Forum Discussion
Focused Inbox not working
Update: On Friday, Microsoft had me disable all of my inbox rules, just to make sure that none of those were interfering with Focused Inbox processing. They're also suspicious of our Ironport appliances and how they may be altering incoming mail, but that doesn't really make sense to me, since Focused Inbox is working normally for a co-worker and his mail goes through the same appliance. It will modify the Subject line to flag certain messages as "Marketing" or "Potential Spam", but it's been doing that all along, including back when Focused Inbox processing was working properly for me. The latest word is that I sent them a few sample emails that went to the Focused tab but should have gone to the Other tab, and I'm waiting for their feedback. As of this morning, I'd say it's half-working. Of the two dozen emails I've received that are not important (spam or bulk emails that got past the Ironport's filters), about half have gone to the Other tab and the rest showed up in the Focused tab. I even went so far as to clear out my safe senders and safe recipients lists (did that on Monday, actually).
In my opinion (which I may have mentioned before) the Focused Inbox "learning" process needs to have a reset switch that clears out everything and let's it start learning from scratch again. I don't want to have to do this sort of troubleshooting for any of our end users. I was very impressed with how well Clutter worked, but my transition to Focused Inbox has not been a pleasant experience. And I really miss my inbox rules, many of which moved messages into custom folders and kept my inbox pretty clean. I guess that's the price of being an early adopter.
Mike - wondering if the 'training messages' method is working over time. I used Clutter for a few years and Focused Inbox worked flawlessly for me the first month or so of release. As of last week, it just stopped working, all messages go to Inbox as you've noted. I have covered all settings/suggestions and nothing. What I find odd, Focused Inbox has been part of the iOS Outlook app for a long time and it always worked with zero training required. I have colleagues who are not experiencing my issues at all. Makes no sense.
- Mike KochAug 12, 2017Copper Contributor
Hello David,
Messages go into the Other tab automatically, yes, but it's more of a filter for marketing messages and spam. No false positives, so that's a plus. I still get quite a bit in Focused, so it's a regular routine to move them to Other or report them as Junk. I still feel that it worked better before it stopped working suddenly, but I can't back that up with any proof.
As the Exchange admin, I really hope this doesn't happen to any of my users. Telling them that their only option is to retrain the filter is a lousy solution.
Mike
- DeletedSep 27, 2017
Mike,
I am having the exact situations you mentioned... its as if all learning was lost and I need to manually retrain my Focused inbox. I am using Outlook.com and this just occured last week. I had been using Focused inbox (nearly flawlessly) for months.Suddendly last week it stopped working on all clients and devices. Very frustrating. You explained and documented this very well!!! Thank you for posting this problem.
Thanks
Aaron- Fredrik RemaeusNov 12, 2017Copper Contributor
Hi
I thought that Exchange Online had modern authentication on as default? Still i read that you turn it on?
Regards
Fredrik