At the recently held Microsoft Ignite conference in Atlanta, USA, a slew of updates (and features) were announced for Office 365. Majority of these additions, in terms of security, intelligence, and collaboration, are directed towards the business users employing Office 365 in an organization environment.
Some of the more important updates include,
- Tap in Word and Outlook (for Office 365 Business Premium) – Allows you to find relevent content (using other documents used by yourself and/or shared by co-workers) from within the document you are working on.
- Quick Starter in PowerPoint and (for all customers in Sway on the web) – Suggests outlines in the form of recommendations (on information to include), categories, images (Creative Commons licenses), for the topic you are working on.
- Designer (in Powerpoint) (for PowerPoint on Windows desktops) – Provides additional designs for Powerpoint slides.
- Maps in Excel (for Windows desktops) – Simplies the process of transforming geographic data into professional visualizations.
- Microsoft MyAnalytics (or Office 365 Enterprise E5) – Formerly Delve Analytics, MyAnalytics analysis your time at work, meetings, email, etc. and shows how you spend time.
In terms of enhancements, improvements have been made to Advanced Threat Protection (ATP), SharePoint, Skype for Business, Yammer Integration, Advanced Data Governance, Switch to Microsoft Cloud for Outlook and (new) Threat Intelligence.
Updates aside, a new application in form of Microsoft StaffHub has also been introduced (in public preview). The new app is meant to simplify creation of teams, managing shift schedules easier for both the managers and employees.
Newly announced updates are a welcome move and directed towards improving productivity but it also important to realize the presence of Microsoft Cloud powering the majority of aforementioned features.
