Microsoft’s mobile applications related to productivity are about to receive a lot of news to improve productivity. Cortana integration in Microsoft Teams, Handwriting recognition in Office Mobile, reactions in Outlook and much more.
With the rising use of productivity apps on mobile devices due to the pandemic, with successive lockdowns, Microsoft saw how the use of Teams, Outlook and Office increased significantly. Distance communication in the work environment, messaging in educational groups, greater use of Office mobile tools … And Microsoft wants to enhance this mobile use by greatly improving its applications for these devices.
Office 365 mobile applications see their productivity improved
The company has communicated all the changes that are underway to its large suite of mobile applications, both for Android and iOS. Office for mobile, Outlook, Teams … And Cortana: personal assistant gains presence in Office 365 apps with the idea of facilitating the use of these apps and interactions with other users.
The list of changes is very extensive, so is the number of applications that receive news. Among them are:
- More Cortana. Microsoft’s personal assistant will be integrated into Outlook and Teams to respond to user requests. Search emails, calendar appointments, locate messages from a specific user, files that were shared … Of course, it will first be available only in English.
- Shortcuts for micro tasks. Office 365 applications gain the ability to create small shortcuts with a multitude of different tasks. The so-called ‘Micro tasking shortcuts’ allow you to create small surveys in Office or Teams, OneDrive will allow the use of shortcuts to the files, Outlook will show the time according to the location when creating new appointments, Outlook will also integrate a navigation window when clicking on a link…
- Digitizing will be much easier. Microsoft Lens is about to include handwriting recognition after taking photos to a document; then the option will go to the Office mobile app, first in English. And that said Microsoft Lens will also be integrated into Teams to capture content, annotate it and share it in the messages application.
- Annotation of PDFs in Office. The mobile productivity app will not only continue to offer reading and editing of PDF documents, it will also allow annotations. Notes, forms, dates, and timestamps may be included.
- Reactions in Outlook. Apart from increasing email security, Microsoft is committed to adding reactions to its email app. You don’t want to answer a message with a simple yes? Add a thumb-up reaction and you’re done.
All the changes introduced by Microsoft will be progressively added to the productivity applications for mobiles.
More information | Microsoft