SOLVED

Focused inbox shows in OWA missing in Outlook 2016

Brass Contributor

Ok - I tried to find a similar topic but I failed.  If this is a duplicate feel free to call me out. 

 

Yesterday (finally) focused inbox showed up in my tenant.  I have it disabled at the organization level but enabled for my mailbox.  OWA instantly updated (in the middle of a live demo) to show that I had the new focused inbox. 

 

The issue is that my Outlook 2016 client isn't seeing the view option to enable focused inbox.  I'm on version 1702 (build 7870.2038) - First release for Current Channel.  It updated yesterday morning and still nothing.  I've rebuilt the profile in 2016, gone online rather than cached, reset views, etc.  Nothing seems to be allowing me to turn it on within Outlook 2016. 

 

Has anybody ever seen this?  I'm not ready to turn it on for the organization so this is why I'm attempting to keep it local to me right now.

 

37 Replies

Outlook is lagging behind, the code for Focused Inbox is included in the version you are using but it only works in some specific scenarios. In other words, not supported in Outlook yet, you have to wait.

That's odd. Why do they imply on all these online support articles that it's there already for 2016? What scenarios should it actually work for?
best response confirmed by Joshua Widup (Brass Contributor)
Solution

Hey Joshua - please check out our official blog on Focused Inbox: https://blogs.office.com/2016/07/26/outlook-helps-you-focus-on-what-matters-to-you/ 

 

This blog talks about IT controls: https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/exchange/2016/10/14/managing-focused-inbox-in-office-365-and-out...

 

Thanks for your patience. More updates coming soon!

Thanks for that. The 2nd link is broken FYI. So I'm in clutter zombie land then? I have focused in OWA and Mobile and have to suffer in the primary 2016 client. I guess that's what I get for being bleeding edge. ;)
Fixed the link. Not sure why it was acting strange, but I got the same error. If you want, you can go back to Clutter until we get it in Outlook 2016. See steps below:

Steps to re-enable Clutter (for admin)
As an Office 365 admin, you can re-enable Clutter using Exchange PowerShell. Once this is done, Focused Inbox will be turned off and Clutter will be active again.

Turn Clutter on using Exchange PowerShell
You can enable Clutter manually for a mailbox by running the Set-Clutter cmdlet. You can also view Clutter settings for mailboxes in your organization by running the Get-Clutter cmdlet.
Example: Turn on Clutter for a single user named Allie Bellew: Set-Clutter -Identity “Allie Bellew” -Enable $true
Cool - I missed that ... thought it was a one way street once focused was on. Thanks for the help!

is modern auth enabled? I have it in outlook for all of the accoyunts that use modern auth but not other accounts. I was told modern auth needs to be enabled for it to available in outlook. 

let me clarify that - i have 2 tenants, one was not enabled for modern auth. Had focused inbox for all  accounts and shared mailboxes from one tenant but Outlook would not show the focused inbox for the mailboxes in the second tenant. I finally got around to enabling modern auth in that tenant today and now i have focused inbox in outlook for all accounts in my tenant. 

 

To check the settings, use 

Get-OrganizationConfig | ft name, *OAuth*

to enable it, use 

Set-OrganizationConfig -OAuth2ClientProfileEnabled:$true

 

 

 

Hey all - I just wrote up a new update for Focused Inbox roll-out. It has lots of details about how this will show up in Outlook 2016 on Windows. Take a look!

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Outlook/Update-on-Focused-Inbox-rollout-for-Outlook-2016-for-...

Thanks Allen!  My client updated on Tuesday and Focused Inbox is now working on both PC and Mac!  I'm still getting adjusted to the algorithm and clutter "move to folder patter" loss but it seems great so far!

 

Allen,  I looked at that post and posted there but thought I would here as well.  We have modern authentication.  We are first release.  We have focused inbox turned on in the tenant.  We have the correct version or higher for Outlook 2016 for Windows and still no focused inbox.  I used PowerShell to confirm it was on for my account.  I see it in OWA and on


@Allen Filush wrote:
Hey all - I just wrote up a new update for Focused Inbox roll-out. It has lots of details about how this will show up in Outlook 2016 on Windows. Take a look!

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Outlook/Update-on-Focused-Inbox-rollout-for-Outlook-2016-for-...


iOS devices.

Glad to hear it Joshua. Note that you have the Move to Focused and Move to Other buttons..they work much like the Move to Clutter action did previously. 

So am I reading this right. We are not using ADFS, (just using password sync via AADConnect), is this saying that we cannot use Modern Authentication and therefore cannot have Focused Inbox in Outlook?
Modern Auth is a requirement right now for Focused Inbox. As I noted, we plan to remove that requirement in an upcoming update.

I'm not an expert on what ADFS setup does or doesn't allow Modern Auth to work - but the links in the update I published explain the necessary steps to get that setup.

Having turning on Modern Auth in my tenant (quite awhile ago) for Exchange Online, I have to say that there was zero impact on having it on vs. off.  As far as I can tell it "enables" the service to accept Modern Authentication but it doesn't disable any authentication method or break anything.  I'm not saying you should just "turn it on" but I know I did with zero impact.

 

 

Just had similar issue, close outlook and outlook.exe /resetnavpane did the job for me

Thanks for this! 

I have been missing quite a few emails and couldn't figure out where they were going. It finally clicked that i was seeing Focused Inbox on my mobile device, but not in Outlook. This fixed my issue.

Gah, did not work for me. Plus, I am getting a semi-irregular bug that requires me to start Outlook twice: first time, it complains about not having shut down correctly, second time, it actually starts. But that's a different story...

So I am not an engineer so forgive me for not reading all the forums on this issue. In addition  I have also have called Microsoft Support on this issue, which they did not know how to resolve or give an answer about.

Can anybody tell me when I am going to get focused in my Outlook 2016 Desktop? It is now  November? 

1 best response

Accepted Solutions
best response confirmed by Joshua Widup (Brass Contributor)
Solution

Hey Joshua - please check out our official blog on Focused Inbox: https://blogs.office.com/2016/07/26/outlook-helps-you-focus-on-what-matters-to-you/ 

 

This blog talks about IT controls: https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/exchange/2016/10/14/managing-focused-inbox-in-office-365-and-out...

 

Thanks for your patience. More updates coming soon!

View solution in original post