Mobile App for new Office 365 Network

Mobile App for new Office 365 Network
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 Jul 15 2016
64 Comments (64 New)
On Hold

Modern web UI is nice, but at the end of the day when it comes to mobile, apps are still king.

 

If the purpose of this is to replace the interaction we had on Yammer, a mobile app is a necessity.  Ease of use is critical, and navigating via browser does not give the features and interactivity that the Yammer app does. App specific notifications for replies, quickly navigating to favorite topics/groups.  Just because it can be used in a mobile browser doesnt mean it should.

 

I see lack of a mobile app as a real barrier to winning user adoption and getting the most participation possible based on the proven success of Yammer Office 365 Network.

Comments
Former Employee

Thanks for your feedback, @Brent Ellis. We're happy with the way this new community reacts on a mobile web experience but we also hear your concerns. We're looking at the need for an app but don't have any information to share right now.

Bronze Contributor

Mobile browser should only be a fallback. I consumed yammer mainly though the mobile app.

+ 1 for the App

Bronze Contributor

One very important aspect of mobile apps compared to browser view is authentication. With mobile apps you can usually save your credentials for quick access to content. 

In my case I'd have to fireup my password manager everytime to view stuff in my mobile browser.

Bronze Contributor

How do I sign out or view my notifications on the mobile browser (iPhone 6 here)?

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The notifications experience is clearly another area that needs to improve a lot...to me, the way to discover new stuff in the network is quite poor

Iron Contributor

"We're happy with the way this new community reacts on a mobile web experience"

 

I really don't share this opinion and I'm not one of those users. The experience is far from good. 

- Need to authenticate. I use several MSA and Office365 accounts with strong passwords and MFA. If you need to authenticate over and over again, that's a real downgrade to the experience.

- Notifications. Other notifactions options than email would be very welcome.

- But the most import of all, a good experience in viewing content. Now my thumb is sore when you go through a thread on a mobile device.

Silver Contributor

Also, feeling a bit frustrated as I have been trying to use the new network on my phone. I typed out a long response to a post, accidentally swiped down too far to scroll up and it force refreshed my browser and lost my whole response...

Practically impossible to use with mobile web - Edge on Win Mobile 10. Desktop web is not much better, but at least something. Definitely, the app is a must.

Microsoft
Status changed to: Under review
 
Silver Contributor

A few more days into it and trying to adopt, I unfortunately feel the same way.  If I needed to search for something very particular, I feel that I can now effectively do that from the mobile web interface.   Whilst it "loads" on a mobile interface, it is near unusable from a collaboration, interaction, and participating perspective IMO.

 

Plus I get signed out all the freakin time, so I can't just pop on and post and be on my way.

Copper Contributor

Experience is much worse than the Yammer app experience I am used to. Strugglingto navigate and also read content when I do find it. Filtering read content too is poor. 

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Not applicable

on

an app for Widows Mobile will be great 

Bronze Contributor

Aug 19th improved many things, I'd still prefer an app.

Deleted
Not applicable

I could not agree more. Without a mobile app the usefulness of this forum has been reduced dramatically. A great opportunity which I hope will not be missed.

Steel Contributor


Can't agree more. Lack of a mobile app is a major impediment to the network use. Using Yammer app was a breeze. Using the new network via Web is a nightmare!

Brass Contributor

+1 for an app. Agree with most of previous comments. Web on mobile experience feels like hard work when Yammer app was easy. 

Brass Contributor

+1 for me too. I loved having the yammer group on my phone. The web based view is nowhere near as useful 

Iron Contributor

+ 1 for an App

Brass Contributor

The app was the primary interaction method for the community for me as I'm normally too busy at my desk. 

Mobile push notifications for useful updates was great too

Microsoft
Status changed to: Under review
 
Bronze Contributor

Article about responsive design made me think immediately about this new network. 

http://www.cmswire.com/digital-experience/responsive-design-is-so-2013/

Copper Contributor
I interacted primarily on the app for quick browsing on yammer. Need it badly.
Bronze Contributor

Dear @AnnaChu could we please get some honest feedback on this? I believe after months of being "under review" Microsoft would at least know "yes, we'll do it" or " no, we won't". I'm not even asking a "when" here. 

 

Even with all the updates the basic concepts of notifications and space navigation are still a major hurdle. On mobile even more. 

I guess they follow "never say never" principle...

Microsoft

@Ivan Unger Thanks for pushing us, we really do appreciate it!  We have every intention of working on a mobile app but we are under pressure to deliver a large number of improvements to the existing site and a focus on a mobile app will divert resources away from those improvements.  These are our urgent community-wide priorities:

  • Blog prominence so big product announcements aren't buried
  • Private inbox & notifications alerts so you can better discern between the two (they are combined at the moment)
  • Profile pages that you can use to showcase all of your latest conversations, replies, RSS blog feed, events you plan to attend
  • Updated community experience to support major events like Microsoft Ignite and Microsoft Tech Summits
  • Private communities to support invite-only NDA groups
  • Styling for floated posts (right now you can't tell a post is floated)
  • Sharing on social (so you can easily share on Twitter, LinkedIn etc)
  • Registration experience (needs improvement in helping new members join multiple communities)
  • Ideas styling needs improvement to support products who are considering opting out of UserVoice

We know the lack of a mobile app makes it difficult to be responsive in the community and it's because of this have this item committed to our roadmap.  It would be unfair for me to give you an ETA when we are still trying to deliver on the above. 

Bronze Contributor

Hi Anna,

 

thank you for the honest feedback. As said adove, no ETA is required. Judging from the bullet list I'm not expecting anything before 2018 on this regard, and that's OK, so as long as we know where this is roughly headed. 

I'm fairly certain that a mobile app is mostly requested by PowerUsers which explains the lower prioritization on your end. On the other I do hope this gets a bump, since those PowerUser were, and still are, very important contributors to this network. 

 

Deleted
Not applicable
Ivan I couldn't agree more. My involvement has gone from a 4-6 hours per day (old Office 365 Network on Yammer), to less than an hour per month. And this is 100% related to the fact that I can no longer switch networks and follow the conversations on my mobile. Being in a different timezone, I am never sitting at my office desk (web) at night when the US Microsoft team and collaborators are online. It's so sad.
Brass Contributor

100% agree. Used to love the yammer network. Don't often bother with this web one. It's not as easy to track my interests and not as convenient on mobile. Used to love the push notifications 

Iron Contributor
Is it just me, but I really would like to have MS tech community app on mobile with quick access to favorite spaces, notifications and other cool stuff. Even though the webpage has responsive design, real app features are missing