This post will give you a quick rundown of the latest Office 365 updates, with the goal of helping you get the most out of the service.
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Here is a video of the latest Office 365 updates:
Here are the updates discussed in detail:
Microsoft Whiteboard-
- On July 12th the Office team announced the Whiteboard app had moved out of preview and is now generally available on Windows 10.
- Whiteboard provides an infinite canvas where imagination has room to grow. You can easily draw, write, and add images and virtual sticky notes to organize your ideas.
- With the Whiteboard app, your brainstorming sessions are saved automatically to the cloud, so you can pick up where you left off, whenever and wherever inspiration strikes. And because the canvas expands along with your creations, you never have to worry about running out of space.
OneDrive-
- The OneDrive Activity Center is your go-to place to see the status of the OneDrive desktop client or to customize your sync experience. In mid-July, the OneDrive team started rolling out a new, updated OneDrive Activity Center to improve clarity and ease of use.
- One feature that I particularly stands out is the new option for conserving battery life on Windows devices. The OneDrive desktop client will now automatically pause sync whenever a device switches to “battery saver” mode.
My Analytics Nudges-
- MyAnalytics is a personalized set of metrics that helps you find opportunities to build better habits and take control of your time. And who doesn’t want to do that? It gives you insights into how you spend your time and provides tips that help you work smarter.
- A new feature called MyAnalytics Nudges offers friendly, data-driven collaboration tips as you work in Office 365.
- Additional MyAnalytics Nudges help you collaborate more effectively in other ways, such as:
– Running more effective meetings,
– reducing your after-hours impact on your coworkers, and
– staying on top of your unread email and to-do items.
Kaizala-
- Microsoft Kaizala is a new mobile app you might start hearing about. It addresses the needs of these workers. It makes it easy to communicate and get work done out in the field, all on your iPhone or Android device.
- Kaizala gives field workers access to the tools they need to stay informed and work efficiently. The app makes it easy to get announcements from the main office, send feedback via polls or surveys, and chat with others workers either one-on-one or in groups.
- The Kaizala team built the app on three core pillars:
– The first is communication. It makes it easy to connect with large groups of people both inside and outside an organization.
– The second pillar is work management. Kaizala simplifies the coordination of tasks for common work scenarios, and provides insights through advanced reporting.
– The final pillar is security & manageability. Kaizala adheres to rigorous standards for security, privacy, and compliance. It also enables admins to easily manage users and control access to sensitive data.
Power BI-
- Back in January, the Power BI team made it easier for you to collaborate with your teammates and partners by announcing report sharing in the Power BI Service. Last month, they super charged this experience by enabling you to share reports with filters and slicers applied.
Live Events-
- On July 12th, Microsoft announced that live event capabilities will be coming to Microsoft Stream, Microsoft Teams, and Yammer. With this development, customers will be able to schedule, produce, and deliver live events more effectively for a variety of scenarios such as companywide events, leadership updates and more.
- As part of Microsoft’s commitment to empower people and organizations with artificial intelligence, commonly referred to as AI, a new set of intelligent features will soon be available in Microsoft Stream, including:
– Speaker timelines that use facial detection to identify who is talking, so you can easily jump to a particular speaker in the recording;
– speech-to-text and closed captions that capture the event in a readable form and make the content more accessible for everyone; and
– transcript search and timecodes that let you quickly find moments that matter in a video.
Workplace Analytics-
What MyAnalytics does for the individual, Workplace Analytics does for the organization. It identifies collaboration patterns that impact productivity, workforce effectiveness, and team engagement across the organization. On July 12th, Microsoft unveiled Workplace Analytics solutions for teamwork. New team-focused dashboards in Workplace Analytics help enable you to:
-Uncover collaboration challenges such as meeting overload or high after-hours workload;
– inspiring teams to change through productivity insights and customized action plans; and
– measuring and improving on a team’s action plan by assessing and tracking progress against goals over time.
