Although its design has remained relatively the same over the last few years, Microsoft Outlook for 2016 has some powerful new features to improve your email workflow and organize your messages better. Let’s take a closer look.
Clutter Support
One of the biggest improvements for Microsoft Outlook in 2016 is the new Clutter feature. It allows you to tell Outlook which messages are important to you and which ones are not. It doesn’t delete lower priority emails outright but separates them to the side. It uses machine learning to decide what is important based on a number of criteria, including how many other people are receiving the email, your connection to the sender and how often you respond to a specific person’s correspondence.
Ongoing Upgrades
Because so little has changed, upgrading to MS Outlook 2016 from the previous version should be relatively pain-free. Unlike previous iterations where new features and updates were put off until the next major update, now new features and fixes will be updated on an ongoing basis.
OneDrive Cloud Connection
MS Outlook continues to create a deeper connection with cloud storage. For example, when you click on the Attach File icon, you will be presented with a menu rather than a browser search box. You can choose to search through your online storage such as OneDrive for Business or your personal OneDrive account. This saves you an extra step of downloading a file to your hard drive and then attaching it from there.
Tell Me
One nifty new feature is the “Tell me what you want to do” tab and light bulb icon at the top of the Ribbon. Rather than just search for a help topic, the “Tell me” function will search through Outlook’s database and automatically present the correct command or topic.
Get Back @ Me
You can simply type somebody’s name preceded by the @ symbol in an email message and their name will be automatically highlighted. In addition, Microsoft Outlook will put their name in the “To” box automatically.
Photo Preview
Have you ever received an email that says photos are attached, but you dreaded downloading the photos to your hard drive just to see if they are worth pursuing? Now you can see an image of each photo in the message itself, so you can judge right away if you want to see the bigger version.
Push Email Support
If you ever get tired of hitting the “Get Mail” button, you’ll be happy to know that Outlook 2016 now has Push email support built-in. New messages will be pushed to your Outlook inbox as soon as they come into the server.
Email Groups
Email conversation chains can quickly become confusing and disjointed. The new Groups feature in Microsoft Outlook 2016 allows you to build group sets with people you want to be able to engage in conversation threads much like an online chat. This feature is partly a competitive response to popular chat applications like Slack, but Outlook Groups provides seamless integration with other OneDrive and Outlook calendars.
Better Calendars
Calendar enhancements include the ability to see weather forecasts for upcoming dates and the choice to offer new times in response to invitations for meetings and events. You can also view multiple calendars at the same time, simplifying the task of coordinating your disparate schedules with a variety of stakeholders.
Although the Microsoft Outlook user interface changes have been minor in 2016, mostly made to keep the program’s appearance consistent across desktop and mobile devices, under the hood it’s a different story. For 2016, Microsoft has added features that address many of the suggestions made by users over the last few years, and new enhancements will be introduced on a constant basis. Business moves so fast today that it’s important to have the latest features at hand. Outlook for 2016 will help you work more efficiently and effectively than ever before.
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