Windows 10: Personalized and organized Search in Outlook for iOS and Android

Brink · Mar 30, 2020

Outlook is designed to help you connect, organize and get things done quickly and easily. With all your emails, calendar events, contacts and files in one place it is even more critical to simplify how you find what you need. Microsoft Search is providing helpful ways to do that with new innovation in Outlook for iOS and Android using intelligent technology to provide insights and predictive results. Search in Outlook mobile is organized and personalized for you, saving you time and helping you be prepared for your commitments.

Get time back in your day

We are pleased to announce that we're rolling out the ability to use natural language to search to find what you need in Outlook for iOS and Android. This means you can choose to speak or type your search query using everyday language to filter and narrow your search for emails, calendar events, contact information and files. This new way to search in Outlook can save you time when you dictate your query rather than type and when you use filtering terms such as âlast weekâ, ânext appointmentâ, or âphone numberâ to easily get to the results that you need.

The new experience introduces two elements in the Search home screen. First, a small microphone icon in the search box and second, when you tap the mic icon, a small card appears at the bottom of your screen that suggests questions you can ask and are relevant to you. Once you start to speak, Outlook captures what you say on screen and initiates the search based on your question. You can expect to see this experience start to roll out at the beginning of April for Microsoft 365 customers, both consumers and business users, in the United States.

Speak or type your Search query using language you use everyday

If you enter a search query with details about a specific calendar event, Search in Outlook mobile will help reduce the effort to stay organized and on time by providing answers that include a quick action associated with the event, such as Join or RSVP. These Calendar search answers are intent-driven, meaning that the experience provides results that are most relevant to you. So if you search using everyday terms such as âwhen is my next meeting with John next weekâ, Microsoft Search in Outlook can understand which of your contacts with the name John is in question, find which scheduled event is on your calendar that matches the time frame for next week and deliver results that are relevant and actionable.

Actionable Search answers about events on your Calendar in Outlook for Android

We will soon roll out top results in Outlook mobile for keyword queries. Outlook will curate results that are most relevant, not solely based on the most recent, and put them at the top of your Search results. This is especially useful when the natural language search option to filter results is not available.

Personalized for you

Outlook continues to focus on making it easier to stay connected to the people in your daily life, your work colleagues, family and friends. This is why your top contacts, whether youâre working in your work or school accounts or staying connected in your personal account, remain at the top of the Search home page in Outlook mobile. We are now using Microsoft Search to bring forward more information about people in your organization that are relevant to you so you can quickly take action (people answers) based on the intent of your search. For example, you can use the keyword search to look for something specific about a person such as their phone number, office or email address. Outlook will provide the image or avatar if available so you can quickly pick the right person and get their phone number and email. With one tap, you can either start an email message or call them without having to open up their contact card to retrieve their contact details.

Actionable Search answers about people's contact details in Outlook for iOS

Previously, when you searched for a specific person, Outlook searched across the content in your mailbox for information as you entered it into the keyword search box. Now we are using Microsoft Search to suggest people that are relevant to you based on emails you may have received from that person. Outlook helps keep you connected to people you communicate with across various Microsoft 365 experiences such as in Teams meetings and chat, OneDrive file collaboration, events and meetings on your calendar or through email. The Microsoft Graph helps establish those connections and Outlook personalizes the experience through Search in Outlook mobile.

Outlook is more than an inbox, itâs your personal organizer where you can manage your day around your work and life commitments. Keeping on top of your tasks at any time is key to being organized so weâre starting to connect the experiences between Outlook mobile and the Microsoft To Do app. Outlook will proactively pull your top 3 tasks from your Microsoft account and add them to the Search home page in Outlook for iOS, even if you created these tasks in other Outlook experiences such as Outlook on the web, Windows or Mac as well as Outlook.com. Youâll be able to mark them as complete as you go about your day or if you need to do more, Outlook for iOS enables you to quickly pivot to the To Do app on your phone to further manage your tasks.

Search home page in Outlook for iOS with files in This Week for Your and top tasks from To Do

Staying organized also means showing up to your meetings on time and prepared, whether those are online or in person. At Microsoft Ignite 2019, we shared how Up Next in your Focused Inbox helps you show up on time and Meeting Insights brings together your relevant emails and files for specific meetings right in your calendar event details so you can easily show up prepared. To further personalize your experience, we are bringing Meeting Insights to Search in Outlook for iOS. Events that are coming up this week for you will be on your Search home page providing quick access to the files youâll need to be prepared without the effort and time to enter a specific search query.

Committed to results

We are evolving the Search capabilities in Outlook and across Microsoft 365 to provide a consistent, coherent experience where it makes sense. Part of our commitment is to continue to bring you more results proactively based on your personal organization and collaboration needs as well as connections to people in your daily work and personal life. We are also updating how your search results are organized by rolling out tabbed results in Outlook for iOS in the coming weeks. Outlook will also provide helpful ways to find what you need, even if you mis-type or misspell a word in your keyword search â which is easily done on a small keyboard. If that happens or your keyword query does not give you a sufficient volume of results, Outlook will suggest a keyword that is spelled correctly and provide results based on that intent so you wonât need to retype anything. And finally, based on customer feedback, we recently added the ability for you to search your deleted folder in Outlook for Android, just as you could in Outlook for iOS.

Thank you for your continued feedback in Outlook.uservoice.com, through your Microsoft account teams and within the app under Help & Feedback. We welcome your questions and additional feedback here too.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q1: What are the types of questions you can ask to find what you need in Outlook mobile using natural language?
A1: You can ask to find people's contact information such as phone numbers, emails and office location as well as ask to call or email a specific person. Ask to find events or meetings by name, time or attendees. In addition, you can ask what is your next meeting or to join a meeting that is in progress. Emails can be located based on who sent them, the key words in the subject or the message body, time frame it was sent as well as attachments.

Q2: What do I need to do to enable Search using natural language in Outlook mobile?
A2: There is nothing you need to do to enable Search in Outlook mobile using natural language. This capability requires an Office 365, Exchange Online or Outlook.com account and the device settings for Language and Region set to English in the United State respectively.

Q3: What if youâre not connected or online, which features require an active connection to generate relevant results and answers?
A3: All of the experiences described in this article require a network connection with the exception of Tabbed results, your search results will still be organized by tab, and your top 3 tasks in Search from To Do will still show on your Search home page but will be based on the details synchronized from the last network connection and saved on the device. If a network connection is not available, for example when in airplane mode, the Search results will be limited to what is available locally on the device.

Q4: What if I donât have To Do on my phone?
A4: Outlook is able to provide your top 3 tasks on your Search home page in Outlook for iOS based on tasks in your Microsoft 365 account (including Outlook.com) so you donât need To Do on your phone. If you want to manage those tasks beyond marking them as complete in Outlook and you donât have To Do on your device, we will help you get To Do from the Apple app store.

Q5: Do I need a different account to use To Do?
A5: No, you can use the same account that you are using in Outlook for iOS, just make sure your Default Mail Account is the same account to which you've added tasks. You can configure this by going to your Outlook mobile Settings > Mail > Default. Make sure you have tasks under the main tasks folder in Microsoft To Do, or have tasks in the task pane in Outlook on the web.

Q6: Can I change the task list.
A6: Not at this time, Outlook only synchronizes the tasks from the To Do default task list.

Q7: How do I create tasks in Outlook for iOS?
A7: We currently donât support the ability to create tasks in Outlook for iOS but we are working on it! For now, you can start by creating tasks in Outlook for Windows, Mac, or on the web. You can also install the Microsoft To Do app to get started.

Q8: There's a lot of new updates coming to Search in Outlook mobile! How can I keep track of what will roll out when?
A8: Our goal is to start rolling out all these feature updates by the end of April. Hereâs how you can track them on the Microsoft 365 roadmap:

Natural language search iOS 56821 and Android 56822

Actionable calendar search answers in iOS 55044 and Android 60856

Suggested people and actionable search answers in iOS 53714 and Android 53122

Meeting Insights in Outlook for iOS Search home page in iOS 61149

Tabbed results in iOS 53118

Tasks from To Do in Search 58137

Top results in iOS 53120 and Android 53299

Search deleted folders in Android 58990

Speller in iOS 56819 and Android 59023

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Source: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/...e/ba-p/1228027

:)

Brink · Mar 30, 2020

Outlook for iOS and Android: Personalize how you get things done

The New Year brought a range of updates in Outlook for iOS and Android to further empower the busy professionals in both work and personal scenarios. With the new Office mobile app unifying your content creation experience, Outlook mobile continues to deliver capabilities that help you stay connected, organized and on top of what matters.

Last year Microsoft completed the roll out of Shared Mailboxes in Outlook for iOS and Android that enables customers to manage the communications and calendars for shared resources, such as Human Resources or Help Desk Support mailboxes, from their mobile device. But one key scenario was missing; customers, specifically those who are assistants or delegates and want to send email or accept calendar invitations on another’s behalf, couldn’t do so when working on their phone or tablet.

We are now rolling out the capability for customers to get things done on someone else’s behalf in a safe and manageable way from their mobile device. People who have been granted full access permissions to the inbox of others in their organization will be able to do so from Outlook for iOS and Android. Once you’ve been assigned permissions, as a delegate, you can simply add the mailbox to your Outlook mobile app. We started the roll out for support of Delegate Mailbox in mid February with the goal of enabling all Office 365 customers by the end of March.

Whether you’re composing emails on someone’s behalf or constructing a thoughtful personal message, using formatting tools that underscore your ideas and key points can be effective. Give your emails structure with lists, emphasis with bold/underline/italic fonts and titles or add informative links to content on the web to help ensure your messages have impact and are easy to read. With additional formatting functionality now in Outlook for iOS, composing or replying to email on your iPhone or iPad is just as effective as creating them on a larger screen.

Outlook for iOS rich formatting tools. iPad split view with drag and drop contacts from Search.

And in case you missed it, we also recently released support for split view, announced late last fall. Now, in Outlook on your iPad, can you format your emails with more structure and oomph as well as open multiple messages or view your email and calendar at the same time. When using split view, you can also drag web links and other text from one message to another or pull a contact from Search and drag it into your email message. And if you choose to add photos or documents to your messages on your phone or tablet, you can mark them up with inking capabilities through Office Lens, now available in both Outlook for iOS and Android.

Mobile-focused design was at the heart of the Play My Emails which we started to roll out in Outlook for iOS at Ignite. Play My Emails was built with a user experience designed for busy people on the go so they can take time when in transit, commuting or multi-tasking to stay organized and top of what matters. As your personal productivity assistant, Cortana reads out your new emails and changes to your day so you can catch up on what’s new in your Focused Inbox and spend more time on other commitments. We are in the final stages of rolling it out to all eligible customers in the United States and today we are announcing that we will soon expand eligibility to Office 365 community customers in Education (EDU) using Outlook with their school accounts. Watch for more information coming soon; Spring is right around the corner at which time we plan to also roll out Play My Emails in Outlook for Android.

As part of the mobile focused design strategy for Microsoft 365 apps, Outlook for iOS and Android introduced the redesigned experience icons in January. Not only does this unify the Outlook experience across iOS and Android, it is consistent with the Fluent design principles rolling out across other Microsoft 365 mobile and desktop apps. Our goal is to continue to introduce design conventions that will help ensure experiences feel both distinctly Microsoft and at home on the device of your choice. One such convention is in-app illustrations used to convey a key moment or message as an integral part of the user experience. For example, when you have an empty folder or use Play My Emails when connected to an audio device, illustrations help you instantly understand the context of your experience. Now part of the Microsoft mobile UI toolkit, these illustrations provide instant context so you can move quickly onto what you want to accomplish next.

Updated illustrations in Outlook mobile

So whether you’re taking action on behalf of someone else, personalizing your email with different formats and annotations or simply getting things done in split view on your iPad, we look forward to hearing what you think about these updates. Feel free to comment here or at Outlook.UserVoice.com.
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Source: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/...e/ba-p/1174344

Brink · Mar 30, 2020

Outlook mobile for iOS and Android is rolling out Dark Mode

Today we are starting to roll out dark mode in Outlook for iOS and Android. For added comfort or when a bright screen may not be appropriate, we’re bringing people the choice and flexibility to adapt their experience with a simple and powerful Microsoft 365 Dark Theme experience.

Outlook for Android and iOS

Adapting to work life flow, Outlook focuses its design on the context of where people want to use Dark Mode. When asked, people found the experience comfortable and aesthetically pleasing while keeping their email and calendar content crisp and clear. This way, Outlook helps you stay connected and organized so you can get things done wherever you are such as dimly lit living rooms, home offices or airplanes.

This experience is in keeping with other modern apps that aim to ease viewing and reduce eye strain. And, to help optimize battery life, once iOS and Android devices support dark themes*, Outlook plans to automatically switch to Dark Mode based on their device settings in addition to Outlook in-app options.

It’ll take several weeks to complete the full roll out of Dark Mode in Outlook for iOS or Android worldwide. Download the app today and keep your app up to date so once it’s available to you, you can share feedback with us by visiting Outlook.UserVoice. To learn more about the Microsoft 365 cross-company design approach to Dark Mode, refer to this article in Medium by Jon Friedman, corporate vice president of design and research at Microsoft.

*When iOS 13 and Android Q are available, Outlook is planning to automatically switch to dark theme based on those settings.
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Source: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/...es/ba-p/813738

Download:

(Android) Microsoft Outlook | Google Play

(iOS) Microsoft Outlook | Apple App Store

Brink · Mar 30, 2020

Outlook for iOS and Android get new icons with Fluent design

Update your Outlook for iOS/Android today. Were releasing a new set of icons made for Fluent mobile. Every detail was crafted by an awesome team that worked across the company.

At Microsoft we've created a brand new set of mobile system icons that are now live in Outlook mobile. They form part of the Fluent design language, big thanks to janet_longhurst, sirwillhou, blehnert, milesfitzgerald to name a few.

Outlook for iOS: Microsoft Outlook on the App Store

Outlook for Android: Microsoft Outlook: Organize Your Email & Calendar - Apps on Google Play

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Windows 10: Personalized and organized Search in Outlook for iOS and Android

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