You’ve heard Office has been adding intelligent technology across the suite to help you stay ahead of threats and keep you in the flow of work. We’ve also been working in Outlook to deliver intelligence that will help you stay organized and get things done.
In the next few weeks you’ll see new intelligent features across email and calendar that will help you save time. With these, you will be able to see relevant information you might need to prepare for a meeting directly in the meeting invite, create a meeting faster by clicking on a suggested reply in your conversation, or receive suggestions on where to meet.
All these are possible thanks to the new framework that powers the new Outlook on the web which we recently announced. Let’s dive into the new features.
Meeting Insights – We’ve all been there. You arrive at a meeting without the context you need to effectively participate in the discussion. Worry not, Outlook is here to help! Using the power of the Microsoft Graph, Outlook will recommend you relevant information so you can prepare for your meeting. But wait, there is more! Once your meeting is done, we’ll also help you organize and find information about past meetings. The information includes files that have been shared with you in email, public files on SharePoint or OneDrive, emails you’ve had on the meeting topic, content shared during the meeting, meeting notes, and post-meeting content. The information is uniquely tailored, so people who are in the same meeting will not necessarily see the same recommendations. To learn more, read this support article.
To see Meeting Insights – Open the meeting event in your calendar and scroll down
Suggested reply with a meeting – You already know suggested replies, which shows you 3 options at the bottom of a conversation which you can click to start a new message and add that text when Outlook detects a response that can be addressed with a short response. We are taking that a step further. Now, when Outlook detects there is an intent to meet between the people in the conversation, one of the suggested options will be “Schedule a meeting”. Click that and the meeting form will appear with pre-populated information so you can get those meetings in the books faster without breaking your email flow. To learn more, read this support article.
Schedule meetings faster without breaking your email flow
Smart time suggestions – When you want to schedule a meeting, there are several methods you can use. You could send emails back and forth (we really hope you are not doing that anymore), or you could use FindTime and let your attendees vote on the best time, or you could use the well-known Scheduling assistant and look for a time that works for everyone. Wouldn’t it be great if Outlook suggested you a time and day when everyone could meet? Yes, we thought so too. When you are trying to schedule a meeting, Outlook will suggest days and times when attendees are free to meet. No more looking through free/busy schedules.
Outlook will provide day and time options when everyone is available
Suggested locations – Find a place to meet faster by allowing Outlook to suggest one. Next time you create a meeting click on the location bar to see our suggestions, doesn’t matter if you are looking for a conference room at work or a public place, these suggestions are tailored to you. You can also see details about these locations like address, business hours, and contact information.
See available rooms and public places for your meetings
We aim to bring you features that will make a difference, so some of these features will show up only in Outlook on the web while we gather data on them and evaluate whether to bring them to other Outlook endpoints.
We hope these features help you save time and get things done faster. When you try them, we would love to get your feedback. Please, let us know what you think in our UserVoice channel, we hope to hear from you!
Thanks!
Gabriel Valdez.