I got the latest changes in the Outlook client the other day, and I saw a new button and toggle in the upper-right corner for Coming Soon and Try It Now. Of course, I had to click on those, and here’s what I found…
In my Outlook client, I found the Coming Soon button and the Try it now toggle. The Coming Soon button launches a panel on the right side of the screen talking about the upcoming changes. The Try it now toggle allows you to switch to the new version:
After turning that on, you have to restart Outlook:
For comparison purposes, here’s the left side of my Outlook client, with the various icons at the bottom of the page:
With Try it now, the icons move to the left side, and there some new icons and features there:
The Apps icon at the bottom shows you options for various applications or parts of Outlook that you can select to show up on the left side:
If you select Folders, Notes, or Shortcuts, you can then right-click on the icon to Pin it to the left side navigation, and then it’ll be available to you in the future. If you wanted to add Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, or Bookings, you would right-click on the icon and pin it. Then you can launch those applications directly from Outlook:
The most interesting new feature I found was the Org Explorer icon, which provides you an overview of your organization chart, where you appear, buttons to view others at your level, Team Insights, and who I work with on a regular basis:
If you expand Team Insights, it will show you team interactions, who your team collaborates with, and any relevant team documents it found:
Feel free to try this out and see what you think. Eventually these changes will be out there for everyone, but for now you can “try before you buy”…
For more information, check out Coming Soon in Outlook for Windows.
One Minute Office Magic 