As in previous months, Microsoft launched a series of updates for its popular Office 365 suite that were staggered throughout the month of July.
One of the most significant new updates released for this product was a number of brand new apps that are aimed at enterprise Office 365 users and will be deployable with the Business Premium version of the product. There are three of these in total – called Microsoft Invoicing, Microsoft Listings, and Microsoft Connections.
At the moment, these new apps are being made available to Canadian, American and British users of Office 365 on a preview basis, with First Release customers being the ones to get them ahead of everyone else. In addition to these three apps that are available in preview, Microsoft has also confirmed the launch of a fourth one, called Mile IQ. Office 365 customers in the aforementioned countries can access the full version of this app, which is designed to help with the tracking of mileage, immediately.
The software company has also made a number of changes to the Mac and Windows Desktop versions of PowerPoint, with its Designer function now being capable of recognising topics, dates and times featured within slides, and producing timelines with a professional look from this raw content. These updates are available to Office Insider customers based in these countries.
Those updates released before the end of last month also saw Outlook receive a number of enhancements. Those signed up to Office Insider will get these updates via Outlook 2016 for Windows, while they are also being made more widely available through the web version of Outlook. The changes see smart contact suggestions added to the email ‘To:’ line, along with a revamp of the conversation view. This latter feature is already there for those using Outlook on iOS devices, with Microsoft indicating Android users will get it in the near future.
The last of the major updates to Office 365 sees the Windows versions of PowerPoint 2016, Excel and Word now enabling the user to edit and add objects in 3D. This change arrived via the huge Creators Update for Windows 10. Finally, those signed up to Office Insider who are using Windows desktop computers to access Word will now find the tab labelled Review offers an enhanced Read Aloud function, with this getting a widespread release before the end of 2017.
The corporate vice president for Microsoft, Kirk Koenigsbauer, wrote: “This month, we hosted more than 17,000 attendees at Microsoft Inspire, our annual conference for partners, where we announced Microsoft 365 and debuted three new business apps to help companies of all sizes empower their employees and unlock growth and innovation.” If you would like to find out how the smart SharePoint solutions we offer at WM Reply can help you achieve this, get in touch with us.