ideas in Excel and PowerPoint Online
September 26, 2018 - Office continues infusing AI technologies across its apps to help people do their best work. Ideas is about bringing together related services and features in an intelligent way to create smart, actionable suggestions that save you time and enhance your content. Ideas proactively surfaces suggestions that are relevant and tailored to what you're working on, and meets you where you are in your workflow to reduce the time and effort you need to spend to get things done in Office.
How does this affect me?
As a first step, Microsoft is introducing Ideas in PowerPoint Online and Excel. The suggestions surfaced in each app are tailored to the specific tasks the Office app is used for.
In PowerPoint, Ideas is about helping you and your users author a meaningful, engaging, and polished presentation with minimal effort through a curated set of actionable and intelligent suggestions to help with design, content, and writing. Ideas will begin rolling out to Targeted Release customer in PowerPoint Online at the end of October. Ideas will initially be available to English language users followed soon by French, German, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, and Dutch.
In Excel, Ideas (previously called Insights) helps you identify interesting trends and patterns in your data, providing charts with formatting and titles that can accelerate customers' analysis and understanding. In Excel Win32, if you are an English language customer and a part of the Windows Targeted Release program, Ideas is already available to you. To get early access to Ideas, you can join Insiders for desktop apps and register your tenant for Target Release for Office Online apps. In early October, we will begin rolling out Ideas on Excel Win32, Excel Mac, and Excel Online to organizations outside of the Targeted Release program as well as organizations in other regions, starting with the French, German, Spanish, Chinese and Japanese markets.
What do I need to do to prepare for this change?
In PowerPoint Online, there is nothing you need to do to prepare for this change. If for any reason your organization does not wish to use Ideas, please contact support for assistance in disabling Ideas on PowerPoint Online for your tenant.
In Excel, there is nothing you need to do to prepare for this change. For Excel Win32 and Mac, if you want to disable Ideas (or Insights) services for your organization, you can do so through a policy setting. If you want to disable all Intelligent Services for your users, you can do so by following the instructions at this link. For more information regarding Office Intelligent services, please read Make Office Work More Intelligently for You. Please click Additional Information to learn more.
New Feature: Suggested Replies in Outlook on the Web
September 11, 2018 - When you receive a message in email that can be answered with a short response, Outlook.com will now suggest three responses that you can use to reply with a couple of clicks.
If one of the suggestions works for you, select it, and then select Send. If you have feedback about the suggestions, we'd love to hear what you think. To share your feedback, select Report inappropriate text.
To turn off suggested replies, select Settings > View all Outlook settings > Mail > Compose and reply and uncheck the box for Show suggested replies.
New Feature: Insight Services in Excel (Win32)
September 6, 2018 – Insight Services in Excel is a new Office 365 feature that helps organizations make better use of their data.
How does this affect me?
Insight Services in Excel analyzes data and its structure and automatically generates a series of recommendations and useful ways to make sense of the data, including high-level summaries, statistically significant findings, and recommended visualizations.
On October 1, we will begin rolling this feature out to Office 365 organizations outside of the Targeted Release program as well as organizations in other regions, starting with the French, German, Spanish, Chinese and Japanese markets. Insight Services in Excel will roll out to the UM organization on-by-default.
The rollout is expected to start on October 1, 2018, and Microsoft anticipates rollout completion to take place by the end of December 2018.
New Feature: Opt-In Toggle to Try the Early Version of the New Outlook on the Web
September 5, 2018 - Microsoft is releasing an opt-in toggle for users to be able to try an early version of the new Outlook on the web – as they gather feedback and keep improving the experience. Users can opt-in/out as often as they want.
How does this affect me?
Starting on September 10, 2018, users will be able to opt-in to try an early version of the new Outlook on the web. You can try it by clicking on the "Try the new Outlook" toggle on the top right of their inbox, and they can opt-out and go into the classic experience with the same toggle. You can opt-in and opt-out as often as you want. For more information, please click here.
New Features: Outlook for Windows User Experience Updates and Coming Soon Preview Pane
September 5, 2018 - Microsoft is excited to introduce multiple updates to Outlook for Windows. The "Coming Soon" feature offers a preview of new user experiences coming to Outlook such as a new, simplified ribbon and provides customers the opportunity to try the experience at their convenience.
Microsoft will be be rolling these changes out over the course of the next few weeks.
How does this affect me?
As these updates roll out, users will experience the following changes to Outlook for Windows:
Coming Soon preview pane: The "Coming Soon" preview pane will enable your users to preview, read about and experience changes that are coming soon to email and calendar. Users will be able to turn on this experience with an on/off toggle which will require Outlook to restart. Users are also encouraged to provide feedback in the new Coming Soon pane.
A simplified ribbon: Users will have the option to collapse the ribbon into a single row of most commonly used commands. The ribbon will also be customizable where users can pin and remove commands from the ribbon based on their preferences and expand the ribbon back to the multi-layered, classic ribbon at any time.
Additional user experience updates to the folder pane, message list, message, and calendar read/compose screens. The updates include typographical, alignment and use of text color to simplify the experience, making it easier to use and more efficient for customers. After the new user experience updates described here are fully rolled out to Office 365 organizations, the "Coming Soon” button and toggle will eventually disappear from the Outlook canvas and the new user experience updates will integrate into the normal experience.
New Feature: You Can Now Prevent Forwarding of Meeting Invites in Outlook
August 20, 2018 - Microsoft is rolling out a new feature update for meetings in Office 365. With this feature, meeting organizers can control whether or not attendees are allowed to invite others to a meeting. This feature makes it possible for organizers to prevent forwarding of a meeting. This new feature rollout will be completed by end of September 2018.
How does this affect me?
After this change takes place, when a user is creating or updating a meeting they will have the option to prevent forwarding. This feature will initially only be available to Office 365 users in Outlook on the web and Outlook for Windows 2016.
Attendees using Outlook for iOS, Android, and Mac will not have the option to prevent forwarding of meeting invites.
Existing meetings will not change due to this update – they will still remain meetings that can be forwarded. Newly created meetings will also maintain the existing behavior and forwarding will be allowed by default. Organizers can of course choose to change this "Allow forwarding" setting on a new meeting or update an existing meeting in order to prevent forwarding of that meeting.
If an attendee is using a third-party client or a older version of the Outlook client, they will be able to attempt to forward the meeting invite but the forward will be prevented and the attendee will receive an non-deliverable (NDR) message indicating that the forward was prevented. This NDR intercept is effective for any attendee whose mailbox is in Office 365, Exchange Server 2016, or Exchange Server 2019. Attendees on older versions of Exchange Server or third-party services will not be prevented from forwarding if they’re using older client versions.
What do I need to do to prepare for this change?
You do not need to do anything to prepare for this change.
Updated Feature: Users Now Have the Ability to Delete Their FindTime Data
August 9, 2018 - Microsoft is excited to announce that we have given users the ability to delete their data in FindTime. FindTime helps users schedule meetings when they can't see or share free/busy calendar information. This feature is already available if you have the FindTime add-in installed.
How does this affect me?
We have added a "delete all" button on the FindTime dashboard that deletes a user's account and all of their FindTime data. Users will now have the ability to delete all their data, including personal and poll data, from FindTime. This feature is already available for users with the FindTime add-in installed.
What do I need to do to prepare for this change?
There is nothing you need to do to prepare for this change. Please click Additional Information to learn more.
Updated Feature: Sway.com is Becoming Sway.Office.com
July 27, 2018 - To help customers understand Sway is part of office.com, Microsoft is changing the Sway URL from sway.com to sway.office.com.
How does this affect me?
After this change takes place, existing Sway links will continue to work and will redirect to the new URL. This change will be gradually rolled out over the next couple of months.
What do I need to do to prepare for this change?
There's nothing you need to do, but you may consider updating your user handbooks (if any).
New Feature: Outlook for Mac Now Syncs Google Calendar and Contacts
July 25, 2018 - Microsfot has completed the roll out of the support for Google Contacts and Calendar in Outlook for Mac. Announced last year, and released first to the Office Insider Fast customer community, the deployment of this highly anticipated feature has extended beyond customers who subscribe to the Insider Slow program to all Outlook for Mac Office 365 customers.
How does this change affect me?
People in your organization who use Microsoft Outlook 2016 version 16.13 (180513) or a later version, will be prompted to sign into Google to add their Google account to Outlook for Mac. For users who already synchronize their Gmail with Outlook, by signing into Google, Outlook will now synchronize Google calendar and contact information in addition to mail with Outlook for Mac. Users will need to know their Google account username and password to authenticate.
What do I need to do to prepare for this change?
No action is required to support this change. However, you will have the option to turn off the prompt to sign into Google.
Microsoft is Focusing on FindTime and Deprecating "Poll for a Time to Meet" in Outlook on the Web
July 20, 2018 - A small number of Outlook on the Web customers currently have access to both a built-in meeting poll feature we've been piloting called "Poll for a time to meet" and a similar polling tool shipped as an Outlook add-in, called FindTime. People who have the Outlook on the web meeting poll feature see a choice labeled "Poll for a time to meet" under the "New" menu on the Outlook on the web Calendar toolbar and as a clickable link that says "Poll for a time to meet" on the new appointment form. FindTime is accessed through the Outlook add-in Store and directly from https://findtime.microsoft.com.
Having two options for creating meeting polls creates confusion for customers because it's not clear which tool is the best to use. Given that FindTime is feature-rich, works well across a broad set of Outlook clients (currently Outlook on the web, Outlook for Windows 2013, and Outlook for Windows 2016), and gets great reviews and positive user feedback, Microsoft has decided to discontinue the built-in meeting poll experience in Outlook on the web and focus on the FindTime add-in as our recommended meeting poll and scheduling tool for groups of people.
The built-in Outlook on the web “Poll for a time to meet” feature will stop working soon (no change to FindTime) –
The pilot for the "Poll for a time to meet" feature in Outlook on the web will end soon and this feature will be blocked starting in late July or early August 2018. We suggest that everyone shift to using FindTime for group scheduling and setting up meeting polls. Any existing or pending polls and related polling pages that have been shared with attendees using the built-in Outlook on the web meeting poll feature will remain active for about 4 weeks. After that, they’ll stop working.
Please start using FindTime –
FindTime is the tool to use to create meeting polls from now on. To get started, please visit the FindTime website at: https://findtime.microsoft.com. You can get the FindTime add-in directly from that site. You can also access the Outlook add-in Store directly from within Outlook or Outlook on the web where you will see the FindTime add-in, or directly from here: https://store.office.com/en-us/app.aspx?assetid=WA104379803.
Updates to Adobe Document Cloud Bring Integrated PDF Services to Office 365
June 27, 2018 - Last September, Microsoft expanded their strategic partnership with Adobe to focus on integrations between Adobe Sign and Office 365 products such as Microsoft Teams, SharePoint, Outlook, and more.
Microsoft has seen their customers make great use of the combination. For example, the State of Hawaii saved a significant amount of employee time while also improving document status versus paper-based processes — providing a double win over previous paper-based processes.
Building on this success, today the Adobe Document Cloud team announced new capabilities that deepen the integration with Office 365 and can save you and your team time. PDF services integrations provide new fidelity when working with PDF documents as part of Office 365. Once integrated by your administrator, PDF services provide rich previews of PDF documents right within OneDrive and your SharePoint sites.
In addition to many reporting, sharing, and collaboration scenarios, PDF files are frequently used to create final or archived versions of content spanning across many different files. With PDF services and the newly introduced Combine Files by Adobe functionality, you can select several files and pull into one PDF with just a couple of clicks within SharePoint document libraries.
PDF services are now available in the ribbon for online versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint — making the creation of high-quality, full fidelity PDFs from these applications even easier.
PDF services — along with capabilities as part of Adobe Sign and upcoming Adobe Reader enhancements — are all part of Adobe Document Cloud. All share a commitment to productive integrations across Office 365 — and we hope to see your team benefit from these integrations as well.
If you are an administrator, with Adobe Document Cloud, get started integrating with Office 365 with this guide. Adobe Document Cloud and Office 365 provide great complementary functionalities, and you can learn more about this and Adobe Sign integrations with Office 365. We look forward to seeing continued productivity improvements across the millions of joint customers that Adobe Document Cloud and Microsoft Office 365 share.
New Calendar, Mail, and Mobile Outlook Features Help You Get Things Done
June 1, 2018 - You have emails to respond to, things to take care of, and places to be! New Outlook features — across Windows, Mac, web, and mobile — help you manage your time and keep what matters most front and center. Also, new features — coming soon in Outlook for iOS and Android — will connect you to the people, apps, and technology that power your productivity and help protect you and your business.
Here’s a look at what’s new and coming soon:
New in Outlook Calendar
Bill pay reminders — We are adding bill payments to the events we automatically help you track. Just like travel reservations and package delivery information presented in Outlook with a summary card at the top of your email today, we added support for bill payments. Outlook will identify bills you receive in email, show you a summary at the top, and automatically add a calendar event on the due date. You will also receive an email reminder two days before the due date so you can always pay your bills on time. Available for Outlook.com. Learn what other events and providers we support.
Suggested event locations and meeting rooms — Adding a meeting or event location just got easier and faster in Outlook. Even before you start typing, Outlook offers suggestions for your meeting location, including recently used (and available) conference rooms and other common locations such as "my office." Once you start to type in the location field, Outlook suggests options based on Bing and then autocompletes your meeting location with the necessary information. For public locations, the rich location feature in Outlook adds the full address to your Outlook calendar event. Outlook for iOS will then use your current location, your destination address, and traffic updates to send you a notification to let you know when it is time to leave for your next event, to make sure you get there on time. Coming soon in Outlook for Windows.
We also added this location and context aware approach to further personalize the suggested locations when creating a calendar event on your mobile device. Suggestions are based on machine learning models that take into consideration your location, the list of attendees, the proposed meeting time of day, and other elements of your meeting. If you need a conference room, Outlook shows your organization’s room availability, so you can pick the best option for your meeting with just a tap. Reserving a meeting room from your mobile device will continue to get easier and faster as it learns your preferences. Available in Outlook for iOS.
Meeting RSVP tracking and forwarding — Keeping track of events you’ve organized or plan to attend is key to time management. But managing who is attending can be even more effective for everyone. Outlook now allows you to see the tracked responses and RSVPs for your meetings — even the ones you didn’t organize. With this insight, invited attendees can better manage their time and decide if they should attend based on the plans of others. For example, knowing who’s going can save you some time if you decide the meeting can be addressed by other teammates who are planning to attend.
Additionally, if you are planning a meeting that requires a tight control of the attendee list, Outlook gives you the option to allow or prevent the forwarding of your calendar invitation. Under Response Options, select New Meeting and then check or uncheck Allow Forwarding. Coming soon in Outlook for Windows and Outlook on the web.
Outlook has also adjusted the tracking of RSVPs for meetings with large attendee lists or big meetings. If you use a distribution list to reach over 500 recipients, Outlook now tracks the responses for everyone individually. Now you can update the details for big meetings at any time if changes are required, outside the Office 365 email and calendar recipient maximum of 500. Available across Outlook.
Multiple time zones — Outlook reduces the complexity of managing events across times zones. You can now define the start and end times of appointments and meetings across different time zones. Set up a travel event with your departure in one time zone and arrival time in the local time zone of your destination. Plus, on the main calendar grid, you can now show multiple time zones in Outlook. In Windows, you can add up to three time zones under File > Options > Calendar Time Zones. In Mac, add one additional time zone under Outlook > Preferences > Calendar Time Zones. For Outlook on the web, click the Time Zone drop-down arrow in your Calendar meeting invite to add an additional time zone. Now, at a glance, you can simply understand what’s happening and when around the globe with Outlook.
New in Outlook Mail
Show organization directory details — In case you missed it, Outlook now adds the details of your organization directory to your Outlook contact information. We recently announced this new feature under Show Organization, so you can quickly learn who’s who in your company. If your company data is connected to Azure Active Directory, you can see who your contact reports to, their chain of command in your company, and even other colleagues they work with most. Knowing more about who might help you take care of business is right there in Outlook. You can simply tap search in your Outlook mobile app once to quickly identify your key contact, open their contact card, and view their organizational information. Available in Outlook for iOS.
Proxy support — Some organizations have adopted the use of proxies to block direct access to the internet from mobile devices. Now Outlook supports companies that use SOCKS proxies for added protection between their company data and the internet. Available in Outlook for iOS and Android.
Bcc warning — On occasion, you may be blind copied on an email message and you’d like to respond. Just in case you didn’t notice the subtle addressing, Outlook protects you if you reply to that message by alerting you that you were blind copied — you might choose not to reply to everyone on the recipient list but only reply to the sender, with all due respect. Available in Outlook for Windows.
Newly Available and Coming Soon in Outlook for iOS and Android
Sync draft folders — We’re adding the ability to draft a message in Outlook on one device and finish it on another. Start a message on your mobile device and finish it when you’re back at your desk—or the other way around! Outlook helps you get things done when the time is right for you. Available in Outlook for iOS, Windows, Mac, and Android.
Office Lens technology in Outlook for Android — When you need to capture and share details in the form of an image, such as a whiteboard, photo, or document, we’ve added a new photo icon to Outlook integrated with Office Lens technology. Simply start a new message in Outlook and touch the new photo icon to capture a whiteboard, document, or photo and get a trimmed and enhanced image instantly embedded in your email message. Outlook integrates the apps and services you need to be productive, so you can quickly and easily share what you need, when you need it, with fewer taps and apps! Available in Outlook for Android.
Quick reply — We’re making it easier to respond quickly and more meaningfully in Outlook. By keeping your message content in view, and a new reply box at the bottom of your screen, Outlook helps you keep the conversation going with a modern, chat-like experience. Coming later this summer to Outlook for Mac. Available in Outlook for iOS and Android.
Favorite people — We recently announced the ability to identify groups and email folders in Outlook, and soon we will add the ability to tag your favorite people. Keeping your key contacts front and center in your mobile search experience, as well as on top of your message folders, helps you quickly identify the right people to help you get more done. You will also be able to identify favorite people from Outlook on your mobile device, just as you can today from the web, and these favorite people tags will remain consistent, so you can find them on the web or on the go. Coming to Outlook for iOS and Android June 2018.
Office 365 Groups for OneNote and meeting events in Outlook — Staying on top of what’s going on with your Office 365 Groups is made even easier with the ability to view your group events in Outlook, as well as access the group’s OneNote Notebook. You will be able to track events in the group’s contact card and simply launch OneNote from Outlook to access the notes your group compiled in its OneNote. Coming to Outlook for iOS June 2018.
Block external content — Images embedded in emails may contain content that alerts the sender that you’ve opened their email. Tracking which emails are opened can be important to digital marketers. But if you don’t want this to be tracked, Outlook now helps to protect you and your inbox and block this external content. Available in Outlook for Android.
Single Office 365 account in Outlook — Respecting the data security and compliance policies of our largest and highly regulated customers is a key pillar to the Office 365 value. Some companies have a requirement to capture all communications information within their corporate environment. For company managed mobile devices, Outlook will help customers mitigate the risk of users copying information from their company’s Office 365 account to a personal account on a mobile device, or accidentally sending company information from personal accounts. Companies will soon be able to enforce corporate policies on their managed mobile devices to allow a single account in Outlook. Coming to Outlook for iOS and Android June 2018.
Updated Feature: New Start Page Experiences for Office
May 17, 2018 - Microsoft users will see an updated Start experience for both Desktop (Windows) and Web versions of the Office apps (Word, PowerPoint, and Excel). These updates will show a new experience that allow you to see documents important to you more easily, create content quickly, and get updates on activities in your document.
Microsoft be gradually rolling the web experience out to Targeted Release customers in mid-May, and will start the roll out to Standard Release customers in mid-June. The roll out will be completed worldwide by the end of June.
Example: When you first start Microsoft Office 2010, 2013, or 2016, you'll be presented with the start page, which is Backstage view.
We’re Making Some Changes to Translation in Word Online
May 15, 2018 - Please be that advised that you will not be able to translate text using Word Online by default. The free "Translator" add-in is available on the Office Store.
To translate text using Word Online, you will need to use one of the following options to translate your Word documents:
Install the "Translator" add-in from the Office Store.
Use the modern translation features in the Windows or Mac versions of the Office 365 ProPlus client.
Example: Using the "Translator" add-in from the Office Store. (If you are using Office for PC, please view this how to video.)
Translate selected text: Select words and phrases for translation, and simply right-click to see your translation in the Translator pane. Translate entire documents: Create a translated copy of documents with links intact by clicking the Review tab, and the Translate button.
Rich Contact Details in Outlook for iOS and Android Helps You Collaborate and Get Things Done
April 12, 2018 - Microsoft is excited to bring the details of your organization to contact cards in Outlook for iOS. Now, by connecting your company data with Azure Active Directory, Outlook for iOS users can quickly see who’s who at any time. Who does your contact report to? Who reports to your contact? And better still, who are your contact’s other colleagues? Knowing this might help you in a pinch if your contact is out of the office, for example. Reaching out to other colleagues can help you take care of business.
All of this insight is quickly available whether you search for a contact or tap an email address in a message to open their contact card details, you will have the option to Show Organization information for all the people in your company. No need to go the Global Address List on your desktop to know who’s who –access that information exactly when you need it on your iOS device with Outlook!
Microsoft also knows how important it is to keep your contact details current and connected to the apps and services you need to get things done. So they’ve made a few additional improvements to contact management features:
On iOS devices, you can now save your contacts in Outlook for iOSwith your Outlook.com or Gmail account. But since combining your contact lists can sometimes result in duplicate entries,we’ve also introduced a process to reconcile and clean up duplicate contacts. With your contact list clean and ready to go, you’ll know who’s calling with an accurate caller display (Caller ID).
For Android phone and tablet users,adding a contact from your company’s global address list to Outlook for Androidnow includes the little picture (or Avatar). This way, with Sync Contacts turned on in your Office 365 or Outlook.com accounts, your contact’s image will show when they call your Android device.
Lastly, coming soon in both Outlook for iOS and Android, deleting a contact from Outlook will also remove them from your native contacts app. Just make sure your Outlook settings have Sync Contacts in Android and Save Contacts in iOSturned on.
Microsoft is gradually rolling out all these changes in the coming days and will continue over the next several weeks.
For more information and FAQs about the new contact management features and enhancements, please go to Help & Feedback in your Outlook for iOS and Android app Settings.
Microsoft's Office Mix Preview is being Retired on May 1, 2018
April 3, 2018 - Microsoft will be retiring the Office Mix service on May 1, 2018. If you previously used Office Mix Preview, please make sure to migrate all of your content from Office Mix to Microsoft Stream or download your Mixes before May 1, to avoid losing any of your data.
On May 1, 2018, any remaining files in your Office Mix Preview account will automatically get deleted. Mixes migrated to Microsoft Stream will not include any interactive content such as analytics data, quizzes or apps. If you do not have access to Stream, you can save your Mixes as PowerPoint files (.pptx), and your analytics data as Excel files (.xlsx) to your device or a file storage location of your choice at any time before May 1.
Microsoft is Changing the Minimum System Requirements for Outlook for Android
March 27, 2018 - Microsoft is updating the minimum system requirements for Outlook for Android from Android 4.1 to Android 4.4 to align with Office 365 requirements for Android devices.
Devices running Android 4.3, or lower, will no longer receive Outlook for Android app updates.
In mid-April, users of these devices will receive an in-app message notifying them of this change and directing them to an article for more information.
On June 1, Microsoft will remove the version of Outlook for Android that supports Android version 4.3, or lower, from the app store.
Over time, the app it will eventually stop synchronizing email and calendar data, unless they have a supported version of Android.
This change does not affect anyone using Outlook for Android running versions 4.4, or above, and brings the minimum requirements for Outlook in line with the requirements for mobile devices for Office 365.
We recommend that Android uses update their device's operating system. Please click Additional Information to learn more.
Monthly Feature Updates for Office 2016 for Office 365
March 27, 2018 - This month’s update includes new feature updates, as well as other security and bug fixes. Here is a list of some of the new features available in the March update:
Translate words, phrases or sentences to another language with Microsoft Translator. You can do this from the Review tab in the ribbon.
Improved support for high definition displays.
Blind carbon copy (Bcc) warnings in Outlook.
You do not need to do anything to prepare for this change. A more complete list of features and descriptions is available by clicking Additional Information.
Microsoft Announces Retirement Plans for OWA Mobile Apps
March 7, 2018 - Microsoft is preparing to retire OWA for iPhone, iPad, and Android in May 2018, and Microsoft encourages all users to begin using Outlook for iOS and Android.
In mid-April, OWA mobile apps will no longer be available for download in app stores and on May 15, 2018, existing OWA mobile apps will be retired. This change does not affect anyone already using Outlook for iOS and Android. Click here for step-by-step user setup instructions for Outlook for iOS and Android. We encourage you to take advantage of Outlook for iOS and Android going forward as the best way to experience Office 365 features on a mobile device.
New Ways to Govern Access of External Users are Coming to Office 365
February 24, 2018 - Starting March 23, 2018, we're giving you new ways to govern access of external users. As part of this update, external users will no longer be able to see content that has been "Shared with Everyone," "All Authenticated Users," or "All Forms Users," even if they have been invited or added to authorized groups.
How does this affect me?
In SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business, sharing resources (files, folders, sites, etc.) with external users is accomplished by sending an invitation to the users directly, or adding them to groups and granting appropriate access levels. As a result, an external user would only see the content that has been shared with the user or with groups to which the user belongs. After March 23, 2018, external users will no longer see content that has been shared with "Everyone," "All Authenticated Users," or "All Forms Users." Only a small number of tenancies use this permissions model to grant access to their specific external invited guests. Content that has been permissioned to these groups will, by default, be visible only to your users within your organization’s tenancy.
within Outlook without needing to find-and-install an add-in.
Should Mac and Outlook on the web users not uninstall the Quick Poll add-in, the new add-in will be automatically installed when it is withdrawn from the store. When a user preemptively uninstalls the old add-in, the new Poll add-in will be automatically installed.
People who open the document in the Word desktop app instead of on the web will only be able to view the document. They’ll see a notification to switch to Word for the web if they want to make changes.
> View all Outlook settings > Mail > Compose and reply and uncheck the box for Show suggested replies.
